The Herald

by Ed Greenwood

  Dove suspected that “somehow” had a name, and it was Fflar. He’d been everywhere, smiting swiftly and moving on, blunting every mercenary charge.

  She couldn’t hope to match him. Her handful knew they were doomed, and were grimly leaning on their grounded blades and gasping for breath as they watched a fresh wave of mercenaries coming for them out of the forest.

  Scores of them, hundreds … their slayers, and soon now. They had no hope at all of withstanding so many. The Shadovar coffers had been deep, and—

  Something hissed horribly, off to the left, much nearer than the oncoming mercenaries.

  Then it came into view around a many-towered elven mansion, writhing and struggling, and Dove gaped at it along with all the surviving Moonstars.

  It was a black dragon of great size, an elder wyrm. It had been so badly—and recently—hacked at that it had no wings left, and limped heavily, one foot missing and the stump weeping blood, and the other legs crisscrossed by deep cuts. It moved more like a serpent, on its belly, than a great cat, whose gaits most of the dragons Dove had met resembled.

  Its attention was bent on the mercenaries, and it struggled to meet them, hissing again in agonized rage.

  Spears and glaives and shouts were all raised—and then it was among them, snarling a challenge, biting with its great jaws, and rolling to crush men by the score.

  And after it, through the air, came a creature that made more than one Moonstar moan in dismay.

  A floating sphere the size of a small wagon, from which projected a moving, serpentine forest of eyestalks. It was emitting horrible, hissing laughter.

  “Free!” it exulted, fairly dancing in the air. “Free again at last! Blast me with all the spells you want, elves, if that’s the result! Hahahahaha!”

  “A beholder?” one Moonstar gasped. “Ye gods, what next?”

  The eye tyrant glided to where it could hang above the lunging, rolling, biting dragon, and from that vantage point above the fray sent its eyebeams lancing down into the mercenaries. Who started to shriek in terror, and tried to flee—right through the gathered ranks of their fellows.

  Turmoil spread.

  Dove allowed herself one mirthless smile at that, before she turned to look in other directions. She half expected another menace to come creeping up while she and the Moonstars watched these two monsters who shouldn’t be anywhere near here maraud through the foe.

  The elf knights defending in the other direction were still holding, a fresh fire billowed up from somewhere beyond buildings to her right, and just a little way to the left of them she could see … the heads of running elves! The rest of the fleeing Tel’Quess were hidden from her, down in a dell.

  Dove trotted to the nearest tree and scaled it until she was high enough to see who was running, and why.

  She beheld ancient, wizened elves, elders, shooing and shepherding elf children in some haste from her right to her left. Beyond them, farther off but getting closer fast, were two shades with drawn swords in their hands. They were rushing at the elves, with clearly fell intent.

  Dove flung herself from the tree and landed sprinting, heading for the dell as fast as she could. If anything could be salvaged from this dark day, it must be those children, the future of the Tel’Quess of this part of Faerûn …

  “To me!” she shouted to the Moonstars, but didn’t slow for a moment to see if they’d heeded or were following.

  Down the long years, her way had not been that of the spell. Daughter of Mystra or not, the sword and a skilled tongue and the making and keeping of friendships had always served her better. Yet she’d studied her share of dusty tomes, even in the dim chambers of Candlekeep a time or two, and remembered some things.

  Badly, for the most part, and never really thinking she’d need them. But now, as she sprinted over tree roots and through wet leaves and over slippery moss, Dove Falconhand gasped out what snatches she could remember of an ancient spell she’d read in one of Candlekeep’s inner rooms, more than a few centuries ago.

  It was a last resort magic of the elves, to be used when doom was imminent.

  A spell that would summon baelnorn.

  Lord and Lady Delcastle faced each other across the pleasant farmhouse kitchen of Storm Silverhand, their faces grim.

  “Lady mine,” Arclath said gravely, “please misunderstand me not. I don’t wish to dissuade you in what you attempt, nor mar what we have between us or your needed concentration. Yet I must ask: Are you ready for this? Do you know what you are doing?”

