hovering in the air, feet at least a head above Vara’s own height, her druidic magic issuing forth from her hands. Blasts of coarse flame shot forth to consume the dark elves who were moving forward to attack her, a wave of heat from the fire washing over Vara even at this distance. Her hand came up out of instinct, as if to protect her from it. When she lowered it again, a passel of flaming corpses lay about the Great Hall, thick, black smoke gathering above at the high ceiling.
She paused to watch the normally mild, quiet druid, eyes aflame, float toward her remaining enemies, driving them back toward Vara, who braced and attacked as the dark elves ran into her in ones and twos, turning from Larana with panic in their eyes, the flames driving them to focus more on what they were retreating from than what they were running to. Vara stepped into them, sword moving horizontally in a slash that killed three of the first four with one stroke and sent the other to the ground, crying in low guttural noises that choked the air.
Vara stopped, turning to look back to the melee still proceeding in the foyer. Larana’s eyes met hers, the druid’s gaze a bright, verdant green that reminded Vara somehow of life-and the end of it. “They’ll be needing help mopping up in the foyer,” Vara said, and Larana nodded, drifting gently a foot off the ground before she flew forward, past Vara and into the battle.
There was a shift, Vara could tell, as she charged back into the fight in the foyer, blade in hand. Where before there had been wall-to-wall melee, now only a few dark elves remained, backed into a corner to the left of the doors that led outside. The moans of the injured filled her ears. She ignored it all as she shouldered her way through the crowd toward the dark elves standing off in a line. They were backed into the corner, staring down the members of Sanctuary who stood opposite them. Larana hovered menacingly nearby, and Vara could see other spellcasters, waiting to break the uneasy peace. Warriors of Sanctuary had crowded to the front, and a small distance, the length of a sword or two, was all that separated the dark elves from being overrun by the larger numbers.
“I am an officer of Sanctuary,” Vara said when she reached the front of their line. “You are surrounded, outnumbered, and soon to be headless, your skulls adorning pikes on the top of our walls as a warning to your countrymen of the folly of assailing us.” She stared with cold eyes at the last of them, and the enemy stared back as one, not questioning, a cold, unfeeling mass, their irises the striking dark-elven reds, yellows and purples, otherwordly.
There was a quiet moment before something broke it. “In the name of the Sovereign.” A dark elf close to the back of their formation near-whispered it, but she heard. Another took up the call, louder this time. “In the name of the Sovereign.” Then another. The heavy smell of smoke and iron lay upon the air, burning her eyes with its pungence.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Vara whispered.
“IN THE NAME OF THE SOVEREIGN!” It grew to a chorus, then a chant. Their shared voices all offered up to the heavens, they banged their mailed feet against the floor as though trying to make the Sanctuary army flinch with their effort. Vara grasped her sword tighter and she felt the tension in the ranks behind her as others did the same, knowing that the charge was coming, and that it would be short and bloody. There was a rattle of swords and behind her the noise of tense breaths being drawn. Another smell reached her nose, flooded it, the scent and feeling of humidity, of mist in the air, and she saw it swirl around her feet, so dense that the stones of the floor disappeared beneath a thick layer of the wafting, whitish clouds.
The mist gathered and swirled into the corner behind the dark elves, who continued their rage and bluster, making a fearsome racket that drowned out almost all else in her ears and made her head ache from the noise of it. A solid mass began to take shape behind the dark elves, who were oblivious to the sight of a perfect cloud forming in the corner. It grew in size and volume and turned darker, a storm gathering unto itself, until finally a hand swept out following the point of a sword, and Alaric Garaunt appeared behind them from within the depths of it. Vara saw three fall with the first attack as the Ghost’s ancient blade, Aterum, swung high and sloped a bloody line on the brown stones of the wall to his side as it descended.
