The Realms of the Elves a-11

by Коллектив Авторов

  "What good is it to you?" he asked the long-vanished plunderers of the tomb. "Is there nothing you hold sacred?"

  He drifted back to the central chamber, and wept silently in the gloom and shadows. He'd been born in this house, seventeen decades ago. He remembered the soft lanterns swaying in the chill evening breezes of the spring, the green and lush canopy of leaf and vine that had roofed the courtyard in summer, the tall windows of the library gleaming orange and gold on a frosty autumn morning. Nothing else was left to him of his youth, so many years ago.

  The soft click of a taloned claw on the steps behind him saved his life.

  Daried roused himself from his sorrow just in time to leap aside, as the foul hellborn monster threw itself on him from the stairs. In a dark rush the thing bounded past him, its hooked talons hissing through the air where the elf s face and throat had been an instant earlier. A hot sharp claw grazed Daried's cheek, and the thing's powerful rush sent him spinning to one side as the creature missed its chance to bear him to the ground and rip out his throat.

  Daried grunted once in surprise and backstepped, gaining a double arm's-reach of space to get his bearings and sweep out his sword. His adversary had a shape not unlike that of a man, but a long, thick tail twisted behind it like a hungry serpent, and from head to toe it was studded with barbs of steel-hard horn as long as daggers.

  Its skin was crimson and hot, and its eyes glowed like balls of green flame in the shadows of the crypt.

  "You weep for the dead, elf?" it hissed. "Be at ease. I will leave your bones here with the rest of this dry old wreckage."

  "You mock my ancestors at your peril, hellspawn," Daried growled, keeping his swordpoint between the monster and himself.

  The creature grinned with a mouthful of sharp, carious fangs, and leaped at the elf with a flurry of jabbing barbs and slashing talons. But Daried was ready for the monster; he allowed himself to slide easily into the bladesinger's waking trance, a timeless state of mind and body in which each movement became a choreographed dance. With calm deliberation Daried moved his sword to guide the monster's talons away from his flesh, parry the stabbing tail, disguise delicate ripostes and counters.

  The thinblade's razorlike point darted between barbs and spikes to pierce infernal flesh, then again and again. Hot spatters of black blood fell to the dusty floor, but the creature gave no sign that it had been hurt. It snapped and flailed wildly, claws and fangs and stabbing spikes whistling past Daried. Elf and devil fought in grim silence, with no sound other than the dull click and scrape of talons against steel. Sharp barbs gouged Daried's limbs and talons raked his shining mail, but he battled on, refusing to allow pain or fatigue a foothold in his concentration.

  The devil managed to seize Daried's sleeve in one tal-oned hand, and it hurled itself on him, trying to impale him like a living bed of nails. But Daried twisted away, turning the creature's hand over as he spun. At the same instant he barked out syllables of a deadly spell, and with his free hand grasped the monster's arm. Golden lightning exploded from the bladesinger's touch, charring his adversary's arm into useless black ruin.

  With a low hiss the devil recoiled, its grip on Daried failing. It crouched low and whirled, bringing its fiercely spiked tail whistling around in a blow powerful enough to crush stone. But Daried leaped over the devil's strike, and with one smooth motion he sank a foot of his thinblade into the hollow of the monster's throat.

  The devil drove him back with a frenzy of slashes and jabbing barbs. But black blood fumed in its mouth and ran between its yellow fangs. It took two more steps toward Daried, the green flame in its eyes dimming, and it stumbled to the floor in a pool of its own foul ichor.

  Daried took careful aim and transfixed its head with one more thrust. Then he backed away, waiting for the corpse to vanish. Summoned monsters always did. But nothing happened; the hellspawn's body remained where it had fallen.

  "It wasn't summoned?" he muttered in dismay. It hadn't been called to Faerun by a conjuring spell, it had traversed some sort of gate between the planes of its own volition. It was as real in this world as he was.

  An ill omen indeed. Was the creature's presence in the world the work of the daemonfey, or did some other peril confront Daried and the elves who followed him?

  Whatever the answer, it did not seem likely that he would find out more in the ruins of the Morvaeril manor. Nor, for that matter, would he learn anything about who had taken the ancient moonblade and what the Dalesfolk had had to do with the theft.

