Ed Greenwood - The Herald

“ Floated above Anauroch,” Storm replied. “Thultanthar is somewhat nearer now.”

Lord Delcastle rolled his eyes, then fixed them on his beloved. “So, a city of ancient archmages hovering above us, blotting out the sun as they enthusiastically hurl dark and mighty spells down on our heads … we are doomed.”

Amarune Whitewave looked back at him and rolled her own eyes. “We are all doomed in the end, my lord. The trick is to make the journey from birth to doom as delightful as possible.”

“Base philosopher!” he reproved her fondly. “I left my warm hearth and-dare I say it-splendid wine cellar for this ?”

He waved a dramatic hand at the vista of burning trees and rushing men and elves, the din of battle rising loud from the still-unseen front line of the fray beyond.

“No,” Rune told him, “you left hearth and goblet for this.” She ran a hand down her curvaceous front and gave him a wink that was just this side of a leer.

“Right,” Storm observed briskly, “I believe it’s now my turn for some eye rolling. By all means bill and coo, you two-but on a battlefield, time for such dalliance must be earned. The hard way.”

She cast an arch glance Arclath’s way. “As a noble lord of the Forest Kingdom should know well, if he’s been raised properly.”

And with that, the silver-haired bard led the way over a ridge cloaked in dead, fallen leaves and a deep, rich emerald carpet of moss, heading for the fighting.

“But of course, Marchioness,” Arclath replied mockingly, following her. Amarune strode at his side, a dagger out as she darted swift glances in all directions. He looked at her admiringly, still secretly in awe that this mask dancer who’d stirred him with her looks and spirited flippancy for years, and turned out to be as fierce and staunch a companion as any man could wish for-not to mention brighter than he was and of the blood of an infamous, age-old wizard-loved him.

Oh, many a tavern dancer or shop drudge had leaped at the chance to wed a noble of Cormyr, or even become a lord’s kept, cloistered mistress … but his Rune liked his company and wanted to be with him.

And he wanted to be just where he was now: right by her side, no matter what befell, and even when they were both aged and aching, unsteady and frail and wrinkled.

“Arclath Delcastle,” his ladylove said warningly into his ear, her dagger-free hand pinching his cheek and jolting him out of his thoughts, “if you don’t stop simpering at me, you’re going to walk straight into yon tree!”

Arclath blinked at her happily, heard Storm sigh deeply and then chuckle, from just ahead, and found himself staring into the frowning face of his beloved.

“Arky, could you take a break from being a love struck lord for the next little while?” she asked. “I want you to live to see nightfall, not get butchered by the first man with a sword you wander within reach of!”

The Fragant Flower of the Delcastles shook his head and groaned, “ Arky’ ? Really? Must you?”

“Well,” Storm put in, pinching his other cheek, “if it keeps you alive, Arky dear …”

“ Nooo !” Arclath cried, giving Rune a glare. “How can I buckle a swash with heroic confidence, knowing my foe is sniggering at facing ‘Arky’?” He swung around to face Storm, and snarled, “Still less, ‘Arky dear’!”

The bard smiled impishly, long silver tresses stirring around her as if a freshening storm breeze was rising. “A grave matter indeed, Arky dear. We must discuss it over flagons of something suitable, after we-”

Something large and heavy and aflame came hurtling through the trees to crash down, bounce, and roll onward in a whirlwind of smoldering leaves. In its wake, there rose a ragged shout as motley armsmen charged into view through a tangle of trees-trees out of which fell an elf in mottled leaf-and-leather armor, limp and dead.

“-break this siege, and hurl back these hired swords, clear through Sembia and into the sea!”

And with her silver hair spreading out as wide as four men and clutching a dozen swords she’d plucked up from amid the fallen, Storm Silverhand strode to meet the onrushing men.

With a yell, Arclath roused himself and sprinted after her, to come up on the bard’s left flank. Rune gave him a wink and a grin and headed for Storm’s other flank.

And with various contemptuous shouts and snarls, the dozen-some mercenaries charged to meet them, blood-drenched blades in hand.

Helgore strolled along the dimly lit halls as if he belonged there. His elf guise was gone, banished in his draining of that meddling elf guardian, but he cared not. That fool’s shed and empty skin was still slithering along in his wake, but it was more amusing than annoying, and might even prove a useful distraction if he met other elves.

Not that they seemed to come down into these cool, damp, endlessly curving passages often. He’d been exploring for a long time now, with neither a sighting nor a challenge. Still, during a siege, anything could happen.

It was surprising how extensive these underground ways were. Elves were popularly thought to love fresh air and green growing things and the out-of-doors, not stone-lined holes in the ground. Was such terrain not dwarf territory?

Myth Drannor had been a city where many races were welcome, so perhaps these underways were unusual for elf cities, but surely the elves would have considered their dead sacred to themselves, and not let dwarves dig out and tend the vaults where the elves laid their ancestors?

If the crypts were as extensive as they seemed-given that he’d walked a long way now, along passages and past many doors that presumably led to many rooms-then taking Myth Drannor might be a longer, harder endeavor than the Most High and all the princes had thought. He kept a conjured spell-shield moving along ahead. It would float along, silent and invisible, until it met the sort of magic awakened by intrusion-and then it would flare into sight, warning him and hopefully shielding him from the worst of whatever erupted.

Hopefully.

His task would have been far easier if he’d been able to find any sort of map of where the crypts of the high elf Houses were, but the team of junior arcanists who had promised as much and had plunged in to find such a thing with enthusiasm had turned up nothing at all.

Helgore was beginning to suspect no map existed, save in the minds of each family of elves, knowing where their ancestors lay, and probably the neighboring crypts. Still, finding a crypt almost certainly meant finding a baelnorn, for the strange elf undead were guardians bound to the crypts of their families.

Guardians whom he was here to destroy.

So they couldn’t manipulate the wards against Thultanthar, in ways the arcanists and even the Most High just didn’t have time to unravel and thwart. The baelnorn had to be gone, and soon.

Which meant he could do what he loved to do most: slay ruthlessly and viciously.

Helgore smiled in anticipation, and flexed his fingers. The Most High had given him spells that should rend baelnorn with ease, and after his long, cruel, exacting training, he ached to lash out at something.

Ho, now, what was this ?

Ahead, his shield had flared blue and come to an abrupt halt, the seemingly empty air in front of it thickening into a blue curtain.

Well, more wall than curtain, though it rippled like a hanging tapestry. He thrust at his shield with his will, forcing it to move forward-but it merely quivered, as if caught fast in a titanic spider web.

Helgore chuckled, enjoying the moment, and dropped into a catlike stalk, focusing all his senses in a straining effort to see and hear everything as he advanced slowly. There could be pit traps beneath his boots, death waiting to plummet from above, deadly spells lurking …