Forsaken House (27 page)

“How can you fight an enemy that can be anywhere he wants with a mere thought?” Araevin wondered aloud.

“Simple,” said Starbrow. “You set a trap and wait for him to stick his foot in it. We’ll create a false standard to lure in any demon rush, and prepare an ambush around it to make sure we punish the fiends for the attempt.” He looked over to Seiveril. “Lord Miritar, we need to get up to the Sunset Gate and oversee the disposition of the troops. I think our foes will wait until they get their main body over the pass, but if they have spied out the movements of our army, they may push their vanguard ahead to seize the cwm before we can get our forces there.”

Seiveril said, “You go ahead. I’ll be there as soon as I speak with Lord Duirsar again. I also have to send word to Muirreste to bring the rest of the expedition through

in whatever order he deems best.” He turned to Araevin and his companions. “None of you are bound by any oath or promise to fight here. You do not have to stay.”

Ilsevele gave her father a level look and said, “I stand by what I said before.”

“I suspect you have a need for capable mages,” said Araevin. “I will help, too.”

“Lathander opposes the forces of darkness, wherever they appear,” Grayth said. “I wish I had time to summon the Order of the Aster here to join in this battle, but since I am the only one of my order here, I will stand for my fellows and do what I can.”

The tent fell silent before Maresa shrugged and said, “It’s not my fight. But I agreed to aid Araevin, so if he stays, I’ll stay too.” She jabbed a finger at the mage. “Running headlong into battles was not part of our agreement, but someone has to watch your back.”

Thin, freezing mists clung to the mountainsides in the dark of the night, gathering and pouring downslope like rivers of wicked moonlight. Sarya Dlardrageth stood on an ancient Vyshaanti battle-platform recovered from the depths of Nar Kerymhoarth, admiring the masterful workmanship of a war machine crafted almost ten thousand years past. Shaped like a brazen disk forty feet in diameter, the battle-platform hovered in the air, suspended by levitation magic. Its armored sides could shelter twenty skilled archers or mages, but Sarya had no intention of exposing the platform to harm. Instead, she used it as a flying dais for her throne, a mobile tower from which she could survey the progress of her army and issue whatever orders seemed needful.

“Ascend a little higher,” she directed the fey’ri who operated the platform’s control orb. “I desire a better view of the fight at the top of the pass.”

She paced along the metal crenellations at the platform’s edge, dressed in black robes enchanted to the hardness of steel. In her hand she gripped a sinister staff of zalanthar wood decorated with bright gold wire, a potent weapon indeed in her hands. She longed to join the fray herself, hungering for the heady wine of triumph over her enemies, but she restrained herself. She had a legion of fey’ri, hundreds of demons, and great tribes of orcs and ogres marching under her banner. She needed to watch how they fought together and judge how best they might be employed against a serious obstacle.

A spearcast below her brazen platform, the orcs, ogres, and goblins of her army surged up the last half-mile of the Rillvale’s winding trail, pressing up against the weak line of elf archers who fought to hold the saddle of the pass. Above the archers, fey’ri and winged demons wheeled and stooped, scouring the Evereskans with gouts of hellfire and hurling iron darts down from above at the foolhardy warriors trying to bar the passage of Sarya’s horde. A few of the archers found the opportunity to shoot down at the climbing ogres and orcs, but most of the Evereskans were busy with keeping their aerial enemies at bay with archery and spells.

“Not much of a fight,” observed Mardeiym Reithel. The fey’ri lord, a leader of the ancient fey’ri she had freed from Nar Kerymhoarth, served as Sarya’s general. His battle armor was striking, a black mithral breastplate embossed with the likeness of a snarling dragon, and his face was distinguished by an exceptionally large pair of ram’s horns that curled out from under his war helm. “They are simply trying to slow us down, and perhaps exact a small price for seizing the Sentinel’s pass.”

“How many hold the pass against us?” Sarya asked. Mardeiym studied the ridge top from the platform’s edge.

“Two companies of archers,” the fey’ri lord said, “with a handful of mages. They’ve certainly hurt the orcs in the vanguard. Most likely they’ll disengage and fall back when the orcs crest the pass.”

“I see no reason to allow them to escape,” Sarya said. “Land a strong company of fey’ri and a warband of demons on the far side of the pass, behind the defenders. We will crush them between our two forces and slaughter them to the last warrior.”

