The vrock bobbed its vulturelike head. It flapped down to the high hillside below, where a great and terrible company of demons and yugoloths-vrocks and hulking, toadlike hezrous, skeletal babaus, and huge, gargoyle-like nycaloths-waited for Sarya's command. Each one of the infernal creatures on the hillside could teleport itself, appearing out of nowhere to maim and rend. At the head of the company towered the glabrezu Grushakk, a terrible monster the size of a storm giant, with four arms and a canine face whose eyes glowed red with malice. Grushakk looked up to Sarya, who flung out her arm to indicate the direction of the prey.
'There!' she cried. 'If you cannot find the commander, slay any mages you see.'
Grushakk howled in glee, and clacked his pincers together.
'Rise!' the demon hissed. 'Now we slay!'
The other demons stirred and spat. The glabrezu barked out his commands, and the demon company vanished in a ragged volley of teleportation.
Sarya wheeled on Mardeiym and said, 'Pass the word to left, to right, and to center: Press now! We want to keep any help far from those the demons attack. This is our chance.'
Seiveril studied the battle from the small prominence he'd chosen for its view over the Cwm. Since the elven army had formed ranks near the eastern end of the vale, directly before the Sunset Gate, they held land that was generally higher than that their attackers had to cross to reach them. Not only did that provide the elf archers and mages with good fields of fire, it also slowed the rush of orcs and ogres, and it gave the elf commanders a good view of the entire battlefield.
A strong company of fey'ri swooped down over the Vale Guards directly in front of him, hurling their darts and blasting with deadly spells. Seiveril groaned as new gaps appeared in the ranks, elves falling to their knees with heavy javelins piercing shoulders and chests, others hurled limply through the air by jabbing forks of lightning or turned into living torches by gouts of evil fire. But the archers standing behind the infantry raised their bows and sent a storm of arrows skyward, even as the daemonfey climbed again to avoid the missiles. Fey'ri staggered in midair as arrows tore through them, spinning from the sky or simply crumpling and dropping.
'Jerreda doesn't seem too busy over on the left,' he said to Starbrow. 'Let's get some more of her archers over here to help cover our infantry against those damned fey'ri.'
'I concur,' Starbrow said. He called a runner over. 'Find Jerreda on the left flank and ask her to send one hundred archers back to the center.'
The messenger repeated the message back to ensure that he had it right, and dashed off toward the steep forests surrounding the tarn on the south side of the Cwm.
Seiveril looked toward the right. Lord Muirreste's mounted elves were hard-pressed, as well. The knights and lighter cavalry were much less numerous than the horde of orcs and ogres attacking them, but the open ground of the Cwm favored them. As long as they stayed in motion, the fey'ri had a hard time hitting them with any kind of massed magical assault. He wanted to send Muirreste some help, but he didn't know if-
'Demons! '
In the space of three heartbeats dozens upon dozens of demons and yugoloths, crackling with sinister magic or stinking of brimstone, appeared all over the hillside surrounding Seiveril. Even though he had been expecting it, Seiveril was paralyzed with horror for an endless moment.
So many of them! he thought. So many! 'Vesilde!' he called. 'Vesilde!'
He wheeled to look for Vesilde Gaerth's knights, just as the demons struck out with their vile sorcery. Demon fire and destruction blasted the hilltop. Dozens of elves died at once, consumed by foul flames, scoured by unholy power, or hurled like broken dolls by the invisible might of demonic magic. Seiveril endured two searing waves of fire that scorched him even inside his enchanted elven plate. A mighty telekinetic buffet sent him hurling through the air. He picked himself up slowly, and looked up to find a hulking nycaloth rushing at him, its great claws as long and sharp as daggers. Seiveril just had time to raise his shield before the creature was on him, roaring with rage.
The nycaloth's claws scored his armor and almost wrenched his shield away, but Seiveril crouched low and held on while he found the haft of his silver mace with his right hand. He surged up and counterattacked, smashing the holy weapon at the nycaloth. He caught it with a glancing blow across the shoulder, but the mace detonated with a pure, white light that charred a great black scar in the nycaloth's flesh. The fiend screeched and reeled back, and Seiveril used the space he'd bought to quickly shout out a spell, dispatching the creature back to its infernal home.
