Fflar found himself gazing to the rear of the mustering army, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ilsevele. Against her protests her father had assigned her to command the forces they were leaving behind. Too many soldiers were too badly wounded to keep with the Crusade and its allies, but if they were left behind without a strong guard, they would be easy prey for Sarya’s bloodthirsty demons.
She has the Tree of Souls to protect her, he told himself. She should be safe enough.
Seiveril rode up and joined Fflar at the head of the Crusade. He followed Fflar’s gaze to the warriors they were leaving behind and asked, “You are worried that the daemonfey will ignore us and fall on those we leave behind?”
“I don’t like to divide our forces,” Fflar answered. But there was no other way to draw the daemonfey into a stand-up fight, was there? He flicked his reins and turned back to face the mist-shrouded vale before the army. The fey’ri and their infernal minions were out there, likely preparing their own assault. “Is Selkirk ready on the right?”
“He just sent word that he is. What of Lord Ulath?”
“The Dalesfolk are ready on the left. And it seems that we’re ready here.”
Seiveril glanced up at the overcast sky. A few faint stars glimmered through the drifting mist. Then he set his helm on his head, and motioned to Felael Springleap. “Felael, pass the signaclass="underline" Forward, all!”
Horns rang out, flat and low in the damp night air. From thousands of throats, both elf and human, a roar of defiance shook the Vale of Lost Voices, and the ground trembled with their footsteps. Fflar tapped his heels to his chestnut’s flanks, and the horse snorted and broke into a prancing walk, eager to run. The smoke and mist drifted slowly across the battlefield, stirred by the faintest of breezes, and a fine cool drizzle fell, dampening the banners and warriors’ cloaks.
They covered close to half a mile with no sign of the daemonfey army, and Fflar found himself wondering whether Sarya had thought better of meeting them in the vale. But then Jerreda Starcloak and a pair of her wood elf scouts emerged from the gloom before the marching Crusade, and trotted up to Seiveril. “The daemonfey are waiting about five hundred yards on your right front, Seiveril!” she called. “They’re drawn up opposite your center. Demons and devils, just like yesterday. The fey’ri are there, but they haven’t taken to the air yet!”
“My thanks, Jerreda!” Seiveril replied. The elflord looked over to his guard captain. “Felael, signal Lord Selkirk to hold in place. We’ll wheel to the right and hit them straight on with our center.”
“Yes, Lord Miritar!” the young captain answered.
He turned and called out more commands, and horns blared again in the morning. Seiveril turned his horse a few points to the right, and the Crusade followed, wheeling easily in the new direction. Fflar heard more signals off to the left, where the Dalesfolk and the elves marching with them had to jog to keep the line dressed. Some would manage it, and some would not; that was a simple fact of trying to maneuver large bodies of warriors on a battlefield.
“There they are!” a sun elf near Fflar shouted.
Fflar stood in his stirrups to see better. In the gray gloom ahead, a dark line of fearsome shadows waited. The hate and supernatural menace from the daemonfey army was as tangible as a thunderclap. The demonic tide roiled and surged ahead, eager for blood, while the fey’ri warriors took to the sky. In the darkness before dawn they seemed like great black crows, inky silhouettes against the lightless sky. He could hear their wing beats even over the footfalls and rustling and creaking of the Crusade on the march.
Seiveril brandished his mace above his head. “This is our time!” he shouted to all within earshot. “The dawn is coming, my friends! Today we break the army of the daemonfey and send their minions back to the Hells from which they came! Now, forward, all! Attack!”
With a great ragged roar, the armies of the Dales, of Evermeet, and of Sembia threw themselves forward, racing over the cool wet grass. Fflar drew Keryvian and followed close by Seiveril.
“Archers, rake those hellspawn!” the elflord cried. “Clerics, ward the ranks! Mages, cast at will!”
Better than a thousand elves, and hundreds of Dalesfolk and Sembians, paused to loose their arrows at the monsters charging up to meet them. Many of the demons and devils among the Dlardrageth armies could not be harmed by mundane steel-but some could, and more than a few of the elf archers carried enchanted arrows. Monstrous shapes stumbled and fell beneath that terrible storm of arrows, but many more shrieked and hissed in defiance and leaped forward to meet the first ranks of the oncoming warriors. Huge bursts of fire and brilliant strokes of lightning crisscrossed the battlefield, banishing the night in flashes of white and sullen red.
The fey’ri arrowed past overhead, seeking to surround the army as they had before. Many shot arrows or threw darts as they passed over, while others contributed deadly spells of their own. Some of the daemonfey spells winked out or rebounded harmlessly, stopped by hasty spell-shields or countered by the Crusade’s own spellcasters, but more hammered the elven ranks. All around Fflar blasts of fire and deadly gouts of acid seared man and beast alike, sowing chaos across the battlefield.
“Seiveril!” Fflar shouted. “It’s time!”
The elflord had his eyes on the fey’ri. As they crossed overhead, he bared his teeth in defiance and raised one hand in the air. “Guardians of the Vale, I call on you!” he shouted. “Aid us against the fey’ri!”
For a moment, Fflar feared that somehow the spirits had not heard Seiveril in the chaos of the battle. Spells, arrows, and furious melees on all sides were all that he could see. But then, a golden light caught his eye. He glanced in that direction, and it seemed that a path of molten light had sprung up in the sky-but this dawn was breaking in the west, not the east. Out of the shining door a host of brilliant white warriors streamed forth. Hundreds of elf spirit-warriors appeared silently and ran to meet the wheeling fey’ri overhead, simply mounting into the air to grapple with their foes.
The fey’ri cried out in consternation and shifted their attacks to the Vale spirits. Fireballs and blasts of lightning scoured the celestial ranks. Some of the ghostly figures winked out, extinguished or driven off by fey’ri spells. But more of the spirits leaped up, attacking the daemonfey legions with swords of blazing light. Despite the battle raging around him, Fflar could not help but watch the spectacle in the sky above the furious clashing armies, and he was not the only one.
“Starbrow, look out!” Felael shouted. Fflar whirled around and found a nycaloth rushing up from behind him. The huge winged daemon leaped for him, claws hooked to tear out his throat, but Fflar spurred his horse and ducked under the scaly monster’s swing. He spun in the saddle and lashed out in a backhand slash that dug a long, shallow gash across the nycaloth’s shoulders. Holy fire blackened its flesh.
The nycaloth howled in agony. “You will pay threefold for that insult, elf!” it screeched.
It leaped into the air with one snap of its vast leathery wings, and dropped down on Fflar like the shadow of a mountain. But the moon elf took his baneblade in both hands and rose in the saddle to stab the point straight through the nycaloth’s black heart. The creature fell on him, one clawed hand clenching its talons in his shoulder, and its fanged maw gnashed only inches from his face. Fflar managed to duck under the worst of the monster’s weight and let the horse ride out from beneath. The nycaloth fell heavily to its side and moved no more.
Remember, you still have a battle to fight, he berated himself. The shining spirits of the vale won’t keep you from having your head torn off by one of Sarya’s demons.
“My thanks, Felael,” he said, but the guard captain was no longer in sight. The battle had carried him away.