Ed Greenwood - The Herald

Or nothing at all. All was silent in the passage save for the small sounds of his own progress, his faint breathing louder than the gentle breeze ghosting past his ankles. He came up to his shield and thrust his hand through it, at the blue wall-a vertical patch of air that was only opaque and blue where the shield touched it, and mere dimly lit emptiness everywhere else.

His fingers felt the chill prickling of arisen magical energy, flowing endlessly up and down, forming the wall.

So was it a barrier to him, or just active magics such as his shield? He withdrew his hand, got out the long, needlelike poniard sheathed down his left forearm, and extended it. It bore small enchantments to keep away rust and resist acid, and to glow when a wielder willed it to, so it was magic.

Would this blue wall just block his way, or try to visit some harm on him? The selukiira was awake too, thrumming subtly as he leaned nearer to this wall.

The long dagger thrust into the wall as if it weren’t there-and a moment later, it wasn’t.

The wall was gone as abruptly and as silently as if it had never been there, his shield racing forward unopposed-only to wink out with a little sigh, destroyed by something unseen.

Helgore frowned. No doubt he’d just set off some sort of magical alarm, but who would answer it?

Somehow the warding magic felt old, not something cast recently to warn of current besiegers bursting up from the Underdark or through the crypts into the city …

He stepped forward with slow caution, into utter silence.

“That’s close enough, human. I have little reason to love or trust Netherese. Your most accomplished spellcasters are rash, to put it politely, and those of less mastery-the Tanthuls, for instance-are a danger not just to your own cities, but to all the world.”

The voice was as calm as a gently reproving mother’s, not as cold and harsh as might be expected from the words spoken.

Yet Helgore, peer as he might, could not see its source. So he kept on advancing, very cautiously now, his dagger in one hand and the other raised and ready to hurl a mighty spell.

“So you serve a Tanthul, and hail from Thultanthar, and are here to work ill.”

Blue flames erupted out of empty air to dart at Helgore’s eyes.

He turned them aside with a frantic spell, just in time, and fell back with a snarl. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

The air a little way down the passage rippled as if a curtain was being parted, and there was suddenly a very tall, impossibly thin elf lord facing him-floating with feet together, off the ground, legs nearly skeletal. Helgore could see ribs, arm bones … the flesh cloaking them was translucent, and he was seeing the male elf’s bones right through it!

“I am Thurauvyn Nathalanorn. Guardian Undying of House Nathalanorn. Just as you are an arcanist of Thultanthar, hight Helgore. Helgore Ulitlarathulm. Sent to destroy baelnorn. My, my.”

“And you know all of this how?” Helgore asked softly, not wasting breath in denials, but making sure his strongest ward spells were awakened.

“The selukiira . Telamont should have warned you about that. If he knew about it at all; Telamont Tanthul always was a careless, too-hasty youngling. Who considered those working for and with him expendable tools.”

Helgore wrenched the loregem free and flung it aside.

The baelnorn winced. “Such vandalism is … distressing. Unworthy, even of young and foolish humans drunk on their burgeoning mastery of the Art.”

It looked past Helgore, gazed at the empty elf skin slithering closer to him, and repeated more sharply, “Unworthy, indeed.”

The slaying spell whirled up out of nowhere to blast Helgore with roaring emerald flames of fury.

The first few Bladesingers Storm, Amarune, and Arclath had come rushing through the forest to reinforce had given them startled looks, and a high mage of Myth Drannor had shot them a look that was frankly hostile, but once the mercenaries came swarming through the trees in earnest to fall upon this handful of elves defending this particular wooded knoll of Myth Drannor, there was no time at all left for anything but frantic hacking, running, and parrying.

The elves were every whit as agile as Rune, who was used to being the most nimble in any fray, but Storm Silverhand awed her.

A whirlwind of long silver tresses snatching up swearing besiegers and dashing them against trees, or trammeling their swords and maces, the bard seemed to float through the battle, at the heart of the thickest fighting as mercenaries rushed in to try to overwhelm her.

Twice it seemed they’d manage it, as even Arclath-who was plying his sword in one hand and a captured blade in the other, both arms red to the shoulder with gore that wasn’t his-was beaten back from trying to reach her so he could guard her back.

Shouting murderously, the mercenaries closed into a ring around her, thrusting with bills and glaives, hacking with hand axes and blades, nigh burying her with their bodies.

And twice, a moment of silver-edged silence fell, all local din and clangor muted, as every hiresword was snatched off his bloody-booted feet and flung away from her, seemingly in slow motion, a startled open-mouthed tumbling that became a swift and brutal splattering of hurled bodies against unyielding trees. Moss and bark were torn away by rebounding broken bodies, and in a rush all the sound returned, most of it shrieking or raw howling of pain, amid the groans and wet thudding of bodies bouncing and landing.

Leaving Storm standing alone, the fire of risen anger in her eyes, her long slender sword raised and ready as she sought the most formidable-looking nearby foes-and launched herself at them.

“ Challenge ,” she’d snarl if their backs were turned, then she’d set her teeth and swing. In the ringing shriek of blades crashing together that followed, more than one contemptuous veteran battleblade was driven back on his heels, shaken and astonished. A few of them lived long enough for that astonishment to give way to fear, but as Storm apologized to one falling corpse, “I’m in a hurry.”

The third time the besiegers sought to overwhelm her, they came at her from all sides as she fenced and fought, dancing and whirling to keep from being taken from behind. Rune and Arclath fought shoulder to shoulder, trying to reach her but barely managing to hold their own ground. And then four hulking warriors came rushing at Storm in unison, glaives lowered in a deadly wall of long gutting points, shouting at their fellow mercenaries to get out of the way.

Those deadly, gore-smirched points were almost under her sword arm before the silver silence came again.

Arclath and Amarune gaped at the muted ballet. The charging warriors were hurled up and back, glaives almost raking Storm’s chin as they flew skyward, gauntleted hands clawing at unhelpful air all around. Saplings swayed as men crashed into them, falling leaves swirled, and-the sounds of the nigh deafening battlefield rushed back, battered besiegers fleeing wildly, some of them limping or crawling.

“How do you do that?” Rune demanded, as she came up beside Storm. Who gave her a smile far friendlier than her blazing eyes, and shook her head.

“Not a spell I can teach you,” she panted. “Called on the Weave. Like El does, more than he spouts incantations, these days.” The bard grounded her sword and leaned on it, fighting for breath. “Soon, you’ll feel how,” she added.

Louder panting and gasping could be heard all around them, as exhausted elves sagged back against trees, or wearily thrust steel through the throats of dying mercenaries.