Forsaken House

CHAPTER 15

7 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms

The ruined city of Myth Glaurach seemed empty indeed, without the fey'ri legion encamped among its broken walls and shattered domes. Sarya Dlardrageth prowled the palace she had claimed as her own, restlessly stalking the halls where less than a month before she had held her council of war with the leaders of the fey'ri Houses.

For the past five days her army had retreated north through the desolate vales leading away from Evereska. The vengeance she intended for Evereska would have to wait until she replaced her losses from the failed assault on the Sunset Gate. Of course, she had no shortage of demons and yugoloths. Given a tenday or two to summon more, she might even be able to field an army stronger than that with which she had initially attacked, whereas the Evereskans had no such source of replacements available.

Time, she thought. After five thousand years of imprisonment, now I have so little of it.

She looked up at her son Xhalph, who stood watching her, and said, "I don't like the idea of leaving my army without supervision, and I must return soon. So, quickly, how are you faring in the High Forest? Be honest."

Xhalph bared his fangs and folded his four arms in a double row.

"I have driven the wood elves to the foot of the Lost Peaks," he said. "I destroyed a dozen of their villages and slaughtered hundreds in each place, but they have finally assembled in strength in the mountains. Now that they have been driven together, I am gathering my wolves into one pack. We will fall on them soon."

"Have you seen any soldiers from Evermeet?"

"No, but there is an expedition from Silverymoon on its way to reinforce the wood elves: humans, dwarves, and paleblooded race traitors, a little more than a thousand strong."

"Breden Yesve's warband was supposed to keep Silverymoon out of the High Forest," Sarya said. "Did he just allow the palebloods to march right by him?"

"The Silvaeren marched south from Everlund and passed west of Yesve," Xhalph replied. "He had to march far and fast to meet the humans when they left the Yartar road, and all he has been able to do is harry their advance. Since he could not stop them, I recalled his warband to add it to my own forces."

"That is sound. I approve," Sarya said. She thought over the suggestion, her slender tail slithering anxiously from side to side. "Evereska has proven harder than I had thought. A strong expedition from Evermeet has reinforced the LastHome. We were checked in our first attempt to enter the Vine Vale."

"Abandon the orcs and giants," Xhalph rumbled. "Evereska can be taken with an aerial assault while the palebloods* army sits in the mountains. You can sack the city without even engaging them."

Sarya looked over her shoulder at her towering son, and cocked an eyebrow. Xhalph had little use for stratagems of maneuver, but from time to time he surprised her-which did not mean that he was right.

"We lack the numbers to take the city with fey'ri alone," she said.

"Each of our fey'ri is a formidable opponent, Mother. Elf for elf, our warriors are better fighters than the palebloods."

"I have studied Evereska's defenses exhaustively through the telthukiilir, Xhalph. The forces that guard the city outnumber our fey'ri legion, and include many mages and clerics. And you discount the mythal," Sarya said as she paced back and forth. "It may be that we could take the city, but we would suffer dreadful losses. More demons can be summoned, more orcs and giants bribed or threatened to march in our forces, but my fey'ri are irreplaceable, and they would be the ones who die in an aerial attack. Your suggestion would also leave our enemy's true strength, the army at the Sentinel pass, untouched. We would not keep the city for long."

"Do we need to?" Xhalph growled.

Sarya glared at him.

"Yes", she hissed. "It means nothing to win a battle if ultimately it will cost us the war. When I take Evereska, I mean to keep it. Our enemies destroyed our homeland, leaving us an army without a realm. We will not long survive in this new age if we remain such."

"Should I abandon my attack on the wood elves and bring my warriors to join you at Evereska?"

"No. I need to draw out their army and expose it. You must press your attack on the wood elves with all your strength and ferocity. Meanwhile, I will retreat from Evereska's gates, and feign a disordered withdrawal while I rebuild our numbers. The palebloods will be tempted to pursue. After all, they will want to make sure that my army is truly defeated, and does not make its way to the High Forest to finish the destruction of the wood elves. But I will lay a trap for them"

Xhalph grinned and said, "Turning an enemy's hopes to disaster is the essence of strategy. But what if the Evereskans do not give chase?"

