Mortalis dw-4

by Robert Salvatore

  The Prince turned his force yet again, spearheading the wedge, putting the infantry archers in the second line with a wall of horsemen behind, to fend off the goblins regrouping atop the northern hillock. They could not slip into the forest from this area, for too many enemies had come to the hillock, so around to the front of the abbey they went, hoping for some break in the goblin line. And when they came around that corner, when they saw all the field before them thick with goblin masses, when they saw a hundred spears and arrows flying against the abbey walls for every one the monks could throw down, the Prince knew the grim truth. He thought of charging the abbey door, of calling for it to open that he and his men could seek refuge within.

  But who, then, would break the siege? And would they even hold out through the morning from inside those stone walls?

  "Fight on, for all our lives!" he cried. "For the lives of those in St. Bdfour and for the memory of those who this morn will fall!"

  The magic coming from the abbey showed weaker now, one lightning bolt hitting a goblin squarely in the chest and not even dropping the creature. That fact did not go unnoticed among the enemies, and the goblins, no ragtag band, howled and pressed even farther.

  Midalis and his front riders plunged into the goblin line, swords slashing, spears piercing goblin chests. But the goblins swarmed around them in a rush as strong as the tide, filling every channel, every opening. One man was pulled down from his mount, a host of ugly creatures falling over him, dashing and stabbing; another had his horse slashed out from under him and died before he even hit the ground.

  The archers in the second rank kept firing their bows, most behind at the pursuit from the hillock; but within moments, they, too, found themselves hard-pressed, with many using their bows as clubs, smashing goblin heads.

  On the field, Prince Midalis knew it; on the wall, Abbot Agronguerre, his magical energy expended, knew it. St. Belfour was doomed. The Prince of Honce-the-Bear was doomed. The Vanguard army would soon be shattered and the region would know only blackness.

  Another mountain of shadow flowed through the forest, another legion of goblins, the Prince assumed, and he could only wonder in blank amazement at how many had come to destroy his homeland.

  Out of the trees came the forms, screaming and howling, a primal, feral cry that sent shivers through the spines of all who heard it, that froze the battle for a long, horrifying moment.

  Wearing browns and greens that rendered them practically invisible, the barbarian horde swarmed onto the field. The front line came on fast but stopped almost as one, pivoting, then launching heavy stones from the ends of swinging chains into the closest goblin ranks, opening holes, knocking monsters back into their wicked kin.

  Again came that unified war cry, drowning all other sounds, bringing shivers to the goblins and hope to Midalis and his valiant men. And through the ranks of the hammer throwers stormed Andacanavar, his mighty claymore cleaving down goblins three at a swing. Like a gigantic wedge, the hardy Alpinadoran barbarians of Tol Hengor drove on. "Fight on!" Midalis cried, but this time, hope replaced resignation. Now for the first time, the goblins seemed unnerved. The Prince seized the moment to pull his cavalry back together, to begin the determined march that would get his vulnerable archers to the abbey's front gate.

  He signaled to Agronguerre on the wall, and took hope that the wise old man would understand his intent and begin calling to his monks to secure the portal.

  With sheer determination, Midalis got there, the horsemen shielding the running archers from monstrous goblin spears, the monks pulling wide the doors and battling those few goblins nearby until the archers could get inside.

  The battle threatened to disintegrate into chaos again, except that the barbarians, the great warriors of the north, followed Andacanavar with fanatical bravery, keeping fast their lines of defense as the mighty ranger plowed on. Midalis and his horsemen would have been overwhelmed right there at the wall, goblins coming at them from every angle, but then the ranger broke through, his elven-forged claymore cutting a goblin in half at the waist right as the Prince raised his own sword to strike at the creature.

  Before Midalis could begin to thank Andacanavar, he stabbed his sword into the ground before him and gave a howl, lifting his arms above his head and putting his fingertips together, his arms mirroring the barbarians' wedge formation. Then Andacanavar slid the fingers of his right hand down to his left elbow, and the right line of the formation followed the command, turning with practiced efficiency, so that Andacanavar was now the trailing man on the new right flank, and Bruinhelde, the man who had taken the rear position on the initial left flank, was now the spearhead.

