“Lock shields!” Vixa commanded. Her band of hand-picked warriors obeyed just as a hail of arrows raked them. “Swords out! Attack!”
They rushed the lightly armed Dimernesti and in short order pushed them back over the crenelations. All along the wall, sea elves mounted to the parapet on pathways of solidified vapor.
“We must disrupt their assault,” Vixa said quickly. “All of you! If you can shoulder a spear or swing a sword, follow me!”
The Qualinesti princess swallowed hard and leapt through a crenel toward the magical fog ramp. She wondered if it would support anyone, or only Coryphene’s chosen. Her feet landed on a surface hard as marble. She looked back. Her twenty warriors were with her. The other Silvanesti stood watching.
“What are you waiting for? The enemy is gaining the wall! Come on!” She plunged down the ramp and into the fog below. The lack of visibility was disorienting, but Vixa found the going easier if she didn’t worry about where her feet fell. She concentrated on listening for the enemy and on the sounds of the Silvanesti behind her.
Soon the brown mud of the riverbank appeared ahead. Vixa was vastly relieved when her feet splashed in the diminished Thon-Thalas.
The warriors arrived behind her. “Where now, lady?” one asked.
She turned. The city above was lost in the wall of white cloud, and none of them could see more than a few feet in front of their noses. Not even elven eyes could penetrate this magical fog bank. However, Vixa quickly discovered that the fog, though it veiled their eyes, did not affect their ears. She could hear the battle going on behind and above them. Ahead, Dargonesti were running to the fight, their wide, bare feet slapping loudly in the mud. The fog also seemed to act as a shield against the deluge of rain. Only a few raindrops splashed against Vixa’s armor. She pointed with her sword to the right.
“That way,” she said firmly. “The enemy seems to be coming from that direction.”
They formed in a close column of twos. Some thirty volunteers had followed Vixa and her original band, making a total of fifty warriors under her command. Surrounded though they were by several thousand Dargonesti, Vixa was unafraid. The fog was a two-edged weapon. It would screen them from Coryphene’s warriors just as well as it hid the sea elves from the Silvanesti.
Silently, Vixa and the Silvanesti made their way through the mist. Now and then, small groups of Dargonesti ran past, unaware. They also came upon sea elves who had crawled away from the city and died. Even as they tried to follow the edge of the river, it dwindled before them. Vixa called a halt when an odd odor reached her nostrils. At first sweet, then somehow sour and disagreeable, the odor was amazingly familiar. Where had she smelled it before?
Incense! It was the sour-sweet scent that had filled the temple level of Urione. The Dargonesti priests responsible for the strange fog and salty rain must be near.
She led her contingent of Silvanesti forward at a slower pace. To the left she spied a group of tall figures, standing close together. Whipping her sword in a circle overhead, Vixa signaled the attack.
They charged the enemy. Instead of evil priests, they found a band of Dargonesti warriors trying to slake their thirst in the rapidly shrinking river. The sight of the attacking Silvanesti sent the sea elves leaping for their spears, which they’d left driven into the mud nearby.
A melee ensued. Vixa was unsure how many of the foe they’d flushed, but attack was their only option. The Silvanesti spread out, trying to envelope the sea elves. Unencumbered and unprotected by shield or helmet, Vixa eluded Dargonesti spear thrusts while striking home again and again with her sword. Panting from lack of water, the Dargonesti gave ground. In spite of the salt rain, the sea elves appeared to be in desperate straits.
Staggering with fatigue, one of the Dargonesti jabbed at Vixa. She dodged, spun, and drove her blade into his ribs. This exchange had taken her a short distance from the rest of her command, and when her opponent fell, she found herself looking at a circle of perhaps twenty gray-robed Dargonesti priests, facing inward, a seething cauldron in their midst. Sprigs of smoldering incense were woven into their long jade hair. The odor of incense was overwhelming, but above it rose the smell of death and decay. These were the undead priests of Zura.
“Silvanesti, to me!” Vixa shouted. “Slay the priests and break their spells!”
The fight was over in minutes. The mages were so engrossed in their incantation, they did not attempt to flee or fight back. Even when confronted by sword-wielding enemy, the faces of the Shades of Zura remained expressionless and devoid of life.
