12


    Whinn Snifyip chose her arrival site with great care. Like Thartaar and Slagerd, she''d been a goblin before enacting the fearsome rite and unleashing the gnoll curse. She knew Starshire well, if mostly from below, and as ''Gashnar-Tak'' which meant ''Deep Lair''.


    Vok-Tar, the ancient fortress of the mighty ones, had been taken by invading elves and turned to their uses, as had the Big Wash and Tangle Wood. All were turned conscious and hostile, now. Driven to frenzy by druidic magic. The fortress had been sealed behind a towering barrier of dense thorn; its twisted branches concealing all but the highest spire.


    The gnoll priestess would make no progress there. Not without help.


    Instead, she who''d been Scarjaw the Seer manifested herself at the sacred grove, rising like fever mist from the pit left behind by a Tree-Shepherd. Turning abruptly solid, she shook off half-frozen clods of black earth and dormant worms, there in the grove by the Skystone altar.


    No one had ever dared shape or mar this great rock with carvings. Not even the elves. It remained as it had since it fell from the heavens in the time of old myth; rusty, pitted and brimming with power.


    Here, the proud elf-lords worshipped their gods. Here, in times past (and soon to come back) the goblins had poured forth spittle, urine and blood to the hungering powers of earth. Here, Whinn intended to turn things around for the beaten gnolls.


    With the Mother''s securely-wrapped knife clenched in her fist, Whinn leapt to the top of the Skystone. Like an iceberg, the altar was mostly hidden from sight, touching a powerful ley line, below.


    From its bald, exposed top, the gnoll priestess examined her surroundings. Overhead, the Great Serpent was nearly at zenith, lending strength to the forces of chaos, shadow and night. Lower down, the village of Starshire smoldered fitfully; still burning brightly in some places, collapsing to glittering ash, everywhere else.


    Trees burnt, as well, flailing wildly as they struggled to reach the Big Wash and douse themselves. The noise of awakened forest was a low and crackling roar in which mingled the creaking of branches, the snapping of roots and the pattering fall of disturbed soil. Over it all, the high, keening song of the Tree-Shepherds fluted and trilled. Joining his music to theirs, a mighty white elk bugled nearby, calling animals, too, into battle.


    The stench of smoke and blood and charred wood was strong, carried by gusting, unstable winds. Flocks of ravens circled and cawed overhead, seeking out prey for their gnollish masters. They spotted the priestess and began to circle her, spreading word to the scattered and leaderless night-things that someone had come.


    Whinn turned her muzzle up to the sky and gurgled an awful, clattering howl. A summoning call. A whole-clan-together call that ended in shrill, crazy laughter. Answering yips and whines came back from the village, lake shore and fields, as the remains of Slagerd''s army heard and responded.


    ''Captives'', cried part of her chuckling scream. ''Bring unmarked victims for sacrifice.''


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    A tall order, as all of the fortress''s elven defenders seemed to have retreated behind that writhing and venomous druidic thorn-cliff.


    Then, Whinn saw something out of the side of her gaze, off near a copse of young aspens that shifted and moved as a trembling group. Not a tree. Not an ally. Not any more.


    She turned her head, pivoting with serpentine speed and whip-like agility. A growled word sent an explosion of acidic dark tentacles shooting out of her chest toward the half-glimpsed intruder. She''d intended to pin and seize him, but Slagerd was faster. Somehow, her transformed comrade dissolved into a tornado of spores, leaving her tentacles nothing to strangle or burn. Instead, the spores sank into the frozen ground, shooting across it like silvery lightning to rebuild himself on the Skystone, beside her.


    Whinn next lashed out with a clawed hand, meaning to slash his throat, but the massive berserker twisted aside. He had grown even larger, riddled all through him with twining fungus and patches of creeping slime. His eyes burned phosphorous-white, and his lolling tongue had become a swollen dark puff-ball. Gnoll blood, goblin blood spattered him everywhere, feeding the coating of fuzzy grey mold that now covered his muscular body.


    Whinn danced nimbly backward, calling on earth and shadow to defend her. Instantly, a pair of glowing spectres appeared. Trailing eldritch fire, they swirled around Whinn, partially blocking the maddened berserker''s strikes. Not all of them, though, and not completely. Slagerd lifted a huge arm, its fist a club of festering flesh and exposed, rotting bone. He struck hard, cracking and caving in ribs, sending Whinn spinning halfway off of the Skystone.


    He was strong, boosted with vile druidic spells, and her clanmates were far; but Whinn was a gnoll and a female, at that. She did not back down, or give in to mere pain. The same impulse that had driven her… with Vodon and Grugg… to waken the Mother, kept her fighting now.


    As a doughty false member enlarged to push through her elf-hide cloak, Whinn lunged for Slagerd''s throat with wide-gaping jaws. Got a mouthful of dusty, dry-tasting fungus along with the druid infection. Managed to tear the wrapping off of that eldritch blade with one hand, swinging it down and around to slice through Slagerd and into the Skystone.


    The purple-dark blade tore flesh and reality, fed by Slagerd''s lifeforce. His talons, in turn, raked her face and lower jaw, ripping it loose on one side, violently dispelling one of her spectral guardians.


    Their blood mingled on top of the stone as the knife bit deep into rock. With a low, booming tone, an opening formed between the sacred grove and some far, lightless underrealm.


    Violet lightning shot forth, striking upward to destroy Whinn''s remaining spirit guardian, flaring onward to cast a web of magic that outshone the stars. The battling gnolls flailed wildly as, beneath them, that crack in the Skystone zig-zagged and gaped.


    Things began pouring forth in a boiling horde. Wraiths, ghouls, ifrits and chuuls, lit with the Mother''s dark fire, followed the lightning to freedom and riot. They overwhelmed Slagerd and Whinn in a matter of pounding heartbeats, then spread themselves out in a tide of blind hunger and unsparing chaos; devouring gnolls, striking down ravens and setting the thorn wall ablaze with black flame.


    On the wall''s other side, standing by Speaker Annetta, Reston ordered his warband back onto their mounts.


    "Make ready, all of you," he called out, running a bleak eye over his sorely diminished fighting force. "Only the youngest and life-bearers are to remain behind in defense. Prepare the deadfalls and traps within Starloft, and ring the war-bells."


    He had sensed what was out there, through Ashlord, and didn''t expect to survive. The wood-elf ambassador placed a light hand on his arm, staying the warden a moment longer.


    "Lord Reston," she said, "Lobum arises. The Circle of Druids is coming, with nine full units of bowmen. Starloft stands not alone in this fight."


    Reston''s free hand held tight to his horse''s bridle. He inclined his head in reply, managing the faintest ghost of a smile.


    "May it be soon," he said to the tattooed wood-elf, "or there will be nothing left to defend."