As the grey dawn lightened the eastern sky and the outline of the ship grew more distinct beyond the reef, Tirlav stood with his warriors along the rocky shore beyond the margins of the landing beach. There was little sand where they waited even with the tide out, and the rocks were slick with brine and algae. He watched the ship straining at its twin anchors as white-capped waves pressed past it, tossing in anger as they crossed over the reef. Just out of bowshot, humans crouched among the rocks, waiting. Why had Hormil insisted on daylight?

  The human barricade of sand, rocks, and thorns was their ultimate obstacle, but first they must assault the rocks bordering the short beach. From those rocks, human archers guarded their flanks. Tirlav had commanded Glentel not to attack until he heard Tirlav’s assault begin. It felt like morning had never been so long in coming as Tirlav waited for the sun to break the distant margin of sky? He had grown up in the deep woods of Aelor, where the horizon was never seen except from the branches of the highest trees. The weeks he had spent along the sea had not lessened the mesmerizing effect it had on him. He found himself staring out over the dark waves. At last, the sun touched the pinnacle of the human mast, lighting it like a torch. In the span of minutes, the wind died, the waves calmed, the carrack came to rest. The rising sun set the sea aglow as it burned upward.

  Tirlav stood up from among the rocks, bow in hand, his quiver hanging at his hip. At his hip he wore the twin swords and knives given him by Reniel. A long silver whistle hung beneath his silks. Its note could cut through the chaos of fighting, but the plan was simple and needed no signals.

  “Spread out!” he said, and moved forward at a crouch, arrow nocked. Tirlav counted the yards in his mind: 175, and still the humans remained crouched. 150, and the first arrows flew from the humans, but in the daylight they could see them coming. Tirlav pushed forward as fast as he could go, leaping across the gaps between the damp rocks, his feet nearly slipping more than once. More darts flew at 125 yards. He heard a yell behind as an arrow cut the air past his right shoulder. To get better shots, some of the human skirmishers stood up between the rocks, lured into exposing themselves as the vien charged without shooting back.

  “Now!” he shouted as they reached 100 yards. The first twenty-five vien, spread out across the width of the shore, stopped and loosed arrows within the span of a few heartbeats. He saw feathers sink into two men upon the stones as others ducked down. The practiced vien could fire at a prodigious rate, and more arrows flew as the vien behind rushed past in single file line, crouched down to let the arrows from their comrades fly above.

  As the first line kept the human’s heads down, the second line pressed forward. Fifty yards on, they spread out and loosed arrows at the rocks.

  “Come!” Tirlav shouted, sprinting ahead again. He heard the humans shouting. Glentel should be moving in from the west. The second line of vien continued to send arrows buzzing toward the rocks ahead. Tirlav saw two more humans try to rise, only to duck back down. As he passed the forward line, he dropped his bow and drew his swords, as did those falling into single file behind him. The rocks were just ahead. He saw a human turn to flee, but an arrow found his back. Over the rocks, the breastwork came into view, a half-circle of mounded sand and twisting thorntrees. Arrows sped toward them as Tirlav leapt up onto the mounded rocks at the edge of the beach. Next to him, one of his warriors leapt forward and stabbed a wounded human who lay bleeding into the black sand. He had expected more resistance there, but the human archers who could flee had already retreated to the breastwork, and now arrows found the vien exposed on the rock. Their mail could not protect them.

  “Down!” Tirlav shouted as he ducked behind a rock, looking around as his warriors spread out for cover. The clack of arrows shattering and richoceting against stone mixed with the cries of those struck. Yet in moments, he heard the release of bowstrings behind as his second line caught up. Vien arrows whipped toward the breastwork, giving Tirlav a chance to peer out at the situation.

  Partway between the breastwork and the sand was the human attempt at a raft, but it was clear that there was no way it could hold twenty men, let alone two hundred. A single boat floated upside down in the surf, with what appeared to be shirts stuffed tightly in a gash near the narrow keel. With each wave, it half rolled onto its side in the gravel and sand. It appeared the humans had attempted to break through the rough surf in the night. Tirlav also saw that the side of the breastwork facing the sea was not complete, a gap of some yards remaining open. As Tirlav surveyed, he saw Glentel cresting the rocks opposite with his warriors, and now Vien archers plied both sides.

  The human arrows nearly ceased as the foe in the fortification kept their heads down. They had dug their pit and built their wall high enough to protect themselves, but they were hemmed in. A brave human tried to rise to loose a dart, but many vien were waiting, and he paid with a cheek laid open beneath his iron cap.

  Tirlav stood up, raising a sword to Glentel. Glentel responded by raising his own blade. Their work was not yet begun. On each side, the second lines would keep the human heads down while the first lines made the assault on the breastwork, or so had been the plan. Yet to assault the narrow gap against hundreds would cost many lives, his own likely included. Tirlav was still unsure of how fiercely or skillfully the foe would fight, knowing their situation hopeless. It was unclear to him whether they could overcome the human numbers. He had heard they were vicious as quth.

