Farthest Reach Page 24

  He finally found his voice, and glanced at Jorin. “I never suspected …” he managed. “It’s extraordinary. Not even Evermeet itself compares. How far does this realm extend?”

  “Sildëyuir is about the size of the Yuirwood, though direction and distance are a little hard to judge here.” Jorin tilted his head to one side, thinking. “Perhaps two or three hundred miles from end to end?”

  “End to end?” Maresa glanced up at the pearl aura of dusk above the treetops. In the twilight, her pale white skin seemed to shine like the moon. “It just stops somewhere?”

  “Not really. At the borders the forest grows thicker and thicker, and any track you care to follow—or make for yourself, for that matter—simply bends back on itself. There isn’t an edge you can fall off.” Jorin paused, and added, “I know that it is eldritch and wondrous and beautiful, but I must warn you all: Sildëyuir is not as safe as it looks. Strange monsters wander these forests, creatures that you do not find in the sunlit world. Do not relax your vigilance here.”

  “Have you been here often?” Ilsevele asked Jorin.

  The Aglarondan shook his head. “Only a couple of times, and the last was ten years ago or more. Finding a stone circle that will let you reach this place is hard, because not all circles work all the time.” He gazed into the woods, but beneath his bemusement there was wariness in his eyes.

  “Now I understand what was meant by the note on my map,” Araevin told Ilsevele. “‘Here of old was Yuireshanyaar, which now is hidden.’ The star elves removed their kingdom from the Yuirwood to this twilit plane alongside the forest.” He turned to Jorin. “Are they still here? Can you take us to them?”

  “Yes, they are still here. But it is a wide land, and not many star elves remain, and I do not know where we are.” Jorin shrugged, a look of embarrassment on his face. “I am afraid I have no better plan than to pick a likely direction and start walking.”

  “I may be able to help,” Donnor Kerth said. He handed the reins of his warhorse to Ilsevele, and drew a golden medallion out of his tunic. He raised Lathander’s holy symbol in his powerful hand; the gold gleamed softly in the shadows. “Pick a direction, Jorin.”

  The Aglarondan studied the forest for a moment then indicated a trail that led away from the stone circle into the shadows of the trees.

  “I suppose I’m inclined to head that way first,” the guide said.

  Kerth peered down the path, and closed his eyes as he carefully spoke the words of a prayer to Lathander. Araevin felt the warm glow of divine magic suffusing the air, and the human opened his eyes and held up his holy symbol.

  “Lord of the Dawn, aid me! Will this path lead us to those whom Araevin must find, or should we go another way?”

  The members of the company watched as the holy symbol in Kerth’s hand grew brighter, warmer, until it seemed almost as if a small sun was caught in the cleric’s grasp, throwing out dazzling rays of radiance that lit up the dim forest around them. Then the magic faded, the golden sunburst symbol becoming nothing more than a piece of metal again. Donnor shook himself slowly, closed his eyes, and murmured a prayer of thanks. “Well?” asked Maresa. “Will it?”

  The Lathanderian nodded and replied, “Yes. My divination indicates that this path will serve. But as Jorin warns, we must be careful. We will meet with danger on this road.”

  The small company set off down the broad path into the forest, passing into the eerie gloom beneath the gleaming silver trunks. The cool air was a welcome change after the warmth and humidity of the Yuirwood, and the absence of dense undergrowth made for good visibility and long, open views from the trail. At times it was so still and solemn that Araevin felt almost as if he was simply lost in some enormous temple, wandering among the works of dreaming gods. At other times they caught sight of the forest’s creatures: white owls high in the branches above, silver-gray deer that vanished quickly into the gloom, black squirrels that darted along the pale trunks, and once a great gray-furred bear that snuffled and snorted at something that had caught its interest on the forest floor, a good eighty yards off the path.

  Araevin soon came to realize that travel within the realm of Sildëyuir would be more than a little deceptive. The opalescent twilight that pervaded the woodland offered no hint as to how long they had traveled—it might have been an hour, or it might have been four. Gradually he noticed that the day, such as it was, had darkened somewhat, so that the purple velvet of the sky overhead had deepened into pure inky darkness, and in time a soft rain began to fall, so fine and thin that he did not even bother to draw up his hood.

