The Herald

by Ed Greenwood

  Something large and heavy and aflame came hurtling through the trees to crash down, bounce, and roll onward in a whirlwind of smoldering leaves. In its wake, there rose a ragged shout as motley armsmen charged into view through a tangle of trees—trees out of which fell an elf in mottled leaf-and-leather armor, limp and dead.

  “—break this siege, and hurl back these hired swords, clear through Sembia and into the sea!”

  And with her silver hair spreading out as wide as four men and clutching a dozen swords she’d plucked up from amid the fallen, Storm Silverhand strode to meet the onrushing men.

  With a yell, Arclath roused himself and sprinted after her, to come up on the bard’s left flank. Rune gave him a wink and a grin and headed for Storm’s other flank.

  And with various contemptuous shouts and snarls, the dozen-some mercenaries charged to meet them, blood-drenched blades in hand.

  Helgore strolled along the dimly lit halls as if he belonged there. His elf guise was gone, banished in his draining of that meddling elf guardian, but he cared not. That fool’s shed and empty skin was still slithering along in his wake, but it was more amusing than annoying, and might even prove a useful distraction if he met other elves.

  Not that they seemed to come down into these cool, damp, endlessly curving passages often. He’d been exploring for a long time now, with neither a sighting nor a challenge. Still, during a siege, anything could happen.

  It was surprising how extensive these underground ways were. Elves were popularly thought to love fresh air and green growing things and the out-of-doors, not stone-lined holes in the ground. Was such terrain not dwarf territory?

  Myth Drannor had been a city where many races were welcome, so perhaps these underways were unusual for elf cities, but surely the elves would have considered their dead sacred to themselves, and not let dwarves dig out and tend the vaults where the elves laid their ancestors?

  If the crypts were as extensive as they seemed—given that he’d walked a long way now, along passages and past many doors that presumably led to many rooms—then taking Myth Drannor might be a longer, harder endeavor than the Most High and all the princes had thought. He kept a conjured spell-shield moving along ahead. It would float along, silent and invisible, until it met the sort of magic awakened by intrusion—and then it would flare into sight, warning him and hopefully shielding him from the worst of whatever erupted.

  Hopefully.

  His task would have been far easier if he’d been able to find any sort of map of where the crypts of the high elf Houses were, but the team of junior arcanists who had promised as much and had plunged in to find such a thing with enthusiasm had turned up nothing at all.

  Helgore was beginning to suspect no map existed, save in the minds of each family of elves, knowing where their ancestors lay, and probably the neighboring crypts. Still, finding a crypt almost certainly meant finding a baelnorn, for the strange elf undead were guardians bound to the crypts of their families.

  Guardians whom he was here to destroy.

  So they couldn’t manipulate the wards against Thultanthar, in ways the arcanists and even the Most High just didn’t have time to unravel and thwart. The baelnorn had to be gone, and soon.

  Which meant he could do what he loved to do most: slay ruthlessly and viciously.

  Helgore smiled in anticipation, and flexed his fingers. The Most High had given him spells that should rend baelnorn with ease, and after his long, cruel, exacting training, he ached to lash out at something.

  Ho, now, what was this?

  Ahead, his shield had flared blue and come to an abrupt halt, the seemingly empty air in front of it thickening into a blue curtain.

  Well, more wall than curtain, though it rippled like a hanging tapestry. He thrust at his shield with his will, forcing it to move forward—but it merely quivered, as if caught fast in a titanic spider web.

  Helgore chuckled, enjoying the moment, and dropped into a catlike stalk, focusing all his senses in a straining effort to see and hear everything as he advanced slowly. There could be pit traps beneath his boots, death waiting to plummet from above, deadly spells lurking …

  Or nothing at all. All was silent in the passage save for the small sounds of his own progress, his faint breathing louder than the gentle breeze ghosting past his ankles. He came up to his shield and thrust his hand through it, at the blue wall—a vertical patch of air that was only opaque and blue where the shield touched it, and mere dimly lit emptiness everywhere else.

