Forsaken House (26 page)

The four companions dismounted and led their horses to the back end of the archer company passing through the gate—a disorderly gang of wood elves, who laughed with delight when they saw a human and a planetouched following their column.

Ilsevele said to Grayth and Maresa, “I hope you will forgive us for leaving Evermeet so quickly. I would have liked the opportunity to show you more of the island.”

“I’ll carry it with me in my heart,” the cleric said with a smile. “I am honored to have seen it even for a day,”

Their turn came a few minutes later, as the last of the wood elves trotted through the gate. Araevin waited while Ilsevele, Grayth, and Maresa walked their horses up to the markers and touched the stones, disappearing in a sparkle of golden light, and he did the same.

The hilltop misted away from him. There was a moment of darkness and a strange, directionless sense of motion in the center of his body, and Araevin found himself standing in a dark, rainy plaza or square in an elven city. Soft lanternlight glowed around him, flickering as the wind shifted, and white stone towers rose up between towering shadowtops and cedars.

Of course, he thought. We moved several thousand miles to the east, so naturally we moved later in the day.

An elf soldier dressed in a long mail shirt took Araevin by the arm and guided him away from the arrival point. The mage noticed that a pair of Evereskan drummers kept the time of the drummers in the Evermeet glade. Already the wood elves were marching away down a broad thoroughfare, still laughing and singing with high spirits. Araevin led his horse away and joined Ilsevele and the others off to one side.

“Where will we find Seiveril Miritar?” Ilsevele asked one of the elves nearby.

“Out in the Meadow, my lady,” the elf replied. “Follow the company ahead of you, they’re being led there now. But leave your horses here. We’ll have to take them down by another way.”

They relinquished their reins, and hurried after the wood elves through the forested streets of the city. Evereska was a striking place of marvelous buildings, deep groves, and steep hilltops. Lanterns glowed above the streets, each haloed by the falling drizzle. But Araevin was startled to see signs of war amid the city’s towers and trees: a shadowtop scorched badly on one side by fire, a tower with a great gouge in its side from some spell or another, windows of theurglass boarded up with simple wooden shutters.

They fought the phaerimm in the streets of the city, he reminded himself. It was only two years ago.

They reached a park overlooking the city’s edge. Evereska sat atop sheer cliffs nearly a thousand feet in height, its hills and forests crowning the stark stone of its great pedestal. Below lay the Meadow, a ring of grassy open land at the foot of the cliffs, and circling that the Vine Vale, a valley of terraced fields, vineyards, and orchards surrounding the city. At one side of the park, quite near the edge, a golden circle glowed on the ground. One by one the wood elves walked into it and vanished.

“Where are we going now?” Grayth asked.

“We’re descending to the valley floor outside the city,” Araevin explained. They waited their turn, passed through behind the wood elves, and stepped out of a shallow niche in the cliffside, walking out into the broad, open Meadow.

Columns of elf soldiers waited here, organizing themselves before marching off. Araevin spotted Seiveril at once. He stood amid a knot of other elves, dressed in his gilded armor of mithral plate, watching as the elves who had already passed the gate and the cliff marched off into the darkness. The sight of Seiveril attired in battle-armor startled Araevin. With an abrupt and chilling clarity he realized that all the martial hurry they’d wandered through for the past hour had a purpose. The great host gathering in Evereska’s green Meadow had come to fight, and perhaps die, in battle against the enemies of the People.

How could I have forgotten that for an instant? Araevin wondered.

“Father!” Ilsevele called.

She hurried over to embrace Seiveril, while Araevin and his friends followed.

Seiveril turned in surprise, but returned his daughter’s embrace, saying, “Ilsevele! What are you doing here?”

“We came to find you, but it occurs to me that I might ask you the same question,” Ilsevele replied. She stepped back and looked around at the marching soldiers. A long, snaking line of elves carrying their arms and armor were ascending the outer wall of the Vine Vale, following a trail that switchbacked up toward the higher hills surrounding Evereska and its valley. “What is going on?”

“It is a long story, but … I could not stand by and allow our people to do nothing to aid the Evereskans. If I had not done something, no one would have, and I believe with all my heart that this needs doing,” Seiveril said. He looked over to the officers standing nearby. “Lord Gaerth, you know where these troops are supposed to go. Will you take over for me for a time? I need to speak with my daughter. Make sure they know to remain vigilant, our foes might attempt to pass our lead companies and strike at us here.”

