07 Lord of Stormweather by Forgotten Realms

Author:Forgotten Realms [Realms, Forgotten]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-10T15:45:13.180000+00:00

CHAPTER 22 THE VERMILION GUARD Here they come!" shouted Muenda. Cale watched the southern horizon. A dark wedge of clouds swept toward them like a vanguard. Lightning flashed deep within its roiling mass. He looked to either side, where the other skwalos soared beside their own. Their line stretched from east to west in a graceful arc, each within range of the next one's archers for mutual defense. In the days since they'd joined the elves, more of the gargantuan creatures had joined their southward trek. Cale noticed the first at dawn after their first night upon the skwalos. Throughout that morning, one or two more appeared each hour. By noon, they began combining with larger groups until they formed an armada over one hundred strong. Before long, Cale realized that the skwalos they'd "boarded"he couldn't avoid sailing terms when describing the creatureswas a small specimen. Whole villages, and even thorny fortifications hung from the trees, sprawled on the backs of the greater skwalos. From aeries in the immense dorsal ridges of the largest skwalos flew elves on the backs of fantastic creatures that might have seemed gigantic if seen apart from their enormous hosts. Some were winged reptiles with great horns upon their skulls. Others looked more like bats the size of a mainsail, except for their many eyes and their three beaked mouths. One that glided down to perch upon a distant skwalos could only be a blue dragon. "Do you see anything?" asked Shamur. The willowy Lady Uskevren had tied her ash-blond hair in a tail that whipped behind her head like a war banner. The shreds of her skirts flew back as well, revealing strong legs that would have made a woman half her age envious. She gripped an elven bow with an arrow already nocked, and she wore a quiver of long arrows on her hip. The elves had trusted them with weapons in return for their oath that they would defend the skwalos so long as they remained aboard. Cale had accepted a bow and arrows as well as a long, sharp spear. He would have preferred a sword, in case the attackers managed to b6ard the skwalos. "There," said Cale, pointing to a spot above the storm front. A line of nine flyers in wedge formation emerged from the obscuring clouds. Aquiline heads, talons, and wings merged with muscular leonine bodies: griffons. Had they not been arrayed in an attacking force, Cale might have been glad to see a creature more familiar to the lands he knew. The griffons were uniformly huge, even larger than the pair Cale had glimpsed at the Talendar stables a year before. Each bore two riders clad in bright armor and scarlet cloaks. One of each pair held the reins in one hand and a long needle of a lance under the other arm. The second perched atop a higher seat in the saddle and wielded a recurved bow. The elves sang to each other from the backs of their skwalos.

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