  Battered and heartsick, Daried shook the foul blood from his sword and climbed back up the stairs to the summer warmth above.

  Daried returned to the encampment an hour before sunset. It was a pleasant spot, a well-shaded forest glade a stone's throw from the gravel-voiced Ashaba, where a score of elf warriors under Daried's command kept watch. It was their task to make sure that the Sembian mercenaries in Battledale-allies or dupes of the daemonfey,

  Daried did not know or care which-did not reach the west bank of the river by crossing unopposed in the green depths of the forest. Should the Sembians get across the Ashaba here, they would outflank the elf legions that stood ready to defend the main crossing at the town of Ashabenford fifteen miles farther north.

  It struck Daried as a fool's errand. No one considered it very likely that the Sembians would search for a path through the trackless depths of the forest in order to try a river crossing where no easy fording-point existed. That was why Vesilde Gaerth, the knight-commander who captained the Crusade forces in Mistledale, had detached only two dozen warriors to guard against the possibility. If, by some amazing feat of endurance, the Sembians succeeded in the forest march and river crossing, Vesilde Gaerth needed a few hours' warning so that he could abandon his defenses at Ashabenford and retreat out of the trap.

  Gaerth had also told Daried that he was to capture, drive off, or kill any Sembian scouts who tried to spy out the elven defenses in the southern verge of the dale. And for that matter, he was supposed to do what he could to deal with any demons, devils, or similar monsters who appeared to harry the human villagers and farmers who lived nearby. In fact, that was why Daried had been given this task. As a bladesinger, he at least had a chance of dealing with such monsters using his skill and magic. Most of the other elves in his small company would have been overwhelmed by a hellspawn of any real strength.

  "Lord Selsherryn returns!" called a clear voice. Daried glanced up; the moon elf Andariel stood atop a large boulder-fall overlooking the camp, raising his bow in welcome. Young and impetuous, Andariel regarded Daried's high family and personal accomplishment with such seriousness that Daried sometimes suspected secret mockery in his manner. But he had never found a trace of sarcasm behind the younger elfs earnestness.

  Daried returned Andariel's salute with a curt wave, and made his way to the temporary shelter that served as his resting-place and command post. Two more elves awaited him there-Hycellyn, another moon elf, and the sun elf mage Teriandyln, who might have been the closest Daried had to a true friend in all the Crusade. Very unusually for an elf, Teriandyln possessed a thin, pointed goatee of fine golden whiskers. Along with his grim manner and brilliant green eyes, the trace of beard lent him an acutely sinister, almost feral, appearance.

  The mage glanced up at Daried and frowned. "What in the world happened to you?"

  "I met a devil in the wreckage of the Morvaeril manor."

  "A devil?" Hycellyn asked sharply. She set down the arrow she was fletching. "Are you hurt, Lord Selsherryn?"

  "Nothing serious," Daried answered. He directed his attention to Teriandyln. "I slew it, but its body did not vanish. It was not summoned."

  "The daemonfey must control a gate of some kind. Or perhaps the creature was one of the devils trapped in Myth Drannor. I have heard that many such monsters have roamed the ruins for years." Teriandyln frowned deeper. "What sort of creature was it? Do you know?"

  "A half-foot taller than a tall elf, with a heavier build.
It had no wings, but it was covered in great jutting spikes or barbs."

  "A hamatula, then-a barbed devil, as they are sometimes known." The sharp-faced sun elf looked at Daried more closely. "You are fortunate to have walked away from that fight, Daried."

  Daried shrugged and said nothing. But Hycellyn retrieved a slender wand of white ashwood from her belt and knelt beside him, murmuring the words of a healing prayer. The bladesinger winced as punctures, gouges, and bruises announced themselves again, but the pain of each injury faded at once, soothed away by the moon elf s magic. He took a deeper breath, and gave her a nod of gratitude.

  "So what was a devil doing in the Morvaeril manor?" she asked as she put away the wand.