“As you wish, my lady,” Mardeiym answered.

He barked out a set of orders to the winged imps who fluttered nearby, awaiting messages to carry. The foul little creatures streaked off to find the fey’ri captains and demons Mardeiym named.

Sarya and her general watched as two ranks of the fey’ri waiting behind the orcs and other rabble abruptly launched themselves into the air, scarlet wings beating furiously as they climbed up into the dark sky and passed over the defender’s positions. From somewhere on the rocky slopes a bright bolt of lightning stabbed up into the air, bringing down a pair of the daemonfey warriors. Several of the fey’ri replied with a rapid succession of fireballs that scoured across the ridgeline in a string of lurid explosions.

“That’s better,” Sarya said.

Even from a distance, she could hear the screams of the wounded and the frightened calls of the elf warriors as a cloud of vrocks and other winged demons descended on the defenders.

She was so absorbed in the carnage that she did not even notice the arrival of a vrock scout until the creature alighted on the platform and spread its shabby wings, bowing before her.

“Lady S-Sarya,” it hissed through its vulturelike beak. “I have flown to the edge of the mythal-1 and back, as you commanded-d. There are many elves-s marching out of the city.”

Sarya frowned. “Are they fleeing?”

“No, these are warriors. They march to meet you.” “How many?” she demanded.

“At least ten different companies-s. I s-saw their standards-s. They are w-waiting for you at the east end of the v-valley beyond this pass-s, three miles distant-t.”

“Good,” Sarya said. “Return and see if you can get a good count of their numbers and dispositions.”

The vrock bowed again and flapped off, the platform bobbing as the creature’s weight left it.

“Three miles,” she said aloud. “It will take us hours to get the main body up and over the pass. Dawn will be close by the time we are through the pass.”

“Should we send the fey’ri against them now, while they are still marching?” Mardeiym asked her. “We could strike them hard, right now.”

“No,” Sarya replied, “we brought our orc allies for a reason. Let’s keep our forces together, so that we can crush the Evereskans in a single blow rather than send our army at them one piece at a time. That way lies defeat.”

She found her seat and sat down, curling her long, snakelike tail around her feet. After twenty days of torturous marching alongside slow, clumsy orcs and giants, Evereska was within her grasp.

****

The first gray streaks of dawn gathering in the eastern sky did little to warm the damp chill of the cwm. The rain had finally given out in the middle of the night, but the overcast was so low that Evereska’s higher peaks pierced the clouds, leaving scraps and tatters of mist to drift by only a few hundred feet overhead. The bowl-shaped West Cwm was high and bare compared to other parts of Evereska, flirting with the tree line. A large, deep lake of icy water lay close under the cliffs on the southern side of the cwm. It struck Araevin as an open and unforgiving battleground, especially against aerial foes. He would have preferred to fight under the cover of the trees, where winged sorcerers and demons would have to come well within bowshot to attack.

He peered into the night, trying to piece together what he could see of the approaching army. Elves needed less light to see by than humans did. Even in the darkness Araevin could make out the saddle of the Sentinel Pass, about three miles distant. The fight at the pass had been over for better than three hours, and very few of the elves

who’d volunteered to fight there had returned. He could glimpse movement there, distant torches and large, awkward wagons threading their way over the pass and into Evereska’s heart.

Marching steadily eastward toward him came a great, shapeless mass, sprinkled here and there with ,orches and burning brands-the army of the daemonfey. Their numbers seemed to fill the cwm, and menacing black shadows wheeled and soared above the marching orcs and ogres. A vast, many-throated rumble preceded the army, the rustle and creaking of armor, the clash of weapons on shields, the bone-shaking thunder of hundreds of war drums, hisses and screeches and roars of demons and other fiendish things from the hells beyond the world. Briefly Araevin entertained the curious impression that the whole valley was a cup being filled from the Sentinel Pass, and that in time the horde would fill it up entirely and spill out over the sides.

The leaders of the horde were less than a thousand yards from the elven ranks Araevin could pick out distinct individuals bare-chested orc berserkers, hulking ogres and demons wrapped in fire, shadow, or foulness all prowling

forward in a ragged wave.