  Amarune sighed gustily, neither in anger nor resignation, but to steady and calm herself, and told her beloved, “Yes. Yes, I think I do.”

  She gave him a little grin, then pointed at a particular flagstone in front of her and added sharply, “Now go and stand just there and belt up while I read the scroll through once more, and then read it aloud. We have to be touching, but mind, Lord Delcastle, this is no time for tickling me or otherwise amusing yourself.”

  “I understand that,” Arclath told her dryly, moving to the indicated spot. “Yet I do have another question: How are you going to keep the scroll from rolling itself up?”

  “I—” Rune ran out of answers, and stared at him helplessly.

  “And we’re going to rescue besieged Myth Drannor,” Arclath told the ceiling. Then met her eyes, grinned, and suggested, “Why not have me stand on two corners of the scroll, unroll it, then you stand on the other two corners? Then you can look down between us, and read.”

  His lady nodded slowly. “That’ll work,” she said—and just managed not to sound surprised.

  And so it was that Arclath Delcastle was grinning fondly at his ladylove when Storm’s kitchen went away in sudden blue mists, and they fell out of that eerie sapphire place into … a forest where the dead and the flies were everywhere, and an army was tightening in a ring around the tall spires of a few buildings, and monsters of nightmare and legend were harrying that army …

  And a spired stone city floated in the sky, vast and dark and blotting out the sunlight as it came scudding menacingly overhead.

  CHAPTER 18

  Low Cunning Prevails

  DOVE SHOOK HER HEAD. IT WAS NO USE. SHE’D REMEMBERED the entire spell, she was sure—but nothing had happened. Whatever baelnorn still guarded their crypts somewhere beneath her would remain there. She’d have to do this alone.

  As usual.

  And her luck was turning for the worse. Also as usual.

  She’d cast a look back to see if any of the Moonstars were following her—they weren’t, only gawping in bewilderment at her sudden sprint across the landscape—and had seen that someone else was following her.

  The big beholder who’d been hovering above the wounded black dragon happily slaying Shadovar mercenaries was drifting in her direction, eyestalks writhing menacingly.

  And though she couldn’t place from where, the creature seemed somehow familiar.

  “Stars and spells, Mother!” Dove cursed aloud, “why now? How is it that monsters are here—here in the farruking mythal-guarded heart of Myth Drannor—to settle old scores, right in the midst of the elves’ latest last stand?”

  And with those words, running as hard as ever, she plunged over the edge.

  Down into the dell, a green and pleasant place. There were the elves, the youngest sobbing in fear, and—

  There they were, the pursuers. Wearing broad and arrogant grins as they came, striding unhurriedly, enjoying this. Two tall and muscular shades, twins—and Tanthuls, by the looks of them!

  “Well, now,” she panted aloud. “Princes of Shade! I’m honored. I think.”

  She’d be able to get between the two and the fleeing elves; that was what mattered. As she hastened to do that, Dove cast a swift look back over her shoulder, and saw what she’d expected to see.

  The beholder didn’t have to run over uneven ground or down steep slopes, and had glided serenely closer. The baleful gaze of its central eye was fixed on her.

 
“Hunh,” she gasped at it. “Wait your turn.”

  And then she had no more breath to speak, because damned if these two running princes of Shade hadn’t sped up, to try to run past before she could reach them.

  Dove sprinted beyond breathlessness, putting on a burst of speed that left her staggering as they came rushing up, swinging their swords.

  She ducked, feinted with her hips, saw the foremost shade’s gaze follow her movement, swung her sword aloft to distract him further—and threw a perfect cross-body block across his midriff.

  They slammed together like two charging bulls, Dove’s hip sinking deep into a yielding gut—and the prince went helplessly cartwheeling.

  Whereupon the other shade gleefully ran her through.

