Song of the Ascendant

20. Death From Below

Twenty-ninth of Harbinger

Belkai had no real knowledge of war, yet she found herself planning one. She did know that she was at a severe tactical disadvantage. She knew that the dwarves' ultimate goal was the ruins in the western region, but that did not determine their strategy. The truth was, the Forest was too large and her numbers too small to effectively defend. It wasn't so simple as surrounding the ruins with all of her forces and hoping to absorb the shock of an attack. The homes of the elves had to be protected, as did their sacred sites in the east. Narandir was more than a ruin, it was Belkai's home. She had no desire to give the dwarves an inch of her land. The elves felt the same, even more so after their millennium of oppression under their former master. Perhaps a military leader would have seen things differently, but fate had given leadership to a mage, not a soldier. Belkai had less than a thousand combat-ready people under her command, and her best fighters, the Ikari, had followed Arak and Brimur to Lustria to investigate the portals there.

What resulted was a compromise that she hoped would be sufficient to stop her foes. She had six hundred elves trained and capable for warfare. A third of those had actually seen war when they had liberated Larton. Belkai had separated those six hundred into three groups, with the combat experienced scattered across all three. One group had stayed at the main elven settlements as their home defence. More disturbingly to the elves, most of Narandir's spiders were also in that area laying traps. The other two groups had set up a pair of defensive positions to the south and west of the ruins. The first group, led by Lithmae, had positioned themselves on the south side. That area was far more open, mainly cultivated fields. If the dwarves intended to dig their way into Narandir, this was an ideal place to emerge. Belkai had sent the giant insectoid creatures, called askili by the elves, to the same area. The second group was dug in to the west of the ruins, in an area where the forest was thinner, an easier route to the dwarves' goal. Belkai had taken Syndra from the ruins and placed her in command of this group. Belkai herself had wanted to join them, but Davos and Loranna had convinced her to stay at the ruins. They needed their commander far enough way to stay safe even as she maintained control of the battle.

The mages were a different story. The southern Correlate were expert fighters, and she split them between Lithmae and Syndra. The Watchers and Brilhardem were formed into teams of two or three of each and patrolled outside the main defensive positions to monitor for the dwarves. If they found anything, the Brilhardem would signal Belkai, and she would co-ordinate the response. Raman's thirty Spellcasters were in the area around the ruins as the last line of defence before reaching Belkai and the two Watchers that Lasiri had left there.

There were significant gaps in the defences, Belkai knew that, but the dwarves were coming in blind with definite objectives. That made them at least somewhat predictable, and Belkai knew that she was depending on that fact. It might not be enough, but it was what she had. She didn't know if anyone else was coming, or what other aid she might receive. She had to assume that this was it. So it came down to what Falkar had given to Nimura, and she wouldn't know the answer to that until the first blood was shed.

Belkai stood in the shade of the crumbling watchtower and closed her eyes, feeling the heartbeats of the fighters in the Forest. She didn't know most of their names, nor did she know their pasts, yet their lives had led them here, ready to fight and die for her. Her eyes were filled with doubt as she looked over to Davos as he walked towards her.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly. He leaned against the wall beside her and took her hand in his.

"Mishtar had a thousand years to prepare for war," Belkai said. "He couldn't even stop us."