Richard Baker - Final Gate

Seiveril hurried over to the place where Vesilde Gaerth and the battle-mage Jorildyn waited. Every company of the Crusade waited deep in the tree shadows, concealed from the flying foes winging toward them. Only a handful of volunteers remained among the lanternlit tents and shelters of the Semberholme encampment, doing their best to look like half-awake sentries who had no idea the daemonfey were about to descend on them.

“Are your mages ready, Jorildyn?” Seiveril asked.

The battle-mage-actually a half-elf, with enough human blood to sport a silver-streaked black beard-nodded once without taking his eyes from the menacing shapes descending from the sky. “My mages know their task,” he said. “Whether the others will do as well, I cannot say.”

“They will,” Seiveril promised him.

He returned his gaze to the daemonfey. They had come close enough that he could make out the gleam of moonlight on their steel, and the larger and more ungainly shapes of vrocks and nycaloths scattered among the fey’ri warriors. The ancient magical wards guarding Semberholme kept infernal creatures from simply teleporting into the middle of the elven camp, and so the raid descending on them necessarily had to come from the skies. Otherwise the daemonfey and their demonic allies would have had to fight their way through miles of forest to get to Seiveril’s army, losing any hope of surprise.

Not that they’ve caught us off our guard tonight, Seiveril reminded himself. “Thank you, Corellon, for your guidance this night,” he whispered. “May our arrows fly swift, may our blades strike true, may our spells smite our foes and shield us from harm.”

“As the Seldarine will,” Vesilde said, finishing the ancient prayer.

“As the Seldarine will,” Jorildyn answered too. The battle-mage took a deep breath, and said, “Here they come.”

The fearsome shapes overhead wheeled and plummeted down toward the camp. Many of the fey’ri were deadly sorcerers, and they announced the beginning of the attack by launching a terrible barrage of spells-searing fireballs, deadly purple bolts of lightning, and black rays of destruction that pierced soul and body alike. Demons and devils among the fey’ri scoured the ground below with their own deadly blasts of hellfire and abyssal plagues, enveloping scores of tents and shattering stones and trees like the hammer blows of titans. Thunderclaps split the night, echoing across the water. Flames roared and crackled, and overhead demons shouted in glee.

Even though Seiveril had expected it, he was momentarily appalled by the sheer ferocity of the attack. Some of those who had volunteered to play the role of sentries managed to send a few paltry arrows speeding up into the black ranks above. Others simply vanished in searing blasts of fire or were thrown like broken toys across the ground. But he set his horror and surprise aside for later, and barked out, “Now, Jorildyn! Now!”

From a hundred places scattered around the outskirts of the camp, elf sorcerers, wizards, war-mages, and clerics shouted out battle spells of their own, launching a ferocious barrage right back at the daemonfey. And alongside each mage or cleric, another elf armed with a wand, a staff, or even a scroll to read joined the effort. While only a few score elves in the Crusade were mages of any skill, many more had dabbled in the Art at least a bit-and even a raw apprentice could employ a wand. At Jorildyn’s instruction, all the battle-mages under his command had shared their arsenals with any elf who could help, tripling the Crusade’s magical power for at least a short time.

The night vanished in the brilliant blue glare of lightning bolts and the sullen red glow of fire-fountains burning through the daemonfey ranks. Scores of fey’ri burned and died in the skies over the empty camp, their blackened corpses tumbling to the ground or splashing into the lake.

“Well done, Jorildyn!” Vesilde cried. “Well done! Now it’s our turn.”

The Golden Star knight raised a horn to his lips and blew a single high note that echoed over the thunderclaps and roaring of the flames

… and in response, more than a thousand archers bent their bows and let fly at the staggered fey’ri. More of Sarya’s infernal warriors screamed and died in the silver storm of death rising up to rake them.

Fey’ri spellcasters threw a haphazard volley of slaying spells of their own back down at the elves below, while beating desperately for altitude. Many of Seiveril’s wizards and clerics had necessarily given away their hiding places by hurling their spells up at the flying foe, and more than a few did not long survive after dealing their surprise blow against Sarya’s legion. Half a dozen acid bolts and fireballs streaked down toward the clearing where Seiveril and his captains had gathered, but Seiveril had been waiting for that moment. In the space of an instant he raised a barrier of null magic, shielding his companions in a temporary cocoon in which magic, any magic, simply could not work. It shut off their own spellcasting, of course, but Seiveril decided it was easily worth the cost as spell after spell simply died a few feet before reaching him.

“Watch out for the demons and devils,” Vesilde warned. “They’ll simply attack with fang and claw if they realize you’ve taken away our spells as well as theirs.”

“That’s why I wanted your Knights of the Golden Star around me, Vesilde,” Seiveril answered.

He watched anxiously for a short time as the fey’ri dueled his spellcasters and archers, trading spell for spell and arrow for arrow-but it was not a fair exchange, not by a long measure. The elves on the ground were hidden among the trees and ruins of Semberholme, and they outnumbered their attackers by three or four to one. The daemonfey had hoped to surprise a sleeping camp with a lightning-swift raid. They hadn’t come to fight an army that was awake, alert, and ready for them.

Harsh voices cried among the ranks of the flying warriors, and the fey’ri turned away and sped back out into the night.

“It seems they’ve had enough,” Vesilde said. The sun elf grinned, and clapped Seiveril on the shoulder. “Our camp is something of a mess, but other than that, your ploy was brilliant, my friend. I do not think the fey’ri will be quick to try our strength here again.”

Seiveril breathed a deep sigh of relief, and allowed his null magic spell to end. “It’s one thing to repel an enemy you expect,” he said. “But we will not win this war by defending Semberholme. We will have to defeat the daemonfey on their chosen ground before this is all over, and I fear that will be a much more difficult task.”

8 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms

Araevin and his companions did not encounter any more of the pallid, hunched giants and didn’t see the pale sphere again as they descended from the ledge into the deeps below. Araevin’s legs felt stiff and numb, and no longer answered to him as well as he would have liked, but as exhausted as he felt, his friends seemed worse off. Every time he glanced back up over his shoulder at the comrades following him, grimaces of pain and concentration met his gaze.

How many days to climb back up to the top? he wondered. Faerzress or no, he’d be sorely tempted to try a teleport spell rather than face the daunting task of making their way back up the miles and miles of stairs on foot.

They marched on and passed another switchback. As they turned back, Araevin decided that there was no doubt about it-some faint luminescence danced in the darkness below. In a short time, the light had grown bright enough that they could descry a strange city of sorts below. Like the watchpost on the ledge far above, the city rested on a great shelf in the side of the abyss. Its towers and buildings were square and squat, many with a distinct inward slant so that they seemed like flat-topped pyramids. The gray light emanated from dozens of strange pillars, each capped by a round sphere of crystal in which a faintly luminescent liquid swirled sluggishly.