  Even now, he questioned: why? Surely there was a better way. He could not disobey Liel Hormil’s command to assault the breastwork, but he did not have to be foolish about it. Glentel was waiting for the signal, but Tirlav sheathed one sword and raised a hand to signal him to wait.

  The humans had already lost archers upon the rocks, and Tirlav had the advantage in bows, especially now that they pinned the humans down. There was no reason that the Vien could not use the same breastwork as the humans. They would have to press through the piled thorn branches and the jagged, sharpened stakes, crossing a depression in the sand that looked a bit like a collapsed attempt at a trench, but if they could rain arrows down on those within. . .

  Tirlav looked around and called a name.

  “Liel?”

  “Run around to Glentel. Tell him that the second lines are to advance slowly, encircling the breastwork, and the first lines approach the gap.”

  “Yes, Liel.” The warrior sprang to the north, sprinting around the breastwork as his comrades watched with drawn bows. Tirlav shouted orders to his own side as the vien reached Glentel. Glentel signalled to Tirlav the ready.

  “On!” Tirlav called, stalking forward across the sand toward the gap. The archers slowly advanced as well, spreading out to ring around the breastwork, ready to shoot even as they walked. A couple humans peeked out between the stubs of thorn branches, and a few loosed errant arrows, barely daring to clear the fortification, but the vien were hungry for any flesh to strike at.

  Once the Vien archers reached the fortification, itself, they would have the advantage. The humans had dug the sand down inside to create the circling mound and provide more cover. He could hear the humans shouting like grunting animals.

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  With a cry, scores of humans charged out through the gap at the rear of the dugout fortification, iron-bossed shields, hatchets, and swords glinting in the morning light.

  “Findeluvié!” Tirlav shouted, drawing his second sword. Arrows sped to and fro. He saw feathered shafts slamming into the first wave of humans. A few were caught on shields, but others found their marks as the victims tumbled onto the damp sands. Tirlav charged forward, feinting high and thrusting low, driving his blade into a man’s stomach. Before the man fell, Tirlav thrust to the side with his second blade, spitting another human’s thigh as he lunged at another vien. For a moment, Tirlav felt a shock of disbelief—it was like the humans were moving slowly. The bows loosed again and again from behind. The salt air of the sea mixed with the brine of blood. As he pulled his blade free, the stink of offal and raw flesh stung his nose.

  The humans found themselves on a narrow strip of sand between Glentel and Tirlav’s forces. Vien archers rushed to the barricade and climbed atop it, picking off the human bowman and driving arrows into the mass pushing to get out. Those on the sands stumbled over the bodies of their mates who fell before them. The air was full of the roar of waves and the screams of wounded. Tirlav found himself pressed up against a shield, unable to get close enough to swing, face to face with a bearded man with foul breath. Dropping one of his swords, he drew a knife and slashed below the shield, feeling the bite. There was no thinking, only action, the movement of bodies, a music of hatred, one note flowing into another. The tuned Vien blades joined in harmony amidst the discordant clash of the human weapons.

  Some of the humans turned and tried to flee back into the circle of their fortification, while others pressed to get out. Vien arrows lashed into exposed backs. Tirlav barely raised his blade in time to glance aside a massive axe, and a knobbed club struck his right arm, numbing his hand so that he dropped his other blade. Humans pressed around him, staring at him with frenzied hunger. He realized he wore a great plume upon his head. But the axeman fell with an arrow in his mouth, and Tirlav’s warriors pressed around him. Looking up, Tirlav saw Glentel’s force pressing close.

  “Join!” Tirlav shouted. As they stepped over the wounded humans, those behind spitted them. Between the waves and the breastwork, the two lines of vien joined, pressing the humans back into the gap of their fortification. Upon the barricade, desperate struggles raged as the humans attempted to repulse the archers in a counterattack. Other humans had flipped their remaining boats on their sides in the gap and huddled behind, blades clutched and eyes white. Tirlav could see the rents and damage his warriors had done to the boats with rocks and knives. Still, they might have gotten away by stuffing cloth and bailing if they’d had decent oars and a calm sea. The beach was choked with dead and wounded.

  Someone inside the fortification began to shout, an incoherent babble. Someone raised something above the edge of one of the boats—helm atop the hilt of a sword, with a shirt tied around the blade. It waved back and forth as the shouting of the continued.

  “What is it?” Glentel asked. He had come to stand beside Tirlav now that their forces had joined.

