It only remained for them to play out the roles he had assigned, and then to die.
He went back into the pass, brought the faithful to their feet, and marched them forth into the brave new world beyond. They were singing again—a nice touch—songs of hope and promise, of overcoming obstacles and realizing dreams. Fools, all. He saw them looking about hopefully as they caught their first glimpses of the old world, a world they had never seen. He saw their smiles as he took them onto the slopes canting downward from the mouth of the pass to begin their descent.
And then the Drouj fell on them like wolves. Weapons drawn, blades glinting in the moonlight, the Trolls waited until their victims were clear of the pass, then slipped in behind them to block the way back, and with howls of wild animals began slashing their victims to pieces from the rear. They made no distinctions among men, women, and children, between young and old, between brave hearts and cowards. They tore into them with terrible ferocity, hacking and cutting, pushing them downhill, away from safety, away from any hope. In droves, they slaughtered them.
But some fought back, using weapons they had brought with them or had torn from the hands of their attackers. Because there were so many more villagers than the demon had led them to believe and they were so few themselves, they began suffering losses that steadily diminished their ranks and hampered their ability to complete the slaughter. Soon the dead on both sides had eroded the number of fit combatants, and it was uncertain who would prevail. The demon aided in this, now and then selectively cutting down a Troll here and a human there, whittling at them like a knife at a piece of wood. He did it surreptitiously, his acts unseen by others, his efforts covert and stealthy.
In the end, almost everyone lay dead. Of the Drouj, only Arik Siq and another five remained. A handful of survivors of the Glensk Wood party had managed to regain the mouth of the pass and disappear into its black maw, most of them badly injured and a couple of those dying.
It was the strongest of those who would survive that made it far enough to find Prue Liss and Aislinne Kray before collapsing.
XAC WEN WAS NOT FEELING GOOD ABOUT THINGS as he climbed toward Aphalion Pass, leaving Arborlon and the Elves behind. First Panterra Qu had vanished beneath the Belloruusian Arch in exactly the same way that Phryne Amarantyne had disappeared a few days earlier, and no amount of searching the Ashenell with Prue Liss or waiting patiently for a miracle to bring Pan back yielded any sort of useful result.
Then Prue disappeared, as well—not as Pan had done, walking beneath the arch, but by simply abandoning him and departing the cemetery and the city entirely. No reason, no explanation, and apparently no thought for Xac, save the cryptic message she had left with that other boy, Alif or whatever his name was. Up and gone, running off as if she knew where she was going but was not about to share that information with him.
So now that everyone he had been entrusted with helping had vanished, he was beginning to regard himself as fairly useless. As much as he prided himself on always being ready to deal with trouble, he had failed miserably here. But rather than stew about it, he had accepted his failure and set out for Aphalion, intending to give a report to Tasha and Tenerife, hoping they might have a suggestion about what to do next.
Certainly, he didn’t.
Of course, there was still a chance that Prue had gone north instead of south, intending to seek help from the Orullians, just as he was doing. She was determined to find Pan, so whatever she did would be governed accordingly. If she thought she could get what she needed from the brothers, she would go to them. It was a long shot at best, but he kept an eye out for any sign of her footprints.
He found nothing.
Not that this was much of a surprise to him. His tracking skills were rudimentary, and the trails leading up to Aphalion were so thoroughly covered with boot prints by Elven Hunters coming and going that it would have been virtually impossible for anyone— except perhaps Pan—to separate out a single set.
So he pushed on as quickly as he could, knowing that the best thing he could do at this point was to get to where he was going and give his report. Afternoon passed into evening and evening into night. He stopped to sleep for several hours before continuing on, the way clear enough with moonlight flooding out of a cloudless sky.
It was almost midday of the following day when he neared the pass and caught sight of a solitary Elven Hunter coming down off the slope ahead of him. They were on course to intersect, so the boy drew to a halt and waited for the other to reach him.
By then, Xac Wen could tell from the man’s face that something was dreadfully wrong.