“Not long now,” murmured Starbrow, standing close by Araevin. The moon elf champion stood amid a loose knot of elves that included Seiveril, Ilsevele, Grayth and Maresa, the Blade-Major Rhaellen of Evereska, and a number of Miritar guards and Swords of Evereska. Keryvian was naked in his hand. The blade was a hand-and-a-half sword, and its cold blue steel seemed to glow in the darkness. “Not long now.”

Araevin’s heart hammered in his chest.

At least I know my magic can hurt their demons, he • told himself.

He couldn’t imagine how someone could stand in the ranks with a sword of mundane steel, watching a demon immune to such things stalk closer with every step. He looked up and down the lines, fixing in his mind for one final time the army’s positions, in case he needed to know them.

Lord Elvath Muirreste commanded the right flank, where the terrain was more open and the mounted knights would be able to maneuver. Jerreda Starcloak and her wood elves held the left flank, overlooking the lake. A determined attacker might try to skirt the steep slopes and broken forest on the south side of the cwm, and the wood elves seemed like just the sort of light and mobile force to defend that difficult approach. Wood elf snipers and skirmishers lay hidden in other spots in the vale, as well.

Vesilde Gaerth and the Knights of the Golden Star served as perhaps the most important contingent in the crusade’s army: the reserve. Since many of the knights were clerics or possessed enchanted weapons, it was thought that they could be held out of the fight until the demons engaged some portion of the army, then move to aid the endangered troops. Stationed in the rear of the army, the knights also served to guard the Sunset Gate at the crusade’s back. The high, narrow cleft leading down to the Vine Vale was the only possible retreat from the West Cwm if things went poorly.

Seiveril himself commanded the center, with the moon elf Starbrow as his deputy. There most of the elven infantry were massed, in orderly ranks of spearmen, swordsmen, and archers. It was also the place where most of the crusade’s mages, under the leadership of the half-elf Jorildyn, stood waiting to unleash their battle spells. The best of those companies were battle-hardened Evereskan Vale Guards, steady and unflinching in the defense of their homeland. But more than half the Evereskan army remained in the city, in case the daemonfey decided to bypass the fight in the West Cwm. Seiveril had also left almost two thousand of his own soldiers there, a full third of his army, though he had chosen the companies with the least experience and equipment for that duty.

With a loud groan and clatter, the approaching horde came to a ragged stop just out of bowshot. orcs and other foul creatures hooted and jeered in their uncouth tongues, shaking their weapons in the air, gnashing their teeth.

On the other side of the battlefield, the elves waited with icy calm. Off to his left, Araevin distinctly heard Jerreda’s wood elves jeering right back at the orcs.

“This seems like a good time for a few spells,” Araevin said.

He quickly recited the words for the stoneskin spell, dusting Ilsevele, Grayth, Maresa, and himself with powdered diamond—he was almost out of the stuff, unfortunately—and reciting the words of the abjuration.

“What are they waiting for?” Ilsevele wondered aloud. “Do they intend to parley first? What in the world do they think they could offer us?”

“They’re not going to parley,” Starbrow replied. “They’re looking for the standards. Stay on your guard.”

Araevin quickly reviewed the rest of the spells he held ready in his mind, and checked the wands at his belt. Moonrill hung on his left hip, though he hoped he wouldn’t need it. He was a passable swordsman, but magic was a much better weapon in his hands.

“Hey!” Maresa yelled out. “That’s all they’ve got? You didn’t bring enough orcs, you morons. Go back home and get some more! And your mothers—”

The genasi’s jeering was interrupted by the tremendous blast of a heavy horn from somewhere in the enemy ranks. A dozen lesser horns caught the note and repeated it, until the West Cwm echoed with the sound With a ground-shaking roar, the dark ranks surged forward, crooked swords and notched axes held high, while behind them a whole legion of the fey’ri leaped into the air, mighty wings thundering as they climbed above the rabble.

It begins, Araevin thought.

He raised his hands and hurled his first spell of the battle.

27 Ches, the Year of Lightning Storms

Five hundred yards stood between the two armies when the daemonfey horns sounded their charge The orc berserkers, unburdened by heavy armor, raced out ahead of the surging horde, running full out for the elven lines, roaring like dumb beasts as they came. Ogres and trolls loped along just behind the berserkers, covering two yards with each stride, frighteningly fast for their bulk and power.