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"Where are they?"
"Be patient," Fychan whispered, his eyes not leaving the steaming opening in the fire line as he spoke. The wizard could feel Rhonwen's furious eyes on his back for his admonishment, but was far too intent on finishing his assigned task to worry about the handmaiden's anger.
"They should have come through by now," Rhonwen huffed, keeping her voice low.
"They couldn't know we're here," Cadwared said quietly, his voice edged with concern. Only a few feet away from Fychan, the warrior was nonetheless nearly invisible in the darkness and the thick foliage. If any of the drow had been spotted, it had certainly not been the stealthy commoner.
"Silence, all of you," Talaith ordered harshly. The others needed no further prompting. Fychan lapsed back into watchful silence as he studied the blackened forest visible through the hole in the fire wall. The faeries could not have seen him, the wizard decided. The surface elves may have had keen vision even in the relative "darkness" of their moon, but they were still no match for the cunning and stealth of the drow.
Fychan's thoughts appeared to be proven true only a moment later. Slowly appearing through the steam and smoke, Valtaya's last faerie ally carefully edged his way through the darkness, an arrow on his bowstring as his eyes searched every direction for any signs of trouble. The surface elf seemed to look directly at the wizard for a long moment, but thankfully he seemed not to notice any of the drow in the darkness. After a long hesitation the faerie finally moved forward, stepping silently into the underbrush and nearly disappearing among the leaves. Valtaya appeared a moment later, looking nervous as she glanced rapidly through the trees. Fychan smiled as he saw her, slowly drawing his wand of lightning from his belt. Behind him Talaith shifted ever so slightly, and patted her brother on his shoulder.
Fychan leapt up and pointed his wand quickly, shouting a single command word as he targeted Valtaya's companion. Instantly a bolt of lightning ripped through the forest, striking the faerie squarely before he could react. The archer stumbled back under the force of the blow, but before he could recover Rhonwen cast a spell of her own and a towering pillar of dazzling orange and red flames engulfed the faerie. Valtaya screamed in horror as she tried to rush to her companion's aid, but the moment she hesitated was far too long. Cadwared jumped up and loosed a slim, short javelin, striking the young noble in the shoulder before she could react. Cadwared's nonlethal throw was exactly what the warrior had aimed for; within moments, Valtaya wobbled and fell, sinking into a deep, comatose slumber from the effects of the poison smeared on the javelin's pointed tip. As the faerie collapsed to the ground, an almost palpable silence fell over the forest, broken only by the fire's constant crackling.
"Well done," Talaith finally said, her eyes still on the two faeries. The archer's body had been almost completely incinerated, while Valtaya was intact but for her shoulder wound. Fychan nodded in agreement, but something nagged at the back of the wizard's mind. Although the faeries had acted just as he had suspected, Fychan still almost felt that the coup had been too easy. The faeries should have at least put up some sort of fight, at least fired an errant arrow or cast a desperate spell.
"Lolth has smiled on us this night," Rhonwen said, giving thanks to the Spider Queen. The handmaiden turned to her ettercaps. "Fetch the female."
The two spider things lurched forward to obey their mistress' command, quickly covering the short distance to the downed faeries. Eager to see Valtaya again, Cadwared also stood, but stopped short of joining Rhonwen's arachnid servants as they gathered the bodies. As the two ettercaps reached the bodies and nothing attacked them, Fychan finally began to relax. The wizard began to stand as he tucked his wand back into his belt.
The ettercaps' clawed hands passed through Valtaya's body.
"Illusions," Fychan breathed out, suddenly realizing the deception for what it was. The wizard turned to his companions, his eyes wide with alarm. "It's a trap!"
A new lightning bolt, this one from beyond the illusory faeries, proved his assumption correct.
She had to admit, the human's plan was better than anything she could have invented.
