By the expression on the goblin leader’s face, it did not quite believe Eyrmin but had decided not to argue. With a growl that sounded more animal than humanoid, it backed away from the elves. The rest of the band followed. They reached the far side of the clearing and seemed undecided whether to retreat or regroup and attack.
The goblins eyed the strange wood as they faced the five elves in the clearing. One at the back of the group snarled in surprise as someone ran past.
Into this strangeness came an eruption of more than a score small figures with demihuman faces, round cheeks, curly hair, and wide, frightened eyes. They carried swords and axes made to fit their diminutive hands. Some had bows, and others spears. Several were armed with rakes and hoes. They swirled around the goblins as if the humanoids presented no danger. Several glanced up at Eyrmin as they passed the elves and took up stations behind the trees on the far side of the clearing.
Then Cald understood. The demihumans were halflings from the Shadow World. They were fleeing, but from what?
Cald soon found out. Behind the halflings came a host of creatures that surpassed any nightmare Cald had experienced.
Three
Cald stared at the gray creatures that rushed through the wood after the halflings. They charged after the demihumans in a hodge-podge of races—orogs, goblins, gnolls, elves, humans, and even a few dwarves—yet they fitted no description he had ever heard. No color showed on their flesh, but then, even his elven friends had been robbed of their natural hues.
When a large orog raced into the clearing and attacked the first goblin it reached, Cald saw a huge gash in the orog’s head. Even Cald knew the creature could not have lived with that wound. He’d heard of such monsters in elven lore—the undead!
Their tattered, half-rotten clothing and decaying skin and flesh gave off a stink that caused his stomach to roil. Eyrmin had said that warriors of both sides at Mount Deismaar had become sick with fear, but Cald’s terror had the opposite effect. The cold knot of fear seemed to freeze his stomach as well as his arms and legs.
The pursuers of the demihumans represented every race on Cerilia, but they were twisted and strange, with red-glowing eyes filled with madness. The goblins among them were misshapen, their faces more animal than humanoid, and grotesque in their undead state. The gnolls stood taller than those that had attacked the settler’s caravan. On some, the doglike snouts were oversized. Others ran on twisted legs and staggered as they raced after the halflings. There were even elves, their beautiful faces twisted like their backs and arms. An aura of evil permeated the forest as the vile creatures came on.
More fearsome than all the rest was the creature who led them. He rode a giant black parody of a horse, whose legs were longer in front than behind. Steam issued from the mount’s wide nostrils, set in an overlarge head, and its red eyes seemed to reflect some fire from deep within. But it was not the horse that kept Cald biting his knuckles to keep from voicing his fears. The rider was no more than a skeleton covered with skin. As he held up one hand, urging his followers forward, every joint in his emaciated fingers stood out in perfect clarity. The skin on his face was so fleshless and tight that the outline of his teeth cast shadows on his hollow cheeks. On his head sat a crown that absorbed the light around him, so that he rode in a shadow deeper than night, but still was clearly visible.
The horse needed no guidance. It charged through the grouped goblins. The king held aloft his left hand, urging his followers forward. With the sword in his right hand, he swung at the largest goblin, beheading the single-fanged humanoid with an almost absentminded motion.
Beneath that fearsome crown, deep within each eye socket, gleamed a terrible light, as if the creature concentrated all the evil and madness of his followers. Then Cald realized why the eyes were so bright. The king from the Shadow World had paused, his attention no longer on the escaping halflings. He stared straight at Cald.
The air seemed to freeze around the human boy. He felt himself being dragged from his hiding place by a will much greater than his own. Dimly he heard a voice urging him back into the split in the tree.
Eyrmin leapt forward, taking a swing at the crowned figure. The two dweomered blades clashed. A blinding blue glow, startling in the grayness, flashed out from the collision of the two swords.
In elven battle practice, Cald had often seen fire flash when two dweomered blades met. When the prince’s blade, Starfire, struck another weapon, it flashed even brighter, but never with such blinding light. The sparks hung in the air as if they had a life of their own.
When the king turned to face Eyrmin, Cald felt the release of the pull that had forced him out of his hiding place. The voice he had heard had been Eyrmin’s. The prince had ordered him back.
Even so, another, larger group of halflings appeared between the trees. A female, carrying an infant and followed by several young demihumans who clung to her skirt, took refuge within the tree, leaving no room for Cald. He joined a group of halfling archers that gathered behind one of the trees. While they conferred on the best place to make their stand, he watched the battle in the clearing.
The goblins, so recently at odds with the elves, had stood directly in the path of the exodus from the Shadow World. Six already lay dead, and others were fighting off the twisted minions of the mounted king. Several of the more intelligent fled across the clearing to take up a safer fighting position.
Relcan was trading rapid, jerky blows with a huge, undead orog from the world beyond. The creature had an enlarged head that in life had suffered a terrible blow. The flesh from the right side had been slashed away and flopped down the side of its neck, leaving a glaring eye staring out from the naked bone. The wound had not slowed the monster. It howled with glee as it forced the elf back until Relcan tripped on a tree root and fell. The orog raised its blade for a fatal blow.
A goblin axe split the monster’s backbone.
Relcan jumped to his feet, picked up his sword, and was poised to attack the goblin until he saw the creature pulling its axe out of its victim’s back. Frustration darkened the elf’s already angry face. He could not kill even so hated an enemy as a goblin when it had just saved his life.
The goblin had just freed its axe when three ghouls with large, crooked snouts crossed the clearing, howling with battle fever. Their voices, as they attacked the elf and the goblin, seemed to come from a great distance. Two fleshless humans joined the fight, and several halflings charged in with their spears.
The first halfling dashed forward, putting his weight behind his weapon as he jabbed at the smallest of the ghouls. The humanoid brought down its rusty blade with a force that cut the spear shaft cleanly in half. The halfling, suddenly disarmed, kept on running. He passed the larger creature and rounded the nearest tree. When the ghoul turned to follow him, it caught another halfling spear in the back.
All around the clearing, the battle continued. Dralansen, who found himself in his first battle, was as pale as the creatures from the Shadow World. He used a long, crooked goblin spear to hold off two orogs. The goblins from Single-Fang’s band were fighting side by side with the elves and the halflings.
By some tacit agreement on both sides, the center of the clearing belonged to the fiercest battle. Eyrmin and the king from the Shadow World were trading blows with their swords. The vile, misshapen horse had fallen in the fray, brought down by a goblin spear. The king fought on foot, weaving and thrusting. The darkness that seemed to flow from his crown moved with him, an evil shadow that emanated fear. In contrast, Starfire, the ancient blade of Eyrmin’s royal ancestors, blazed like a torch.