* * * * *
Vell walked ahead of the other five, watching purple-clad soldiers, small as beetles, scramble on the city walls. Before long, several dozen archers amassed around the west gate. In all the chaos and confusion, they failed to notice a giant hawk sailing over the unguarded southern walls.
What was this like for the others? Vell wondered. Did they keep their minds the way he did, or were they now the rampaging beast he had been when he killed that Zhentarim skymage outside the camp? With no way to communicate with them, he could only hope they would follow his lead.
The city gates grew closer, and so did the archers defending them. Some of them lit their arrows ablaze, as if it would make a difference.
I've never been in a city before, Vell thought, though he had always been faintly curious about life inside them. Some of the merchants who had visited Grunwald when he was a child told him stories about these faraway places with mysterious names. As near as Silverymoon, or as far as Calimport, they were all the same to him—so far outside of his experience that Vell knew he would never come near them.
A few arrows flew from the top of the wall. The archers were firing too early and the missiles fell short, striking the road in the behemoths' path.
Vell thought, I never considered entering a city in this way.
* * * * *
The Mayor of Llorkh paced his residence, the Heart of Runlatha still held in his right hand. All of his ancient treasures, hanging on his walls or placed on pedestals, trembled with the vibrations shaking the city.
Ardeth appeared from her door on cue, as she always did. He did not need to summon her. She always seemed to know when to appear.
"I sense Sememmon behind this, Cyric take him," cursed Geildarr.
"Really?" asked Ardeth. "You think Sememmon sent these behemoths to destroy Llorkh?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," Geildarr thought aloud as he marched out onto his balcony. He could no longer see the behemoths; they were now close enough to the city walls that the angle hid them. In the town below, excitement spread as people dashed about in the early morning streets. "He probably made a deal with those ancients you discovered in the Star Mounts."
"But didn't you say he was determined to preserve Llorkh, so he could take it himself later on?" asked Ardeth.
"Yes! No!" Geildarr slammed his left fist down on his balcony rail. "Those damned Uthgardt are clearly involved somehow. The Thunderbeast tribe. Rouse Kiev. He needs to have a little chat with our friend the chieftain."
The rhythmic footfalls still sounded from outside the city walls, now so loud that Geildarr could feel them in his bones.
Ardeth nodded. "The Lord's Men will assail the behemoths with all they have. They'll stop them outside the gates, if they can. Perhaps we should join them... perhaps with our magic..."
"Some mages are down in the Merchant District, staying with a caravan from Darkhold. We'll see how they fare. If these behemoths should break through the walls, our magic will be needed to fight them here," said Geildarr. He shook his head in disbelief at the words he was speaking.
Ardeth reached out and clasped her small hand around Geildarr's right wrist. "What of the Heart of Runlatha?"
Geildarr looked down at it, its shimmering red energies radiating forth. "It is safe here. The Lord's Keep is warded and defended."
"This place may not be so safe after all," said Ardeth. "I can take it out of the city, deliver it to Zhentil Keep if you will it."
Geildarr peered into the artifact. He felt a hollowness in his breath, and he asked himself, Will all of Llorkh fall over this?
"Netherese magic," he marveled. "All those cities fell, all that civilization was lost. Yet this remains."
"Geildarr!" Ardeth protested. "Are you all right?"
The mayor looked down on her pale face, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
"What do we do?" Ardeth asked plaintively.
"We wait," answered Geildarr.
CHAPTER 20
The behemoths stepped over the ditch as if it were a scratch in the dirt. Each new thunderous step, with its hellish synchrony, kicked up clouds of soil, which the wind caught and blew into a brown haze. Clavel could feel each footfall, vibrating the stone walls all the way to the top where he stood.
Five or six dozen Lord's Men stood ready above the gate, their bows strung and arrows nocked. Without a bow of his own, Clavel stood behind the line of archers, facing outward, trying to stay out of the way, yet remain close to the action. He looked up and saw a murder of crows circling the wall, wings flapping. The birds settled into glides as they navigated the currents.
"Take aim!" the archers' commander shouted.
The crows were flying low. They were ready to pick the carrion, Clavel reasoned. Clever birds.
The archers took aim all along the line. Some hands trembled. The repetitive pounding of the behemoths' steps echoed up their spines, and they did not know if their arrows would even penetrate the behemoths' scales.
Then Clavel noticed something curious. At least two of the crows were holding objects in their feet. The items flashed as they reflected sunlight—they were made of glass. And they were directly over the archers. Clavel leaned his head back and saw another crow hovering right over him, a small glass flask in its feet.
"Get ready!" shouted the commander. The Lord's Men drew back their bowstrings.
Fear arising in his throat, Clavel tried to dive for cover, but there was none to be had. He fell on his belly and desperately tried to roll under the bowmen. He upset their feet and a few tumbled backward, landing on top of him. Two archers lost their balance entirely and fell off the wall with a scream of death.
All along the line of archers, Lord's Men turned their heads to look at the source of the commotion.
The crows released their flasks in unison.
"Fire!" the commander shouted, but not a single bowstring snapped in response. The flasks, which Clavel too late recognized as alchemist's fire, smashed on the archers and the wall. Leaping, roaring flames burst upward, crawling along the top of the wall and raining fire down each side. The Lord's Men closest to the impact let out cries of agony as their clothes erupted in fire, their bowstrings incinerating in their hands. Those farther from the blasts released their weapons and went running to help their fellows, slapping them in a vain attempt to put out the fires.
Clavel rose, a plume of orange flame leaping from his purple cloak, his screams unheard among the chorus of pain. He plunged off the wall, landing as a flaming wreck directly in the behemoths' unchallenged path.
* * * * *
Vell watched as flames decimated the mass of soldiers assembled on the wall. Blazing men tumbled to the ground like a fiery waterfall. He looked upward and saw the crows scattering away from the fires. He silently thanked Lanaal. Her plan had worked perfectly.
The behemoths behind him moved into a line, single file, as they approached the heavy wood gate into Llorkh. Vell stepped onto the flaming ruins of some fallen archers, barely feeling any pain as the blazes were extinguished under his vast feet.
Arrows flew down at them, but the missiles were few, and they bounced off thick behemoth hides or embedded, troubling the creatures little more than pinpricks.
Vell's mind reached out to his imprisoned fellows. He felt their excitement, felt them straining against their bondage even more strongly now that liberation seemed so close.
Shepherd, they seemed to say, give us our freedom!
Vell raised himself partly onto his hind legs and kicked the massive gates to the city, the last barrier between him and the behemoths, and the ancient wood groaned. He kicked again, and the whole gate shuddered. A crack raced to split the wood from the point of impact. With one more kick, the door splintered and fell apart.