Starbrow looked up as Seiveril limped to his side. He brushed his russet hair from his eyes and said, “We fought well last night, Seiveril. You know that, don’t you?”
“Apparently not well enough for Adresin.” Seiveril drew off his armored gauntlets and reached up to loosen his pauldrons. He looked down at the greaves of his left leg, where a set of deep furrows had creased the elven steel-the mark of a canoloth’s jaws. He’d been lucky not to have had his leg torn off.
For the better part of a month, ever since leading the Crusade into the forest of Cormanthor, Seiveril’s host had endured battle after battle-skirmishes against the daemonfey, clashes with the mercenaries of the Sembians, a smashing blow struck against the Zhentarim, and endless running fights against the demons, devils, yugoloths, and other infernal monsters conjured up out of the pits of the nether planes and set loose by Sarya Dlardrageth. The past night’s battle had been a desperate struggle to repel a warband of fiendish creatures from the refuge of Semberholme, and Seiveril’s elves and their Dalesfolk allies had driven off the raid. But he did not doubt that another one would follow in a day or two.
“Is there any end to this, my friend?”
Starbrow looked up sharply. “If you give in to despair, Seiveril, there will be exactly one end to this. I didn’t come back to see another Weeping War.”
“I do not mean to despair, Starbrow. But something has to change.” He ran a hand through his silver-red hair, and grimaced. “Sooner or later, you’d think that even the Hells must be emptied.”
The clatter of horses’ hooves caught Seiveril’s attention, and he looked up as a pair of riders cantered into the clearing by the tower. His daughter Ilsevele, dressed in the colors of a captain of the queen’s spellarchers, reined in her mount.
“I’ve been looking all over for you, Father,” she said.
“Ilsevele,” Seiveril said warmly. He pushed himself upright and embraced his daughter after she dismounted. “I am glad that you are not hurt. And you too, Lord Theremen.”
“Lord Miritar,” the ruler of Deepingdale replied. “You should have sent to us. We could have spared a few swords for you.” Theremen Ulath was a handsome man whose pale skin and fine features clearly showed more than a little elf blood. The folk of Deepingdale had welcomed the Crusade’s arrival in the great forest with few reservations. For his own part, Seiveril had been somewhat surprised to find a strong, secure, and friendly Dale at his back when the Crusade marched into Semberholme. Deepingdale’s archers and riders were a welcome addition to the Crusade’s strength. Lord Theremen swung himself down from his warhorse and clasped Seiveril’s arm.
Ilsevele frowned at Seiveril’s awkward stance, and her eyes fell on the bloody creases in his greaves. “Father, you’re hurt!”
“It is nothing.” Seiveril settled himself back on the fallen menhir. “I am afraid that there were many who needed my healing spells more than I did last night. I take it things were quiet on the eastern marches?”
“For us, yes,” Theremen answered. “But my scouts reported that the Sembians entrenched in Battledale had a furious time of it. The daemonfey aren’t shy about sharing their fury with everyone around them, it seems.”
“Sarya hates us more, but the Sembians are an easier target,” Starbrow remarked. “If there’s a strategy to her attacks, I can’t see it. If I were her, I’d choose one enemy at a time.”
In the ruins of the watchtower, a pillar of gray smoke started up. Ilsevele glanced over, and her face tightened. “Who fell?” she asked.
“Adresin,” Seiveril answered quietly. “We were separated in the fighting last night. We found him only a short time ago.”
Ilsevele looked down at the ground. “I am sorry, Father. He was a courageous warrior, faithful and good. I know you will miss him.”
“He will not be the last, I fear,” Seiveril said. He sighed and looked away from the smoke twisting into the sky. “Well, we have gone to ground in Semberholme, and Sarya seems unable or unwilling to push us any farther. So what do we do now? How do we bring some sort of hope out of this horror?”
“Seek aid from Cormyr?” said Ilsevele. “I would think that Alusair might be disposed to help us.”
“You forget, we are currently at odds with Sembia as well as the daemonfey,” Theremen said. “Alusair can’t afford to be drawn into a war against Sembia by helping us in the Dales. Cormyr is still recovering from the troubles attending Azoun’s death.”
