The Siege

by Denning, Troy

  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.

  Vangerdahast thrust one hand forward and poured lightning into the dark heart. It stopped beating—but only for as long as the lightning continued. A red gash opened in the wizard’s cloak, and a sword-shaped spray of blood came out the back.

  Vangerdahast bellowed—more in rage than pain—and filled the cage of black ribs with magic fire.

  The wizard’s head snapped sideways. Vangerdahast’s arms dropped to his side, and Galaeron, already leaping back into the fray with a drawn dagger, screamed. The ribs half turned toward him, and for a moment Rivalen’s golden eyes appeared in the air above the writhing vertebrae of the neck.

  Vangerdahast’s weary arms came up, wrapping themselves around the skeletal body, and he uttered a familiar command word. They vanished in a sizzle of teleport magic—

  —and Rivalen’s raspy voice erupted in anguish on the orb-lit patio. Galaeron spun around to find the prince—or, rather, the prince’s ribs and heart—erupting into golden flame as Vangerdahast tried to push the black thing into the inky darkness creeping toward them both.

  Galaeron was there in a leap, arriving heels first to kick Rivalen over the edge. The ribs and heart vanished, burning, into black nothingness—and Vangerdahast started after them, suddenly spinning around on his back, sleeve stretching over his head into darkness. Galaeron landed alongside him facing the wrong direction, but grabbed the wizard’s belt and pulled himself around, then hacked the cuff free.

  Vangerdahast let out a pained gasp and jerked hi
s hand back. All that remained of it were the fingers, thumb, and a small piece of flesh connecting it to the wrist. The rest was simply not there, as though it had been rendered invisible or lost to the bite of some very strange creature.

  The adjacent wall of the tavern crumbled into oblivion, leaving only the corner with the shadowstuff fountain standing upright. Galaeron pulled Vangerdahast back under the awning and began to go through the pockets of the wizard’s cloak.

  “Do you have any healing potions?” Galaeron asked, tossing aside feathers and satchels full of iron filings.

  With sunken eyes and skin as gray as a snow cloud, the wizard looked like he had died already. Galaeron could see at least two life-threatening wounds, and suspected there were other injuries he could not even guess at.

  “Any way to get us to help?” asked Galaeron.

  Vangerdahast’s gaze grew vacant and slid away.

  “Vangerdahast?” Galaeron placed his ear close to the wizard’s mouth and was relieved to hear a soft, steady wheezing. “Vangerdahast?”

  When the wizard still made no reply, Galaeron stanched the bleeding as best he could, then stood on a table to search for help. He was not surprised to discover that the fighting was already over—cataclysmic magic had a way of ending battles swiftly—but he was astonished at the extent of the destruction. Much of Tilverton—all of Old Town below him and the rest of the city out past the Moonsea Ride—already lay beneath a sea of shadowstuff, and the stain was continuing to spread. The great Council Tower in the center of town was sinking into oblivion even as he watched, and he could hear warriors from both sides calling to each other in the dark streets beyond, all more concerned with saving their own lives than taking anyone else’s. Whether Lady Regent Rowanmantle had succeeded in evacuating the rest of her citizens, Galaeron could not say, but he took the lack of matronly voices and sobbing children to be a good sign—one of the few of the day.

  Finding no possibility of help there, Galaeron hopped down and went to the uphill side of the patio. The scene there was much the same as below, save that most of the shadowstuff had rolled downhill into the lower city, sparing much of the Knoll District, the jagged ruins of Tilver’s Palace, and a lengthy section of wall.

  It was there, atop one of the as yet unfinished wall towers, that he found their salvation. Atop one of the spires, no more than two hundred paces distant, stood Aris’s looming figure, illuminated in the yellow light of Vangerdahast’s orb, one hand raised to his brow as he searched the city. Galaeron stepped as near the edge of the awning as he dared and waved. For a moment, there was no response, and he began to fear that even the stone giant’s keen sight would not be able to see him beneath the canopy.

  When Aris pointed in his direction, Galaeron knew they were saved. He waited a couple of moments for the giant to return his wave, then dropped off the table to return to Vangerdahast’s side—and found Caladnei already kneeling there, pouring a healing potion down the wizard’s throat one drop at a time.

