Richard Baker - Farthest Reach

Araevin soon came to realize that travel within the realm of Sildeyuir would be more than a little deceptive. The opalescent twilight that pervaded the woodland offered no hint as to how long they had traveled-it might have been an hour, or it might have been four. Gradually he noticed that the day, such as it was, had darkened somewhat, so that the purple velvet of the sky overhead had deepened into pure inky darkness, and in time a soft rain began to fall, so fine and thin that he did not even bother to draw up his hood.

After a long spell of marching, they came to a moss-grown bridge of stone that spanned a gloom-filled ravine through which swift white water rushed forty feet below.

“That’s a good sign,” Ilsevele remarked. “Someone built this bridge. I was beginning to wonder if this whole place was empty.”

“We’ve been walking for quite a while,” Araevin said, “and we began our day with a march in the Yuirwood. Maybe we should find a place to rest, and make camp for the night.”

“The night?” Maresa asked.

“Such as it is,” Araevin said. “We’ll halt a few hours, long enough for you and the others to get a good sleep. Ilsevele and I can keep watch. We need less rest than you.”

“I won’t say no,” the genasi said.

They walked a short distance past the bridge before they found a good clearing away from the path. Jorin built a small fire in order to prepare a hot meal from their stores, and Donnor unloaded his packhorse and brushed it down while Araevin took a few minutes to weave some magical wards around their campsite-spells of concealment and protection. So far they had seen nothing dangerous in Sildeyuir’s forests, but he remembered Jorin’s warning and decided to take no chances.

While Donnor, Maresa, and Jorin slept the deep and helpless sleep that Araevin had always both envied and pitied in his non-elf friends, the two sun elves sat and talked softly in Elvish or simply waited together in the comfort of each other’s company, leaning back-to-back against a young tree so that they could watch all around the small camp. After a long silence in which Araevin had actually started to slip into Reverie, Ilsevele reached back to set her hand on his.

“I am glad I came here, Araevin,” she said. “Regardless of what comes next, I do not regret the circumstances that brought me to Sildeyuir, even for a day.”

“Nor do I,” he agreed. He started to say more, but then Ilsevele squeezed his hand twice, hard and quick. Araevin froze, peering into the shadows under the trees.

“On your left, sixty yards,” Ilsevele whispered. “It will be almost behind you. Move slowly.”

“What is it?” he whispered back, slowly turning his head and letting his eyes slide farther and farther over his left shoulder.

“I don’t know.”

Carefully, Araevin allowed himself to lean just a little, getting a better look behind him-then he saw what Ilsevele had spotted. It was wormlike in shape, with a dark, glistening hide of blue-black skin, but smaller tendrils or limbs branched from its body. It slithered through the forest, passing along the path they had been following, moving with a rolling corkscrew gait that brought different limbs to the ground at different times. Three golden orbs projected from its blunt, bulbous head, if it was a head. Behind the monster came a pair of hulking, snakelike monstrosities, pale worms whose beaked maws were surrounded by four strong, barbed tentacles. Araevin couldn’t say what gave him the impression, given the startling alieness of all three creatures, but something in the motions of the corkscrew monster suggested purpose and intelligence.

“What do we do?” Ilsevele asked.

“Let’s see if it will pass by. I’ll watch, and you be ready to rouse the others.”

The creatures’ progress had brought them from Ilsevele’s side over to Araevin’s, and he had a good view of all three. Carefully he eased his lightning wand into his hand, and reviewed the spells held in his mind just in case.

The sinister creatures continued on their way, the forest silent around them, but then the dark corkscrew creature halted, right at the spot where Araevin and his comrades had left the path to set up their camp off the trail. It seemed to feel around, groping like a caterpillar seeking the next place to set its feet, and it gave voice to a strange, shrill whistling sound. It began to sway and weave its limbs in a strange, coiling motion.

Araevin peered closer, trying to discern what it was up to-and he saw the magic at work.

Corellon preserve us, he thought in horror, it’s casting a spell! The thing is a sorcerer of some kind.

“What is it, Araevin? What’s going on?” Ilsevele hissed.

“Ready your bow,” he said. “When I give the word, you must shoot the dark one.”

He couldn’t see it, but he felt her nod of assent. She moved softly behind him, drawing an arrow and laying it across her bowstring.

Has it found my spell wards? he wondered.

He watched for ten terrible heartbeats as the monster sniffed at and studied the concealing spells he’d woven around the camp, and for one moment he felt certain that the thing had detected his illusions-but then it whistled again, and curled itself away, resuming its serpentine progress along the forest path. The large pale tentacled things snuffled and followed, undulating after the first one. In a few moments, they disappeared from view, and Araevin breathed a sigh of relief.

“You can relax,” he said to Ilsevele. “They’re gone now.”

“What were those things?” Ilsevele sighed and leaned around the tree to meet his eyes.

“I have no idea,” Araevin said. “Whatever they were, they were intelligent, and one at least could wield magic.” He stared off into the gloom after the monsters, still trying to make sense of the whole scene. “Let’s give the others another hour of sleep if we can then get moving. I don’t like the idea of waiting here for those creatures to return.”

Three days of swift marching put Mistledale and Galath’s Roost nearly eighty miles behind the Army of Evermeet, as Seiveril and Starbrow led their host westward toward Shadowdale. Seiveril rode at the head of his troops, his spirits lifting as they left the Sembians and Hillsfarians behind. Regardless of what might come, the days of indecision had passed, and the shadow of disaster in his divinations had retreated for a time. His course was not without risk-he weighed that much every day with his auguries and prayers-but events were once again in motion, and Seiveril was content with that for the time.

Despite the fact that he knew better than to divide his forces in the face of more numerous enemies, Seiveril had decided to leave a strong force behind him in Mistledale. Six full companies of infantry remained near Ashabenford, under the command of Vesilde Gaerth and a small contingent of the Knights of the Golden Star-two companies from Seiveril’s own Silver Guard, one from Evereska, and three companies of the volunteers who had mustered at Elion and had been forged into real fighting units by the furious battles at Evereska and the Lonely Moor. Seiveril did not expect Vesilde to repel the Sembians or Hillsfarians if they moved on Mistledale in strength, but he hoped that the elven infantry would deter the Sembians from attempting to follow his main body to the west, and perhaps convince them that Mistledale would not be yielded without a fight. If matters came down to it, Vesilde was to retreat southwest down the Dale, covering the Dalesfolk as best he could and giving up land rather than meeting a stronger enemy in battle-but Seiveril hoped that the Sembians and Hillsfarians would be slow to attack a resisting Dale outright.

The army’s track followed a human-cut footpath along the river’s north bank that linked Ashabenford and Shadowdale-town. In other times it might have been a picturesque journey, with the broad, shallow ribbon of the river close to Seiveril’s left hand, its waters often swift and boulder-studded, so that the river’s voice filled the forest nearby. But Seiveril urged his captains to march long and quickly each day, exhorting his host for more speed. The warriors who followed him responded with swiftness that no human army could hope to match, often trotting for hours at a time to make better speed. Seiveril was not sure if he could reach the northern borders of the dale before the Zhentilar, but forty miles lay between Shadowdale’s northern border and the Twisted Tower. He was certain that he’d have his army waiting in the village of Shadowdale for the invaders if he failed to meet the Zhents before they entered the dale.