Valtaya had been skeptical at first of Cyril's plan, but Aiken had been impressed with the idea and even Fife had reluctantly agreed to the mage's tactic. Cyril had first used a sphere of invisibility to cloak the four and then carefully made their way through the opening in the fire line, somehow managing to stay silent enough to elude the drow. Once they had reached the undamaged forest, Cyril had used another spell, this one to create illusion of Fife and Valtaya herself making their way through the opening while the real Fife and Aiken tried to locate the well hidden drow. Valtaya could only hope that the drow had not used invisibility spells of their own and chosen the same place to hide in ambush. Valtaya also wondered if the illusions would fool the drow; not only were the dark elves said to be masters of magic, but Cyril's rendering of Fife seemed to Valtaya to show only a passing resemblance to ranger. Still, the plan was already in motion, and silently the druid closed her eyes and prayed to the Mother that the ruse would work.
Booms of thunder ripped through the forest as the drow unleashed fire and lightning against their enemies. Valtaya's eyes snapped open and the druid nearly dove for cover, but the dark elves' onslaught had been thankfully directed against the two images. Fife's illusion burned to a crisp in the magically conjured flames, while Valtaya saw herself knocked down by a javelin. The forest fell silent for a long moment, but the drow finally revealed themselves as they moved to claim their trophies. Valtaya's eyes went to Fychan as the wizard finally revealed himself, standing and watching with a vaguely uneasy expression on his darkly handsome features as the spider things moved to collect her illusion. Still the druid could not decide exactly how to view the wizard; he had treated her better than the other drow, but she was not certain if his apparent kindness was just an act to confuse her. He had drugged her, true, but if the others had wanted to beat the information out of her…
Fychan suddenly shouted out a warning to his companions. Valtaya snapped back to the present, seeing the ettercaps' claws passing through her illusion. In an instant the sphere of invisibility cloaking her dropped as Cyril unleashed a lightning bolt through the ettercaps at Fychan. At the same moment Fife and Aiken both opened up on Cadwared, who had made himself the most obvious target when he stepped out of the cover the others had used. Valtaya frantically rushed through her spells to try and add her own power to the strike, quickly settling on the priestess, Rhonwen, as she tried to react to the sudden assault. The druid rushed through her spell, trying to freeze Rhonwen inside of her chain mail with a chill metal spell, but before she could judge if it had been successful a burst of sound threw her flat on her back.
The sound burst stunned Valtaya for only a moment, but in the short time it took her to recover her hearing and senses the forest had seemingly dropped back into tense silence broken only by the crackling fires. Aiken and Fife, who had revealed themselves to fire on Cadwared, had once again disappeared into the verdant undergrowth, while the four drow had seemingly melted into the darkness. Even Cyril, barely visible to the druid's right, had attempted to hide in the foliage. For an agonizing moment, none of the combatants dared to reveal themselves.
A sudden scream broke the silence. Rhonwen suddenly appeared, breaking cover and running in the direction of the fires as she clawed at her freezing armor. The drow priestess' abrupt appearance seemed to restart the battle in a mad frenzy; Aiken and Fife popped into view as they sent their arrows flying, quickly prompting Talaith to throw up a wind wall to deflect the incoming missiles. Fychan also rejoined the fray in that instant, hurling a fireball directly between the two archers and lighting the forest with a brilliant explosion. Valtaya could barely see what happened to her two allies when Cyril leapt to his feet and shouted a bold, arcane phrase, following up the roar of the fireball with the booming thunder of a lightning bolt directed at the drow wizard. Once again Valtaya hurried through her spells in an attempt to aid her companions.
"You made it too easy," Cadwared suddenly said, practically whispering in her ear. The druid leapt away in terror and spun quickly, stunned by the dark elf's sudden appearance so close to her. "The chase, faerie," Cadwared prompted, drawing his short swords. Valtaya glanced about her desperately, praying for Fife to come to her aid, but as she turned to her companions Cadwared's shadowy duplicate appeared in front of her. The shadow lashed out with one inky sword at her, but the druid was just able to skip out of the way of the incorporeal blade. "Run, girl!" Cadwared ordered.
With no other options, Valtaya did just as the drow suggested.
The cunning deception was worthy of admiration, but that admiration could wait until long after the faeries were dead.
