“Leave him to his duty,” the Ranger Lord instructed.
“Are ye coming with me?” Belexus asked. He knew the answer when he took a moment to consider his father, bent again under the pain of that old wound.
“No, me son,” Bellerian said with a smile. “Me fightin’s at its end.”
Belexus kissed him on the forehead, then helped his father onto the winged horse’s back as Billy turned Calamus toward the safety of the land.
Then Belexus strode out on the bridge to stand beside the brave wizard.
Benador and his troops needed no encouragement to heed the wizard’s call. They pushed the talons on the southern two bridges back to the west one final time, then broke back toward the fields, where they could have run to safety. But the King and his elite corps would not let the valiant elves die for their cause, not while they had any strength left in their bodies. Benador spearheaded a small group, driving like a wedge through the talon ranks to get to Arien and his forces.
“Fly away!” Arien called to his warriors, while he and Ryell fought as a rear guard.
Up in the north, Sylvia and her forces wanted to heed Ardaz’s call, but many talons had reached the eastern bank in the first moments after the river had emptied. The elven maiden rushed from group to group, freeing up men and elves and sending them on their retreat, but she remained on the muddy bank, refusing to leave until all the others had found safer ground.
“The weakling ranger returns,” the wraith laughed. “I am glad that you live, Belexus. I would not want you to miss this spectacle of my master’s glory.”
Belexus cast a knowing smile at Ardaz. Only one being in all Aielle could make such a demand of the River Ne’er Ending: the Emerald Witch.
“Ye’ve ever been a fool, Mitchell,” he spat at the wraith. “Ye think this yer master’s doin’?”
“Who-” Mitchell began to respond, but the smug look on the ranger’s face caused the wraith to glance back over his shoulder; then he saw the continuing struggle between the Black Warlock and the sun ray. The wraith spun back on Ardaz and the ranger, unbridled rage etched on its grotesque face.
“You’ll not escape the doom!” Ardaz promised, and he slammed his staff on the stone with enough force to break the instrument, and that in turn exuded enough force to split apart the bridge itself.
The center of the structure crumbled down into the mud, and the wraith, Ardaz, and Belexus fell away.
Brielle and Istaahl could not know the particulars at the battle scene, nor reverse the tide of their actions in any case. When she sensed the approach of Istaahl’s watery wall, the Emerald Witch let loose the gathered waters of the great river.
“No!” the Black Warlock screamed, turning back to the disastrous battle on the bridges for just an instant.
And Thalasi’s despair only heightened in that moment, for Rhiannon and her sun ray did not let the moment pass.
A burst of light burned away the Black Warlock’s sphere of darkness completely and slammed Thalasi to the ground.
And in a flash all of the Black Warlock’s overcast was consumed, and the sky shone bright and blue once more.
Still Rhiannon continued her assault, determined, as was the magic that flowed through her, to rid Aielle of the Black Warlock once and for all.
The stupid talons rushing across the bridges and standing in the mud of the empty riverbank could only gape at the converging doom, and when the magics of Brielle and Istaahl came together, nearly half of the evil force was simply washed away. Another group remained trapped on the eastern side, helpless in the face of the wrath of the warrior King and his minions, who were already regrouping for another assault.
But oh so many heroes, human and elf alike, went away in that watery grave.
Indeed, the world would never be the same.
Chapter 28
Wizard’s Lament
THE SKY SHONE a bright, crisp blue with sunshine general all across Aielle. But a more brilliant beam of the sun still held its course to the Black Warlock, pinning him to the ground mercilessly. Thalasi thought he would surely perish under its relentless heat; he could feel his insides bubbling and churning and could find no magical strength left within himself to battle back.
But up on the slopes of the Baerendels, a subtle shift in the flow of power was all the warning Rhiannon got. She felt vibrations within her form, discordant twanging that wracked her with electric shocks of pain.
Then it all broke apart.
With a vicious shudder that popped the muscles in her elbows and shoulders, Rhiannon swooned and fell.
Bryan, ever alert, was there to catch her.
Freed of the magical assault, the Black Warlock slithered to the west. His day was ended; all the talons on this side of the river were in full flight, and those across the way would soon be exterminated by the Calvan forces. There would be no more crossing of the river anytime soon; all four of the bridges had been washed away.
And now Thalasi had only one thought: get back to Talas-dun, where he might lick his wounds. Little optimism remained in the Black Warlock, for even if he could manage the journey to his bastion of power, he understood that Brielle had been right in her scolding: he, and the other wizards in response, had ripped at the very heart of the magic energies that gave them their powers. And that heart, Thalasi now for the first time feared, would never mend.
Brielle leaned heavily against an ancient oak, her legs too weary to support her. “Ye stupid bastard, Morgan Thalasi,” she panted, hardly able to speak the words. Weary as she was, the Emerald Witch understood that she had to regain her strength and her resolve very soon, for though Thalasi’s storm clouds and her own enchantments had been blasted apart, the fires that now ravaged several sections of Avalon remained in full force.
Brielle would save a portion of the wood, and the rest would grow back in time. But the Emerald Witch’s enchanted reign over Avalon had reached its pinnacle. Brielle was determined that she would stubbornly hold on to a portion of what had once been; she would keep a shining light burning in the heart of the forest for many centuries to come. But the rest of vast Avalon would survive only as an ordinary forest. What the witch already knew, and what the rest of the world would soon find out, was that Avalon had put its best days behind it.
Both it and the Emerald Witch were on the wane.
Even more disastrous was the scene in Pallendara, for Istaahl, just recently recovered from three decades as a prisoner of the Black Warlock, had fared badly in the conflict. His tower was gone, and he knew he would never find the strength to rebuild it. Stone masons would flock to his aid, no doubt, but then the tower of Istaahl the White, like the greater part of the new Avalon that would eventually return, would be a normal work, not an enchanted one.
Istaahl showed no emotion to the many healers who tended his serious-mortal for a mortal man-wounds.
He sat silent and unblinking, his thoughts a lament for days gone by and a concern for the days ahead. For while the diminishing of the magics would also lessen the threat of the Black Warlock, the goodly people of Ynis Aielle, the men and elves, would have to stand on their own for the first time.
And with the tragedy of the battle across the bridges and the destruction of the western fields, they would begin their singular reign on a dark note indeed.
Benador and his troops soon had the bulk of the talons on the eastern side of the river fully contained. Smaller bands of the wretched things ran loose, fleeing every which way, and would have to be hunted down, but the determined King remained confident that the battle now neared its end. He focused his thoughts on the future of his kingdom, on the rebuilding that would have to be done, beginning with the construction of a new bridge across the great river.