“Araevin, come on!” Maresa hissed.
He turned and ran after the genasi, while his companions joined him. Abandoning stealth for speed, they ran down the passageway until they reached the intersection, perhaps fifty yards past the plaza of the speaking stone. He took a quick glance at the lay of the Waymeet around him, and pointed to his right.
“That way,” he told his friends.
The third portal was already waking as they skidded to a halt in front of the alcove sheltering it. This time the mists forming in place of the blank doorway had an ugly, roiling red-orange hue to them.
“I don’t like the looks of that,” Jorin said quietly. “Is this the right doorway, Araevin?”
Araevin quickly examined the portal. He could feel the tug of the third shard, a constant pressure in his consciousness whenever he focused on it. There was no mistaking it. It was the right door.
Behind them, something gave voice to a shrill, furious scream. Araevin glanced around at the cry, searching the crystalline corridors for the pursuers that must be following by now.
“I think they’ve found my work at the speaking stone,” he said to his friends. “This way, quickly! And may the Seldarine protect us.”
He stepped into the angry portal and vanished.
The smoke of countless fires choked the Vale of Lost Voices.
Fflar couldn’t remember how any of the blazes began, really. Most likely it was a simple consequence of fire spells and lightning blasts hurled recklessly across the field after a long, hot summer. But even if the daemonfey and their infernal legions had set the grass of the vale alight through the pure accident of battle, the wildfires had become one more enemy for the Crusade to contend with. Walls of blinding smoke partitioned the battlefield into dozens of furious skirmishes, most of which were being decided outside Fflar’s sight or knowledge. The horses of the elven cavalry and the Sembian dragoons were growing so panicked and skittish that many riders had been forced to fight afoot. And Fflar had seen too many elves and humans who had perished horribly in hungry red flames, too badly wounded to escape.
He stumbled into a clear space in the fighting, and took a moment to wipe the hot, stinging sweat from his brow. His arms quivered with fatigue, and he was not as steady on his legs as he would have liked, but so far he had avoided any serious injuries. On the other hand, he had lost sight of the banner again. Fflar took a slow, careful look around his surroundings, trying to peer through the hot embers and billowing gray smoke that danced and streamed wildly in the hot breeze. “We might as well fight in a burning house,” he muttered to himself.
“Starbrow! Another war-golem!”
Fflar wheeled at the call. He fought alongside a small band of spellarchers for the moment. In the early afternoon Seiveril had sent him to the aid of the Deepingdalesfolk, hard-pressed on the far left of the fight. Fflar had killed several demons and yugoloths while aiding Theremen Ulath and his warriors, but it seemed to be taking the moon elf champion the whole of the rest of the day to fight his back across the vale.
“Aim for the legs!” he shouted. “Immobilize the thing!”
He didn’t know where the daemonfey had found scores of battle-constructs, but the ancient devices certainly hadn’t made the fight any easier. They were ponderous and slow, so heavily armored that it would take a siege engine to wreck one. And they crackled with electricity, hurling lightning across the battlefield with abandon. But he’d discovered that they could be brought to the ground much more easily than they could be destroyed, and once on the ground, sword blades and spear shafts jammed into their joints prevented them from rising again.
Of course, we’ll have to get around to dealing with all the immobilized ones sooner or later, he told himself. But for the time being, the war-golems were a threat best avoided. While warriors worked to bring down the daemonfey machines, demons and fey’ri were all too likely to launch sudden vicious attacks against the distracted elves and humans.
The archers near him whispered their spells and sent their enchanted arrows winging into the ancient iron war-golem. The thing simply continued ahead, insensitive to whatever damage the arrows caused. Metal groaned and creaked.
“Keep at it,” he told the spellarchers, but he kept a wary eye on the fuming smoke nearby.
There! A pair of black, slimy babau demons appeared in the smoke, silently rushing the archers while they concentrated their fire on the war-machine.
“Behind you!” Fflar called to them, and he raced over to intercept the monsters.
One archer spun and fired arrows blazing with holy white fire at the nearest of the demons. The silver shafts stuck quivering in the thing’s gaunt ribs, searingly bright. Demonflesh withered and smoked, and the thing shrieked in agony. Plucking at the arrows embedded in its body, it stumbled to the ground. Its companion sprang forward in one quick leap and gored the archer on its single curved horn, burying the point in the elf’s belly. It shook its head free of the dying spellarcher, fangs bared in the pleasure of the kill-and Fflar reached it. He ducked under one wild swing of its taloned hand and severed its leg at mid-thigh, and when the demon screeched and toppled over, he smashed Keryvian across its chest. The baneblade’s blue fire flashed and burned with cold, blinding light.
“Die, hellspawn!” the moon elf roared.
He wrenched his blade free of the smoking corpse. Behind him, the war-golem lurched to a halt and fell over, its legs pinioned by elf arrows buried in the knees and hips. Two of the elf warriors ran up with broken spear shafts and jammed them into the golem’s shoulder joints, immobilizing its arms as well.
“Well done!” Fflar called.
The smoke parted for a moment, and he glimpsed the twin banners of Seiveril Miritar and Miklos Selkirk flying a short distance away. Ranks of elf and human warriors waited there for the next demonic assault, a rampart of defiant steel against the setting sun. That had been the way of the battle all day long; islands of desperate soldiers gathered around the champions, bladesingers, battle-mages, wizards, or clerics who could stand against the hellspawned servants of Sarya Dlardrageth.
Not much daylight left, he decided. Against any other foe, the end of a day of hard fighting might have brought some small respite. The warring armies would break apart, withdraw to their respective camps, and gather their strength for the next day. But Sarya’s demons and battle-constructs were tireless, and they would allow the allied armies no rest. We’ll still be fighting when the sun comes up again… if we don’t break during the night.
“Rally to the banner!” he told the archers who followed him. “Pass the word along if you see anyone else.”
“We’re behind you, Starbrow,” one of the spellarchers answered. “Lead the way.”
With five of the archers at his back, Fflar made his way toward the two standards flying side by side, picking through the smoke and burning brush. Fey’ri and winged demons darted and swooped in the skies overhead, but not too low-they’d learned to be wary of elven bows, at least during daylight. When darkness fell, it would be a different story.
Not far from the small rise where the heart of the Crusade stood gathered, he found Ferryl Nimersyll and many of the Moon Knights of Sehanine Moonbow. Most were torn by demon claws or burned by sinister magic. But others carried fearsome wounds across their faces, flesh deeply scored in the same strange pattern over and over again. Ferryl himself had the same wound as his warriors, but the thin hole punched in his breastplate looked like a sword thrust to Fflar. Crumpled yugoloths and a few broken fey’ri completed the scene.
“By the Seldarine,” the first of the spellarchers said, her face white and sick. “The Moon Knights. They’re all dead.”