  "The house lies in ruins now," Daried said. "It has been plundered, its warding spells broken. Even the vaults underneath have been despoiled. My mother's kin were robbed in their eternal sleep and left to lie wherever they fell. The thieves even stole the Morvaeril moonblade, dead for a hundred years now. Nothing is left.

  "I grew up in that house. It's only been seventy summers since I left it. To see it now you might think our People's absence from this place had been counted in centuries, not decades."

  "Who would do such a thing?" Hycellyn wondered aloud.

  "Someone who wore this emblem." Daried held out his hand, showing the others the pendant with its image of the running horse. "I found it on the skeleton of a human lying in the house."

  "I know that sign," Teriandyln said. "It hangs above the inn that stands in the human village called Glen."

  Daried closed his list around the pendant, and slipped it back into his tunic. "I know."

  Hycellyn sighed and shook her head. "Lord Selsherryn- Daried-how long has that skeleton been there? How long ago was your family's house broken into? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty? The humans who live in Glen now may have had nothing to do with it."

  "For their sake, I hope that is true." Daried stood, and glanced at the sun sinking in the west. "Have our scouts seen anything worth reporting this afternoon?"

  "No, it has been quiet," said Teriandyln. "But Ilidyrr and Sarran are not due to report for a couple of hours yet, and they are the farthest east of any of our folk."

  "If nothing is happening, then I will leave you in charge for a while longer," Daried told him. "I am going to Glen. Someone there has much to answer for."

  Entered green tavern-sign in the human village of Glen. The emblem of a running horse graced the signboard, but the bright silver-white paint was threadbare and peeling. Insects buzzed in the summer twilight, filling the air with chirps and rasping calls. Thousands of tiny midges fluttered around the bright lanterns hanging from light-posts scattered through the hamlet.

  Human farmers and townsfolk stood in pairs here and there throughout the village, dressed in ill-fitting leather jerkins and gripping rusty pikes or old bows. Since the daemonfey had begun stirring up old evils in Myth Drannor's ruins, the Dalesfolk had been subjected to deadly raids and rampages by all sorts of monsters and demons. They'd been posting a village watch for two or three tendays-not that some untried farmer had much of a chance against the sorts of infernal creatures Sarya Dlardrageth might send to harry Mistledale. Daried had heard from other elves that there was often more to the Dalesfolk than met the eye, and not a few of those who stood guard were seasoned veterans or onetime sellswords who still remembered how to swing a sword. But he hadn't seen any human watchmen in Glen that he'd trust with a sharp fork, let alone a spear or a sword.

  The muted sounds of thick human voices and the clumsy strumming of a crude stringed instrument spilled out of the door. Setting his face in a scowl, Daried pushed open the door and entered the taproom.

  It was a smoke-filled, low-ceilinged room with heavy black timbers for beams and posts. The sight made him wince. Could they have killed any more trees when they raised up this oversized kennel? he wondered. He shook his head and turned his attention to the people in the room.

  A half-dozen humans sat staring at him, their conversations faltering in mid-word. Between the smoke and the humid warmth of the night, the taproom was quite warm, and sweat flowed freely over hairy faces and around thick homespun tunics. One tall, lanky fellow with long hands and a lanternlike jaw stood behind a weathered bar-the innkeeper, or so Daried assumed.

  The tall man managed an awkward bow, and addressed Daried in the common speech the humans used. "Good evening, sir. We heard that some of the Fair Folk were camped in the forest nearby. What can I get for you?"

  "Answers," Daried grated. He dropped the tarnished emblem on the rough countertop before the innkeeper. "This pendant was left in an elf manor five miles east of here. The human who wore it has lain dead in that house for some time, but I know he visited that manor no more than seventy years ago. Who among you would know anything about what happened there?"

  The innkeeper frowned and shuffled his feet. Daried's vehemence had taken him by surprise, and he finally turned away to wipe his hands on his apron and back a couple of steps away from the bladesinger.

  "Are you speaking of the House of Pale Stone?" he asked over his shoulder. "An old unwalled villa of white stone, over on the east bank of the river, its walls covered with green growing vines?"

  The House of Pale Stone? Daried had never heard the Morvaeril palace called any such thing, but it seemed apt enough. "The doors to the house lie battered down outside. They are carved in the image of a crescent moon rising above a forest glade, with seven seven-pointed stars at the top."