  Prince Midalis understood the beautiful maneuver, the brilliant pivot, and knew the role that his men must now play. He swung away from the mighty ranger, charging his horse along his ranks, then, when he reached the midpoint, breaking out onto the field, his men flowing behind him, left flank and right.

  And by then, the rescued archers had gained the abbey's parapets and their bows began to sing anew, leading the Prince's charge.

  From the wall of St. Belfour, Abbot Agronguerre watched with tears welling in his gentle eyes. He had been in Vanguard for three decades and knew well its history-knew of the massacre at Fuldebarrow, where his Church had tried to establish a monastery. He knew of the many skirmishes between the men of Honce-the-Bear and the hardy Alpinadorans, knew the prejudice that lingered on both sides of the border.

  But now, apparently, both the men and women of Honce-the-Bear and of Alpinador had found a common enemy too great to be ignored; and if this enemy, these minions of the demon dactyl, could bring these peoples together-could get the Alpinadoran barbarians to fight for the sake of St. Belfour of the Abellican Church! — then perhaps the light had begun to shine through the darkness.

  The old abbot could hardly believe it, and the emotions of the moment lent him new strength. He took the graphite from Brother Haney, lifted his hand, and let fly the most powerful lightning stroke of the morning, a searing blast that blew aside a score of goblin spearthrowers, the monsters dying with their weapons still in hand.

  "Ring the bells!" the invigorated old abbot cried, and he let fly another thunderous bolt. "To arms! To arms!"

  The tide had turned, the appearance of the powerful Alpinadorans lending strength and courage to the besieged men of Honce-the-Bear and shattering the previous discipline of the goblin attackers. As many monsters turned and fled as remained to do battle, and those that did remain caught arrows from above or lightning from the abbot, or they were trampled down by horses and barbarians alike.

  Within a matter of minutes, the only goblins that remained alive on the field were on the ground and squirming in agony. Some begged for mercy, but they would find none, neither from Midalis and his men nor from the fierce barbarians.

  The day was won, the siege broken, the goblin army scattered and running, and Prince Midalis trotted his mount across the field to meet with Andacanavar and Bruinhelde, each with their respective forces lining up behind them.

  "A great debt we owe you this day," the Prince graciously offered.

  Andacanavar looked to Bruinhelde, but the stoic chieftain did not reply to the Prince in kind, nor did he offer any hint of where his heart might be. He did glance up at the abbey wall, though, his face stern and set, and Midalis followed that gaze to the reciprocal look of Abbot Agronguerre.

  The abbey doors had opened again, and monks were fast exiting, many carrying bandages, some with soul stones in hand. Their line bent to the right, Midalis noted with distress, toward the wounded warriors of Vanguard, and not at all to the left, where lay the wounded Alpinadorans.

  The day was not yet won.

  Chapter 4

  Harsh Reality

  Winter had found the mountain passes west of Honce-theBear, with snow falling deep about the elven valley of Andur'Blough Inninness, strong winds piling it up into towering drifts. That hardly proved a hindrance to Belli'mar Juraviel
, though, the nimble elf skipping across the white blanket, leaving barely a trace of his passing. For the Touel'alfar of Corona did not battle the moods of nature, as did the humans. Rather, they adapted their ways to fit the seasons outside their protected valley, and they reveled in each season in turn: a dance of rebirth each spring, of excitement and play in the lazy summer heat, of harvest and preparation in the autumn, and of respite in the winter. To the Touel'alfar, the harshest winter blizzard was a time of snow sculpting and snow-throwing games, or a time to huddle by the fire.

  Prepared, always prepared.

  This blizzard had been just that type, with stinging, blowing snow; and though it had abated greatly, the snow was still falling when Juraviel left the cloudy cover of the sheltered elven valley.

  But, despite the storm, he had to get out, to be alone with his frustrations. Again Lady Dasslerond had refused his request to parent the young child of Elbryan and Jilseponie, the babe the lady had taken from Pony on the field outside Palmaris, when Markwart had overwhelmed the woman and left her near death. In the ensuing months, Lady Dasslerond had kept Juraviel very busy, had sent him running errand after errand; and while he had suspected that she was purposefully keeping him away from the babe, he could not be certain.

