One of the other riders moved to follow Shayleigh, but Galladel held him back.
“We eight shall stay together,” the king said. “The fight will come in full, and if Elbereth does not awaken the trees, our course will be whichever way is quickest from Shilmista’s bloody boughs.”
The other riders could tell by Galladel’s grim tone that their king did not hold out much hope for his son’s attempt. And at that dark time, with the forest thick with monsters and smoke, cries of battle erupting from every direction, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of enemy soldiers moving to surround them, not one of Galladel’s cavalry companions could muster the courage to dispute the king’s fears.
“Teague!” Cadderly cried.
“Teague!” he heard Elbereth repeat.
The young scholar inadvertently glanced over his shoulder, hearing the fighting not too far away.
“Concentrate!” he growled, more to himself than to Elbereth, and he forced his gaze down into the book of Dellanil Quil’quien and looked for the next phrase in the woodland summons.
“Teague!” Elbereth echoed several more times, growing nearly as frantic as Cadderly.
The People were dying while he danced about an oak grove, and he could not ignore that his sword was needed just a few hundred feet away.
Cadderly saw that the elf prince was slipping from the trance. The young scholar dropped the book—somehow guessing that he would not need it, that the ancient words had become a part of him, or rather, that their meaning had become so crystal clear to him that he could follow the path of their cant from his heart alone.
“W-what’re ye doing …?” he heard Ivan stammer.
Kierkan Rufo added something Cadderly could not discern, and Pikel piped in with “Huh?”
Cadderly blocked them all from his mind. He rushed over to Elbereth and grabbed the elf prince’s hands, tearing one’s stubborn grasp from Elbereth’s sword hilt.
“Teague immen syldritch fae,” the young scholar said.
Whether it was his tone or his grave expression, he couldn’t tell, but he knew then that he had gained Elbereth’s full attention, that by his demands, Elbereth had put the closing battle out of his thoughts. Elbereth took up the chant, and Cadderly continued, keeping a few words ahead of the mesmerized elf.
The young scholar felt a power budding within him, an awakening of his soul and a strength he never suspected he possessed. His words came faster—too fast for anyone to possibly keep up.
And yet, Elbereth, pulled along by a similar inner urgency, caught in the throes of building magic, repeated with perfection each of the phrases Cadderly uttered, matched the young scholar’s timbre and inflection as perfectly as a mountain echo.
Then Elbereth and Cadderly spoke as one, the words, the summons, coming from both their mouths in unison.
It was impossible, Cadderly knew. Neither of them knew the phrases well enough to recite them from memory. But the young scholar had no doubt that their words rang perfectly, that they spoke exactly as Dellanil Quil’quien had spoken on a mystical day centuries before.
They neared the end, and their phrases slowed as the final runes built within. Cadderly grabbed Elbereth’s hands, looking for support, unable to contain the power.
Elbereth, equally terrified, held on with all his strength.
“A intunivial dolas quey!” they cried together, the words torn from their hearts by a power that consumed their minds and left their bodies leaning heavily against one another. Together they slipped down to the thick grass.
Cadderly nearly swooned—in truth, he wasn’t certain whether or not he’d blacked out for a moment—and when he looked to Elbereth, he saw that the elf wore the same expression of weariness and confusion. Their companions were all around them, even Kierkan Rufo, wearing a mien of concern.
“Ye all right, lad?” Cadderly heard Ivan ask, and the young scholar wasn’t really certain how he should answer.
With the dwarves’ help, Cadderly managed to get back to his feet while Danica and Rufo helped Elbereth stand. The forest was quiet save for the continuing din of distant combat.
“The summons went unheard,” Elbereth groaned after many long moments had slipped by.
Cadderly held his hand up to stop the elf from continuing. He remembered the sounds of birds in the trees before the summoning, but there were none. It could have been his and Elbereth’s shouting that had scared them off, or perhaps they had taken flight from the approaching melee, but Cadderly thought differently. He sensed the stillness of Syldritch Trea to be a prelude, a deceptive calm.
