“Who commands here?” Vixa asked.
The elves were staring out toward the river. Without turning, a spear-armed youth replied, “Marshal Samcadaris, lady. He passed here an hour ago.”
Frowning, Vixa followed the direction of his rapt gaze. Her frown became an expression of shock. The shrinking Thon-Thalas was completely obscured by a sea of white cloud. The cloud stretched upstream and down as far as Vixa could see and overlapped the banks by several yards. The top of the cloud was level with the wall upon which she stood, and it looked as solid.
“When did this fog come up?” she demanded.
The spear-carrier replied, “At sunrise. It has been thickening steadily ever since.”
“Why do the people stand together humming?”
“It is the will of the Speaker, lady. The clerics of the high gods began to grow weak and fell as the mist closed in. The Speaker summoned the people to reinforce the magic.”
Vixa shook her head as she looked back toward the city, at the rows and rows of humming Silvanesti. Of course, they weren’t actually humming. The sound was in fact the rapid chanting of thousands upon thousands of Silvanesti voices. She shivered, and gooseflesh rose on her arms. The focused power of these eastern elves sent tingles racing along her spine.
Thunder rumbled overhead. Directly above the sea of snow-white cloud, a long serpent of blue-black thunder-heads coalesced rapidly in the still air. Lightning flashed inside the dark mass.
“Looks as though we’ll get wet today,” Vixa noted. The recruits divided their anxious gazes between the white fog bank and the gathering storm.
“Lady, what shall we do?” asked the spear-carrier, fear tingeing his words.
“Are you afraid?” He nodded, and the others echoed his gesture. Vixa said firmly, “Good. Fear will put iron in your arm and fire in your belly. Then we shall win.”
She walked on, past tired veterans and green recruits pressed into service to fill out their ranks. As she went by them, the Qualinesti princess offered low-voiced advice and encouragement in equal portions. Though not a Silvanesti, she still had two thousand years of royal blood in her veins. Her calm, expert manner garnered respect from the veterans and brought a measure of comfort to the frightened newcomers.
Vixa felt a fat raindrop strike her cheek. It ran down to the corner of her mouth, and she tasted salt. She stopped and looked up. The thunderclouds had expanded, filling the sky overhead. Several more drops landed on her face. They were salty as well.
The raindrops were made of seawater!
Hitching up her sword belt, she jogged to the tower ahead of her. On the open summit she found Samcadaris with most of his corps of dismounted cavalry.
“Marshal! It’s Vixa Ambrodel!”
He waved to his troopers to let her through. Rain was falling more regularly now. A boom of thunder rolled over the high tower. Samcadaris was standing on a wooden platform that allowed him to see over the crenelation. Vixa climbed up beside him.
“Where have you been?” he inquired.
“Asleep in the palace. I nearly missed everything!”
Thunder crashed once more, and the heavens opened up. A torrent of salty rain fell on Silvanost. “You may wish you had missed this!” Samcadaris shouted over the deluge and thunder.
“Coryphene summoned this rain to sustain his army!”
The marshal nodded. “I have only a few thousand regulars left. The rest are mere children, artisans, and idlers scraped up and given arms. I pray Eriscodera and your dwarven friend get back in time.”
“Gundabyr? Where’s he gone?”
“They sneaked across the river before dawn to round up what militia had already gathered. If reinforcements don’t arrive soon, I doubt we can hold the city.”
Weird bleating erupted from various points along the length of the white cloud obscuring the river. The Dargonesti were blowing on conch shells. The sound lifted the hairs at the nape of Vixa’s neck, but she realized the noise was probably meant to be practical rather than theatrical. It was likely that Coryphene’s warriors couldn’t see through the fog either. The noises were probably signals from the different commands.
A Silvanesti shouted from the wall. “They’re coming!”
“Stand to arms,” said Samcadaris sharply. Weapons rattled as the order was relayed along the city wall. “Archers, stand ready.”
“Sir,” said an officer at the marshal’s elbow, “the archers have only one quiver left per elf.”
“Then order them not to miss,” was the grim reply.
Vixa wiped salt rain from her eyes and asked, “Where do you want me, Marshal?”
“Royalty may choose their own ground, lady.” He smiled wanly. “And there are any number of weak areas on the wall. However, there”-he pointed at a spot farther along the battlement-“halfway between this watchtower and Pine Tree Gate, that’s our nearest weakness.”
She nodded briskly. “Give me twenty stout fighters, and I’ll hold the wall against all comers!”
He agreed. Vixa and her picked squad ran down the steps from the watchtower to the place he’d indicated on the battlement. Halfway between Samcadaris’s watchtower and Pine Tree Gate she halted her band. Salty rainwater pooled on the stone parapet, pouring off the wall through small openings in the crenelations. Vixa shucked her sodden cloak. The call of the Dargonesti conch shells abruptly ceased.
Despite the pounding rain, thick tentacles of white fog detached themselves from the main mass of cloud and crept up toward the battlements. Vixa found them uncomfortably similar to the massive limbs of the kraken, which had wrought such havoc on the fortress of Thonbec.
Under the astonished eyes of the Silvanesti, these foggy tentacles gripped the smooth stone walls just beneath the level of the parapet. They thickened and solidified. Now the rain splashed off their hardened surfaces and streamed down their inclined length. One elven warrior, smitten with curiosity, broke ranks and approached the odd growths. An instant later, he toppled from the wall, riddled with arrows.
Vixa cried out as more arrows flickered up from the fog bank. With shrill shouts, Dimernesti mercenaries, wielding captured Silvanesti bows, swarmed out of the mist. They ran up the solid tendril of fog to the top of the city wall.
“Lock shields!” Vixa commanded. Her band of hand-picked warriors obeyed just as a hail of arrows raked them. “Swords out! Attack!”
They rushed the lightly armed Dimernesti and in short order pushed them back over the crenelations. All along the wall, sea elves mounted to the parapet on pathways of solidified vapor.
“We must disrupt their assault,” Vixa said quickly. “All of you! If you can shoulder a spear or swing a sword, follow me!”
The Qualinesti princess swallowed hard and leapt through a crenel toward the magical fog ramp. She wondered if it would support anyone, or only Coryphene’s chosen. Her feet landed on a surface hard as marble. She looked back. Her twenty warriors were with her. The other Silvanesti stood watching.
“What are you waiting for? The enemy is gaining the wall! Come on!” She plunged down the ramp and into the fog below. The lack of visibility was disorienting, but Vixa found the going easier if she didn’t worry about where her feet fell. She concentrated on listening for the enemy and on the sounds of the Silvanesti behind her.
Soon the brown mud of the riverbank appeared ahead. Vixa was vastly relieved when her feet splashed in the diminished Thon-Thalas.
The warriors arrived behind her. “Where now, lady?” one asked.
She turned. The city above was lost in the wall of white cloud, and none of them could see more than a few feet in front of their noses. Not even elven eyes could penetrate this magical fog bank. However, Vixa quickly discovered that the fog, though it veiled their eyes, did not affect their ears. She could hear the battle going on behind and above them. Ahead, Dargonesti were running to the fight, their wide, bare feet slapping loudly in the mud. The fog also seemed to act as a shield against the deluge of rain. Only a few raindrops splashed against Vixa’s armor. She pointed with her sword to the right.