It had been three days since they had returned.  Nepta, having been treated with Morgy’s spell of recovery, was eating almost as furiously as Sienna, both working to regain their strength.

In Morgy’s words, Lucas had been most skillful in dealing with members of the city watch.  They had been surprised, and rightfully anxious, when a dragon suddenly landed in their street, next to the Spur Saddle.   Thanks to him, she had tended to Nepta quickly.  Fawnlum arrived several hours later, and she used her wonderful device to transport herself home.

As for Sienna, she claimed her strength was never really taken.  She had just gotten fatigued, from standing up to the burning, as her Mark resisted the draining effect of the Slime.  And she reassured Fawnlum again, with her words muffled around a spoonful of thick stew.

“You owe Baneck,” Honee told her.

“We owe them dark wizards,” Banacheck said in response.  “I’m thinkin’ we’ll be the ones to get first crack at‘em.”

“Royal troops won’t get here in time,” he added.  “The north wall o’the city will have the local forces, no more.”

“Don’t count the corpses before they fall,” Honee admonished him.  “They’re building up the wall with bonfires and oil, and great reflective pieces of metal to make the fires shine way out.”

“With the dark as it is now, it won’t stop’em.”

Fawnlum spoke up.  “Then let us go and stop them ourselves.”

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

Atop the northern wall, Fawnlum looked at the armed and anxious presence.

East Osterly’s soldiers and mercenaries stood vigil, staring out into the pitch black.  Citizens, roused and outfitted with weapons and armor, added as much fighting strength as the city could muster.

Walking the battlements, she reminded everyone she met, that she was still being paid for her kills, and they would have to work hard to slay the enemy before she could.

‘What of their magic’? someone asked.

“I’ve seen their wizards,” she replied easily.  “I cut down two of them.  They died without getting a spell off at me.”  Then she smiled in the torchlight, and went on.

“More fighters have arrived from Henbrace,” she said, as she rejoined her comrades.

Sienna stood with arms folded, and a cold glare in her eyes.  Fawnlum was tempted to point at the darkness and give the alarm, just to see if her sister-in-arms would bloody well jump to the ground, and start swinging.

“Henbrace is committing quite an effort,” Lucas said.  “That includes some of their own wizards.  Their city would be defenseless right now.”

“That’s why they need to help make the stand here,” Sienna answered.  “Or they’ll be the next to fall.”

“What does that make us?”

“The line the enemy will not cross.  Even if you never see your mother again, she’ll know you fought, as a respectable man should.”

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

Maguleth walked away from the toadstool, and allowed Puddlence to become the main orchestrator for the final spell.  He knew the wet wizard would manipulate the energy currents, to draw more life-force from the tri-cleorps in the Slime, and spare the humans.  The arrogance of the wet-skinned toady to presume such measures, just to acquire a menagerie of test subjects, was inexcusable.  But in the new world to come, after this Day of Conquer, it would not really matter.

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

Fawnlum froze in her tracks.  A vibration, like a weight falling with a thud, rippled  over her.  The mute shockwave sent tremors even in the masonry under her feet.  She turned, with everyone else, to the north, from where the disturbance had originated.

“Honee!  Get – !”

She need not have bothered.  Her scout was already running high overhead, looking for the source.

“You don’t need an extra set of eyes to see that,” Sienna said, as she stood looking with her.

A red, hazy light appeared in the clouds to the far north-northeast.  In the pitch-black night, the deep crimson glow shown like a muted sun in the inky void.

“What in the Nine Hells?” Fawnlum muttered.

The light grew stronger.  But with its own alien air, it became deeper, and  threatening.  It highlighted the darkness of the surrounding cloud-mass, which was positioned above Castletree.

Then the glowing cloud started rotating — a giant, dark, blood-red funnel, surrounded by night-black haze.  The light of Castletree – the light that the people of East Osterly had watched far in the distance, as the sun and moon had been taken away – was directly below the Blood-funnel.

Then suddenly Castletree answered.  The white light flared, rising up in challenge to the red glow.

“Diergon,” Fawnlum whispered.  To her horror, the Blood-funnel’s glow gathered itself, and literally pressed down in renewed attack against the elven domain.

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

Poor Viognia had been properly frustrated, when Morgy told her everything going on in East Osterly.  Part of it was anger at Fawnlum; and part of it was her helplessness at the situation.  At the end of the conversation, Morgy felt she had at least partly convinced Lady Sovola to have faith in Fawnlum, that she was where she needed to be.

At the moment, she nearly pranced as she walked through her tavern at the nighttime hour.  She had exploited Baneck’s decency, she knew, by describing how she had been so terribly wounded on Fawnlum’s behalf.  But if he wanted to express his gratitude by giving her something, who was she to refuse?

