Rhiannon did not blink, every instinct within her fighting against the awful possession, the complete surrender to a strength that might never let her go.
The lines on the bridges rolled back and forth, with each side gaining ground only to be hammered back to where they had started. A dozen men and a score of talons died each minute, and their blood mixed with the rainwater, washing from the sides and staining the great river itself in a garish crimson hue.
Arien still held his elven forces back. They had been assigned as the reserves of the army and would no doubt see more action than they cared to before all was finished. And with all that had gone on in the talon camp the past few days, the Eldar feared something else, a different line of attack. Surely this new general of Thalasi’s army was skilled enough to know that he would not so easily breach the defenses of the bridges.
When Arien’s daughter called out a short while later, the Eldar knew he had been wise to keep to the side.
“Boats on the river!” Sylvia yelled. A hundred craft, riding low under the weight of talon flesh, moved out from the western bank.
Arien put his archers to action and called for all the reserves that Benador could spare. The trip across the wide River Ne’er Ending would not be an easy one for Thalasi’s wicked minions.
But a moment later the Eldar found his attention turned back to the bridges, or more particularly, to the northernmost bridge. The ranks of Calvan defenders split apart suddenly, the brave men fleeing in horror.
The wraith and his legions of undead had made their appearance.
Only the Rangers of Avalon, spurred by the unflinching courage of Belexus Backavar, came onto the bridge to fill the breach.
Mitchell stayed back and let his zombie minions pass him by. They fell by the dozen to the flashing blades of the rangers, but they outnumbered the brave warriors of Avalon by more than five to one, and gradually the press of rotting flesh made its inevitable way toward the eastern exit of the bridge.
Belexus held out in their midst, whacking away arms and heads with each mighty stroke, and soon he no longer even flinched when he beheaded a creature only to see it reach back toward him with its filthy, bone-clawed hands.
And then many zombies focused on the single rider, and they lashed at Belexus’ horse, driving the thing down under their sheer weight.
Arien had to leave much of his force behind with Sylvia to contend with the closing line of boats, but the elves, with their deeper understanding of mortality and of experience beyond this life, did not fear the animated corpses as did the humans, and their charge caught the zombie horde at the eastern base of the northernmost bridge.
Arien spurred his stallion right through the zombie ranks, trampling the things to the stone in the singular path of his ride. He had seen Belexus fall and would not accept the death of the gallant ranger.
But Belexus was not finished. He found himself kneeling and then struggled against the press to his feet, brought his huge sword in a killing sweep that cut three of the monsters fully in half. Blood from a score of clawed wounds ran down the ranger’s arms and chest, but he lashed out with sword and fist, smashing the zombies away.
Still, their sheer numbers would have buried him where he stood. But then, for some reason he could not understand, the zombies moved away from him, walked past without showing any concern for him at all.
Arien, finally halted in his attempt to get to the ranger, was glad when he saw the sea of corpses flow away from a still standing Belexus, but the Eldar’s relief turned to dread when he, like the ranger, at last came to understand the meaning of the zombies’ sudden disinterest.
For near the center of the arching bridge now stood only two figures, Belexus of Avalon and Hollis Mitchell, the wraith whose mere thoughts guided the zombie army.
“I could not let them kill you,” Mitchell explained in his grating voice. “That task is for my pleasure alone!”
“Yer boasts are mere words,” Belexus retorted, steadying himself and taking full measure of this newest adversary. Brielle had warned him about facing the wraith again, but the ranger could not control the rage within himself, which demanded he avenge the death of his dearest friend and banish this perverted creature and its horrid minions from the world of the living.
“Come and see for yourself, fool.” Mitchell laughed at him, teasing him with an easy swing of the skull-headed scepter.
Belexus could not know the dark evil that was in that weapon. He clutched his great sword in both hands and worked his way in.
The zombie army continued its push along the eastern range of the bridges, disrupting the defensive lines wherever they went. And on the great river, the line of boats steadily approached, heedless of the shower of arrows. Whatever his desires at that moment, Arien Silverleaf had an army to command, and he could not go to the ranger’s side.
From the distant mountainside, Bryan surveyed the dismal scene. Only on the southern bridges, where King Benador and the Warders of the White Walls stood against mere talons, was the defense holding strong. On the northernmost bridge, and riding on a huge fleet on the river north of that, Thalasi’s army was clearly winning through. And if they continued to pour across, all the efforts of King Benador and his men would surely be to no avail.
If Bryan’s hopes were weakened when he took note of the course of the battle, they were blasted away altogether whenever he glanced at the unholy sphere of Morgan Thalasi. The evil warlock’s fury did not relent; the black bolts of energy ripped up into the sky with continued power.
Clearly, some new variable had to enter the battle and claim it back for the forces of good. Bryan turned to Rhiannon, trembling and appearing so frail in her rain-soaked gown.
How could he lend her strength?
The flow of the power drenched the Black Warlock in ecstasy. “Still more!” he demanded, stamping the heel of the Staff of Death on a new patch of ground. A renewed surge exploded upward, nearly blasting the mortal body of the Black Warlock apart. But Thalasi contained it, and bent it, throwing it out to Avalon and Pallendara.
It came in the fury of a single bolt over the enchanted forest. Brielle’s weakened shield of defensive magics stood to block it, and the resulting blast dissipated the bolt to a mountain of sparks.
But gone, too, was the shield, and the next lightning bolt that descended on the witch’s domain sundered a tree.
In seconds Avalon was burning.
It came in the fury of a wall of wind beside the White Tower of Istaahl, bending the structure far to the side. The civilian onlookers in Pallendara gasped in horror as Istaahl’s gigantic conjured arms clutched at the tower like an imperiled mother holding her infant.
But the stones split apart around the enchanted limbs.
The White Tower crumbled to the ground.
Chapter 27
The Fabric Torn
“BY THE COLONNAE!” Brielle gasped as the flames ate at her forest. Thalasi’s storm continued to flash and rumble, but that singular, massive bolt had taken the bite out of its thunderous bark as surely as it had shattered Brielle’s shield.
Brielle reached down inside herself, called to the earth power that fueled her magic. Hers was the first school of magic, the guardian school wherein the energies used her as their guiding hand to fight back against that which went against the natural order of the universe.
“Ye’ve pulled it too far,” the witch moaned when she at last contacted the fabric of her strength. Harmony was the norm for the universal powers, energy all working in accord toward the perfection of natural order. But Morgan Thalasi had grasped at that harmony with his perverted claws, had pulled the heartstrings of the powers beyond their limits.