Ed Greenwood - The Herald

“That, I did not foresee,” Shar admitted, her words rolling across the room as if from a great distance. “So, Telamont Tanthul, your fear tells me you believe he can achieve this. That he is likely to achieve this.”

Telamont started to pace, cursing softly under his breath without thinking, though his every oath was an insult barbed against Shar. The coldness around him seemed somehow amused as his profanity faltered, then quickly gave way to an admission.

“The archlich has always been stronger in the Art than I am- possibly stronger than all the massed arcanists of this city, even without the liches who serve him. Goading him out of his seclusion and researches by the bold actions we’ve taken was always a risk … which we’re now facing.”

“You don’t seem to relish the coming confrontation, High Prince of Thultanthar.”

“ No ,” Telamont whispered fiercely, turning away.

Not that it was possible to turn his back on the Mistress of the Night, in a chamber filled with her dark presence.

What do you seek to run from, Telamont Tanthul ? Her whisper was far louder and more terrible than his, seeming to sigh through his head like a tidal wave racing across hard-day’s ride after hard-day’s ride of unprotected fields.

“Goddess,” the ruler of the Shadovar mumbled miserably, “I am afraid of Larloch.”

“Fear is the lash, the goad,” Shar told him, as gently as any mother. “Freeze and cower not when it descends on you, but embrace it, and know me more closely, and use the fear you feel to spur you to greater service.”

Telamont winced, nodding but still hunched, his teeth set.

“Show me your mettle, High Prince. Show me why I should still rely on you to serve me.”

The clear warning in those last words took Telamont by the throat and shook him out of his dark fear.

He straightened, flung out an arm as if he could dash down mountains with it, and snapped, “Your intentions are not thwarted by the archlich, Divine One. If I can drain the mythal before Larloch can, it should be power enough to raise the Shadow Weave.”

“It should,” Shar agreed, her approval an arm of warm darkness that seemed to wrap around his shoulders amid silent thunder.

“See that you succeed,” she added, drawing away again.

“H-have you any instructions?” Telamont asked quickly, sensing Shar’s presence receding.

“No one is unexpendable, Telamont, son of Harathroven,” the goddess warned softly, as if from a great distance.

And with that, she was gone, leaving the Most High of Thultanthar standing alone in empty darkness, sweating and pale.

“This-this is utter chaos!” a Moonstar protested, white faced in revulsion. Amid the trees, the smoke of countless fires drifted, some of them reeking pyres of the dead. Bodies were heaped and strewn everywhere, swarming flies buzzed, and from all sides arose the clangor, shouts, and shrieks of battle.

“Do as yon elves are doing,” Dove commanded over her shoulder, as she strode toward the nearest skirmish, sword drawn. “Slay all non-elves you see attacking elves, or advancing to the heart of Myth Drannor.”

“Yes,” another Moonstar agreed, espying a good blade among the fallen and snatching it up to heft and swing experimentally, “but who are all these warriors? Whence came they here?”

“From all over Sembia, and Inner Sea ports where the Shadovar sent ships and recruiters,” Dove replied. “It seems the Thultanthans never foresaw their command of the siege of Myth Drannor could slip from ‘absolute,’ and so gave their hirelings no battle cries to shout to keep friendly steel from butchering allies.”

“So this siege has become an utter confusion of scattered skirmishes,” a third Moonstar said disgustedly. “Yet the hireswords seem endless .”

“ Seem endless,” Dove replied. “Ever planted seedlings? No tossing and walking on; you must root and tamp every one, one after another, until the task is done. The hewing of mercenaries must be like that for us, if this siege is to be broken. One after another, and just keep at it until the task is done. If-”

She was interrupted by a ragged shout, as a dozen human warriors in motley armor came crashing hastily through saplings and dead leaves, waving swords and spears and axes.

“Let’s start with these handy targets,” Dove added cheerfully, and strode to meet them, dagger in one hand and long and ready blade in the other.

Moonstars hesitated-but Dove waded cheerfully into the fray, one woman alone against the dozen. Steel clanged on steel; she danced and ducked and sprang like a festival tumbler, and it was mercenaries who fell, not the lone woman darting about in their midst. “Surrender and be spared,” she chanted in their faces as she parried hard enough that sparks flew, and dealt death. “Surrender and be spared!”

The last few mercenaries fled from her, crashing wildly through the forest, but the din of their flight was drowned out by the arrival of more of the besieging army, from two directions through the trees-hundreds of them.

They came on at a trot, flooding through the saplings, swarming up and around Dove, who never faltered in her demands that they surrender, though they closed in around her, thrusting and hacking viciously. Several Moonstars rushed to her aid, charging determinedly through all the offered steel, but others yelled, “Fall back!” or just hastened away.

More warriors came through the trees, scores of them, and it wasn’t long before a Moonstar fell. And then another.

Even Dove was being driven back by the sheer force of new arrivals, charging in to try to get at her, their rush shoving back the forefront of the bloody fray.

A high, clear horncall rang out through the trees, and suddenly there were elves darting in among the mercenaries, their long swords gleaming.

A Moonstar reared up, transfixed by two mercenary blades, shrieking in agony-and right beside him, as he crashed down in his last fall, choking on his own blood, an elf charge swept away most of the Shadovar forces surrounding Dove and the handful of Moonstars standing with her.

And came at Dove and those Moonstars with the same slaying ferocity that they’d shown to the besiegers.

Dove thrust them away with a swift spell, shouting, “Can you not tell friend from foe?”

Whatever reply the elves she was facing might have tried to make was lost in another horncall, this one three notes winded at once.

The signal for a retreat.

In an instant, the elves fell back again, running back into the trees. After a wavering moment, the besiegers let out a ragged chorus of yells and went after them.

Leaving Dove and her Moonstars behind, forgotten.

She peered through the trees, grimacing. The elves were surrendering more and more of their city.

Given what she knew of their pride, their ranks must have been thinned indeed, worn down in this siege, for this to happen.

“Well?” one of the Moonstars asked, looking to her.

“Aye, what now?” asked another, wiping at blood that was streaming down the side of his face. “Where shall we throw our lives away?”

Dove snorted like a horse in dismissal of his words, but had no others to give him.

“So pass two princes of Thultanthar,” the Coronal of Myth Drannor said bitterly. “Would that they had kept to their own city and their own Art, and left ours alone. What they’ve destroyed can never be replaced … like so much of what all Tel’Quess have lost, these last few centuries.”

She turned away from the smoking ashes of what had been Mattick and Vattick Tanthul, and signaled wordlessly to one of the high mages. He bowed and obeyed, beginning to cast an intricate spell over the remains of their fallen foes that would ensure no one successfully brought them back to life or unlife.