Princess Telgra’s heartfelt wail was accompanied by the gasps and moans of the elven members of her escort. Only moments ago, Phen had told them that Hyden Hawk had made a sending so powerful that it rattled his skull.
“Defend the Wardstone with all you have, Mikahl! Go, do it now!” Phen told them. The message, when he’d repeated it, got snickers and snorts of disgust from the haughty elves of the delegation. Now, Phen saw that something was affecting them, too. He only cared about Telgra, though, and her saddened, tear-streaked face tore at his heart.
“What is it?” he asked carefully.
“The Queen Mother, my mother, just died.” She paused her step and looked up at the sky for a moment. “I am the Queen Mother now.” Her voice was full of regret.
A power she had only been told about began filling Telgra. The love and pain of all the hearts of the elves in Arbor were transferring from her mother’s wonderful soul to hers. Phen was left as an afterthought, as not only the spirit world of the Arbor went through the changes, but the physical as well. Telgra shuddered and wailed as the power filled her. A breeze picked up, whipping snow from the branches of the evergreens that stood among the leafless oaks and elms. The wind carried a moaning sound. The elves of the escort took a knee and bowed to Telgra, but she didn’t notice. Her wild yellow eyes were full of love and fear. Both terror and triumph manifested in her gaze, but then a different emotion took reign and her brows narrowed fiercely. In a voice full of menace she spoke.
“Get up! We must move like the wind.”
She started into a brisk jog. Arf, the great wolf Phen was riding so that his malnourished legs wouldn’t slow them down, took off after her, as did the other elves of the escort. Dostin’s great wolf mount, Yip, kept a steady, padding pace with them, too.
“For all of you who disregarded Phen’s warning as human folly,” she said with contempt in her voice, “you should feel ashamed. For if the elven mages who heard the warning had listened to Hyden Hawk’s words, the Queen Mother might still be alive.” She paused only to see that all of her escort could hear her words. “The demons we chose to let the humans battle alone are back in force. Elven arrogance just might be the cause of our own uprooting. The Evermore is under attack.”
In her mind, Telgra sent the command to gather and fight to those elves closer to the Arbor Heart. The few anguished responses she received told her that the enemy had already overwhelmed them. Through their eyes and emotions, she was nearly stopped in her tracks. The elves of the Evermore were being cut down like wheat before a scythe.
Chapter 51
The sun had yet to set in Westland when Hyden Hawk’s powerful call rang through the aether. King Jarrek and the dwarven delegation had long since made their way back to Castlemont, and both Lord Spyra and Master Wizard Sholt were preparing for their newly appointed positions. The carefree spirit of the feast was all but a memory.
Lord Spyra was off braving the snow and touring Settsted Stronghold and its many outposts. He insisted on doing it now, so that when the southern weather worsened he could spend that idle time planning and preparing his command over the garrisons.
Master Wizard Sholt was now instructing De’Rain and a few other promising students, and had resumed his role as the High King’s Master Wizard.
It was in the capacity of both positions, teacher and royal wizard, that Sholt, De’Rain and a young girl of seven, named Suza, were all out in the strange bailey yard this evening. This particular bailey had once been Queen Shaella’s garden. The Master Wizard and his apprentices were studying the qualities of the circle the red priests of Kraw had burned into the grass there the previous year. Sholt had tried all of the obvious banishing and replenishing spells to try to make the dead spot hold life again, but none had worked. King Mikahl had ordered the anomaly removed, destroyed or even built over if necessary. Sholt and his students wanted to understand why no snow would stick there when the ground was no colder or warmer than that around it, and why no vegetation had grown there all last summer.
Sholt secretly hoped that the youngsters would notice something he’d overlooked, or maybe come up with some new angle of approach to the problem. Master Sholt was contemplating these things when Hyden Hawk’s sending blasted into his mind like a war drum. De’Rain and Suza heard it, too. The sound was so harsh in Suza’s little head that it made her cry out in fear and pain.
“Defend the Wardstone with all you have, Mikahl! Go, do it now!”
Once Master Sholt realized the sending was from Sir Hyden Skyler, he went into immediate action.
“Stay with her, De’Rain,” Sholt said. With a flourish and a sizzling crackle, he disappeared.
The High King was on his way to meet his queen, her handmaiden Allysan, and Lady Lavona. The women had a concern about something or another and wanted him to hear it out so that it wouldn’t alarm anyone else in the castle. Mikahl had no idea what the issue was, but since he couldn’t seem to refuse his wife anything, he was about to find out; at least until Master Sholt came rushing down the corridor pushing servants and workers aside like a madman.
“King Mikahl!” Sholt yelled. “King Mikahl, there is urgent word from Hyden Hawk!”
Mikahl glanced around, saw a closed door, and ushered the wizard into the room. It was a pantry full of linens. Shelves full of gleaming brass chamber pots and a few stored oil lanterns lined the walls. As soon as Sholt was in, Mikahl shut the door. The total darkness, after being in the bright, lamplit hallway, was sudden, but Sholt immediately cast an orb light into being.
“My lord, Hyden says Xwarda must be defended at once!” He sounded distraught and out of breath. Master Sholt had spent most of his life in Xwarda training under the late Wizard Targon. It was the closest thing to a home the serious-looking middle-aged wizard had ever known, and he cared for the place and the people there deeply. “I can only assume they are under attack or something drastic…”
His voice trailed off as the entire foundation of Lakeside castle slowly shook and rumbled. Yells, screams, and the sound of crashing dishes could be heard from nearby. Mikahl and the wizard shared a wide-eyed look.
“You must go protect the Wardstone, King Mikahl! That’s what Hyden said.”
“Aye,” Mikahl agreed. “I will go after I find Rosa, but what’s happening here?” He looked into the wizard’s eyes for an answer.
Sholt waved him off, for De’Rain was sending a message into his head. “The gateway has opened. Out there in the garden yard,” Sholt repeated the young mage’s warning, but he left off the pain-filled scream that extinguished the spell. “Something’s crawled out of there,” he finished in a panic.
“By the gods, sound the alarm,” Mikahl said as he bolted out the door and down the hallway to find his wife. Before he even rounded the corner, the frantic clanging of the alarm bells rang out from the guard towers outside.
Mikahl charged up a stairway and down a short passage full of huddled, terrified castle staff. He found the room where he was supposed to meet his wife and his friends, but only the handmaiden, Allysan, was there, and she was a teary-eyed wreck.
“Where’s my queen?” Mikahl asked sharply. It was enough to bring her into focus.
“She and Lady Lavona went off to the building supply lot.” She sniffed and continued. “I was told to wait until you arrived and tell you to meet them there, my king.” She wiped away a tear and looked at Mikahl pleadingly. “Are we under attack? What was that sound?”
The sudden lurching of the floor as the ground shook again caused the young Valleyan servant girl to cry out. From outside the window, Mikahl heard another scream. It was Rosa’s voice, and with the sound came a grumbling roar, and the realization that the supply lot the girl had been speaking of was where the gateway had just opened up. Without another thought, Mikahl drew Ironspike and charged through the shuttered window.