Vara could hear the collective intake of breath around her, the Sanctuary soldiers waiting, their line formed to contain the last dark elves. They watched as the screams and chaos consumed the dark elves and shattered their formation, as the elvews, so prepared for bloody sacrifice and shouting their willingness to die for the Sovereign only moments earlier, fell to pieces under the onslaught of one man behind them. It was short and bloody, covered in the swirl of fog and mist, and in the end it came down to a final dark elf, and Alaric held him out at the edge of his blade, the warrior trembling. There had been twenty or more of them in the corner before the Ghost had appeared, and the last seemed to realize this, his breath coming in shuddering gasps, his sword clenched in his fist, navy skin around his knuckles turned sky-blue from the strength of his grip.
Alaric stared down his sword at the dark elf, who dropped his weapon with a clatter, and began to raise his hands. The Ghost stared down, his lone eye unflinching. Vara caught an almost imperceptible shudder down Alaric’s arm and the sword began to move, sliding through the belly of the dark elf, who gasped and looked up at Alaric with wide eyes.
“You have sieged and invaded my home, slain my brothers and sisters.” Alaric’s voice was low and as filled with malice as Vara had ever heard it. “Let this be a warning to you and yours; there is no mercy for those who would do such things.” His palm reached out and the dark elf shuddered as a surge of power shot from Alaric’s gauntlet, the energy of the spell sending the dark elf into the wall at such a speed that Vara could hear the splatter of his flesh and blood even as she turned her head not to look.
When she turned back, Alaric stood, red splotching the battered surface of his armor, looking coldly down at his hand as though it were something foreign to him. “Alaric?” Her voice was barely above a whisper but it stirred him as though drawing him from a trance. “We have been attacked from within; we must make preparations to protect ourselves. We must either shut down the portal or station a small army here to deal with additional assaults should they come. We need a messenger to go speak with Thad at the wall; we may have to reinforce the guard there if the dark elves are attacking.”
The Ghost stared back at her, quiet, almost lifeless, before finally nodding his head underneath his massive helm. “Let it be done.” He looked through the crowd until his eye came to rest on Larana. “Go to Thad. See if the dark elves have begun their attack in earnest.” He looked again through the crowd until he found a grizzled man in armor, whose face was exposed through the front of his helm. “Belkan … you will form a guard and keep watch on the foyer every hour of the day and night. We cannot shut down the portal, lest we strand Cyrus’s army in a foreign land without retreat or any way to get a message home.” The old knight looked suddenly weary though he still held Aterum in his hand.
Larana did not wait for any further instruction; she surged forward over the head of the crowd, running on air and seeming to slip through the crack of the main door without it opening but barely. Vara watched her go then walked slowly toward Alaric, who remained still, unmoving, a statue of steel and flesh. “Alaric,” she said quietly, “are you quite well?”
He did not move at first, but when he did it was only to move his head ponderously to look upon her with his one good eye, an almost imperceptible smile upon his lips. “A goodly portion of our army is away in a foreign land under the command of our General. We have not heard from them in six months though they were to have been gone only three. We have been surrounded by the legions of the dark elves, most aggrieved at us for our part in defending the Elven Kingdom during their recent invasion, and now they have gone so far as to use a wizard to slip an elite force of their soldiers into our home using a spell I felt certain was unknown to any but our own spellcasters. If that were not enough, only half a year ago we slew the God of Death himself.” The smile grew slightly larger, and all the more grotesque in its obvious falseness. “Tell me, child- why would I not be quite well?”
“As long as you’re keeping a good perspective on things.” Vaste’s voice rang out from just behind Vara, but she heard the usual irony only on the surface; there was a deeper sense of darkness hidden from all but those who knew him best.
A shout of alarm came from behind them and Vara turned. A point of magical energy had appeared in the center of the foyer, over the great seal that was placed in the middle of the room. It crackled and glowed, shedding green upon the face of Belkan across from her, his sword braced in his hand and pointed toward the brightness. She saw others mirror the action as the spell grew in its intensity as the seconds ticked by. She gripped her sword more tightly as the front door burst open and Larana shouted (
