R. Salvatore: The Witch_s Daughter

“So be it,” she muttered, throwing another pulse heavenward. Relentlessly, the green bolt burned away. The young witch, seeing into the very center of her energy bolt, squinted her eyes at the greater brightness as she cut through to the blue above the cloud.

Now the green beam widened the gap in the clouds, and Rhiannon called upon the sun to help her cause. A single ray came through, not angled back toward Rhiannon but shining through to the north, burning into the globe of darkness that surrounded the Black Warlock.

Brielle and Istaahl felt the weakening of their respective foes immediately, but before they could press further in and hold the twin spirits down, the Black Warlock’s manifestations blended together into one and vanished from the scene of the mental battle.

Brielle took a moment to contemplate the change in events, then announced to Istaahl, “ ’Tis me daughter!”

“We must go to her!” the White Mage replied, but then another call came to them, a call they could not ignore.

“All the world!” Ardaz cried.

“Me daughter!” gasped Brielle.

Ardaz could see the battle in the west clearly. The Black Warlock had regained his footing and responded to the sun ray with a bolt of midnight blackness. He had pushed the ray halfway back to the clouds, and the vile line of his blackness was still rising.

But the events at the river were even more desperate. Too many talons had come across, Arien and his troops would soon falter, and the defense along the northern banks was about to disintegrate altogether to the endless armada.

Brielle understood. Her every instinct told her to go to her daughter’s aid, but Rhiannon would simply have to hold on for a while longer.

“It will never be the same,” Istaahl lamented.

“But no choice is to us, then,” said Brielle. “Call to yer sea, me friend. Pull with all yer strength.” Then the witch went to her own work. She fell back into the magical plane, reached out with wide arms to gather all the power she could find.

And then she grabbed at the river.

Istaahl sent his summons out over the waves, calling to the ocean from the ruins of the White Tower. From far out, but rising swiftly and rushing in toward the mouth of the great river, came a wall of water.

Brielle pulled against the flow, drove the water back with an invisible wall of energy. In seconds the great river under the Four Bridges was an empty bank of mud. The talons in their boats, now sitting on soft ground, thought this a gift of their godlike master to speed their crossing. Whooping and shouting, they leaped from their craft and plodded out through the thick mud.

“See our power!” Mitchell hissed at Ardaz. “We rule even the river itself!”

But Ardaz recognized the truth of the event. He sent a magically enhanced shout ringing into the ears of all his comrades. “Get back from the river!”

At the end of the bridge, Billy and Bellerian finally got Belexus to his feet. Though wounded by the burning chill of Mitchell’s scepter, the ranger would not retreat. Billy pushed him, trying to get him back from the river as Ardaz had instructed. But Bellerian understood the fire that drove his son.

“Leave him to his duty,” the Ranger Lord instructed.

“Are ye coming with me?” Belexus asked. He knew the answer when he took a moment to consider his father, bent again under the pain of that old wound.

“No, me son,” Bellerian said with a smile. “Me fightin’s at its end.”

Belexus kissed him on the forehead, then helped his father onto the winged horse’s back as Billy turned Calamus toward the safety of the land.

Then Belexus strode out on the bridge to stand beside the brave wizard.

Benador and his troops needed no encouragement to heed the wizard’s call. They pushed the talons on the southern two bridges back to the west one final time, then broke back toward the fields, where they could have run to safety. But the King and his elite corps would not let the valiant elves die for their cause, not while they had any strength left in their bodies. Benador spearheaded a small group, driving like a wedge through the talon ranks to get to Arien and his forces.

“Fly away!” Arien called to his warriors, while he and Ryell fought as a rear guard.

Up in the north, Sylvia and her forces wanted to heed Ardaz’s call, but many talons had reached the eastern bank in the first moments after the river had emptied. The elven maiden rushed from group to group, freeing up men and elves and sending them on their retreat, but she remained on the muddy bank, refusing to leave until all the others had found safer ground.

“The weakling ranger returns,” the wraith laughed. “I am glad that you live, Belexus. I would not want you to miss this spectacle of my master’s glory.”

Belexus cast a knowing smile at Ardaz. Only one being in all Aielle could make such a demand of the River Ne’er Ending: the Emerald Witch.

“Ye’ve ever been a fool, Mitchell,” he spat at the wraith. “Ye think this yer master’s doin’?”

“Who-” Mitchell began to respond, but the smug look on the ranger’s face caused the wraith to glance back over his shoulder; then he saw the continuing struggle between the Black Warlock and the sun ray. The wraith spun back on Ardaz and the ranger, unbridled rage etched on its grotesque face.

“You’ll not escape the doom!” Ardaz promised, and he slammed his staff on the stone with enough force to break the instrument, and that in turn exuded enough force to split apart the bridge itself.

The center of the structure crumbled down into the mud, and the wraith, Ardaz, and Belexus fell away.

Brielle and Istaahl could not know the particulars at the battle scene, nor reverse the tide of their actions in any case. When she sensed the approach of Istaahl’s watery wall, the Emerald Witch let loose the gathered waters of the great river.

“No!” the Black Warlock screamed, turning back to the disastrous battle on the bridges for just an instant.

And Thalasi’s despair only heightened in that moment, for Rhiannon and her sun ray did not let the moment pass.

A burst of light burned away the Black Warlock’s sphere of darkness completely and slammed Thalasi to the ground.

And in a flash all of the Black Warlock’s overcast was consumed, and the sky shone bright and blue once more.

Still Rhiannon continued her assault, determined, as was the magic that flowed through her, to rid Aielle of the Black Warlock once and for all.

The stupid talons rushing across the bridges and standing in the mud of the empty riverbank could only gape at the converging doom, and when the magics of Brielle and Istaahl came together, nearly half of the evil force was simply washed away. Another group remained trapped on the eastern side, helpless in the face of the wrath of the warrior King and his minions, who were already regrouping for another assault.

But oh so many heroes, human and elf alike, went away in that watery grave.

Indeed, the world would never be the same.

THE SKY SHONE a bright, crisp blue with sunshine general all across Aielle. But a more brilliant beam of the sun still held its course to the Black Warlock, pinning him to the ground mercilessly. Thalasi thought he would surely perish under its relentless heat; he could feel his insides bubbling and churning and could find no magical strength left within himself to battle back.

But up on the slopes of the Baerendels, a subtle shift in the flow of power was all the warning Rhiannon got. She felt vibrations within her form, discordant twanging that wracked her with electric shocks of pain.

Then it all broke apart.

With a vicious shudder that popped the muscles in her elbows and shoulders, Rhiannon swooned and fell.