The Last Mythal: A Forgotten Realms Trilogy, page 23
part #1 of Forgotten Realms: The Last Mythal Series
A rain of flaming orbs pelted down from overhead, each exploding in a gout of evil green flames. Emerald fire scorched Araevin, hurling him to the ground again, and more of the vitriolic spheres blasted nearby, incinerating elves unfortunate enough to be struck directly. Araevin rolled to his feet and looked up. A band of daemonfey thirty strong wheeled over the Evereskan company, hurling spells down at the elves below.
“Fey’ri above!” he cried.
The Evereskans scattered and sought cover, some of them unlimbering bows to shoot back up at their airborne attackers. The daemonfey climbed away from the archers, though a few of them crumpled in midair and plummeted to the ground, brought down by good or lucky shots. He looked for Ilsevele, and found her picking herself up out of a thicket, her cloak and surcoat smoldering.
“Damn them,” she growled. “We’ve got to draw those winged warriors closer to the ground!”
Araevin watched them, and a fierce joy kindled in his breast.
“Or go up after them,” he snarled.
He quickly barked out the words of his flying spell, and leaped up into the air after the winged warriors circling overhead. The smoke and fog rushed by his face as he streaked upward, and he glimpsed the great expanse of the battle filling the cwm from side to side. He paid it no mind, keeping his attention honed on the fey’ri ahead, even though he saw hundreds more winging over the battlefield.
These at least will know they’ve been in a fight, he told himself.
The fey’ri noticed his ascent, and a dozen of them wheeled to meet him. Two sorcerers blasted at him with stabbing tongues of brilliant blue lightning, but Araevin swerved aside from one, and his protective wards served to blunt the worst of the second. He tumbled awkwardly, flailing in midair as he tried to shake off the bolt, and when he looked up again fey’ri warriors were closing in on him, blades bared, fierce grins on their faces.
“Fool,” hissed one. “We own the sky!”
Araevin bared his teeth, and incanted the words of a spell of his own, stretching out his hand toward his foes. A scintillating blast of brilliant colors flayed the dozen nearest fey’ri. Yellow rays wreathed one in crackling electricity. Red beams scorched the wings from another. A sinister purple ray blasted one into some distant plane, banishing her from the world entirely. In the space of an instant seven fey’ri tumbled down out of the sky, some fluttering vainly to stay aloft, others already dead. Distantly Araevin noted a ragged cheer from below, as the embattled elves saw his brilliant spell and its results.
He started another spell, but a fey’ri sorcerer a short distance away from him struck Araevin with a spell that abruptly dispelled his ability to fly. Araevin plummeted toward the ground, already starting a spell to arrest his fall. But he didn’t complete it quickly enough. Even as his descent slowed, he plunged through the branches of a hemlock, breaking through the boughs as they snapped under him. He landed badly on the uneven ground below the tree, stunned by the impact.
He tried to rise again, but his arms and legs didn’t want to work, and his head swam. He was just about to drift off into comfortable darkness when Ilsevele and Grayth appeared at his side, scrambling down to where he lay.
“Araevin, that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen!” Ilsevele snapped. “You were outnumbered a hundred to one up there.”
“It might not have been wise, but it was a valiant gesture nonetheless,” said Grayth. The cleric looked up at the fight still going on around them. “No time to rest, Araevin. This battle isn’t done yet, not by a long measure.”
He laid his hands on Araevin and began to speak a healing prayer.
Sarya watched the battle from the vantage of her Vyshaanti platform. Off to the right of the enemy center, a brilliant prismatic blast streaked the sky. Fey’ri crumpled and fell from the air, but then the enemy mage plummeted after the daemonfey he’d defeated. She scowled, stung by the cost of the exchange. Her fey’ri were irreplaceable, and the longer the battle went on, the more of them would fall.
“This is taking too long,” she growled.
Mardeiym Reithel stood next to her, arms crossed before his chest.
“The Evereskans have found help,” he said. “This army is too large for them to field while maintaining the garrison our scouts have reported in the city.”
“Evermeet,” Sarya spat. “Who else could it be? We should have abandoned the orcs and other rabble instead of staying with them for twenty days of marching. We gave them too much time to prepare.”
