The Siege

by Denning, Troy

  According to Vangerdahast, Cormyr’s neighbors had sent more than a hundred companies to help persuade Shade Enclave to rethink its melting of the High Ice, some as small as twenty well-mounted riders, but several numbering in the thousands—and with a generous mix of clerics and battle mages. To Alusair’s dismay, the most enthusiastic response had come from the merchant princes of Sembia, some of whom stood to lose their entire fortunes if the weather disturbances continued. Always suspicious of Sembian designs on Cormyrean lands, the Steel Regent had not even informed the merchant princes of the alliance she was forming. They had sent large forces anyway, threatening to form their own alliance if she failed to accept their troops.

  What Galaeron did not see were any companies on the roads outside the city. Though warriors were pouring into the Knoll District by the hundreds, trampling the grounds of the great estates in search of bivouacs, they were not entering through Tilverton’s gates. The companies seemed to be sprouting from the city itself, marching out of shadowy cul-de-sacs or emerging from some ancient tower or keep to form up in the street.

  Galaeron raised his gaze and looked over the scrying ball to Vangerdahast’s bushy-browed eyes.

  “It won’t work,” the elf said. “If you can scry this, so can the Shadovar.”

  “Not so.” Vangerdahast raised his head, revealing a confident smirk not quite hidden beneath his beard. “This is what they will see.”

  He waved his hand over the scrying ball. When Galaeron looked back, the soldiers were gone, and the residents seemed to be having some sort of festival in the Knoll District.

  “You can annul shadow magic?” Galaeron gasped. The implications for Evereska were distressing. If Vangerdahast could find a way to negate the Shadovar’s spells, so could the phaerimm. “How?”

  “I am a wizard of some power, elf.”

  “It’s not a question of power.” Galaeron gestured at the ball. “May I?”

  “If you don’t think it will draw out your shadow.” Vangerdahast’s voice was mocking. He had been trying to persuade Galaeron to demonstrate his shadow spells since Rivalen’s departure and could not seem to understand why Galaeron refused. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for unleashing such a demon.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Galaeron envisioned the world-window in the Palace Most High and waved his hand over the scrying ball. The crystal filled with dark clouds, then a circle of light opened in the center and several murky Shadovar figures grew visible along the edges. The image in the middle was that of a great lake ringed by desert mountains.

  “This is Telamont Tanthul’s scrying window,” Galaeron said, disappointed that he had not caught the Shadovar looking in on Tilverton. “If shadow magic and regular magic were capable of annulling each other, don’t you think this room would be warded?”

  Vangerdahast studied the image for a moment, then said, “Of course the room can’t be warded. The Weave is mightier than the Shadow Weave.”

  “Mightier, perhaps,” Galaeron said, “but also different. They can spy on you as easily as you spy on them.”

  Vangerdahast’s face appeared inside the crystal ball. “I am experienced in such matters, you know.”

  Realizing he would never win this argument, Galaeron decided to try another approach. “Even if you’re right, the Shadovar do use spies—thousands of them, I am sure.”

  “Not in Tilverton—or any other Cormyrean city.” Vangerdahast displayed a tile with a magic ward etched onto the surface. “My war wizards have been busy.”

  Galaeron took the tile and ran his fingers over the symbol. It was a variation on an ancient Cormanthorian sigil he had studied in Evereska’s academy of magic, used to keep spirits of darkness and cold at bay. The workmanship was exquisite and the magic so powerful that the presence of his shadow self caused it to burn his hand. When he returned the tile to Vangerdahast, he was surprised to discover the symbol burned into his palm. Finding that even this copy of the ward made his eyes burn, Galaeron closed his hand.

  “Impressive, but useless,” he said. “All a Shadovar need do is enter the fringe, and your ward will have almost no power over him.”

  Vangerdahast’s eyes flickered with alarm. “Really?” He turned the ward toward Galaeron. “Show me.”

  Galaeron had to look away. “I can’t. You know that.”

  “I certainly do,” Vangerdahast snorted.

