When you pass the birch tangle, get down to the left, came Druzil’s telepathic instructions. The soldiers have been instructed not to harm you.
Kierkan Rufo looked all around anxiously, fearing that the cold sweat on his forehead would give him away. The others seemed unconcerned with him. They were all nervous, even Ivan, crouching and crawling along with the undeniable knowledge that monsters were all about them. They heard the cries of battle somewhere behind them and to the north, and they knew that Shayleigh and Tintagel were hard at work, keeping the pressure off their secretive band.
Rufo pondered the reference to the birch tangle. Elbereth had mentioned the place just a short while before, saying that they would get beyond it in less than an hour. Rufo was running out of time.
Danica crawled along, her crystal-bladed daggers tight in her hands. She saw Elbereth to the side, similarly crawling, making for a goblin guard twenty feet from the two Danica had chosen as her targets.
It had to be done swiftly and quietly; they could smell the goblins in the woods all about them and wanted to avoid battle if at all possible. These unfortunate three were in their path, though, and the companions had no time to go around them. Skirmishes were becoming too common about the group, echoing from both sides and behind. Shayleigh, Tintagel, and the other elves soon would be hard-pressed as the enemy closed in on this section of the forest, and Elbereth’s party had to get to Syldritch Trea without delay—to the misfortune of these three goblin guards.
Danica looked over to Elbereth, now in position just a few feet behind his goblin. The elf nodded for her to go first, and Danica agreed, since her task would be more difficult.
She clutched her daggers, feeling the golden tiger sculpture in one hand and the silver dragon in the other. Crouching low, she crossed her wrists in front of her at waist level, with the dagger blades pointing up and out.
The goblins, backs to her, were only two strides away, talking easily, suspecting nothing.
Danica leaped between them. They managed to gasp just once before the monk, in a single movement, snapped her arms out wide, driving the daggers up under their chins. The goblins twitched; one got its hand weakly up to grab Danica’s wrist.
A cry to the side turned Danica about. Elbereth’s goblin stood facing her, its weapon dropped and its arms held out wide. The creature jerked violently, its face contorted in confusion.
Danica understood when Elbereth’s sword came bursting out the front of the doomed creature’s chest.
Then only Danica and Elbereth stood. They nodded to each other and dropped back into the brush, holding their positions for a few moments to ensure that no other monsters were about. Together they rejoined the others and explained that the way was now clear.
“We should make the birch tangle without further delay,” Elbereth explained softly. “Syldritch Trea is less than a mile to the west of that.” Elbereth paused, and a curious expression crossed his face as he regarded Kierkan Rufo, who stood trembling, with sweat rolling down his face.
“What is it? “the elf asked.
“If ye’ve not the belly for it . . .” Ivan began, but Danica hushed him quickly.
“I cannot get him out of my thoughts,” Rufo admitted frantically. The angular man looked all around, his beady, dark eyes darting desperately, as though he expected all the monsters of the Realms to descend upon him.
“He knows of our plans,” Rufo explained, trying vainly to keep calm. He stuttered through a few jumbled words, then his control blew away. “He knows!” Rufo cried, and his volume sent the others into defensive crouches, looking all around. “I have doomed you all!”
“Quiet him!” Elbereth whispered, and he slipped out a few steps to ensure that no enemies were nearby.
Danica and Cadderly took Rufo’s arms and eased him to a sitting position.
“Who knows?” Cadderly prompted, eyeing Danica, whose scowl gave Cadderly the distinct feeling that she would soon break Rufo’s head open.
“It is not my fault,” Rufo declared. “I have tried to resist him—the imp!—with all my strength.”
“Uh-oh,” Pikel muttered, echoing all their thoughts.
“You have tried to resist the imp, but you cannot,” Cadderly prompted. “In what way? You must tell me.”
“In my head!” Rufo replied, taking care now to keep his voice to a whisper. “The imp follows my thoughts, learns things from me, though I do not tell them to him.”
Cadderly looked to Danica, his face twisted in confusion.
“I have never heard of such a thing,” he said. “Dorigen’s imp is telepathic. That much I learned.” He turned back on Rufo. “But to invade your thoughts, and remain there, without your consent?”
“If you are lying . . .” Danica threatened, wagging a fist in Rufo’s direction.
“Unless,” Cadderly mumbled, scratching his smooth chin and thinking of any old stories that might give him an idea of what was going on. When he looked back to the others, he saw that all of them stared at him, waiting.
“Have you ever seen the imp?” Cadderly asked Rufo.
“Once,” the angular man admitted, thinking that he would keep his second meeting, the one with Dorigen, secret at all costs.
“And did the imp give you something to carry?” Cadderly asked. “A personal item, perhaps? Or did he touch you, or handle any of your possessions?” He looked to Ivan and Pikel and nodded.
“What?” was all Rufo could stammer before the dwarves grabbed his ankles and laid him out on the ground. They then began systematically stripping the man, holding up each possession for Cadderly to see, and when he shook his head, the item went flying.
Pikel was about to rip Rufo’s tunic open when the dwarf spotted something. “Oo oi!” Pikel squealed, realizing that his find might be important.
“What ye got there?” Ivan asked, and when his eyes widened also, Cadderly and Danica moved over for a look.
“Where did you get that amulet?” Cadderly asked. He figured that their search was at its end, for this amulet, edged in gold and centered with a fabulous emerald, was far beyond Rufo’s meager means.
“What amulet?” the angular man replied, perplexed.
“This one,” Cadderly explained. He unpinned the thing and held it up for Rufo to see.
Even Danica did not doubt Rufo’s sincerely confused expression. Without a thought, Cadderly handed the amulet to Ivan, and the dwarf, with a wink to his brother, produced a frog from his pocket and pinned the amulet to a loose fold in the creature’s skin.
“That’ll keep the imp-thing guessing,” the dwarf explained. “ ‘Course now I’ll be needing to catch me a new supper!”
“This allowed the imp to invade your thoughts,” Cadderly explained above the quiet chuckles of Danica and the two dwarves. The young scholar was certain of his guess and continued with some confidence. “Without it, you are free—unless you choose to let him back in.”
“And you would not do that, would you?” Danica asked, suddenly grim. She grabbed Rufo by the shoulder and roughly spun him about to stare into her glowering face.
Rufo pulled free and tried to regain some measure of his dignity. “I have admitted my weakness,” he said. “Surely I cannot be blamed . . .”
“No one is blaming you,” Cadderly answered, speaking more to Danica than Rufo. “Now, you said you have betrayed us. What do you know?”
“The tangle of birch,” Rufo said tentatively. “I was instructed to keep out of the way when the enemy attacks.”
Cadderly looked to Elbereth, who, satisfied that no enemies were in the area, had come back to stand beside them. “Have you heard?” the young scholar asked.
Elbereth nodded gravely. “The forest is strangely quiet,” he replied. “I had suspected that some mischief was afoot.” His unyielding stare bored into Rufo. “Now I understand. How much did you tell the imp?”
Cadderly wanted to calm the elf, but he understood that Elbereth’s fears went far beyond the safety of their little group. All of the elf’s people had come west and would be dangerously exposed if the enemy knew their movements.
“I do not know,” Rufo replied, lowering his gaze. “It is . . . was, difficult to mask . . .”
“We must assume that Druzil learned quite a lot from Rufo,” Cadderly put in grimly, “about our whereabouts and the position of the elven force.” Elbereth’s wince made Cadderly pause a moment. “Should one of us go back and find your people and warn them of the danger?” the young scholar offered.
Elbereth thought it over for a moment, sincerely torn. “No,” he answered at length. “The best we can do for my people is to finish our business quickly. We can go around the birch tangle and avoid the ambush, though that course will cost us some time.”
“And time lost will surely cost more elves their lives,” Danica had to add, her unblinking gaze not turning from the angular man.
“I did not wish to come along,” Rufo started to protest. But he couldn’t maintain his anger and turned away, then finished meekly, “I knew the imp would follow.”
“Pity us if you had stayed behind,” Danica spat, “for then we would never have learned of your betrayal!”
“Enough of this,” Cadderly demanded. “We cannot change what has transpired, and we must not waste our time arguing.”
“Agreed,” said Elbereth with an approving nod. “We will turn south, then back to the west when the course is clear. And you,” he said to Rufo, his eyes narrowing, “if the imp somehow finds its way back into your thoughts, speak at once!” The elf started off then, with Danica falling into line right behind. Rufo went next, flanked by the dwarves, who eyed him suspiciously with every step.
Cadderly hesitated a moment before joining them. The frog Ivan had pinned still sat on the ground at the young scholar’s feet. Cadderly knew he was taking a chance as he reached down and removed the amulet, then pinned it under a fold of his own cloak, but it was a risk he decided to take. He had battled Druzil mentally once before, and had won that contest. If the imp tried to make contact with Rufo again, Cadderly would be waiting for him.
Danica and Elbereth noticed several enemy guards crouched in the brush and veered to keep out of harm’s way. They wanted no more fights if they could help it, suspecting from Rufo’s disclosure that the enemy had set a sizable force in the region for the ambush.
Cadderly felt the telepathic intrusions.
What is taking so long? came the thoughts that the scholar knew belonged to the familiar imp. The soldiers are in place and grow impatient.
In response, Cadderly conjured an image of the area they had been in when they had discovered the amulet upon Rufo, an area a short distance east of the birch tangle. He could only hope that Druzil wouldn’t recognize his thought patterns as different from Rufo’s, and he breathed a little easier when the imp’s next communication came to him.
Good, Druzil told him. You are near the spot. When your companions get moving again, stay close to them until you see the birch, then get low and to the side. Mistress Dorigen would like to speak with you again.
Then, abruptly, Druzil was gone from Cadderly’s thoughts. The young scholar clenched hard on the amulet.
“Cadderly?” he heard distantly. His eyes popped open—he hadn’t realized that they were closed—and he saw his companions standing around him, staring curiously.
“It is nothing,” he tried to explain. Elbereth grabbed his hand and forced it open.
“You should have been rid of this evil item,” the elf scolded.
“I do not fear the imp,” Cadderly replied. His confident smile gave the others some measure of relief. That smile disappeared suddenly when Cadderly looked upon Rufo, though, given the new revelations concerning his tall companion. So you have met Dorigen? Cadderly mused, but he kept his thoughts private, fearing that revealing what the imp had told him would cause trouble that the party could ill afford.
“Let us go on,” Cadderly bade. “We have fooled our enemies. They still sit, anticipating an ambush at the birch tangle, but they grow impatient.”
Elbereth took the lead immediately, Danica following on his heels, and Cadderly and the others in a pack behind.
“Ye didn’t happen to bring along me frog?” Ivan asked hopefully, rubbing his belly. Cadderly only smiled and shook his head.
Elbereth turned back to the west a short while later, the elf hastening them along and slipping in and out of the shadows to the side and ahead with obvious urgency. They came down one slope into a region with less undergrowth than usual. Thick oaks dominated the area, and, though these were not much larger than the other trees of Shilmista, Cadderly could sense their age, and could sense, too, a brooding sentience, as if he were being watched from all sides and from above.
He knew they had come to Syldritch Trea. He moved over to one of the oaks and felt its rough bark, toughened by the passing years, the birth and death of many centuries. What tales these trees might tell him, and Cadderly believed that they could indeed. He believed that the oaks somehow could, and would if he had the time and patience to pause and listen.
Pikel, too, seemed caught in the sudden enchantment of this most ancient grove. The dwarf called out, “Oo!” several times as he hopped happily from oak to oak. He hugged one so tightly that, when he turned away, his hairy face was creased by imprints of the tree’s bark.
“We have come to Syldritch Trea,” Elbereth announced, though he could see that his companions, with the possible exceptions of Ivan and Rufo, had already realized that. Danica nodded, then scrambled up the tallest oak she could find and looked back to the east to see what storms might be brewing.
Cadderly took out the book of Dellanil Quil’quien reverently, for the tome seemed to hold much more meaning in this place. He looked to Elbereth, his jaw set firmly, and opened the book to the ancient summons. He felt again the sheer power of the trees, their inner life so different from any trees he had experienced before, and he knew beyond doubt that he had done right in convincing the elf prince to come to this place. He knew, too, the truth of his words when he again declared to those around him, “It will work.”
Temmerisa reared and Shayleigh dropped from her saddle. Around her she saw only trees, but she knew from memory that no trees should have stood in this place.
“Tintagel?” she called softly. In response, one of the trees shifted form, becoming the elf wizard and stepping out to greet Shayleigh.
“Well met,” Tintagel answered, smiling in spite of their dire situation.
Shayleigh returned the grin and looked around at the unnatural trees. “How many?” she asked.
“A score and seven,” the blue-eyed wizard replied. “It is my most powerful spell and one that should catch our enemies by surprise. Do you like my work?”
Shayleigh imagined the astonishment on the passing orcs’ and goblins’ faces as twenty-seven illusionary trees reverted to their true forms as elven warriors! Her widening grin answered Tintagel’s question.
“How go the other fronts?” the elf wizard asked.
Shayleigh’s smile disappeared. “Not well,” she admitted. “Our enemies have gone farther south than we believed. And those monsters in the east have learned of our movement and are sweeping back toward the west. We have scouts searching now to see if those southwest of here are moving east to join them, or if we still have an escape route open to us.”
Tintagel considered the grim news. When they had formulated their plans to come out near Syldritch Trea, they had known their success likely would depend on secrecy.
Now, somehow, the enemy apparently understood the scale of their movement, and that boded ill indeed.
The tension did not lessen a short time later when several elves rode up, King Galladel at the lead.
“The south is blocked,” the elf king proclaimed in a superior tone. “Our folly in coming here is revealed to us in full.”
Shayleigh did not turn away under the elf king’s accusing stare. Only a few of Shilmista’s elves, most notably Galladel, had argued against the action, but so determined were most of the people, Shayleigh included, that the elf king finally had agreed to the desperate plan.
