Richard Baker - Final Gate

“Of course,” Maresa muttered. “Maybe Bane himself is keeping it in his vest pocket. Why not?”

Donnor grimaced. “Are you sure?”

“There was a dry plain of sharp stones… clouds of fire in the sky

… a dark and strong fortress. It was an awful place.” Araevin passed a hand over his eyes. “I know what I saw, Donnor.”

The company fell silent. Maresa shook her head and stood, keeping her thoughts to herself for once. Donnor’s armor creaked as he eased back against the wall, his stubbled jaw clenched in thought. Nesterin and Jorin watched Araevin and waited.

“So… what do you intend now?” Nesterin finally asked. “Will you try for the third shard?”

“I have to. I have no choice.”

“Myth Drannor is that dangerous in Sarya Dlardrageth’s hands?” Donnor asked.

“It’s not Myth Drannor-though that is certainly perilous in its own right. The true danger is the Waymeet, the Last Mythal. Ilsevele’s father could set a cordon around Myth Drannor and imprison the daemonfey within its bounds forever if he had to, but I can’t allow Malkizid to master the Waymeet. The consequences would be awful.”

“So we need to venture into the Hells to get this last shard.” The Tethyrian looked up at Araevin and nodded. “Very well. It can’t be that much worse than Lorosfyr.”

Araevin dropped his hands to his lap, and began to wrap the two joined shards in a cloth for storage in his pack. “I said it before we came to Lorosfyr, and I will say it again: None of you have to come with me. It is not your task.”

Maresa shot Araevin a hard look and snorted. “I’m not done with Sarya Dlardrageth. I’m not about to give up now.”

“The lower planes are vast and deadly. Can you find your way to the shard?” Nesterin asked.

Araevin looked at his friends. Cold, battered, and exhausted even after their comfortless rest in the cave at the edge of Lorosfyr’s deadly dark, they still chose to go on. His heart could break at their quiet courage.

“I can find the shard,” he finally said. “But I think we will have to return to the Waymeet to reach it.”

Soft and still, morning found the armies of Evermeet, the free Dales, and Sembia arrayed for battle at the edge of the Vale of Lost Voices. Rather than pressing forward to meet the daemonfey after a long march, the elves and Sembians had decided to rest for the night and join battle on the following day. The time was at hand. Banners hung limp in the cool air, and spears and helms gleamed in the gray mist. Fflar heard little other than the faint rustle of armored men shifting their footing or the occasional cough in the ranks. Heavy, brooding clouds overhead promised rain before long.

“The daemonfey are still here,” Ilsevele murmured. She sat on her roan mare Swiftwind, dressed in her full battle armor. She and Fflar waited together beneath the twin banners of Seiveril Miritar and Miklos Selkirk. The two leaders intended to begin the day standing together. “After last night, I expected them to retire.”

“I didn’t,” Fflar murmured back.

The daemonfey had harried both the Crusade and the Sembians throughout the night. Demons stealing through the darkness with blood dripping from their fangs, spells of stabbing fire or corrupting blight hurled from the dark skies above, sudden deadly rushes to hack down those standing guard… Fflar had seen horrors such as that before, in the last days of the Weeping War.

It would have been worse without the Tree of Souls. Carefully set in the earth at the center of the elven camp, the tree’s aura made at least a few hundred yards of the Vale relatively safe from demonic attack. The only problem was that the sapling had no great influence unless it was rooted in the earth, which meant that it had to be concealed and guarded quite carefully. It was also dangerously vulnerable while the army was on the move. Fflar was frankly glad that Thilesin was charged with caring for the tree. The responsibility was more than he would have cared for.

“Why here?” Ilsevele said. “The daemonfey have the smaller force. Why not stand in Myth Drannor itself if they’re going to stand on the defensive?”

Fflar studied the lay of the battleground. “Sarya sees some advantage here that she won’t enjoy if she waits for us to get any closer,” he answered. “This open land certainly favors her flying warriors and winged demons. We won’t be able to hide under the trees here.”

Ilsevele reached out with one hand and found his, squeezing it in her archer’s grip. “I fear this will be a terrible day, even if victory is ours.”

Fflar could not disagree. He followed Ilsevele’s gaze across the gray downs. The fey’ri legion stood in disciplined ranks, a little less than a mile from the elf and human armies. They would have been outnumbered almost ten to one by the allied army… but the restless horde of fiendish monsters tripled their strength. Tall, skeletal bone devils brandished their barbed hooks, insectile mezzoloths clacked their mandibles and jabbed their iron tridents in the air, and vulturelike vrocks crouched and slavered beneath their cowls of shabby gray feathers. Sarya’s forces were outnumbered still, but each demon, devil, or yugoloth in her army was an engine of supernatural destruction that could slay dozens of mortal warriors with impunity. The question was whether the elves and Sembians had sufficient spellcasters and champions among their ranks to deal with the hellspawned monsters before they shredded the two armies. And Fflar simply did not know the answer to that question.

“Well, what do we do now, Miritar?” Miklos Selkirk said. He and Seiveril sat on their horses nearby, studying the battlefield ahead and making their plans. “Do we stand here and receive their attack, or do we strike first?”

“Sarya’s army stands between us and Myth Drannor. I am afraid that places the burden of action on us,” Seiveril answered him. “I certainly don’t want to have to encamp again and fend off her demons through another night.”

“Tempus knows that’s true enough,” Selkirk agreed. The Sembian prince had dispensed with his waistcoat and rapier, donning a suit of ebon half-plate covered in elegant gold filigree. A long-handled battle-axe hung at the pommel of his big black charger.

The elflord looked over to Fflar. “Starbrow, what do you think?”

Fflar studied the sky, absently wondering if rain would help or hinder the allied armies in the fight to come while he considered his answer. “I think that Sarya picked this place because she wants to beat us in a battle of maneuver, not overwhelm us with a headlong assault. She will wait for us to make our move, so we might as well get to it.”

“As we planned, then.” Selkirk drew a deep breath, and leaned over to grip Seiveril’s arm. “May Tempus, Lord of War, favor us.”

“Aillesel Seldarie,” Seiveril said in reply. Then he turned in the saddle of his own mount, and called out, “Signal the general advance!”

Horns cried out in the still air, the high ringing tones of elven trumpets mixed with the deeper, flatter notes of the humans’ horns. Drummers in the Sembian ranks started up with a stirring count, and the armies moved out together. Instead of maneuvering separately, elf and human warriors marched alongside each other. Between companies of Sembian soldiers or mercenaries trotted files of Dalesfolk longbowmen and elf archers. Across the field, wherever human swordsmen or knights went, elf archers and mages followed. Fflar smiled in grim satisfaction as he watched the two armies combine into a single mixed force. It was disorderly and imprecise, and it took time to execute, but instead of having both armies trying to join each other, the Sembians simply marched ahead in well-spaced ranks while the elves-faster, more disciplined, and quicker to react-did the work of finding their places between the human ranks. The fey’ri would find no enemies unprotected by powerful elf or Dalesfolk bows.