Forsaken House tlm-1

by Richard Baker

  "Casters, at the ready! Casters, summon, cast!" cried Jorildyn, the Reilloch battle-mage. Araevin was not under his command and had no obligation to follow his orders, but he chose to lend his strength to the other mages. He'd spoken with Jorildyn earlier, and knew what the battle-mage planned to do. Scattered through the ranks of the archers and swordsmen, disguised under soldiers' tunics and cloaks, more than one hundred elf mages and clerics began to cast their spells. Araevin barked out the words of his summoning, shunting the sights and sounds of the battle off to a corner of his mind where he would not be distracted in his effort to remember the complex symbols and tedious chants of the spell.

  From the flying daemonfey a hundred and fifty feet over the battle line, dozens of bright orange streaks appeared, hurling down at the ranks of archers. Fiery blasts rippled and thundered through the elf ranks, hurling bowmen through the air or simply hammering them to the ground. Screams rang in Araevin's ears, and blasts of heat singed his face and hands, but he endured and finished his spell, as did many other mages hidden in the ranks. In the air above the elven line a hundred or more swirling knuckles of air appeared, slowly condensing into crudely humanoid forms of mist, smoke, and cloud-a host of air elementals, beings called to life from the very substance of the sky.

  "Elementals, destroy the flying ones!" Seiveril called.

  With a great and terrible rush of wind, elementals both huge and small streaked up and away from the battle line, seeking out the winged fey'ri sorcerers and warriors who waited above. The fey'ri were quick and strong fliers, but they could not outfly creatures composed of the elemental power of air itself. Like a seething wave of tornadoes the elementals slammed into the daemonfey, battering and blasting their victims with blows that could uproot trees or scour flesh from bone.

  Araevin shouted in delight, as did many others. Though the winged daemonfey outnumbered their elemental attackers ten to one, for the moment the fey'ri legions were fully engaged in defending themselves against the ferocious onslaught, and that left the elf spellcasters on the ground free to turn their power against the surging sea of orcs, ogres, goblins, and trolls thundering into their ranks.

  "A good plan," Grayth said. The Lathanderite stood close by Araevin and Ilsevele, busy with spells of his own, weaving holy wards and protections over all the elves he could reach. Elf clerics were doing much the same across the battle line. "But those elementals won't keep the winged demons busy for long."

  Araevin looked down at the melee in the front ranks. Screaming with battle-rage, orcs threw themselves headlong into the elf ranks, hewing furiously with axe and sword. Ogres hammered down at their smaller foes with huge clubs and maces. And here and there, like storms of destruction, demons, yugoloths, and other terrible fiends strode among the orc ranks, smiting down elf swordsmen and spearmen with gouts of demon-fire or tearing their foes to pieces with fangs, claws, stings, and barbs. The furious dark tide threatened to overwhelm the elven line entirely.

  What now? Araevin thought.

  His spells could be decisive in any number of tactical engagements, and he had to make sure each one counted. He spotted a mezzoloth stalking forward, wreaking terrible carnage with its huge, powerful claws. The yugoloth struck down an elf swordsman only twenty yards from Araevin, shredding the breastplate of the warrior as if it were nothing more than soggy paper. Then it leaped forward to rush at a knot of archers, who fired desperately at the monster, only to watch their arrows shiver on its thick, chitinous armor.

  Araevin hurried through the words of a spell designed to banish the creature back to whatever hell it had crawled from, but just as he finished the spell, a rampaging ogre appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and caught Araevin full in the ribs with its huge, stone-headed hammer. Araevin flew through the air, crumpling to the ground a dozen feet away.

  "Araevin!" screamed Ilsevele. She leaped down beside him, pausing only to send a burning arrow straight through the ogre's forehead as the creature lumbered forward to strike again. The ogre groaned and fell. "Grayth, come quickly. Araevin has been hurt!"

  Araevin rolled to his side and pushed himself up.

  "Not as bad… as it looked," he gasped. "Stoneskin spell absorbed… much of the blow."

  His side ached abominably, and he couldn't draw a breath, but instead of crushing his ribcage the ogre's hammer had simply knocked the wind out of him and spoiled his spell. He staggered to his feet, and realized that the mezzoloth he had meant to dismiss was no longer there, though two of the archers lay dead or dying, clawed by the ferocious monster.