"Then I will in fact bring the entire fey'ri legion to the High Forest, and we will make a smoking hell of the mongrel elves' homeland. After which, we will add your soldiers to mine, and return to Evereska to finish what we started. Now go, and redouble your efforts against the wood elves. I have some special preparations to make."

Xhalph bowed and said, "I will make you a throne of Eaerlanni skulls, Mother."

He stepped back and teleported away, vanishing in an orange cloud of brimstone.

"You'll have to catch them first," Sarya said after him.

She took one more look from the portico and stepped inside the hall. The city was not completely empty. A hundred or so fey'ri remained behind to garrison the place and guard the treasures Sarya had brought to the city, and bands of orcs and trolls encircled the hilltop with their squalid camps, making ready to march on the High Forest and join the fighting there.

She abandoned the ruined splendor of the grand mage's hall, and descended into the secret delvings beneath the hill, passing through the steep tunnels and great caverns, taking wing when it suited her. She disliked so much stone over her head-how could she not, after so many centuries of living entombment? — but she was not so weak-willed that she allowed herself to avoid going where she must.

Powerful magic wards defended the hidden depths of her buried citadel, defenses that not even the fey'ri were permitted to pass. With long familiarity she made the signs and spoke the passwords, finally spiraling down through a great vertical shaft to a mighty chamber far below.

A great boulder of pale pink stone lay at the bottom of the shaft, hundreds of feet below the Grand Mage's Hall above. A beard of green moss clung to the rock, staining its glossy surface. To anyone with arcane sight the stone virtually pulsed with power. It was an artifact of pure magic, the keystone of the great mythal of magic that had once shielded Myth Glaurach, and while the city above had long since fallen into ruin, the mighty enchantments laid into the stone over decades of work still endured. Once the stone had rested in the grand mage's garden, near the center of the city above, but Sarya guessed that during Myth Glaurach's final days it had been moved to the buried pit in order to protect it from the attackers, in hopes that someday the folk of Eaerlann might return and wake its slumbering power to rebuild their realm. That had never happened; she had found it instead.

"Welcome, Sarya." A deep, melodious voice filled the chamber, speaking from the air itself. "How goes your war against Evereska?"

"Our first attack has been repulsed," Sarya said. She suspected that the unseen speaker knew perfectly well how matters stood. "Evermeet reinforced the city with much greater strength than I expected. I need more demons and yugoloths to destroy this foe. Many more."

"You have summoned a great number in the last few days."

"I have no other choice. I need soldiers-powerful soldiers."

"You will have to sustain them in your world with the mythal's power, as before."

"That takes time," Sarya growled. "I need a great army of mighty fiends, enough to scour all this land of my ancient enemies. Is there nothing more you can do to help me?"

"You could empty the nether planes to fill your ranks, Sarya, if you could reweave this mythal in the proper way. Without the proper high magic rites you cannot alter the basic purposes for which the mythal was raised over Myth Glaurach."

"I know," Sarya snapped. "You have told me many times, Malkizid. Unfortunately, only one of my line ever mastered high magic, and his knowledge is not available to me-though I may soon be able to remedy that shortcoming."

"You have found Saelethil's arcana?" the voice said, surprised.

"Not yet, though I am closer than I have ever been. Nurthel is seeking the third of Ithraides's telkiira even as we speak." Sarya caressed the mythal stone, feeling its magic stir beneath her fingertips, and continued, "Deciphering the telkiira may be the work of tendays or months, and my army requires reinforcement now."

"I eagerly anticipate your success."

"So do I."

