Myra, ranking sister knight in the city, heard the commotion at her post near those silver portals. She raced up the winding stairs into one of the needlelike spires that lined the city’s walls. In moments, she heard the shouted explanations from the causeway and ordered the city’s permanent garrison of warriors to muster outside the gates.
Where was Brigit? The question loomed paramount in her mind. She knew that today the captain had intended to patrol the same valley of the Fey-Alamtine and the trout farm. Cold fear began to tighten her heart as she looked across the peaceful lake toward the fields and forest beyond. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. Indeed, the idea that some horrific beast was out there seemed unthinkable.
Nevertheless, minutes later the small company of permanent-duty guards, silver speartips gleaming in the sun, followed Myra’s orders and filed out the gates and over one of the long causeways connecting the island city to the shore.
Here the elven warriors deployed in a three-rank line of pikes, blocking the most direct route into Chrysalis.
Myra watched them go, telling herself that they were just a precaution. Nothing seemed unusual about the forest as she looked to the west, but the hysteria of the trout farm workers dispelled any sense of security she might have felt. And still she wondered: Where was Brigit? The captain of the sister knights held overall command of Synnoria’s troops; Myra was a mere substitute, and she longed for the older elf’s guidance.
Meanwhile, the citizens of Synnoria mobilized for their own defense. The young and the old, the pregnant and the infirm Llewyrr, all fled from the far side of the city in an orderly column. Myra would have liked to send them toward the Fey-Alamtine and, if necessary, the ultimate sanctuary of Evermeet. However, the monster’s approach precluded that course. Indeed, it was perhaps fortunate that she had no way of knowing that the Synnorian Gate lay in a heap of crumbled rock, shattered by the beast’s violent arrival.
Now these refugees would take shelter in the wooded valleys opposite the monster’s reported avenue of approach. The adults, meanwhile, gathered any weapons that they could find and began to assemble in the city’s parklike grand plaza.
The warriors of the Thy-Tach tribe made haste to join in the defense force, offering nearly four dozen powerfully muscled spearmen. These trotted swiftly along the causeway behind the pikes, ready to form a backup of that formation.
Then, as Myra stared at the bright woods, she sensed that something was horribly wrong. Treetops shivered and fell away one after the other in a clearly defined path—a path that led straight toward the elven city! Myra thought of a field of tall grass where a small dog bounds through, unseen, except these were great trees, many of them centuries old. Whatever crushed them aside possessed unspeakable strength.
Finally the Elf-Eater came into sight on the wooded shore, a looming form pressing the lush pines to either side in a waste of splinters and great, muddy footprints. It rumbled forward in its awkward gait, appearing to roll along like a top reaching the end of its spin. Yet in the case of the Elf-Eater, this clumsiness was completely misleading. Clear of the trees, it leaped forward to race across the grassy field on the shore.
Silver pike tips gleamed in the sun, the same sun that had witnessed the arrival of this beast barely three hours before. The Llewyrr of the guard company stood firm, those in the fore kneeling, the second rank standing with pikes held at the waist, and the third rank with their long weapons held at shoulder height. The effect, to the front, was an array of razor-sharp steel tips, bristling like the spines of a cactus in tightly packed array.
Quickly the Elf-Eater broke from the confines of the forest, advancing across the grassy meadow in broad strides. Mutters of apprehension shook the elves as they got their first good look at the monster. Its broad snout was drawn in, gaping wide below the rim of the domed carapace, revealing its nest of churning appendages, surrounded by the web of flailing tentacles. The creature ran with one leg in front, the two others side by side to the rear.
The massive form rumbled forward, breaking into a rolling gallop on the broad field. The ground shook with each pounding step, and the monster’s charge took it straight toward the wall of pikes. The elves in the path of the charge stood firm. Few of them had ever faced a real opponent before, but all of them had trained and prepared for decades—or centuries, in many cases. Now they met the test of that training and passed with fortitude.