  After a long spell of marching, they came to a moss-grown bridge of stone that spanned a gloom-filled ravine through which swift white water rushed forty feet below.

  “That’s a good sign,” Ilsevele remarked. “Someone built this bridge. I was beginning to wonder if this whole place was empty.”

  “We’ve been walking for quite a while,” Araevin said, “and we began our day with a march in the Yuirwood. Maybe we should find a place to rest, and make camp for the night.”

  “The night?” Maresa asked.

  “Such as it is,” Araevin said. “We’ll halt a few hours, long enough for you and the others to get a good sleep. Ilsevele and I can keep watch. We need less rest than you.”

  “I won’t say no,” the genasi said.

  They walked a short distance past the bridge before they found a good clearing away from the path. Jorin built a small fire in order to prepare a hot meal from their stores, and Donnor unloaded his packhorse and brushed it down while Araevin took a few minutes to weave some magical wards around their campsite—spells of concealment and protection. So far they had seen nothing dangerous in Sildëyuir’s forests, but he remembered Jorin’s warning and decided to take no chances.

  While Donnor, Maresa, and Jorin slept the deep and helpless sleep that Araevin had always both envied and pitied in his non-elf friends, the two sun elves sat and talked softly in Elvish or simply waited together in the comfort of each other’s company, leaning back-to-back against a young tree so that they could watch all around the small camp. After a long silence in which Araevin had actually started to slip into Reverie, Ilsevele reached back to set her hand on his.

  “I am glad I came here, Araevin,” she said. “Regardless of what comes next, I do not regret the circumstances that brought me to Sildëyuir, even for a day.”

  “Nor do I,” he agreed. He started to say more, but then Ilsevele squeezed his hand twice, hard and quick. Araevin froze, peering into the shadows under the trees.

  “On your left, sixty yards,” Ilsevele whispered. “It will be almost behind you. Move slowly.”

  “What is it?” he whispered back, slowly turning his head and letting his eyes slide farther and farther over his left shoulder.

  “I don’t know.”

  Carefully, Araevin allowed himself to lean just a little, getting a better look behind him—then he saw what Ilsevele had spotted. It was wormlike in shape, with a dark, glistening hide of blue-black skin, but smaller tendrils or limbs branched from its body. It slithered through the forest, passing along the path they had been following, moving with a rolling corkscrew gait that brought different limbs to the ground at different times. Three golden orbs projected from its blunt, bulbous head, if it was a head. Behind the monster came a pair of hulking, snakelike monstrosities, pale worms whose beaked maws were surrounded by four strong, barbed tentacles. Araevin couldn’t say what gave him the impression, given the startling alieness of all three creatures, but something in the motions of the corkscrew monster suggested purpose and intelligence.

  “What do we do?” Ilsevele asked.

  “Let’s see if it will pass by. I’ll watch, and you be ready to rouse the others.”

  The creatures’ progress had brought them from Ilsevele’s side over to Araevin’s, and he had a good view of all three. Carefully he eased his lightning wand into his hand, and reviewed the spells held in his mind just in case.
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br />   The sinister creatures continued on their way, the forest silent around them, but then the dark corkscrew creature halted, right at the spot where Araevin and his comrades had left the path to set up their camp off the trail. It seemed to feel around, groping like a caterpillar seeking the next place to set its feet, and it gave voice to a strange, shrill whistling sound. It began to sway and weave its limbs in a strange, coiling motion.

  Araevin peered closer, trying to discern what it was up to—and he saw the magic at work.

  Corellon preserve us, he thought in horror, it’s casting a spell! The thing is a sorcerer of some kind.

  “What is it, Araevin? What’s going on?” Ilsevele hissed.

  “Ready your bow,” he said. “When I give the word, you must shoot the dark one.”

  He couldn’t see it, but he felt her nod of assent. She moved softly behind him, drawing an arrow and laying it across her bowstring.