When the slaughter was done, Vixa stood with the remaining Silvanesti soldiers, panting with exertion.
“This is no work for warriors,” muttered one of the Silvanesti. “Slaying unarmed clerics!”
“They were armed more mightily than any of us,” Vixa retorted. She bent over, her hands resting on her knees, and panted. “By their spells Silvanost could be lost.”
From her bent position, Vixa saw the green Dargonesti blood staining the muddy water at her feet. She also noticed something else-she could see her own shadow. Vixa stood erect and looked at the sky. The mist was thinning. A freshening wind and the heat of the sun were shredding the evil fog. With the priests of Zura dead, their conjurations were being dispersed by the living force of Silvanost’s own clerics.
This was not altogether a positive occurrence from Vixa’s point of view. As the mist lifted and the salt rain ceased, she and her command found themselves a lonely island in a sea of Dargonesti. Hastily they formed a circle, every elf facing outward, sword and shield ready. Vixa sheathed her blade and recovered a Dargonesti spear from the mud. Without a shield of her own, she needed the reach of the longer weapon.
Several hundred enemy warriors formed a short distance away. Vixa paced inside the small circle of her soldiers, giving orders in what she hoped was a steadying voice. Now and then she glanced up at the city. A furious fight still raged atop the wall. She uttered a brief, silent prayer for Samcadaris. Then there was time for nothing but survival.
The Dargonesti rushed them from all sides. They had rags tied around their heads to keep their gills damp, but the sun was out now and the air was warming rapidly. Vixa could see the powerful blue-skinned warriors gasping even as they tried to squeeze the small circle of Silvanesti into oblivion. At least, she thought, the city will be saved. Destroying the spell of the evil priests was worth all their lives.
The press of bodies was overpowering. Vixa raced around the inside of the circle of warriors, stabbing her spear at encroaching sea elves. The weapon was finally wrenched from her grasp. Two Silvanesti in front of her were knocked down by the sheer weight of Dargonesti pushing in. Vixa tried to back away, but she fetched up against the backs of the Silvanesti behind her. There was no place left to go.
She grabbed a sword from the lifeless hand of one of her soldiers and dueled with a pair of spear-armed Dargonesti. Something hard rapped Vixa sharply on the side of her head. Stunned, she went down. A wounded Silvanesti fell across her legs. The river mud gripped her. She felt herself sinking into it.
A horn blared above the clash of war. With the shouts and screams of combat around her, Vixa couldn’t tell if it was a Dargonesti conch shell or Silvanesti brass. She struggled to rise. Her borrowed sword slipped away and was swallowed by the mud.
One of her soldiers cried out, “The silver moon banner of Eriscodera! It’s the militia!”
Vixa grappled with fallen friends and foes and staggered upright. She nearly wept with relief at the sight that met her eyes. On the far shore were thousands of Silvanesti, those called to arms by the Speaker’s edict. At their head was an auburn-haired elf on horseback. Silvanost was saved!
With a concerted shout, Eriscodera and his cavalry left the marching levies and charged down the dry, cracked riverbank onto the mud flats. The white-kilted infantry, armed with pikes and halberds, came after them to the music of elven pipes and drums. The music wafted across the narrow channel that was all that remained of the mighty Thon-Thalas. Vixa watched the cavalry flounder in the heavy mud, but they kept coming. They weren’t making for the western gate of Silvanost though, but for a cluster of poles and banners in the center of the river.
“Silvanesti, rally!” she shouted hoarsely. “On your feet!”
Barely a dozen warriors remained to answer her call. The Dargonesti had fallen back when Eriscodera’s trumpets had sounded. The sea elves seemed uncertain whether to finish off Vixa’s little band or form and meet the oncoming cavalry.
Atop the city wall, Coryphene also heard the blaring of the horns, and he saw disaster looming for his army. Three-quarters of his depleted host was engaged in a wild fight along the walls. When the priests of Zura had died, the magical ramps of solidified fog had vanished. Coryphene’s troops on the wall were trapped. The Protector was committed to this battle as the will of his queen, and he would not have ordered retreat even had the ramps still