“Without the savage tribes, we’d have less than half the strength we do,” Mardeiym answered. “They may have slowed us down, but today they’re killing paleblood elves, and they’re dying in place of our fey’ri. Evermeet’s army would have met us sooner or later anyway.”
Sarya gripped the rail of the platform, watching the battle. She longed to plunge into the fray herself, to slay with spell and talon, but she dared not. Once she immersed herself in the fight, she would be unable to exercise any form of control over her army. She could count on the fey’ri to follow orders and fight with cunning and resourcefulness, but the demons and yugoloths would take orders from no one other than her. The orc warbands and ogre marauders might break off and retreat from the unexpected Evereskan resistance without the threat of demons behind them to drive them forward.
The sinister crackle of magic rippled through the air at her shoulder. Sarya turned as a vrock suddenly appeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke. The vulture-demon carried two elven arrows snapped off in its right wing, but it seemed untroubled by the wounds.
“Lady S-Sarya,” it hissed. “I have f-found the enemy commander-r. He stands th-there, a hundred yards from the s-standard.”
The creature extended one filthy talon to point at a spot in the enemy center.
Sarya leaned closer to peer in the direction the demon indicated. The day was growing brighter, and while her orcs would not like that much, it was becoming easier to descry detail at a distance. She could see a small number of paleblood elves behind a strong line of Evereskan guards. Spell shields sparkled and glimmered over them. At the very least, there were some accomplished clerics and mages among that group.
“That will do,” she decided. “I want those elves torn to pieces. Let’s see if that disheartens the defenders a bit.”
The vrock bobbed its vulturelike head. It flapped down to the high hillside below, where a great and terrible company of demons and yugoloths—vrocks and hulking, toadlike hezrous, skeletal babaus, and huge, gargoyle-like nycaloths—waited for Sarya’s command. Each one of the infernal creatures on the hillside could teleport itself, appearing out of nowhere to maim and rend. At the head of the company towered the glabrezu Grushakk, a terrible monster the size of a storm giant, with four arms and a canine face whose eyes glowed red with malice. Grushakk looked up to Sarya, who flung out her arm to indicate the direction of the prey.
“There!” she cried. “If you cannot find the commander, slay any mages you see.”
Grushakk howled in glee, and clacked his pincers together.
“Rise!” the demon hissed. “Now we slay!”
The other demons stirred and spat. The glabrezu barked out his commands, and the demon company vanished in a ragged volley of teleportation.
Sarya wheeled on Mardeiym and said, “Pass the word to left, to right, and to center: Press now! We want to keep any help far from those the demons attack. This is our chance.”
Seiveril studied the battle from the small prominence he’d chosen for its view over the Cwm. Since the elven army had formed ranks near the eastern end of the vale, directly before the Sunset Gate, they held land that was generally higher than that their attackers had to cross to reach them. Not only did that provide the elf archers and mages with good fields of fire, it also slowed the rush of orcs and ogres, and it gave the elf commanders a good view of the entire battlefield.
A strong company of fey’ri swooped down over the Vale Guards directly in front of him, hurling their darts and blasting with deadly spells. Seiveril groaned as new gaps appeared in the ranks, elves falling to their knees with heavy javelins piercing shoulders and chests, others hurled limply through the air by jabbing forks of lightning or turned into living torches by gouts of evil fire. But the archers standing behind the infantry raised their bows and sent a storm of arrows skyward, even as the daemonfey climbed again to avoid the missiles. Fey’ri staggered in midair as arrows tore through them, spinning from the sky or simply crumpling and dropping.
“Jerreda doesn’t seem too busy over on the left,” he said to Starbrow. “Let’s get some more of her archers over here to help cover our infantry against those damned fey’ri.”
“I concur,” Starbrow said. He called a runner over. “Find Jerreda on the left flank and ask her to send one hundred archers back to the center.”
The messenger repeated the message back to ensure that he had it right, and dashed off toward the steep forests surrounding the tarn on the south side of the Cwm.
