“Do as yon elves are doing,” Dove commanded over her shoulder, as she strode toward the nearest skirmish, sword drawn. “Slay all non-elves you see attacking elves, or advancing to the heart of Myth Drannor.”
“Yes,” another Moonstar agreed, espying a good blade among the fallen and snatching it up to heft and swing experimentally, “but who are all these warriors? Whence came they here?”
“From all over Sembia, and Inner Sea ports where the Shadovar sent ships and recruiters,” Dove replied. “It seems the Thultanthans never foresaw their command of the siege of Myth Drannor could slip from ‘absolute,’ and so gave their hirelings no battle cries to shout to keep friendly steel from butchering allies.”
“So this siege has become an utter confusion of scattered skirmishes,” a third Moonstar said disgustedly. “Yet the hireswords seem endless.”
“Seem endless,” Dove replied. “Ever planted seedlings? No tossing and walking on; you must root and tamp every one, one after another, until the task is done. The hewing of mercenaries must be like that for us, if this siege is to be broken. One after another, and just keep at it until the task is done. If-”
She was interrupted by a ragged shout, as a dozen human warriors in motley armor came crashing hastily through saplings and dead leaves, waving swords and spears and axes.
“Let’s start with these handy targets,” Dove added cheerfully, and strode to meet them, dagger in one hand and long and ready blade in the other.
Moonstars hesitated-but Dove waded cheerfully into the fray, one woman alone against the dozen. Steel clanged on steel; she danced and ducked and sprang like a festival tumbler, and it was mercenaries who fell, not the lone woman darting about in their midst. “Surrender and be spared,” she chanted in their faces as she parried hard enough that sparks flew, and dealt death. “Surrender and be spared!”
The last few mercenaries fled from her, crashing wildly through the forest, but the din of their flight was drowned out by the arrival of more of the besieging army, from two directions through the trees-hundreds of them.
They came on at a trot, flooding through the saplings, swarming up and around Dove, who never faltered in her demands that they surrender, though they closed in around her, thrusting and hacking viciously. Several Moonstars rushed to her aid, charging determinedly through all the offered steel, but others yelled, “Fall back!” or just hastened away.
More warriors came through the trees, scores of them, and it wasn’t long before a Moonstar fell. And then another.
Even Dove was being driven back by the sheer force of new arrivals, charging in to try to get at her, their rush shoving back the forefront of the bloody fray.
A high, clear horncall rang out through the trees, and suddenly there were elves darting in among the mercenaries, their long swords gleaming.
A Moonstar reared up, transfixed by two mercenary blades, shrieking in agony-and right beside him, as he crashed down in his last fall, choking on his own blood, an elf charge swept away most of the Shadovar forces surrounding Dove and the handful of Moonstars standing with her.
And came at Dove and those Moonstars with the same slaying ferocity that they’d shown to the besiegers.
Dove thrust them away with a swift spell, shouting, “Can you not tell friend from foe?”
Whatever reply the elves she was facing might have tried to make was lost in another horncall, this one three notes winded at once.
The signal for a retreat.
In an instant, the elves fell back again, running back into the trees. After a wavering moment, the besiegers let out a ragged chorus of yells and went after them.
Leaving Dove and her Moonstars behind, forgotten.
She peered through the trees, grimacing. The elves were surrendering more and more of their city.
Given what she knew of their pride, their ranks must have been thinned indeed, worn down in this siege, for this to happen.
“Well?” one of the Moonstars asked, looking to her.
“Aye, what now?” asked another, wiping at blood that was streaming down the side of his face. “Where shall we throw our lives away?”
Dove snorted like a horse in dismissal of his words, but had no others to give him.
“So pass two princes of Thultanthar,” the Coronal of Myth Drannor said bitterly. “Would that they had kept to their own city and their own Art, and left ours alone. What they’ve destroyed can never be replaced … like so much of what all Tel’Quess have lost, these last few centuries.”
She turned away from the smoking ashes of what had been Mattick and Vattick Tanthul, and signaled wordlessly to one of the high mages. He bowed and obeyed, beginning to cast an intricate spell over the remains of their fallen foes that would ensure no one successfully brought them back to life or unlife.
His three fellow mages turned to obey commands she’d given earlier, resealing the crypt of House Alavalae.
Ilsevele Miritar, the Coronal of Myth Drannor, watched them, and sighed. How long would it be before the next tomb robbers came down this passage, bent on taking what they could and destroying all that was left of a proud elf family?
They had won this battle, but it didn’t feel like any sort of victory.
The mages all looked to her, their castings done.
“Come,” she commanded softly, and led the way along the passage. There was another crypt, around two bends of the way ahead, and these plunderers might have sent others …
They found its doors intact, but the door warden of House Felaeraun was a flickering blue flame in the passage before them, weeping inconsolably.
“Gone!” was all they could get out of the baelnorn. “Gone!”
At a gesture from their coronal, two of the high mages unsealed the doors with careful spells, working gently-and just as gently, opened the doors wide.
Into still darkness.
The last resting place of House Felaeraun had been drained from within. All of its honored dead were now dust, their magic gone.
CHAPTER 16
"I have an idea,” Elminster announced suddenly.
“Of course you do,” the Srinshee, Alustriel, and Laeral all replied in unintentional unison-something that startled them into gales of laughter.
El overrode them all with a firm, “Heed me!” And then added, “For I’ll be needing aid-mind-steadying-from all of ye.”
“El,” Laeral told him crisply, “you’ve needed that for years.”
That brought a chuckle from the man himself, amid fresh mirth from the others, but then he said, “I’ve magically bound more than a few beings over the years. Some, I’m thinking, could wreak much havoc among the armies of Thultanthar gathered here.”
“And against the battered few Tel’Quess still fighting for our city,” the Srinshee said sharply.
“Only if they break through all the massed mercenaries I’m thinking of putting them right into the midst of.”
“What sort of bound beings?” Alustriel asked suspiciously.
“Dracoliches, dragons, beholders, and the like. Usually I thrust them into stasis, where they’ve been caught ever since, but in a few cases I bound them to a particular place, so they could no longer wander and maraud at will.”
“Dragons … beholders,” the Srinshee murmured, shaking her head. “And this will help my people how? By sending them to their graves all the sooner?”
“If you help me transform the bindings I’ve laid on them into prohibitions to keep them from translocating or flying,” El explained, “we’ll keep most of them ground ridden. Beholders dragging themselves along, dragons and dracoliches stalking like cats-they’ll be caught in the thick of well-armed hireswords who can hit back, and hit hard. Lots of hireswords. The armies far too numerous for the Tel’Quess of Myth Drannor to stand against. Think of these beasts as our army.”