  His fingers felt the chill prickling of arisen magical energy, flowing endlessly up and down, forming the wall.

  So was it a barrier to him, or just active magics such as his shield? He withdrew his hand, got out the long, needlelike poniard sheathed down his left forearm, and extended it. It bore small enchantments to keep away rust and resist acid, and to glow when a wielder willed it to, so it was magic.

  Would this blue wall just block his way, or try to visit some harm on him? The selukiira was awake too, thrumming subtly as he leaned nearer to this wall.

  The long dagger thrust into the wall as if it weren’t there—and a moment later, it wasn’t.

  The wall was gone as abruptly and as silently as if it had never been there, his shield racing forward unopposed—only to wink out with a little sigh, destroyed by something unseen.

  Helgore frowned. No doubt he’d just set off some sort of magical alarm, but who would answer it?

  Somehow the warding magic felt old, not something cast recently to warn of current besiegers bursting up from the Underdark or through the crypts into the city …

  He stepped forward with slow caution, into utter silence.

  “That’s close enough, human. I have little reason to love or trust Netherese. Your most accomplished spellcasters are rash, to put it politely, and those of less mastery—the Tanthuls, for instance—are a danger not just to your own cities, but to all the world.”

  The voice was as calm as a gently reproving mother’s, not as cold and harsh as might be expected from the words spoken.

  Yet Helgore, peer as he might, could not see its source. So he kept on advancing, very cautiously now, his dagger in one hand and the other raised and ready to hurl a mighty spell.

  “So you serve a Tanthul, and hail from Thultanthar, and are here to work ill.”

  Blue flames erupted out of empty air to dart at Helgore’s eyes.

  He turned them aside with a frantic spell, just in time, and fell back with a snarl. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

  The air a little way down the passage rippled as if a curtain was being parted, and there was suddenly a very tall, impossibly thin elf lord facing him—floating with feet together, off the ground, legs nearly skeletal. Helgore could see ribs, arm bones … the flesh cloaking them was translucent, and he was seeing the male elf’s bones right through it!

  “I am Thurauvyn Nathalanorn. Guardian Undying of House Nathalanorn. Just as you are an arcanist of Thultanthar, hight Helgore. Helgore Ulitlarathulm. Sent to destroy baelnorn. My, my.”

  “And you know all of this how?” Helgore asked softly, not wasting breath in denials, but making sure his strongest ward spells were awakened.

  “The selukiira. Telamont should have warned you about that. If he knew about it at all; Telamont Tanthul always was a careless, too-hasty youngling. Who considered those working for and with him expendable tools.”

  Helgore wrenched the loregem free and flung it aside.

  The baelnorn winced. “Such vandalism is … distressing. Unworthy, even of young and foolish humans drunk on their burgeoning mastery of the Art.”

  It looked past Helgore, gazed at the empty elf skin slithering closer to him, and repeated more sharply, “Unworthy, indeed.”

  The slaying spell whirled up out of nowhere to blast Helgore with roaring emerald flames of fury.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Three Who Wait in Darkness

  THE FIRST FEW BLADESINGERS STORM, AMARUNE, AND ARCLATH had com
e rushing through the forest to reinforce had given them startled looks, and a high mage of Myth Drannor had shot them a look that was frankly hostile, but once the mercenaries came swarming through the trees in earnest to fall upon this handful of elves defending this particular wooded knoll of Myth Drannor, there was no time at all left for anything but frantic hacking, running, and parrying.

  The elves were every whit as agile as Rune, who was used to being the most nimble in any fray, but Storm Silverhand awed her.

  A whirlwind of long silver tresses snatching up swearing besiegers and dashing them against trees, or trammeling their swords and maces, the bard seemed to float through the battle, at the heart of the thickest fighting as mercenaries rushed in to try to overwhelm her.

  Twice it seemed they’d manage it, as even Arclath—who was plying his sword in one hand and a captured blade in the other, both arms red to the shoulder with gore that wasn’t his—was beaten back from trying to reach her so he could guard her back.

