the slope toward the army, Aravan took up his spear and glanced at it and said, “Elven-forged thou art and worthy, yet would that thee were Krystallopyr, but it is gone into the Abyss, taking its ‹fire› with it, and so thou and I must do.” And he lowered the point of the weapon to meet the oncoming foe.
The howling wave of Rucks and Hloks and Ogrus smashed into the Elven files, and, roaring, the Trolls swung their great bars to left and right. Elves met the Spawn head-on, swords riving, spears stabbing, shields bashing. And they danced back or ducked under cumbersome but lethal swings of the Troll weaponry, yet not all, for the dreadful warbars struck among them, felling many. And even as Rucks and Hloks rushed by him, Gildor waited until the huge iron rod of the Troll before him swept past, and then he stepped forward and, with a two- handed swing, drove Bale through and across the Ogru’s gut and out the other side, and with his steaming entrails spilling forth and to the ground, the Troll gazed down in disbelief, and then fell forward dead. But with Rucks and Hloks following in their wake, other of these monstrous foes waded in among the allies, flailing, slaughtering, crushing; they alone could devastate the Elven army. Grimly, Aravan stabbed and slashed with his spear, hacking his way through Spawn and toward one of the Trolls, yet even as Aravan neared, the behemoth espied him and, snarling, turned his way and raised his massive warbar to smash down upon this puny being, the Troll’s gaze wide in triumph. But in that moment, an arrow sprang forth from the eye of the monster, and as the Ogru crashed down, its brain pierced by the shaft, Aravan glanced aside to see Silverleaf fitting an arrow to his silver-handled white-bone bow while turning to seek yet another one of these dreadful creatures, rampaging among the allies. And as a shrieking Hlok charged at a group of Magekind, only to be skewered by Vail and fall dead at Alamar’s feet, the Mage looked away from the parapets above and down at the slain Hlok. Then his gaze swept across the roiling battlefield to see the Ogrus laying waste to the Elven host. “Dicere!” evoked Alamar, casting a spell, then shouted “Fedor! Bremar! Cadir!” and called other names as well. And in spite of the uproar of battle-the screams and bellows and cries-those he named heard his spell-cast voice. “Trolls! Trolls! We must deal with the Trolls!” And the Ogrus were met by flame, as Mages took precious moments from their own bitter struggle to hurl bolts of fire at the behemoths, their greasy hide garments to burst ablaze. Shrieking in fear, the monsters fled, flinging away their weapons and ripping and rending their burning clothing from themselves, for fire they feared, and away they ran, now pursued by spectral flames cast by Illusionists; they did not flee back toward the fortress, but bolted toward the distant crags instead.
Even so, with Magekind distracted by having to deal with the Trolls, lethal blasts and bolts of the dark Wizards fell among the allies and took a grim toll. Swiftly, Alamar and his Elementalists and Sorcerers again took the fight to the battlements above, hurling lightning and fire or exploding the stone of the shielding crenels.
As the Trolls fled from the ranks of Elves and Mages and ran among the Spawn and away, and as Ghuls afoot fell down, killed by silver-headed arrows, the nerve of the Rucks and Hloks broke, and they bolted away screaming, most back through the broken gate in the outer wall and across the killing grounds and around the far side of the bastion, though some scrambled into the fortress itself.
Even as the Spawn fled back through the allied ranks, Elven swords rived and spears stabbed and Bair’s mace crushed many who sought escape.
As the last of the foe fled down the slope, arrows felling many as they ran, Gildor wiped Bale’s length clean of Rupt ichor and sheathed the blade again, and the Elves stood ready, though the foe was now gone. But still the Mage-versus-Black-Mage fight went on, as water battled flame, and dark, whirling winds came roaring out of the mountains to be met by howling air twisting counter; hailstones and sleet hammered down from the skies amid lightning and thunder and upheavals of land and exploding stone. Mages were slain, and Elvenkind fell, and Black Mages died in spite of their glut of ‹fire›, for there simply were too many casters opposing them, Mages of greater skills.
And as the arcane battle raged, Healers moved among the wounded, and they snatched many back from the brink of death, but others they could not save.
Yet finally all of the occult resistance from the battlements ceased, as the last of the dark Wizards fell.
Now the Elven army charged the fortress, the gates yawning open before them.
But the Foul Folk were fled out the rear postern and away, and the Elves came into an abandoned stronghold, but for a few quailing Rupt, and these were quickly dispatched.
When a count of the dead was taken, nearly a thousand Spawn had been slain, fully half by arrows on the battleground, most of the rest by allied steel.
Yet four hundred ninety-eight of Elvenkind had fallen, some to the Trolls, some to Rucks and Hloks, but most to the dark Wizards’ castings. And on Adonar and Mithgar and even among those on Neddra, Elves grieved, for they had received the death redes of those whose lives had been quenched. . death redes, a unique Elven gift, both a curse and a blessing of Elvenkind, a final good-bye from a slain Elf that somehow winged to a loved one. Though the ways between the Planes were now restored, not even when they were sundered had they prevented such messages from reaching the intended. And for an Elf to die was particularly grievous, for no matter the count of a given Elf’s years, it was but a single step along an endless life.
Thirty-two of Magekind were also slain: no school had been spared. But Aylis and Alamar yet lived, much to Aravan’s relief.
Though they had been but twelve Black Mages, they had been devastating, given their glut of ‹fire›. Had there been more of them, the fight could well have gone the other way. Yet in the final tally only eleven slain dark Wizards were accounted for. The Necromancer with the black hair down to his hips was not among the bodies found.
8
DARK DESIGNS
WINTERDAY, 5E1010
[THE FINAL YEAR OF THE FIFTH ERA]
Through a long and low and narrow tunnel a Black Mage fled, dreadfully shaken by the unexpected attack upon the fortress. Until the moment the aethyric intruder-the disembodied spy-had been discovered, not one of the dark Wizards had known that an appalling force of Elves and Mages was on Neddra to assail the bastion; yet the dead Hlok the Necromancer had raised had told all. And although the Wizard could have used his occult arts to send slain Drik and Ghok and Oghi back into the fray, when the battle had begun and the Necromancer had seen the skills and force of the opposing Magekind and the prowess of the Elven army, the dark Wizard had known it would be hopeless. His fears had been borne out by the onslaught, and he quickly saw that nought could be done to keep the fortress from falling into the hands of the foe, and so he had fled in the confusion of battle. Yet just before the fight had begun, he had glimpsed the one who had slain his god, had seen the murderer in the fore of the Dolhs: Aravan, killer of Gyphon.
Aravan and his ilk had upset all of the Necromancer’s plans, not only by killing his god, thus ruining the Black Mage’s certainty of dominion over a significant part of Mithgar, but also on this very night had interrupted the conclave of Black Mages, where the Necromancer had fully expected to be elected the very first leader of the first
Someday, someday, that Dolh would suffer vengeance; someday Aravan would meet his doom, or so again swore Nunde the Necromancer, even as he fled down the long escape tunnel, running for his very life.
9
BOSKYDELLS