Sarya bared her teeth in a fierce smile. Then she drew a deep breath, gathering her strength for the ordeal ahead. She had prepared her spells for the day with that task in mind, and so dozens of powerful conjurations filled her mind, a jumble of arcane symbols and words of binding that she could scarcely hold. By herself, she could call up another dozen or fifteen demons with her spells, and that would be useful, of course, but by drawing on the power of the mythal she would be able to re-use her spells over and over, and fix the demons she summoned to her plane by the power of the ancient device. All it took was time and her own personal attention. She raised her hands and called the first of the demons.

The fey'ri stripped Araevin and his companions of their weapons and armor, binding them securely with shackles of enchanted steel. Then the captain of the fey'ri, the one-eyed sorcerer in the armor of golden scales, drew a scroll from a case at his belt and read out a spell quickly and surely, the arcane words falling from his tongue with a sibilant hiss. In the cold damp of Grimlight's lair, a shining gold hoop appeared on the wet stone floor.

Exactly like the one we saw them use in Tower Reilloch, Araevin realized.

He was not given much time to wonder about the destination. The fey'ri soldiers dragged him to his feet and marched him to the circle, their taloned hands firmly gripping his arms.

A faint golden aura rose around Araevin and his escorts, and his stomach dropped away from him in the disconcerting way it often did during teleportation. Then he was somewhere else, a great, dark hall with a floor of smooth black marble and walls of glittering rock. Globes of crimson mage-light drifted aimlessly high overhead, illuminating a sheer rift at one end of the room, from which a breath of stale, cold air sighed.

"Where are we?" Araevin asked. "Who are you, and what do you want with us?"

The sorcerer-captain studied him with his single green eye, and deliberately stepped forward and slapped Araevin with all his might. The blow snapped Araevin's head back and set bright white stars reeling in his vision. His knees buckled and he would have fallen, but the fey'ri swordsmen beside him held him upright.

"You will address me with respect," the sorcerer stated. "I am Lord Nurthel Floshin. You need know nothing else for now."

Araevin sensed magic at work as the teleportation hoop functioned again, and Ilsevele was dragged through by more of the fey'ri. He managed to catch her eye and he shook his head subtly, encouraging her to remain silent. In a few moments the rest of their captors had joined them, the last demons dragging the coin-filled chests the behir had hoarded. Araevin took the opportunity to study the room as best he could. It was deep underground, that much was clear. The very air seemed to glimmer with a strange quality-a powerful, pervasive magic, harnessed to the place.

We're inside a mythal of some kind, he realized. Where do mythals still stand?

Araevin's guards stirred, and he was jerked around to face a hallway behind him. Light footfalls sounded beyond the archway, and a daemonfey woman appeared.

Short and girlish in appearance, she was strikingly beautiful in spite of her clearly demonic heritage-her scarlet skin, slender tail, and long, leathery wings gave that much away. She wore black robes with a scalloped, stiff cut, finished with elaborate gold embroidery. Her eyes glowed with green malice as she circled Araevin and his comrades, studying them.

"I am weary, Nurthel," she said. "Is this who I think it is?"

"Yes, my queen. I brought them directly to you," the fey'ri captain said.

"Kneel, paleblood dog!" growled one of Araevin's guards. The elf mage was shoved to his knees, as were his companions. "Grovel before your queen!"

"Go to hell," Maresa snapped, but she was quickly hammered to the ground by three or four cruel kicks and blows.

"Well done, Nurthel," the woman said. She gazed at each of them before fixing her emerald eyes on Araevin. "I am Sarya Dlardrageth, and you will be my guests for a short time. The comforts of your visit are largely up to you. Now, who are you?"

Araevin briefly considered a sullen silence, but given the way Maresa had been mishandled, it seemed likely that the daemonfey would eventually compel him to speak. He decided to save his resistance for something that mattered.

"Araevin Teshurr," he said, his jaw still aching from Nurthel's open-handed slap.

"And your companions?"

"So you are the Dlardrageths," Araevin said. "You have survived all the long centuries since Siluvanede's fall… and no one knew. Where are we?"