  He looked around for the next foe to deal with, Ilsevele close by his side. Grayth dueled a pair of orc berserkers, sword flashing as he parried strike after strike of their heavy axes. Since Araevin couldn't trust himself to speak a spell, he snatched a wand from his belt and riddled the first berserker with four bright darts of magical power that blew fist-sized holes in the orc's torso. The creature crumpled to the ground, and Maresa sidled up behind the second and ran him through with her rapier, transfixing him until Grayth stepped up and knocked off his head with a fierce slash of his broadsword.

  "Are you well?" he called to Araevin.

  Araevin still couldn't answer, but he gave the cleric a sharp nod and turned to search out another foe. This is pure madness, he thought desperately. He looked wildly about himself, trying to decide what to do next. The cwm was filled with the ring of steel on steel, the roars and screams of the wounded, and the thunder and detonation of powerful spells.

  "Which way?" Ilsevele asked him.

  For the moment they seemed to have cleared the area immediately around themselves, so Araevin picked a fierce skirmish off to his left and hurried toward it, drawing a second wand. Ilsevele followed him, picking off lone enemies as she saw them. Together they fell on the flank of a band of bugbears who were pressing an Evereskan company. Araevin blasted terrible swaths of destruction through the heavily armored goblinkin with his wand, singling out sergeants and leaders, while Ilsevele rained arrows at any of the savage warriors who turned to face Araevin's attack.

  A rain of flaming orbs pelted down from overhead, each exploding in a gout of evil green flames. Emerald fire scorched Araevin, hurling him to the ground again, and more of the vitriolic spheres blasted nearby, incinerating elves unfortunate enough to be struck directly. Araevin rolled to his feet and looked up. A band of daemonfey thirty strong wheeled over the Evereskan company, hurling spells down at the elves below.

  "Fey'ri above!" he cried.

  The Evereskans scattered and sought cover, some of them unlimbering bows to shoot back up at their airborne attackers. The daemonfey climbed away from the archers, though a few of them crumpled in midair and plummeted to the ground, brought down by good or lucky shots. He looked for Ilsevele, and found her picking herself up out of a thicket, her cloak and surcoat smoldering.

  "Damn them," she growled. "We've got to draw those winged warriors closer to the ground!"

  Araevin watched them, and a fierce joy kindled in his breast.

  "Or go up after them," he snarled.

  He quickly barked out the words of his flying spell, and leaped up into the air after the winged warriors circling overhead. The smoke and fog rushed by his face as he streaked upward, and he glimpsed the great expanse of the battle filling the cwm from side to side. He paid it no mind, keeping his attention honed on the fey'ri ahead, even though he saw hundreds more winging over the battlefield.

  These at least will know they've been in a fight, he told himself.

  The fey'ri noticed his ascent, and a dozen of them wheeled to meet him. Two sorcerers blasted at him with stabbing tongues of brilliant blue lightning, but Araevin swerved aside from one, and his protective wards served to blunt the worst of the second. He tumbled awkwardly, flailing in midair as he tried to shake off the bolt, and when he looked up again fey'ri warriors were closing in on him, blades bared, fierce grins on their faces.

  "Fool," hissed one. "We own the sky!"

&nb
sp; Araevin bared his teeth, and incanted the words of a spell of his own, stretching out his hand toward his foes. A scintillating blast of brilliant colors flayed the dozen nearest fey'ri. Yellow rays wreathed one in crackling electricity. Red beams scorched the wings from another. A sinister purple ray blasted one into some distant plane, banishing her from the world entirely. In the space of an instant seven fey'ri tumbled down out of the sky, some fluttering vainly to stay aloft, others already dead. Distantly Araevin noted a ragged cheer from below, as the embattled elves saw his brilliant spell and its results.

  He started another spell, but a fey'ri sorcerer a short distance away from him struck Araevin with a spell that abruptly dispelled his ability to fly. Araevin plummeted toward the ground, already starting a spell to arrest his fall. But he didn't complete it quickly enough. Even as his descent slowed, he plunged through the branches of a hemlock, breaking through the boughs as they snapped under him. He landed badly on the uneven ground below the tree, stunned by the impact.