Even with the enemy moving to surround them, Shayleigh held firm to her belief that they had done the right thing in trusting in Shilmista’s magic. Shayleigh believed, too, that her dear forest was worth dying for.
“We will find the weakest point in their advancing line,” Galladel reasoned. “If we move fast and hard, perhaps we might break through.”
“When we came out here, we knew that our success would depend on Elbereth’s call to Syldritch Trea,” Tintagel reminded them. “If we had not the courage to see that through, then we should not have come out at all.”
Galladel glared at him. “We are barely a hundred strong,” he said, “with only a handful of horses. Our enemy’s force numbers in the thousands, giants and ogres among their ranks.”
“Let the battle begin then,” Shayleigh added. “Let our enemies come on, every one. When it is ended, Shilmista will again belong to the elves!”
“When it is over,” Galladel growled, “Shilmista will be no more.”
What is the delay? came a telepathic call, but Cadderly didn’t have time for the imp’s intrusions. He dropped the amulet to the dirt and placed his foot over it, then took up Dellanil’s book and continued his scan, double-checking his translation before uttering the words to Elbereth.
Where are you? came Druzil’s call again, but it was distant, and Cadderly easily pushed it far away. Still, the young scholar recognized the desperation in Druzil’s thoughts and knew the clever imp would remain active.
“We must hurry,” Cadderly implored Elbereth. “Our enemies will soon understand that we have traveled around them.”
Elbereth rubbed his hands slowly across the bark of the nearest oak, gathering strength from the wood’s solidity. He was the most nervous of the group. If the summons failed, all of them would likely lose their lives, but Elbereth stood to lose even more. The basis of his existence, the magic of Shilmista, hung in the balance. If the trees did not answer his call this time, his father’s dismal beliefs—that magic no longer filled Shilmista’s clear air—would be proven true, to the dismay and doom of all of Elbereth’s people.
Cadderly held the book open before him. “Are you ready?” the young scholar asked.
“Flames in the east!” came Danica’s call from the high boughs of a nearby tree. Her companions on the ground heard the branches rustling as Danica made a swift descent. “A force approaches swiftly.”
Cadderly nodded to Elbereth, gaining the elf’s attention. “Seide plein una malabreche,” the scholar began slowly.
Elbereth held his hands out wide to the wood and walked around the nearest oaks as he echoed the words. “Seide plein una malabreche.”
“Come along,” Danica whispered to the dwarves and, somewhat hesitantly, to Rufo. “We shall keep the enemy at bay while Cadderly and Elbereth complete the calling.”
“Oh,” moaned a disappointed Pikel.
“What’s an Elbereth?” Ivan asked, but his wry smile quickly diffused Danica’s sudden frown. They took up positions along the perimeter of Syldritch Trea, hoping that their friends would finish before the enemy arrived.
None of them had to voice their fears of the consequences should the summons fail.
The great white horse carried Shayleigh effortlessly, springing over patches of brush and gliding between the tightly packed trees. Shayleigh reined in Temmerisa many times, not wanting to outdistance King Galladel and the seven other elven riders. The great horse heeded her commands, though the maiden could sense from the rippling muscles in Temmerisa’s shining white neck that the horse wanted to run strong and hard.
A host of orcs trailed the elven troupe, rushing wildly, hungrily, in pursuit, hooting and howling. A hundred strong, they numbered as many as all of the elves remaining in the forest, and their evil kin, many times their number, were all around them. Soon, the orcs believed, this small elven band would be surrounded and the slaughter would begin.
So the orcs believed, and so Galladel and Shayleigh and the other elves wanted the orcs to believe.
Shayleigh led them into a wide expanse of low shrubs and young trees. The elven riders took extra care to avoid the saplings here, practically walking their mounts and taking no heed of the orc force fast closing from behind.
The elves came to the opposite edge of the expanse, where the forest darkened once more under the canopy of older growth, and urged their horses into the shadows. Just a short way in, they reared and turned about.
Oblivious to the danger, the stupid orcs charged through the open area.
Tintagel waited until all the baited monsters had come within the perimeter of his devious trap. Then the wizard stepped from his tree form and uttered a triggering rune. A score and seven other trees reverted to their true elven forms and stepped into the middle of the orcish host. They cut into the unsuspecting orcs from every angle, each elf felling several of the foul beasts before the orcs began to comprehend what had happened.
Shayleigh held Temmerisa back no longer. The mighty steed burst out of the shadows and trampled an orc, and the warrior atop it bent low in her saddle, her golden hair flying wildly behind her and her gleaming sword hacking at any monster that strayed too near.
Galladel and the others charged right behind, circling the perimeter of the open region, killing all those orcs that thought to flee. The wretched creatures dove and rolled and tried to run, but ultimately had nowhere to go.
Elven bows twanged mercilessly; elven swords bit deep into orcish flesh.
It was over in seconds, orc bodies covering the open expanse. None of the elves held any notions of victory, though, and not one of them was smiling. They knew that this battle was just beginning. Cries of another fight sprang up somewhere to the east, and farther north the enemy had started fires. The season had not been dry, and the fires did not rush through the forest, but they were fueled by the prodding of many, many monsters.
Another group of elves, flushed out by the flames, sprinted by the area, with hulking orogs in close pursuit.
“Take to the shadows!” Shayleigh cried, and most of Tintagel’s contingent already moved for the trees, knowing that to get caught in the open was to die.
Shayleigh didn’t look back to her king for instructions. For the fiery elven maiden, the appropriate course was easy to discern. Amid all the confusion of the expanding battle and swirling smoke, she had clearly seen a new enemy to strike.
“Come, Temmerisa!” she cried, and the spirited horse, apparently in complete agreement with its courageous rider, broke into a wild charge in pursuit of the orogs chasing the elves.
One of the other riders moved to follow Shayleigh, but Galladel held him back.
“We eight shall stay together,” the elf king said sternly. “The fight will come in full, and if Elbereth’s attempt does not awaken the trees, our course will be whichever way is quickest from Shilmista’s bloody boughs.”
The other riders could tell by Galladel’s grim tone that their king did not hold out much hope for his son’s attempt. And at that dark time, with the forest thick with monsters and smoke, cries of battle erupting from every direction, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of enemy soldiers moving to surround them, not one of Galladel’s cavalry companions could muster the courage to dispute the king’s fears.
“Teague!” Cadderly cried.
“Teague!” he heard Elbereth repeat.
The young scholar inadvertently glanced over his shoulder, hearing the fighting not too far away. “Concentrate!” he growled, more to himself than to Elbereth, and he forced his gaze down into the book of Dellanil Quil’quien and looked for the next phrase in the woodland summons.
“Teague!” Elbereth echoed several more times, growing nearly as frantic as Cadderly. His people were dying while he danced about an oak grove; he could not ignore that his sword was needed just a few hundred feet away.
Cadderly saw that the elf prince was slipping from the trance. The young scholar dropped the book—somehow guessing that he would not need it, that the ancient words had become a part of him, or rather, that their meaning was now so crystalline clear to him that he could follow the path of their cant from his heart alone.
“What’re ye doing . . . ?” he heard Ivan stammer. Kierkan Rufo added something Cadderly could not discern, and Pikel piped in with, “Huh?”
Cadderly blocked them all from his mind. He rushed over to Elbereth and grabbed the elf prince’s hands, tearing one’s stubborn grasp from Elbereth’s sword hilt.
“Teague immen syldritch fae,” the young scholar said firmly. Whether it was his tone or his grave expression, he could not tell, but he knew then that he had gained Elbereth’s full attention, that by his demands, Elbereth had put the closing battle back out of his thoughts. Elbereth took up the chant, and Cadderly continued, keeping a few words ahead of the mesmerized elf.
The young scholar felt a power budding within him, an awakening of his soul and a strength he never suspected he possessed. His words came faster—too fast for anyone to possibly keep up.
And yet, Elbereth, pulled along by a similar inner urgency, caught in the throes of building magic, repeated with perfection each of the phrases Cadderly uttered, matched the young scholar’s timbre and inflection as perfectly as a mountain echo.
Then Elbereth and Cadderly spoke as one, the words, the summons, coming from both their mouths in unison.
It was impossible, Cadderly knew. Neither of them knew the phrases well enough to recite them from memory. But the young scholar did not doubt that their words rang perfectly, that they spoke exactly as Dellanil Quil’quien had spoken on a mystical day centuries before.
They neared the end; their phrases slowed as the final runes built within. Cadderly grabbed Elbereth’s hands, looking for support, unable to contain the power.
Elbereth, equally terrified, held on with all his strength.
“A intunivial dolas quey!” they cried together, the words torn from their hearts by a power that consumed their minds and left their bodies leaning heavily against one another. Together they slipped down to the thick grass.
Cadderly nearly swooned—in truth, he wasn’t certain if he had blacked out for a moment—and when he looked to Elbereth, he saw that the elf wore the same expression of weariness and confusion. Their companions were all about them, even Kierkan Rufo, wearing a mien of concern.
“Ye all right, lad?” Cadderly heard Ivan ask, and the young scholar wasn’t really certain how he should answer.
With the dwarves’ help, Cadderly managed to get back to his feet, while Danica and Rufo helped Elbereth to stand. The forest was quiet, except for the continuing din of distant battle.
“It did not work,” Elbereth groaned after many long moments had slipped by.
Cadderly held his hand up to stop the elf from continuing. He remembered the sounds of birds in the trees before the summoning, but now there were none. It could have been his and Elbereth’s shouting that had scared them off, or perhaps they had taken flight from the approaching fight, but Cadderly thought differently. He sensed the stillness of Syldritch Trea to be a prelude, a deceptive calm.
“What do you know?” Danica asked him, moving to his side. She studied his face a moment longer, then reiterated, “What do you know?”
“Do you feel it?” Cadderly finally replied, looking all around at the great oaks. “The mounting energy?” Hardly taking note of his own actions, he bent down and picked up the dropped amulet, slipping it into a deep pocket. “Do you feel it?” he asked again, more insistently.
Danica did feel it, an awakening, a growing sentience all about her, as though she was being watched. She looked to Elbereth, and he, too, glanced about in anticipation.
“Oo,” Pikel remarked, but his spoken thought fell on deaf ears.
“What is it?” Ivan growled uncomfortably. He took up his axe and hopped in circles, eyeing the trees suspiciously.
Behind Kierkan Rufo, the earth trembled. The angular man spun about to see a gigantic root tear up through the ground. There came a rustle as the branches of a huge oak began to shake, and the sound increased, multiplied, as several other trees joined in.
“What have we done?” Elbereth asked, his tone reflecting amazement and trepidation.
Cadderly was too entranced to answer. More roots came up through the ground; more branches shook and bent.
Ivan seemed on the verge of exploding, holding his axe as though to rush over and chop down the nearest tree. Next to him, Pikel hopped up and down in glee, thrilled by the growing display of druidic magic. The round-shouldered dwarf grabbed his nervous brother’s weapon arm and wagged a finger back and forth in Ivan’s face.
The companions didn’t even notice that they were all moving closer together, back-to-back.
The first tree, the one behind Rufo, broke free of the ground and took a sliding stride toward them.
“Do something!” the terrified man said to Elbereth.
All fear had left the elf prince. He jumped out in front of Rufo and cried, “I am Elbereth, son of Galladel, son of Gil-Telleman, son of Dellanil Quil’quien! War has come to Shilmista, a great force not seen since the days of my father’s father’s father! Thus I have summoned you, guardians of Shilmista, to march beside me and cleanse this, our home!”
Another great tree moved over to join the first, and others followed suit. Elbereth took up the lead, thinking to head straight for the battle, but Ivan patted the elf’s shoulder, turning him about.
“Fine words, elf,” the obviously relieved dwarf offered. Elbereth smiled grimly and looked to Danica, who stood quietly beside Cadderly. Both the young scholar and the woman understood the elf prince’s tentative intentions from the look on his face, and, almost in unison, they smiled and nodded their agreement. Elbereth returned the smile and pulled Ivan beside him at the lead of the column. Together they started off, unlikely allies. Pikel, more interested in the continuing spectacle of the moving trees than in anything that lay ahead, came behind.
Kierkan Rufo looked about anxiously, not knowing where he fit in. As he came to trust that the great oaks would not harm him, his horror of the trees began to wane and he found his place in it all. He climbed one of the oaks, moving as high as he could, higher, he figured, than a goblin could throw its spear.
Cadderly continued to hold Danica back as the woodland column, some dozen or so ancient trees, slipped past. “Dorigen knew where we were going,” he explained as the thunder of the tree walk diminished. “And for whatever reason, she wants me as her prisoner.”
Danica motioned to a shadowy hollow to the side, and she and Cadderly took up a watch there, agreeing that they would set out after Elbereth and the others if the wizard did not appear in the next few minutes.
A group of orogs stared curiously at the spectacle, not sure of what to make of the approaching oaks. They jostled each other and scratched at their scraggly hair, pointing and lifting spears the trees’ way in an almost comic threat.
They understood more—at least that these gigantic trees were not friendly things—when they saw an elf and two dwarves hop down from the closest tree’s lowest branches. The orogs took up a unified hoot and one launched its spear, but they still did not seem to fathom how they should react to such a display.
Ivan, Pikel, and Elbereth charged at them, eager to begin the fight.
The lead tree’s reach was longer, though, and it sent huge branches crashing down upon the beasts, battering and thrashing them. A couple of orogs slipped away, out of range, and ran straight off, not daring to look back.
“Aw, this ain’t about to be much fun!” Ivan roared, for by the time he and his two companions reached the orogs, not a single one of the beasts could offer any resistance.
“Except fun to watch!” Ivan quickly added, noticing an orog high in the air, kicking futilely against the stranglehold one branch had put around its neck.