Sarya snorted softly and said, "You forget who is asking the questions." She glanced at Nurthel. "Has he opened the third stone?"

Nurthel shook his head, then he produced the telkiira from a hidden pocket and carried it to Sarya's divan. "Good," said Sarya.

Sarya examined the gemstone closely, turning away from her captives.

Over her shoulder, she said, "Since you have not told me who your companions are, Araevin, choose one of them to die-the human dog or the planar mongrel, I don't care. If you don't pick, I'll kill them both."

"Wait!" cried Araevin. He indicated them with a nod of his head. "He is Grayth Holmfast, a cleric of Lathander. She is Maresa Rost. And this is Ilsevele Miritar." He drew a deep breath, and fixed his eyes on Sarya's back. "You've won. You have your damned telkiira. The others had no part in this affair. I asked them to join me in recovering the stones. Let them go, and you can do as you will with me."

Sarya laughed aloud-a husky, predatory sound-and said, "Why, Araevin, I believe I will do with you as I please, regardless. You have little to bargain with."

"They'll most likely kill us anyway, Araevin," Grayth growled. "There isn't much point in trying to spare us any trouble."

"I thought I heard a dog barking," Sarya remarked.

Nurthel turned at once and snapped a vicious circle kick to Grayth's chin, smashing the cleric to the floor. Grayth groaned once and lay still, knocked senseless by the blow.

In spite of his determination to endure whatever petty malice the daemonfey chose to inflict, Araevin surged to his feet before the demons behind him caught his shackled arms and hurled him back down to the cold, marble floor.

"Get on with it, then!" he snarled, spitting blood from his mouth. "Whatever you're going to do, do it."

"Ready to die already?" Sarya laughed.

Araevin simply glared at her. The daemonfey queen arose and paced near. She leaned down close to him, and held the green-black gemstone before his face.

"Don't you want to find out what is in this third stone," Sarya teased, "and puzzle out the little mystery Philaerin left for you, the old fool?"

Araevin glanced up, despite himself. Sarya smiled and drew away, her sharp nails gliding across his cheek.

Araevin forced himself to say, "If Philaerin had lived, you never would have found any of the telkiira!*

"That is not entirely true, paleblood. The second and third stones we never would have found without your help. But the first stone… that one belongs to me. I took it from Kaeledhin more than five thousand year ago, and I gave it to Nurthel to conceal on Philaerin's body once he'd killed the high mage. I knew that some enterprising young fool just like you would find it and seek out its sisters."

Araevin looked at her blankly. He couldn't make sense of it. The daemonfey had the stone, and hid it in the stronghold of their enemies? Were the telkiira some form of insidious trap? Had the daemonfey manufactured them to destroy Philaerin? It explained how the daemonfey found him so quickly with their scrying spells and anticipated his efforts to find the stones. In fact, they had likely prepared the telkiira with enchantments that would make its bearer easier to find. He felt sick.

"You spied on me, waiting for me to find each stone. They are sealed against you."

Sarya paced away again, pausing to study Ilsevele before nodding in approval.

"A fine-looking girl," said Sarya, looking at Ilsevele. "I should give you to my son. We need more Dlardrageths." Ilsevele's face paled, but she refused to look away from Sarya until the daemonfey turned back to Araevin. "Yes, they are sealed against us. You can open the telkiira, but we cannot. Before my imprisonment, I spent years trying to open Kaeledhin's key with no success."

Araevin shook his head, horrified. All his efforts since the raid on Tower Reilloch had played directly into the hands of the daemonfey queen.

Ilsevele drew herself up and looked Sarya in the eye.

"What are the stones for?" she demanded. "Why are they important?"

"We were betrayed9, Sarya hissed. "The telkiira are the key to redressing many wrongs. My family was destroyed by the Coronal of Arcorar and his High Spell — star, Ithraides. Only a few of us escaped from Arcorar.