  Has it found my spell wards? he wondered.

  He watched for ten terrible heartbeats as the monster sniffed at and studied the concealing spells he’d woven around the camp, and for one moment he felt certain that the thing had detected his illusions—but then it whistled again, and curled itself away, resuming its serpentine progress along the forest path. The large pale tentacled things snuffled and followed, undulating after the first one. In a few moments, they disappeared from view, and Araevin breathed a sigh of relief.

  “You can relax,” he said to Ilsevele. “They’re gone now.”

  “What were those things?” Ilsevele sighed and leaned around the tree to meet his eyes.

  “I have no idea,” Araevin said. “Whatever they were, they were intelligent, and one at least could wield magic.” He stared off into the gloom after the monsters, still trying to make sense of the whole scene. “Let’s give the others another hour of sleep if we can then get moving. I don’t like the idea of waiting here for those creatures to return.”

  Three days of swift marching put Mistledale and Galath’s Roost nearly eighty miles behind the Army of Evermeet, as Seiveril and Starbrow led their host westward toward Shadowdale. Seiveril rode at the head of his troops, his spirits lifting as they left the Sembians and Hillsfarians behind. Regardless of what might come, the days of indecision had passed, and the shadow of disaster in his divinations had retreated for a time. His course was not without risk—he weighed that much every day with his auguries and prayers—but events were once again in motion, and Seiveril was content with that for the time.

  Despite the fact that he knew better than to divide his forces in the face of more numerous enemies, Seiveril had decided to leave a strong force behind him in Mistledale. Six full companies of infantry remained near Ashabenford, under the command of Vesilde Gaerth and a small contingent of the Knights of the Golden Star—two companies from Seiveril’s own Silver Guard, one from Evereska, and three companies of the volunteers who had mustered at Elion and had been forged into real fighting units by the furious battles at Evereska and the Lonely Moor. Seiveril did not expect Vesilde to repel the Sembians or Hillsfarians if they moved on Mistledale in strength, but he hoped that the elven infantry would deter the Sembians from attempting to follow his main body to the west, and perhaps convince them that Mistledale would not be yielded without a fight. If matters came down to it, Vesilde was to retreat southwest down the Dale, covering the Dalesfolk as best he could and giving up land rather than meeting a stronger enemy in battle—but Seiveril hoped that the Sembians and Hillsfarians would be slow to attack a resisting Dale outright.

  The army’s track followed a human-cut footpath along the river’s north bank that linked Ashabenford and Shadowdale-town. In other times it might have been a picturesque journey, with the broad, shallow ribbon of the river close to Seiveril’s left hand, its waters often swift and boulder-studded, so that the river’s voice filled the forest nearby. But Seiveril urged his captains to march long and quickly each day, exhorting his host for more speed. The warriors who followed him responded with swiftness that no human army could hope to match, often trotting for hours at a time to make better speed. Seiveril was not sure if he could reach the northern borders of the dale before the Zhentilar, but forty miles lay between Shadowdale’s northern border and the Twisted Tower. He was certain that he’d have his army waiting in the village of Shadowdale for the invaders if he failed to meet the Zhents before they entered the dale.

  Seiveril rode at the head of the army among the Silver Guard, the cavalry who had served House Miritar in Evermeet. The Silver Guard was the largest body of mounted soldiers in Seiveril’s host, three full squadrons of lightly-armored knights who rode under the banner of Edraele Muirreste. Edraele was a young and slightly built moon elf, so small that it seemed ludicrous that she should have taken up the sword. Edraele might have been young for her command, but she was also the single finest equestrian that Seiveril had seen in his four hundred years, and she possessed a fiery charisma that her warriors adored. He’d placed her in command of the vanguard on leaving Galath’s Roost, and she and her Silver Guard had vigorously patrolled ahead of the army, searching for any sign of the enemy.

  In the evening of the march’s third day, they fought their first skirmish against the Zhentarim’s soldiers.

