As the lightning strikes continued, the two
giant elks and their riders bounded through the underbrush, heedless of the
driving rain as they closed in on their quarry.
Alec and Bob held on to Erwen-Elk’s antlers
as the wildshaped druid leapt over fallen logs and bashed through tree limbs.
Varien and Xylon rode on the back of the
second giant elk, letting the creature’s antlers push aside the worst of the
forest’s overgrowth.
Radgeast was on her feet, dashing as fast
as she could over the rough terrain, reflections of lightning reflecting
murderously in her eyes. She continued to play her Song of Storms on her lute
as she rushed forward.
Her sharp eyes picked out something
approaching through the trees and she was able to sidestep as a panicked Forest
Walker barreled through, waving its limbs fearfully as it sought to flee the
lightning strikes that even still hammered down from the stormclouds overhead.
Erwen-Elk tossed his head, throwing the
Trevelyan brothers onto his back as he lowered his antlers and rammed the
Forest Walker at full tilt. The creature was lifted off the ground and
cartwheeled over the druid, showering Alec and Bob with leaves and sap.
It landed in a heap on the ground behind
them, righted itself, and continued to flee to the south.
The terrain began to grow steeper as the party travelled up a hillside,
cresting a treed ridge. Before them was a valley with a stream cutting a narrow
channel through it. The area was heavily damaged by lightning strikes – trees
lay blown apart here and there, and fires flickered in the underbrush.
A well-worn path snaked its way through the
woods, flanked here and there by patches of flattened wheatgrass. A large
boulder had tumbled down the hillside at some point to create a natural bridge
over the narrow gorge.
And here and there, sprawled smoking where
they died, were several bodies.
Radegast, still strumming her lute as
thunder boomed overhead, approached one of the charred bodies. It was a male
elf, dressed in what would have been a serviceable set of studded leathers before lightning scorched
them. In a scabbard on his hip was a rapier.
Radegast set her lute aside, casting minor illusion to keep the song going.
Radegast pulled the sword out and marveled
at the way its silvered blade caught the reflections of lightning as it forked
its way across the clouds overhead.
“Serves you right,” she spat at the corpse
as she patted it down, finding a small vial in the elf’s pocket as well as a
dagger in his boot. Alec and Bob disentangled themselves from Erwen-Elk's antlers. The wildshaped druid trotted off into the woods to find some food.
Varien dismounted and shielded his eyes
against the rain, trying to scan the area. He walked past Radegast to the edge
of the ditch.
He thought her could hear voices carried on
the stormwind.
Elven voices.
“Psst, Radegast!” Varien hissed, trying to
keep his voice down while still making himself heard over the stormy weather.
“I heard elves in the woods!”
“Where?” Radegast brandished the silvered
rapier and stole a few steps forward to where Varien was pointing. She peered
into the dimness.
Should could make out the form of at least
one more corpse lying on the rain-soaked ground, but heard nothing.
From around the boulder charged a quartet
of elves, two archers and two sword-wielders.
“Radegast, look out!” Varien threw up his
shield as the archers let fly with blinding speed, each of them sending a pair
of arrows hurtling towards the adventurers. The paladin’s shield blocked two of
the incoming projectiles, but another pair of arrows slammed home into
Radegast’s side.
The two melee attackers, their silvered
swords drawn, leapt across the channel and landed near the paladin.
The attacker’s first swing missed Varien
while the second stabbed home in a vulnerable spot in the paladin’s armor,
taking advantage of the way he had extended his shield arm to cover his ally.
The elf laughed and then jumped back across the ditch to hide in the trees.
The second attacker stabbed at Radegast,
who parried the first blow but couldn’t avoid the second, which cut deep.
The elf’s eyes narrowed as he recognized
the silvered rapier Radegast held in her hands.
“So,” he spat in Elvish. “You are a thief
as well as an abomination!”
“Rude!” Radegast shot back. “Do you kiss
your mother’s ass with that mouth?”
The elf disengaged and dove into the
nearest copse of trees for cover.
Radegast took off in the opposite
direction, hopping across the creek to land within range of the two archers and
the hidden fighter. As she landed, she cast thunderwave .
The blast of thunderous energy knocked the
two archers back.
Radegast stood firm as lightning played
over her body, crackling and snapping like electric snakes.