Fychan stumbled back to his feet, still smoking from the impact of the lightning bolt that had nearly felled him as he tried to discern exactly who had cast the spell. Valtaya was a druid, incapable of arcane magic, while the male that accompanied her was a ranger who could never have cast such a bolt. As the wizard stood again, however, he found himself facing four enemies; the two faeries had somehow found what must have been the remnants of the human party they had destroyed the previous night. With four instead of two, the faeries had sought to bring the battle to the drow, and initially they had seemed to gain the advantage. Such thought was folly; no human or surface elf could stand against the drow, and now they would see the flaws in their thinking.
Fychan cast one last glance around him, quickly appraising the scene. Rhonwen had actually jumped inside the flames of the forest fire, but the intense cold of her armor kept her from taking any damage as she turned back to the fight at hand. Cadwared had already gone in pursuit of Valtaya, chasing the faerie away from her allies between him and his shadow duplicate. Only Talaith seemed to be in any sort of trouble, ducking low behind her shield as the faerie and human archer unleashed their arrows against her, but his sister's problems would last no longer than it took for Fychan to flick his wand of lightning at the two bowmen. Quickly the drow lifted his wand and turned on the surface dwellers, deciding that his sister would be far more useful alive than dead for the time being.
Four magic missiles suddenly streaked in on the drow wizard, but instead of punching four holes in his chest the mystical bolts suddenly arced up and were absorbed into the brooch that clasped Fychan's cloak at his neck. The drow turned back on his human counterpart, a cold smile growing on his lips even as he thanked Lolth that the surface dweller had used a spell that he was well defended against. Without his brooch of shielding, the human wizard's magic missile spell would have been more than enough to kill him. Even now the human wizard was quickly preparing another spell, desperate to cast before the drow could recover from the impact and turn his own mystical power on his attacker. With a single word and a forceful swing of his wand, Fychan hurled another lightning bolt at the wizard, throwing him to the ground with the force of the blast. The drow waited for a long moment, his wand still poised to throw another lightning bolt where the human wizard had fallen, but his surface dwelling counterpart seemed to have fallen to the drow's mystical power. Quickly Fychan turned his attention elsewhere, quickly flagging down Rhonwen as she tried to make her way back to Talaith.
"Quickly," the wizard said, "heal me and we can strike down the two archers together!"
"Do not presume to order a female to do anything," Rhonwen snarled, her chain mail still steaming from the last remnants of Valtaya's druidic spells.
"We have no time to argue," Fychan pointed out, gesturing to Talaith as she dropped back a step. Both archers were still firing on the noble, but the elf was already pointing to the other drow for his human companion. "Heal me quickly, before they turn on us!"
He had hoped that Cyril's magic missile would strike down the drow wizard, but the dark elf had seemingly been prepared for the magical assault.
"Cyril's down!" Aiken shouted, although he barely lost a second from his firing on the armored drow ahead of him. Quickly the warden glanced around him, hoping that Valtaya would be able to help his friend, but the younger elf was nowhere to be found. "Where's Valtaya?"
"I don't know!" Fife shouted, frustration evident in his voice as he continued to loose his arrows against the drow. Like Aiken, Fife had prayed that the drow would be taken out quickly in the moment of surprise, but the four dark elves were showing themselves to be as resilient as they were lethal. None of the four drow had fallen in the initial assault, and even as Fife and Aiken tried to eliminate at least one of the dark elves from the fight the others had struck Cyril down and chased Valtaya somewhere into the darkness. "We have to take her down!" Fife shouted. "I think she's the leader!"
"How can you tell?" Aiken asked, glancing over his bow again to the dark wizard. None of their foes seemed to hold any identifying marks, but Fife seemed determined to fell the woman before them first. The armored female's shield moved almost like magic as she backpedaled and desperately searched for an escape from the barrage, somehow warding off every arrow that the two archers loosed.
"Females lead the drow!" Fife shouted in reply. The elf continued to draw arrows and fire on the barely visible woman, driving her back as she stayed focused on her defense. Aiken fired one more shot on the drow, trying to keep her off balance, but even as he let his arrow fly he glanced back to the wizard that had downed Cyril. The drow had already been joined by a second female, her armor still steaming from the combination of Valtaya's spell and the fires that the woman had run through to ward off the cold.