“What do you know?” Danica asked him, moving to his side. She studied his face a moment longer then reiterated, “Cadderly, what do you know?”
“Do you feel it?” Cadderly finally replied, looking around at the great oaks. “The mounting energy?” Hardly taking note of his own actions, he bent down and picked up the amulet, slipping it into a deep pocket. “Do you feel it?” he asked again, more insistently.
Danica did feel it, an awakening, a growing sentience all around her, as though she was being watched. She looked to Elbereth, and he, too, glanced about in anticipation.
“Oo,” Pikel remarked.
“What is it?” Ivan growled, uncomfortable. He took up his axe and hopped in circles, eyeing the trees with suspicion.
Behind Kierkan Rufo, the ground trembled. The man spun to see a gigantic root tear up through the ground. There came a rustle as the branches of a huge oak began to shake, and the sound increased, multiplied, as several other trees joined in.
“What have we done?” Elbereth asked, his tone reflecting both amazement and trepidation.
Cadderly was too entranced to answer. More roots came up through the ground; more branches shook and bent.
Ivan seemed on the verge of exploding, holding his axe as though to rush over and chop down the nearest tree. Next to him, Pikel hopped up and down in glee, thrilled by the growing display of druidic magic. The round-shouldered dwarf grabbed his nervous brother’s weapon arm and wagged a finger back and forth in Ivan’s face.
The companions didn’t even notice that they were all moving closer together, back-to-back.
The first tree, the one behind Rufo, broke free of the ground and took a sliding stride toward them.
“Do something!” the terrified man said to Elbereth.
All fear had left the elf prince. He jumped out in front of Rufo and cried, “I am Elbereth, son of Galladel, son of Gil Telleman, son of Dellanil Quil’quien! War has come to Shilmista, a great force not seen since the days of my father’s father’s father! Thus I have summoned you, guardians of Shilmista, to march beside me and cleanse this, our home!”
Another great tree moved over to join the first, and others followed suit. Elbereth took up the lead, thinking to head straight for the battle, but Ivan patted the elf’s shoulder, turning him around.
“Fine words, elf,” the obviously relieved dwarf offered.
Elbereth smiled grimly and looked to Danica, who stood quietly beside Cadderly. Both the young scholar and the woman understood the elf prince’s tentative intentions from the look on his face, and almost in unison, they smiled and nodded their agreement. Elbereth returned the smile and pulled Ivan beside him at the lead of the column. Together they started off, unlikely allies. Pikel, more interested in the continuing spectacle of the moving trees than in anything that lay ahead, came behind.
Kierkan Rufo looked around anxiously, apparently unsure of where he fit in. As he seemed to come to trust that the great oaks meant him no harm, his horror of the trees began to wane and it was as though he found his place in it all. He climbed one of the oaks, moving as high as he could—higher, Cadderly figured, than a goblin could throw its spear.
Cadderly continued to hold Danica back as the woodland column, some dozen or so ancient trees, slipped past.
“Dorigen knew where we were going,” he explained as the thunder of the tree’s steps diminished. “And for whatever reason,
she wants me as her prisoner.”
Danica motioned to a shadowy hollow to the side, and she and Cadderly took up a watch there, agreeing that they would set out after Elbereth and the others if the wizard did not appear in the next few moments.
A group of orogs stared curiously at the spectacle, not sure of what to make of the approaching oaks. They jostled each other and scratched at their scraggly hair, pointing and lifting spears the trees’ way in an almost comic threat.
They understood more—at least that the gigantic trees were not friendly to their cause—when they saw an elf and two dwarves hop down from the closest tree’s lowest branches. The orogs took up a unified hoot and one launched its spear, but they still didn’t seem to fathom how they should react to such a display.
Ivan, Pikel, and Elbereth charged at them, eager to begin the fight.
The lead tree’s reach was longer, though, and it sent huge branches crashing down upon the beasts, battering and thrashing them. A couple of orogs slipped away, out of range, and ran straight off, not daring to look back.
