The huge wings whipped together to surround him, and suddenly he was cut away from the clearing on Cerilia, the Shadow World, the battle. The light of his elven armor showed the ground at his feet, but around him was only black void. Above him, the shape of the birdlike head had disappeared into the formless blackness, but he remembered where it had been.
With a leap he had not thought himself capable of making, he launched himself upward. The sword hacked into the darkness, part of the blade disappearing only to reappear again as he pulled it out and stabbed again. With each thrust, he felt the drain on his strength, as if his life force were being pulled away. But from deep within that void, he felt rather than heard a scream of pain.
He knew he did not have the strength to make another leap, so he jabbed with the blade, each time hearing the scream, and each time feeling a drain on himself. Would he last long enough to destroy the monster?
He hacked at it twice more. The third time, he fell to the ground, the tip of the blade still wedged in the darkness. He did not have the strength to pull it out. He could not even draw a full breath. The light of his dweomered armor dimmed and almost died….
But then it brightened again. He jerked, energized. He suddenly felt overfilled with strength, his own strength and more.
The blackness shuddered and fled into the tree-tops. Cald could hear the elves still singing and smell the stench of rotting flesh from the ghouls and the other undead.
He looked across the clearing in time to see the Stag of Sielwode, for the last time plunging his antlers into the tom body of Czrak. The huge deer’s head shook as he tore at the bloated body of the awnshegh.
Cald looked around, trying to find Eyrmin. The prince was nowhere in sight. Nearby, Saelvam was holding off two grotesque orogs, minions of Czrak. Cald ran forward and, with a mighty thrust, dispatched one with a sword through the heart.
Behind him, the fatally wounded Czrak gave a death gurgle and was still. The second orog blinked and suddenly lost heart. It turned to run. Saelvam, wearied from the long fight that had begun before dawn, let it go.
All around the clearing, the minions of Czrak were pulling back. The death of the awnshegh had released them from their need to fight. Some looked confused, as if they had no idea where they were. Many who yet fought undead in the three-way battle lost their lives in the confusion. Some turned and fled the clearing.
Adding to the confusion was the sudden wind that heralded the closing of the portal. The battle ended with a cry of rage from the undead as they were swept away by the wind, a wind that did not touch Cald or the elves.
Cald looked around. He glimpsed a light within the portal, and recognized it as the armor and sword of the prince.
“Eyrmin!” he shouted, but he was too late.
As the portal closed, again shutting Klasmonde Volkir out of Aebrynis, the prince disappeared with him.
Twenty-Five
The closing of the portal disoriented the elves of Siellaghriod and the invaders. The elves of Reilmirid, most of whom were not aware of the loss of their prince, took full advantage of the confusion, using arrows, swords, and spears to their best advantage.
Glisinda, struck out at one of the human warriors and drove him back. It was pure accident that his swinging sword, in a backward thrust, struck the king on the helmet. The impact of the blow knocked the king unconscious, and he fell beside the human, who had been pierced in the heart by Glisinda’s blade.
The field of battle, a moment before crowded with three armies, was quickly emptying of all but the dying and dead. A few of the forces of Czrak fought a retreating action. More turned their backs and ran into the forest with the elves in victorious pursuit. The undead were already gone. The ghost warriors had disappeared into the Shadow World, going willingly and hacking at ghouls and skeletons as they went. Only the elves remained, and their numbers had dwindled by nearly three score.
The Stag of Sielwode backed warily away from the closing portal. He bumped into the huge fallen limb, accidentally rolling it over and concealing the body of the king. With one gigantic leap, the huge deer was across the clearing, and with a second leap was out of sight.
Cald saw it all happen: the defeat and death of evil, the victory and escape of the Stag. But with the loss of Eyrmin, what should have been cause for rejoicing had become a misery.
Still staring at the place where the prince had disappeared, Cald was only vaguely aware that Bersmog was using his axe to cut away the fallen limb and expose the king beneath it. Stognad stood over Tieslin, his axe in his hands.
“Hey, you king elf! You dead or not? I waste plenty too much time looking after you. Could be having some fun, you know,” Bersmog complained.
The three halflings approached and critically eyed the royal body. Bigtoe reached down and laid a finger against the king’s throat, which caused Tieslin, who had been feigning death beneath that raised axe, to jerk.
“He’s not dead if he can move,” Bigtoe announced.
“Surely not,” Littletoe agreed.
“I’d play dead too, if two goblins with axes were standing over me,” Fleetfoot said, finally making a comment that fitted the occasion.
Their conversation had brought Cald out of his grieving apathy. He walked over and laid a hand on Bersmog’s arm.
“Move back. You, too, Stognad. He probably thinks you mean to cut his head off.” He reached down, offering a hand to the king, who rose, chagrined at being caught in his pretense.
Stognad unintentionally drew attention from the king’s embarrassment as he eyed Cald.
“You find plenty strange thing to fight. What you call that black thing?”
“I don’t know,” Cald admitted.
“No elven song tells of it,” the king said.
“A regog,” Bigtoe volunteered, speaking the name in a whisper. He shuddered at the thought. “An elemental from the void, it is said.”
“And said only in whispers,” Littletoe added.
“It interrupts mealtimes, too,” the irrepressible Fleetfoot said.
Cald noticed the king was still eyeing the goblins’ axes.
“Sire, did we tell you Stognad and Bersmog were loyal defenders of Sielwode?” Cald realized after he spoke that, as a non-Sidhelien, his loyalty might also be in doubt.
“It is time for a new song when the elven king is defended by only those races he thought were enemies,” he said, looking around for his own people. Cald explained about the fleeing armies of the awnshegh.
“You were hidden beneath that branch. They probably thought you were leading the advance,” Cald suggested, not sure he was right, but his explanation sounded probable. No elf would have left his king helpless and undefended.
“I agree with the gob—Bersmog. We should not be missing the fight altogether,” King Tieslin said, and he reached down to pick up his sword. He led the way out of the clearing, heading an unlikely group of two goblins, one human, and three halflings. After a few steps into the shadows of the grove, he lost one member of his band.
In his grief, Cald had dropped the evil sword when the portal closed, but he knew he could not leave it lying exposed on the ground. He slipped behind a tree, and when the others were out of sight, he returned to the clearing.
He picked it up and felt the burning power coursing up his right arm and through his veins again. He studied it. A new thought crossed his mind.
Everyone had believed the spirit warriors were the reason for the attacks on the grove, but they had been wrong. Once the warriors had been freed, they went willingly into the Shadow World, their eyes gleaming with honor and purpose. Klasmonde Volkir would not have wanted them and their integrity in his world.