"Of all the heirlooms we abandoned in Arcorar, the greatest was the selukiira known as the Nightstar. High mages of my House preserved many of the old secrets of glorious Aryvandaar in its depths. After the Coronal of Arcorar destroyed my family, Ithraides discovered our selukiira in the ruins of our palace. He hid it away very carefully to make sure it would never fall into our hands again, but he recorded the hiding spot in these three telkiira you have helped us find.

"During the days of my exile in Siluvanede, I searched assiduously for the Nightstar. With the secrets of the selukiira, I could remake Siluvanede in the image of glorious Aryvandaar, and take the throne denied my House for generations. I found Kaeledhin, and from him I extracted the tale of what Ithraides had done with my family's heirloom. But I could not defeat Ithraides' wards guarding the telkiira, and so I could not follow it to its fellows or discern the hiding place of the Nightstar."

"Siluvanede fell almost five thousand years ago," Ilsevele said. She tossed her head and studied Sarya with determination. "Why wait for so long?"

"Because my enemies buried my son and I in a forgotten tomb, and claimed that they were showing us mercy!" Sarya whirled away from Ilsevele and stalked over to Araevin again. She stooped and cupped his face in her hand. Her iron-hard nails dug into his flesh. "And that is where you come in, my paleblooded friend. We cannot use these telkiira, since they were made to deny us access. You, on the other hand, can read these stones and tell us where our heirloom lies."

"I will not help you," he rasped.

"I have waited five thousand years to come into my inheritance," Sarya said. "I am not about to be balked by any inconvenient stubbornness on your part, paleblood." She gripped his face until blood ran from the points of her fingernails. She leaned close to whisper in his ear, "You understand what I am capable of, I think. I will not harm you, not at first. But the things that will happen to your companions, they will be hard to watch. When shall we begin?"

"Once I do as you ask, all our lives are forfeit. Now or later, what is the difference?" Araevin quivered with terror, but he kept his voice even and level. "If you let the others go, I will do as you ask. But I must know that they are safe before I cooperate."

"As you wish," Sarya said. "I would love to explore the question of how much pain you could stand to inflict on your comrades. But it might take a little time to persuade you to cooperate, and I am out of patience."

She wove her hands in arcane passes, and began to speak the words of a spell. Araevin recognized it at once and steeled his will to resist. Sarya's spell settled over his mind, seeking to shackle his will to hers. Shadowy fingers seemed to creep into his soul, insidious as serpents, their merest touch enough to render him cold and numb. He bared his teeth in a fierce snarl and battled against the enchantment, refusing to buckle beneath the daemonfey queen's sorcery.

"Your will is strong. I should have expected that," Sarya observed. She glanced at Nurthel. "Kill the human dog."

The fey'ri lord drew a dagger of black iron at his belt and strode over to Grayth. He knelt behind the Lathanderite and seized the semiconscious cleric by his hair. Araevin watched in horror, still battling against Sarya's spell, as the fey'ri fixed his remaining eye on Araevin's face and buried the knife in Grayth's throat. Bright blood poured from the wound. Grayth's eyes opened wide, and an awful gagging sound came from his mouth as blood drowned him.

"Grayth! " cried Ilsevele.

She wrenched herself free of the fey'ri gripping her shoulders and surged to her feet, only to be knocked down again. Maresa swore a vile oath and struggled as well, her hair streaming with her fury.

Grayth's feet clattered against the stone, and he shook, as if trying to free his bound hands. Then his eyes drooped, and he sank down to the cold marble, face down in the spreading pool of crimson. Nurthel jerked out the dagger, and held its bloody edge in front of him.

"I've soiled my blade with a dog's blood," he complained. Til never get the stink off it now."

Twenty years and more he has been my friend, Araevin thought. This is the end he comes to for leaving his temple and helping me.

