Fyodor swung out high, his sword blocking the downward sweep of a Luskar battle-axe. With his free hand he punched forward and spattered the warrior’s nose across his bearded face. The enormous man let out an incongruous whimper and then fell face first to the deck.
The young berserker stepped over the fallen man and looked around for his next fight. Beneath his tunic the Windwalker amulet seemed to burn with cold fire against his skin—painful, yes, but the drow’s magic held true. For the first time in many months, Fyodor was in full control of his fighting power. Yet he took no joy in battle, nor did he exult in the deaths of those who fell before his black sword. It was a necessary thing, to protect the land that had sheltered him and Liriel and to lead the berserker brothers who trusted in his strong arm and quick wits.
The young man nimbly sidestepped an onrushing warrior. The Northman’s enormous broadsword plunged deep into the ship’s mast and stayed there, quivering slightly. Fyodor backhanded the weaponless warrior and sent him sprawling. The man spit teeth, lurched to his feet, and came in again. Suppressing a sigh, Fyodor seized the hilt of the impaled sword and pulled it back toward him in a curving arc. With a swordsmith’s sure instincts, he released the weapon a moment before it would have shattered. The sword sprang back into place with an audible twang—at the precise moment that its owner stepped into its path. The flat of the sword caught the man at waist level. His feet flew up, his arms went wide, and his head hit hard as he measured his length on the ship’s deck. This time, he stayed down.
Next Fyodor ran to the aid of a Holgerstead berserker whose axe was hard pressed by four Luskar swordsmen. He fell in at his brother’s back, parrying a sword strike as he tapped the man’s hip in a prearranged signal. Once, twice more Fyodor parried the Northman who engaged his blade, taking care that the strikes were loud enough to ring above the clamor of battle. Then he lunged, running the Northman through and heaving him off the blade with one quick movement. In the next breath, Fyodor spun, swinging his black sword with all the force of his Rashemaar might and magic.
As he did, the Holgersteader went down on one knee. Fyodor’s blade whistled over his brother’s head—and through the necks of all three men who had faced him. There was no time for any of the Northmen to raise a parrying sword, no arm with the strength to stop such a blow. Three heads tumbled to the deck, still wearing the triumphant leers of men who had been sure of their prey.
The Holgersteader lunged upward, arms spread wide, catching the headless bodies as they fell and then hurling them into the paths of two approaching fighters. The Luskar warriors instinctively veered away from the horror; the berserker coolly advanced upon the unnerved men, his dripping axe held high.
Seeing that matters here were well in hand, Fyodor turned his attention to the battle beyond the Holgerstead ship. Another warship approached them at ramming speed. Standing in the bow, his black-bearded face suffused with an unholy glee, was someone Fyodor knew. The faces of the slain had fled from his dreams, but for good or ill, the memory of each of his battles was his again. He remembered fighting this man, remembered severing the man’s sword hand. Yet the man gripped his sword with obvious anticipation, and his eyes burned into Fyodor’s as the warship closed the distance between them.
The young First Axe shouted an alarm, sending Holgerstead archers to the port rail to meet the new attack. Fyodor had no doubt that he would meet this man in battle before the fighting was through.
At that moment a thunderous explosion sent waves rocking out to sea with a force that defied the sea’s natural rhythm. Fyodor grabbed for a handhold and turned his gaze toward the shore. What had been two Luskar warships now littered the sea as bits of smoking flotsam. For a moment he knew mingled joy and relief; this could only be Liriel’s work. She had returned, triumphant, from Ascarle!
But as his eyes followed the trail of shining magic, they lifted to the skies above Inthar and to the tiny, gallant figure that floated there. Before his disbelieving and horrified gaze, Liriel took on size and power, much as a berserker did at the onset of a fury. But never in his life had Fyodor sensed such a cloud of evil as that which surrounded the drow, crackling with dark energy and malevolent delight.
At that moment, Fyodor knew that confrontation between him and Liriel, so long in coming and so painfully denied by them both, was at hand. How she would choose, he could not begin to say.
