R. Salvatore: The Witch_s Daughter

“Our fate is in the hands of the Calvans,” Arien remarked to Ryell, fighting by his side. “We have given them the opportunity to regroup and come back to the bridge, but if their charge is not swift enough, we will surely perish this day.”

“If the fates decree it,” Ryell said in stubborn determination. Arien looked at his friend with sincere admiration. Once Illuma’s most notorious human-hater, Ryell had indeed amended his ways.

Surveying the situation, King Benador knew despair. He and his troops could hold the two bridges, and the Calvan forces who had been pushed back had already begun their answering charge back toward the second bridge. But too many talons had crossed for the Calvans to fully contain them. Even as the King ordered a contingent away to the south and east, he saw several bands of talons converging on the tents of the wounded.

“We wanted our fight,” Jolsen remarked to Siana and Lennard. “Looks like we got it!” Almost on cue, a talon rushed through the flap at the burly lad. In his surprise, Jolsen never would have been able to block the attack, but Siana was not caught off her guard. A flip of her wrist put a dagger into the neck of the charging beast, and as it lurched over in pain, Lennard chopped it down.

“Teamwork!” Lennard cried.

But then a dozen more talons tore through the tent from every side, and the teamwork of the three, however complementary, however magnificent, hardly seemed adequate. Still, the young warriors could not complain, satisfied that they had more than avenged their dead kinfolk, had done more than their share in the efforts of this terrible but undeniably necessary war.

Most of their parents and kin had died in the fall of Corning and the subsequent retreat toward the river, they had learned, and they took faith now as the talons closed over them that those who had gone before them would be waiting to greet them on this, their last journey.

Farther to the north, beyond the bridges, the numbers seemed equally disturbing. Sylvia, the daughter of Arien Silverleaf, led a contingent of a hundred elven archers and twice that number of Calvan bowmen against the flotilla Mitchell’s charges had constructed. The men and elves peppered the talon armada as it made its slow but purposeful trudge across the river.

As each boat landed, it was met by a charging force of whirling swords and spears, but each contingent of man and elf forced down to the banks to fight in the hand-to-hand melee weakened the rain of arrows on the approaching boats. And more and more boats were on their way, some just being launched off the opposite bank, a continuing, seemingly endless line.

Sylvia was battle-seasoned enough to realize that though she and her forces could hold out for many minutes, they could not hope to win unless help came down from the army at the bridges-an army, the elven maiden lamented when she looked that way, that was even more pressed than her own forces.

But Sylvia and the hundred elves had faced greater odds than this; to a soldier, they had fought in the Battle of Mountaingate, and their undying optimism lent strength to the fearful Calvans.

“The talons may win through at this position,” Arien’s daughter noted grimly. “But their victory will come at heavy cost.” To accentuate her point, she let another arrow fly at an approaching boat. It whistled out over the water, true in its mark, and caught the craft’s commander right between the eyes.

“Watch, wizard!” the wraith taunted. “Watch as all of the world is destroyed.”

“Brave words, nonbeing,” Ardaz shot back. He thrust his staff out, and rays of light slammed into Mitchell’s dark form, burning holes where they struck.

Mitchell returned the effort, snapping his scepter above his head, showering Ardaz in black flakes.

Ardaz quickly pulled his light back to him, sensing the unearthly danger. He danced frantically, burning away as many of the flakes as he could with his staff. But many found their mark, and Mitchell struck again.

Ardaz stamped his staff to the ground, launching a blinding blue bolt that hurled the wraith to the ground.

But it was the wizard who was most dismayed, for when Ardaz had called upon that greater level of magical energy, he began to understand the depth of the breach that the Black Warlock had caused in the harmony.

“Thus ends an age,” the wizard lamented. He hated the thought of taxing that magical plane any further.

But Mitchell was already on his way back in, that wicked scepter raised high.

No more tender words escaped Bryan’s lips. Rhiannon fell limp in his arms, but he would not let her recline on the ground. “Stand against it!” he commanded, and he slapped the young witch across the face with enough force to raise a welt on her porcelain cheek.

Rhiannon tried to reach out and find a way to slow her descent, but the pit’s walls were too far away. She called out to her mother, ever her source of strength and protection.

Then she realized the true depth of the horror.

Her call brought her mind into the magical plane, where she saw the mental battle in all its fury. Brielle and Istaahl fought bravely and savagely, but so, too, did the twin specters of the Black Warlock. And while Rhiannon’s mother and the White Mage seemed weary, Thalasi and Reinheiser were only growing stronger, the Black Warlock feeding off the chaos he had created.

Rhiannon’s stay was short-lived, for soon she found herself back in the hopeless pit, falling away. A single word escaped her lips, a word that may have saved all of Aielle.

“Bryan.”

Spurred by her call, the half-elf doubled his efforts.

He pulled Rhiannon up straight, forced her to find her footing. “Beat it!” he yelled. “Do not surrender!” He had no idea of the true nature of the young witch’s dilemma, but he understood well enough that the only thing he could do was help her to hold her bearing.

“Rhiannon!”

The call came from a great distance, but Rhiannon heard it clearly. She focused on the sound, sent her thoughts spiraling back toward it.

“Rhiannon!”

Nearer now, but still beyond her grasp. The witch forgot the pain, dismissed the despair. All that mattered was that she find the source of that call.

“Rhiannon!”

The jolt as the young witch regained consciousness sent Bryan flying through the air. He landed heavily on his back. His first reaction was to return to Rhiannon, but then he recognized that she did not need him anymore.

A glow of power emanated from her form, which no longer seemed tiny and frail. Her light eyes glittered as pale sapphires in a bright sun, and her face twisted into a visage of powerful satisfaction.

Rhiannon felt all the power that the world had left to give rushing to her call, its purity burning sweet in her veins. She waited a moment, letting the forces gather until she thought she would burst apart. Then she swept her arms up into the air, releasing a mighty line of energy, radiant green, at that spot of the overcast that hid the sun. It roared into Thalasi’s cloud, sizzling and crackling.

Darkness rushed from every edge of the sky to gather against the bolt, but Rhiannon did not relent. Her mouth opened in a silent scream of stubborn rage, and she snapped her hands up higher, throwing every ounce of her strength into the battle.

Thunder rolled out, the rain crossing the path of the green bolt sizzled and steamed away, and as the black clouds rolled in, they were consumed. All the sky lightened, though the overcast remained unbroken.

But Thalasi’s efforts were elsewhere, locked in mortal combat against Brielle and Istaahl, and his gloom could not be reinforced. Rhiannon thought that this effort would surely kill her, but she did not worry about that now.