"My thanks," Idalia said briefly. She took the mare's reins.
The shelter had not been packed. Redhelwar had done all that he could to make Jermayan's task easier. He had lightened the sledges of everything that could possibly be left behind. It was not much, but the snow around the army's stopping-place was starred with neat cairns of discarded material.
"Be well, Idalia," Jermayan said.
Idalia took a deep breath. "Be sure I shall tell Kellen all you have done," she said.
"Then I hold myself satisfied," Jermayan answered simply.
He turned away, and mounted Valdien, and rode out to Ancaladar. Idalia mounted Cella, and rode to take her place in the line. The Healers and the Mountainfolk rode just ahead of the wagons, for they must be certain to reach the other side, of all the elements of the army.
A few moments later Valdien, riderless now, came galloping back.
That was the signal.
The army began to move forward.
Several hundred yards in advance of the army's line, Idalia saw a faint sparkle on the snow. No, in the air above the snow. It danced and shimmered on the air like Pelashia's Veils, until a curtain of light formed, strengthened.
The air was filled with magic. It prickled on her skin, lifted the loose tendrils of her hair. It was as if she could swim in it.
In the distance, she could see Jermayan, sitting on Ancaladar's back.
The unicorns went from a trot, to a gallop, to a leaping, bounding run.
Passed through the veil of light.
Vanished.
Behind her she could hear the cries and the whip-cracks of the drovers, as they goaded their stolid charges into something faster than their normal ground-eating plod.
The ground shook as the remount herd thundered forward at a dead tun, kicking up waves of snow that sparkled in the sun, clearing a path for those who followed after. Some of the animals tried to dodge aside at the last moment, and were expertly forced back into the herd by their mounted handlers. Behind the herd of horses came the slower-moving ox-herd, goaded to frenzy by a mob of howling Centaurs, waving hats and blankets. The oxen did not try to dodge the doorway. They simply put their heads down and ran, and woe betide anything that got in their way.
They, too, passed through the shimmering doorway of light and vanished.
The Centaurs that had not been with the ox-herd were the next to reach the door, their long ranks galloping in close formation. Sunlight sparkled off their armored flanks, and their long tails floated behind them as they galloped forward, arms pumping, heads down. As if they passed into a waterfall they vanished, tank by rank.
Behind them the Healers and the Mountainfolk galloped, too the Elven Healers and Idalia on their palfreys, the Mountainfolk on their sturdy shaggy ponies. How long now had Jermayan held the spell? Less than half the army had passed through, and the fastest half had already gone.
With all her heart, she wanted to stop, to turn aside, and knew she could not. She passed through the door.
There was a sudden sensation of darkness and falling. Not cold, but a shocking and entire absence of warmth. The transition seemed to take forever, and no time at all.
Then there was light again, and instead of brightness, the day was dark and gray, the air chill with a denseness that spoke of heavy snow to come soon.
"Keep moving!" she heard. "Keep moving! There are others right behind you!"
Cella was normally the mildest and most easygoing of mounts, but the gentle mare had never in all her days experienced anything like the passage through the door. Idalia had no difficulty in obeying the unknown person's orders, because Cella laid her ears flat back and bolted forward at a dead run.
When Idalia finally regained control of her mount several minutes later and was able to pay attention to something other than Cella, the scene that met her eyes was barely-controlled chaos.
In the distance at least a mile behind her she could see the shimmer of Jermayan's door. Leading away from it, there was a wide swath of trampled snow. The herds had simply… fled. Their handlers had not tried to stop them, for the most vital thing at the moment was to clear the area around the door itself. And many of the handlers had been thrown from wildly shying mounts as they came through. The Centaurs had carried them to safety, but Idalia could see blood on the snow. There were injured.
The Centaur army was scattered in clumps over a great distance, in two wide arcs to each side of the doorway, a ragged line of warriors almost a mile in length. Some of the Centaurs were sprawled in the snow, others had Elves mounted on their backs the injured horse-handlers, Idalia guessed.
Riderless horses those that had not simply followed the herd were running everywhere.
It looked like the aftermath of a battle.
Few of the other riders that had come through the door at the same time she had fared much better than she and Cella, though most of the Mountainborn had at least stayed in the saddle. The important thing, now, was to keep the doorway clear.
She rode up to the nearest Centaur she saw.
"That stand of trees! It should be far enough from the door! We must move the injured there and reorganize!"
He nodded. The Unicorn Knights were already regrouped in good order, but they could not approach the main army. The Centaurs were scattered.
The Centaur Captain raised his horn to his lips. Compared to the sound of the Elven horns, it was harsh and strident, but it performed its task just as well.
The Centaurs began reforming into units, converging on the thicket of trees in the distance, and the Mountainfolk and the Healers followed.
In the distance, three sledges came through the door, side-by-side.
The oxen bawled in terror. They had been moving at what passed for a swift trot among their kind before, but now they shifted into an all-out panicked gallop, lunging forward across the well-beaten snow as fast as they could go.
If they run into each other if the traces break if one of them breaks a leg
Then there would be a barrier in front of the door that no one could shift.
And the rest of the Elven Army would ride right into it, with no way of knowing what they were about to encounter.
But the others had seen the danger as well as she had. The Mountainborn Wildmages turned and rode back.
"I will Speak to them as they come," a Wildmage named Ardir said, as the first three sledges thundered past, miraculously unscathed. "You all must help me."
"Consent freely given, as is our aid," Hudirg answered.
"Of course," Idalia said. Behind her, she heard murmurs as the other Mountainborn each offered up his or her own consent.
The next team was already coming through. Behind the Wildmages, some Centaurs rushed to the heads of the lead yokes of the other ox-teams, grabbing their headstalls and turning them away from each other and slowing their headlong flight.
She had no time to think of Jermayan now, only to offer up a quick prayer to the Gods of the Wild Magic that Ardir's spell and Jermayan's would hold for as long as they needed it to.
Ardir took a handful of herbs from a pouch on his belt, quickly pulling off his glove and slashing his hand, moistening them with his blood.
He raised both hands, bare and gloved together, stretching them out toward the oxen coming through the doorway. Idalia could see his lips move, but heard no words.