  He tried to rise again, but his arms and legs didn't want to work, and his head swam. He was just about to drift off into comfortable darkness when Ilsevele and Grayth appeared at his side, scrambling down to where he lay.

  "Araevin, that was the stupidest thing I've ever seen!" Ilsevele snapped. "You were outnumbered a hundred to one up there."

  "It might not have been wise, but it was a valiant gesture nonetheless," said Grayth. The cleric looked up at the fight still going on around them. "No time to rest, Araevin. This battle isn't done yet, not by a long measure."

  He laid his hands on Araevin and began to speak a healing prayer.

  Sarya watched the battle from the vantage of her Vyshaanti platform. Off to the right of the enemy center, a brilliant prismatic blast streaked the sky. Fey'ri crumpled and fell from the air, but then the enemy mage plummeted after the daemonfey he'd defeated. She scowled, stung by the cost of the exchange. Her fey'ri were irreplaceable, and the longer the battle went on, the more of them would fall.

  "This is taking too long," she growled.

  Mardeiym Reithel stood next to her, arms crossed before his chest.

  "The Evereskans have found help," he said. "This army is too large for them to field while maintaining the garrison our scouts have reported in the city."

  "Evermeet," Sarya spat. "Who else could it be? We should have abandoned the orcs and other rabble instead of staying with them for twenty days of marching. We gave them too much time to prepare."

  "Without the savage tribes, we'd have less than half the strength we do," Mardeiym answered. "They may have slowed us down, but today they're killing paleblood elves, and they're dying in place of our fey'ri. Evermeet's army would have met us sooner or later anyway."

  Sarya gripped the rail of the platform, watching the battle. She longed to plunge into the fray herself, to slay with spell and talon, but she dared not. Once she immersed herself in the fight, she would be unable to exercise any form of control over her army. She could count on the fey'ri to follow orders and fight with cunning and resourcefulness, but the demons and yugoloths would take orders from no one other than her. The orc warbands and ogre marauders might break off and retreat from the unexpected Evereskan resistance without the threat of demons behind them to drive them forward.

  The sinister crackle of magic rippled through the air at her shoulder. Sarya turned as a vrock suddenly appeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke. The vulture-demon carried two elven arrows snapped off in its right wing, but it seemed untroubled by the wounds.

  "Lady S- Sarya," it hissed. "I have f-found the enemy commander-r. He stands th-there, a hundred yards from the s-standard."

  The creature extended one filthy talon to point at a spot in the enemy center.

  Sarya leaned closer to peer in the direction the demon indicated. The day was growing brighter, and while her orcs would not like that much, it was becoming easier to descry detail at a distance. She could see a small number of paleblood elves behind a strong line of Evereskan guards. Spell shields sparkled and glimmered over them. At the very least, there were some accomplished clerics and mages among that group.

  "That will do," she decided. "I want those elves torn to pieces. Let's see if that disheartens the defenders a bit."

  The vrock bobbed its vulturelike head. It flapped down to the high hillside below, where a great and terrible company of demons and yugoloths-vrocks and hulking, toadlike hezrous, skeletal babaus, and huge, gargoyle-like nycaloths-waited for Sarya's command. Each one of the infernal creatures on the hillside could teleport itself, appearing out of nowhere to maim and rend. At the head of the company towered the glabrezu Grushakk, a terrible monster the size of a storm giant, with four arms and a canine face whose eyes glowed red with malice. Grushakk looked up to Sarya, who flung out her arm to indicate the direction of the prey.

  "There!" she cried. "If you cannot find the commander, slay any mages you see."

  Grushakk howled in glee, and clacked his pincers together.

  "Rise!" the demon hissed. "Now we slay!"

  The other demons stirred and spat. The glabrezu barked out his commands, and the demon company vanished in a ragged volley of teleportation.

  Sarya wheeled on Mardeiym and said, "Pass the word to left, to right, and to center: Press now! We want to keep any help far from those the demons attack. This is our chance."

