The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [1]
For his target, this time, the Lord of Bones selected an elven tribe known as the Thy-Tach. The community had existed in peace for more than two millennia among the stately oaks of its pastoral vale. Far from the intrigues of Toril and Kara-Tur, the Thy-Tach elves had prospered without bloodshed or violent conflict for a very long time. They carved tall totems of wood and stone, placing these in honored sites throughout the forest, nourishing and tending the woodlands and wild creatures of the valley for many harmonious centuries.
Ityak-Ortheel changed that status very quickly. Transported through gates of arcane passage, the beast arrived in the midst of the peaceful village as evening approached, appearing with the quickness of a blinking eye. Tentacles flailing, the Elf-Eater lumbered through a pair of wooden houses, smashing them to splinters and quickly gobbling up the female and young elves cowering there. The Elf-Eater's huge bulk balanced upon a trio of legs-each club-footed, of huge girth-and this physical structure gave the monster a rolling appearance as it rumbled forward.
Screams of sheer terror rent the pastoral valley. Wooden walls splintered into a thousand pieces, while horrible tentacles probed, as if they had intelligence of their own, through the wreckage for survivors. When a tendril seized upon an elf-young or old, male or female-the terrified victim faced the consummate horror of the monster's mouth. The blood-red aperture gaped, and the last sights witnessed by the doomed elves were the churning plates of cartilage that thrashed, like giant tongues, within that horrid maw.
With a grotesque bellow, the monster roared through the village, crushing buildings, smashing the priceless totems, seizing elves with its snakelike tentacles. Cookfires sizzled and died, squashed by the beast's clublike feet. Great works of art, created from patterns of leaf and crystal, shattered beneath uncaring blows.
Some of the elves tried to fight. The bravest of them, males and females alike, took up bows or spears tipped with enchanted iron heads. The Thy-Tach fired these in courageous futility, watching as the sharp metal bounced harmlessly from the monster's rough carapace. Most of the attackers quickly felt the lashing of a tentacle around the ankle, precursor to a sudden and gruesome death.
Elven clerics, spiritual leaders of the tribe, struggled to gather the surviving Thy-Tach, fleeing into the darkness that settled over the forest. Stragglers fled the ruin of their town, gaining a precious few moments of time while Ityak-Ortheel searched the rubble for survivors-a few of which it found and quickly devoured. But within minutes, the monster knew that the village was empty and turned toward the forest in pursuit of the fleeing survivors.
The chief cleric, a matriarch nearly a thousand years old, led her people up the steep slopes of the valley toward a notched hilltop that had long been a place of honor and meditation among the Thy-Tach. Now, she knew, that place provided their only hope of escape. The cleric held before her a gleaming shape, like a platinum triangle balanced on its point, crossed by a spiderweb of silver threads. Now these threads glowed, and the cleric followed the direction indicated by their emanations.
The horrendous roars of the monster followed them, growing closer by the moment, as the stronger elves helped the weakest, both very young and very old, to make the difficult ascent. Trees splintered behind them, clearly marking the path of the pursuing beast. Seizing vegetation with its tentacles, the bulky monster barged up the slope, uprooting huge trees with the force of its enraged pursuit.
Reaching