Vesilde Gaerth, resplendent in his golden plate armor, touched his fingertips to his visor and replied, “Of course, Lord Seiveril.”

Seiveril took one last look at the mustering elves then took Ilsevele’s arm, leading her to a nearby tent.

“Come, both of you, and your friends as well. I suspect we have some news to exchange. Starbrow, why don’t you join us, too?”

One of the elves who had been standing with Seiveril detached himself and followed. He was a tall and strongly built moon elf, his red-brown hair pulled back into a long braid behind his back. He wore a lacquered breastplate with a large kite-shaped shield slung over his back. Araevin didn’t recognize him, but then again, in the last hour he’d seen hundreds of elves he didn’t know.

They filed into the pavilion Seiveril indicated, and found simple but comfortable furnishings, including light folding stools and a portable table with several maps laid out across its surface. A tray of fruit and bread filled

one end of the table, along with ewers of cold water and

wine.

“I wish I could claim credit for the hospitality, but I can’t,” said Seiveril. “Thilesin and her assistants decided to provide me with a valet so that I could devote all my attention to the challenges ahead, instead of fretting about

where to rest and when to eat. Please, be seated.”

“Father,” said Ilsevele, “what are you doing here? Why didn’t the queen send the army? Why did she refuse to help?”

“As I said, it is a long story, and it is a story that may not be for everyone to hear. I will only say that the queen has duties and responsibilities that constrain her freedom of action, and that this was the only way for those of us on Evermeet to send any real help to the People in Faerun.”

Seiveril looked over at Grayth and Maresa. “You have neglected to introduce me to your guests, Ilsevele.”

Ilsevele frowned, noting the change in subject, but she did not protest. Instead she introduced Grayth and Maresa, and in turn Seiveril introduced the moon elf called Starbrow. Araevin took the fellow’s hand wondering who he was again, and his eyes fell to the sword hilt at the moon elf’s hip.

“You are wearing Keryvian!” he gasped in surprise.

“Yes,” Starbrow said. He offered a crooked smile.

“Seiveril loaned it to me I have some experience in fighting demons, and he thought I could make good use of the sword.”

“I don’t believe I have ever heard of you,” Araevin said.

“Where are you from?” Starbrow glanced at Seiveril, then back to Araevin,

and said, “Cormanthyr. Though I have been away from my homeland for a long time.”

Seiveril poured himself a cup of water from the ewer on the table.

“Well, Ilsevele,” he said, “you can see what has been occupying my time since we parted. Where have you been? Araevin, did you learn anything more about the attack on Reilloch?”

“We’ve spent the last two tendays in Faerun,” Ilsevele said. She looked at Starbrow, and decided that the moon elf obviously enjoyed some special confidence with her father. “We learned the hard way that the daemonfey are

very interested in the lorestones. We found … no, Araevin should tell the rest. The tale is his.”

The company gathered in Seiveril’s tent turned their eyes on Araevin. He gave Ilsevele a pained look, but stood and faced the others.

“We followed the first telkiira’s directions to a second telkiira, lost in an abandoned tower in the Forest of Wyrms …” Araevin began.

He went on to relate the course of their adventure along the Sword Coast, from their arrival in the Ardeep, to their meeting with Grayth and Maresa, their journey through the Trollbark to the Forest of Wyrms, and the

fierce battle against the daemonfey at the ancient tower. Then he described what he’d discovered when he opened the second loregem, and what Quastarte and his fellow mages had divined of their secret enemy.

“So, we don’t know exactly why the daemonfey want these telkiira. But they must be important to the Dlardrageths, if they are pursuing them at the same time they choose to launch a war against the High Forest and Evereska together.”

“I’ve heard of the Dlardrageths before,” Starbrow said to Seiveril. “Their old tower used to lie abandoned near the outskirts of Myth Drannor. I never knew the story behind it, though.”

“Where is the daemonfey army now?” Grayth asked Seiveril.

“They are near the top of the Sentinel Pass, the northwestern approach to the city, about ten miles from Evereska’s walls.”

“What are you up against, and what do you have to stop them with?” the cleric asked.