  Shouting murderously, the mercenaries closed into a ring around her, thrusting with bills and glaives, hacking with hand axes and blades, nigh burying her with their bodies.

  And twice, a moment of silver-edged silence fell, all local din and clangor muted, as every hiresword was snatched off his bloody-booted feet and flung away from her, seemingly in slow motion, a startled open-mouthed tumbling that became a swift and brutal splattering of hurled bodies against unyielding trees. Moss and bark were torn away by rebounding broken bodies, and in a rush all the sound returned, most of it shrieking or raw howling of pain, amid the groans and wet thudding of bodies bouncing and landing.

  Leaving Storm standing alone, the fire of risen anger in her eyes, her long slender sword raised and ready as she sought the most formidable-looking nearby foes—and launched herself at them.

  “Challenge,” she’d snarl if their backs were turned, then she’d set her teeth and swing. In the ringing shriek of blades crashing together that followed, more than one contemptuous veteran battleblade was driven back on his heels, shaken and astonished. A few of them lived long enough for that astonishment to give way to fear, but as Storm apologized to one falling corpse, “I’m in a hurry.”

  The third time the besiegers sought to overwhelm her, they came at her from all sides as she fenced and fought, dancing and whirling to keep from being taken from behind. Rune and Arclath fought shoulder to shoulder, trying to reach her but barely managing to hold their own ground. And then four hulking warriors came rushing at Storm in unison, glaives lowered in a deadly wall of long gutting points, shouting at their fellow mercenaries to get out of the way.

  Those deadly, gore-smirched points were almost under her sword arm before the silver silence came again.

  Arclath and Amarune gaped at the muted ballet. The charging warriors were hurled up and back, glaives almost raking Storm’s chin as they flew skyward, gauntleted hands clawing at unhelpful air all around. Saplings swayed as men crashed into them, falling leaves swirled, and—the sounds of the nigh deafening battlefield rushed back, battered besiegers fleeing wildly, some of them limping or crawling.

  “How do you do that?” Rune demanded, as she came up beside Storm. Who gave her a smile far friendlier than her blazing eyes, and shook her head.

  “Not a spell I can teach you,” she panted. “Called on the Weave. Like El does, more than he spouts incantations, these days.” The bard grounded her sword and leaned on it, fighting for breath. “Soon, you’ll feel how,” she added.

  Louder panting and gasping could be heard all around them, as exhausted elves sagged back against trees, or wearily thrust steel through the throats of dying mercenaries.

  “My thanks,” one of them called to Storm. “Your fury made all the difference.”

  “Prowess,” another corrected, bent double in his fight for air. A bladesinger who looked so like him that she might be his sister stroked his shoulder as she passed, heading to where she could keep a wary eye on the retreating besiegers.

  Yet it seemed that this corner of the woods had been left to the defenders of Myth Drannor for the moment.

  Storm watched one of them turn over the body of a fallen elf, then grimly let it fall back. But not before she’d seen what the living elf had—a face and throat in bloody ruin, flies buzzing thickly.

  The surviving elf looked up, met her eyes, and shook his head. “Lhaerlavrae,” he murmured. “She should have lived and laughed for centuries more.”

  He got to his feet, the tears coming, and wandered away almost blindly, embracing the trees he blundered into as if they were the comforting arms of kin.

  “Heavy losses,” a bladesinger sighed. “Heavy losses.”

  Storm went and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  The elf smiled up at her, and covered the bard’s hand with her own. “We usually rush around in battle, pouncing on foes and then melting back into the trees, using our oneness with the forest and nimble swiftness to make our numbers strike the foe as hard as if we were thrice or more what we truly are—but here, where we must stand and defend, we take losses. Too many losses.” She shook her head. “Every day, too many of us fall. This can’t go on.”

  “Every bowshot of forest, every spire of the city lost to the foe is a greater death to our race,” one of the high mages snapped at her. “We stand and fight!”