Alec charged after the elf, swinging his
sword wildly but chopping nothing but firewood.
Varien used his boots of striding and springing and bounded over the ditch,
engaging the elven fighter with a divine
smite .
“Begone, thot!” the paladin shouted as he
drove Talon home with two vicious strikes, accompanied by a sound of thunder.
The wounded elf disengaged and fell back towards the archers in a skirmish
line.
Xylon cast a chromatic orb at the elven attackers, which missed, sizzling as it
burrowed its way through the underbrush.
Bob cast bane on the attackers he could see.
Varien’s opponent struck back viciously
with two swings of his sword.
“Hey!” Radegast shouted. “I can see your
house burning from here!”
Two more elven fighters emerged from the
dim woods to reinforce their companions, their silvered swords flashing as they
charged forward.
Varien threw up his shield to block the
flurry of attacks, but was only partially successful. He grimaced as the elves
drew blood.
Alec heard a voice whisper something Elvish
in his ear as a sword struck home, stabbing him deeply. The fighter reared
back, grunting as his blood joined the patter of rain on the leaves around him.
Radegast whipped out her bone flute,
winked, and conjured a grating, discordant screech from it as she cast shatter.
There was a piercing noise that blotted out
all the other sounds of battle. One of the elves dropped his sword, cupped his
hands over his eyes, and stumbled back, dead.
Alec found the strength within himself to
gain a second wind, swinging his sword with two precise strikes that left his
opponent reeling.
One of the elven archers cast a hunter’s mark on Varien.
Varien jumped forward again, ignoring a
slashing attack from one of the fighters, as he closed in on the archer.
“You marked me for death,” he shouted.
“That’s not for you to decide!”
He landed a decisive divine smite on the archer, running him through with Talon until a
beam of radiant energy poked through the elf’s back. Varien let the corpse fall
off his sword and he turned to take a swing at the second archer, slicing his
head off before he had a chance to scream.
Xylon bent to pick up Radegast’s lute. He
launched a firebolt at the elf
menacing Alec.
Bob cast toll the dead on his brother’s attacker.
From the darkest reaches of the forest
strode a cadre of elves flanking a female elven wizard of obvious noble
bearing. At her side was a tall, thin elf in golden battle armor.
The wizard nodded to one of her retinue,
who raised an elf horn to his lips and blew a tattoo of strategic withdrawal .
The wizard raised her hands and began to
conjure a fiery spell. She stretched out her hand and began to raise what
looked like a blazing wall of fire that would cut the party off from their
opponents.
Bob was having none of it. “Counterspell!”
he shouted, wagging a finger at the wizard.
The elf’s spell failed. Her eyes narrowed
as she glared at Bob, and then she and her party disengaged, heading for the
treeline, where they disappeared.
The remaining two elves began to beat a
hasty retreat.
“Cowards!” Radegast called after them.
“Mongrels!” She cast shatter in an
effort to slow them down, knocking one of them prone with blood pouring from
his eyes, nose, and ears.
The other stood shakily, sword still in
hand.
“Kneel and surrender or die with a second
wave!” Radegast called.
The fighter grimaced. “I do not surrender
to abominations or vermin!” he shouted, readying his sword.
“I compel you to face me!” Varien shouted,
casting compel duel .
The elf laughed and shook his head. “Come
and get me, worm!”
Varien frowned.
A firebolt
leapt from Xylon’s forefinger and cut down the last fighter where he stood.
Overhead, the storm began to wane.
“What the hell, Xylon?” Radegast shouted.
“We were going to take him alive!”
Xylon refused to meet Radegast’s glaring
gaze.
Bob also glared at Xylon as he forded the
stream, intent on casting spare the dying
on the felled elf.
“Stay your hand!” Xylon shouted.
“Why?” Radegast and Bob shouted back.
“When it comes to the Eldreth Veluuthra , the dead should stay dead,” Xylon said.
Radegast thought for a moment. Is he talking about banshees? No, it must be
more than that. A funny feeling was tickling the back of her mind. Could Xylon be sympathetic to the Eldreth
Veluuthra’s cause? No. But he is a Harper. Perhaps there’s an issue there.