He thought of the sons Grayth had mentioned, and wondered how he could ever apologize to them for their father's death. And that moment of black despair was all that Sarya's spell required. As swiftly and surely as the fey'ri had clapped him in irons, the deadly shackles of the sorceress's will enchained his mind.

"That's better," Sarya said pleasantly. She looked to the demons behind Araevin. "Unbind him, let him stand. He is under my dominion."

The vrocks clacked and hissed behind Araevin, but they undid his fetters. He found himself on his feet, without knowing exactly how he had stood.

"We could play some very entertaining games," Sarya said. "I could command you to do terrible things to your companions… or to yourself. However, I must indulge myself another day."

Araevin stood motionless, unable to move his limbs. His thoughts were unimpaired-he reviewed spell after spell that he could hurl to blast Sarya and her minions or free Ilsevele and Maresa-but he could not join them to any action. Sarya took the third telkiira and placed it in his hand.

"Decipher this stone, as you did the others," she commanded.

He held the telkiira up to his eye, helpless to do otherwise, and sent his mind into its dark depths, seeking out its secrets. As before, he spied a fearsome glyph in the gemstone's facets, barring any deeper approach as surely as a rampart defended a castle. But he still remembered the name of the sigil from the vision he invoked in his workroom in Tower Reilloch, when he'd investigated the second stone.

"Larthanos," he whispered, and the telkiira opened to him.

Information poured into his mind: glimpses of distant memories, arcane formulae, dazzling vistas of elven cities long fallen and swallowed by forest. Again he saw the scene of the moon elf Ithraides giving his three telkiira to his younger colleagues, and the image of the sun elf with the bright green eyes and the cruel smile, who contemplated a thumb-sized crystal of purple, its surface covered with intricate runes. Saelethil Dlardrageth, the Dlardrageth high mage, and the Nightstar, the telkiira's frozen memories told him. Then Araevin's vision whirled and shifted, as arcane formulae and complex patterns flashed before his eyes, the record of spell after spell contained in the telkiira.

He recognized several of the spells, as he had before-a spell for seeking out hidden things, a spell to reflect an enemy's spell back at him or her, a spell that would transfer one to a different plane of existence. And he viewed the mysterious spell, the one left incomplete in the first two gemstones. In his mind's eye he saw the three parts of it merge, the missing symbols arranging themselves, organizing into a pattern he could decipher and recognize. It was unique, he could see that at once. It could only be cast in one place, for one result.

It was the spell that would pass Ithraides' wards.

Araevin blinked, starting to lower the gemstone, but then his vision blurred again and a quick, final vision imposed itself on his sight. He glimpsed a spherical chamber of perfect white stone, in which the Nightstar hovered. Then he saw a mist-filled hall of silver pillars, and an old elven tower half buried by the forest. He sensed the tower, as if he followed the path of a lighthouse's searching beam across dark and unseen waters to a distant goal.

It still exists, he knew. And I know where it is.

"Well?'' demanded Sarya, calling him back to awareness.

"Tell me what you have seen! Do you know where the Night-star lies? Can you find it?"

"Yes," Araevin said. "It is buried in a stronghold in Cormanthor. I can show you where it lies, but you will be unable to approach it. Powerful wards will bar your entry."

Sarya's face grew dark, and she whirled away, frowning. Araevin watched her fuming, wondering if she would slay him out of hand or perhaps indulge herself by murdering Maresa or Ilsevele first. But then Sarya halted, her eyes thoughtful. She turned back to him slowly.

"What about you?" she asked. "Could you reach it?" "Saelethil's High Loregem will destroy anyone not of your House who touches it. It would burn out my mind and take possession of my body in order to have itself carried to a suitable wielder, one of House Dlardrageth."

"But you could reach it and bring it out to us?" Sarya asked, her eyes avid and hungry.

Araevin felt himself nodding, and was appalled.