“Find Archendale’s price and buy their help?” said Starbrow.
“You face the same problem,” Theremen said. “The swords of Archendale don’t want to stand opposite Sembia unless Sembia itself threatens them.”
Seiveril looked up into the smoke-streaked sunrise. “We can’t deal with the Shadovar, not after the way they treated Evereska. Is there some friendly great power nearby that I am forgetting about, Lord Ulath? Otherwise I am out of ideas.”
A distant birdsong filled the silence as the elves and the Dalelord examined their own thoughts. Then, slowly, Ilsevele said, “We have to make common cause with Sembia. It’s the only course of action that makes sense.”
“Not while they’re holding three Dales under their fist,” Theremen countered. “I will not countenance any deal that concedes Battledale, Featherdale, or Tasseldale. We dare not feed that beast, not even once. They’d be swallowed whole in a generation, and we’d be feeding Mistledale or Deepingdale to Sembia next.”
“Better the Sembians than the daemonfey,” Starbrow pointed out.
“Some of my neighbors would say that it’s better to die sword in hand than to live on as chattel in their own homes,” Theremen snapped.
Seiveril raised his hand for calm. “It’s an academic question anyway, isn’t it? Sembia and Hillsfar have determined to carve up the Dales between them. We simply can’t go along with that.”
“But that was before the daemonfey fell out with Hillsfar,” said Ilsevele. “We don’t know if that accord still stands, do we? And even if it does, well, I’m willing to lay aside my differences with the Sembians long enough to end the daemonfey threat. How do we know that the Sembians wouldn’t feel the same? After all, Sarya’s triumph would be a disaster that none of us could stand for.”
The lord of Deepingdale shook his head. “The Sembians hold more Dales than the daemonfey at the moment.”
“But we don’t know that the Sembians would insist on keeping those lands,” Ilsevele answered. “As far as we know, they might be asking themselves what price we will insist on before we consent to aid them.”
Starbrow studied Ilsevele for a long moment, deep in thought. “You know, Seiveril, we would find it harder to fight a war with the Sembians once we’ve fought alongside them. If Ilsevele is right, they’d find it hard too.”
“But we would have to, if they tried to absorb the Dales their soldiers hold,” Theremen warned. “What if it proved easier to lay down our swords and let them have what they’ve taken, instead of making them give it back?”
“I hear you,” Starbrow said. “But we don’t have the strength to beat the daemonfey and the Sembians both, so there’s damned little we can say about Sembians in Featherdale right now anyway. As long as things stay the way they are, we aren’t about to throw the Sembians out.”
Seiveril leaned forward to rest his head in his hands, thinking. He hadn’t picked the fight with the Sembians, and it made him sick to his stomach to even begin a conversation with humans who’d seen fit to throw an army between him and Myth Drannor. But for all the maneuvering, marching, and sharp skirmishes of the past two months, he had yet to try the Crusade against the Sembian army. And the real challenge thrown in his face had come from Hillsfar, not Sembia.
Corellon, guide me, he prayed silently. The Sembians have feared and envied us for a thousand years. How can we hope to set that aside now? He straightened and looked up at the sunrise again, watching the smoke of the burning tower-Adresin’s funeral pyre, he reminded himself-glowing in the early light.
“Seiveril?” Starbrow asked quietly. “What do you think?”
“I agree with Ilsevele,” Seiveril said. “We will send an embassy to the Sembians, and see if we can set aside our quarrel long enough to defeat the daemonfey. I will leave tomorrow.”
“No, not you, Father,” Ilsevele said. “The Crusade would be lost without you. I will go and speak for you.”
“Absolutely not!” Seiveril stood up so fast that his injured leg almost buckled under him. He grunted in pain and sat back down again almost as fast as he had stood up. “The Sembians may prove treacherous, Ilsevele! The Hillsfarians certainly are. I can’t let anyone else shoulder the risk.”
“No, she’s right, Seiveril,” Starbrow sighed. “You can’t go, and if you can’t, there is no one better than