  The track broke out of the forest Cormanthor proper, crossing a narrow neck of open land along the southern border of the Dale, less than twenty miles from the town of Shadowdale. As the glittering elven cavalry rode between fields of chest-high grain straight and still in the calm hour before sunset, a pair of scouts appeared from behind a stone farmhouse, riding hard for the banner.

  “What is this?” muttered Captain Edraele from beside Seiveril.

  She stood up in her stirrups and cantered forward to meet the scouts. Seiveril restrained his impulse to go and see what news the scouts brought, and made himself wait. He didn’t want Edraele to think he lacked confidence in her.

  As it turned out, he did not have long to wonder. Edraele wheeled away at once and spurred back to the company of Golden Star knights and Silver Guard officers who rode by Seiveril.

  “Zhentarim cavalry!” she snarled as she pulled up abreast of Seiveril and Starbrow. “A large company, about a mile off on our right front. They’re chasing after a scouting party of our own warriors.”

  “The Zhents are here already?” Seiveril said.

  He glanced back at the twilight woods behind him, thinking of the miles-long column of marching elves who followed behind the cavalry. The forest wouldn’t stop him from deploying from the march into a line of battle, but still … he’d thought he would have two days more, at least.

  Starbrow read the concern in his face, and shook his head. “It won’t be the main body, Seiveril. The Zhentarim likely have bands of marauders and scouts ranging all over the open dale, looking for us and causing trouble where they can. It’s what I would do in their place.”

  Edraele pranced her horse around, and looked to Seiveril. “They likely don’t have any idea that we’ve got the vanguard of the army at our backs, Lord Seiveril,” she said. “Unless you object, I’ll take the Silver Guard and drive them off.”

  “I agree,” Starbrow said. “I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t teach them a hard lesson about getting too close to us.”

  Seiveril hesitated. Somehow, he found that he had been hoping that it would not prove necessary to meet Zhentil Keep in battle. He felt Starbrow and Edraele waiting on his words, and frowned. Regardless of his wishes, the Zhentarim had picked a fight, and the fact that they were willing to employ orc, gnoll, and ogre mercenaries spoke volumes about the sort of realm they would raise over northern Cormanthor if he avoided battle.

  “Very well,” Seiveril answered. “Drive them off, but be wary of ambushes, Edraele.”

  Edraele did not wait an instant longer. She plucked the standard from her bearer’s stirrup-rest and waved the banner in a fluttering circle.

  “Silver Guards, follow me!” she cried, and she dashed off into t
he dusk. All around, the Silver Guards spurred their own mounts after her, thundering away across the fields.

  Seiveril looked at Adresin, the sun elf knight who commanded his personal guard, and said, “Let’s follow after them. I want to see what we’re up against.”

  Adresin winced. “Lord Seiveril, I can’t risk losing you to a chance arrow in a simple skirmish—” he began, but Seiveril decided to make it easy on the poor fellow. He simply spurred his own horse after the Silver Guard, making sure to leave a good space so that no one could accuse him of riding right into the fray on their heels.

  He felt Starbrow close up beside him, and looked over to see the moon elf champion grinning broadly. “That was not fair, Seiveril,” he called over the drumming of the hooves. “He is only doing his duty!”

  “I’ll be careful,” Seiveril promised.

  He slowed his pace a little, and allowed Adresin and his bodyguards to close up around him. To the young knight’s credit, he did not bother to argue the point any longer. He simply slammed the half-visor of his bright helmet closed, and stayed close to Seiveril.

  They passed through a broken line of wind-stunted poplars and scrub, then emerged into a broad field. The Silver Guard galloped away, lances lowered, charging at a ragged line of human riders dressed in surcoats of black and yellow. The numbers seemed equal, or close to it, and the Zhentilar did not waver. They couched their own spears and turned to meet the elf riders who flashed over the field toward them. For one terrible moment they thundered toward each other in the bright field, stained crimson by the setting sun, and the skirmish lines met with shrill ring of steel and the terrified whinnying of wounded horses. Riders in black and yellow fell, but so too did elves in silver and white, and the charge disintegrated into a furious, swirling, spurred melee as any kind of battle order failed.