The surly dwarf grabbed Pikel by the arm. “Come, me brother!” Ivan yelled. “Let’s find a goblin head to cleave!”
Pikel looked back longingly to the moving oaks, not wanting to part from them. But there were indeed many monsters about, and it didn’t take Ivan long to convince his equally fierce brother that the games had just begun.
Elbereth watched them sprint off into the shadows, falling immediately over a small band of goblins. In just a few seconds, the two remaining goblins were running fast into the forest, Ivan and Pikel hot on their heels.
The elf prince managed a weak smile, and managed, too, to hope that the day might yet be won.
“The battle begins in full,” Danica whispered in Cadderly’s ear. “We must go.”
Cadderly held her in place, pulled her lower into the shadows. He sensed something, a presence, perhaps, and knew instinctively that danger was about. Unconsciously, the young scholar dropped a hand into a pocket of his traveling cloak and closed his fingers around the tiny amulet.
“Druzil,” he whispered, surprised as he spoke the word. Danica looked at him curiously.
“The amulet works both ways,” Cadderly realized. “I know the imp is nearby. And if the imp is about . . .”
As if on cue, Dorigen stepped into the clearing in the wake of the passing trees. Cadderly and Danica crouched lower, but the wizard was obviously intent on the now-distant spectacle of the marching trees.
Danica pointed to the west, then started stealthily away, circling behind the wizard. Not daring to speak a word, Cadderly held up the amulet to remind her that Dorigen’s devilish henchman was probably also in the area, and probably invisible.
“What have you done?” Dorigen cried, and Cadderly nearly fainted from fear, thinking that she was addressing him. Her narrow-eyed gaze remained locked on the moving trees, though. She thrust her fist out in front of her and cried, “Fete,” an elvish word for fire.
A jet of flame roared from Dorigen’s hand—Cadderly thought that perhaps it came from a ring—a burning line that stretched across the yards to engulf the last tree in the procession.
“Fete!” the wizard repeated, and the flames did not relent. She moved her hand about, shifting the angle of the fire to immolate the tree. The great oak turned its cumbersome bulk about, inadvertently setting small fires on the trees beside it. It reached out with a long root for Dorigen, but the wizard lowered her hand in line with the root and burned it away to nothingness.
So horrified at the sheer wickedness of Dorigen’s destructive actions, Cadderly couldn’t draw his breath. He looked to his right, the west, for some sign of Danica, praying that his love would come out and stop Dorigen’s carnage. But while Danica was indeed concealed in the brush behind the wizard, she couldn’t easily get to Dorigen. Three orogs had moved out of the shadows and taken up a defensive position behind and to either side of the wizard.
The tree crackled and split apart, falling into a flaming heap. Dorigen stopped her attack, but kept her fist clenched, trying, it appeared, to make out another target through the smoke and flames.
Cadderly knew he could not allow that to happen.
Dorigen extended her fist again and started to utter the triggering rune, but she stopped, distracted by a curious sight off to the side. A beam of light emanated through the brush and from the shadows, rocking slowly back and forth. Keeping her fist extended, the wizard slowly moved over to investigate.
Her expression turned to one of curiosity as she neared the shadowed hollow. A cylindrical tube, the source of the light beam, rocked along the inner edge of a light blue, wide-brimmed hat that had been placed on its side. Dorigen didn’t recognize the hat, but she had seen the cylindrical object before, inside the pack belonging to the young priest, Cadderly.
Dorigen realized that she was vulnerable, knew that she should be wary of the young priest, but pride had always been her greatest weakness.
A short distance away, low behind the trunk of a tree, Cadderly unscrewed his feathered ring, pulled back the ram head of his walking stick, and inserted the dart. He took great care to keep it out of the sunlight, but he was less than confident as he pursed his lips against his blowgun and drew a bead on Dorigen.
“Where are you, young priest?” Dorigen called. She turned to signal to her orog guards, then flinched as something small and sharp struck her on the cheek.
“What?” she stammered, pulling free the feathered dart. She nearly laughed aloud at the puny thing.
“Damn,” Cadderly groaned, seeing her still standing. Dorigen yawned then, profoundly, and wiped bleary eyes.
Cadderly knew that his chance was slipping by. He jumped from the side of the tree and rushed at his enemy.
Seeing their mistress endangered, the orogs howled and charged to intercept the young scholar. They found Danica instead, suddenly, and each tasted a foot or a fist before it realized what had happened.
Dorigen didn’t seem to need them, though. Her fist, still clenched, pointed to greet Cadderly—he could see now that it was the onyx ring she wore on that hand. He couldn’t possibly get to her in time, and he had no other weapons to strike with from a distance.
Dorigen began to speak—Cadderly expected the words to fall over him like the pronouncement of doom.
“Where will you hide, elf king?” Ragnor roared above the ring of steel and the cries of the dying.
Galladel reined in his horse and wheeled about, as did the others of his cavalry group.
“There!” one of the elves shouted, pointing to a break in a line of beech trees. There stood Ragnor in all his evil splendor, his bottom tusk sticking up grotesquely over his upper lip and his elite bugbear guards fanned out in a semicircle around him, their sharp-tipped tridents gleaming wickedly. Galladel led the charge, the seven other riders bravely at his side.
The elf king pulled up short, though, knowing that he and his troops could not get through Ragnor’s defensive ring. Somehow, Galladel realized, he would have to get to the ogrillon, would have to strike a decisive blow in the lopsided battle.
“You are Ragnor?” Galladel cried in a derisive tone. “He who hides behind his minions, who cowers while others die in his name?”
The ogrillon’s laughter defeated Galladel’s bluster. “I am Ragnor!” the beast proclaimed. “Who claims Shilmista as his own. Come, pitiful elf king, and pass your crown to one who deserves it!” The ogrillon reached over his shoulder and pulled out his huge and heavy broadsword.
“Do not, my king,” one of Galladel’s escorts said to him.
“Together we can crush their ranks,” offered another.
Galladel put his slender hand up to quiet them all. The elf king thought of his past failures, of the time he had failed to awaken the trees at the price of many elven lives. Truly, he was weary and wanted only to travel to Evermeet. But noble, too, was the elf king of Shilmista, and now he saw his duty clearly before him. He spurred his horse ahead a few strides, ordering his escort to stay back.
Ragnor’s bugbears parted, and Galladel’s charge was on. He thought to bury the ogrillon, smash straight in with his powerful steed and crush the invader. His plans came to a crashing end as a huge boulder, hurled by a giant in the shadows, caught his horse on the flank and sent the poor, doomed beast spinning to the ground.
Galladel’s escort roared and charged; the bugbears and the giant moved quickly to block them. When Galladel pulled himself from the pile and regained his feet, shaken but not seriously injured, he found himself alone, faced off against mighty Ragnor.
“Now the fight is fair!” Ragnor growled, steadily advancing.
Galladel readied his own sword. How much larger the brutish ogrillon seemed to him now, with his horse lying dead at his side.
Cadderly fully expected to be fried long before he got to Dorigen. The wizard began to utter the triggering rune, but yawned instead as the sleep poison continued to work its insidious way inside her.
Cadderly didn’t hesitate. He charged straight in, launching a roundhouse, two-handed swing with his walking stick that caught Dorigen on the side of the head and blasted her to the ground. In all his life, Cadderly had never hit anything so very hard.
Dorigen lay still at his feet, eyes closed and blood trickling from a cut the ram’s head had torn along her ear.
The sight unnerved Cadderly, sent his thoughts spinning back to the tragic events of a few weeks before. Barjin’s dead eyes hovered about the young scholar as he looked down at Dorigen, praying that she was not dead.
Danica uttered no such prayers for the first orog she had felled. She had hit the beast squarely in the throat and knew that its windpipe was crushed and that it soon would suffocate. The other two fought savagely, though, despite the wounds Danica had inflicted. Wielding finely crafted, razor-edged swords, they soon had the young woman backing steadily away.
A sword cut just above her head as she ducked. She kicked straight out, connecting on the monster’s thigh, but had to back off as the other monster pressed her savagely. One, two, and three, came the monster’s wicked swipes, each missing the scrambling woman by no more than an inch.
Then Danica was up again, balanced on the balls of her feet. The orog she had kicked lagged behind its companion in the pursuit, and Danica found her opening.
The single orog thrust its sword straight at her. Faster than the weapon could get to her, Danica fell into a crouch, nearly sitting upon the ground, then came up hard and angled in toward her attacker, the fingers of her right hand bent in tightly against themselves. Her left arm led the way, brushing aside the orog’s sword, leaving the monster defenseless. Her deadly right arm, coiled tight against her chest, snapped in through the opening, slamming her open palm into the hollow of the orog’s chest with every ounce of power the young woman could throw into it.
The beast hopped two feet from the ground and landed back to its feet, breathless, then it fell dead.
The remaining orog, moving in on the young woman, looked at its fallen companion curiously, then abruptly changed its course, howling and hooting and scrambling for the trees.
Danica started to follow, then dropped to her knees in surprise as something whistled past her, just a few feet to the side. She understood when the dart hit the orog in the back and exploded, throwing the creature facedown on the ground. It gasped once for breath that would not come, and lay very still.
Danica looked back to see Cadderly, his crossbow, taken from the unconscious wizard, securely in his hand. Standing over Dorigen, he almost seemed a terrible thing to Danica, his visage stern and angry.
Danica guessed what emotions tore at poor Cadderly; she understood the guilt and confusion that had brought him to this point. But now was not the time for weakness. “Finish her,” Danica instructed coldly. She glanced around quickly to ensure that there were no more enemies in the area, then ran after the departing trees, where the larger battles had been joined.
Cadderly looked down to the unconscious wizard, disgusted at what he knew he must do.
When he had led the procession from Syldritch Trea, Elbereth had thought to keep his forces together and cut a wedge through the enemy lines to rejoin his people. As the elf prince came upon the area of battle, though, he saw the folly of his plans.
There was no line to cut through, and no clear group of his own people to rejoin. Chaos ruled in Shilmista this day, a wild scramble of elf and goblinoid, giant trees and giantkin.
“Good fighting, elf!” were the last words Elbereth heard from Ivan, circling back out of the trees with Pikel, as the elf prince sprinted off to the side to engage a bugbear moving along a patch of brambles.
By the time Elbereth had finished the creature, the trees had moved past and split up, many going for the fires burning in the north or for the cries of battle in the east, and the dwarves were nowhere to be seen. Too busy to go in search of them, Elbereth sounded his horn, a call that he hoped would soon be answered.
Temmerisa appeared in mere seconds, flying like the wind, with Shayleigh holding tight to the steed’s reins. The horse ran down one goblin, and leaped over several others as they crawled through the thicket.
“The trees!” Shayleigh cried, her words choked with hope and astonishment. She looked back over her shoulder to one oak that was pounding down a host of monsters. “Shilmista has come alive!”
Shayleigh dropped from the saddle. “Take Temmerisa,” she said quickly to Elbereth.
“The horse is in fine hands,” Elbereth replied, refusing the bridle. “I only called to ensure that Temmerisa and his rider were still about.”
“Take him!” Shayleigh implored the elf prince. “Find your father. I have heard whispers that he battles Ragnor, and if that is true, then he will need his son beside him!”
Elbereth needed to hear nothing more to convince him. He grabbed the bridle and swung up into the saddle. “Where are they?” he cried.
“The line of beech!” Shayleigh replied. She started to warn Elbereth about the bugbear guard, but stopped, realizing that the elf prince, already flying away on his powerful mount, was too far gone to hear her.
Elbereth pounded through the forest. He saw dozens of small encounters where his sword might have been of use, but he had not the time. Galladel battling Ragnor! The thought stuck in Elbereth’s throat and stuck his heart like a sharp pin. He recalled his own painful encounter with the powerful ogrillon, a fight he would have lost. Elbereth was more highly regarded in swordplay than was Galladel.
Elbereth ducked under a low branch and pulled Temmerisa in a tight turn through a narrow gap between two maples, then urged the horse into a long leap across a patch of brambles. He could feel the lather on Temmerisa’s muscled neck, could hear the proud steed’s lungs straining to pull in the air needed for such exertion.
Another leap, another turn, then a straight charge, and Temmerisa seemed up to the task, running hard, sensing its beloved master’s urgency.
Elbereth caught sight of the giant out of the corner of his eye, saw the hurled boulder rushing in. He yanked hard on Temmerisa’s reins, turning the horse aside, but not fully out of harm’s way. The white stallion went down under the force of that impact, but came right back up, stubbornly, and continued on its way.
“We will pay back that beast,” Elbereth promised, slapping his precious steed’s neck. Temmerisa snorted, lowered its great head, and charged on.
Ivan and Pikel tried as best they could to stay in the vicinity of the marching trees. Every orc or goblin the dwarves encountered slowed them down, though, while the oaks walked right through, scattering horrified monsters wherever they went.
The dwarves heard elven cheers from all about, though they saw few of Elbereth’s people. Not that they minded; the brothers were certainly more interested in spotting enemies than in finding allies they didn’t really believe they needed.
Then the trees were far beyond them, fanning out in their steady march, and the Bouldershoulders were all alone.
“Uh-oh,” Pikel remarked, suspecting what was to come. Sure enough, dozens of monsters appeared from their concealment in the wake of the passing trees, dozens of monsters with no apparent targets other than the dwarven brothers.
“Get yerself ready for some fighting,” Ivan said to Pikel. The words were hardly necessary; Pikel smashed one orc even as Ivan spoke.
Then Pikel grabbed his brother and scrambled to the side, under the low-hanging, thick boughs of some pines. Ivan understood his brother’s intent, and wisdom, as soon as the monsters closed in on them, for the close quarters and low visibility favored the outnumbered dwarves.
Still, almost everywhere that Ivan swung his axe, blindly or not, he found some monster waiting to catch it and a dozen others in line behind, ready to step in.