  He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. Glentel and Tirlav’s groups of vien stood on the beach unmolested. The archery of the humans had fallen still, but the fighting continued around the breastwork, where the desperate defenders were trying to keep the vien archers at bay with long sharpened sticks. A strange sense of elation came over Tirlav. The humans were not mighty warriors. Their movements were sluggish, and fear filled the eyes that stared out from their hairy faces. Desperation filled the voice now calling out. Tirlav smelled them, like sour wine and the filth of bowels. It was an outrage that these nereth’vanel had ever dared set foot on the shores of the Embrace. The black sand would drink their blood for their guilt.

  “Step,” Tirlav called. The line moved forward. “Step,” he said again, and again. Each time, the vien took a step closer to the line of boats. The shouting voice grew more frantic. A massive man with a head that appeared to join to his shoulders without a neck stood up and pushed the ends of two of the boats apart, shouting incomprehensible words and spraying spittle through his thick mustache, waving his hands back and forth. An arrow sank into his chest. Another took him in the side. The man stumbled and fell to a knee. Glentel stepped forward and carved the top of his head away with a blow of his sword.

  As he fell, there a shout rose from many throats behind the boats. Up out of the pit surged the defenders, eyes wide and crazed. The sudden onslaught surprised Tirlav. Were so many still alive? Tirlav felt a shock of fear as he stepped forward into the rush, slicing a man’s hand at the wrist. Blood spurted against his face as he cut again, and the line was lost in chaos. Something hit his mail and made him gasp from breath, and a hatchet glanced off his plumed helm and caught his mailed shoulder, but he stabbed and slashed with knife and sword. Tirlav dropped low and slashed, sweeping a leg from beneath his opponent, feeling the hard pop as his blade parted bone and his foe fell screaming. Rising again, a body rammed into him. He fell back onto the sand, raising his arms to ward against blows, but none came. The humans who could had dashed through the vien line, sprinting toward the water, casting away weapons and throwing themselves into the raging surf. They swam desperately outward. Some had carried bound branches, and now they paddled outward, usign them for buoyancy.

  The vien archers rushed to the strand in pursuit, sinking arrows into the backs of swimming men as undulating waves raised them to view. Tirlav heard laughter from among his vien as arrows found marks.

  Yet Tirlav did not pause to watch the sport, though not from judgment; they deserved every feather. He turned around the beach, counting. Fory. . .Forty-five? Forty-seven still on their feet? There was too much moving. A knot of wounded huddled together beyond the edge of the barricade, and others lay or sat on the sands, clutching injuries. Tirlav realized he was in pain—pain from all over his body. He was gasping for breath and the gasps hurt, too. He looked at his arms, his chest. There was blood, but he did not think it was his, and his mail was not rent.

  “Glentel!” he called. The vien turned from watching the waves and met Tirlav’s gaze.

  “Get me a count of our dead.”

  Glentel nodded and moved to his task, calling for others to aid him. A moan sounded from nearby, and Tirlav looked down to see a man clutching his gut. Reversing his grip on his saber, Tirlav stepped over and drove it down into the man’s neck. His blood gushed out onto the sand in pulses. Seeing one of his vien watching, he commanded:

  “Put down their wounded.” He called more names, sending one to go bring Tereth and his sentries to help with the Vien wounded, and ordering others to begin seeing who needed the most urgent help. Someone called his name.

  “Liel, the ship!”

  Tirlav glanced back out to sea. The human ship was raising sails. A last human made mark for the archers as he struggled wounded in the waves. Turning again, Tirlav looked up the beach toward the trail, trying to think of what needed done next. Liel Hormil stood there at the trail-mouth, arms folded across his chest, watching the scene upon the beach. He saw Tirlav notice him, and without reaction he turned and walked back up the trail.

  Had he watched the entire battle?

  A surge of anger filled Tirlav. Why hadn’t they waited? Why had they attacked so soon? Why at dawn? They could have taken the ship, or starved them out, or come at them at night. The black sand of the beach had soaked up the blood, but the bodies lay strewn all about. Others floated in the surf or rolled against the shore with each incoming wave. The human ship had weighed anchor and now beat out to sea. The last of the fleeing victims had sunk beneath the feathered shafts of the archers. He stared about the killing ground. He had focused so much on the battle that the aftermath brought him up short. Rather than an end, it felt that the real work was just beginning—to care for his hurt.

  “Liel,” Glentel said, striding up to him.

  The question roused Tirlav from his staring.

  “Yes?”

  “We count twenty-six dead, but others are grievous hurt.”

  With no living foes left to occupy them, the vien had begun to gather around Tirlav. Some of those standing there would be numbered among the wounded, for he saw an arrow in an arm and blood dripping down a leg.

  “Those uninjured, carry the wounded who cannot walk into the grove. Then bring our dead to the top of the beach and lay them out.”

  “What of the humans?” Glentel asked. Tirlav glanced at the bodies.

  “Throw them in their pit and burn them beneath the thorns.”

  Tirlav hated to think what that would smell like, but they would not leave bodies to rot upon a beach of Findeluvié.

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