The Northwoman burst from the watery portal like a breaching dolphin and hurled herself, knife leading, at the back of the merrow who had preceded her. She clung to the creature as it leaped, howling, over the wall of the little pool. The sea ogre whirled, swatting frantically at the woman who clung like a burr just beyond the reach of its black-taloned hands. She stabbed again, driving the knife in viciously. The merrow slipped in its own blood and fell to the stone floor.
Xzorsh climbed from the water, astonished at the woman’s fury. Her cold blue eyes settled upon him, and she seized his wrist, hurling the much slighter elf into the path of a merrow who was turning, an aggrieved expression on its hideous face, to see why its comrade had tripped and jostled it.
Xzorsh reacted with an elf’s quick reflexes. He brought up his knife and braced his elbow against his side, letting the force of the Northwoman’s swing drive the knife home. The astonished merrow wheezed as the blade went in, sending a burst of foul breath over the sea elf. Xzorsh yanked the knife free and sidestepped the falling ogre.
“Who are you?” he demanded of the woman in a wondering tone.
“Ygraine, oldest daughter of Ulf the shaman,” the girl gritted out. “I will not see those creatures enslave my village as they did me. Will your sea people fight?”
“They will, with you to inspire them,” the sea elf said with deep admiration, ready to yield his command to one whose passion and commitment outstripped even his. He motioned for her to wait, and together they helped the rest of the freed slaves from the portal. When the last of them had emerged, Ygraine of Ruathym led the charge down the hillside toward the village. Her fierce, keening battle cries roused and rallied the women waiting below.
They poured out of their cottages to meet the attacking sea ogres. Few of them owned swords or knew the art of fighting, but all had chopped kindling and knew the handling of an axe; all had slaughtered hogs with the coming of autumn and could wield a butcher’s knife with swift authority; all had turned the soil with pitchforks, and speared fish with lightning-fast thrusts. These homely tools came into play now as Ruathym’s women remembered their warrior heritage.
With a fierce intensity that would have given pause to many of their battle-seasoned menfolk, the women fell upon the invaders. And at their sides fought the sea elves. The Northwomen did not seem to remember or care that they had accounted the elves enemies earlier that same day.
The sound of pounding on the door of a familiar wooden building drew Xzorsh’s attention. The sea elf ran to the prison that had once held him and his treacherous friend. He recognized the voice within and quickly threw back the bolt that kept Caladorn of Waterdeep imprisoned. The tall fighter pried a sword from the fist of a fallen merrow and leaped into the fray. Behind him, reluctantly at first but with growing fervor, the two surviving seal hunters fought their way deeper into the frenzied, terrifying, exhilarating melee that swept through the village like a wave of death.
And in the frenzy, no one noticed that the disgraced daughter of Ulf crept from the prison and made her way to the fisherfolk’s cove.
When at last no more elves emerged from the tower, Liriel began to chant the words to a spell that would close the portal for all time. It was a difficult spell, made more taxing by the impatient, insistent power that coursed through her in a dark and pulsing tide. The Lady of Chaos had little love for the orderly discipline of wizardly magic.
But Liriel pressed on, summoning all the power she could call her own, channeling it into one final, desperate spell. At last the ancient tower began to shake. Cracks rippled upward from the base, and the keep th
at had withstood the centuries collapsed into a pile of dust and rubble.
Liriel coughed, choking on the clouds of roiling dust, and instinctively moved farther out to sea. She felt her innate levitation magic slip away, and she recognized, dimly, that there was nothing between her and the jagged rocks below but the power of a capricious goddess.
The girl’s hand lifted, without act of will, and spat dark fire at a Luskar ship. The oiled canvas of the sail turned into a sheet of flame. Nearby a small Ruathen ship tossed wildly, rocked by the hands of a score of vengeful nereids. Pulses of energy coursed from Liriel’s outstretched fingers into the sea near the beleaguered ship, heating the water around it to an instant boil. The screams of the scalded nymphs could be heard even over the sounds of battle and the crackle of burning ships.