  “I’ve explained how it can be defeated,” Galaeron said, raising a hand to block his sight of the symbol. “There is no need for me to prove it. The cost of satisfying your curiosity is too dear.”

  “Very well.” Vangerdahast lowered the tile and set it aside—facedown, thankfully. “By the way, the last time I spoke to Storm Silverhand, she asked me to pass along a message from Khelben.”

  “From Khelben?” Galaeron’s heart was immediately beating faster. “About Keya?”

  “I believe that was the name mentioned, yes.”

  Galaeron waited for the wizard to continue—then, when he did not, asked, “What is it?”

  Vangerdahast’s eyes slid toward the ward.

  Galaeron rose in disgust. “You’re no different than the Shadovar!”

  “There you are mistaken, elf,” Vangerdahast said, peering at Galaeron over the shadow ball. “I am very different. What I do, I do for the good of Cormyr.”

  “Then you would do well to stay clear of the Shadow Weave.” Galaeron started for the door. “You are already half shade yourself.”

  “Probably.” Vangerdahast’s tone was thoughtful. He remained silent until Galaeron reached for the latch, then said, “You’re going to be an uncle.”

  Galaeron stopped, then turned. “What?”

  “According to Khelben.” Vangerdahast shrugged. “Your sister is getting married.”

  “Married?” Galaeron gasped. “She’s only eighty!”

  “And fighting the phaerimm on the front lines of the siege, from what I hear.” Vangerdahast steepled his gnarled fingers. “People mature quickly in the face of death.”

  Galaeron studied the old wizard, trying to figure out what the human hoped to gain by making up such an outrageous story.

  Finally, he gave up and said simply, “It won’t work, old man. It takes years for elves to fall in love. An engagement can last a decade.”

  “I have found that war tends to speed matters of the heart,” Vangerdahast said, eyes twinkling. “And humans are not so reticent. Especially Vaasans.”

  “Vaasans?” Galaeron released the door latch and stumbled into a nearby chair. “One of the Vaasans did this?”

  “Someone named Dexon, as I understand it.”

  “The ice-hatched bastard!” Galaeron hissed. “I’ll slit him from groin to gullet!”

  “Really?” Vangerdahast chuckled. “I thought you were trying to control your ‘shadow self.’ ”

  A deep barbarian bellow, muffled by distance and the thick walls of the tent, sounded down in the camps. Always concerned about friction between the disparate companies of her motley army, Laeral cocked an ear toward the sound. The voice was angry and a little bit puzzled, as though demanding an explanation. Probably just one of Chief Claw’s warriors still trying to figure out the magic latrines the clerics insisted on whenever the army was encamped.

  Khelben, lying on the camp rug beside Laeral, took her chin in hand and gently turned her face back toward his so he could resume kissing her. Though it had been several days since they had trapped the phaerimm in the Vine Vale, they had been so busy securing Evereska’s defenses and hunting down survivors that this was the first night they’d found for each other. Khelben, who had after all nearly died at the Rocnest and been the one trapped by the thornbacks for all those months, seemed to feel the need to shut out the war even more keenly than did Laeral. With the dexterous fingers of a magician, he used one hand to undo the knot holding her jerkin closed and began to unlace her.

  A tremendous fluttering sound pulsed somewhere high above the tent. Laeral ros
e to her elbows and looked up through the smoke hole and saw nothing but the starless mantle of the shadowshell.

  “Do you hear that, Khelben?” she asked.

  Khelben pushed her back down and rolled astride her body. “I hear nothing but the fervid drumming of my heart, beating its joy in anticipation of our first night together—our first undisturbed night together—since all this began.”

  Laeral smiled. To everyone else, Khelben might be the stern and dour Blackstaff, Lord Mage of Waterdeep and founder of the Moonstars. To her, he was a hopeless romantic, given to outrageous professions of love and a touch so gentle it wouldn’t break soap bubbles.

  She whispered, “Come here, you.”

