Richard Baker - Final Gate

Elkhazel smiled. “You will,” he said. Then he rose and turned to Starbrow. “She is your hope as well, my friend. Across the centuries you have found the love you once lost, and it gladdens my heart to see it.”

Starbrow stared at the visage of his friend, and struggled to speak. But the golden shade simply raised his hand in farewell and vanished in a single swift heartbeat. The four living elves were left standing in the glade before the Miritar crypt, and the night was still and warm again.

No one spoke for a long time. Jorildyn studied his three companions, his gruff expression lost in a strange and rare wonder. Finally he cleared his throat. “We should return to the Crusade, Seiveril. We don’t know how much time we have before the daemonfey attack again.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Seiveril admitted. He looked at his companions. “I think it would be best if we kept what passed here in this glade to ourselves for now. The shades of the dead are right about many things, but their words often have many meanings. Nothing is written yet.”

Climbing into his saddle, he turned his horse’s head back to the east and led the others away from the crypt of his fathers.

It proved surprisingly difficult to measure time or distance in the Barrens of Doom and Despair. The sky was a featureless mass of low, roiling clouds, and the blowing dust frequently obscured distant landmarks. Clearly, this was a place where one could easily become lost. Without the distant call of the third shard to guide him, Araevin doubted that he could have managed to keep his bearings.

They started off by descending the treacherous hillside from the old ruin, slipping and sliding in dust and scree. Then they struck off across the plain itself, trudging across the windswept waste. On several occasions the surging fires overhead burned their way free of the black clouds, scouring the ground below like dancing waterspouts made of flame, but fortunately none of the fire-strikes fell close to them.

After several miles, they started to climb again, following a dry watercourse that snaked up into the razorlike maze of ridges. Near the foot of the defile they paused to drink some water and make a small meal from their rations.

“I am surprised that we have encountered no infernal beings yet,” Nesterin said as they ate. “This plane seems virtually uninhabited.”

“Don’t invite trouble,” Maresa growled. “I’m in no hurry to meet more demons or devils.”

“It’s the nature of the plane, Nesterin,” Donnor said. “The domains of the evil powers in the Barrens are separated by vast stretches of wasteland. This place is not bounded like Sildeyuir. It goes on and on for countless thousands of miles. Not all of it can be full of evil creatures all the time.”

“I think you spoke too soon,” Jorin announced. The ranger stood a little behind the others, looking back the way they had come with a hand above his eyes. “Something is on our trail.”

Araevin and the others stood and hurried to Jorin’s side. The keen-eyed ranger was not mistaken; out in the open wastes a number of tiny, dark shapes that kicked up windblown arrowheads of dust were following them. Studying them for a long moment, Araevin decided that the creatures ran on all fours, but they were too far off to make out any more detail than that-though they were covering ground at a very good speed indeed.

“What are they?” Donnor asked. He gave up trying to see for himself, since his human eyes were the least keen of any in the small company.

“I can’t say yet,” Jorin answered. “Wolves of some kind? I count at least thirty, about a mile behind us.”

“If they keep on like that, they’ll be on us soon,” Nesterin added. The star elf looked over to Araevin. “We might be able to avoid them for a time by pressing ahead or scaling the slopes of these hills, but we cannot outrun them.”

“What about using magic?” Maresa asked.

Araevin studied the defile for a moment. “I know a spell to raise a wall of ice, but I can’t do it here,” he decided. “It’s not narrow enough. And I have doubts as to how long magical ice would last here, anyway.”

“I hesitate to suggest it, but could we teleport away?” Donnor asked.

“Have you forgotten about our little misadventure in Lorosfyr?” the genasi demanded.

The cleric winced. Araevin shook his head. “That was due to the peculiar conditions of the Underdark, Maresa,” he said. “But it would not be any safer here. In the first place, I haven’t really seen the place we are trying to reach, and second, I don’t know anything about how magic of that sort works in this plane. I think we’d be better off to continue up this watercourse and look for a place to make a stand.”

They quickly gathered their packs and set off again, scrambling up the boulder-strewn ravine at the best speed they could manage. In level spots they stretched out their legs into a loping run, and in more difficult places they bounded from boulder to boulder, arms wide for balance. By the time they’d gone a quarter-mile, they heard the first sounds of their pursuers-a deep, raspy baying that drifted up on the hot wind whistling up the defile.

Not long now, Araevin decided.

They could press on and delay the inevitable for a few more steps, or they could make the best of it where they were. He paused to study the lay of the land. To his right old rockslides from the jagged cliffs above had created a tangled jumble of boulders that seemed as good as anything.

“Over there!” he called. “Get on top of the boulders.”

He led the way as they scrambled up the defile’s side and scaled several of the larger stones. On the downhill side they stood a good ten or fifteen feet above the valley floor, but it would not be hard for the creatures chasing them to get up on the gravel slopes above the slide and come down on them. Still, it was the best they could do. Donnor Kerth drew his broadsword and set himself at the uphill side of the boulder-top, ready to defend the easiest path from the valley floor, while Nesterin and Jorin readied their bows and Maresa unslung her crossbow. Araevin drew a wand from his holster and turned to face the oncoming foes.

A couple of hundred yards down the winding watercourse, the first of their enemies appeared. The creatures were monstrous hounds of some kind, with coal-black hides and eyes that glowed with an evil red light. Smoke and embers fumed from their heavy muzzles.

“Hell hounds,” Donnor said grimly. “I think I will seek Lathander’s favor for this fight.” He started to chant a holy prayer.

The pack caught sight of the company standing atop the boulders and filled the canyon with their voracious cries. Without a moment’s hesitation they streaked forward, bounding over the gravel and stone like black thunderbolts.

Jorin’s bow sang its shrill note, followed an instant later by Nesterin’s and the deeper thrumming of Maresa’s crossbow. In the front of the pack, charging hell hounds folded up and rolled headlong in the dust, crippled by the arrows. For ten heartbeats the archers rained a furious shower of destruction against the fiendish creatures, killing or wounding a dozen of the monsters. Then Araevin judged the distance suitable for his wands, and began to alternate blasts of his disrupting wand with blistering lightning bolts from his wand. Hell hounds snarled with fury and roared in pain, hammered by the powerful concussive blasts or flayed alive by dancing lightning.

“They’re still coming!” Maresa called.

The pack swirled around the boulders, snapping fiercely. Searing gouts of fire scorched up at Araevin and his friends. Araevin recoiled, throwing his cloak over his face against the fiery breath of the monsters below-but the withering blasts seemed weaker than he could have expected. Instead of charring skin and setting cloaks aflame, the hell hounds’ breath left wisps of smoke rising from his clothes and angry red burns that were painful, but not serious.