But to Liriel’s ears, the only sound was the wild, exultant laughter that rang through her benumbed mind. Her defenses down, her strength spent, the young drow was utterly open to the power that held her in its demented hands. She felt with horrifying clarity each death, and Lloth’s delight in it.
She had promised the Spider Queen a victory, but the chaotic goddess seemed to have lost sight of this goal amid the wondrous carnage of the moment. It did not seem to matter to the blood-drunk Lloth whether the slain were invaders or defenders, merrow or sea elves. There was no purpose to the killing, and no apparent end.
Liriel knew the depths of her own folly and bitterly regretted the course she had taken. Fyodor had warned her that there was a price for power; she should have realized that Lloth’s would have to be paid in blood.
Despite the force of the battle rage that coursed through him, Fyodor could not take his eyes from the drow who floated above the haunted ruins. Never had she appeared so beautiful … or so deadly. She was no longer just Liriel, but a conduit for sheer, evil power. Many times he had seen her channel magic that seemed a burden too heavy for one so seemingly frail. This time, he knew with the surety of Sight, that unless he could stop her, Liriel would be consumed by the dark flame.
“Think, think,” he admonished himself fiercely. He searched his storehouse of Rashemi tales and legends for inspiration, his frenzy-enhanced mind flashing from one possibility to the next. None told him how to challenge an elven goddess.
In desperation, Fyodor reached for the Windwalker, the ancient amulet that had linked him with the drow from the beginning. With it, Liriel had lent him the ability to control his berserker magic—and perhaps, to press its limits to untried heights.
With grim determination the young man sought a berserker’s ultimate power, the hamfarir, which would send his spirit forth to do battle in the shape of some mighty animal.
The wind of the shapeshifting rage had seemed a small thing compared to the change that now swept through him. Fyodor’s spirit tore free of his physical form with a sensation that went far beyond pain. Leaving his body behind on the embattled ship, Fyodor willed himself into the form of a giant raven and sped forward to snatch Liriel from the hands of her goddess.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AS ONE
The sweep of wind from enormous wings buffeted the exhausted drow. Instinctively she raised her hands to attack as a creature the size of a small dragon closed in upon her—a looming blackness that blotted out the stars.
At the last moment, the bird veered away, its wing feathers brushing her face with a gentleness that was oddly familiar. It seemed to anticipate the drow’s attack; Liriel’s bolt of killing magic sizzled harmlessly into the night sky. She struggled to focus on the bird. It was a raven, with eyes the color of a winter sky. In some distant part of her mind, Liriel remembered the time that Wedigar had fallen upon her and Fyodor, clad in the form of a giant hawk. That hawk’s eyes had been gray—like Wedigar’s. At last she understood the nature of the avian beast.
So also did the power that gripped her. Rage, fierce and possessive and all-consuming, rose in Liriel like flame. As the giant raven circled around for another pass, the young drow priestess felt the inexorable demand of her goddess for the sacrifice required of all who walked the pathways of Lloth. Before Liriel could protest, the killing flame crackled ready at her fingertips. She watched, helpless and despairing, as Fyodor came steadily toward his death.
But the words of the shaman, spoken not long before, cut through the fog that clouded the drow’s benumbed thoughts. “Our dealings with the gods are more honest. We name a bargain. If the god doesn’t hold up his end of the deal, we call it off and go our own way. Why should we hold mortals to higher standards than gods?”
“Victory,” Liriel murmured, taking strength from Ulf’s remembered words. “Queen of Spiders, I promised you a victory; in return, you demand the death of one who above all others could help ensure it!”
With her last vestige of physical strength, the young drow tore the obsidian pendant from her neck and hurled the hated thing toward the sea. The fire magic that danced ready at her fingertips sped after it, flashing down into the sea and sending a geyser of salty steam jetting into the night sky.
“I have fulfilled my pledge to you, Mother Lloth,” she whispered. “I am priestess no longer. From this moment until the time of my death, I will have nothing more to do with you. This I swear, by all the power I call my own.”
Suddenly cut off from the evil power that had both sustained and tormented her, Liriel began to plummet toward the rock-strewn coast. Giant claws closed around her with startling gentleness; utterly spent, the drow allowed the blue-eyed raven to bear her away.
