Sons of Ironstorm - Book 3: New Alliance

Allies

Before he, or any of his company could move, however, Rugan was stepped back into the jungle's edge to frantically wave them into cover.

"Some sort of creatures in patrol along the lava field's edge!" the Hornsman Elder reported in a low voice as he dropped behind a thick leaved bush with long woody spines along its branches a pace or two from where Patrik and Jaeda fell behind a cluster of thin-boled trees.

"With slate gray skin and pointed ears, like elves."

"Tjor'riin," Inureah grimly supplied a name with a hoarse whisper from where she had taken cover with a knot of Ben'havid. "Dark soldiers we thought restricted to the northern marches of the continent."

"Burn me," Charon said tightly, a pace or two behind Patrik and Jaeda. "We faced Tjor'riin during the Wizards' War. What in the Maker's name are they doing in this time and place?"

Then they were all forced into silence as, with ominous footfalls, a tight knot of wiry creatures in dark, scale armor appeared, visible through the many spaces in this the edge of the jungle's reach some fifteen or twenty paces away. They moved quickly, paying little heed to the jungle itself, talking amongst their half dozen members in low, grating voices that made the skin crawl even though no words were understandable. Before long they were again gone, moving beyond the company's ability to see them.

"They're a confident lot," Jaeda quietly noted as she lifted herself slightly out of cover to gaze through the nearest gap in the jungle's edge. "They didn't even bother to search the edge."

"Confident or ignorant of the possibility of our presence," Patrik observed in a soft voice of his own, easing into a low crouch to join her in her covert surveillance.

"Which is good news, Patrik," Charon pointed out in a hoarse whisper, also rising from cover enough to look out over the lava field. "That means they didn't detect your portal. Considering it was made with sa'anish energies instead of either human magic, or elven, that may explain why." He looked back at where Inureah was hiding to speak in a slightly louder voice, now that the Tjor'riin patrol was well clear of them.

"Which lets me repeat my question to you, Mistress Elf: what are Tjor'riin doing here? You seem to have some knowledge of them, though we haven't heard anything of them since their destruction at the end of the Crimson Empire."

Inureah grimaced.

"In truth, master wizard, I wish we knew nothing of those foul creatures," she tautly admitted, her own voice low. The elven cleric was obviously unhappy to learn of their presence here.

"My people have been dealing with a new army of them for over a decade. The Var Ethisdil suspects the Shadow reactivated a number of hidden breeding pits eleven cycles ago, to first support a renegade named Gerumenum in his bid for power. In truth, it was a move made to split the elven kingdoms and sow chaos throughout the marches of elvendom on the eve of the Diaspora."

"Diaspora?" Jaeda repeated the unfamiliar term with a frown, looking over at Patrik as she did.

"A time of chaos predicted by the Norak Utterance before the Return." Patrik supplied from his implanted memories when he caught her look. "It heralded the beginning of the Utterance's unfolding." Satisfied the dark soldiers were far enough along they were no longer at risk of discover, he stood.

"And to answer your question, they're here because the Shadow expects me to go for the Earth Sword, they know it's here somewhere, and they're going to try and stop me."

"Regardless of the reason, dark soldiers are on Hornsman territory," Rugan hissed, clearly unhappy. "Fortuitous it is that I chose to escort you here, Patrik as now I've born personal witness to the Shadow reaching to touch our sovereign lands. The Elder Circle must be informed."