Safe in his high perch, Kierkan Rufo thought himself quite clever. The angular man had no intention of playing any role in this horrific battle beyond that of observer, and in that regard, he thoroughly enjoyed watching the pitiful goblins and orcs and orogs fleeing before the incredible power of his moving oak.
He changed his mind abruptly when the oak stumbled upon a different enemy: two giants that were not so cowardly and not so small. The tree shuddered violently as a boulder slammed against its trunk. It swung a branch at the nearest monster, connecting solidly, but the giant, instead of falling dead, grabbed the limb and twisted.
Above, Rufo heard the sharp crack of living wood and thought he would faint away.
Another branch swung in to pound on the monster, but the second giant got in close to the trunk, grabbing on with frightening strength. The giant heaved and pulled, and the huge oak swayed to one side and then the other.
More branches descended over the more distant giant, battering it and lashing it. The monster caught a few and snapped them apart with its huge hands, but the beatings were taking a heavy toll. Soon the giant fell to its knees, and, soon after that, the oak pounded it to the ground.
Another thick branch, the lowest on the great tree, wrapped about the trunk, encircling the tugging giant in an unbreakable hold.
Kierkan Rufo found himself cheering the tree on as the giant fought for its breath. The angular man thought the battle won, thought that his oak could finish this foe and move on, hopefully to safer and smaller opponents.
The gasping giant slumped as low as it could get on its thick, trunklike legs, then heaved for all its life, pushing up and to the side.
One of the oak’s roots bent back on itself, and the tree went down in a heap, never to rise again, clutched in a death grip with its doomed destroyer. More branches wriggled in to ensure the giant’s fate.
Rufo was sure that one of his legs had been broken, though he couldn’t see the leg, pinned underneath a huge tree branch. He thought of crying out, then realized the stupidity of that. Many more monsters than allies were about to hear him.
He scooped away some dirt, digging a shallow pit, then he pulled as many small, leafy branches over him as he could and lay very still.
Danica came into the chaos with her mouth hanging open in amazement. Never had the young woman witnessed such destruction. She saw the tree go down with the giant, then another tree went down, farther in, under a press of bugbears.
Danica looked back behind her, worried for Cadderly. She couldn’t protect him this time—she didn’t really believe she could protect herself. With a resigned shrug and one longing glance back to where she had left the young scholar, the young woman set off, knowing that she would not have difficulty finding an enemy to hit.
A resounding “Oo oi!” turned her head to a grove of thick pines. A bugbear rushed out desperately, followed by a flying club. The weapon took the creature in the legs, knocking it to the ground. Before it could rise, Pikel ran out, collected his club, and splattered the bugbear’s head against the ground. The dwarf looked up at Danica, his white smile shining within the layer of gore that covered his face.
Despite the craziness and danger all about her, Danica returned his smile and winked at the dwarf, and both she and Pikel suspected that it would be a wink of farewell.
Pikel disappeared back into the pines, and Danica bent low and took out her twin daggers. Then the young monk went hunting.
Cadderly fumbled with the Tome of Universal Harmony, trying to find some answers that would offer him escape from the task Danica and the insane situation had placed upon his shoulders. Dorigen lay very still below him, groaning softly every now and then.
More important was the growing roar of the battle. Cadderly knew that he could not afford to delay much longer, that he should join in the fight beside his friends, and that even if he did not, the battle would likely come to him all too soon. He had his retrieved crossbow reloaded—only five darts remained—and lying ready atop the fallen wizard.
The pages of the great book seemed a blur to him; in his frantic state of mind, he could hardly read the words, much less discern some value in them. Then he was pulled from the pages altogether, distracted by a distinct sensation that he was not alone. He spent a brief moment concentrating on that feeling, focusing his thoughts.
Slowly, Cadderly reached down and took up the crossbow. He spun about, letting his senses guide him where his eyes could not, and fired.
The explosive dart slammed against the trunk of a sapling, blasting the tree apart. Just to the side of it Cadderly heard a sudden flap of leathery wings.
“You cannot hide from me, Druzil!” the young scholar cried. “I know where you are!”
The sound of beating wings faded away into the forest and Cadderly could not prevent a grin of superiority from crossing his face. Druzil would not bother him again.
Dorigen groaned and began to shift her weight, groggily trying to get up to her elbows. Cadderly turned the crossbow down at her and loaded another dart.
His eyes widened in shock at his actions; how could he think of killing the defenseless woman, and how could he think of using his damning weapon to commit the foul deed? His breath came in gasps; Barjin’s eyes stared at him from the shadows.
He dropped the bow and took up the book, closing it and grasping it tightly in both hands.
“This is not what you had in mind when you gave this to me,” he admitted, as though he were addressing Headmistress Pertelope, then he slammed the heavy tome on the back of Dorigen’s head, again dropping her flat to the ground.
Cadderly worked frantically, before the wizard recovered again. He pulled three rings from Dorigen’s hands: one her signet ring bearing the design of this sect of Talona; one of gold and set with a shining black onyx (this was the one that Cadderly suspected had shot the magical flames); and the last of gold and set with several small diamond chips. The wizard’s robe came off next, Cadderly stuffing it into his backpack. He found a slender wand slipped under a tie in Dorigen’s undergarments, and fumbled through any pouches or pockets in her remaining clothing, making certain that she had no more magical devices or spell components.
When he was done, he stood staring at the helpless woman, wondering what to do next. Some spells, he knew, required no physical components, and others used small and common items that could be found almost anywhere. If he left Dorigen like this, she might still play a role in the continuing battle, might wake up and kill any of them, kill Danica, perhaps, by uttering a few simple syllables.
Outraged by that thought, Cadderly grabbed his walking stick and laid the wizard’s hands out to the side. Grimacing as he swung, he smashed Dorigen’s fingers, on one hand and then the other, repeatedly, until her hands were black and blue and wickedly swollen. Through it all, the drugged and battered wizard only groaned softly and made no move to pull her hands away.
Cadderly gathered his possessions, placed the bandolier with the remaining darts over his shoulder, and started away, not having any idea of where he should go.
At last Elbereth spotted his father, fighting in the small clearing with huge Ragnor. The elf prince knew it would take him some time to circumvent the many other battles in the area to get near Galladel, and he knew, too, that Ragnor was fast gaining an advantage.
He watched his father try a desperate, straightforward strike. Ragnor caught the elf king’s arm and sent his sword in an overhand chop, which Galladel stopped by grabbing the ogrillon’s wrist. It all seemed horribly familiar to Elbereth. He wanted to scream a warning, wanted to destroy himself for not telling his father of the ogrillon’s favorite tactic.
The stiletto popped from Ragnor’s sword hilt, straight down at Galladel’s vulnerable head, and Elbereth could only watch.
They continued their struggle for another moment before Ragnor freed his huge arm and plunged it down.
Suddenly, so suddenly, Elbereth was king of Shilmista.
The mighty horse stormed in, bravely bearing its rider toward the enemy leader. Bugbears stepped out to intercept the ride, but Temmerisa lowered its head and plowed straight through them, scattering them like falling leaves.
Temmerisa stumbled, the great horse’s forelegs tangled in one falling creature. A trident, thrown from the concealing brush, entered Temmerisa’s side, finishing the proud horse’s charge. Down Temmerisa went, heavily, whinnying and thrashing from the poison that had tipped the devilish weapon.
Elbereth rolled free of the tangle and looked back in horror as his proud steed stilled.
When the elf prince looked around, he saw that his path was clear all the way to Ragnor.
“Come along, elf,” the ogrillon spat, recognizing Elbereth from their earlier encounter. “I have beaten you before. This time I will kill you!” Just to spur his opponent on, Ragnor kicked the elven corpse at his feet.
For all his confidence, though, the ogrillon was shocked at the sheer wildness of Elbereth’s ensuing charge. Elbereth’s sword whipped and hacked furiously, cut in on Ragnor, then stubbornly came back in after the ogrillon barely managed to parry the first strike.
“I avenge my father!” Elbereth cried, slashing away.
Confident Ragnor smiled wickedly. The elf king was this one’s father? What victories Ragnor would pile up this day!
Elbereth’s furious assault went on and on; Ragnor’s actions remained defensive. The ogrillon was a veteran of a thousand battles. He knew that this one’s rage would play itself out and soon give way to exhaustion. Then it would be Ragnor’s turn.
By the time Cadderly got in sight of any of those doing battle, he had passed the scarred remains of the earlier fights. Blasted trees and bodies lay all about him. The cries of the dying seemed a macabre game of ventriloquism—with too many bodies about for the young man to discern the source of any single cry.
One goblin grabbed his ankle as he passed. Instinct told him to fire his crossbow at the monster, but he realized that the goblin, blinded from a sword slash and near death, had grabbed him out of fear, with no thoughts of attacking. Cadderly pulled his leg free and stumbled away, having neither the courage to finish the creature, nor the time to tend its mortal wounds.
In the distance, another of the walking trees tumbled, buried under the bulk of a hundred monsters. Most of these creatures were already dead, tangled in strangling branches, but those that weren’t hacked wildly at the fallen oak. An elf rushed to the tree’s defense, taking down two orogs before he was buried by the others and ripped to pieces.
Cadderly didn’t know which way to run or what to do. For the young scholar, who had lived his whole life in the sheltered and secure library, this was his vision of Hell.
He heard soft weeping in a nearby tree and saw Hammadeen in its boughs, her shoulders bobbing with her sobs.
Another groan came from a goblin dying in the shadows; another shriek split the air from somewhere in the unseen distance.
Cadderly ran on, circling the monsters still hacking at the fallen tree. He wanted to find a hole and hide in it, but he knew that to stop moving meant death.
He crossed through a tight copse of birch—the birch tangle that he and the others had avoided on their way to Syldritch Trea, he assumed—and came into a small field of chest-high blueberry bushes, dotted by occasional trees. Suddenly the fight was all about Cadderly. At the tree line across this small field, a force of goblinoids tried to penetrate the stiff defense of many elven archers, and in several places combatants rolled about in the blueberry bushes, altogether hidden from Cadderly’s view.
He heard them, though, and saw the bushes tremble with the vicious fighting.
Cadderly worked his way through, went down a slope, and came around to the backside of a hill. There he froze, stunned by yet another sight. “Great Deneir,” the stunned young priest muttered, hardly conscious that he had spoken. Cadderly had seen ogres before, and had nearly swooned at the size of the huge monsters. Now he saw his first giant, nearly twice the height of an ogre and, Cadderly would guess, ten times an ogre’s weight. That made Cadderly, standing in its shadow, puny indeed!
Fortunately, the giant’s back was to Cadderly and the creature was busy gathering rocks, probably to throw at the elves in the tree line. Cadderly would have been wise to walk past, but his reactions came from his terror.
He fired a dart into the giant’s backside.
“Hey!” the monster roared, rubbing its burning buttocks and turning about. Cadderly, having realized his drastic error, had already taken flight and turned about just once to fire another dart. This one caught the monster squarely in the chest, but the giant hardly flinched at the explosion.
Cadderly put his head down and sprinted for the safety of the trees, hoping that no elf would mistake him for an orc and shoot him down.
He didn’t look back again at the giant, guessing correctly that it had taken up the chase.
The giant laughed stupidly, thinking this human an easy catch. Its expression changed considerably when the two dwarven brothers popped up from the bushes beside it. One sliced into the back of the monster’s hamstring with an axe; the other crushed the giant’s kneecap with a club.
The giant veered and tumbled down, and the Bouldershoulders were atop it before it ever stopped bouncing.
“Nice high ground to make a stand,” Ivan remarked to Pikel, burying his axe into the giant’s neck.
“Oo oi!” Pikel heartily agreed, striking the giant on the back of the skull with his tree-trunk club.
“Was that Cadderly that came running by?” Ivan asked. Pikel looked to the dark trees and nodded.
“Good bait, that one!” Ivan roared. The conversation ended abruptly as a group of orogs crashed through the brush and charged at the exposed dwarves.
A blinding flash ripped through the shadows. Cadderly heard several goblins squeal, then spotted the source of the lightning bolt, a familiar and welcome face.
“Tintagel!” he called, rushing to the elf wizard’s side.
“Well met, young priest!” the blue-eyed elf replied sincerely. “Have you seen Elbereth?”
Cadderly shook his head. “I just came onto the field,” he explained. “Dorigen is down.” He displayed the rings he had taken from the wizard and the wand sticking from under his belt. “Might these be of—“
“Down!” Tintagel cried, pushing Cadderly aside as a spear narrowly missed them both. The elf threw out one hand and uttered a spell. Magical bolts of energy erupted from his fingertips, swerving unerringly through the trees and diving behind one large trunk. Out the other side fell a dead bugbear, its hairy body singed in several places from the magical attack.
“Elbereth,” the wizard said again to Cadderly. “I must get to him, for it is said that he battles Ragnor!”
“He does,” said a dryad’s melodic voice to the side.
“Where are they?” Cadderly demanded, moving toward Hammadeen. The dryad shied back against the tree, and Cadderly suspected that she meant to vanish.
“Do not go, I beg,” the young scholar pleaded, mellowing his voice so as not to frighten the skittish creature. “You must tell us, Hammadeen. The fate of Shilmista rests in your hands.”
Hammadeen did not reply or move, and Cadderly had to look hard to sort her out from the tree bark.
“Coward!” Cadderly growled at her. “You claim to be a friend of the trees, but you will do nothing in their time of need!” he closed his eyes, then, concentrating on the tree hiding the dryad. Strange and marvelous emotions came over him as he attuned his senses to that tree, and he recognized the paths the tree had privately opened for Hammadeen’s escape.
“No!” Cadderly growled, reaching for the tree with his thoughts.
To Cadderly’s amazement, the dryad suddenly reappeared, looking back at the tree as though it had somehow betrayed her.
“They fight in the grove of beech, to the south and west and not so far,” the dryad said to Tintagel. “Do you know the place?”