  Seiveril studied the battle from the small prominence he'd chosen for its view over the Cwm. Since the elven army had formed ranks near the eastern end of the vale, directly before the Sunset Gate, they held land that was generally higher than that their attackers had to cross to reach them. Not only did that provide the elf archers and mages with good fields of fire, it also slowed the rush of orcs and ogres, and it gave the elf commanders a good view of the entire battlefield.

  A strong company of fey'ri swooped down over the Vale Guards directly in front of him, hurling their darts and blasting with deadly spells. Seiveril groaned as new gaps appeared in the ranks, elves falling to their knees with heavy javelins piercing shoulders and chests, others hurled limply through the air by jabbing forks of lightning or turned into living torches by gouts of evil fire. But the archers standing behind the infantry raised their bows and sent a storm of arrows skyward, even as the daemonfey climbed again to avoid the missiles. Fey'ri staggered in midair as arrows tore through them, spinning from the sky or simply crumpling and dropping.

  "Jerreda doesn't seem too busy over on the left," he said to Starbrow. "Let's get some more of her archers over here to help cover our infantry against those damned fey'ri."

  "I concur," Starbrow said. He called a runner over. "Find Jerreda on the left flank and ask her to send one hundred archers back to the center."

  The messenger repeated the message back to ensure that he had it right, and dashed off toward the steep forests surrounding the tarn on the south side of the Cwm.

  Seiveril looked toward the right. Lord Muirreste's mounted elves were hard-pressed, as well. The knights and lighter cavalry were much less numerous than the horde of orcs and ogres attacking them, but the open ground of the Cwm favored them. As long as they stayed in motion, the fey'ri had a hard time hitting them with any kind of massed magical assault. He wanted to send Muirreste some help, but he didn't know if-

  "Demons! "

  In the space of three heartbeats dozens upon dozens of demons and yugoloths, crackling with sinister magic or stinking of brimstone, appeared all over the hillside surrounding Seiveril. Even though he had been expecting it, Seiveril was paralyzed with horror for an endless moment.

  So many of them! he thought. So many! "Vesilde!" he called. "Vesilde!"

  He wheeled to look for Vesilde Gaerth's knights, just as the demons struck out with their vile sorcery. Demon fire and destruction blasted the hilltop. Dozens of elves died at once, consumed by foul flames, scoured by unholy power, or hurled like broken dolls by the invisible might of demonic magic. Seiveril endured two searing waves of fire that scorched
him even inside his enchanted elven plate. A mighty telekinetic buffet sent him hurling through the air. He picked himself up slowly, and looked up to find a hulking nycaloth rushing at him, its great claws as long and sharp as daggers. Seiveril just had time to raise his shield before the creature was on him, roaring with rage.

  The nycaloth's claws scored his armor and almost wrenched his shield away, but Seiveril crouched low and held on while he found the haft of his silver mace with his right hand. He surged up and counterattacked, smashing the holy weapon at the nycaloth. He caught it with a glancing blow across the shoulder, but the mace detonated with a pure, white light that charred a great black scar in the nycaloth's flesh. The fiend screeched and reeled back, and Seiveril used the space he'd bought to quickly shout out a spell, dispatching the creature back to its infernal home.

  He turned, searching for another foe, and found himself looking up at three massive hezrous, demons the size of ogres, with wide, toadlike mouths full of needle fangs and huge, powerful talons. The monsters croaked and scrambled toward him.

  "Kill the cleric," they snarled. "Break his bones, and suck the marrow. Rip his heart out!"

  The fearsome stench of the things gagged Seiveril. He went to one knee, trying to keep from losing his stomach as the monsters closed in. The hezrous hissed in glee and moved closer, their jaws gaping wide.

  Then from one side Fflar Starbrow Melruth leaped in among the monsters, his sword Keryvian glowing like a shining white brand too bright to look at. He hewed off the arm of the hezrou closest to him, the sword slicing through demon flesh with a pure ringing sound. The monster roared in pain and tried to recoil, but Starbrow followed closely and rammed the point of the long sword deep into the hezrou's side, taking the monster under the ribs and stabbing it through its foul heart. The ancient magic of the weapon burned everything inside the hezrou's ribs to a foul gray ash, and smoke poured out of the demon's wide mouth as it collapsed.