“Let’s be off,” Oriantha said, taking note of his reticence. Instead of pressing him, she simply walked him toward the stairs that led upward to the pit’s ragged lip. “I want to be out of this place and back in the Four Lands before another sunset.”
She was carrying the metal box containing all of the Elfstones save the crimson ones Redden had used earlier, which he had shoved deep into his pocket afterward. The shape-shifter must have seen him do this but had said nothing about returning them to the box. Apparently, she had decided that there was no hurry. Or perhaps she had thought it better just to let the matter be.
Redden shuffled ahead once they reached the valley floor, eyes lowered to the path, watching for crevasses and drops, not wanting to fall into a bottomless pit after just climbing out of one. He clutched at himself as he walked, and the feeling of his own arms about his midsection seemed to help him manage the tumult inside. Walking was easier, too, if he kept his eyes downcast instead of trying to look beyond the next few steps. Peering up at the sky was impossible.
Ahead, while Lada chattered back and forth with Tesla Dart, the valley floor gave way to its walls and the air warmed.
Unable to help himself, he began crying.
Staying close by, Oriantha monitored his progress but kept her distance and made no effort to speak to him.
When they had climbed out of the valley and moved farther away from the pit, his crying stopped. It was all right now, he told himself. It was enough that they were all still alive.
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true.
Twenty-nine
The army of the Straken Lord arrived shortly after sunrise on the fourth day after setting out on its lengthy journey from the ruins of Arishaig. The Elves could see it coming from miles away as it slowly materialized out of the morning haze that spread across the broad sweep of the plains all the way south to the horizon. Because the Jarka Ruus were of varying sizes and shapes and did not march in formation or with any particular regard for order but instead simply lurched forward in the manner of a massive herd in migration, it appeared to those watching as if the earth was undulating.
The first of them reached the pass through the skies, winged creatures flying ahead to announce the coming of the others. Predatory birds the size of small horses, giant bats leaking poison from their talons, and Harpies with bird bodies and witch faces, all hove into view and began to circle the defenders, crying out in shrieks and screeches, great black shapes swooping low enough that their faces could be clearly seen.
The Elves were entrenched at the mouth of the pass leading into the Valley of Rhenn—the only way through to Arborlon from the east for an army the size of the Straken Lord’s. Sian Aresh had mobilized the defenders within hours after Seersha had disabled Phaedon Elessedil, temporarily taking control of the defense of the city and its people and restoring some semblance of purpose and order. Holding the Rhenn was critical to the city’s survival, but Sian Aresh had determined early on that the most defensible positions were the passes at either end of the valley rather than the valley itself. Once that was decided, it became much easier to choose the nature of the defenses that would be employed. Building traps and snares or digging concealed pits or setting trip wires felt pointless against an enemy of this magnitude. The battle would be fought on the run, with shifting formations and quick attacks and retreats. Entrenchments beyond the passes themselves would likely fail to contain the creatures of the Forbidding, who were of multiple shapes and possessed of varied skills and abilities. Bolt-holes and concealments would be useful, but building barriers across the mouth of the pass at the eastern end of the valley to slow a massed attack, and erecting a barricade across the even narrower west pass, would be a more practical use of the time available.
In the end, their defenses ran all the way from the east pass, where the bulk of the Elven army had been gathered to defend against the initial assault, and down through the valley itself to the second pass, in which the opening through a pair of huge rock pillars had been closed off by a massive barricade. An army attempting the reach the city from this direction would have to breach the obstacles of the first pass, run a gauntlet of defenders entrenched behind concealments on the slopes of the valley walls, and then breach the barricade stretched across the even more forbidding and inaccessible second pass.
The backbone of the Elven defense, of course, was a fleet of warships several dozen strong, all manned and equipped for battle and waiting to engage. Except for flits passing overhead in reconnaissance, the balance of the airfleet was grounded just behind the second pass in an airfield set close to the valley proper. When the battle came, the warships would have the best chance of turning the tide by attacking from the relative safety of the skies.