Myra held her breath as she watched from the tower. Many more Llewyrr gathered in the streets below. The city’s heavy silver gates stood closed, firmly barred. She could do nothing more except pray that the courageous pikemen and the spear-throwers of the Thy-Tach would turn the monster away.
The longest of the beast’s tentacles stretched outward as it reached the Llewyrr, grasping pikes below the heads. Some sharp edges met the tendrils with their blades, but even the keen elven steel rarely pierced a leathery limb. The monster tugged against the pikes it still held firmly, jerking them to the sides and disrupting the precision of the steady line.
Not that precision mattered. The elves held their weapons braced with every muscle in their bodies, often with the butts of the weapons planted into the ground. The razor-edged pike heads, crafted of the hardest elven alloys, bore enchantments powerful enough to penetrate the hardest armor, the toughest scaly skin. But the Elf-Eater tucked its body as it rolled into the pikes, so that the bulk of the weapons met the hard carapace. The poles of a dozen pikes snapped simultaneously, the preciously crafted steel falling useless to the ground.
A few of the elves, their pikes held very low, angled the weapons below the carapace and met the skin around the creature’s mouth. The weapons plunged in, and the Elf-Eater recoiled for a moment. Then a nest of tentacles converged, plucking the weapons from the wounds and casting them aside. The tentacles descended, and elf after struggling elf was plucked up and cast into the gaping maw.
On her tower-top vantage, Myra felt sick to her stomach. She saw that soon the monster would reach the city gates, and she knew that she would have to be there as well.
“Summon the clerics!” shouted the sister knight. “All the priests and priestesses of the city! Gather here at the wall!”
She cast a last despairing glance for Brigit, but she could see no sign of any white horse or rider in the splintered path of the Elf-Eater’s trail. Finally she raced down the spiraling stair, quickly reaching the street, where hundreds of armed but undirected Llweyrr mingled around in growing confusion. Through apertures in the white marble wall they could see the progress of the battle.
Within a few moments of the first impact, the beast’s irresistible momentum carried it through all three ranks of the pikemen, scattering the hopelessly courageous Llewyrr in all directions. A dozen vanished into the dripping mouth, and as many more lay on the ground, crushed and broken by the monster’s trampling feet.
The line of pikes recoiled, fatally ruptured by the breach through its center. Individual weapons prodded and stabbed the monster, but most of these it ignored. Those pikes that attracted the Elf-Eater’s attention were pulled from their wielders’ hands and snapped, with the Llewyrr warriors as likely as not to immediately follow their weapons to ruin.
“Flee! Run for your lives!” Panic—an uncommon characteristic among elven warriors—spread rapidly through the rank. Some of the Llewyrr threw down their pikes and raced for the causeway into the city, only to be blocked by the company of Thy-Tach spearmen, still standing firm. Others fled across the field while a small band, perhaps a third of the original company, retained their pikes and formed a bristling square. They moved away from the Elf-Eater toward the trees, and the monster seemed content to let them go.
The Thy-Tach spearmen, standing at the very end of the causeway at the lakeshore, cast their weapons as the Elf-Eater rose above them. Several of the missiles found targets in the gaping mouth, but this did little more than inflame the monster.
The terrifying creature swept tentacles low along the ground, swe
eping a half-dozen Thy-Tach from their feet. In the next moment, the monstrous beast rolled over them, muffling their screams with its huge size. When it moved past, these elves had vanished.
Next Ityak-Ortheel turned its attentions to the lake itself, moving toward the white stone causeway that led to the gleaming gates of Chrysalis. As a result of Myra’s orders, many Synnorian clerics stood along the wall above the silver-steel gates. Now these clerics called upon Corellon Larethian, Solonar Thelandira, and the other multitudinous gods of the elves, praying in their hour of need for powerful spells.
As the Elf-Eater started across the causeway, leaving crushing footprints in the white stone surface, the waters of the lake responded to the clerical spell-casting and began to rise. First they washed against the banks of the causeway, and then in several places wavelets crossed the road itself. Swiftly the footprints behind the monster filled with water, and in another few moments, the entire causeway vanished under several taches of the steadily rising lake.