  As Galaeron limped over, she looked up with an angry scowl on her face. “When you need help, call for it.” She pointed her chin at the ring Vangerdahast had given him. “That’s what the purple dragon is for.”

  “What in the name of all the drow gods,” the Steel Regent demanded, pacing back and forth in front of Galaeron, “did you do to my Royal Magician?”

  It was almost dawn, and they were encamped—hiding, really—with what remained of the armies of the Heartlands Alliance, a mile outside of what had once been Tilverton. The shadowstuff had consumed the city almost completely, spreading well beyond the walls to engulf even the outlying stock pens and caravan campsites. All that remained of the city was the wall atop the Knoll District and the jagged ruins of Tilver’s Palace, now back lit by the sinking sphere of Vangerdahast’s magic orb.

  Alusair waved a hand at the golden ball. “He won’t look at anything but that damnable globe, and he keeps asking if we won. What do I tell him? That we won because we had more survivors than the Shadovar? Or that we lost because we lost our entire army? How do I snap him out of this?”

  “Tell him the truth,” Galaeron suggested. “Tell him that no one won.”

  “That would not be the truth,” Aris said.

  Alusair whirled on the seated giant and, despite the fact that she had to crane her neck to see his face, somehow still seemed to be looking him straight in the eye.

  “Are you saying Shade won?” she demanded. “Because I know we didn’t. Not if we’ve lost Vangerdahast.”

  “I am saying that the phaerimm won,” the giant answered. “They still control Evereska, and now they will soon be free.”

  Alusair’s already stormy face turned absolutely tempestuous. “Thank you for making an insufferable loss seem even worse.” She whirled on Galaeron. “This is your doing, elf. Had Vangerdahast had a better understanding of shadow magic—”

  “He would have done exactly as he did, Majesty,” said Caladnei, stepping to Galaeron’s defense. “You can ask a warrior to lay down his life for you but not his soul.”

  “Elves don’t have souls,” Alusair shot back, “but I see what you mean.” She cast a sidelong glance in Galaeron’s direction. “That’s as much of an apology as you’re going to get, elf.”

  “And more than is required,” Galaeron replied. “All I ask is that you let me assist when you do attack.”

  “Still thinking of Vala, are we?” Alusair asked.

  Galaeron nodded. “Always.”

  The truth was that since escaping Tilverton, he had been able to think of nothing but the thing Vangerdahast had killed, wondering if Escanor was something similar, and of what Vala must be suffering in service to such a thing. However great her pain, whatever her humiliation, he was to blame. He had allowed his shadow self to drive her away, and it was because of his weakness—that weakness—that she was imprisoned in Escanor’s palace.

  “I have much to answer for,” Galaeron added.

  Alusair’s expression grew almost sisterly. “We all do, Galaeron.” She reached out and squeezed his arm, then turned to face Tilverton, where Vangerdahast’s orb was just sinking behind the Knoll District wall. “We all do.”

  As the globe vanished from sight, a terrible rumbling rolled across the plain, shaking the ground so hard that the wounded—what few they had been able to evacuate—began to groan. The glow over Tilverton darkened for a moment, then returned in an exploding fan of golden light.

  With that Vangerdahast was up and standing tall, looking as regal and powerful and truly frightening as the mighty wizard Galaeron had come to know—and perhaps even love—in his short time in Cormyr.

  “To arms!” Vangerdahast’s voice boomed across the plain. “Summon my War Wizards! Call out the Purple Dragons! Azoun calls, and we ride—for king and Cormyr!”

  Alusair and Caladnei were at the wizard’s side almost instantly, taking him by the arms and soothing him with gentle words. Galaeron did not hear exactly what they said, for his attention was fixed on Tilverton, where the entire Knoll District was rapidly sinking into the dark plain, taking with it the last bitter reminders of the Heartlands Alliance—and all of Faerûn’s hopes for a season without starvation. Soon, all that remained of the city were the back lit ruins of Tilver’s Palace, surrounded by smaller piles of dark rubble. The last rays of Vangerdahast’s light paled to darkness, and eventually even they were lost.

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  Denning, Troy, The Siege