“Aw, this ain’t about to be much fun!” Ivan roared—by the time he and his two companions reached the orogs, not a single one of the beasts could offer any resistance. “Except fun to watch!” Ivan quickly added, noticing an orog high in the air, kicking futilely against the stranglehold one branch had put around its neck.
The surly dwarf grabbed Pikel by the arm. “Come, me brother!” Ivan yelled. “Let’s find a goblin head to cleave!”
Pikel looked back longingly to the moving oaks, not wanting to part from them. But there were indeed many monsters about, and it didn’t take Ivan long to convince his equally fierce brother that the game had just begun.
Elbereth watched them sprint off into the shadows, falling over a small band of goblins. In just a few heartbeats, the two remaining goblins were running fast into the forest, Ivan and Pikel hot on their heels.
The elf prince managed a weak smile, and managed, too, to hope that the day might yet be won.
TWENTY-ONE
LONG LIVE THE KING
The battle begins in full,” Danica whispered in Cadderly’s ear. “We must go.”
Cadderly held her in place, and pulled her lower into the shadows. He sensed something, a presence, perhaps, and knew instinctively that danger was about. Unconsciously, the young scholar dropped a hand into a pocket of his traveling cloak and closed his fingers around the tiny amulet.
“Druzil,” he whispered, surprised as he spoke the word. Danica looked at him curiously.
“The amulet works both ways,” Cadderly realized. “I know the imp is nearby. And if the imp is about.…”
As if on cue, Dorigen stepped into the clearing in the wake of the passing trees. Cadderly and Danica crouched lower, but the wizard was obviously intent on the increasingly distant spectacle of the marching trees.
Danica pointed to the west then started stealthily away, circling behind the wizard. Not daring to speak a word, Cadderly held up the amulet to remind her that Dorigen’s devilish henchman was probably also in the area, and probably invisible.
“What have you done?” Dorigen cried, and Cadderly nearly fainted from fear, thinking that she was addressing him. Her narrow-eyed gaze remained locked on the moving trees, though.
She thrust her fist out in front of her and cried, “Fete,” the Elvish word for fire. A jet of flame roared from Dorigen’s hand—Cadderly thought that perhaps it came from a ring—a burning line that stretched across the yards to engulf the last tree in the procession.
“Fete!” the wizard repeated, and the flames did not relent.
She moved her hand, shifting the angle of the fire to immolate the tree. The great oak turned its cumbersome bulk around, inadvertently setting small fires on the trees beside it. It reached out with a long root for Dorigen, but the wizard lowered her hand in line with the root and burned it to ashes.
So horrified at the sheer wickedness of Dorigen’s destructive actions, Cadderly couldn’t draw a breath. He looked to his right, the west, for some sign of Danica, praying that his love would come out and stop Dorigen’s carnage. But while Danica was indeed concealed in the brush behind the wizard, she couldn’t easily get to Dorigen. Three orogs had moved out of the shadows and taken up a defensive position behind and to either side of the wizard.
The tree crackled and split apart, falling into a flaming heap. Dorigen stopped her attack, but kept her fist clenched, trying, it appeared, to make out another target through the smoke and flames.
Cadderly knew he could not allow that to happen.
Dorigen extended her fist again and started to utter the triggering rune, but she stopped, distracted by a curious sight off to the side. A beam of light emanated through the brush and from the shadows, rocking slowly back and forth. Keeping her fist extended, the wizard slowly moved over to investigate.
Her expression turned to one of curiosity as she neared the shadowed hollow. A cylindrical tube, the source of the light beam, rocked along the inner edge of a light blue, wide-brimmed hat that had been placed on its side. Dorigen didn’t recognize the hat, but she had seen the cylindrical object before, inside the pack belonging to the young priest, Cadderly.
Dorigen realized that she was vulnerable, knew that she should be wary of the Deneirrath, but pride had always been her greatest weakness.