  Storm sighed and said to him, “This battle is not about defending courtyards and elegant spires, nor yet wild forest that can all be recaptured or rebuilt. You are fighting for the survival of Fair Folk in these lands. Come sunset, the coronal or Fflar won’t care if you stood your ground or rushed about pouncing and retreating, but only that you still hold Myth Drannor—and that as many elves as possible are alive to do so. Do what works best, to set these mercenaries—who fight for coin, not their lives or their people—to flight. Mere ground is not sacred.”

  “You are not of our people,” the mage replied coldly. “You do not see things as we do.”

  “This is not even your fight,” another high mage put in.

  “We’ve been defending this forest, this great city, for longer than you have been alive, human,” said a third. “Do not presume to tell us how to conduct ourselves in battle.”

  “As it happens,” Storm replied mildly, “I was defending this city—and the forest all around us, here—when it was an overgrown ruin, and none of you were to be seen anywhere near here. I know this to be firm truth, for I knew everyone who ran with Alok Silverspear, and knew them well.” She raised her voice so all the elves around could hear, and added, “Your lives are worth more to all Tel’Quess than this little ridge, or that stand of shadowtops yonder. So keep moving, striking from the trees and running on, to strike again. The trees can’t move, so do the moving for them. If you stand your ground against so many, you’ll die.”

  “School humans, human,” the first high mage sneered, and turned away. Storm shrugged and bent her attention to a wounded bladesinger.

  “They’re coming again,” Arclath warned, peering through the trees.

  “Help me get her to her feet,” Storm told Rune, who rushed to aid the bladesinger.

  “There, amid the artraela,” the first high mage ordered. “We’ll meet them there.”

  Arclath hadn’t heard the Elvish for “duskwoods” before, but it was obvious what the elf was pointing at. The other high mages were already heading for it, picking their way over moss-girt tangles of long-fallen trunks with a fluid grace he envied.

  Only a handful of the other elves were moving with them. The rest looked at Storm, as she and Rune got the shuddering bladesinger up between them, and either moved to form a ring around them, or melted back into the trees.

  “D’khessarath!” the nearest high mage swore. “Heed!” he cried, and pointed at the stand of duskwoods.

  Silent elf faces looked back at him, but no one obeyed.

  He whirled to give Storm a glare. “This treachery is your doing!”

  She arched an eyebrow.
“Treachery is a strong word, from one leaving wounded to the nonexistent mercies of the foe.”

  “Insubordinate defiance of discipline wins no wars,” he snarled, and whirled away from them to hasten for the duskwoods.

  Storm sighed. “Too many Tel’Quess are sounding more and more human, these days.”

  Beside her ear, the wounded bladesinger tried to chuckle, but it turned into a gasp.

  The elves around them peered at the advancing besiegers, then looked to Storm uncertainly.

  “Go,” she said firmly. “Into the trees, to move swiftly and strike shrewdly at the foe and then withdraw again before you can be surrounded and overwhelmed. Go!”

  One warrior looked at the wounded bladesinger and then at Storm, anguish in his face. “I—there is no honor—”

  “Win more honor by staying alive and fighting on,” Storm said softly, “warriors of Myth Drannor. Do not let your fallen have died in vain. I say again: go.”

  They went, some shaping salutes to her—and they were barely gone amid the trees in one direction when rising shouts and the crashing of trampled ferns and brush from another heralded the arrival of the foremost mercenaries.

  “Leave me,” the bladesinger panted. “Save yourselves!”

  “No,” Storm replied firmly, lifting the elf with her hair and settling her gently against the scorched and blackened trunk of a forest giant that had been blasted away. “Here, against what’s left of this shadowtop. Rune, to my left—Arclath, my right. We’ll do as yon fools want, and make a stand.” She glanced at the onrushing besiegers. “There are only about threescore of them.”

  “Meaning?” Arclath asked with a grin.

  “They don’t stand a chance,” Storm told him grimly, her hair lifting from her shoulders to writhe, each tress lashing like the tail of an angry lion, as she took a step forward and let her hair rise into a great restless halo of full readiness.