He turned, searching for another foe, and found himself looking up at three massive hezrous, demons the size of ogres, with wide, toadlike mouths full of needle fangs and huge, powerful talons. The monsters croaked and scrambled toward him.
'Kill the cleric,' they snarled. 'Break his bones, and suck the marrow. Rip his heart out!'
The fearsome stench of the things gagged Seiveril. He went to one knee, trying to keep from losing his stomach as the monsters closed in. The hezrous hissed in glee and moved closer, their jaws gaping wide.
Then from one side Fflar Starbrow Melruth leaped in among the monsters, his sword Keryvian glowing like a shining white brand too bright to look at. He hewed off the arm of the hezrou closest to him, the sword slicing through demon flesh with a pure ringing sound. The monster roared in pain and tried to recoil, but Starbrow followed closely and rammed the point of the long sword deep into the hezrou's side, taking the monster under the ribs and stabbing it through its foul heart. The ancient magic of the weapon burned everything inside the hezrou's ribs to a foul gray ash, and smoke poured out of the demon's wide mouth as it collapsed.
The second hezrou raked at Starbrow with its huge claws, but the moon elf ducked beneath the blow and rolled up under the demon's guard. He took off its left leg at the knee as he passed by. The demon toppled, black blood pouring from the wound, but snapped and clawed at Starbrow even as it fell. The elf champion danced back out of reach, and darted in to bury Keryvian's point between the hezrou's eyes. Again the sword flashed with its terrible white light, and another demon lay dead.
The third demon wheeled to face the threat of Keryvian, turning its back on Seiveril.
'I will take that sword from your dead hand!' the creature snarled.
It hammered Starbrow with a blast of unholy power, staggering him, but Seiveril hurled himself at the demon's back and smashed the base of its spine with a mighty blow of his holy mace. The hezrou shrieked and threw its arms up in the air, toppling forward-and Starbrow took its head with his white sword.
Seiveril looked over the bodies of the hezrous to Fflar and said, aMy thanks, friend. You saved my life.'
Fflar offered a smile and replied, 'It only seems fair. Here, stay close by me. You watch my back, and I'll watch yours.'
Seiveril glanced around at the furious battle. Elf bodies lay everywhere he looked, but many demons had fallen with them. Straight ahead, the Seldarine Knights of the Golden Star advanced with the sunrise behind them, gleaming like titans of gold as they battled against the foul tide. And to his right Ilsevele, Araevin, and their friends fought a terrible glabrezu. Ilsevele sent arrow after arrow into the creature's torso, while Araevin hammered at the monster with powerful spell blasts, and the cleric Grayth warded them all with his divine spell shields.
'There!' Seiveril called to Fflar. 'The glabrezu!'
Fflar nodded and dashed off down the hillside, leaping down at the monster. Seiveril followed, only a step behind. The towering, dog-faced demon seized Grayth in one of its pincer hands and began to squeeze the armored human in its grasp, but then the genasi Maresa darted in and skewered its hamstring with her rapier. The monster roared and batted her away with a backhand slap of another arm-and Fflar and Seiveril were upon the monster. Fflar laid open its thigh with two great cuts of his sword, while Seiveril smashed its kneecap with his holy mace.
'I will destroy you all!' the demon rumbled.
It hurled Grayth aside and reached for Fflar. Then a silver arrow lodged in the side of its neck, and black blood foamed through its mouth. The demon groped closer, catching Seiveril with a weak blow that the cleric easily parried with his shield, and it collapsed facedown in the heather of the hillside.
'Well met, Father,' said Ilsevele. She hurried forward, her bow still in her hand. Seiveril winced when he saw that she limped badly, blood streaming from a long cut on her hip. Araevin's cloak was tattered and singed, and the human Grayth was slow in picking himself up from the ground. 'How are we doing?'
'We're still holding,' Seiveril managed.
He looked around to see what had happened while he had been busy fighting for his own life, and he was surprised to see the daemonfey army falling back. Those demons who had survived the fray on the hilltop vanished
