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  The leaders of the horde were less than a thousand yards from the elven ranks. Araevin could pick out individuals: bare-chested orc berserkers, hulking ogres, and demons wrapped in fire, shadow, or foulness, all prowling forward in a ragged wave.

  “Not long now,” murmured Starbrow, standing close by Araevin. The moon elf champion stood amid a loose knot of elves that included Seiveril, Ilsevele, Grayth and Maresa, the Blade-Major Rhaellen of Evereska, and a number of Miritar guards and Swords of Evereska. Keryvian was naked in his hand. The blade was a hand-and-a-half sword, and its cold blue steel seemed to glow in the darkness. “Not long now.”

  Araevin’s heart hammered in his chest. At least I know my magic can hurt their demons, he told himself.

  He couldn’t imagine how someone could stand in the ranks with a sword of mundane steel, watching a demon immune to such things stalk closer with every step. He looked up and down the lines, fixing in his mind for one final time the army’s positions, in case he needed to know them.

  Lord Elvath Muirreste commanded the right flank, where the terrain was more open and the mounted knights would be able to maneuver. Jerreda Starcloak and her wood elves held the left flank, overlooking the lake. A determined attacker might try to skirt the steep slopes and broken forest on the south side of the cwm, and the wood elves seemed like just the sort of light and mobile force to defend that difficult approach. Wood elf snipers and skirmishers lay hidden in other spots in the vale, as well.

  Vesilde Gaerth and the Knights of the Golden Star served as perhaps the most important contingent in the crusade’s army: the reserve. Since many of the knights were clerics or possessed enchanted weapons, it was thought that they could be held out of the fight until the demons engaged some portion of the army, then move to aid the endangered troops. Stationed in the rear of the army, the knights also served to guard the Sunset Gate at the crusade’s back. The high, narrow cleft leading down to the Vine Vale was the only possible retreat from the West Cwm if things went poorly.

  Seiveril himself commanded the center, with the moon elf Starbrow as his deputy. There most of the elven infantry were massed, in orderly ranks of spearmen, swordsmen, and archers. It was also the place where most of the crusade’s mages, under the leadership of the half-elf Jorildyn, stood waiting to unleash their battle spells. The best of those companies were battle-hardened Evereskan Vale Guards, steady and unflinching in the defense of their homeland. But more than half the Evereskan army remained in the city, in case the daemonfey decided to bypass the fight in the West Cwm. Seiveril had also left almost two thousand of his own soldiers there, a full third of his army, though he had chosen the companies with the least experience and equipment for that duty.

  With a loud groan and clatter, the approaching horde came to a ragged stop just out of bowshot. Orcs and other foul creatures hooted and jeered in their uncouth tongues, shaking their weapons in the air, gnashing their teeth. On the other side of the battlefield, the elves waited with icy calm. Off to his left, Araevin distinctly heard Jerreda’s wood elves jeering right back at the orcs.

  “This seems like a good time for a few spells,” Araevin said.

  He quickly recited the words for the stoneskin spell, dusting Ilsevele, Grayth, Maresa, and himself with powdered diamond—he was almost out of the stuff, unfortunately—and reciting the words of the abjuration.

  “What are they waiting for?” Ilsevele wondered aloud. “Do they intend to parley first? What in the world do they think they could offer us?”

  “They’re not going to parley,” Starbrow replied. “They’re looking for the standards. Stay on your guard.”

  Araevin quickly reviewed the rest of the spells he held ready in his mind, and checked the wands at his belt. Moonrill hung on his left hip, though he hoped he wouldn’t need it. He was a passable swordsman, but magic was a much better weapon in his hands.

  “Hey!” Maresa yelled out. “That’s all they’ve got? You didn’t bring enough orcs, you morons. Go back home and get some more! And your mothers—”

  The genasi’s jeering was interrupted by the tremendous blast of a heavy horn from somewhere in the enemy ranks. A dozen lesser horns caught the note and repeated it, until the West Cwm echoed with the sound. With a ground-shaking roar, the dark ranks surged forward, crooked swords and notched axes held high, while behind them a whole legion of the fey’ri leaped into the air, mighty wings thundering as they climbed above the rabble.

