He went out the door and left her standing at his desk. She moved over to a high-backed wooden chair and sat while she waited for him to return. She was weary from all the travel and so little sleep, but there was nothing she could do about it just yet. Too much needed to be done first. She sat there thinking on it, going over again the plan she had hatched while flying back.
Aresh returned, closing the door once more and reseating himself. “We should have a report by tomorrow. Now, what of you?”
She shrugged. “I came back because there was nowhere else for me to go. I need to be where the fighting is if I’m to serve any useful purpose. I thought Aphen might have need of me, as well, when she returns. It’s worth the risk.”
“If you stay out of sight, the risk shouldn’t be great.”
“I can’t do that. I want you to take me before the King and High Council. I want to speak to them about what’s happening and what they need to do. What they must do. I’ve sent word to both the Border Legion and the Dwarves. I am hoping they will respond and send reinforcements to the Elves before the demon army reaches you.”
“Not enough time for that,” the other responded with a shrug. “Tomorrow morning? Even with airship transport, it will take them longer than that just to mobilize. But the bigger problem is the King. He doesn’t want help from any quarter. I’ve already spoken to him about the danger of an attack. He ignores it. He believes the assault to be directed toward the Federation alone. He uses his time to consolidate his position; he worries that like his father he, too, might be assassinated. He sees enemies everywhere. He has rescinded Emperowen’s order to mobilize and go to the aid of the Federation. He has decided to hunker down and wait this business out.” The Elven captain shook his head.
“Why is he doing this?” Seersha asked in dismay. “How can he think the Elves are safe from what’s happening? In any case, it points up the need for my report to the High Council. Perhaps they will find the backbone to act in spite of the King.”
Aresh shook his head. “The King is not himself, and he was not working with much even before he ascended to the throne. He is distracted, and his decisions feel arbitrary. I have managed to mobilize the Home Guard and the Elven army under the pretext of securing Arborlon, but I have no orders to take any part of it out of the city. We sit on our hands, waiting on the King.”
“Even knowing that the Ellcrys fails and the walls of the Forbidding are falling? Even knowing what Aphenglow and Arling have set out to do? Doesn’t anyone see what lies ahead if they fail?”
The Captain of the Home Guard leaned back in his chair. “No one can quite believe the old King is dead. So they see Phaedon as an anchor, a fixed point with which they are familiar and to which they can turn—and not as a weight that will drag them down. They don’t know him as you and I do. If Ellich were on the throne, it would be different. But Ellich is imprisoned.”
Seersha gave it another moment’s thought and then stood. “Then let’s do this another way. Arrange a private audience with the King. Do it any way you can manage, but do it quickly. Let me deal with Phaedon. I think I can find a way.”
“What you can most probably do is find a way to get yourself locked up with Ellich. The King is not inclined to listen to anyone. He rules, but he is paranoid and in fear for his life. This is a dangerous business you undertake, Seersha.”
But she insisted, and he finally agreed to do as she asked, though not without once more warning against it.
He went out again, and this time he was gone for the better part of an hour. While he was absent, she mulled over what lay ahead. The Elves would need to defend the entrance to the Valley of Rhenn. It was their only viable choice if they hoped to make a stand against an army of this size. A narrow opening could be defended and held for at least a few days, long enough perhaps for the combined forces of the Dwarves and Callahorn to reach them and attack the demons from the rear.
But still the demons would outnumber their combined forces. And even then, would the Straken Lord consider withdrawing?
She was bothered by the trajectory of the events that had occurred since the demons had broken out of the Forbidding. Why had the Straken Lord attacked Arishaig? The Elves were the real enemy and the Ellcrys the real danger. Of course, the Demons would have had to come out of the Forbidding where the wall was weakest and gave them access into the Four Lands. That might have brought them first to Arishaig, and they had simply taken advantage of it. But there was no doubting their ultimate goal—an attack on the Elves and the destruction of the Ellcrys.
She thought back to the last demon breakout, in the time of Eventine Elessedil. The Druid Histories of those years, compiled by Allanon, were familiar to her. Eventine Elessedil, a strong and competent King, had led an Elven army aided by Trolls, Dwarves, and the Border Legion of Callahorn, and even that had not been enough. Only a rebirth of the Ellcrys had saved the Four Lands—a rebuilding of the wall of the Forbidding so that the demonkind could be banished once again.