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They were flying directly toward the elf-eater's churning maw.
There was little that Maura could do, but she instinctively seized a knife from her belt to throw into that gaping, ravenous cavern-although she doubted it would inconvenience the monster in the slightest. Nor did she have any confidence that the eagle's attack would avail. The creature apparently thought that his giant hooked talons and rending beak were sufficient to the challenge. Unlike Maura, he had not seen the elf-eater at work.
"Up! Up!" she shrieked.
The eagle responded to the urgency in her voice. He tilted his wings to get the flow of wind beneath them and began to pull up into a soaring rise.
Too late. A long tentacle shot forward and seized the eagle by the leg. The bird came to a painfully abrupt halt. Maura did not. She sailed over the eagle's head and landed with bone-jarring force amid the flowers of one of the temple gardens.
Ignoring the surging pain that coursed through her every limb, the woman leaped to her feet, her dagger ready.
Sprays of golden feathers filled the air, mingling with the furious screams of the captured eagle. The giant bird put up a brave fight, but despite its struggles the monster drew it slowly, inexorably, toward its rapacious maw. Maura lifted her dagger high and started forward.
"Don't!" warned the eagle as its fierce eyes fell upon his fellow "not-elf." "Go find Zaor's elf-chick!"
For a moment the woman hesitated. It was not in her to leave an ally, or turn away from battle.
"Go!" screamed the eagle. He was jerked sharply toward the monster. There was a horrid crunching sound, and then his massive wings dropped limp.
Maura turned and ran for the tower that was Angharradh's temple. Even as she did, she realized that she was probably too late. If Ilyrana was anything like her younger brother, she would not use her clerical magic to flee from this place. The princess would try to stop the elf-eater, even at the cost of her life.
Maura found herself in sudden and complete accord with this, even though Ilyrana's death would mean Maura would almost certainly lose Lamruil to the duties of his clan and its crown.
The thought made her chest ache with a dull, hollow pain, but somehow her sorrow seemed a small thing compared with the evil facing her adopted home. She understood with her whole heart the choice that Lamruil had made, the choice that Ilyrana would almost certainly make. Nor could Maura do otherwise. If she could help Ilyrana, she would do it.
Wave after wave of sahuagin invaders swarmed the coasts of Evermeet, overwhelming the elven vessels and slipping through to fight the elves hand to hand on the red-stained shores.
For two days the battle raged. When at last some of the creatures broke past the elven defenders, they roiled inland, taking to the Ardulith river and swimming up into the very heart of Evermeet. Behind them came the scrags, terrible creatures that devoured with grim delight any being that had fallen to the talons and tridents of the fishmen.
Along the way, villagers and fisherfolk gathered to do battle. Bonfires dotted the shores of the Ardulith, and clouds of oily smoke roiled into the skies as the elven fighters consigned the slain sea trolls to the flames.
In the waters beyond Evermeet's shore, the Sea elves struggled to hold back the tidal wave of invaders. But they, too, had been taken unawares by the massive, multisided attack. Those Sea elves on patrol fought as best they could, but all others were trapped inside their coral city by a siege force of enormous size. The kraken and the dragon turtle that patrolled the waters fed well, but even they could not hold back the swarms of sea creatures that swept over the elven shores.
The elven navy, the wonder of the seas, fared somewhat better. In the waters beyond Evermeet's magical shields, elven man-o-wars and swanships battled against a vast fleet of pirate ships. They sent ship after ship into Umberlee's arms. And better still, they cleared a safe way for several vessels that fled for Evermeet, closely-and deceptively-pursued by the pirates.
"Fools," Kymil Nimesin observed as he watched the fiery battle raging behind his ship.
Captain Blethis, the human who commanded the flag ship Rightful Place, licked his lips nervously. "That's nearly the last of our fleet, Lord Nimesin. There will soon be but six ships left."
"That will suffice," the Gold elf said calmly. "The elven ships will go one to various ports, as we agreed. One will go aground on the beaches of Siiluth, and from there our forces will march inland to take and hold Drelagara. The next will sail around to Nimlith, and hold that city. Continuing northward, we will take the Farmeadows. This victory is key, both for food supplies and the horses we will need to ride south and inland. From the east we attack three points: The Thayvians will sail to the northern city of Elion to engage and destroy the drow scum that hold the keep there-certainly, the dark elves' usefulness is ended."
"From what I've heard of drow, that task might be harder than the telling suggests," Blethis muttered.
Kymil Nimesin cast an arch look in his direction. "And have you also heard of the red wizard's magic? The two are well matched-in power as well as loathsomeness. Those few vermin who survive the encounter will be easy enough to dispatch. The problem with this invasion," he concluded dryly, "is not so much in the conquering, but in knowing how best to rid ourselves of our allies."
The captain kept silent, though the elf's words set him to wondering how well he and the other humans would fare once the island was taken.
"We will accept the surrender of Lightspear Keep at Ruith," the elf continued. "And this ship, as pla
"You make it sound easy," Blethis commented.
"It has been anything but!" snapped the elf. "All my life, for more than six hundred years, I have been working toward this final attack. I have won and spent a dozen fortunes in funding it, formed alliances that will leave a stench on my soul throughout eternity! You have been told what you need to know. Believe me when I say that our ships will make port in a land that has been ravaged almost beyond repair.
"Almost, but not quite," Kymil added. "In times past, the People have rebuilt from less than we will leave them. The elves will merely be purified by this crucible, and the gold will rise above the dross at last. Evermeet will be restored in the image of ancient Aryvandaar. And from this place, the elves will once again reach out to expand and conquer."
It occurred to Blethis that the elf was no longer talking to him. Kymil Nimesin was reciting a litany, reliving the image that had ruled and shaped his centuries of life. Whether or not there was any truth in this vision, or even any sanity, the human could no longer say.
If Kymil Nimesin could have seen the battle playing out amid the temples of Corellon's Grove, it is possible that he himself would have doubted the sanity of his quest. Not even his blind zeal could excuse the unleashing of Malar's vengeance upon the elven homeland.
The elf-eater battered through a circle of standing stone, and a score of writhing tentacles reached out to ensnare the cluster of forest elf shaman who chanted spells of warding. As carelessly as a courtesan might pluck at a bunch of grapes, the monster thrust one elf after another into its churning maw. A few of the elves fled into the forest. Most stayed, fighting back with whatever weapons of steel or faith or magic they had at hand.
From her window in a high tower of Angharradh's temple, the princess Ilyrana gazed in horror at the carnage below. Her memory cast up an image of the last time she had seen this creature-during the terrible destruction of the Sy