Blades of the Banished - Robert Ryan Page 0,70

back to the staff. And the staff was become black.

Aranloth looked at the two of them. “You shall become elugs, and we will fly up the Hainer Lon, moving through the ranks of the enemy until we come to Conhain Court.”

They did not argue with him, risky as the plan seemed. Certainly, the lòhren now looked the part of an elùgroth, but he and Erlissa must yet find elugs, and take their cloaks and curved swords. He knew that they would not look so convincing.

They moved along the alley and into other streets that traveled parallel to the Hainer Lon. They did not wish to go back anywhere too near the gates, lest someone was still there who might recognize them.

Soon they turned their feet back in the right direction. The noise grew swiftly loud. There were yells and screams and the shattering of stone. The enemy laid waste to the city as they went, yet its vanguard would be pressing Esgallien’s soldiers backward.

They neared the Hainer Lon. Lanrik thought that they must try to lure elugs into a side street and there waylay them to obtain the disguise they needed, but that proved unnecessary.

The enemy streamed ahead, but at the sides of the Hainer Lon dead elugs lay in heaps. They were not having things all their own way, for Esgallien’s soldiers ceded the ground reluctantly.

Aranloth strode out onto to the road. They stayed in the shadows of the alley.

The lòhren chose two corpses and took their cloaks and swords. The masses of marching elugs walked around him. If they wondered what he was doing, fear made them ignore it. No one questioned elùgroths.

Aranloth returned. He gave them the grim booty he had collected. If Erlissa felt distaste at wearing a blood-covered and filthy elug cloak, she did not show it.

“What of your staff,” Lanrik said.

Aranloth answered. “I’ll carry it. Better that an elùgroth carries two staffs than an elug one.”

The lòhren did not wait for them. Time pressed. He strode onto the Hainer Lon, and sudden menace hung over him like a cloak. No one heeded the two figures who scurried in his shadow.

All around the enemy seethed and marched and shouted. From somewhere behind came the hateful sound of the drums, beating now within Esgallien itself. Ahead was the clash of blade on blade and the curses of the injured. Smoke was in the air, and laughter, wicked and cruel, drifted down shadowy lanes.

Aranloth strode onward. His hooded head turned neither right nor left. He paid no heed to anything, but the southern army saw him and stayed clear. Always a path opened before him, no matter how thick the ranks of marching elugs. And if the enemy thought there was something strange about the two followers, scimitars drawn, hoods up, who hastened in his wake, they said nothing for fear of drawing the elùgroth’s attention to themselves.

Lanrik coughed. Smoke curled through the shattered windows of a house to their left, and he knew that soon the city would burn. No one would put out the fires, and the houses would be looted and torched until the city blazed.

He began to take each step with a weight of dread. Not only of discovery by the enemy, but also of the harm being wrought to the city.

He did not pause as he walked by the Hamalath. But he looked and he saw. The massive columns of granite were beyond the harm of elugs, but the intricate carvings on them were not. Already the enemy had defaced them. Hammer and mace had chipped them; shield and sword hilt had notched them. Worse would come.

The Merenloth was next. It was empty now, no longer a place for reasoned debate, for men who sought to understand the world. Only the voices of elugs would rise there now, harsh and cruel.

The Haranast followed soon after. There was no damage there; not yet, except for one thing: the stele commemorating King Conmur, who had ordered its building, had been pulled from the ground. But it had not been broken or discarded. Instead, it had been turned upside down and rammed back into its hole.

The Hainer Lon reeked of smoke. It burned his eyes. His hand clenched the hilt of his elug scimitar. Erlissa did not pause beside him, yet he caught a glimpse of her face beneath her hood. She was pale, and there were tears on her cheeks.

The Karlenthern was next. There he had watched Lathmai win the archery tournament of the