The men put up their shields, one row kneeling and the other standing to provide an interlocking wall that was two rows high. The elves sent their elk back into the trees and fired their arrows from behind the wall, arcing them over the top to fall on their enemy with practised ease. It was a deadly war of attrition as the missiles on both sides took their toll. But there could only be one outcome.
It took dozens of arrows to take down each orc, but die they did. They fell, one by one, twitching and bleeding in the dirt. At last, the albino orc’s bodyguard made a final, desperate bid, charging at the enemy. They barely managed ten steps.
On the platform, the orc shaman pawed at his lost Salamander, desperate for the mana that might give him a chance to live. Realising it was useless, he drew a knife and crawled towards their captive elf, perhaps hoping to gain a hostage.
As he lifted the knife to the elf’s throat, the bows were raised once again. The arrows whistled for the last time.
Fletcher woke with a start, his body soaked with cold sweat.
‘What the hell was that?’
41
What Fletcher had just seen . . . it wasn’t a dream, of that he was certain. He had smelled the blood, heard the screams. The images were Ignatius’s memories, one of the infusion flashbacks that Lovett had warned him about.
‘I’m kind of jealous,’ Fletcher murmured to Ignatius. ‘I had almost forgotten you once belonged to an orc.’
The little demon gave a soft growl and burrowed deeper into the blankets. It was freezing in the room – Fletcher had yet to find anything adequate to stuff into the arrow slit in his wall.
With a flash of revulsion, Fletcher realised that the summoning scroll he had left with Dame Fairhaven had been made from the elf in the memory. Somehow, seeing the actual victim made the relic twice as disturbing.
He contemplated the scene he had just witnessed. What had elves been doing in orc territory? Was the albino orc he had seen the same one that led the tribes now? It couldn’t be. James Baker had written that the scroll was buried amongst bones from long ago. The battle must have happened hundreds of years in the past, perhaps in the Second Orc War; there had been no muskets then after all. But that did not explain what the elves were doing there, nor the albino orc.
‘You’re probably hundreds of years older than me, that’s all I know,’ Fletcher murmured, warming his hands on Ignatius’s belly.
He lay back down on the bed, but sleep would not come to him. He kept turning over the facts in his mind, again and again. Were there any clues? There had been no demons present other than Ignatius . . . did that mean anything? Surely an army of men would have had battlemages, especially for a battle as crucial as that one.
Then it hit him. The banner that the elves had used: the broken arrow! Surely that would reveal which clan the elves had belonged to. Sylva would know who they were; she knew more about the history of their peoples than anyone.
Fletcher’s heart fell as he remembered their argument. Perhaps he had been too hard on her. It was easy to forget the position she was in and the responsibilities she had to her people. Hell, if her friendship meant an end to the war on the elven front, what did it matter if she was being friendly to the Forsyths? At the very least, it would throw a spanner in Didric’s works. There would be no need to send all the prisoners north for training if the elven front didn’t exist any more.
He rolled from his bed and got dressed. Wrapping the still-sleeping Ignatius around his neck like a scarf, Fletcher padded quietly to the girls’ quarters.
‘This time, I’m definitely going to knock,’ Fletcher murmured to himself, not wanting another encounter with Sariel.
Sylva answered the door immediately. Her room was almost identical to Fletcher’s, though twice as large and furnished with an additional chest at the foot of her bed. Sariel was curled up on a sheepskin rug in the centre of the room, watching Fletcher warily. Sylva matched her demon’s expression and Fletcher noticed she was still dressed in her uniform. She must have only just got back from her meeting with the Forsyths. He swallowed his annoyance at that realisation and spoke to her levelly.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Of course. But if you’re here to change my mind you might as well go back to bed. Tarquin and Isadora were willing to put aside our differences, and I hope you are willing to do the same with me!’
‘I’m not here about that,’ Fletcher said, ignoring his desire to contradict her. ‘I had a flashback, like Lovett warned us about. I need to ask you about when the elves and humans last fought together.’
Sylva listened in rapt attention as Fletcher told her about his dream. He tried to recount it in as much detail as possible, hoping that he might remember some other clue.
‘Fletcher . . . are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’ Sylva asked when he finished. ‘It’s only . . . what you told me is impossible.’
‘Why is that?’ Fletcher asked. ‘I’m telling you, it was all real!’
‘If what you say is true . . . Ignatius is more than two thousand years old!’ Sylva breathed. She rushed over to the trunk at the end of her bed and rummaged through it.