  Until that very morning, when he had asked her directly, and she had refused him directly.

  So Juraviel had run out of the valley, up onto the slopes, to be alone with his thoughts and his anger, to let the quiet snow calm his frustration.

  He skittered up one drift, using the piled snow as a ladder to get him to the tip of a rocky overhang, and there, in the wind, he sat for a long, long while, remembering Elbryan and Pony, remembering Tuntun, his dear dven friend who had given her life in the assault on Mount Aida and the demon dactyl.

  Gradually, like the storm, his angry energy flowed out, and he was sitting quite comfortably when he saw another form rise out of the low clouds of Andur'Blough Inninness. He looked on curiously for a few moments, thinking that another of the Touel'alfar had decided to come out to enjoy the storm or to see if it had completely abated yet or perhaps to check on Juraviel's well-being. But when the new-come elf turned his way, stared at him from under the cowl of the low-pulled hood, Belli'mar Juraviel recognized those eyes and that face and was surprised-indeed, stunned-to discover that Lady Dasslerond herself had come out to find him.

  He started to move down to her, but she motioned for him to stay and scampered up the snowbank at least as easily as he had, taking a seat on the stone beside him.

  "You were correct in your guess," she informed him. "Tien-Bryselle returned this morning with information concerning Tempest and Hawkwing."

  Juraviel breathed a sigh of sincere relief. Tempest and Hawkwing had been the weapons of Elbryan. The elven sword Tempest had been forged for the ranger's uncle Mather and won by Elbryan in honest duel with the dead man's spirit; and Hawkwing had been crafted by Juraviel's own father specifically for Elbryan the Nightbird. Both weapons had been lost when Elbryan had been captured by Father Abbot Markwart. Juraviel, convinced that they were in St. Precious in Palmaris, had tried to find them.

  But then had come the confrontation between Elbryan and Markwart in Chasewind Manor, a battle that the elf could not ignore, and Juraviel had run out of time. Thus had Dasslerond sent another to find the weapons, following a report that they had gone with Elbryan back to Dundalis, his final resting place.

  "Bradwarden confirmed their location," she explained, "and took TienBryselle to them."

  "He is a fine friend," Juraviel remarked.

  Lady Dasslerond nodded. "A fine friend who came through the trials of the demon dactyl, and who came through the responsibilities of calling himself elf-friend."

  Juraviel narrowed his eyes, easily catching the not-so-flattering reference to both Elbryan and Jilseponie. Lady Dasslerond had not been pleased to kam that Elbryan had taught Jilseponie the elven sword dance, bi'nelle iasada, nor had she been happy with many of Jilseponie's choices during the final days of conflict with Father Abbot Markwart.

  "But we are glad to know that the weapons are safe," she quickly idded-for his benefit, Juraviel knew, "guarded by the spirits of two; lingers. Perhaps they will belong to yel'delen one day."; Yel'delen, Juraviel echoed in his mind, so poignantly reminded that Lady Dasslerond had not even yet named the baby; for in the elvish tongue, yel'delen meant simply "the child."

  "Jilseponie did not fight the return of the weapons," Juraviel dared to remark.

  "She is in Palmaris still, and likely knew nothing of their return to the north," she answered, "nor that we went to find them."

  Juraviel looked at her curiously, hardly agreeing with her first claim. If Tempest and Hawkwing left Palmaris with Elbryan's caisson, then they did so on the instructions of Jilseponie. "But she would not have fought the interment of the elven weapons even if she had known," Juraviel insisted, "nor would she argue if we decided to take them back."

  Dasslerond shrugged, apparently not prepared to argue the point.

  "You underestimate her," Juraviel went on boldly, "as you have from the very first."

  "I judged her by her own actions," the lady of Caer'alfar replied firmly. She shook her head and chuckled. "You cloud your memories with friendship, yet you know that your friend will be cold in the ground centuries before your time has passed."

  "Am I not to befriend those of like heart? "

  "The humans have their place," Dasslerond said somewhat coldly. "To elevate them beyond that is a dangerous mistake, Belli'mar Juraviel. You know that well."