"Fife, another female!" Aiken shouted. The elf barely looked over his shoulder.
"She's yours!" Fife ordered. Aiken's mouth dropped open at the command, but the ranger had no more time to think as both the wizard and the armored woman with him turned their attention to him. The wizard was once again drawing his wand to throw off a lightning bolt, while the woman had already begun to chant a spell of her own. Knowing that he would never be able to interrupt two spellcasters at the same time, Aiken simply dropped low and dove to his left.
The move saved his life, but did not leave him unscathed. The wizard's lightning bolt was late and tore through the forest to his left, but the woman's flame strike was both faster and more accurate. Aiken could feel the searing, unholy flames burn his legs as he dove away from the towering pillar of orange and red flames that erupted behind him. Trees and bushes burst into flames around him as the warden tumbled headlong through the undergrowth, quickly trying to beat out the flames on his legs and arms. Smoking but still alive, Aiken scrambled rapidly away from where he had fallen, making certain that a second flame strike did not end his life. As if to punctuate his point, a wall of flames sprang to life between the warden and Fife, effectively separating the humans from the faeries. Suddenly the warden found himself confronted by fire all around him as the drow ignited a new blaze just north of the main forest fires.
"This is going really wrong," a voice said behind him. Aiken whirled, drawing his long sword and fumbling with his hand axe, but before the warden could attack he identified the badly injured Cyril next to him.
"Pelor's sunny ass," Aiken breathed out. "I thought they had gotten you!"
"Almost," Cyril said, gingerly touching the worst of the electrical burns across his chest. The wizard nodded in the direction of the two drow spellcasters. "We have to take them out quickly, or we're all dead," the wizard said. "If you think you can get close enough to the woman to kill her, I'll get another lightning bolt off on my arcane counterpart over there."
"You're in no condition to continue the fight," Aiken pointed out, quickly appraising his companion's injuries.
"Do you think they'll stop long enough for us to let the girl heal me?" Cyril inquired. Aiken shook his head.
"Okay," the warden relented. "But be careful."
"You're the one going over there, not me," Cyril said with a smile. "If it all goes well, that black elf will never know what hit him."
The pressure had almost been too much for her, a high priestess of Lolth and heir of House Evnissien, to handle, but the barrage of arrows was thankfully cut short before it could find a way through her defenses.
Talaith finally found herself able to breathe slightly easier as the human archer broke off his assault and turned on Rhonwen and Fychan, instantly swinging the battle's momentum to the drow. Faced with only one faerie, and a male at that, Talaith quickly grew more confident and halted her backward flight, allowing the foolish male to take a few more shots at her as she quickly debated her strategy. The faeries were nothing if not predictable, and Matron Saffir's gift of a shield whose enchantments were designed especially to deflect arrows had been all that was necessary to put the faeries back on their heels. Two more arrows glanced off of the shield as Talaith began to stalk forward, measuring her distance from the archer with a quick glance. The priestess hesitated for a brief moment, wondering where her ettercaps had gone when they should have been attacking the faeries, but the spidery abominations were only of secondary concern to her at the moment. Talaith took one step further, allowing the male to take one more shot at her, then called upon her innate powers.
A globe of darkness dropped over the faerie, blinding him instantly. Although Talaith could not see into her own darkness, her flame strike was aimed directly in the center of the globe, gambling on the possibility that the faerie would be too surprised by the sudden loss of vision to avoid the upcoming attack. The priestess' flame strike towered into the night sky, erupting out of the top of the globe of darkness, accompanied by a scream of pain that could only be the faerie. Talaith rushed forward, drawing her snake headed whip to finish her opponent, but before she reached the globe of darkness the surface elf erupted out of the inky sphere with his swords drawn.
