“Donnor, guard this!” he said, and handed the crystal quickly to the cleric. Donnor wrapped the incandescent crystal in a common blanket, and backed away.
Sarya’s defenses lay shredded before him. Without her wards to keep him from excising her from the mythal, he was free to do as he wished. Araevin drew a deep breath and shouted out the words of the mythaalniir darach, the rite of mythal-shaping. Distantly, he realized that a sudden skirmish had erupted around him-devils and fey’ri attacked Seiveril’s standard from all sides, emerging from the ruins to give battle. But he paid no attention to the furious fight growing around him, and plunged his percipience into the golden strands of the mythal.
One by one, he severed the sullen red strands that were twisted around the mythal’s original work. As he had done in Myth Glaurach, he imposed a new set of governances to lock out Sarya. And he detected a subtle weaving of tarnished silver-black, an older grafting on the mythal.
The devils of Myth Drannor, he realized. This is the spell that holds them here.
With another sharp incision of willpower, he severed that one as well. The mythal itself was old and frail, but he could not do much about that. It might recover in time, or it might founder and fail. But at least no one else would be able to pervert it from its original intent, not without defeating Araevin’s own locks first.
Suddenly exhausted, he slumped to his knees and let the mythal fade away from his sight. He realized that Donnor and Seiveril were close beside him, thumping his back in congratulations. “Sarya’s spells are defeated!” the elflord shouted. “We can take the city!”
“Dozens of fiends just vanished, Araevin!” Donnor said. “Was that your doing?”
“I’ve sealed the mythal against Sarya,” he said weakly. “Anything she summoned with its power has been dismissed. But be careful. I think there are a number of demons and devils in her service that aren’t anchored to the mythal. You’ll have to deal with them.”
“We have learned a thing or two about that in the last couple of months,” Seiveril answered him. He looked over to his guards and shouted, “Sound the attack! This day we retake Myth Drannor and destroy the daemonfey!”
Silver horns greeted the morning, and hundreds of elf voices shouted in reply. From somewhere in the woods to the east, harsher human trumpets echoed through the forest too, as the Sembians charged into the streets from the other side of the city. Seiveril squeezed Araevin’s shoulder with his gauntleted hand, and led his warriors into the ruins of the city.
Araevin found his feet again as the Crusade swept past him, storming Myth Drannor. He took a deep breath, feeling his strength beginning to come back to him.
“Now we need to find a portal,” he said to his friends. “We have to deal with the Waymeet.”
Fflar ran into Myth Drannor, Keryvian aflame in his hand. In one small part of his mind he wondered at the irony that had brought him to this moment. Other than skulking about the outskirts of the city with Araevin and Ilsevele a little more than a month ago, the last time he had set foot within the familiar streets had been almost seven hundred years ago. Then he had been fighting to defend it against a horde of savage humanoids. But now he led an attack to retake the city from the demonspawned villains who had made it their stronghold.
The Crusade swept into the city ruins, rushing past the empty stone skeletons of elven palaces and towers. Seiveril led the warriors of Evermeet deeper into the city, striking for the old towers of Castle Cormanthor.
“To victory!” the elflord cried, and he dashed across the rubble-strewn courts.
“What does he think he’s doing?” Fflar muttered to himself, and he ran after Seiveril.
A company of fey’ri appeared before them, snarling defiance. The daemonfey warriors unleashed a barrage of deadly spells and fuming fire, hurling every sorcery at their command against the elves. Sinister voices snarled out the words of dark spells, fire roared and hissed in lethal waves across the street, and the very cobblestones charred and splintered with earsplitting reports.
It seems Araevin didn’t unbind all of Sarya’s demons, Fflar observed grimly. Some at least she must have summoned without the mythal’s aid.
He threw himself flat on the hard ground, ducking under a sizzling bolt of green acid that tore through the ranks around him. When he scrambled back to his feet, he found a vrock demon stooping on him, croaking in its harsh voice. Fflar blocked its filthy talons with a quick parry, passed its claws above his head as he spun beneath the monster, and finished by opening it from groin to breastbone with a leaping slash. The creature collapsed in a spray of foul black blood and gray feathers.
“Seiveril!” he called. “Where are you?”
He turned, looking for a new opponent. Elf knights, archers, and mages battled daemonfey swordsmen and sorcerers in a furious melee that stretched across the square… but the army of Evermeet was gaining the upper hand, and quickly. He spied Seiveril dueling a tall fey’ri general with curling black horns, plying mace and spell against the daemonfey’s skilled swordplay. The swordsman fought with cold fury, stabbing again and again at the elflord, but Seiveril parried each stroke with his mace until he found a chance to step back and speak a spell. A blinding white flash seared the battlefield, leaving the swordsman reeling-and Seiveril stepped forward and broke his neck with one swift swing of his silver mace.
“Well struck,” Fflar cried. He hurried to Seiveril’s side. “Now stop fighting and start leading! You are in command here!”
Seiveril flashed an easy smile at Fflar. “I think we have them!” he shouted back. “On to Castle Cormanthor! That is where Sarya will be hiding!”
Fflar took his bearings with a quick glance and pointed toward the right. “Down that avenue, then. It’s only a couple of hundred yards away.”
“Warriors of Evermeet, follow me!” Seiveril shouted.
He shifted his grip on his mace and led the Knights of the Golden Star and his guards along the street. All around them, elves skirmished with fey’ri and monsters. Storms of arrows brought down anything that tried to take to the skies, and spells flashed and thundered on every side. They came to the broad plaza in front of the castle, where more of the fey’ri waited, and another furious skirmish erupted.
Fflar found himself beset by a fey’ri bladesinger who leaped down into the fray from the battlements overhead. Keryvian gleamed like white fire in the morning light, leaping to deflect the spells and sword-thrusts the bladesinger threw at him. She was quick and graceful, her ruby face set in a small smile of concentration as she flowed through the bladesinger’s trance. Fflar finally managed a two-handed stroke in response. His opponent threw up her own blade to block the strike-but he was stronger than she was, and he beat through her guard and broke her sword against her upper arm, gashing her deeply. She drew in a sharp hiss of pain and staggered back, only to be lost as the battle swept her away.
The roar of angry voices and shrill ringing of steel on steel filled the air. He took a moment to smother the smoking acid-drops still clinging to his armor with his leather gauntlet, and looked around to find Seiveril.
The elflord fought on the steps of the castle’s front gate. He raised his hand above his head and loosed a towering ring of holy white fire against the demons and fey’ri nearby, scattering half a dozen foes like ninepins. Then a hulking daemonfey, the four-armed monster Xhalph, appeared behind Seiveril in a burst of fuming yellow smoke.
“Seiveril! Behind you!” Fflar shouted.
Seiveril started to turn-but a hezrou demon a short distance in front of him caught his eye, and he began a spell of dismissal against it. Xhalph took one step forward and plunged three of his swords into Seiveril’s back, grinning with bloodlust. Seiveril let out a cry and fell to his knees. The daemonfey prince wrenched his swords out of Seiveril’s back with a great spray of bright red blood, and flung the broken elflord headlong down the steps of the castle.