Even so, with Magekind distracted by having to deal with the Trolls, lethal blasts and bolts of the dark Wizards fell among the allies and took a grim toll. Swiftly, Alamar and his Elementalists and Sorcerers again took the fight to the battlements above, hurling lightning and fire or exploding the stone of the shielding crenels.
As the Trolls fled from the ranks of Elves and Mages and ran among the Spawn and away, and as Ghuls afoot fell down, killed by silver-headed arrows, the nerve of the Rucks and Hloks broke, and they bolted away screaming, most back through the broken gate in the outer wall and across the killing grounds and around the far side of the bastion, though some scrambled into the fortress itself.
Even as the Spawn fled back through the allied ranks, Elven swords rived and spears stabbed and Bair’s mace crushed many who sought escape.
As the last of the foe fled down the slope, arrows felling many as they ran, Gildor wiped Bale’s length clean of Rupt ichor and sheathed the blade again, and the Elves stood ready, though the foe was now gone. But still the Mage-versus-Black-Mage fight went on, as water battled flame, and dark, whirling winds came roaring out of the mountains to be met by howling air twisting counter; hailstones and sleet hammered down from the skies amid lightning and thunder and upheavals of land and exploding stone. Mages were slain, and Elvenkind fell, and Black Mages died in spite of their glut of ‹fire›, for there simply were too many casters opposing them, Mages of greater skills.
And as the arcane battle raged, Healers moved among the wounded, and they snatched many back from the brink of death, but others they could not save.
Yet finally all of the occult resistance from the battlements ceased, as the last of the dark Wizards fell.
Now the Elven army charged the fortress, the gates yawning open before them.
But the Foul Folk were fled out the rear postern and away, and the Elves came into an abandoned stronghold, but for a few quailing Rupt, and these were quickly dispatched.
When a count of the dead was taken, nearly a thousand Spawn had been slain, fully half by arrows on the battleground, most of the rest by allied steel.
Yet four hundred ninety-eight of Elvenkind had fallen, some to the Trolls, some to Rucks and Hloks, but most to the dark Wizards’ castings. And on Adonar and Mithgar and even among those on Neddra, Elves grieved, for they had received the death redes of those whose lives had been quenched. . death redes, a unique Elven gift, both a curse and a blessing of Elvenkind, a final good-bye from a slain Elf that somehow winged to a loved one. Though the ways between the Planes were now restored, not even when they were sundered had they prevented such messages from reaching the intended. And for an Elf to die was particularly grievous, for no matter the count of a given Elf’s years, it was but a single step along an endless life.
Thirty-two of Magekind were also slain: no school had been spared. But Aylis and Alamar yet lived, much to Aravan’s relief.
Though they had been but twelve Black Mages, they had been devastating, given their glut of ‹fire›. Had there been more of them, the fight could well have gone the other way. Yet in the final tally only eleven slain dark Wizards were accounted for. The Necromancer with the black hair down to his hips was not among the bodies found.
8
DARK DESIGNS
WINTERDAY, 5E1010
[THE FINAL YEAR OF THE FIFTH ERA]
Through a long and low and narrow tunnel a Black Mage fled, dreadfully shaken by the unexpected attack upon the fortress. Until the moment the aethyric intruder-the disembodied spy-had been discovered, not one of the dark Wizards had known that an appalling force of Elves and Mages was on Neddra to assail the bastion; yet the dead Hlok the Necromancer had raised had told all. And although the Wizard could have used his occult arts to send slain Drik and Ghok and Oghi back into the fray, when the battle had begun and the Necromancer had seen the skills and force of the opposing Magekind and the prowess of the Elven army, the dark Wizard had known it would be hopeless. His fears had been borne out by the onslaught, and he quickly saw that nought could be done to keep the fortress from falling into the hands of the foe, and so he had fled in the confusion of battle. Yet just before the fight had begun, he had glimpsed the one who had slain his god, had seen the murderer in the fore of the Dolhs: Aravan, killer of Gyphon.
Aravan and his ilk had upset all of the Necromancer’s plans, not only by killing his god, thus ruining the Black Mage’s certainty of dominion over a significant part of Mithgar, but also on this very night had interrupted the conclave of Black Mages, where the Necromancer had fully expected to be elected the very first leader of the first Siniihi apo Th?theha-Covenant of Twelve-of dark Wizardkind.
Someday, someday, that Dolh would suffer vengeance; someday Aravan would meet his doom, or so again swore Nunde the Necromancer, even as he fled down the long escape tunnel, running for his very life.
9
BOSKYDELLS
WINTERDAY, 5E1010
[THE FINAL YEAR OF THE FIFTH ERA]
As the snow blew and a chill wind rattled the sides of the barn, with cold air drifting in through the cracks, Pipper ran up the long slant of the rope tied between the first stall and the hayloft above the far end. Binkton, not needing to look at the five balls he kept in the air, their graceful arcs crisscrossing and not colliding, watched as his cousin made the ascent.
“Well and good, Binkton,” said Uncle Arley. “Give them over and we’ll revisit your sleight-of-hand skills.”
Binkton waited until Pipper reached the top and alighted on the loft and turned and bowed to an imaginary audience below. Then, one after another, Binkton let fly the balls to Arley, the eld buccan gracefully catching each of the colored spheres and dropping them into the box at hand.
Pipper then slid down the length of the line and backflipped to the floor planks just ere reaching the end.
As Pipper stepped over to watch, Arley said, “ ’Tis claimed the hand is quicker than the eye, yet I say, not so. Instead, the art of successful legerdemain is twofold: distraction and a stealthy touch, like so.-Oops!” Arley dropped a fetter that fell with a clang, and both Binkton and his uncle bent down to pick it up. As the stripling rose with the irons in hand, Arley said, “Thank you, bucco,” and he took the shackles while at the same time giving over to Binkton the lad’s own belt.
Pipper laughed and clapped and said, “Nicely done, Uncle.”
Somewhat embarrassed, Binkton scowled as he rethreaded the belt through the loops on his breeks.
“Now, since there are two of you,” said the eld buccan, “the filcher can slip the taken object to the other, and, when accosted, the filcher can show he hasn’t got it.”
Arley then demonstrated how this was done, this time using Pipper as the dupe.
For the next candlemark or so, uncle and nephews practiced this form of trickery, until Arley seemed satisfied that they had got it right; then they moved on to other sleights of hand.