He was badly burned and in obvious pain, but the sudden, furious assault quickly put Talaith back on her heels. The faerie's swords slammed into her shield with a jarring double impact, forcing the slightly smaller Talaith back under the brutal onslaught. Again and again the male cut away at the priestess' defenses, forcing her into a completely defensive stance, but Talaith frantically managed to keep pace with almost every cut and swing the surface elf could muster. One glancing blow struck Talaith across the shoulder and another laid open her thigh, forcing the priestess to one knee, but Talaith managed to keep her shield in line with the rest of the badly burned elf's attacks as she tried to back away from the ranger. While the elf's initial ferocity was quickly giving way to the pain of his injuries, Talaith was finding herself quickly out dueled by the disgusting faerie opposing her.
"Stop!" Talaith shouted, her voice carrying the unholy power of Lolth. The priestess' spell stopped the faerie just as he brought his swords back, freezing him in place. Slowly and deliberately, knowing that the surface elf was aware of her every move, Talaith calmly called upon the Spider Queen to heal the vicious wound to her leg, then stood and carefully tested her mended limb. While dull aches still plagued her thigh and the pain would still cause her a slight limp, the priestess masked the discomfort and turned a malicious, almost seductive smile on her prisoner. Making certain to turn each move into a theatrical display, Talaith allowed the five writhing heads of her snake whip to coil furiously as she sauntered towards the frozen faerie, but before she attacked she ran one delicate hand down her opponent's cheek. The faerie knew nothing of her language, but Talaith leaned in close and whispered into his ear anyway.
"Foolish male," the priestess cooed. Then she took one step back and struck.
The searing pain of the snakes biting into his flesh instantly broke Talaith's hold person spell, but the snakes' venom quickly replaced his paralysis with searing pain and muscle spasms that quickly sapped his ability to fight. The elf's sword strikes were already less coordinated as Talaith struck again and again, warding off her enemy's swords with her shield and retaliating with brutal strikes of her whip that continued to rip away the elf's studded leather and chunks of flesh with equal precision. Overcome by poison his myriad injuries, the surface elf nonetheless tried desperately to hold off his foe, but his vicious slashes were now reduced to jerky, half blind swipes of his weapons. Talaith backed off one step, smiling coldly as she watched the faerie struggle to his feet. By the time he could turn back on the drow, however, Talaith had completed her spell, and a swarm of spiders scurried across the forest floor between them to engulf the badly wounded faerie. As the spiders finished off her opponent, Talaith could not help but smile at the gruesome spectacle.
"Foolish male," the priestess said one last time. Then she turned back to the rest of the battle.
Her flight as not the headlong dash that had carried her into the spider's web and her initial capture several nights ago, but at each turn she still found herself blocked by Cadwared or his shadow.
Valtaya tried everything she knew to escape the malicious drow and his shadow double, but Cadwared seemed to anticipate every move the druid made and met her at every turn. Valtaya tried to make her flight as erratic as possible, quickly falling back and trying to move around her foe before he could discern her direction, but each move only seemed to push her farther and farther from her allies. Beyond the veil of trees and undergrowth, the druid could see lightning and fire exploding through the forest, a clear indication that help could not reach her. She had to find a way around Cadwared and back to Fife and the others on her own.
As if reading her thoughts, Cadwared suddenly appeared on front of her, laughing as he took a deliberately high swing at her with his sword. Valtaya nearly fell flat on her back in her desperate attempts to avoid the errant blade, putting her easily in line with the drow's second blade. That sword cut through her leather armor, but thankfully the weapon only grazed her stomach just below her rib cage. The druid stumbled to one knee for a moment but leapt back to her feet, only to put herself directly in the path of the shadow's own blades. The icy, incorporeal weapon ripped through her chest and chilled her to the bone, but even as her strength was sapped by the numbing strike she was on her feet and running headlong into the darkness. Valtaya knew she could never abandon her companions, but unarmed as she was, the druid needed to put enough distance between her and Cadwared to allow her to cast some sort of spell. Given the time to cast a spell, she could summon an earth elemental to her side, but she could not cast the spell while Cadwared and his shadow were attacking her. Behind her Cadwared had launched himself wholly into the chase now, running her down with supernatural speed as his laughter carried through the darkness.
Valtaya's mad dash ended with a horrid ripping sound as her right leg suddenly gave out on her. Even as she fell she could feel blood running down the back of her knee and into her boot, but for the moment her only pain came from a scrape to her chin as she glanced off of a fallen sapling.