  His steel felt like ice inside her, but he made the mistake of twisting his blade to do her more agony, rather than pulling it out of her to use again, making sure of her death. Instead, he turned the hilt sadistically as he made a sneering speech.

  “I am Prince Vattick of Thultanthar, and your doom! So tell me, foolish wench, who are you?”

  Dove kept her feet moving, and clawed her way up his blade before he could withdraw it. Which meant she was close enough to use the sharpest and strongest run of her own sword, the length just above the hilt. Her first slash almost took the prince’s free hand off, and while he was busy screaming about that, she chopped at his sword hand.

  Prince Vattick of Thultanthar promptly lost his grip on his blade, which meant she could lurch back far enough to swing—and slice his head off.

  She turned, as it bounced in the dust, wearing a look of pained disbelief, to see what had become of the other prince, but the agony flaring inside her took her to her knees.

  She shuddered, still impaled on the dead prince’s sword, the sword that was now propping her up, its point caught on the backplate of her armor.

  Mother Mystra, but it hurt!

  The air above her darkened.

  Of course.

  Dove looked up through the welling pain. The beholder loomed above her, its wide and many-toothed smile gloating. “Dove Falconhand,” it hissed, “do you remember me?”

  She did, but still couldn’t recall its name.

  And then she did. “Glormorglulla,” she gasped, her blood iron and fire in her mouth.

  “The same,” the eye tyrant purred. “And do you recall our last meeting?”

  “No,” she told it honestly, looking past it to try to see what had become of the fleeing elf children and elders and the other prince, but finding her vision was blurring, and everything was going dim.

  She could hear screams and cries, but they sounded human, not elf.

  “No,” she said again, drifting through memories she hadn’t brought to mind for a long time, but finding no scene nor recollection with Glormorglulla in it.

  “You helped the accursed Elminster capture me,” the beholder spat. “With your spells, you aided him, when he lacked the might to overcome me alone. You were responsible for my imprisonment. Yet fate and chance are sometimes wondrous—and now, at long last, I shall have my revenge.”

  “So be it,” Dove hissed up at it, spitting out blood and feeling more flooding up into her mouth than she could hope to swallow.

  She spat hastily, and managed to ask, “I wonder if you’ll escape the curse I worked on you?”

  “What curse?” the beholder asked, swooping down until its great eye towered over her. “What is this you speak of?”

  It was a lie, an empty ruse, but Glormorglulla was close enough now for even her dying, agony-sapped mind to reach.

  Dove glared up through the blood, and locked gazes and minds with the eye tyrant.

  “Saerevros,” she murmured, and so sealed the blood lock.

  The beholder could easily break free when she was dead, but until then it could win free of where she held it only if its mind could break hers.

  “Not a chance,” she mumbled aloud, as the first hint of horror dawned in Glormorglulla’s fell gaze.

  Dove held that dark and malevolent mind in thrall.

  The eye tyrant struggled, at first furiously and then in growing terror, tugging—but failing. It couldn’t move away, and couldn’t use the powers of its eyes, thanks to her willing otherwise, but it could and did roll over and over in midair, and flail the passing breeze and her face and shoulders alike with its eyestalks.

  Thrice it tried to devour her, its great jaws gaping, but she held it back with her strength of will, its fetid fangs clashing right in front of her nose as their minds wrestled.

  She was dying, and her mind was weakening, and they both knew it. The frightened and furious Glormorglulla dared to hope, and anticipate, and even to gloat.

  Whereupon she let it feel her full rage, and the silver fire that had started to spill from her weakening constraints.

  Fire the beholder sought greedily to take from her, for was it not the fabled all-consuming power that humbled all magics? Would not an eye tyrant wielding silver fire be able to conquer all, and rule every last tree and river of Faerûn it desired?

  Dove smiled bleakly into its great eye, and gave it what it wanted. Silver fire, unleashed and raging.

  Rushing through the mind she was locked to, boiling and melting remorselessly, destroying so swiftly it barely had time to know true terror.

  An awful reek rose around her as the malevolent beholder’s brains fried.