  Deciding the fluttering sound had probably just been a hippogriff patrol trying to duck a flight of veserabs—Aelburn’s scouts had learned the hard way that the things had a taste for anything with feathers—Laeral pulled Khelben down on top of her.

  “I want to feel that heart drumming,” she said.

  Khelben kissed her again, then slipped off to the side and set to work on her laces with his dexterous fingers. By the time the next sound came—this time the distinctive crackle-boom of a lightning bolt—he had Laeral out of her doublet and her trouser laces untied.

  “That, I heard,” he growled, rising.

  Laeral jumped to her feet and, throwing her cloak around her shoulders, followed him out the door of the tent. Scattered across the plain at the foot of their rise were hundreds of campfires, by the light of which it was possible to see thousands of silhouettes milling about in confusion, pulling on armor and buckling sword belts. Though no one seemed to have any more idea what was happening than Laeral and Khelben, an increasing number of figures appeared to be looking toward the area of inky darkness that marked the Shadovar camp.

  Laeral turned to call for a messenger and found two of Khelben’s Vaasan escorts, Kuhl and Burlen, rushing up fully armored—as always. Vaasans, as far as Laeral could tell, slept in armor. The third of their number, Dexon, was back in Evereska with Keya Nihmedu, recovering from his wounds.

  “They’re gone!” Burlen exclaimed.

  “Gone as in ‘departed’?” Khelben asked, not even bothering to clarify that the Vaasan was talking about the Shadovar. “Or gone as in ‘dead?’ ”

  “Gone is in ‘not there,’ ” Kuhl growled. “What’s the difference? An Uthgardt lookout noticed that the Shadovar tents were empty, and when he went to check on the veserabs, they took a fright and flew off.”

  “Weren’t they hobbled?” Laeral asked.

  “Not even a piece of twine,” Burlen confirmed. “At least not on the one Yoraedia’s sentry bolted down.”

  Laeral exchanged a worried glance with Khelben. The sound of arguing voices drifted up from the middle of the dark camp, and dancing lines of torches began to stream in from all sides. Khelben extended a hand and summoned his staff, and Laeral did the same for her broadbelt. Then, while Khelben sent the Vaasans to check on the night pickets and call the companies to alert, she tied her trouser laces and belted her cloak closed.

  Once she had her clothes tied, she extended a hand to Khelben and said, “Shall we, my dear?”

  Khelben sighed and took her hand. “If we must.”

  Laeral eyed a spot near the center of the converging torch streams and used a spell to open a small translocational door. She and Khelben stepped through into a tumult of shouting voices and bobbing torches. So belligerent was the argument that, during the moment it took the afterdaze to clear, she grew convinced she had emerged into the middle of a tavern brawl. She drew a fighting wand from her belt.

  Khelben was even more alarmed. He began to whirl his staff around them in a practiced defensive pattern that sent a pair of elves and a Waterdhavian sergeant tumbling to the ground.

  A pair of the sergeant’s subordinates came rushing up, “You there, wizard!” Instead of stopping to help their superior, they stepped over his groaning figure and split up to come at Khelben and Laeral from opposite sides. “Who do you think you’re batting around with that thing?”

  Laeral’s assessment of the situation took a decided turn for the worse. She leveled her wand at the nearest figure and said, “Hare.”

  The man took one more step, then curled to the ground and began to sprout fur. She pointed the wand at the second fellow, who was still trying to dance past Khelben’s whirling staff, and said, “Ass.”

  He dropped to all fours, his nose and ears already beginning to lengthen.

  Laeral waved the wand past the others in the growing knot of warriors. “Has our arrival offended anyone else?”

  When no one else stepped forward, Khelben said, “Good.”

  He lowered his staff and led the way past half a dozen empty Shadovar tents to the assembly square in front of the command pavilion, where Lord Yoraedia was standing nose to belly with Chief Claw, his face twisted into a very unelflike scowl.

  “Will someone tell us what’s going on here?” Khelben asked.

  Both leaders turned their gazes on Khelben and Laeral and began to speak at once, gesturing wildly and pointing at the other.