“We face an army of perhaps fifteen hundred fey’ri, five hundred demons of various sorts, and several thousand orcs, ogres, and other such creatures,” Seiveril replied. “Against that stands Evereska’s army, roughly two thousand strong, plus our own expedition, which will number close to six thousand by tomorrow.”

“They have that many demons?” Grayth asked in surprise. “How did they do that, I wonder?”

Araevin rubbed his jaw, thinking. His human friend had touched on something important, he was sure of it. Demons were not native to Faerun. They could only be summoned from their foul hells for a very short time by battle-conjurations, or sometimes bound to longer service with difficult and expensive rites. If the daemonfey army had so many demons and yugoloths among their numbers, then they were clearly not using short-lived summonings or difficult binding rituals to enslave their fiendish allies.

“They must control a gate of some kind,” he said. “The demons are serving of their own free will.”

“Evereska’s scouts have reported the presence of demons in this army for most of its approach,” Seiveril said. “So, the gate must be located somewhere near the place where the daemonfey legion and their orc allies began their march. That would be somewhere in the upper Delimbiyr Vale. Hellgate Keep, perhaps?”

“Presumably, there must be some constraint on how rapidly the demons can enter the world through the gate,” Grayth said. “Otherwise all the North would be overrun by hellspawn.”

“Wherever they are coming from, the most pressing point is the fact that they are at Evereska’s doorstep,” Ilsevele pointed out. “Father, you said they were only ten miles away. Will you have time to bring the rest of the army through the elfgates before the battle is joined?”

“I don’t know,” Seiveril said. “We have two companies of volunteers holding the top of the pass, but we do not expect to do anything more than slow the daemonfey for a few hours. We will try to meet the invaders in the West Cwm at sunrise. We’ll be marching soldiers up the track to the Cwm all night.”

“Sounds like an even fight. Can you beat them?” Maresa asked directly.

Starbrow looked to Seiveril, then back to Maresa. “The numbers are about equal, but we have the advantage of defending,” the moon elf swordsman replied slowly. “We could hold the Sentinel Pass or the Sunset Gate against any number of enemies-if our enemies did not possess the powers of flight and teleportation-but since they do, we can only choose our battleground against the orcs, ogres, and goblins. The fey’ri and their pet demons may choose to simply fly or teleport past the Cwm and either trap us in the Cwm or attack the city directly.”

“Why haven’t they done so already?” asked Ilsevele.

“I think they’re being overly cautious. They know there is strength in numbers, and so they prefer to keep their army together so that we won’t be offered the chance to destroy it piecemeal. And perhaps more importantly, I don’t think they know we’re here.” Starbrow offered a fierce smile. “They brought an army sufficient to reduce Evereska by itself, but there was no army from Evermeet here yesterday. By tomorrow morning, Evereska’s strength will be more than tripled.”

“But they might choose to avoid fighting you at all,” Grayth pointed out.

“Not without abandoning their ground forces. If they assail Evereska directly and leave their orcs and goblins to fight through on foot, we’ll destroy a large portion of their army seven miles from the city walls.” Starbrow shrugged. “In that case, the best move for our enemies is to concentrate all their efforts on destroying the army that meets them in the Cwm by surrounding us through the air, knowing that we dare not leave Evereska itself with

too little strength to defend against a direct attack.” “How can we help?” asked Ilsevele.

Seiveril looked up sharply.

“I didn’t ask you to fight, Ilsevele. There is no need—”

“Nonsense,” she said. “If you called for all of Evermeet to take up arms in the defense of the LastHome, then you called for me as well. I am a captain in the queen’s spellarchers, and I have just as much reason to be on this battlefield as you do.”

“I don’t know how tomorrow will turn out, Ilsevele. If you were to be hurt, I could not stand it.”

“I will be exactly as careful as you are, Father,” Ilsevele retorted. “Now, I’ll ask again: How can we help?”

Starbrow cut off Seiveril’s protest with a motion of his hand.

“Stay close by our command group,” the mysterious elf said. “We have no time to find a different place for you, and to be honest, I think we will need all the skilled fighters we can get around the standard. In my experience, demons like to use their teleporting ability to butcher the opposing commander when the fight grows heavy. There will be a point in the battle when several dozen appear at once to tear down the standard and kill any leaders they can sink their claws into.”