"The thrill of the chase!" Cadwared exclaimed, coming to a stop over her. Horrible waves of agony finally shot through the druid's leg, accompanied by maddening twitches of her severed hamstring. Cadwared kicked the fallen druid onto her back, aggravating the already serious injury with his callous treatment, and through tears of pain Valtaya found herself looking into the drow warrior's blood red eyes as he lingered over her. "I win, my dear," he whispered, already beginning to cut through her leather tunic with his sword. Valtaya threw one wild punch at her attacker, but Cadwared caught her fist easily even as he pinned her other arm beneath his knee. Held helpless, Valtaya could only pray for a miracle as she struggled desperately to free herself. "And to the victor, goes the spoils."
Cadwared was suddenly gone, lifted off of her and thrown into the air among the branches of the trees above her. Valtaya tried to jump to her feet, unwilling to spend any time trying to figure out what had happened, but her hamstrung leg instantly gave way under her and dropped her back to the ground. Above her, Cadwared fought and shouted in his own language as his arms and legs were wrapped in branches and vines, quickly stretching him between two large, squat oaks. Cadwared's shadow flailed at the bases of the trees, hacking away with its shadow swords, but the entity seemed to have no effect as Cadwared was quickly stretched to the breaking point. With a final, disgusting snap, the drow warrior was torn in half between the two trees.
"Not trees," Valtaya breathed, forgetting the pain of her injuries for the moment in the face of her rescuers. "Treants."
He had made it close enough to the two drow to spring his trap, somehow going unnoticed in his quick dash to their position. His initial good fortune, however, seemed to run out as quickly as it had come.
Aiken had initially caught the second drow priestess completely off guard, scoring a quick and devastating hit to her before she could react, but the wizard had managed an attack of his own before Cyril could rejoin the fray. Four magic missiles slammed into the warden's side as he pushed the female back, further injuring the already wounded warden as he tried to keep the offensive against the woman. The priestess drew a serrated long sword from the sheath at her side as Aiken kept on her, trying to give her no time to cast a spell before he reached her and praying that Cyril would take the wizard before he cast another spell. Aiken's hopes proved right a second later; a hemisphere of ice suddenly trapped the wizard even as Aiken pressed the attack on the priestess. The drow female stumbled back step after step as Aiken continued to bash away at her defenses, concentrating as much on knocking her sword and shield from her hands as he did on finding a way through her defenses. With the wizard trapped inside Cyril's icy prison, Aiken began to believe that the battle might go to the surface dwellers after all.
A deafening roar of flames suddenly washed over the warden, bringing with it an unbearable heat that began to sear Aiken's unprotected flesh. The ice prison melted and tumbled to one side, but the drow wizard emerged from the thawing deluge without anything more than a few spots of water on his black robes. Aiken's surprise at seeing the dark elf emerge nearly cost him his life; the warden barely turned back to the female in time to parry away a brutal overhand chop that nearly broke the haft of his hand axe. Both Aiken and the female swiftly began to push their way away from the fire wall that now burned yet another line through the battlefield, attempting to escape the inferno's scorching heat even as they tried to fine their way through each other's defenses. Somewhere behind him, Cyril was beginning another spell, his sharp voice sounding rushed and nervous in the face of his opponent's show of might. With the drow priestess still coming at him, Aiken could not hazard anything more than a glance to the two sorcerers, and instead turned all his attention to the woman in front of him. Priestess or not, the dark elf was no novice with her blade, and even a momentary distraction could spell the warden's downfall.
The priestess was no novice with her weapon, but she was no master either. The woman's predilection for heavy, overhead chops was quickly becoming predictable, and the windup for such a powerful blow was a clear sign of her intentions. Three times the dark elf brought her sword crashing down, but even as she hit nothing Aiken found the opening he needed in the woman's stance and downstroke. As she once again brought her sword arm back for the now expected strike, Aiken swept forward and exploited the weakness.