Seiveril looked toward the right. Lord Muirreste’s mounted elves were hard-pressed, as well. The knights and lighter cavalry were much less numerous than the horde of orcs and ogres attacking them, but the open ground of the Cwm favored them. As long as they stayed in motion, the fey’ri had a hard time hitting them with any kind of massed magical assault. He wanted to send Muirreste some help, but he didn’t know if—
“Demons!”
In the space of three heartbeats dozens upon dozens of demons and yugoloths, crackling with sinister magic or stinking of brimstone, appeared all over the hillside surrounding Seiveril. Even though he had been expecting it, Seiveril was paralyzed with horror for an endless moment.
So many of them! he thought. So many!
“Vesilde!” he called. “Vesilde!”
He wheeled to look for Vesilde Gaerth’s knights, just as the demons struck out with their vile sorcery. Demon fire and destruction blasted the hilltop. Dozens of elves died at once, consumed by foul flames, scoured by unholy power, or hurled like broken dolls by the invisible might of demonic magic. Seiveril endured two searing waves of fire that scorched him even inside his enchanted elven plate. A mighty telekinetic buffet sent him hurling through the air. He picked himself up slowly, and looked up to find a hulking nycaloth rushing at him, its great claws as long and sharp as daggers. Seiveril just had time to raise his shield before the creature was on him, roaring with rage.
The nycaloth’s claws scored his armor and almost wrenched his shield away, but Seiveril crouched low and held on while he found the haft of his silver mace with his right hand. He surged up and counterattacked, smashing the holy weapon at the nycaloth. He caught it with a glancing blow across the shoulder, but the mace detonated with a pure, white light that charred a great black scar in the nycaloth’s flesh. The fiend screeched and reeled back, and Seiveril used the space he’d bought to quickly shout out a spell, dispatching the creature back to its infernal home.
He turned, searching for another foe, and found himself looking up at three massive hezrous, demons the size of ogres, with wide, toadlike mouths full of needle fangs and huge, powerful talons. The monsters croaked and scrambled toward him.
“Kill the cleric,” they snarled. “Break his bones, and suck the marrow. Rip his heart out!”
The fearsome stench of the things gagged Seiveril. He went to one knee, trying to keep from losing his stomach as the monsters closed in. The hezrous hissed in glee and moved closer, their jaws gaping wide.
Then from one side Fflar Starbrow Melruth leaped in among the monsters, his sword Keryvian glowing like a shining white brand too bright to look at. He hewed off the arm of the hezrou closest to him, the sword slicing through demon flesh with a pure ringing sound. The monster roared in pain and tried to recoil, but Starbrow followed closely and rammed the point of the long sword deep into the hezrou’s side, taking the monster under the ribs and stabbing it through its foul heart. The ancient magic of the weapon burned everything inside the hezrou’s ribs to a foul gray ash, and smoke poured out of the demon’s wide mouth as it collapsed.
The second hezrou raked at Starbrow with its huge claws, but the moon elf ducked beneath the blow and rolled up under the demon’s guard. He took off its left leg at the knee as he passed by. The demon toppled, black blood pouring from the wound, but snapped and clawed at Starbrow even as it fell. The elf champion danced back out of reach, and darted in to bury Keryvian’s point between the hezrou’s eyes. Again the sword flashed with its terrible white light, and another demon lay dead.
The third demon wheeled to face the threat of Keryvian, turning its back on Seiveril.
“I will take that sword from your dead hand!” the creature snarled.
It hammered Starbrow with a blast of unholy power, staggering him, but Seiveril hurled himself at the demon’s back and smashed the base of its spine with a mighty blow of his holy mace. The hezrou shrieked and threw its arms up in the air, toppling forward—and Starbrow took its head with his white sword.
Seiveril looked over the bodies of the hezrous to Fflar and said, “My thanks, friend. You saved my life.”
Fflar offered a smile and replied, “It only seems fair. Here, stay close by me. You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours.”