“I do,” Tintagel replied, eyeing Cadderly sidelong. “What did you do?” he asked after the skittish dryad had fled.
Cadderly stood dumbfounded, having no idea of how he might reply.
The elf wizard, so very familiar with this forest, his home, conjured an image of the beech grove and recalled the words of another spell.
“Watch over me,” he said to Cadderly, and the young scholar nodded, knowing that the wizard would be vulnerable while casting. Cadderly took one of the two remaining darts from his bandolier and cocked his crossbow.
A door of shimmering light, similar to the one Cadderly had seen Dorigen step through, appeared in front of Tintagel. Cadderly heard a familiar rustle as another nearby bugbear heaved a spear.
The young scholar spun around, picked out the target, crouching in some bushes, and fired, blasting the monster right out the back side of the brush. There was no joy in Cadderly, and his satisfaction was soon lost, for when he turned back, he found Tintagel slumping, the spear buried deep in his side.
Cadderly cried out to him, grabbed the elf close, and, having nowhere else to go, leaned forward, taking them both through the shimmering door.
The giant groaned loudly, and Pikel broke away from his fight with an orog just long enough to smack the fallen behemoth on the back of the head. Seeing its opponent diverted, the orog tried to leap up onto the giant’s back. Pikel’s club caught it in midflight, dropping it back to the ground some distance away in a writhing heap.
The dwarves fought back-to-back, as they had atop the dead ogre in Dorigen’s camp. Only now the dwarves were even higher, standing taller than the orogs they battled, and the evil creatures had a considerable climb in trying to get at their enemies. Half the orog band of ten lay dead beside the giant, and not one of the monsters had gotten close to standing beside the dwarves.
The brothers Bouldershoulder were truly enjoying themselves.
A commotion from the tree line made both dwarf and orog glance to the side. Out came Danica, running like the wind, a mixed group of orcs, goblins, and bugbears close behind. Two of the orogs broke away from their fight with the dwarves and moved to cut her off.
An arrow got one in the chest, a second arrow thudding in a split second later, just an inch from the first. The remaining orog made the mistake of looking to the side, to the elven maiden in the shadows of the tree line.
Feet first, Danica soared through the air, connecting with a double kick into the distracted orog’s chest. It flew away, disappearing under the blueberry bushes, and did not reappear.
Danica was back up and running in an instant.
“I’ll cut ye a path!” Ivan promised, and he leaped from the giant, right between two orogs. His axe whipped left and right, and his promise was quickly fulfilled.
“Good to see ye, Lady Danica,” Ivan said, offering his gnarly hand. They went back up together, joining Pikel as he clobbered the last orog. New enemies were not far behind, but the mixed band of monsters found their ranks thinned as they charged. Arrows soared out from the tree line, scoring hit after hit.
“Shayleigh,” Danica explained to the admiring dwarves.
“Glad she’s on our side,” Ivan remarked. Even as he spoke, another arrow soared out, hitting a goblin in the side of the head and dropping it dead on the spot.
“We cannot stay here for long,” Danica told the brothers. “The area is in turmoil. Goblins and giants are everywhere, it seems!”
“How are the trees doing?” Ivan asked.
“Yeah,” Pikel concurred excitedly.
“The trees have caused tremendous losses to our enemies,” Danica answered. “But they are few, and fewer still since several have been brought down and several more battle the fires our enemies have started. The elves are scattered, and many, I fear, are dead.”
“To the woods, then!” Ivan bellowed. He leaped down again and charged into the approaching host, swinging so ferociously that more monsters turned and fled than remained to fight him. Danica nearly laughed aloud, and she pulled out her daggers, whipped them into the nearest target, and charged down, Pikel going right beside her, to join Ivan.
They were back under the trees in minutes.
Cadderly loaded his last explosive dart as he came through the other side of Tintagel’s shimmering gate, carefully laying the wounded elf wizard at his side. He spotted Ragnor and Elbereth immediately, in the throes of a titanic struggle just a few yards away.
He spotted Galladel, too, dead in the dirt at their feet.
Cadderly had no doubts as to where he wanted to place this last dart, and told himself that he would feel no remorse for blowing a large hole in Ragnor’s ugly face.
A charging bugbear changed Cadderly’s plans.
The young scholar had no time to think of his movements, just swung about and popped the dart into the hairy monster’s belly when it was only a stride away. The bugbear lurched violently and stumbled past, tumbling facedown in the dirt.
Cadderly looked to Tintagel, lying helpless and writhing in agony. He wanted to tend to the elf wizard, to get the spear out of Tintagel’s side at least, but he saw clearly that Elbereth could not hold out against the powerful ogrillon.
“I vowed that I would die beside you,” the young scholar whispered. He thought for a moment of searching his pack, of getting out the flask of Oil of Impact and trying to load another dart, but realized that he had no time. Reluctantly, Cadderly dropped his useless crossbow and took up his walking stick and spindle-disks, thinking them ridiculous against a foe as obviously powerful as Ragnor. He reiterated his vow to Elbereth one last time and charged in beside the elf prince.
“Why are you here?” Elbereth demanded breathlessly when Cadderly rushed up. The elf ducked a quick cut of Ragnor’s heavy sword, one of the few offensive strikes the ogrillon had taken.
Cadderly understood immediately the course this fight had taken. Elbereth was plainly tired, couldn’t even seem to catch his breath, and Ragnor showed a dozen nicks and scratches, none of them deep or serious.
“I said I would fight beside you,” Cadderly replied. He stepped ahead, motioned with his walking stick, then threw out his spindle-disks. Ragnor blocked the attack with his forearm, curiously eyeing the strange but hardly effective weapon.
“You have powerful allies, elf prince,” the ogrillon laughed derisively. Cadderly struck again with the spindle-disks, and the ogrillon didn’t even bother to throw up his arm, taking the blow squarely on the chest and laughing all the while.
Then Elbereth came on wickedly, his fine sword darting to and fro, and sometimes straight ahead. Ragnor showed considerable respect for this weapon, and while the ogrillon was fully engaged, Cadderly grabbed his walking stick in both hands and connected on Ragnor’s elbow.
The ogrillon winced in pain. “You will die slowly for that!” he promised Cadderly, while furiously parrying Elbereth’s cunning cuts and slashes. “Slowly.”
Cadderly looked to his weapons as if they had deceived him. He knew he couldn’t really hurt Ragnor, no matter how clean his blow, but he knew, too, for Elbereth’s sake, that he must try to play some important role in the battle.
He waited and watched the fight’s ebb and flow, stayed back in the hopes that Ragnor would pay him even less attention over the next few moments.
If Ragnor was at all concerned about the young scholar, the ogrillon didn’t show it.
Elbereth’s blade spun in circles about Ragnor’s, then poked ahead, into the ogrillon’s arm. Ragnor growled, but if Elbereth was the faster swordsman, Ragnor was the tougher. The ogrillon went on the offensive, repeatedly hacking with his huge broadsword. He connected on Elbereth’s shield, the sheer force of the blow splitting it and throwing Elbereth to the ground.
Cadderly knew he had to act then or watch the elf prince be cut apart. He dropped his walking stick to the ground and yelled wildly, taking two steps toward Ragnor and leaping onto the ogrillon’s arm. The young scholar caught hold stubbornly, his arms about the ogrillon’s neck and both of his legs locked tightly around one of Ragnor’s.
Cadderly was neither a small man nor a weak one, but powerful Ragnor hardly swayed from his path toward the elf. The ogrillon glanced to the side incredulously, and Cadderly hung on for all his life.
Ragnor would have finished Cadderly then, except that Elbereth jumped back to his feet and wasted no time in returning to the attack. With Cadderly clutching and tugging and generally distracting Ragnor, Elbereth’s cunning maneuvers scored even more hits.
“Off!” the ogrillon howled. He drove Elbereth back with a vicious flurry, then slipped his free arm around Cadderly’s, breaking the young scholar’s grip. Ragnor’s strength was frightening indeed, and a moment later, Cadderly found himself flying through the air.
Back in the shadows of the trees, Ivan and Pikel hardly had trouble finding enemies. Goblins and orcs popped up from the undergrowth all about them, drooling and hungry for battle. True to their dwarven heritage, the Bouldershoulder brothers promptly went berserk, clubbing and slicing, and though they had been fighting steadily for many minutes, neither showed any signs of weariness. Goblins flew every which way, launched by Pikel’s heavy club, and Ivan, with a mighty overhead chop, sliced one orc nearly in half.
Through all the fury of that initial skirmish, Danica rested back behind the brothers, gathering her energy for when she would inevitably be needed. Cadderly dominated the young woman’s thoughts in that lull. Danica had found no time before this to consider where the young scholar might be and she feared that he had met a gruesome end. Her duty was clear to her, though, and she would not sway from it. This time, unlike any other, Danica had to trust in Cadderly to take care of himself, had to focus on the desperate battle.
No matter how many times Danica reminded herself of that fact, her heart longed to find Cadderly.
The last orc’s head flew off into the bushes. In the respite, Ivan turned about and noticed the despair in Danica’s almond eyes.
“Don’t ye worry, lass,” the dwarf comforted. “We’ll save ye a few in the next fight.”
Danica’s face crinkled at the words, revealing to the dwarf that he had misjudged the source of her sadness.
“It’s yer Cadderly, then,” Ivan guessed, remembering the young scholar himself. “Where’d that one get himself off to, anyhow?”
“I left him,” Danica admitted, looking back over her shoulder to the west, toward Syldritch Trea.
A boulder plummeted through the tree branches, narrowly missing the three companions. In response, one arrow after another flew out from the side, zipping back in the direction of the berry bushes.
“Giant!” Shayleigh called, appearing from her hiding spot and stringing yet another arrow. “I have hit it three times, but still it comes on!” She drew back and fired, and the companions watched the arrow fly through the leafy tangle to thud into what seemed like a moving mountain. Another huge form shifted beside the first.
“Two giants!” Ivan bellowed hopefully.
Danica grabbed him, and Pikel, as they started past her on their way to the newest foes. “No doubt with a host of escorts beside them,” the fiery young woman explained. “Do not be so foolish,” she scolded. “You are much to valuable to us—to me.”
“Oh,” Pikel replied rather sadly.
Shayleigh popped another arrow into the approaching monsters, then caught up with Danica and the dwarves.
“We must be gone quickly,” Shayleigh said.
“You three go on,” Danica bade them. “I will search for Cadderly.”
“The priest is with Tintagel,” Shayleigh replied. “Fear not, for if any can keep him safe in the fight, it is the wizard.”
The news did brighten Danica’s mood. Knowing that Cadderly was beside one as seasoned and wise as Tintagel eased her fears that her love had been abandoned to make his way alone in this forest of horrors. “The four of us, then,” Danica offered determinedly.
“Oo oi!” was Pikel’s reply.
“Woe to any monsters that cross our path!” Shayleigh vowed. She spun about and launched another arrow at the mass of approaching giants, just for good luck, and together the fighting foursome sprinted off into the shadows, formulating plans as they went.
Without his shield, Elbereth could only grasp his sword hilt in both hands to deflect Ragnor’s mighty blows. The ogrillon was finished with his defensive tactics now, determined to end this fight and move on to new battles. He cut a two-handed swipe straight across at Elbereth’s chest, stepping into the blow so that the elf could not back away and would have to use his sword to parry.
Elbereth’s weapon rang loudly under the force of the blow, vibrating for many moments. Elbereth’s arms went numb, and he had to struggle just to hold his grip on the sword. Ragnor launched a second strike, identical to the first.
Elbereth knew that to similarly block this blow would tear the sword from his hands. He threw himself straight back instead, tumbling to the ground.
Ragnor attacked furiously, thinking that the fight was won.
Elbereth’s agility and speed crossed the ogrillon up, though, for the elf suddenly twisted about and whipped his sword across, swift and low, stinging Ragnor’s shins and abruptly halting the ogrillon’s charge.
Elbereth was back up again, wary and keeping his distance as Ragnor, spitting curses and limping only slightly, steadily advanced.
Cadderly groaned and forced himself up to his elbows, knowing that he, and especially Elbereth, could not afford any delays. The young scholar had landed hard from Ragnor’s throw, and had lost his breath in the tumble.
He looked now at Elbereth, weary and sorely outmatched, and knew that Ragnor would soon win.
“Back to the fight,” Cadderly vowed, but he didn’t even manage to get to his feet before he felt the wetness along the back of his neck. Thinking it blood, Cadderly put a hand over it and scrambled to remove his pack.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the moisture came from his pack, not his own body, but then he nearly swooned when he realized the only possible source.
Slowly, carefully, the young scholar untied and opened the pack and removed the cracked flask. He shuddered to think of what might have happened if his landing had shattered, and not just cracked, the container of volatile Oil of Impact. He looked up to the high branches of the beech trees and imagined himself hanging up there, twisted and broken from the horrendous blast.
Cadderly glanced suddenly at Ragnor, then back to the flask. A wicked smile found its way across his face. He carefully removed the top half of the cracked container, then scooped his spindle-disks inside, cupping his hand to get as much of the remaining liquid as he could.
When Elbereth’s back went against a tree, both the elf and the ogrillon realized that the running game had ended. Bravely, Elbereth launched a series of vicious thrusts, a few getting through to poke at Ragnor, but none solidly enough to keep the huge monster at bay.
Elbereth barely ducked in time as the ogrillon’s sword smashed in, chopping a sizable chunk from the tree. Elbereth managed yet another hit as Ragnor tore his blade free. The ogrillon winced and swung again, this time shortening up on his stroke so that he would connect on the elf, or on nothing at all.
His blade flew freely as Elbereth dove to the ground, the overmatched elf’s only retreat.
“Now it is done!” Ragnor proclaimed, and Elbereth, cornered and on the ground, could hardly argue.
