The approach of the giant squid drew scrags and sahuagin, the inhabitants of the submarine city of Kyrasti, from their towers and domes. Great legions of the finned, fanged humanoids swam behind Sinioth as he approached the highest reef, climbing again to where the dark water gave way to soft shades of green and blue.
Before him loomed a place of towering spires. Curved domes of clear shell arched over many enclosed dwellings, while other places spiraled upward, open to the sea on all sides.
A great thrumming sound boomed through the sea, summoning the warriors and the nobles of the Coral Kingdom. A huge scrag swam forth from the palace gates, trailing delicate chains of gold and silver.
This mighty sea troll stood more than ten feet tall when he settled his webbed feet on the coral stair. His scaled skin rippled over folds of taut sinew, and his mouth gaped, sharklike, to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth. Unlike his smaller cousins, the sahuagin, the scrag had no row of sharp spines down his back, but his head was covered with a kelplike growth of hair that waved about his face in the current, concealing his mouth one moment and then drifting aside at the next.
"Greetings, Master," gurgled this mighty one, floating forward to prostrate himself before the giant squid. "Welcome to Kyrasti, to the palace of Krell-Bane, King of the Sea. Our master, Talos, has brought us together for a great cause!"
Yet even as he groveled, the huge sea troll looked sideways at his new masters, his eyes reflecting jealousy, resentment. . and hatred.
6
"Flee! The vengeance of the gods comes upon us!" A dozen panic-stricken elves stumbled toward the causeway leading to Chrysalis. Some of them bled from horrible wounds, and all of them shambled with the half-dead gait of complete exhaustion.
"The trout farm!" gasped one of the Llewyrr, collapsing before a pair of guards at the start of the causeway. "We're the only ones to survive!"
"What?" demanded the guard. "What was it?"
"Horror!" groaned the elf. "I don't know what it was … it was huge! And it killed-it killed everyone!!"
As soon as they got this much of an answer, garbled as it was by fear, one of the watchmen raced toward the city gates, crying a general alarm.
Myra, ranking sister knight in the city, heard the commotion at her post near those silver portals. She raced up the winding stairs into one of the needlelike spires that lined the city's walls. In moments, she heard the shouted explanations from the causeway and ordered the city's permanent garrison of warriors to muster outside the gates.
Where was Brigit? The question loomed paramount in her mind. She knew that today the captain had intended to patrol the same valley of the Fey-Alamtine and the trout farm. Cold fear began to tighten her heart as she looked across the peaceful lake toward the fields and forest beyond. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. Indeed, the idea that some horrific beast was out there seemed unthinkable.
Nevertheless, minutes later the small company of permanent-duty guards, silver speartips gleaming in the sun, followed Myra's orders and filed out the gates and over one of the long causeways connecting the island city to the shore.
Here the elven warriors deployed in a three-rank line of pikes, blocking the most direct route into Chrysalis.
Myra watched them go, telling herself that they were just a precaution. Nothing seemed unusual about the forest as she looked to the west, but the hysteria of the trout farm workers dispelled any sense of security she might have felt. And still she wondered: Where was Brigit? The captain of the sister knights held overall command of Synnoria's troops; Myra was a mere substitute, and she longed for the older elf's guidance.
Meanwhile, the citizens of Synnoria mobilized for their own defense. The young and the old, the pregnant and the infirm Llewyrr, all fled from the far side of the city in an orderly column. Myra would have liked to send them toward the Fey-Alamtine and, if necessary, the ultimate sanctuary of Evermeet. However, the monster's approach precluded that course. Indeed, it was perhaps fortunate that she had no way of knowing that the Synnorian Gate lay in a heap of crumbled rock, shattered by the beast's violent arrival.
Now these refugees would take shelter in the wooded valleys opposite the monster's reported avenue of approach. The adults, meanwhile, gathered any weapons that they could find and began to assemble in the City's park-like grand plaza.
The warriors of the Thy-Tach tribe made haste to join in the defense force, offering nearly four dozen powerfully muscled spearmen. These trotted swiftly along the causeway behind the pikes, ready to form a backup of that formation.
Then, as Myra stared at the bright woods, she sensed that something was horribly wrong. Treetops shivered and fell away one after the other in a clearly defined path-a path that led straight toward the elven city! Myra thought of a field of tall grass where a small dog bounds through, unseen, except these were great trees, many of them centuries old. Whatever crushed them aside possessed unspeakable strength.
Finally the Elf-Eater came into sight on the wooded shore, a looming form pressing the lush pines to either side in a waste of splinters and great, muddy footprints. It rumbled forward in its awkward gait, appearing to roll along like a top reaching the end of its spin. Yet in the case of the Elf-Eater, this clumsiness was completely misleading. Clear of the trees, it leaped forward to race across the grassy field on the shore.
Silver pike tips gleamed in the sun, the same sun that had witnessed the arrival of this beast barely three hours before. The Llewyrr of the guard company stood firm, those in the fore kneeling, the second rank standing with pikes held at the waist, and the third rank with their long weapons held at shoulder height. The effect, to the front, was an array of razor-sharp steel tips, bristling like the spines of a cactus in tightly packed array.
Quickly the Elf-Eater broke from the confines of the forest, advancing across the grassy meadow in broad strides. Mutters of apprehension shook the elves as they got their first good look at the monster. Its broad snout was drawn in, gaping wide below the rim of the domed carapace, revealing its nest of churning appendages, surrounded by the web of flailing tentacles. The creature ran with one leg in front, the two others side by side to the rear.
The massive form rumbled forward, breaking into a rolling gallop on the broad field. The ground shook with each pounding step, and the monster's charge took it straight toward the wall of pikes. The elves in the path of the charge stood firm. Few of them had ever faced a real opponent before, but all of them had trained and prepared for decades-or centuries, in many cases. Now they met the test of that training and passed with fortitude.
Myra held her breath as she watched from the tower. Many more Llewyrr gathered in the streets below. The city's heavy silver gates stood closed, firmly barred. She could do nothing more except pray that the courageous pikemen and the spear-throwers of the Thy-Tach would turn the monster away.
The longest of the beast's tentacles stretched outward as it reached the Llewyrr, grasping pikes below the heads. Some sharp edges met the tendrils with their blades, but even the keen elven steel rarely pierced a leathery limb. The monster tugged against the pikes it still held firmly, jerking them to the sides and disrupting the precision of the steady line.