“I’ll happily attend you later, Gwelt,” he muttered almost absently, moving to a better vantage point. “When I have rather fewer duties to perform all at once.”
“Of course,” Gwelt agreed quickly, backing away.
He took great care to step behind several hurrying arcanists, so Aglarel-and the prince’s father too, for that matter-wouldn’t see him slip away from the swiftly growing assembly.
Not that he need have bothered. Aglarel had already spotted something that alarmed him-the patiently inexorable way another arcanist was stalking toward the Most High-and was hurrying to deal with it.
The commander of the Most High’s personal bodyguard was fast, and imposing enough with his height and manner and well-known obsidian armor that arcanists hastily got out of his way, yet even so he was almost too late.
The suspicious arcanist threw up both hands and sent a shrapnel-star spell rushing across the heads of his fellows. A magic that would have sent jagged blades of steel thrusting in all directions among the assembled Thultanthans.
Even before Aglarel’s hasty counterspell sent the shrapnel star veering away, its creator had started to bellow.
“Fellow citizens of Thultanthar! I call on you to refrain from what is contemplated here, to not assist in this draining of great magic! For this is madness, madness I tell you, and imperils our city! If we do this, our own Thultanthar will in turn be destroyed! I-eyyyurkkh!”
Aglarel’s sword met the shouting man’s skull hard but cleanly.
It was like cleaving a large and wet melon, but Aglarel cared not how much he got splattered, or how many fellow Thultanthans got covered in blood. He went right on brutally beheading the man from behind.
The body reeled, spurting blood in all directions, and Aglarel sprang atop it and bore it bloodily to the flagstones, holding it down as its writhing became sluggish … and then stopped altogether.
He looked up, drenched in blood, and beheld his father, regarding him down a long open path that had almost magically opened in the jostling ranks of the arcanists.
Telamont looked calm, but impatient, as if expecting an explanation.
“Order,” Aglarel told him, “has been restored.”
His father nodded gravely, something that might have been thanks and might merely have been satisfaction in his eyes, and worked the swift and simple spell that would take his words to every ear.
Then he lifted his chin, looked at the arcanists all around him, and raised both arms.
“This,” the Most High of Thultanthar announced calmly, “is how we shall begin …”
There were only six Moonstars still standing beside Dove, and they were as bloody, weary, and wounded as she was.
And they’d retreated, step by hard-fought step, until they could retreat no more. The central buildings of Myth Drannor stood on all sides, and not far behind their backs were the backs of the thin line of elf defenders facing the other way-who were somehow holding back besiegers still numerous enough to stretch back through the trees as far as the eye could see.
Dove suspected that “somehow” had a name, and it was Fflar. He’d been everywhere, smiting swiftly and moving on, blunting every mercenary charge.
She couldn’t hope to match him. Her handful knew they were doomed, and were grimly leaning on their grounded blades and gasping for breath as they watched a fresh wave of mercenaries coming for them out of the forest.
Scores of them, hundreds … their slayers, and soon now. They had no hope at all of withstanding so many. The Shadovar coffers had been deep, and-
Something hissed horribly, off to the left, much nearer than the oncoming mercenaries.
Then it came into view around a many-towered elven mansion, writhing and struggling, and Dove gaped at it along with all the surviving Moonstars.
It was a black dragon of great size, an elder wyrm. It had been so badly-and recently-hacked at that it had no wings left, and limped heavily, one foot missing and the stump weeping blood, and the other legs crisscrossed by deep cuts. It moved more like a serpent, on its belly, than a great cat, whose gaits most of the dragons Dove had met resembled.
Its attention was bent on the mercenaries, and it struggled to meet them, hissing again in agonized rage.
Spears and glaives and shouts were all raised-and then it was among them, snarling a challenge, biting with its great jaws, and rolling to crush men by the score.
And after it, through the air, came a creature that made more than one Moonstar moan in dismay.
A floating sphere the size of a small wagon, from which projected a moving, serpentine forest of eyestalks. It was emitting horrible, hissing laughter.
“Free!” it exulted, fairly dancing in the air. “Free again at last! Blast me with all the spells you want, elves, if that’s the result! Hahahahaha!”
“A beholder?” one Moonstar gasped. “Ye gods, what next?”
The eye tyrant glided to where it could hang above the lunging, rolling, biting dragon, and from that vantage point above the fray sent its eyebeams lancing down into the mercenaries. Who started to shriek in terror, and tried to flee-right through the gathered ranks of their fellows.
Turmoil spread.
Dove allowed herself one mirthless smile at that, before she turned to look in other directions. She half expected another menace to come creeping up while she and the Moonstars watched these two monsters who shouldn’t be anywhere near here maraud through the foe.
The elf knights defending in the other direction were still holding, a fresh fire billowed up from somewhere beyond buildings to her right, and just a little way to the left of them she could see … the heads of running elves! The rest of the fleeing Tel’Quess were hidden from her, down in a dell.
Dove trotted to the nearest tree and scaled it until she was high enough to see who was running, and why.
She beheld ancient, wizened elves, elders, shooing and shepherding elf children in some haste from her right to her left. Beyond them, farther off but getting closer fast, were two shades with drawn swords in their hands. They were rushing at the elves, with clearly fell intent.
Dove flung herself from the tree and landed sprinting, heading for the dell as fast as she could. If anything could be salvaged from this dark day, it must be those children, the future of the Tel’Quess of this part of Faerûn …
“To me!” she shouted to the Moonstars, but didn’t slow for a moment to see if they’d heeded or were following.
Down the long years, her way had not been that of the spell. Daughter of Mystra or not, the sword and a skilled tongue and the making and keeping of friendships had always served her better. Yet she’d studied her share of dusty tomes, even in the dim chambers of Candlekeep a time or two, and remembered some things.
Badly, for the most part, and never really thinking she’d need them. But now, as she sprinted over tree roots and through wet leaves and over slippery moss, Dove Falconhand gasped out what snatches she could remember of an ancient spell she’d read in one of Candlekeep’s inner rooms, more than a few centuries ago.
It was a last resort magic of the elves, to be used when doom was imminent.
A spell that would summon baelnorn.
Lord and Lady Delcastle faced each other across the pleasant farmhouse kitchen of Storm Silverhand, their faces grim.
“Lady mine,” Arclath said gravely, “please misunderstand me not. I don’t wish to dissuade you in what you attempt, nor mar what we have between us or your needed concentration. Yet I must ask: Are you ready for this? Do you know what you are doing?”
Amarune sighed gustily, neither in anger nor resignation, but to steady and calm herself, and told her beloved, “Yes. Yes, I think I do.”