The female tried to pull her sword back in time, but she was already too open to her opponent to mount a significant defense. Aiken caught the blade of his axe on the edge of the drow's shield and yanked as hard as he could, barely pulling the steel rimmed device aside. The priestess' eyes went wide and she tried to dodge the inevitable strike, but Aiken had already thrust his sword forward with all his might, busting through the rings of her chain mail and driving the blade deep into her stomach. Almost at the same instant, another fireball exploded far behind the two combatants. Aiken turned quickly, hurling the dying priestess off of his sword, but already it was too late. The drow wizard was already turning on the warden, while the spot where Cyril had been was now yet another fiercely burning fire in the dark forest.
Rhonwen's death was not so much a blow to Fychan as it was a welcome event. Talaith's handmaiden had never been one of the wizard's favorite females.
Fychan turned away from the smoking crater where the human wizard had stood, facing his last opponent with as confident and cold a demeanor as he could muster. With his spells virtually exhausted and his wand of lightning out of charges, however, the wizard would be at a distinct disadvantage if Rhonwen's killer turned on him next. The wizard had a fireball left on one of his scrolls to use against the ranger, but beyond that he could manage only a magic missile and a web spell to bring to bear against his foe. Even as the ranger turned on him, however, Fychan's eyes lit with a more confident and sinister smile; Talaith had finally won her battle against the elven archer, and had finally turned to help her brother. Even without her spells, Talaith was a brutal fighter and the master of her snake headed whip, and the already badly injured human would stand no chance against the two of them.
Fychan's eyes lost their confidence, however, as he saw something huge looming in the trees behind his sister.
At first the wizard thought some kind of giant had entered the fray, but all too quickly the hulking shape's true form became apparent. The human ranger, resigning himself to his last stand against the two drow, quickly followed the wizard's line of sight, but even he seemed more unnerved by the walking trees than anything else. Seeing the two males staring over her head at something behind her, Talaith also turned to face the living tree, the treant of early drow myth, now marching towards her.
Fychan wasted no more time gawking, but quickly drew his final scroll and unfurled it with a quick flick of his wrist. The ranger was on the move, racing towards the spellcaster, but Fychan was far less concerned with the badly injured human than he was the terrifying tree monster closing on his sister. The dark elf sped through his chant, unleashing a ball of fire on the treant just before the ranger could reach him. The fireball erupted in the branches of the tree thing even as Talaith called upon her flame strike to devour the monster, but the wizard saw nothing past the initial explosions as he crumpled to the ground beneath the impact of the ranger's sword. Gasping in pain and clutching at the grievous wound in his side, the wizard crawled backwards as quickly as he could while the ranger stalked in on him. Although Fychan had very few spells left at his disposal, his innate abilities were another thing altogether.
In an instant the wizard had dropped the world around him into a globe of inky darkness. While the darkness blinded even Fychan, the wizard was certain that his opponent could not see either, and quickly rolled to the side. A heavy blade impacted sharply with the ground where he had been a moment before, but Fychan was unwilling to spend any more time in combat with the human. Stumbling to his feet and staggering out of the globe, the wizard quickly cast his web spell, hearing a satisfactory shout of frustration from the entangled human trapped in his spell. The wizard next turned to Talaith, but the priestess had already covered most of the distance between them in her race to escape the enraged treants. One of the sentient trees had indeed fallen to their combined fire spells, but four more of the monsters had joined the attack.
"Quickly," Talaith gasped, barely stopping to grab her wounded brother. "We must escape now!"
"What about the tree things?" Fychan inquired. Although he doubted they could win a fight against four more treants, the wizard was uncertain if facing Matron Saffir without accomplishing their mission was a preferable alternative
"To the Hells with the tree things!" Talaith snapped, glancing over her shoulder. Fychan thought for a moment that he saw Valtaya riding in the branches of one of the treants, but he could not be certain before he was spun around by his sister's panicked attempt to drag him along. "They will kill us!"
Fychan hesitated only a second longer before following his sister off into the darkness. They had lost their sacrifice and had not killed all of the tree things, but Fychan did know one thing that might buy him a reprieve at the hands of his sadistic mother.
He knew how to find Oakenbough.