  It begins, Araevin thought.

  He raised his hands and hurled his first spell of the battle.

  CHAPTER 13

  27 Ches, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Five hundred yards stood between the two armies when the daemonfey horns sounded their charge. The orc berserkers, unburdened by heavy armor, raced out ahead of the surging horde, running full out for the elven lines, roaring like dumb beasts as they came. Ogres and trolls loped along just behind the berserkers, covering two yards with each stride, frighteningly fast for their bulk and power.

  “Archers, at the leading ranks!” Seiveril called. “Casters, watch the airborne troops!”

  Dozens of captains and sergeants echoed the orders up and down the elven line, and at their command more than a thousand archers bent their bows and fired. Arrows flashed down at the onrushing warriors like a rain of silver death. Orcs died by the hundreds, stumbling to the ground with arrows feathering chests, throats, and eyes. Ogres reeled and roared in agony, clutching at deadly shafts stuck in faces and necks. From the corner of his eye, Araevin saw Ilsevele draw and fire, draw and fire, so quickly that her hands were a pale blur.

  The charge faltered, but still the orcs came on. Foaming at the mouth and bellowing like boars, orc berserkers shrugged off wounds that would have downed any warrior not consumed in the blind blood-frenzy of the berserker. And while some ogres fell, they were hard to kill with arrows. Many of the hulking brutes came on with arrows sprouting from arms, shoulders, and chests like white pins, sticking in muscle and sinew but failing to find the life of the monster.

  “Casters, at the ready! Casters, summon, cast!” cried Jorildyn, the Reilloch battle-mage. Araevin was not under his command and had no obligation to follow his orders, but he chose to lend his strength to the other mages. He’d spoken with Jorildyn earlier, and knew what the battle-mage planned to do. Scattered through the ranks of the archers and swordsmen, disguised under soldiers’ tunics and cloaks, more than one hundred elf mages and clerics began to cast their spells. Araevin barked out the words of his summoning, shunting the sights and sounds of the battle off to a corner of his mind where he would not be distracted in his effort to remember the complex symbols and tedious chants of the spell.

  From the flying daemonfey a hundred and fifty feet over the battle line, dozens of bright orange streaks appeared, hurling down at the ranks of archers. Fiery blasts rippled and thundered through the elf ranks, hurling bowmen through the air or simply hammering them to the ground. Screams rang in Araevin’s ears, and blasts of heat singed his face and hands, but he endured and finished his spell, as did many other mages hidden in the ranks. In the air above the elven line a hundred or more swirling knuckles of air appeared, slowly condensing into crudely humanoid forms of mist, smoke, and cloud—a host of air elementals, beings called to life from the very substance of the sky.

  “Elementals, destroy the flying ones!” Seiveril called.

  With a great and terrible rush of wind, elementals both huge and small streaked up and away from the battle line, seeking out the winged fey’ri sorcerers and warriors who waited above. The fey’ri were quick and strong fliers, but they could not outfly creatures composed of the elemental power of air itself. Like a seething wave of tornadoes the elementals slammed into the daemonfey, battering and blasting their victims with blows that could uproot trees or scour flesh from bone.

  Araevin shouted in delight, as did many others. Though the winged daemonfey outnumbered their elemental attackers ten to one, for the moment the fey’ri l
egions were fully engaged in defending themselves against the ferocious onslaught, and that left the elf spellcasters on the ground free to turn their power against the surging sea of orcs, ogres, goblins, and trolls thundering into their ranks.

  “A good plan,” Grayth said. The Lathanderite stood close by Araevin and Ilsevele, busy with spells of his own, weaving holy wards and protections over all the elves he could reach. Elf clerics were doing much the same across the battle line. “But those elementals won’t keep the winged demons busy for long.”

  Araevin looked down at the melee in the front ranks. Screaming with battle-rage, orcs threw themselves headlong into the elf ranks, hewing furiously with axe and sword. Ogres hammered down at their smaller foes with huge clubs and maces. And here and there, like storms of destruction, demons, yugoloths, and other terrible fiends strode among the orc ranks, smiting down elf swordsmen and spearmen with gouts of demon-fire or tearing their foes to pieces with fangs, claws, stings, and barbs. The furious dark tide threatened to overwhelm the elven line entirely.