  “One at a time,” Laeral ordered. “You first, Lord Yoraedia.”

  The elf cast a superior smirk at Claw, then said, “This oaf’s sentries fell asleep and allowed the Shadovar to slip past them unseen.”

  “Liar!” Claw deliberately stepped into Yoraedia, bumping the elf with his stomach and sending him stumbling half a dozen steps back. “My lookouts only found that the camp was empty. Your watchers are the ones who fell asleep.”

  “Elves,” Yoraedia sneered, “do not sleep.”

  “Then they are blind!” Claw bumped the elf with his belly again. “The Shadovar did not leave by our side.”

  Yoraedia caught himself after three paces and stepped back toward the barbarian, his hand dropping toward his dagger. “One more time, walrus, and I’ll slit that gu—”

  “That’s quite enough, Lord Yoraedia.” Laeral stepped between the two. “The Shadovar were not prisoners. No one is to blame for their departure.”

  “You will both be to blame if this continues,” Khelben said, stepping to Laeral’s side and using the butt of his staff to push Yoraedia back. “What madness has taken hold of you two?”

  The solemn glance he cast in Laeral’s direction was hardly necessary. She had already guessed the reason behind the group’s anger and was searching her cloak pockets for a spell component.

  Khelben continued, “No one could have stopped the Shadovar from sneaking away. As soon as it was dark, the cowards probably melted into the shadows and walked off.”

  Skarn Brassaxe and his dwarves marched into the assembly square, shouldering past elves and barbarians alike.

  “It’s bright enough to blind Lathander!” Skarn complained. “Are you all this stupid, or are you fools trying to light yourselves up for enemy long-casters?”

  “Be careful who you call stupid, Beltwatcher,” said Aelburn, stepping into the light from the opposite side of the gathering. “Some of us need the light. Not everyone has goblin blood running in their veins.”

  “Goblin blood!” Skarn stormed, reaching for his axe. “I’ll show you gob—”

  Khelben’s staff crashed down, knocking the dwarf to his seat and causing his arm to go limp. Claw and Yoraedia continued to trade insults, with most of their followers adding their own voices to the tumult, and the dwarves and hippogriff scouts were starting in as well. It would have been a simple matter for Laeral and Khelben to start dispelling whatever magic was causing this madness, but until she knew whether the casters were Shadovar or phaerimm, it was better to let them believe their tactic was working.

  Laeral found what she was looking for and unobtrusively began to sprinkle diamond dust in each direction, at the same time mouthing an incantation and running her fingers through the gestures of her most powerful spell. As the magic took effect, she had to bite her tongue to keep from gasping.

  On the western side o
f the square, Skarn’s dwarves were stomping in from their own camp flanked by the silvery blurs of well over a dozen invisible phaerimm. The scene was much the same on the north side, save that it was Waterdhavian volunteers and Aelburn’s scouts who were being marched in. The situation to the east and south was even worse. With most of the barbarians and elves already in the square, the thornbacks had already formed themselves into battle ranks.

  “Uh, Khelben?”

  “Yes?”

  With more leaders marching their companies into the dusty square every minute, Khelben had given up on ending the argument between Yoraedia and Claw and was using his magic to intervene in actual outbreaks of violence.

  Khelben pointed at a scowling dwarf in the gleaming armor of the Knights in Silver who was charging toward the center of the quarrel with a drawn hand axe and asked, “Would you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  Laeral pulled two beads of tar from her cloak pocket. Voicing a short spell, she flicked first one, then the other bead at the scowling dwarf, whose progress immediately slowed to a sluggish crawl.

  “As I was saying,” Laeral said, “do you remember those detection amulets we passed out so the sentries would be able to see invisible infiltrators?”

  Khelben frowned and used his black staff to sweep the feet from beneath one of Claw’s barbarians who was reaching for one of Yoraedia’s elves.

  “I remember,” he said. “You brought twenty of them—”

  “Twenty-five,” Laeral corrected. “They don’t seem to be working.”

  Khelben grimaced, then asked, “How badly?”