She channeled her fury into a yell that rang out over the battle. She leapt, not a small leap but a great, ungainly leap of twenty feet, using the mystical strength granted her by armor and sword. She brought her blade down on the dark elf who had slain the dwarf. He stared at her flight, wide-eyed, as she landed upon him and pierced him through his armor. She left a great rent in it, cutting through it as though it were nothing more than old, tattered parchment.
The melee lay open before her, half the heads in the room on her, watching. The clash of swords, the clang of blades, the sight of hundreds of bodies pressed against each other, and yet something familiar prickled at her mind even as she rushed forward, sword in motion to deal with the next dark elf, and the next. There was an aura of low-hanging fog, of something passing beneath her feet as she brought down a sword and split the metal helm and skull of a dark elf while whirling to land a hard-edged slash against another enemy.
Something moved out of the corner of her eye-several somethings, actually, as this was a full-fledged battle-but this one more pronounced. It was big and green, with black robes and a sash around the shoulders that bore the markings of a healer. The troll, Vaste, brought his staff down on the neck of a dark elven warrior whose blade was only inches from Vara’s side. The warrior’s skull cracked, a sickening noise of bones and wetness echoing in her ears as the body hit the floor and was trampled under the troll’s feet as he moved on to his next opponent.
“That’s okay, don’t thank me or anything,” Vaste said under his breath. “After all, why bother to be grateful to me for saving your life?”
Had she not been an elf, and possessed of the exceptional hearing that was a hallmark of her race, she might not have heard him. “I’ll thank you later, should we both survive this. As it is, you may have done nothing more,” she laid her blade across the throat of another dark elf, “than buy me a temporary reprieve; we seem to be somewhat outnumbered.”
“We’re not, actually,” Vaste said, his hand glowing and pointed into the distance. Vara turned and watched as a healing spell settled on a human ranger whose face was slick with blood pouring from a gouge in his throat. Skin closed up, leaving only the spilt blood as a mark of the death that had nearly visited the man. He shouted his thanks and plunged twin blades into a dark elf whose back was turned. “It’s just that most of our force is arrayed on the wall against the army that has us surrounded.”
“Did it not occur to anyone that the Sovereign of the Dark Elves would simply teleport a force into our midst?” She caught the blade of one of the dark elven attackers on hers and turned it aside, spinning him about while she plunged her sword into the back of his neck.
“I don’t know. Did it occur to you?”
She narrowed her eyes, but she was turned from him, dealing with two dark elven warriors that came at her with axes. “Fair point.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that?” She couldn’t see the troll’s face, but she heard the smile in his reply.
“I said focus on the battle, you malodorous pile of rubbish.” She struck down the first of her foes with an offhand attack, keeping his body between her and the second as the dark elf sunk to his knees. “Where is Fortin? He could turn the tide of this contest in mere seconds.”
“Visiting his estate in the Elven Kingdom, I believe,” Vaste’s voice had a sudden strain to it and she turned to find him holding back three dark elven warriors who were pressing their advantage and driving him toward the doors to the Great Hall, where another battle appeared to be taking place. “He does so love to commune with the rocks and boulders; who would have known that a rock giant had a sensitive side? Certainly not me, but then again I rather enjoy his ‘batter your enemies with superior strength until their skulls become a fine paste’ approach.”
“Aye,” she said, moving to help Vaste but finding herself cut off by three strong dark elven warriors. “We could use a bit of that right now.” She found herself boxed in, the one on the left driving her back while the one in the center pushed at her with an oblong blade that hosted a right angle at the tip. She watched Vaste block attacks with his staff, the focusing crystal on the tip of it glowing a ghostly white. “Do our forces outside even know that we’ve got enemies in the damned foyer?”
“I would have to guess that this is a coordinated attack.” Vaste’s words came out in great, shuddering gasps as he exerted himself, striking a killing blow against one of the dark elves menacing him. “They’re probably making an assault on the wall even now.”
“Bloody hell.” Vara saw the white, toothy grin of her center assailant as he thrust his great sword at her and she dodged, countering with an abrupt lunge, her sword at full extension. Her movement caused her to avoid strikes from the dark elves on her left and right, and she let her attack carry her through, striking the dark elf in the mouth with her blade. She felt it slide in, watched his grin dissolve in blood and broken teeth, then pulled her sword left, jerking it free and striking against the neck of her foe to the side. She pirouetted and brought it across the throat of the one to her right. With athletic ease she jumped over the bodies of both of them as they fell and moved toward Vaste, who had acquired another attacker.
“Oh, good,” the troll said as she struck down the first of his assailants from behind, without warning, causing two of the others to pivot to face her. “I was beginning to worry that perhaps I just wasn’t that important to you.”
“You truly aren’t.” She crossed swords with the next that came at her. The clash of her mystical blade against her opponent’s cut steel, chipping his sword.
“At least until you need a healing spell,” Vaste said. “You ungrateful tart. I bet if I was a warrior wearing black armor, you’d feel differently.”
He said it lightly, with just the hint of a barb, but when it reached Vara’s ears, it curdled and she felt heat rush through her veins, setting her blood afire. She struck down the next two enemies with reckless disregard for her own safety, catching a wound to the shoulder that slid through the joint of her armor. She ignored it, felt the searing pain of it and set it aside, letting the thought of the warrior in black burn her internally.
She felt a pain that was nowhere near her shoulder, a pain so acute and stunning that she hated herself for feeling it. Guilt washed over her, halting her uncharitable thought midway through, leaving her with only the same familiar mantra that had been rolling through her mind for the last six months:
Something caused her to shudder. The thin fog that had seemed to creep into the room was gaining in volume, rolling over the floor and swirling into the center of the foyer. Behind her, she could still hear the wail of the horns, the slamming of doors and the roaring of fires bursting out of the hearth across the room, warning the residents of Sanctuary of the attack in their midst. All of that seemed to calm, along with the swell of the battle as the mist rolled to the center of the room, rising from the floor into a man-sized pillar, gaining definition and swelling into a figure.
Worn, battered armor appeared out of the cloud along with a helm that covered all but the mouth of the man within it. A sword of darkened metal swept out of the fog, cutting neatly through seven different assailants who surrounded the mist. The cloud dissipated and flowed to the other side of the room, near the hearth, gathering behind a cluster of dark elven warriors. It sprang into a pillar once more and out came a sword, stroking neatly across the bodies of the foes arrayed about it, then dispersed once more and moved to a spot near the lounge, where it became a tornado of mist and exploded, puffs of the smoky air evaporating to leave behind Alaric Garaunt, the Guildmaster of Sanctuary. He sprang forth from the smoke, his mouth contorted in fury and the sound of his yell rained upon the foes that he struck down a moment later.
Pieces of Alaric’s quarries flew across the floor, rolling in among the bodies and the blood that was already slickening the stone. Vara cut her way through a dark elf and found herself standing in the doorway to the Great Hall, looking within at the place where the guild dined. More than a dozen dark elves had funneled into the Great Hall and were battling with Sanctuary defenders scattered among the tables. There was a smell of hearty stew mingled with baked bread, at odds with the crimson-covered surfaces and the bodies that lay amidst the upturned tables. The clash of blades and the screams of fury and pain warred with the simple, homey scent of the meal being prepared within.
Vara’s eyes flew over shattered tables and broken chairs to see Larana, the mistress of the kitchens,