  What now? Araevin thought.

  His spells could be decisive in any number of tactical engagements, and he had to make sure each one counted. He spotted a mezzoloth stalking forward, wreaking terrible carnage with its huge, powerful claws. The yugoloth struck down an elf swordsman only twenty yards from Araevin, shredding the breastplate of the warrior as if it were nothing more than soggy paper. Then it leaped forward to rush at a knot of archers, who fired desperately at the monster, only to watch their arrows shiver on its thick, chitinous armor.

  Araevin hurried through the words of a spell designed to banish the creature back to whatever hell it had crawled from, but just as he finished the spell, a rampaging ogre appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and caught Araevin full in the ribs with its huge, stone-headed hammer. Araevin flew through the air, crumpling to the ground a dozen feet away.

  “Araevin!” screamed Ilsevele. She leaped down beside him, pausing only to send a burning arrow straight through the ogre’s forehead as the creature lumbered forward to strike again. The ogre groaned and fell. “Grayth, come quickly. Araevin has been hurt!”

  Araevin rolled to his side and pushed himself up.

  “Not as bad … as it looked,” he gasped. “Stoneskin spell absorbed … much of the blow.”

  His side ached abominably, and he couldn’t draw a breath, but instead of crushing his ribcage the ogre’s hammer had simply knocked the wind out of him and spoiled his spell. He staggered to his feet, and realized that the mezzoloth he had meant to dismiss was no longer there, though two of the archers lay dead or dying, clawed by the ferocious monster.

  He looked around for the next foe to deal with, Ilsevele close by his side. Grayth dueled a pair of orc berserkers, sword flashing as he parried strike after strike of their heavy axes. Since Araevin couldn’t trust himself to speak a spell, he snatched a wand from his belt and riddled the first berserker with four bright darts of magical power that blew fist-sized holes in the orc’s torso. The creature crumpled to the ground, and Maresa sidled up behind the second and ran him through with her rapier, transfixing him until Grayth stepped up and knocked off his head with a fierce slash of his broadsword.

  “Are you well?” he called to Araevin.

  Araevin still couldn’t answer, but he gave the cleric a sharp nod and turned to search out another foe. This is pure madness, he thought desperately. He looked wildly about himself, trying to decide what to do next. The cwm was filled with the ring of steel on steel, the roars and screams of the wounded, and the thunder and detonation of powerful spells.

  “Which way?” Ilsevele asked him.

  For the moment they seemed to have cleared the area immediately around themselves, so Araevin picked a fierce skirmish off to his left and hurried toward it, drawing a second wand. Ilsevele followed him, picking off lone enemies as she saw them. Together they fell on the flank of a band of bugbears who were pressing an Evereskan company. Araevin blasted terrible swaths of destruction through the heavily armored goblinkin with his wand, singling out sergeants and leaders, while Ilsevele rained arrows at any of the savage warriors who turned to face Araevin’s attack.

  A rain of flaming orbs pelted down from overhead, each exploding in a gout of evil green flames. Emerald fire scorched Araevin, hurling him to the ground again, and more of the vitriolic spheres blasted nearby, incinerating elves unfortunate enough to be struck directly. Araevin rolled to his feet and looked up. A band of daemonfey thirty strong wheeled over the Evereskan company, hurling spells down at the elves below.

  “Fey’ri above!” he cried.

  The Evereskans scattered and sought cover, some of them unlimbering bows to shoot back up at their airborne attackers. The daemonfey climbed away from the archers, though a few of them crumpled in midair and plummeted to the ground, brought down by good or lucky shots. He looked for Ilsevele, and found her picking herself up out of a thicket, her cloak and surcoat smoldering.

  “Damn them,” she growled. “We’ve got to draw those winged warriors closer to the ground!”

  Araevin watched them, and a fierce joy kindled in his breast.

  “Or go up after them,” he snarled.

