Troy Denning: The Siege

"Not forgetting," Galaeron said, "but I can't let thousands die while I do nothing."

"So your shadow would have you believe," the giant replied, "but you know better than to think you can dispel the magic of someone like Prince Rivalen." "That's Rivalen?" Vangerdahast gasped.

Aris nodded. "I would recognize that face anywhere. Can you not see his golden eyes?"

Galaeron was undeterred. "I have to try," he said. "If there's any chance I can save Tilverton-"

"There is not, and you know it," Aris said, "but the choice must be yours, or your shadow has already won."

He placed Galaeron on the roof beside Vangerdahast. Galaeron watched another mansion tumble into nothingness, then the golden blaze of a dozen Shadovar warriors burning into ash beneath the light of the war wizards' artificial sun.

Vangerdahast glanced into the street below. "Fog's coming this way," he observed. "Our tower will go soon."

Galaeron started to lower his arms, then felt such a pang of guilt that he realized he would not be able to live with himself if he just let all those innocent people die. "I have to try-"

"No you don't." It was Vangerdahast who knocked Galaeron's arms down this time. "You're no match for Rivalen, and we both know it." "But-"

"There are other ways," Vangerdahast said. There was an emotion unaccustomed to the wizard's face in his expression, something sad and contrite, almost kind. "If you're going to throw your life away, at least do it wisely."

He placed Galaeron's hand on his sword, then motioned him to wait and looked into the sky. "Caladnei, I need you. We're on the Tower of Wond-"

Vangerdahast had barely finished before the air hissed with her arrival.

"My dear, what took you so long?" Vangerdahast mocked. As the wizardess struggled to recover from her afterdaze, he guided her hand to Aris's knee. "Take the giant and go to Alusair. If that shadow fog does not stop expanding in the next few minutes, you are to sound the retreat, then teleport to safety with the princess and as many others as you can take." Caladnei's eyes remained vacant. "Fog? Retreat-?"

"I understand," Aris said. He clapped a big hand over Galaeron's shoulder. "Till swords part, my friend. Good luck." "Good luck?" Galaeron asked. "What am I doing?"

"We'll decide that later," Vangerdahast said, taking his arm. "Just have your sword ready and start cutting when we get there."

The wizard spoke a mystic word, and Galaeron felt again the timeless falling of translocational magic. He was growing almost accustomed to the feeling, but that did not make the afterdaze any less disorienting when his stomach finally settled back into its proper place. The ground beneath his feet felt unsteady and yielding, almost as though he were standing on a soft human bed instead of anything like a street or floor. Cut!

Vangerdahast's voice came to Galaeron inside his head. He felt the ground bouncing under him as the old wizard hobbled away. He recalled, dimly, that they were in some sort of battle and that his last instruction before the teleport had been to start cutting, so he jammed his sword into the softness beneath his boots and began to A loud ripping noise sounded between his feet and he found his stomach turning somersaults again, this time more normally as he plunged through a canvas awning. Something sharp punctured the chain mail on his leg and sank deep into his thigh, sending a bolt of fiery agony shooting up through his body. He hung for a moment high up beneath the awning, until whatever he had landed on toppled over and dropped, crashing, onto a wooden table.

A raspy voice screamed in agony. The sharp point pulled free of Galaeron's thigh. He fell off the table onto a hard stone floor, then rolled to his knees and found himself peering over the table at the figure of a hulking Shadovar holding a horned helm in his hands.

"Elf!" Rivalen said, tossing the helm aside. "I thought we would need to look for you in Suzail by now." — "Here I am." Galaeron rose from behind the table and, glancing at the broad swath of orb-light that separated them, tried to appear confident. "All you need do is come get me."

Rivalen peered up at the rip in the canopy. "Yes, I'm certain you would like that." He smiled, then glanced over Galaeron's shoulders. "I think I will have my guards do it. Seize him!"

Heart sinking at the sudden clamor that erupted from the patio edge behind him, Galaeron vaulted the table into the swath of orb light, landing so that he had the prince on one flank and the approaching bodyguards on the other. Of course there were guards. There were always guards.

Wondering what was taking Vangerdahast so long, Galaeron glanced up at the ripped awning. He had a chance of leaping high enough to grab hold and climb to safety-but, with one wounded leg, not much of one.

"Don't let him get away!" Rivalen ordered, starting forward from his side-apparently unaware that Galaeron had come with company. At least that much of Vangerdahast’s plan was working. "Take him now!"

The guards, already rushing across the patio, began to vault tables and kick chairs aside. Galaeron leaped as high as he could and slashed at the torn edge of the awning.

The canvas, already weakened by his first cut, split down its length. More Shadovar than Galaeron could count in a glance howled in anguish as the orb light poured through and fixed them with the silhouette of a death glyph. Those closest to the tavern walls turned and dived for shade, their bodies bursting into sprays of golden flame as they tumbled through the windows. The rest perished where they stood, setting the wooden chairs and wooden tables alight as they died.

Galaeron pivoted into the sunlight and brought his sword around into a guarding position. Where the devil was Vangerdahast? Rivalen stopped a safe distance back beneath the remaining half of the awning, his golden eyes burning almost white with rage.

"Enough, traitor. You will drop your sword and come to me." He pointed his finger at the far edge of the patio behind Galaeron and spoke a word of command, then continued, "Or you will perish with your friends."

Galaeron glanced over his shoulder and saw a plume of shadowstuff rising from a corner of the patio still shaded by a dangling flap of torn awning. It was slowly spreading across the flagstones toward him, bringing its tide of oblivion steadily closer. He looked back to the prince.

"You wouldn't dare," Galaeron said, trying to sound confident. "The Most High-"

He was interrupted by the sudden eruption of Rivalen's chest. Galaeron danced quickly aside as the dregs of the purple death ray shot past, then looked back to see the prince's body crashing to the floor and Vangerdahast standing behind him with ten smoking fingertips. Galaeron stepped into the safety of the awning shadows. "Took you long enough," he said.

"I'm old," Vangerdahast replied, and he sounded it. His gaze remained fixed on the far corner of the patio, where wisps of shadowstuff continued to pour from whatever fissure Rivalen had opened into the shadow plane. "I thought that would stop when he died."

Galaeron frowned, then looked down to discover that all that remained of Rivalen was a long black spine and an ebony heart beating in a broken cage of black ribs. To his horror, it was rolling onto its back and rising in Vangerdahast's direction. "Vangerdahast, watch your-"

The prince's remains-if that was what they were- hurled themselves at the wizard. A deep gash appeared across Vangerdahast's collarbone, and blood began to spurt from the wound in great red arcs. Vangerdahast cried out in pain and stumbled back, one hand crackling with fire and the other with lightning. Galaeron leaped to the attack, slamming his sword into the ebony spine with enough force to fell a fair-sized sapling.

The bone did not even chip, though the ribs did pivot slightly as an unseen heel slammed into his stomach. He doubled over and flew backward, his sword flying away as the air left his lungs. He crashed down just beyond the awning's shadow, less than an arm's length from oblivion's advancing edge. Behind him, the far wall of the patio crashed down and vanished into darkness.