Troy Denning: The Siege

"Yes, well, we've no time to waste congratulating ourselves," Vangerdahast growled, casting a sidelong glance in Galaeron's direction. "Let's finish this."

He rubbed his signet ring, then looked into the sky and said, "Alusair, the time has come. Are you in position?"

The wizard was silent for a moment, then nodded and looked back to his assistant. "The attack is citywide. Leave them no place to hide. Demolish any building they enter, if you must."

"I'll pass the word." The assistant acknowledged the order with a bow, then turned to cast a spell.

A weary look came to Vangerdahast's eyes. He motioned Galaeron to follow and shuffled toward Aris and the orb of light. Seeing that the battle had already taken more out of the wizard than the old fellow cared to admit, Galaeron offered a hand in support… and was not rebuffed.

"You planned this?" he asked. "You picked one of your own cities as the battlefield?"

"We certainly didn't let them take us by surprise, if that's what you were thinking," Vangerdahast snapped. "Cormyr has fought a few wars… and won them all."

"If I underestimated you, I apologize," Galaeron said, "but ail that talk on the wall tower-"

"For the spies," Vangerdahast said. "The Shadovar do use spies, you know."

"I know," Galaeron said. "I thought you weren't listening to me." Vangerdahast fixed Galaeron with a rheumy eye. "Who says I was?"

Galaeron was too stunned to laugh. Though Tilverton's evacuation was under way, he had seen for himself that there had still been hundreds of women and children in the city earlier that evening-and the Cormyrean plan risked them all. How hard, he wondered, had been the lessons they learned in their last war against the dragon Nalavarauthatoryl? Had they truly grown so cold that they would knowingly sacrifice so many to win a quick victory-and save how many more? Perhaps that was what it required to defeat the Shadovar, and, more importantly, the phaerimm.

They reached the wagon, and the wizard stopped beside Aris's knee. "Stay close," Vangerdahast said. "I may have need of your talents."

Without waiting for a response, Vangerdahast cast a quick spell and lifted his hand heavenward. The golden orb shot high into the air, its glyphs growing motionless as they found their first targets. The battle din beyond the courtyard continued unabated for a moment, then slowly changed pitch as the symbol silhouettes began to take their toll. The wizard cocked his head as if listening to a distant voice, then moved his hand a few inches. The golden sphere floated a hundred yards across the sky. "Come along. We need a better vantage point."

Vangerdahast laid a hand on each of them, spoke a magic word, and pulled them through the dark square of a magic door. There was a timeless instant of falling, then Galaeron found himself standing in bright golden light, feeling very hot and dizzy, listening to the sounds of a battle far below.

"Don't worry about being seen," said a familiar voice. "I've cast a couple of spells that will keep us hidden." Galaeron recovered from his afterdaze enough to recall that he was somewhere in the middle of the battle for Tilverton.

Vangerdahast was shaking him by the arm and pointing down at the ground. "What's that he's doing?"

Galaeron looked down-a long way down-and grew so dizzy that it took him a moment to find what the wizard was pointing at. It was a dark figure more than a hundred paces from the tower where they stood looking out over the raging battle. Barely visible beneath the canvas awning of a patio tavern, the figure was waving his outstretched arms in small circles, apparently summoning the black fog that was rising out of the cracks of the flagstones at his feet and spilling out into Old Town-much to the confusion and distress of the companies of Alliance warriors rushing about the streets flushing Shadovar from their hiding places.

"It's hard to tell without seeing how he cast the spell," Galaeron said, "but he seems to be summoning shadow-stuff."

Vangerdahast raised his brow. "Shadowstuff? Would that be raw-"

"Don't tell me!" Galaeron had a sinking feeling. "The glyphs-"

"Not the glyphs, or their silhouettes," Vangerdahast said, "but the sphere itself is raw magic." "And the light?" Galaeron asked.

Vangerdahast shrugged. "Not in itself, but born of raw magic."

"Close enough," Aris said. He was kneeling on the other side of Vangerdahast, his elbows resting on the tower's stone crenellations to take some of his weight off the roof. "There is a disruption already."

He pointed into a street around the corner from the Shadovar, where the black fog was rolling out of the shadow of the building into the orb-lit street-and swirling about the shins of a company of Sembian mercenaries who had been attempting to sneak up on the object of their attention. Though the general battle din was too loud to hear their screams, their writhing arms and contorted postures left no doubt about their pain.

As Galaeron and the others watched, the warriors plunged to mid-thigh in the fog, then fell prone and vanished entirely. A moment later, the light of Vangerdahast’s orb turned the shadowstuff itself to ash. It sank to the ground, covering the street in an inky stain of darkness devoid of shape or texture-or even any apparent substance.

Vangerdahast pointed at the fog and cast what Galaeron recognized as a spell of magic dismissal. The shadowstuff continued to roll out of the Shadovar's hiding place, floating across the dark stain to brush against the orb-lit foundation of the mansion across the street. The stone disintegrated as had the legs of the Sembian mercenaries, and the building itself collapsed into the inky murk that had been, until a few moments earlier, a cobblestone street. It vanished without raising so much as a dust plume.

Another building on the other side of the Shadovar spellcaster collapsed, then a company of Purple Dragons came charging into view with a tide of the shadowstuff rolling down the street behind them. It appeared they would be fast enough to reach safety-until the rear rank threw up their arms and fell, bringing down those in front of them, and so on until the entire company was gone.

Trees and buildings began to vanish in a widening circle as the shadowstuff spread, first creating lacy paths of nothingness where the black fog worked its way into orb-lit areas, then gradually developing into a solid disk of murk as adjacent areas were exposed to the golden light. The battle at the edge of the circle grew wildly intense as Shadovar and Alliance warriors fought for control of the escape lanes, filling the dusk sky with flashing lightning bolts and hissing rays of darkness. Only the patio where the fog-summoner himself stood remained untouched, revealing a huge figure in a horned helm still waving his outstretched arms, calling more shadowstuff up into the streets.

Galaeron clasped Vangerdahast's arm. "You're destroying the city.'" he said. "Annul your spell, or at least move it out over the plain."

"And let the Shadovar destroy our armies?" Vangerdahast scoffed. "Better to lose a city than a kingdom."

Galaeron stared out over the collapsing city and thought of all the dying warriors, of all the innocents who would perish if the shadow fog continued to spread. Vangerdahast had tried to dispel it and failed.

But Vangerdahast could not use the Shadow Weave, and Galaeron could. What kind of person would turn his back on the deaths of so many-even if it meant the return of his shadow self? Galaeron had recovered from it once, and with Aris and Vangerdahast, and the entire kingdom of Cormyr to stand with him this time, he could certainly do so again. Even if he could not, what was he sacrificing, really? Only his life, and hundreds had done that already.

Galaeron took a deep breath, then raised his hands and started to open himself to the Shadow Weave-and found Aris's big hand reaching over Vangerdahast to pluck him off the rooftop. "Galaeron, you are forgetting your promise."