  He quickly barked out the words of his flying spell, and leaped up into the air after the winged warriors circling overhead. The smoke and fog rushed by his face as he streaked upward, and he glimpsed the great expanse of the battle filling the cwm from side to side. He paid it no mind, keeping his attention honed on the fey’ri ahead, even though he saw hundreds more winging over the battlefield.

  These at least will know they’ve been in a fight, he told himself.

  The fey’ri noticed his ascent, and a dozen of them wheeled to meet him. Two sorcerers blasted at him with stabbing tongues of brilliant blue lightning, but Araevin swerved aside from one, and his protective wards served to blunt the worst of the second. He tumbled awkwardly, flailing in midair as he tried to shake off the bolt, and when he looked up again fey’ri warriors were closing in on him, blades bared, fierce grins on their faces.

  “Fool,” hissed one. “We own the sky!”

  Araevin bared his teeth, and incanted the words of a spell of his own, stretching out his hand toward his foes. A scintillating blast of brilliant colors flayed the dozen nearest fey’ri. Yellow rays wreathed one in crackling electricity. Red beams scorched the wings from another. A sinister purple ray blasted one into some distant plane, banishing her from the world entirely. In the space of an instant seven fey’ri tumbled down out of the sky, some fluttering vainly to stay aloft, others already dead. Distantly Araevin noted a ragged cheer from below, as the embattled elves saw his brilliant spell and its results.

  He started another spell, but a fey’ri sorcerer a short distance away from him struck Araevin with a spell that abruptly dispelled his ability to fly. Araevin plummeted toward the ground, already starting a spell to arrest his fall. But he didn’t complete it quickly enough. Even as his descent slowed, he plunged through the branches of a hemlock, breaking through the boughs as they snapped under him. He landed badly on the uneven ground below the tree, stunned by the impact.

  He tried to rise again, but his arms and legs didn’t want to work, and his head swam. He was just about to drift off into comfortable darkness when Ilsevele and Grayth appeared at his side, scrambling down to where he lay.

  “Araevin, that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen!” Ilsevele snapped. “You were outnumbered a hundred to one up there.”

  “It might not have been wise, but it was a valiant gesture nonetheless,” said Grayth. The cleric looked up at the fight still going on around them. “No time to rest, Araevin. This battle isn’t done yet, not by a long measure.”

  He laid his hands on Araevin and began to speak a healing prayer.

  Sarya watched the battle from the vantage of her Vyshaanti platform. Off to the right of the enemy center, a brilliant prismatic blast streaked the sky. Fey’ri crumpled and fell from the air, but then the
enemy mage plummeted after the daemonfey he’d defeated. She scowled, stung by the cost of the exchange. Her fey’ri were irreplaceable, and the longer the battle went on, the more of them would fall.

  “This is taking too long,” she growled.

  Mardeiym Reithel stood next to her, arms crossed before his chest.

  “The Evereskans have found help,” he said. “This army is too large for them to field while maintaining the garrison our scouts have reported in the city.”

  “Evermeet,” Sarya spat. “Who else could it be? We should have abandoned the orcs and other rabble instead of staying with them for twenty days of marching. We gave them too much time to prepare.”

  “Without the savage tribes, we’d have less than half the strength we do,” Mardeiym answered. “They may have slowed us down, but today they’re killing paleblood elves, and they’re dying in place of our fey’ri. Evermeet’s army would have met us sooner or later anyway.”

  Sarya gripped the rail of the platform, watching the battle. She longed to plunge into the fray herself, to slay with spell and talon, but she dared not. Once she immersed herself in the fight, she would be unable to exercise any form of control over her army. She could count on the fey’ri to follow orders and fight with cunning and resourcefulness, but the demons and yugoloths would take orders from no one other than her. The orc warbands and ogre marauders might break off and retreat from the unexpected Evereskan resistance without the threat of demons behind them to drive them forward.

  The sinister crackle of magic rippled through the air at her shoulder. Sarya turned as a vrock suddenly appeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke. The vulture-demon carried two elven arrows snapped off in its right wing, but it seemed untroubled by the wounds.