The Lost Peaks were aptly named. So dense was the forest cover on their lower slopes that the soldiers marching under Silverymoon's banner could not see the mountain-tops towering over them as they ascended the steep river valleys climbing up into the peaks. Every now and then a break in the trees permitted a glimpse of green, mist-wreathed mountains high overhead. The trail from time to time skirted a great mossy wall of stone or traversed a jumble of boulders and rubble that had slid down through the trees from the unseen slopes above. Even elves could not march swiftly over such rugged terrain.

Methrammar led his horse a few steps from the trail to let his soldiers continue past. Dressed in his armor of mithral mail and forest-green cloak, he resembled an elf warlord of old. He waited for Gaerradh and Sheeril to follow him off the trail.

"How much farther is Daelyth's Dagger?" he asked her.

"Seven miles. If we push hard, we can reach it tonight." "Will your folk be there?"

"I can't be certain, but I think it's likely," Gaerradh replied. "It's a deep dell, with old fortifications overlooking the valley floor. There's a narrow trail alongside a swift stream winding between two huge shoulders of rock, so that any foe pursuing you must come single file along a treacherous path. It won't discourage the fey'ri, of course, but they'll have to leave their orc allies outside."

"Is there any exit?"

"There is a hard trail at the top of the dell that climbs steeply up the valley head, leading to the higher slopes of the mountains. And there is a secret way through the caverns in the valley walls, leading to the neighboring valleys."

Gaerradh watched the soldiers march past, while Sheeril pranced anxiously about. The wolf was uncomfortable with so many humans and dwarves in her forest.

"If there is any place to stand against an attack," Gaerradh finished, "that is it."

Methrammar studied the sheer cliffs rising above them on their right, and the rugged slope falling away from the trail.

"This will be hard ground to fight on," he said. "Mounted troops will be useless, but the dwarves will like it well enough."

"Lord Methrammar!" A half-elf officer approached, walking back against the direction of the march, calling, "There is a party of wood elves here to speak with you, my lord."

"Bring them," Methrammar called back.

He and Gaerradh waited a few minutes and the officer returned, leading a small band of wood elf archers who trotted along the trail, mixing with their moon elf cousins from Silverymoon or slapping human soldiers on the back, grinning and laughing.

Gaerradh recognized several and raised her hand, calling out a greeting of her own: "Well met, Silverbow! Fomoyn! It is good to see you!"

Among the archers, she saw Morgwais, the Lady of the Wood, who wore the green leather of a wood elf ranger. Sheeril bounded up to Morgwais with a happy yip, tail wagging like a pup.

"Well met, Gaerradh-and Sheeril," Morgwais said. She ruffled the thick white fur of the wolfs neck, one of the very few people who could try that without losing a hand. "I see you have brought us help from Silverymoon."

"Lady Morgwais," said Gaerradh. She gestured to the Marshal at her side. "This is Methrammar Aerasume, the commander of Silverymoon's army."

"Thank you for your help, Lord Methrammar," Morgwais said. "There are no words to express our gratitude. We need all the swords and bows we can muster."

"I only wish we could have brought more soldiers to aid you," the high marshal replied. He bowed deeply to Morgwais. "Unfortunately, these daemonfey and their orc minions threaten Everlund and the towns of the Rauvin Vale as well as the High Forest. We had to leave a strong force behind to guard our homeland in case they turned north."

"Where are the fey'ri now?" Gaerradh asked.

"Mustering at the Rivenrock, about twenty miles south of here. We've gathered the warriors of a dozen villages at Daelyth's Dagger. We've already fought off one assault, which is why they're drawing together now. They hope to overwhelm us at a place where we have decided to stand." The Lady of the Wood looked over the Silvaeren company and said, "Lord Methrammar, I know your troops must be weary after such a long march and a bitter fight, but you must join us at Daelyth's Dagger as soon as you can. The daemonfey will certainly try to cut you off and keep you from reinforcing us, and if their whole army came upon you here, it would go poorly for you."

Methrammar nodded and said, "We will do as you ask, my lady. The swords of Silverymoon are at your service."