  Until Glormorglulla could think no more.

  One by one, the small orbs at the ends of its writhing eyestalks burst, popping out gooey matter and then weeping a dark ichor. Then the great eye darkened and shriveled, until it looked like the largest raisin Dove had ever seen.

  About then, her mind-hold failed. She was going fast.

  Dully, she watched the husk of the great eye tyrant drift aimlessly away.

  Well, she’d taken down one prince. Those elf elders would have to deal with his surviving brother.

  “Florin,” Dove gasped with her last breath, still draped over the sword that had slain her, tongues of silver fire blazing out between her lips. “I’m coming. Coming at last.”

  Magnificence and a dream restored in the heart of the forest, the City of Song—but the song was faint and faltering now.

  It had all come down to this bitter end, here in this fiery blue cleft amid a last paltry handful of spired buildings. So fair and so doomed.

  “Females first,” the coronal ordered the elf knights around her briskly. “Young and old together—pair them if you can, but waste no time trying to do so.”

  Blue fire lit her face in flash after flash; the pulsing blue glow of the portal was reflecting back off the knights’ armor, wherever it wasn’t covered with gore.

  “Of course,” the eldest knight agreed, and spun away to see it done.

  “You, you, and you,” the coronal said, pointing at other knights, “with me!” And she started to run, down along the ragged and lengthening line of children and elders, to take a stand at its end, in case the last line of defenders—pitifully few they were too—was overwhelmed.

  She got there just in time. “Mages!” she called over her shoulder, and pointed at the surging besiegers, as they overbore two elves—several spears and glaives thrusting through each—and poured forward.

  The coronal strode to meet them, and the knights with her grimaced and rushed to get in front of her, to shield her with their lives.

  They were still a few strides apart from the foremost mercenaries when the elf line broke in another place. With a ragged roar of triumph, the Shadovar-hired mercenaries charged, heading around the coronal and her handful so they could fall upon the largely undefended line of children and elders.

  The coronal turned and rushed to intercept them. “Old lives for young!” she cried to the loyal elves running with her. “Win a future for our younglings with our own blood!”

  As she chose the highest ground, to stop and make her stand, Ilsevele Miritar saw that she’d been shouting to only six
Tel’Quess—and the grinning and eager foe closing on them were beyond counting.

  Yet the slope between her and the human hireswords was suddenly shrouded in blue-green mist. A spell, obviously, but not one she recognized. Nothing the handful of high mages here could cast, of that she was sure.

  The mercenaries boiled up the hill—but out of the ground in front of their boots, up through the coiling mists, rose a line of baelnorn.

  Tall and gaunt and terrible, eyes aglow and withered bodies clutching long curved swords and scepters that shone with risen magic.

  “Dove hath called, and we answer,” the tallest of them announced, and raised her scepter.

  The line of blue-white fire smashed a dozen mercenaries as if a stone had been dashed into a heap of raw eggs. Torn bodies flew through the air, and the screaming began. Then other scepters spat, and the slaughter really began.

  Sapphire-blue hair swirled, dark eyes blazed, and the lone petite elf slashed with a sword that was not there, a bloody edge of sharp force sweeping through the air and cleaving flesh, bone, armor and blade alike.

  It cut a bloody swath through shouting, shrieking mercenaries—and then she was gone, darting like a hummingbird across the glade to thrust and slice anew.

  This time she swooped and stabbed among arcanists, haughty and bewildered shades of Tultanthar who, until a moment ago, had been relaxing in the secure knowledge that they were far in the rear of the besieging army, on the winning side, with not a foe who could reach them anywhere near.

  “Who the—?” one arcanist shouted, watching the diminutive figure dart away again through the trees.

  “Blast it down, whatever it is!” snarled another. “Quickly, or—”

  He’d meant to say before this unlooked-for solo attacker was out of range and lost to them in the endless trees of the deep forest, but before he could frame the words, she was back, and he saw what he was facing.