Waves tossed and surged over the road, rising into an unnatural mound. The monster continued its advance as water surged upward, several feet higher than the causeway. The effect of the spell was local. The lake didn’t flood beyond its banks onto the field or into the streets of the city, but it continued to grow, frothing like a rushing stream, climbing into a higher and higher barrier along the length of the stone roadway, forming a long ridge of turbulence.
Tentacles lashed like eels through the water before and around the Elf-Eater, groping to hold the beast on the raised platform of stone. Waves splashed against it like breakers crashing onto a rock-strewn shore.
Then the clerics raised a great shout, and the spell culminated in an immense wave, washing upward into a peak over the causeway. The dome of the monster’s carapace showed like a wet rock in the surf, but all of its body had vanished below the churning water.
No cheer rocked the city wall yet. Even had the thing been slain and dismembered before these Llewyrr, it’s doubtful that they would have celebrated. So profound was the shock of the Elf-Eater’s intrusion, so obscene and horrifying was its apparent purpose, that even its defeat would merely leave the elves of Synnoria in a state of numbness.
And then even that frail hope vanished, for the rounded back of the Elf-Eater continued to press through the water. White turbulence swirled around it, trailing away behind as the thing continued to move forward. The violent watery onslaught slowed it only momentarily. As long as the monster could feel the causeway, the great legs and feet continued to carry the huge body forward.
The elven clerics tried mightily, with resounding cries for power and for the blessings of their gods. The water rose still higher. Surging whitecaps rolled down the sides of the mound, but tremendous pressure continued to lift it higher. The force of the Elf-Eater’s passage raised a white wave, like a frothing bone in the teeth of a fast ship.
Then finally the rising pressure surged beyond its limits. Several of the clerics groaned and staggered, falling to the ground. The dam of magic burst, and the ridge of water plunged away from the road, drawn by gravity across the surface of the lake. Dripping but undaunted, the Elf-Eater advanced toward the gates of Chrysalis.
“Quickly! Make a stand at the gates! Bring those pikes up. You archers—to the walls! Hurry if you want to live!”
Myra barked commands, trying to imagine how Brigit would have faced this challenge. Her captain must be dead, Myra knew. She would certainly have tried to fight this monster if she encountered it in the forest, and there was no way she could have survived such a battle.
“It’s up to me then,” she told herself quietly, trying to banish her fear. How could she—how could anyone—hope to stop this thing?
Archers lined the walls, and now a shower of arrows clacked like hail against the carapace, with no visible effect. The monster reached the gate, and great caldrons were tipped on the wall above, pouring a deluge of hot oil across the Elf-Eater’s shell. Torches followed, and in seconds, a crackling inferno, belching black smoke, hissed and roared around the monstrosity.
The monster settled slowly to the ground, drawing its tentacles close, and the fire blazed away. The domed shell covered the legs and mouth; even the ropelike limbs had been drawn inside. For several minutes, the fire blazed, helped along by repeated douses of oil, and once again the Llewyrr dared to hope for deliverance. Flames sputtered and raged, spewing a column of black smoke like a dark beacon into the sky, and still the creature showed no inclination to move.
The silver gates grew dark with soot, as did the white walls of the city and the formerly gleaming towers of its gatehouse. The elven citizenry had by now made their escape from the other side of the city, and all that remained were those Llewyrr and Thy-Tach who carried weapons and were prepared to give their lives for Synnoria.
Finally the elves ceased fueling the blaze, watching carefully and waiting to observe the effect of their fiery attack. Another block of pikemen assembled inside the gate, though they had witnessed the failure of the same weapons in the field. The Llewyrr had no other tactic with which to try and stand against the beast. The flames died further, and only the blackened outline of the Elf-Eater’s shell was visible to the watchers on the wall.
Then, in a shocking blur of activity, the great form raised itself from the ground to stand firmly on its three legs. The foreleg knelt low, and the dome tilted until its apex was angled toward the top of the steel gates. In the next moment, the Elf-Eater hurled itself into the portals with a thunderous charge, sending echoes reverberating up and down the valley of Synnoria.