Seiveril glanced around at the furious battle. Elf bodies lay everywhere he looked, but many demons had fallen with them. Straight ahead, the Seldarine Knights of the Golden Star advanced with the sunrise behind them, gleaming like titans of gold as they battled against the foul tide. And to his right Ilsevele, Araevin, and their friends fought a terrible glabrezu. Ilsevele sent arrow after arrow into the creature’s torso, while Araevin hammered at the monster with powerful spell blasts, and the cleric Grayth warded them all with his divine spell shields.
“There!” Seiveril called to Fflar. “The glabrezu!”
Fflar nodded and dashed off down the hillside, leaping down at the monster. Seiveril followed, only a step behind. The towering, dog-faced demon seized Grayth in one of its pincer hands and began to squeeze the armored human in its grasp, but then the genasi Maresa darted in and skewered its hamstring with her rapier. The monster roared and batted her away with a backhand slap of another arm—and Fflar and Seiveril were upon the monster. Fflar laid open its thigh with two great cuts of his sword, while Seiveril smashed its kneecap with his holy mace.
“I will destroy you all!” the demon rumbled.
It hurled Grayth aside and reached for Fflar. Then a silver arrow lodged in the side of its neck, and black blood foamed through its mouth. The demon groped closer, catching Seiveril with a weak blow that the cleric easily parried with his shield, and it collapsed facedown in the heather of the hillside.
“Well met, Father,” said Ilsevele. She hurried forward, her bow still in her hand. Seiveril winced when he saw that she limped badly, blood streaming from a long cut on her hip. Araevin’s cloak was tattered and singed, and the human Grayth was slow in picking himself up from the ground. “How are we doing?”
“We’re still holding,” Seiveril managed.
He looked around to see what had happened while he had been busy fighting for his own life, and he was surprised to see the daemonfey army falling back. Those demons who had survived the fray on the hilltop vanished one by one, teleporting away from the charge of the Knights of the Golden Star. The surging tide of orc warriors and marauding ogres retreated as well, their charge finally arrested by the terrible losses to bow, spell, and sword. Even the fey’ri overhead were falling back, unwilling to engage the elven army without the savage tribes of orcs to divide the elves’ attention.
Maresa followed his glance.
“Actually, I’d say you’ve held,” she observed. “Damn, but was that a fight!”
Fflar turned to Seiveril, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Congratulations, Seiveril. You’ve won your first battle.”
Seiveril looked out over the carnage of the elven lines. He felt weary beyond words, weary enough that a breath of wind would be sufficient to carry him to Arvandor. With the sounds of battle fading into a few isolated clashes of steel and occasional spells instead of the deafening crescendo of a few minutes before, he could hear the piteous cries of the wounded and dying—elf, orc, and ogre alike—over all the battlefield. He looked down and noticed that his armor was spattered with blood.
“Have I, Starbrow?” he said quietly. “Because if I have, I don’t know how many more battles we can afford to win.”
At the end of the day Seiveril summoned Araevin, Ilsevele, and their companions to the post he had picked out for his standard, a simple guardhouse close by the Sunset Gate. In peaceful times it had served as a watchpost and a place for a dozen or so of Evereska’s soldiers to stand guard over the path leading from the West Cwm to the Vine Vale. It had come to serve as the center of a sprawling field hospital. Hundreds of wounded elves lay beneath light shelters quickly raised to protect them from the elements. Several strong companies of knights and mages stood guard in case the daemonfey decided to mount a raid against the wounded.
None of Araevin’s companions had been seriously hurt, so they had spent their day combing the battlefield for elves whose lives might still be saved by a cleric’s spells or a potion of healing, while standing guard against a resumption of the fight. But the daemonfey had retired all the way to the Sentinel Pass, hard pressed by Muirreste’s cavalry and Vesilde Gaerth’s Golden Star knights. They did not mount another attack, though Araevin suspected that they might try the gate again under cover of darkness, when the orcs were not exposed to the daylight they so detested.
They found Seiveril working among the wounded, Starbrow standing guard over him. As a powerful cleric of Corellon Larethian, Lord Miritar knew much of the healing arts. Even though he had long since exhausted any healing magic he could muster, he still used his knowledge and lore to do what he could for the wounded. Seiveril looked up from the injured wood elf he’d been tending and offered Araevin and Ilsevele a weary smile.