Ragnor saw Cadderly coming in fast from the side, the young scholar’s arm cocked and the curious (and useless) weapon readied for a throw. The ogrillon, sword high for a killing strike, paid the young scholar no heed, didn’t even lower one arm to block the attack.
Cadderly growled and threw all of his weight and strength into the throw. The spindle-disks slammed against the side of Ragnor’s barrellike chest, and the force of the explosion spun the ogrillon about to face Cadderly squarely.
For a moment, Cadderly thought that Ragnor was running backward, away from him, but then the young scholar realized that Ragnor’s feet, pumping helplessly, were several inches off the ground.
Ragnor’s arms and legs continued to flail wildly as the ogrillon tried to slow his flight. A branch bent then cracked behind him, and he came to a sudden stop, impaled through the backbone against the tree. Ragnor hung there, a foot from the ground, a scorched hole in one side of his furry leather tunic (and in the skin underneath), and his legs lifeless below him. He felt no pain in those lower limbs, felt nothing at all. He tried to plant his feet against the tree, that he might push himself free, but alas, his legs would not heed his call.
Stunned beyond words, Cadderly looked down to his weapon hand. There hung the cord, shortened by half and its end blackened. Of the rock crystal disks, there was nothing to be found except a single scorched flake on the ground where Ragnor had been standing.
Similarly amazed, Elbereth rose to his feet. He looked at Cadderly curiously for a moment, then took up his sword and stomped over to Ragnor.
The world was a blur to the burly leader of the invading forces. Ragnor had to forcibly thrust out his chest just to draw breath. Still, the stubborn creature had held fast to his sword, and he managed to raise it in a semblance of defense against Elbereth’s determined approach.
Elbereth swatted the blade once, then again, driving it aside. The elf’s sword slashed across the ogrillon’s eyes, blinding Ragnor. Wisely, Elbereth stepped back as Ragnor’s fury played itself out in a series of vicious cuts.
Cadderly thought Ragnor a pitiful thing as the blinded ogrillon continued to slice wildly at the empty air. Ragnor began to tire, and Cadderly looked away as Elbereth stepped back in. He heard a growl, then a groan.
When he looked back, Elbereth was wiping his crimson-stained blade and Ragnor hung near death, one hand twitching pitifully at the hole Elbereth had cut through his throat.
“Stupid things,” Ivan whispered, looking ahead across a small clearing to the group of mixed monsters. The dwarf and his three companions had easily backtracked to get behind the two giants, several orogs, and numerous goblins that had been pursuing them. One of the giant’s movements appeared strained, the creature having caught several of Shayleigh’s arrows.
“Bring them in,” Ivan said with a wink to the elf maiden. He and Pikel slipped out of the tree line into the thick and deep grass of the lea.
Shayleigh looked to Danica. The elf was not timid by anyone’s standards, but this group of monsters seemed a bit too powerful for the small band to handle.
Danica, similarly concerned but better understanding the dwarves’ prowess, nodded grimly and motioned for Shayleigh to continue.
Shayleigh raised her great bow and took aim for the already wounded giant. She put a second and third arrow into the air before the first ever struck the mark.
The first hit the giant at the base of its thick neck. The monster howled and grasped at the quivering shaft, and the second arrow whipped in beside the first, pinning the giant’s hand in place. By the time the third arrow hit, just below the first two, the giant was on its way down. It fell to its knees and held unsteadily there for a few moments, then dropped into the grass.
The rest of the monstrous band let out a common shout of outrage and spun about, charging wildly back across the lea. Shayleigh promptly dropped one ferocious orog, putting an arrow between its bulbous eyes.
“Take to the trees,” Danica instructed her. “Shoot for the lesser monsters. Be confident that the dwarves have a plan in mind for the giant.” Shayleigh looked to the grass where Ivan and Pikel had disappeared, then she smiled, surprised to learn that she, too, had come to trust a couple of dwarves. With agility befitting an elf, Shayleigh found a handhold and pulled herself into the branches of the nearest tree with remarkable ease.
With its great strides, the remaining giant came ahead of its smaller companions. It heaved a boulder Danica’s way, and the nimble monk barely dodged it as the rock took down a small sapling.
An arrow from above cut down a goblin.
Danica looked up and winked her appreciation to Shayleigh. Then, to the elf maiden’s amazement, Danica stormed ahead, right at the approaching giant.
As the lumbering creature raised its huge club, Danica whipped her two already bloodied daggers into its face. The giant roared in outrage, dropped its club, and grabbed at the stuck weapons. Danica veered, smiling as Ivan and Pikel popped up from the grass, hacking and bashing at the monster’s thick legs.
The confused giant didn’t know which way to turn. Ivan chopped at one of its legs, cutting out wedges as though he were felling a tree, but the pain in the monster’s face demanded its attention. Finally, the giant mustered the courage to tear out one of the stubborn daggers, but by then it was too late for the leg, and the creature toppled to the side.
Ivan rushed past the monster toward the oncoming orogs; Pikel headed for the giant’s head to finish the job. The giant got a hand on Pikel as he neared its face, and started to squeeze. Pikel wasn’t overly concerned, though, for he was close enough for a strike and Danica’s remaining dagger, deep in the monster’s cheek, offered a positively marvelous target.
As Danica broke to the side, so, too, did a group of three orogs. Danica continued to veer, allowing the monsters to stay close enough so that they would not give up the chase. Soon, the monk had nearly completed a full circuit, heading back for the same trees she had just exited. Orog swords nipped at her heels, but Danica was confident that she could keep just ahead of the stupid things. She heard a yowl of pain and surprise behind her, and a gasp after that, and knew that Shayleigh had begun her work.
Danica dove headlong, twisting as she rolled, to come up facing the charging orogs. The closest beast, glancing back at its companion, who had taken two arrows, turned back just in time to catch Danica’s fist on the chin. A sickening crack resounded above the din of battle, and the orog’s jaw broke apart. When the creature at last settled on the ground, the bottom half of its jaw was aligned more with its left ear than with the upper half of its mouth.
The remaining orog immediately spun about and took flight. It managed to get a few strides away before Shayleigh’s next arrow pierced its thigh, slowing it enough for Danica to rush up and bury it.
Ivan waded into the horde of goblins and orogs with typical dwarven finesse. The dwarf butted with his horned helmet, bit where he could, kicked with both feet, and generally whipped his axe to and fro with such ferocity that the entire band of monsters had to give ground steadily. Those that could not retreat, caught between the dwarf and their own companions, most often hit the ground at about the same time as their severed extremities.
The downside to Ivan’s tactics, in addition to the weariness that inevitably would accompany such a wild display, was that Ivan was all but blind to the events around him. And so the dwarf was off his guard as one orog managed to slip in behind his tirade. The creature, timing its attack between axe swipes so as not to get caught in a follow-through, stepped right up to the dwarf and let loose a wicked downward cut with its heavy club that Ivan couldn’t begin to dodge or deflect.
“Yuck,” Pikel remarked as soon as he realized that his head-bashing had become rather redundant. The giant’s grip had become quite relaxed by that point, and Pikel stepped purposely away from the gruesome thing that had once been the creature’s head. The dwarf considered retrieving Danica’s dagger, which was buried in giant flesh with the tip of its point poking out the other side of the huge head, but Pikel quickly decided that if Danica wanted it back, she would have to get it herself.
That business done, Pikel crawled over the giant’s chest to join his brother, and let out a squeaky warning just as the orog’s club descended on Ivan’s head.
“Ye called?” Ivan replied, then he added, “Ouch!” almost as an afterthought. He spun about to clobber the orog, but kept on spinning, around and around, finding no bearings until his cheek came to rest on the cool grass.
The orog howled in victory, a cry of glee cut short by Shayleigh’s next arrow and even more so by Pikel’s fury. The dwarf imitated the orog’s own tactics, but while the orog’s clubbing had sent Ivan in a spin, Pikel’s bash dropped the monster straight down in a heap, weirdly, with its legs straight out to the sides and its head lolling about on a useless neck.
Pikel wanted to hit the thing again, and again after that, but he had no time, for the remaining monsters had descended over helpless Ivan.
“Ooooo!” the dwarf bellowed, following yet another arrow into the throng. Goblins flew every which way—even powerful orogs prudently leaped aside—and in mere moments, Pikel straddled Ivan’s prone form.
Danica hit the group from the side a moment later, with equal fury; Shayleigh dropped another orog, sinking an arrow right through its eye.
The monsters broke ranks and scattered.
Pikel remained defensively over his brother while Danica took up the pursuit, tackling an orog and rolling over it in the grass. Shayleigh fired off several shots, but realized to her dismay that she could not down all of the monsters before they found the safety of the trees.
The monsters’ hoots of relief as they made the tree line were short-lived indeed, though, for out of those same shadows came a host of elves. In a few seconds, not a goblin or orog remained alive on that blood-soaked field.
Cadderly stood staring as Elbereth came over to join him. The world had gone crazy, Cadderly decided, and he had been fully caught up in that insanity. Just a few weeks before, the young scholar had known nothing but peace and security, had never even seen a living monster. But everything was upside down now, with Cadderly—almost by accident—playing the role of hero and with monsters, so many monsters, suddenly very real in the young scholar’s life.
The world had gone crazy, and Elbereth’s forthcoming congratulations, the mighty elf’s thanks for a blow that had defeated a monster beyond innocent Cadderly’s wildest nightmares, only confirmed the young scholar’s suspicions. Imagine, Cadderly winning where Elbereth could not, where King Galladel, lying dead at their feet, could not!
There was no pride in the young scholar’s thoughts, just blank amazement. What cruel trick fate had played him, to drop him so terribly unprepared into such a role, and into such chaos. Was this what Deneir had in store for him? If so, did Cadderly really want to remain his disciple?
Elbereth’s startled look turned the young scholar about. Ragnor’s remaining elite guard, half a dozen mighty bugbears wielding tridents dripping with a substance the two companions could only assume was poison, charged at the two, not so far away, certainly not far enough for Cadderly to escape.
“And so we die,” he heard Elbereth mutter as the elf lifted his stained sword, and the young scholar, weaponless and weary, had no words to deny the proclamation.
A blast of lightning abruptly ended the threat. Four of the bugbears died on the spot; the other two rolled about in the dirt, scorched and crippled.
Cadderly looked to the side, to Tintagel, bravely propped against a tree, wearing a smile only occasionally diminished by throbs of pain. Cadderly and Elbereth ran to their friend. Elbereth started to tend the wound, but Cadderly shoved the elf aside.
“Damn you, Deneir, if you do not help me now!” the young scholar growled.
It didn’t take someone knowledgeable in the healing arts to see that Tintagel’s wound would soon prove fatal. Where the elf had found the strength and presence of mind to release the magical strike, Cadderly would never guess, but he knew that such courage could not be a prelude to death.
Not if he had anything to say about it.
Elbereth put a hand on his shoulder, but Cadderly muttered and slapped it away. The young scholar grasped the spear shaft, still deep in Tintagel’s side. He looked up to the blue-eyed elf, who understood and nodded.
Cadderly tore the spear out.
Blood gushed from the wound—Cadderly’s fingers could not begin to hold it in—and Tintagel swooned and stumbled to the side.
“Hold him steady!” Cadderly cried, and Elbereth, a helpless observer in the spectacle, did as he was told.
Cadderly futilely slapped at the pouring blood, actually held in Tintagel’s spilling guts.
“Deneir!” the young priest cried, more in rage than reverence. “Deneir!”
Then something marvelous happened.
Cadderly felt the power surge through him, though he did not understand it and hardly expected it. It came on the notes of a distant, melodious song. Too surprised to react, the young priest simply hung on desperately.
He watched in amazement as Tintagel’s wound began to mend. The blood flow lessened, then stopped altogether; Cadderly’s hands were forced aside by the magically binding skin.
A minute passed, then another.
“Get me to the fight,” a rejuvenated Tintagel bade them. Elbereth threw a hug on his elven friend; Cadderly fell to the ground.
The world had gone crazy.
Hammadeen’s hand stroked Temmerisa’s muscled flank, tenderly touching the bloodied white flesh around the garish three-holed trident wound. The great horse hardly moved in response, only snorted now and again.
“Can you do for Temmerisa what you did for me?” Tintagel asked Cadderly.
The young priest, retrieving his walking stick, shrugged helplessly, still not even certain of exactly what he had done for Tintagel.
“You must try,” Elbereth bade him. Cadderly saw the sincere grief in his friend’s face and wanted dearly to say that he could mend the horse’s wounds.
He never got the chance to make the attempt, though, for Temmerisa gave one final snort, then lay very still. Hammadeen, tears in her dark eyes, began a soft song in a tongue that none of the companions could understand.
Cadderly’s vision blurred and the forest around him took on a preternatural edge, a surrealistic, too-sharp contrast. He blinked many times, and many more when he looked at Temmerisa, for he saw the horse’s spirit rise suddenly and step from its corporeal body.
Hammadeen spoke a few quiet words in the horse’s ear, and both she and the spirit walked slowly away, disappearing into the trees.
Cadderly nearly fell over as his vision shifted back into the real and material world. The young scholar didn’t know how he could apologize to Elbereth, didn’t know what in the world he might say to the elf, now a king, whose father and prized steed lay dead at their feet.
Tintagel started to offer condolences, but Elbereth wasn’t hearing any. The proud elf looked to his father and to Temmerisa, then rushed away, stained sword in hand. Cadderly propped up the injured wizard, that they might follow.
A pair of orcs were the first monsters to have the misfortune of crossing Elbereth’s path. The elf’s sword moved with sheer fury, tearing through the monsters’ meager defenses and slicing them before Tintagel and Cadderly had the opportunity to join in.
And so they went on through the forest, Elbereth leading, his sword, an extension of his rage, cutting a swath through the ranks of monsters in the trees.
