Richard Baker - Final Gate

Araevin found his feet again as the Crusade swept past him, storming Myth Drannor. He took a deep breath, feeling his strength beginning to come back to him.

“Now we need to find a portal,” he said to his friends. “We have to deal with the Waymeet.”

Fflar ran into Myth Drannor, Keryvian aflame in his hand. In one small part of his mind he wondered at the irony that had brought him to this moment. Other than skulking about the outskirts of the city with Araevin and Ilsevele a little more than a month ago, the last time he had set foot within the familiar streets had been almost seven hundred years ago. Then he had been fighting to defend it against a horde of savage humanoids. But now he led an attack to retake the city from the demonspawned villains who had made it their stronghold.

The Crusade swept into the city ruins, rushing past the empty stone skeletons of elven palaces and towers. Seiveril led the warriors of Evermeet deeper into the city, striking for the old towers of Castle Cormanthor.

“To victory!” the elflord cried, and he dashed across the rubble-strewn courts.

“What does he think he’s doing?” Fflar muttered to himself, and he ran after Seiveril.

A company of fey’ri appeared before them, snarling defiance. The daemonfey warriors unleashed a barrage of deadly spells and fuming fire, hurling every sorcery at their command against the elves. Sinister voices snarled out the words of dark spells, fire roared and hissed in lethal waves across the street, and the very cobblestones charred and splintered with earsplitting reports.

It seems Araevin didn’t unbind all of Sarya’s demons, Fflar observed grimly. Some at least she must have summoned without the mythal’s aid.

He threw himself flat on the hard ground, ducking under a sizzling bolt of green acid that tore through the ranks around him. When he scrambled back to his feet, he found a vrock demon stooping on him, croaking in its harsh voice. Fflar blocked its filthy talons with a quick parry, passed its claws above his head as he spun beneath the monster, and finished by opening it from groin to breastbone with a leaping slash. The creature collapsed in a spray of foul black blood and gray feathers.

“Seiveril!” he called. “Where are you?”

He turned, looking for a new opponent. Elf knights, archers, and mages battled daemonfey swordsmen and sorcerers in a furious melee that stretched across the square… but the army of Evermeet was gaining the upper hand, and quickly. He spied Seiveril dueling a tall fey’ri general with curling black horns, plying mace and spell against the daemonfey’s skilled swordplay. The swordsman fought with cold fury, stabbing again and again at the elflord, but Seiveril parried each stroke with his mace until he found a chance to step back and speak a spell. A blinding white flash seared the battlefield, leaving the swordsman reeling-and Seiveril stepped forward and broke his neck with one swift swing of his silver mace.

“Well struck,” Fflar cried. He hurried to Seiveril’s side. “Now stop fighting and start leading! You are in command here!”

Seiveril flashed an easy smile at Fflar. “I think we have them!” he shouted back. “On to Castle Cormanthor! That is where Sarya will be hiding!”

Fflar took his bearings with a quick glance and pointed toward the right. “Down that avenue, then. It’s only a couple of hundred yards away.”

“Warriors of Evermeet, follow me!” Seiveril shouted.

He shifted his grip on his mace and led the Knights of the Golden Star and his guards along the street. All around them, elves skirmished with fey’ri and monsters. Storms of arrows brought down anything that tried to take to the skies, and spells flashed and thundered on every side. They came to the broad plaza in front of the castle, where more of the fey’ri waited, and another furious skirmish erupted.

Fflar found himself beset by a fey’ri bladesinger who leaped down into the fray from the battlements overhead. Keryvian gleamed like white fire in the morning light, leaping to deflect the spells and sword-thrusts the bladesinger threw at him. She was quick and graceful, her ruby face set in a small smile of concentration as she flowed through the bladesinger’s trance. Fflar finally managed a two-handed stroke in response. His opponent threw up her own blade to block the strike-but he was stronger than she was, and he beat through her guard and broke her sword against her upper arm, gashing her deeply. She drew in a sharp hiss of pain and staggered back, only to be lost as the battle swept her away.

The roar of angry voices and shrill ringing of steel on steel filled the air. He took a moment to smother the smoking acid-drops still clinging to his armor with his leather gauntlet, and looked around to find Seiveril.

The elflord fought on the steps of the castle’s front gate. He raised his hand above his head and loosed a towering ring of holy white fire against the demons and fey’ri nearby, scattering half a dozen foes like ninepins. Then a hulking daemonfey, the four-armed monster Xhalph, appeared behind Seiveril in a burst of fuming yellow smoke.

“Seiveril! Behind you!” Fflar shouted.

Seiveril started to turn-but a hezrou demon a short distance in front of him caught his eye, and he began a spell of dismissal against it. Xhalph took one step forward and plunged three of his swords into Seiveril’s back, grinning with bloodlust. Seiveril let out a cry and fell to his knees. The daemonfey prince wrenched his swords out of Seiveril’s back with a great spray of bright red blood, and flung the broken elflord headlong down the steps of the castle.

“Seiveril! ” Fflar cried. With no thought for the enemies around him, he hurled himself toward the castle.

Xhalph leaped down beside Seiveril with an easy bound. He raised his swords to butcher the elflord, but Fflar roared out a wordless challenge. Keryvian flashed in white wrath, sensing the blinding fury in his heart.

Xhalph looked up and grinned, his mouth full of small fangs. “You wish to be next, hero?” he hissed. “I have not forgotten our duel of a month ago. We have unfinished business, you and I.”

“You will not live out the day, murderer!” Fflar cried.

Xhalph readied his swords, preparing to receive Fflar’s attack. Then a blazing white arrow streaked into the daemonfey’s breastplate, taking him high on his left chest. The blow spun him half-around, but his armor took the worst of the impact. Xhalph roared once and reached up to snap off the shaft. Another arrow hissed toward him, and he threw up one of his swords in its path and batted it aside.

Fflar glanced to his side. Ilsevele knelt by her father, drawing her bow again.

“Xhalph, come!” Sarya Dlardrageth appeared in the empty doorway of the castle, dressed in her armor of black and gold. Ilsevele shifted her aim and loosed an arrow at her, but the daemonfey queen deflected it with a word and a gesture.

“Another time,” Xhalph growled. The wounded daemonfey spared one fang-filled snarl for Fflar, and leaped back up the stairs and disappeared into the castle proper.

Fflar started after them, but Ilsevele’s voice stopped him. “Starbrow!” she wailed. She cradled Seiveril in her arms, his blood streaming down the marble steps.

With one more glance after the fleeing daemonfey, Fflar turned back to Seiveril and hurried to his side. He stumbled to his knees beside the elflord. “Seiveril,” he murmured.

Seiveril’s face was pale, and blood flecked his lips. He breathed in shallow gasps. “Starbrow… my friend… I had hoped to walk with you in Cormanthor… when all this was at an end.”

“You will, Father. You will,” Ilsevele promised through her tears. “We will summon a healer. Stay with us just a little longer!”