  "Yes, that's the place," the innkeeper said. "I visited the place once when I was a young lad. I remember the sign on the old doors. I didn't dare go in, though. Everyone knows that deadly magic and restless spirits lurk in the ruins." He looked down at the pendant again. "You mean to tell me that you found this in the House of Pale Stone?"

  "If you did not enter the house, who did?"

  The innkeeper wrung his hands in his apron again, drying them anxiously. "I did not break down those doors, sir elf. Nor did anyone I know. The place has been like that

  Q since my father's time, maybe my grandfather's time. It's haunted. Sometimes bold young lads of the town go and have a look, like I did when I was a boy. But we've all heard stories of the dangers of that old manor. Sellswords and freebooters have died in that house."

  "Red Harvald did not fear that old dusty tomb!"

  Daried turned his head, surprised. By the cold fireplace an old townsman sat smoking a long-stemmed pipe, grinning at him. He hadn't realized that all the folk in the taproom were watching his interrogation of the innkeeper. Deliberately, he put his back to the wall and shifted so that he had a better view of the room.

  "Vada, you mean to say that Red Harvald dared the House of Pale Stone?" the innkeeper asked the old man.

  "Aye, and a dozen tombs, crypts, and palaces more. The woods are full of places the Fair Folk left empty. Red Harvald had a look in every one within forty miles." The old man-Vada-nodded at his own musty memories. "I remember the day that Red Harvald and his bold fellows sat right at that table over there and recounted the harrowing traps and fearsome dangers they met in the House of Pale Stone. Half the folk of Glen crowded into this very room to hear the tale."

  "How long ago was this?" Daried demanded.

  The old man drew his pipe from his mouth and frowned in thought. He tapped out the ashes on the stones of the hearth, and blew the bowl clean with an expert puff of breath. "It was a few days before midsummer, in the Year of the Striking Falcon. Forty years, good sir. Not much time as you reckon it, I suppose, but long enough for a human. Why, Earek there-" he nodded at the tall innkeeper-"was only a toddler then."

  The bladesinger motioned the man to silence with a curt gesture. "Where is this Red Harvald now?"

  Vada blinked, taken aback. After a moment he smiled again. "Why, he is dead, sir elf. Twenty-five years, it must be."

  Daried glowered at him. "I suppose the thieving dog finally met a just end in one of the houses he plundered."
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  "You misunderstand, sir. Red Harvald was a hero, not a thief. He was the most courageous man I've ever met, and generous too. Oh, he had a quick temper sometimes, but he never remained angry for long. He hunted down highwaymen, scattered brigands and bandits, warded Glen from more ore and ogre-raids than I could care to count, and even faced stranger and more deadly monsters when they emerged from the depths of the forest to harrow our town. And when true tomb-plunderers and over-eager freebooters drifted through the Dale and risked stirring up real trouble, well, he'd run them off with nothing but a hard look and a few quiet words. I owed him my life at least twice over. Many Glen-folk did."

  Daried stared hard at the garrulous old fellow, weighing the truthfulness of his words and manner. Vada's bland smile seemed less warm than it had been before, but the elf could sense no duplicity in it. He scowled and turned back to the innkeeper, searching for a sly grin or insincere smirk that might give the lie to the old man's story, but Earek merely nodded in agreement.

  "He was always kind to me when I was a lad," the innkeeper said. "A good man, a hero who never treated others like they were somehow less than he was. Red Harvald was a leader of this town for many years. He was no thief."

  It's only to be expected that they would band together to defend their own, Daried told himself. Likely this Harvald fellow bought himself a town full of friends and admirers with the fine things he stole from the honored dead. Even so, the sun elf could see that he was not going to get far by lashing out with more accusations. The townsfolk remembered the man as a hero, and in Daried's experience, no one liked to learn about their hero's failings.

  Besides, if Vada and Earek were telling the truth, then this Harvald fellow had spent his plunder well for many years. By now the funerary wealth of the Morvaeril dead must be scattered across half of Faerun, traded and sold a dozen times over.