“The trees fight at Deny Ridge,” an elf told Shayleigh. “A great force of our enemies has taken to the high ground.”
“Then we must take it back,” Shayleigh replied firmly. She and the other elf looked around, counting heads. Including the dwarves and Danica, their numbers totaled twenty-three, but while the other elf held reservations, Shayleigh, with full confidence in her nonelf companions, only smiled and started away to the south.
They came within sight of the ridge twenty uneventful minutes later. A dozen more elves, one a wizard, had fallen into their ranks as they went, relieved to see some semblance of organization amid the chaos.
Deny Ridge was aptly named, Danica noted, staring at it from the tree line across a small, grassy break. From this side, the ground sloped upward at a steep pitch for a hundred feet, climbed straight up a rock face for thirty more, then sloped another hundred feet or so through thick grasses to the ridge top. According to Shayleigh, the other side, where the goblinoids battled the remaining sentient trees, was even more defensible, being a rocky and almost sheer drop from top to bottom.
The band could hear the fighting, and could tell from the sounds that the trees were having a hard time of it. Goblinoids lined the top of the ridge, using burning torches as their main weapons. Several archers were among their ranks, eagerly tying rags to their arrows, lighting them on the torches, and shooting them down into the attacking trees.
“We must get up there, and quickly,” Shayleigh said, pointing to the left, to still another band of monsters making their way to join their comrades atop the ridge. “If our enemies are allowed to hold this ground, more will come beside them and they will have an unbeatable base from which to conduct their conquest.”
“Two, three hundred of the things up there now,” Ivan replied. “Ye might find getting to the top a bit of work. But still . . .” the dwarf mused, and he wandered off toward his brother.
“Have you any ideas?” Shayleigh asked Danica and another elf by her side. Danica looked to the dwarven brothers, now engaged in a private conversation, pointing this way and that. Ivan was doing most of the talking, with Pikel nodding eagerly, or shaking his head vehemently and piping in an “Oo,” or an “Uh-uh,” every now and then.
“They will find a way if there is one,” Danica explained to the confused elves.
Ivan stomped over a few seconds later and announced that he and Pikel had done just that. “Get us down to the right,” he said. “And we’re going to be needing plenty of ropes.” Ivan wet one finger and held it up. Pikel pointed behind them and Ivan nodded his confirmation that the wind was favorable.
Shayleigh and Danica understood none of it but had nothing better to go on. On the maiden’s command, the entire elven band moved silently through the trees down to the right as Ivan had instructed. They managed to produce five lengths of fine cord, which Ivan declared long enough for the task.
“Set some of yer friends about, looking back to the woods,” Ivan instructed. “If we get caught here by some more goblins making their way in afore we make the top, then the game’s up. But put yerself and yer archer friends, and that wizard elf, too, in line for shooting to the ridge top. Me and me brother’ll make it to the rocks easy enough. After we get up on them, we’ll be needing yer help.”
“What are we to do?” Shayleigh asked, somewhat hesitantly, for others of the elven band had expressed some concerns about being led by dwarves.
“Ye’ll know,” Ivan said slyly. He looked to Pikel. “Ye ready?”
Pikel hoisted the coiled lengths of cord over his shoulders, stuck a small hammer between his teeth, and responded with an enthusiastic, “Hroo hoi!”
From one of the many pouches on his wide belt Ivan produced a similar hammer and several iron spikes. His nod sent the brothers off and running, up the first grassy slope toward the rock break. Shayleigh, Danica, the elf wizard, and half a dozen archers took up positions along the tree line, their flanks and rear guarded by the remainder of the elven troops. Whispers circulated among the ranks, most in admiration for the brave, if foolish, dwarves.
Ivan and Pikel picked their careful way up the rock face, apparently still unnoticed by the monsters atop the ridge. Just under the lip of the cliff, the dwarven hammers rang out, driving spikes to hang down the five lengths of cord.
“Are we to charge and climb?” Shayleigh asked Danica, wondering if the time to act had come. She thought that the plan was not such a good one, for the elves, though they might make the top of the rocks, would still be out in the open with more than a hundred sloping feet between them and their enemies.
Danica held her hand up to calm Shayleigh. “Ivan and Pikel are not finished,” she replied with some certainty, though she, too, still had not quite figured out what the brothers had in mind.
Danica’s guess soon proved correct, for Ivan and Pikel were far from finished. Pikel swung himself over the rocks first, coming onto the higher grassy slope. Immediately the goblins spotted him and let out a unified hoot. Pikel dove for the cover of a boulder, but wasn’t quick enough to dodge the first arrow.
“Ow!” The dwarf grimaced and pulled the shaft from his hip—not too serious a wound. Pikel looked back to the trees, then peeked back up the slope. He smiled despite the pain when the first elven arrow took out the archer who had hit him, sending the goblin flying over the back side of the ridge.
Ivan came up over the rock face next, hollering, “Dwarven brigade, charge!” at the top of his lungs and in the goblin tongue. Pikel ignored his wound and rushed out beside his brother.
“What are they doing?” Shayleigh asked. “And why did he cry out the attack in the goblin tongue?”
Danica seemed similarly stunned for just a moment, until she noticed the goblins’ reactions. The creatures atop that section of the ridge went berserk, it seemed, many of them rushing down toward Ivan and Pikel and heaving their flaming torches down the hill.
“Dwarves,” Danica muttered above the din of twanging bowstrings as the elves let loose on the suddenly open targets. “In all the wide world, there is nothing a goblin hates, or fears, more than dwarves.”
“Oh, fine trick!” the elf wizard cried, and he rushed from the trees to get into range and sent a volley of magical bolts from his fingertips, dropping two of the closest goblins.
Ivan and Pikel were no longer hanging around for the battle. As the flaming torches flew thick around them, the dwarves headed back for the rocks, caught two of the ropes they had hung, and swung out below the ledge.
The goblins’ mirth at the apparent rout—from their viewpoint, only two of the wretched dwarves had even shown their ugly faces!—lasted only as long as it took the dim-witted creatures to realize that the fires begun by their own hurled torches were swiftly making their way back up the slope!
“Follow the flames!” Ivan roared, hearing the startled screams from above. Then he added quietly to Pikel as they made their way back over the lip, “Goblins been around for a hundred, hundred years, and they ain’t learned yet, when things get tough, that fire burns up!”
“Hee hee,” came Pikel’s reply.
With incredible agility and swiftness, Danica and the bulk of the elven force got to the hanging ropes and climbed to the top of the rock face, while Shayleigh, her archers, and the wizard remained behind to continue their distant assault.
The fires led their way to the ridge top, clearing a path in the goblin lines. Monsters fell all over each other; many were pushed over the cliff on the back side of the ridge, in an effort to get away from the fast-moving blaze.
The fuel soon consumed, the fires died away as quickly as they had started, leaving the elven force holding a high spot atop the ridge. Enraged goblins came at them from both sides, outnumbering the small band ten to one, determined to recapture the lost ground.
“Forward!” Shayleigh instructed, knowing that she and her archer companions would have to get closer to provide any real aid in the desperate battle. The handful of elves sprinted up the first slope and took to the ropes.
Ivan, Pikel, and Danica centered the defensive line on the right, the short side of the ridge. The three worked with their typical harmony, complementing each other’s movements and biting so fiercely into the goblin lines that many elves were freed up to join their kin on the other flank, where the bulk of the enemy force remained. It was a tenuous position indeed for the defenders, and every elf that fell left a large hole for the enemy to get through.
Danica thought the fight would be lost, especially after Shayleigh’s band came up over the rock face, only to be met in close quarters and hard pressed, with their backs to the cliff, by another group of goblins.
“Should we be planning a retreat?” Danica asked Ivan.
“Never said it’d be easy,” was all the dwarf replied as he chopped down a goblin that had come too near.
Then a strange cloud, greenish and thick, appeared over the ranks of goblins, just a few feet from Danica and the dwarves. The companions couldn’t see under the opaque layers of that cloud, but they could hear the goblins gagging and choking. One miserable creature stumbled out, too intent on grasping at its churning belly to even realize its doom as Ivan and Pikel simultaneously smashed it down.
Most of the goblins that managed to escape the sickly vapors went out the back side of the cloud, angling down the slope, away from the fight. They found little running room, though, for there waited Elbereth, stern and mighty, and his sword worked tirelessly on the startled and weakened creatures.
Then the magical cloud dissipated suddenly, leaving more than a dozen goblins exposed and helpless on the ridge top. Ivan and Pikel started for them, but furious Elbereth got there first, hacking and slashing his way through. Without a word of greeting, the grim elf passed the dwarves, Danica, and the first rank of elves. He crashed through the faltering elven line defending the left flank and threw himself headlong into the pressing goblin throng.
No goblin sword or spear seemed to harm him; he did not sway an inch from his path. In just a few furious moments, goblins ran from his terrible blade and the elves rallied behind him.
With the right side of the ridge swiftly cleared, Ivan and Pikel led several elves down to aid Shayleigh and the archers. Danica did not accompany them, for she saw someone else, a friend she could not ignore.
Cadderly and Tintagel braced themselves for trouble as those goblins who had escaped both the cloud and Elbereth’s fury rushed down at them. Tintagel muttered a quick spell, and Cadderly stood amazed as several images of himself and the wizard appeared, making their band of two seem like many. The goblins, already panicked and with the high ground fully lost, came nowhere near the unexpected throng, veering instead into the tree line to run away screaming.
Then the goblins were gone, and Danica was with Cadderly, and for both of them for just that quick moment, the world seemed right once more.
All across Deny Ridge, the battle became a rout. With Elbereth in the lead and Shayleigh and her archers freed once more, the elves and the dwarven brothers plowed the goblins away, crushed them and scattered them. Ivan and Pikel turned one band around at the base of the ridge, drove the stupid things into the waiting branches of four enraged oak trees.
It was over in ten short minutes, and Deny Ridge belonged to Elbereth.
“Ye give me six hours, a dozen elves—including yer hurt wizard there—and move them trees where I tell ye, and I’ll hold this place for a hundred years, and a hundred more after that if ye need me to!” Ivan boasted, and, after the dwarf’s exploits in leading the charge up the hill, not an elf in the camp doubted his words.
Elbereth looked to Cadderly.
“The trees will move as we bid,” the young scholar answered confidently, though he wasn’t quite certain of how he knew that to be true.
“The ridge is yours to defend,” Elbereth said to Ivan. “A fine base from which our hunting parties might strike out.”
“And your strikes will not be blindly orchestrated,” Cadderly announced, looking to the nearest of the oak trees. “Will they, Hammadeen?”
The dryad stepped out a moment later, confused as to how the young scholar had seen her. No human eyes, not even elven eyes, could normally penetrate her camouflage.
“You will guide the elves,” Cadderly said to her, “to their enemies and to their wayward friends.”
The dryad started to turn back to the tree, but Cadderly cried, “Halt!” so forcefully that Hammadeen froze in her tracks.
“You will do this, Hammadeen,” Cadderly commanded, seeming suddenly terrible to all watching the spectacle. Amazingly, the dryad turned and nodded her compliance.
Cadderly nodded, too, and walked away, needing some time alone to try to decipher all the surprises that were meeting him at every turn. How had he seen the horse’s spirit? He hadn’t asked, but he knew instinctively that Elbereth and Tintagel had not seen. And how had he known that Hammadeen was in those trees? Furthermore, how in the world had Cadderly so commanded the wild dryad?
He simply did not know.
All through that night and the next day, while Ivan and Pikel set the defenses of Deny Ridge, small bands of elves—“packs of wolves,” Ivan called them—slipped out into Shilmista and, following Hammadeen’s guidance, struck hard at the disorganized enemy. More elves were discovered in the woods, or found their own way to the new camp, and soon Elbereth’s forces had systematically sliced holes through the encircling monsters.
Cadderly remained at the ridge beside Tintagel and the other wounded, though Danica was quick to join Shayleigh and set out on the hunt. It didn’t fall upon Cadderly to strive for the level of healing power he had needed to save Tintagel, and Cadderly thought that a good thing, for he did not believe the healing powers would ever flow through him with such intensity again.
He knew that something was happening all about him, or to him, but he didn’t want to depend on this unknown entity, for he certainly did not understand it.
The first real test of Ivan’s defenses came late the next afternoon, when a band of more than two hundred monsters, ranging from skinny goblins to hill giants, set their sights on reclaiming the high ground. Only a score of elves were on the ridge beside Cadderly and the dwarves at that time, but that number included both wizards. After two hours of vicious fighting, more than half of the monsters lay dead and the rest had been scattered to the woods, easy pickings for the “packs of wolves” that roamed the forest. Not a single elf had died in the fight, though two had been nicked by giant-hurled rocks, for the battle had never come to hand-to-hand fighting. Cunning dwarf-made traps, volleys of arrows, magical strikes, and the four towering oak trees slaughtered the enemy before they ever got past the steep rock face halfway up the ridge.
By Ivan’s estimation, the most difficult part of the whole fight was in cleaning up the fallen goblinoids when it was all over.
“I’d forgotten that one,” Ivan remarked to Cadderly, pointing to the tree line as darkness began to fall over the forest. Out of the trees came three elves and a companion that Cadderly, too, had forgotten in the commotion of battle.
Kierkan Rufo leaned heavily on a staff and, even with the stick, still needed the support of one of the elves. The angular man’s leg was not broken, as he had feared, but it was badly bruised and twisted and would not support his weight. He instructed his escorts to take him to Cadderly, and after several minutes of struggling to get past the natural obstacles of the ridge, Rufo plopped down in the grass beside Ivan and the young scholar.
“So nice of you to look over me,” the angular man, in a foul mood, remarked.
“Bah, ye took to the trees, way up, to keep out of the fight,” Ivan retorted, more amused than angered.
“High ground!” Rufo protested.
“ ‘Hide ground’ would be a better way to name it,” Ivan replied.
