Hojan grunted an affirmative, but added there was no proof the enemy was fleeing. They might simply be leaving the flatlands around the river, to take advantage of the better position provided by the Solvin Hills.

Relfas shook his head. “You give them too much credit. They’re little better than beasts.”

The casual dismissal left Hojan and several other warlords staring.

“My lord, in olden times the arkudenala nearly overran Silvanost!” Lord Dukant said.

The name, bestowed on the invaders by displaced nomads, meant “sons of dragons.” The arkudenala had landed on the empire’s north coast seven years earlier and begun driving inland, slaughtering all who opposed them. Peasant refugees, driven before the invaders like the bow wave of a great ship, made for the presumed safety of the empire’s southern cities, bringing with them confusing tales of their inhuman attackers. However, it soon became clear these arkudenala were not some new, draconic evil, but bakali, a reptilian race once thought cleansed from the world.

“Elves are not Riders of the Great Horde,” Relfas stated. “What overran them, we shall destroy! The order is: pursue the retreating foe!”

Most of the warlords, fired with pride and eager for battle, saluted their general and rejoined their respective hordes. Hojan and a handful of skeptics departed with more deliberation.

Lord Relfas’ command echoed through the lines. Drawing their sabers in one long thunderclap of iron on iron, the Riders roared, “Ergoth! Ergoth!”

Fifty thousand horsemen trotted out of the bend of the Solvin, advancing straight ahead. On either wing, Riders fanned out, opening the interval between them and breaking into a canter.

The river bottom, lush with newly leafed willows and a rampant tangle of blooming vines, gave way in less than a league to grassy land that rose in a series of low, step-like ridges. The sod was trampled and torn in a swath five leagues wide. The sheer breadth of the trail caused the Ergothian advance to falter.