Despite the tumult of battle, Rethnor noted the mysterious fall of his berserker nemesis. As his warriors engaged the Holgerstead fighters, he stalked up to the dark-haired youth. This was not the battle he had craved, but it would have to do. Rethnor was not one to let an opportunity pass. The Luskar captain raised his sword high, preparing to cut down the defenseless fighter in a single stroke.
A woman’s furious shriek startled him into immobility. Rethnor barely had time to swing his sword into defensive position before a familiar, pale-haired girl hurled herself toward him, armed only with a knife such as might be used to gut and clean a large fish. Rethnor instinctively parried the strike.
“Ygraine?” he muttered, staring with consternation at the illithid’s slave.
“Dagmar,” the girl spat.
The Luskar smiled grimly. He knew of this wench. Although he did not often fight women, it would give him pleasure to cut her down. Her cold ambition, her willingness to kill even her own sister to appease her ambitions, was enough to sicken even the hardened High Captain.
But Dagmar did not yield to death so easily. With a fury that defied even his expert swordsmanship, the Northwoman pressed Rethnor back toward the rail.
“You have failed—all is lost!” she shrieked at him. “Ygraine lives; I am disgraced! You have commanded this from the start. Take me away from this place, promise me a place of power in your land, or die now at my hand!”
As she spoke, one of the Holgerstead berserkers tossed away his sword and strode toward the embattled girl. Before Rethnor’s disbelieving eyes, the man’s face shifted, becoming fierce and furred. In moments an enormous wolf stood in the berserker’s place, blue eyes gleaming and lips curled back in a feral snarl.
The clatter of weapons echoed here and there as other Holgersteaders changed and joined the pack. Rethnor backed away slowly as the Wolves of the Waves, the legendary defenders of Ruathym, began to close in with deadly intent.
Dagmar saw the horror in her opponent’s face and whirled to face the new threat. A wild joy filled her eyes as she beheld the ever-tightening circle of shapeshifters.
“She is dead at last,” Dagmar said in a wondering tone. “Ygraine must have fallen in battle, and the prophecy is mine to fulfill!”
“Not so, Sister.”
A second feminine voice rang out over the ship as Dagmar’s twin clambered over the rail.
“The battle for Ruathym village is won,” Ygraine said. She walked acro
ss the deck, her hands outstretched to her twin. “Our homeland is safe, the ancient glory restored to our warriors. Between you and me, nothing lies beyond the power of forgiveness. Come home with me, my sister!”
The truth of the situation struck Dagmar with the force of one of the drow’s fireballs. It was Ygraine who had rekindled the shapeshifting magic! It was ever, always Ygraine! It was she who had received the power of the prophecy, the deepest love of their parents, the troth of the future First Axe. In all things, Ygraine had been chosen above Dagmar—even the pirates of Luskan had chosen Ygraine when they needed one sister to hold captive!
“How I hate you,” Dagmar said in a low, burning voice.
Ygraine flinched, but she continued to walk slowly toward the furious girl. “Come with me, Sister. Perhaps the healers can ease your mind and your heart, and restore you to your kindred. I will speak for you before the Thing and ask that this be done.”
“How many of your cast-offs must I accept? I will die before I take refuge in your secondhand honor!” Dagmar shrieked as she raised her weapon for a killing lunge.
“That you will,” the other woman said softly, “and soon, unless you put down the knife. The Wolves of the Waves cannot long be held back.”
Dagmar looked down, and for the first time she noticed that the shape-changed warriors were closing not on Rethnor, but on her. Indeed, there was no sign of the Luskar captain. He had disappeared, along with her last chance of becoming something more than Ygraine’s pale shadow.
The low growls of the advancing wolves sent a tremor through the half-mad girl; a moment more, and they would be upon her. Dagmar lifted her eyes, seized her sister’s beseeching gaze, and held it fast. Then she lifted her knife and thrust it deep into her own heart. A cry of anguish burst from Ygraine, and she leaped forward to catch her sister as she fell.
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