“Hee hee hee.” Rufo didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that the laugh belonged to Pikel, walking behind him.
“Could you at least get me something to eat?” Rufo growled at Cadderly. “I have spent the last day under the limbs of a fallen oak, miserable and hungry!”
“Hee hee hee,” came a distant answer.
Danica and Shayleigh returned a short while later. Neither of them was overjoyed to find Kierkan Rufo in the camp. The angular man defiantly pulled himself to his feet beside Danica.
“Another supposed friend,” he spat. “Where was Danica Maupoissant when poor Rufo was in need? What alliances are these, I ask, when companions care nothing for each other’s welfare?”
Danica looked from Cadderly to Ivan to Pikel as the angular man continued his tirade.
“You are all to blame!” Rufo fumed, his anger gaining momentum. Danica curled up her fist and gritted her teeth.
“You are all—“ With that, Rufo fell to the earth and abruptly slept.
Danica’s shrug was not an apology for her blow, just an admission that her behavior in slugging Rufo might have been a bit impulsive. She expected Cadderly to berate her, but the young scholar could not, not against the wave of approval coming in from all around her.
When the friends came upon Elbereth later that night, they found him smiling more than they had seen in many, many days.
“The news is good,” the elf explained. “More than seventy of my people are known to live, and that number might increase, for nearly a score of elves are as yet unaccounted for and Hammadeen has told us that a battle was fought back in the east. And the paths farther to the east, through the Snowflake Mountains, are open once more, for a contingent of priests has arrived from the Edificant Library. Guided by the dryad, one of our hunting parties has joined the group, and even now they make their way to Deny Ridge.”
“We are still badly outnumbered,” Shayleigh put in, “but our enemy is disorganized and confused. With both Ragnor and Dorigen dead . . .”
Cadderly’s sudden grunt stopped her and turned all eyes toward the young scholar.
“Dorigen is not dead,” he admitted. The looks all about him turned sour, but the most painful retort to Cadderly, by far, was the sharpness of Danica’s tone.
“You did not finish her?” the young woman cried. “You had her down and helpless!”
“I could not.”
“I am doomed!” Rufo wailed. “Dorigen will see to our end, to my end! You fool!” he yelled at Cadderly.
“Are ye looking for more sleep?” Ivan asked him, and Rufo realized from Danica’s scowl that he would be wise to remain silent.
But in this encounter, Kierkan Rufo did have an ally. “Fool indeed!” roared Elbereth. “How?” he demanded of Cadderly. “Why did you let the wizard escape?”
Cadderly couldn’t begin to explain, knew that his admission of compassion would not be appreciated by the new elf king. He was truly amazed at how quickly Elbereth had apparently forgotten his actions in the battle, in Syldritch Trea and against Ragnor, and in saving Tintagel.
“Dorigen cannot use her magical powers,” the young scholar offered weakly. “She is sorely wounded and stripped of her magical devices.” Cadderly unconsciously dropped a hand in his pocket, to feel the rings he had taken from Dorigen. He had considered giving them and Dorigen’s wand to Tintagel, to learn if they might aid in the fighting, but he had dismissed the notion and resolved to check out the dangerous devices himself when he found the time.
Cadderly’s claims did nothing to alleviate Elbereth’s anger. “Her presence will bring unity to our enemies!” the elf growled. “That alone dooms Shilmista!” Elbereth shook his head and stalked away, Shayleigh at his side. The others, too, dispersed, Pikel sadly, leaving Cadderly and Danica alone by the campfire.
“Mercy,” Cadderly remarked. He looked at his love, caught her brown eyes in a gaze that would not let go. “Mercy,” he whispered again. “Does that make me weak?”
Danica spent a long moment considering the question. “I do not know,” she answered honestly.
They stood quietly, watching the fire and the stars for a very long time. Cadderly slipped his hand into Danica’s and she accepted the grasp, if somewhat hesitantly.
“I will remain in the forest,” she said finally, dropping Cadderly’s hand. Cadderly looked at her, but she did not return the stare. “To fight beside Elbereth and Shayleigh. The priests will arrive tomorrow, so it is rumored. Likely they will stay a few days to forge pacts with the elves, and then some might remain to fight on. But most, I assume, will return to the library. You should go with them.”
Cadderly found no words to immediately reply. Was Danica sending him away? Had she, too, perceived his compassion as a weakness?
“This is not your place,” Danica whispered.
Cadderly took a step away from her. “Was Syldritch Trea my place, then?” he grumbled coldly, as openly angry at Danica as he had ever been. “And have you heard of how mighty Ragnor met his end? Or have you forgotten Barjin?”
“I do not question your value,” Danica answered honestly, turning to regard Cadderly, “in this fight, as in anything. You will find no comfort in the continuing battle for Shilmista, just more violence, more killing. I do not like what that will do to you. I do not like what it has done to me.”
“What are you saying?”
“There is a coldness here,” Danica replied, poking a finger to her heart. She crossed her arms in front of her, as if to ward off a wintry blast. “A numbness,” she continued. “A fading of compassion. How easily I told you to kill Dorigen!” She stopped, choked by the admission, and looked away.
Cadderly’s visage softened with sincere pity.
“Go away,” Danica begged. “Go back to the library, to your home.”
“No,” Cadderly replied. “That place was never my home.”
Danica turned back and eyed him curiously, expecting some revelation.
“This is not my place, that much is true,” Cadderly went on, “and I have little fight left in me, I fear. I will leave with the priests when they depart, but to the library only long enough to retrieve my belongings.”
“Then where?” Danica’s voice hinted, just a tiny bit, of desperation.
Cadderly shrugged. He wanted desperately to beg Danica to come away with him, but he knew that he must not, and that she would refuse in any case. It struck them both then, that this was farewell, perhaps forever.
Danica hugged Cadderly suddenly and kissed him hard, then moved back and pushed him away. “I wanted to stay beside you when the fighting began in earnest,” she said, “after the trees had come to life. But I knew I could not, that the situation would not allow me my wishes.”
“And so it is now,” Cadderly said, “for both of us.” He ran his fingers through Danica’s strawberry-blond hair, matted and tangled from so many days of battle.
Danica started to kiss him again, but changed her mind and walked away instead.
Cadderly remained at Deny Ridge for five more days, but he did not see her again.
Epilogue
“You should have stayed in the forest,” Aballister said, pacing the length of his small room at Castle Trinity.
Dorigen wisely kept her stare locked upon him. Unlike Barjin’s demise, this defeat had brought a somber mood to the head of Castle Trinity, a real fear that his plans for conquest might not be so easily accomplished. He still had more than three thousand soldiers at his command, and many more might be salvaged from the tribes returning to their mountain homes, but Shilmista was lost, at least for now, and the new elf king was determined and valorous. Dorigen had heard, and recounted for Aballister, many tales concerning mighty Elbereth’s exploits in the battle for the wood.
“You should have stayed!” the older wizard growled again, more forcefully.
“I would not remain among such treacherous rabble with my fingers broken,” Dorigen answered, holding up her bandaged hands. “Do you really believe that I would have been safe among goblins and orcs?”
Aballister could not deny the truth of her observations. He had seen firsthand what wild goblinoids might do to a woman. “Without you to guide them, Ragnor’s army is no more than scattered bands,” he reasoned, “easy targets for the organized elves and this new king they hold so dear. We will be months in recovering our losses.”
“The goblins will find a leader amongst them,” Dorigen replied.
“One loyal to us?” Aballister asked incredulously.
“We still have time before the onset of winter to go back and set things in Shilmista to our advantage!” Dorigen snapped back at him, not conceding an inch regarding her decision to leave. “The elves are not many, no matter how well organized and how well led they might be. For all their gains now, they’ll surely have a long road in ridding Shilmista of the dark plague Castle Trinity has dropped upon it.”
“You should have stayed.”
“And you should have watched out for your son!” Dorigen rejoined before her better judgment could overrule her actions. Druzil, perched on Aballister’s desk, groaned and folded his leathery wings about him, certain that his master was about to blast Dorigen into little pieces.
Nothing happened. After several moments of silence, Dorigen, also fearful, realized that she had hit a sensitive area, one where Aballister, mighty Aballister, felt vulnerable.
“Cadderly,” the wizard mumbled. “Twice he has wandered into my way—and I had thought myself rid of the boy. Well, the first inconvenience could be forgotten. I wasn’t so certain that I wanted Barjin to conquer the library in any case,” the wizard admitted openly. “But this! No, Cadderly has become too much a threat to be tolerated.”
“How do you intend to end that threat?” Dorigen asked bluntly. She could hardly believe the coldness on Aballister’s face when he spoke of his long-lost son.
“Boygo Rath has some helpful connections in Westgate,” Aballister answered, his thin lips curling up in a wicked smile.
Dorigen winced, suspecting what the wizard had in mind.
“You have heard of the Night Masks?” Aballister asked.
Dorigen winced again at the mention of the assassin band. Of course she had heard of them—everyone from the Dragon Reach to Waterdeep had heard of them! She nodded, her expression openly revealing her disbelief that Aballister would be wicked enough to hire such a band to kill his own son.
Aballister laughed at that incredulous expression. “Let us just say,” he remarked, “that Cadderly, too, will soon hear of them.”
Dorigen took the news with mixed feelings. She was angry with Cadderly, to be sure, for what he had done to her, but she could not ignore the fact that the young priest easily could have killed her. She shrugged her thoughts away and reminded herself that it was none of her affair, that what now transpired was between Aballister, Boygo, and Cadderly.
And the Night Masks.
“Them goblin things are to be dancing in the trees tonight when they hear that ye’re a dead one,” Ivan remarked, cutting an easy swipe with his great axe.
“More likely, they shall sing of the death of a dwarf,” Elbereth retorted, easily backing from the lazy swing. He rushed in behind the swipe, looking for an opening, but Ivan’s defenses were back in place before the elf got within reach.
“What’s an Elbereth?” Ivan taunted, white teeth shining through his yellow beard.
“I shall use that phrase for your epitaph!” the elf roared, and he played his sword through a dazzling display of feints and thrusts, ending up with its point sinking through Ivan’s armor, toward the dwarf’s chest.
Ivan fell back and blinked stupidly.
“Oo,” moaned Pikel from the side, a sentiment echoed by Shayleigh, Tintagel, and many of the other gathered elves, including even Elbereth.
“Ye killed me, elf,” Ivan grunted, his breath coming hard. He stumbled backward, barely holding his balance. Elbereth lowered his sword and rushed in, terrified at what he had done. When he got two steps from Ivan, bending low to examine the wound, he noticed Ivan’s lips curl up in a smile and knew he had been deceived.
“Hee hee hee,” came a knowing chuckle from the side.
Ivan turned his axe sideways and thumped Elbereth on the forehead, sending him tumbling backward. The elf threw his weight into the roll and came back to his feet some distance away. He watched curiously as two images of Ivan Bouldershoulder steadily closed.
“Ye think yer skinny blade’d get through me dwarf-made armor?” Ivan huffed. “Silly elf.”
They joined in melee again, this time Ivan taking the lead. Elbereth learned his lesson well, and he used his superior speed and agility to parry Ivan’s attacks and keep out of the dwarf’s shorter reach. Every time the cunning elf found an opening, he slapped the side of his sword against the side of Ivan’s head.
He might as well have been banging stone.
After many minutes, the only somewhat serious wound came when Ivan tripped and inadvertently dropped the head of his heavy axe on Elbereth’s toes.
The call around the perimeter of the battle, where nearly the entire elven camp had by then gathered to watch, became general.
“Hee hee hee.”
Cadderly looked out the open window, beyond the rooftops of Carradoon, toward Impresk Lake, but his thoughts were many miles away, back in the forest he had left four weeks before. The morning fog rose from the still water; a distant loon uttered its mournful cry.
Where was Danica now? Cadderly wondered. And what of Ivan and Pikel? The young scholar dearly missed his friends and lumped that emptiness into the same void he had discovered when he had realized that the Edificant Library was not his home, and never had been.
He had gone back to the library with Headmaster Avery, Kierkan Rufo, and a score of other priests after leaving Shilmista. Avery had begged him to stay and continue his studies, but Cadderly would not, could not. Nothing about the place seemed familiar to the young scholar; he could not help but view the library as a lie, a facade of serenity in a world gone crazy.
“There are too many questions,” Cadderly had told the headmaster. “And here I fear that I will find too few of the answers.” So young Cadderly had taken his purse and his walking stick, and all the other possessions he had considered worthwhile, and had left the library, doubting that he would ever return.
A knock on the door broke the young scholar from his contemplations. He moved across the small room and cracked open the portal just enough to retrieve the breakfast plate that had been left for him.
When he had finished his meal, he replaced the plate outside his door, leaving a silver coin as a tip for obliging Brennan, son of the innkeeper of the Dragon’s Codpiece. Cadderly had asked for his privacy and the innkeeper had given it to him without question, delivering his meals and leaving him alone.
The calls in the street began again shortly after, as Cadderly expected they would. Carradoon was being roused for war; a force was quickly being mustered to organize a defense of the town. At first, the call was for soldiers to go to the aid of the elves in their noble battle for Shilmista, but the latest reports had changed that. Shilmista was secured, it seemed, with most of the scattered goblinoids fully on the run.
Still the force in Carradoon swelled, and restrictions, including a curfew, had been placed on the town.
Cadderly did not enjoy the rising level of anxiety, but he thought the town wise in making preparations. The evil that had inspired Barjin’s attempt on the Edificant Library and Ragnor’s invasion of Shilmista was not fully defeated, Cadderly knew, and it would no doubt soon descend over Carradoon.
Cadderly did not close his window against those calls. The wind coming off the lake was comfortably cool and gave him at least some tie to the outside world. Reverently, the young scholar took out his most valuable possession, the Tome of Universal Harmony, opened it on his small desk, and sat down to read.
Too many questions filled his mind.