Splinters of steel exploded through the air, knifing into many of the pikemen who stood in their steady formation. The great slabs of silvered metal broke from their hinges to fall among the warriors, crushing dozens. Even the white stone walls of the gate towers splintered and cracked, and the tall pillars swayed for a moment as if they, too, would join the gates in ruin on the ground.
The crushing blow knocked Myra to the side and she lay inside the gate, half-stunned, as the monster loomed above her, then rolled past. She tried to force her muscles to move, but they wouldn’t respond to the commands of her mind. Instead, she lay motionless, expecting at any moment to feel the grasp of a clutching tendril, the quick snap of movement that would send her into that dolorous maw. She saw the crystal spire of a guard tower swaying over her head, and for a despairing moment, she prayed that the structure would fall, crushing out her awareness and sparing her the knowledge of her gruesome fate.
But the towers held. Myra saw the monster move through the wreckage of the gates, gobbling up those elves who lay in its path, but then the beast paid the city entrance no more mind, for the path into Chrysalis lay open. The Elf-Eater barged forward, barreling into the scattered pikemen and sending them tumbling like tenpins. Here the thing paused for a few minutes to gruesomely feed, snatching up the slain and wounded elves from the crowded street, snaring by the ankles many who tried to flee. These it dragged slowly, inexorably toward its gaping mouth, almost as if tantalized by the hysterical terror of the doomed elves.
Though the white stone wall surrounded the elven city, Chrysalis was not a place designed for defense. For millennia, the elven valley had stood inviolate, and this bred a long tradition of peace and an almost dazed confidence that the future would remain as untroubled as had the past.
Thus the city’s avenues were wide and smoothly paved with the same white granite that had formed the causeways and so much of Chrysalis. Sweeping, open gardens beckoned an attacker, with no enclosing walls or narrow streets to restrict access.
Trees, especially birch and aspen, whose pale trunks complemented the stone so well, had been bred so that they remained green all year around, though Synnoria was subjected to the same snowy winters that affected the rest of Gwynneth. Now these trees waved gently in the breeze, their branches quaking like silver in mockery of the horror that stalked among them.
The Argen-Tellirynd, the Palace of the Ages, g
leamed at the end of the wide street. That triangular edifice towered over its own transparent wall, inlaid with panels of glass and silver and diamond and even more exotic gems, sparkling like a gleaming work of jewelry. Even amid the splendor of the white, gold, and green houses and inns, the palace was a thing from another world, an enchanted place.
The Elf-Eater started down the avenue in long, rolling strides. A few elves tried to fight, with pikes and spears and even swords. None of the attacks managed to slow the beast, and few of these courageous attackers escaped with their lives. The creature moved easily between the rows of white tree trunks, coming inexorably closer to the Argen-Tellirynd.
Myra struggled with the numbness that claimed her, and slowly she forced herself to a sitting position. Her head throbbed, and every muscle in her body ached, but she ignored these minor complaints. As long as she lived, she would fight!
Staggering to her feet, she tried to ignore the wreckage of the gates, the carnage among the defenders that surrounded her. Several elves were caught beneath the heavy gates, and their groans tore at her heart. Yet the knight forced their pain from her mind, and instead, stumbled down the avenue after the lumbering Elf-Eater.
Her mind stopped spinning, and Myra forced herself into a trot. She jogged into a side street and quickly reached the small barracks and stable that the sisters maintained within the city proper. Here she found five of her comrades, armed and ready to mount. Myra quickly seized a lance and a sixth horse.
They formed a pathetically small line as they lowered their silver-tipped lances and urged their mounts into a gallop. The white horses leaped forward at the command to charge, and in moments, the riders thundered down the street, straight toward the looming Elf-Eater, their lances angled upward. The monstrous mouth gaped before them, though even that cavernous maw couldn’t swallow a horse and rider, let alone a band of them.
The Coral Kingdom Page 10