A short distance away, low behind the trunk of a tree, Cadderly unscrewed his feathered ring, pulled back the ram head of his walking stick, and inserted the dart. He took great care to keep it out of the sunlight, but he was less than confident as he pursed his lips against his blow-gun and drew a bead on Dorigen.
“Where are you, young priest?” Dorigen called. She turned to signal to her orog guards, then flinched as something small and sharp struck her on the cheek.
“What?” she hissed, pulling free the feathered dart. She nearly laughed aloud at the puny thing.
“Damn,” Cadderly groaned, seeing her still standing. Dorigen yawned then, and wiped bleary eyes.
Cadderly knew his chance was slipping by. He jumped from the side of the tree and rushed at his enemy.
Seeing their mistress endangered, the orogs howled and charged to intercept the young scholar. They found Danica instead, though, and each tasted a foot or a fist before it realized what had happened.
But Dorigen didn’t seem to need her guards. Her fist, still clenched, pointed to greet Cadderly—he could see the onyx ring she wore on that hand. He couldn’t possibly get to her in time, and he had no other weapons to strike with from a distance.
Dorigen began to speak—Cadderly expected the words to fall over him like the pronouncement of doom.
“Where will you hide, elf king?” Ragnor roared above the ring of steel and the cries of the dying.
Galladel reined in his horse and wheeled around, as did the others of his cavalry group.
“There!” one of the elves shouted, pointing to a break in a line of bluetop trees.
There stood Ragnor in all his evil splendor, his bottom tusk sticking up grotesquely over his upper lip and his elite bugbear guards fanned out in a semicircle around him, their sharp-tipped tridents gleaming wickedly. Galladel led the charge, the seven other riders bravely at his side.
The elf king pulled up short, though, knowing that he and his troops could not get through Ragnor’s defensive ring. Somehow, Galladel realized, he would have to get to the ogrillon, would have to strike a decisive blow in the lopsided battle.
“You are Ragnor?” Galladel cried in a derisive tone. “He who hides behind his minions, who cowers while others die in his name?”
The ogrillon’s laughter defeated Galladel’s bluster. “I am Ragnor!” the beast proclaimed. “Who claims Shilmista as his own. Come, pitiful elf king, and pass your crown to one who deserves it!” The ogrillon reached over his shoulder and drew his huge, heavy broadsword.
“Do not, my king,” one of Galladel’s escorts said to him.
“Together we can crush t
heir ranks,” offered another.
Galladel put his slender hand up to quiet them all. The king thought of his past failures, of the time he had failed to awaken the trees at the price of many lives. He was weary and wanted only to travel to Evermeet. But noble, too, was the King of Shilmista, and he saw his duty clearly before him. He spurred his horse ahead a few strides, ordering his escort to stay back.
Ragnor’s bugbears parted, and Galladel’s charge was on. He thought to bury the ogrillon, smash straight in with his powerful steed and crush the invader. His plans came to a crashing end as a huge boulder, hurled by a giant in the shadows, caught his horse on the flank and sent the poor, doomed beast spinning to the ground.
Galladel’s escort roared and charged, but the bugbears and the giant moved quickly to block them. When Galladel pulled himself from the pile and regained his feet, shaken but not seriously injured, he found himself alone, faced off against mighty Ragnor.
“Now the fight is fair!” Ragnor growled, steadily advancing.
Galladel readied his own sword. How much larger the brutish ogrillon seemed to him, with his horse lying dead at his side.
Cadderly fully expected to be fried long before he got to Dorigen. The wizard began to utter the triggering rune, but yawned instead as the sleep poison continued to work its insidious way inside her.
Cadderly didn’t hesitate. He charged straight in, launching a roundhouse, two-handed swing with his walking stick that caught Dorigen on the side of the head and blasted her to the ground. In all his life, Cadderly had never hit anything so hard.
Dorigen lay still at his feet, eyes closed and blood trickling from a cut the ram’s head had torn along her ear.
The sight unnerved Cadderly, sent his thoughts spinning back to the tragic events of a month before. Barjin’s dead eyes hovered over the young scholar as he looked down at Dorigen, praying that she was still alive.