Xylon turned to the bard and switched to
Elvish. He nodded in the direction of the humans in the party. “Radegast, most
humans don’t know that the Eldreth
Veluuthra exists, and the Harpers aim to keep it that way. We Harpers work
to infiltrate them and foil their plans from within, working against their
plans from the shadows, but we must keep their existence a secret.”
Radegast’s eyes widened. “You would cover up their evils rather than drag them
kicking and screaming into the light, just to keep civilization civilized and
comfortable?”
“Politics,” Bob said to himself, spitting
in disgust. He decided not to let on that he could speak Elvish perfectly well,
just to see where this conversation was going.
“Unlike the Harpers or the Lord’s Alliance,
the Order of the Gauntlet does not answer to kings or magistrates,” Radegast
continued. “We may not strike first, but when we see injustice we smite it for
all to see.”
“The situation is more complicated than you
think,” Xylon protested.
"It's never more complicated than that," Radegast said. "People say its more complicated than it is when they know the difference between right and wrong and they don't like the answer they got. This is how tyranny begins,
by deciding what is best for the world without giving the world the choice to
decide what’s best, and calling evil good to maintain your position."
Radegast placed a hand on Xylon’s shoulder.
The elf jumped as a jolt of electricity arced out. “Sorry,” Radegast said
sheepishly. “Look, Xylon, I know you mean well, but...”
Xylon shook his head. “You don’t
understand. These are misguided extremists and a cancer on Elvenkind, but at
the end of the day they are still elves. If their actions were to come to
light, the reputation of all Elven nations, from Evereska to Silverymoon and
beyond, would be irreparably tarnished. We would lose the trust of our allies
in this realm, and our people would risk losing their advantages.” He shrugged.
“And besides, the Eldreth Veluuthra
is an unnecessary embarrassment! We do not need them to fight on behalf of
Elves to preserve my – I mean our – station in Creation. Why risk upsetting the
order of things because of a few forest-dwelling assassins? Harper spies are
doing the good work of foiling their plans, but we cannot risk their efforts
coming to light, as it would mean hundreds of new dangers for all elvenkind. Look, if you want to take the fight to them, I will stand
shoulder to shoulder with you as a friend, but…”
Radegast’s hand drifted from Xylon’s
shoulder to the collar of his cloak. She grabbed it and forced the wizard to
the edge of the ditch, knocking stones and clods of dirt down the steep
embankment. Xylon struggled to keep his footing.
“‘ Friend ?’”
Radegast snarled, her face inches from the wizard’s. “Do not speak of hiding
Elvish cancer as if it were a small child wetting the bed! There are murderers in our midst. A human will not
harbor another human murderer. A dwarven murderer is subject to dwarven law. If
you think because they may tarnish our reputation of superiority, perhaps that
concern over reputation is the same ideology that leads the Eldreth Veluuthra to act so despicably.”
She dropped Xylon over the edge of the
ditch. He landed in the shallow stream, his pride wounded, if nothing else.
Bob shook his head, upset at the exchange.
Radegast marched away, fuming.
Bob watched as the fires continued to
spread. This was going to be a problem
soon , he thought.
Radegast swore to herself as she marched
through the tangled underbrush. She passed another body lying scorched on the
ground.
Something about it grabbed her attention.
She stood over it. The elf’s corpse, even
in death, was fair in countenance and almost impossibly handsome. His skin
seemed suffused with an inner light that had yet to ebb.
Radegast’s eyes widened in realization.
This was no ordinary elf, surpassing even the ar-tel-quessir .
This was an eladrin . The fabled highest of the high elves, that made even the
haughtiest of sun elves look like hill folk in comparison.
A creature no longer native to Toril.
Radegast knew that the eladrin called the
Feywild or Realm of Fairie home. What were they doing associating with scum
like the Eldreth Veluuthra ?
“So much for the better angels of our elven
nature,” she murmured as she looked at the dead eladrin.
She searched the body and found the nicest
item the dead eldarin owned – a glasslike necklace.
She pulled it off and destroyed it in
tribute to Talos.
In the distance, thunder boomed.
When she was done, she saw the rest of the
party, minus Xylon, staring at her.
“What?” Radegast said.
“Your hair,” Bob said.
Radegast looked down and saw that a silver
streak now ran through her brown hair from tip to presumably root, in the shape
of a lightning bolt.
“Nice,” Radegast said. “Now, where to next?”