She now carried the original frost-steel ingot he had created, and he had promised her a moonlight disc like the one Fawnlum carried.

She placed the ingot on the bar next to the burnslick torches, in preparation to watch the marvelous alloy perform again, before placing it on her hoard-pile.

Her glow of anticipation was interrupted, however, as a sudden jolt of pain sliced into her mind, sending her nearly to the floor.

She gasped against the telepathic waves, as Lord Shrehvone’s voice, transmitted by strengthened magic, called out in her thoughts.

“Morhensorhan!”

She heard the desperate call as he used her real name.

“We’re under attack!  Come and help us!”

“Morhensorhan!”

“I heard you!” she said out loud, annoyance mixed with her surprise.  “Under attack from whom?!”

The image came, from Shrehvone’s minds-eye into hers.

With fluster and a touch of fear, she turned all her concentration toward the connection with the elf, wondering if such a horrible thing could be true.

“Our forest barrier has been taken down!  Tri-cleorps are rolling into Castletree from Windsaeve as this thing descends!  Come and bolster our line!”

Fortunately, he kept concentrating on the image of the spiraling red-and-black cloud above the elf-home.  She even felt the elf’s dread.

“Wait!” she replied.

She was already running back to her office, where she grabbed Half-wing, and as she walked back to the barroom, she attuned her concentration to the activation phrase, and sent her vision out and away.  Shrehvone’s presence was still with her, as she concentrated on all these things at once.  Her own mental vision was cast out, across the miles, and miles beyond.  Sweeping her sight over sea and land, she found the image of the attack above Castletree.

Only then did she feel her own blood run cold.

She was a dragon.  But what she now witnessed shocked her to her toes!

“Nothing’s going to stop that.”

“Don’t desert us!”

“Quiet!”

She concentrated on her extended sight again.  She felt Shrehvone’s effort – – he was seeing what she was seeing.  He was also desperate, and committing a great deal of magic to their psychic communication.

She cast her sight farther south.  She saw a dark hoard of bodies, as the tri-cleorps charged like ants in the crimson light, into Castletree from Windsaeve.

She kept her vision moving, further south still, to East Osterly.  Was the human city being attacked as well?  Were there troops there, or anything that could be used to help?  She quickly sighted the line of fires on the city’s northwestern wall.   At least they were prepared.

“Joy!” she exclaimed over their link, only to feel a wave of anger from the elf.

From her vision above, she spotted Fawnlum, by the glow of Icefire.  She and her Coastals were in position.  She remembered clearly the Toadstool Nepta had spoken of.  The magical fungus’ purpose was now fully revealed.

“Shrehvone!  I have an idea!”  Her shouts were coming out loud, and she suddenly noticed the eyes of her perplexed daughters and attendants looking at her, awakened by the noise she had been making.

“Gavina, you watch the store!”

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

Fawnlum stood watching.  She, her Coastals, their dwarf friends, and Casly the bard, watched from the pitiful safety atop East Osterly’s walls, as the sky burned so far away.

“Why is that happening over there?” she asked, still digesting the shock of what she was seeing.

“It’s Castletree, Missy,” Guilwar answered.  “They were after the elves all along.”

“Now what?” Fawnlum asked futilely.  “Nepta, can the elves repel that thing?”

“How would I know?!” Nepta snapped.  “I’ve never seen the like!”

“Worry less about the cloud,” Lucas said.  “And more about what’s coming through.  That’s a door.  For a god.”

“Yer mistaken, lad!” Banacheck scolded.  “A god comes to any cleric or group of followers with strong enough devotion!”

“For a spell or sign of favor, yes,” Lucas corrected him, standing his ground.  “But not if the god in question was cursed by the fair heavens, and was struck down, to stay imprisoned in the lower planes for eternity.”

“What happens when the elves fall?” Sienna asked.

“Once the elves fall,” he said, “then, as you said, we become the line the enemy must not cross.  Then we all get to die, as respectable fighters should.”

“We should be there!” Fawnlum practically shouted.

“What would you have us do?!” Sienna asked.  “Run to the battle?!”

Fawnlum bit her lip.  She stomped her foot, squeezing Icefire’s handle.  None of her strength, skill or weapons could do any good at this moment.  Suddenly, she felt again the helplessness she had endured, when Baneck had fought Felldrake.

Somebody beside her shouted, pointing behind her.  She jerked around, and saw a strange weirdness floating in the air a few dozen feet away – – a weirdness she had seen before, although not this big.  Then the familiar portal opened, and she and several others had to step back, as Morgy’s draconic body stepped through and onto the parapets.

She shouted for calm as outcries of ‘dragon’ came from many throats, and the majestic, copper-scaled body balanced on the walkway.

“Fawnlum!  We go to Greyer Vauld!  Get Nepta!”