  Juraviel looked away, feeling the tears beginning to rim his golden eyes. "And is that why?" he asked, and then he blinked away the tears completely, replacing them with resolve, and looked at her squarely. "Is that why you deny me the child? "

  Dasslerond didn't blink, nor did she shrink back an inch. "This child is different," she said. "He will carry the weapons of Nightbird and Mather, the Touel'alfar weapons of a true ranger."

  "And a glorious day it will be," Juraviel put in.

  "Indeed," she agreed, "even more so than you understand. The child will become the purest of rangers, trained from birth to our ways. He will hold no allegiance to the humans, will be human in appearance only."

  Juraviel considered the words and her determined tone very carefully for a long moment. "But is not the true power of the ranger the joining of the best that is human and elven? " he asked, thinking that his beloved Lady Dasslerond might be missing a very important point here.

  "So it has been," she replied, "but always I have understood that it is the joining of the elven way with the human physical form and the impatience that is human. This child will have physical strength beyond that of even its father, a strength fostered by the trials we shall place upon him and the health that is Andur'Blough Inninness. And we will foster, as well, the understanding of mortality, the short life which he can expect, and thus, the sense of immediacy and impatience so crucial for warriors of action.'' Juraviel looked at her, not quite understanding her reasoning behind this talk-words he almost regarded as nonsense. Understanding the source, though, the lady of Caer'alfar, the leader of his people, Juraviel looked past the words to the hopes and the fears. She had taken the child and had flatly refused to return him to his mother, even now that the darkness of Markwart and Bestesbulzibar had passed. Indeed, it seemed to Juraviel that Lady Dasslerond had claimed the child for Andur'Blough Inninness.

  And then he understood those hopes of his lady even more clearly. This child, perhaps, so true of bloodline, so strong of limb and of thought, would have the power to heal Andur'Blough Inninness. This child of the ranger might aid Lady Dasslerond in her defense against the spreading rot, the stain the demon dactyl had placed upon the elven valley.

  "He will be strong and swift, as was Elbryan," Juraviel remarked, as much to measure the response as to speak the truth.

  "More akin to his mother," Lady Dasslerond replied.

  Juraviel cocked an
eyebrow in surprise that she would offer such a compliment to Jilseponie.

  ''Jilseponie is strong and swift with the sword, strong in bi'nelle dasada, as was her teacher," Dasslerond explained. "And though she was not as strong in the dance as Nightbird, she was the more complete of the parents, powerfully versed in the gemstone magic, as well. The complete human warrior. This child will be all that his mother was and is and more-for he will have the guidance of the Touel'alfar throughout his journey."

  Belli'mar Juraviel nodded, though he feared that Lady Dasslerond might be reaching a bit high here in her expectations. The child was but a few months old, after all, and though his bloodlines seemed as pure as those of any human-and Juraviel, who had loved both Elbryan and Pony, understood that more clearly than did Lady Dasslerond! — that was no guarantee of anything positive. Furthermore, Juraviel, apparently unlike Lady Dasslerond, appreciated that bringing up the infant in Andur'Blough Inninness was an experiment, an unknown.

  ''Jilseponie made mistakes that we cannot tolerate," Lady Dasslerond stated flatly, a sudden and stern reminder to Juraviel of her feelings toward the woman, "as Elbryan, our beloved Nightbird, erred in teaching her bi'nelle dasada. And do not doubt that we will continue to watch her from afar."

  Juraviel nodded. On that point, at least, he and his lady were in agreement. If Pony started sharing the elven sword dance, became an instructor in the finer points of bi'nella dasada, then the Touel'alfar would have to stop her. To Juraviel, that would have meant taking her into their homeland and keeping her there; but he held no illusions that Lady Dasslerond, whose responsibility concerned the very existence of the Touel'alfar, would be so merciful.

  "Yet that was Nightbird's error," he replied, "and notJilseponie's." "Not yet." Again, Juraviel nodded, taking well her point. He wasn't sure that he even agreed with his own last statement-that Elbryan's tutoring of Pony was a mistake at all. Juraviel had watched them fighting together, each sword complementing the other to the level of perfection, a weaving of form and of weapons so beautiful that it had brought tears of joy to the elf's eyes.