"How well do these two fight?" Sareel indicated the others with a single nod.
"Renar is capable though mostly unseasoned. Captain Drelm is reliably deadly."
"That is good to hear."
Elyana motioned Sareel to come with her, and she stepped over beside Renar. The warrior woman followed. "Position yourself here. Have you a distance weapon, Sareel?"
"I do not."
"Renar, we're aiming for the nightmares."
The boy nodded in his helmet, then removed the thing and set it beside him.
"Your father would have kept his armor on."
"I'm not my father."
"So I see. Drelm, you and Sareel stand ready. Some of them are likely to make it over." She raised her voice a modicum. "Arcil, you've got the right."
The wizard was still in the midst of an incantation, but she knew of old that he'd know what to do.
Elyana fitted an enchanted arrow to her bow. The river was ten feet off, the nightmares and their dark armored riders no more than seventy feet beyond. She breathed deep, pushing all other distractions aside, and nocked arrow to string. She focused intently upon the glowing white eye of the central horse, and let fly.
The arrow soared, its point winking against the darkness. Elyana readied another arrow.
Her first mark tore through the horse's right orbit. The animal's head flung up and its front legs folded. It rolled and crushed its rider beneath it. The flaming mane sputtered—and then the fallen body was hidden behind the remaining animals.
Elyana fired again. This time the creatures watched with human intelligence, scattering to left and right. Her second shaft missed. But as the animals veered, a shadow hound leapt baying at a cluster of them on the right. Arcil had made his move.
One animal dodged the hound easily; the other stood up on its back legs and pawed at the air as its rider fell backward over its rump. Elyana planted two regular arrows in its exposed chest, and then the hound bowled into it.
There were six then, twenty feet from the river. The lead animals struck ground and rose into the air, their legs racing as though they galloped up invisible slopes. Two of the mounted warriors spurred toward the shadow hound, and the beast darted around their long, flashing swords.
The nightmares were sinisterly beautiful in their flight. Fiery manes streamed out behind them, and their hooves glowed with sparks that gleamed like stardust. The teeth in their black skulls parted, as though they grinned with the sheer pleasure of their flight.
Elyana shouted for Renar to fire. His arrows found their marks, and with her help they counted for another, which crashed down on the far shore and lay with its broken rider, whinnying pitifully and struggling to rise on broken legs. Arcil wrapped one rider in long black tentacles of shadow, then crushed the struggling figure and dropped it into the stream.
The dead man's mount dropped down to their side of the river, the remaining nightmares landing with it and cantering forward.
"Drelm, Sareel!" Elyana shouted. "Renar, put on your damned helmet!"
Stelan's son dropped the bow and fumbled with the armor. Elyana could spare him no more attention. She turned and raised the lance toward a grinning nightmare that galloped toward her. She sang the five-note melody. A bright beam of searing light streamed up from the lance to spear through the nightmare's neck. It shrieked in an unhorselike way, then fell silent forever and dropped flat. Elyana aimed at the rider and sang the melody a second time.
The battle soon fragmented, Arcil directing his shadow hound and warping shadow with his wand, the horned Sareel dodging and weaving and delivering blows against two unhorsed riders. Elyana and Renar fought within sight of each other, though just barely. It was challenging to see through the smoke rolling constantly from the gleeful nightmares. The beasts were so eager for the fight that they practically pranced into battle, tails and manes licking like white flame. Elyana caught glimpses of Drelm wading into the creatures and dealing blows with his mighty axe, but the fumes from the breath of nightmares obscured her vision.
A mounted warrior rode hard toward her. Elyana leaned away from a powerful swipe and felt it brush a whisper above her head. The noxious fumes set Renar coughing behind her. She feared the young man would shortly be overwhelmed, magic armor or no, and struck with desperate fury into the flank of the animal that had passed her.
The blow sank home, and the nightmare whinnied in pain as its back legs collapsed. She had no time to worry whether or not it was down for the count, for its rider twisted on the dying mount and leapt for her.
She missed the rider's stabbing blade by throwing herself sideways, but his gauntleted left hand clipped her in the shoulder, and she landed hard on her back. She rolled to her feet, only to find the knight already up on one knee. Worse, she'd inhaled some of the smoke, and began to cough. She unsheathed her gleaming blade and darted forward, only to be deflected with undisguised ease. The nightmare's rider climbed the rest of the way to his feet. Renar shouted in pain to her left. She could not spare time to look.
Her opponent was large, strong, capable, better armored, and almost as swift as she. Elyana did not care for her odds, let alone Renar's.
The armored figure struck out at her with a level slice. She nimbly sidestepped. The moment the point slid past, she ran in, driving with full speed. So much for finesse. Her blade struck the armor full on and plunged through the breastplate. She could not pull her weapon free. The shadow warrior, transfixed, shook in pain and struck out, smashing her in the chest so hard it knocked her flat. Suddenly she was confronting a pair of gleaming hooves suspended above her as a nightmare reared. The thing whinnied in expectation. Before the blow could be delivered, though, the creature's flesh was enveloped in a nimbus of flame that ate up first its skin, then its bones, until it vanished completely in ash.
Elyana blinked in surprise. Arcil leaned over her and grinned, extending a hand.
She pushed herself up rather than take his proffered help. She coughed. Smoke still obscured much of her vision, but she saw Sareel striding the battlefield, sword ready.
"Renar needs aid," Elyana told Arcil. She wrenched her sword free from the shadow warrior, and by her blade's glow found her way to Stelan's son.
Renar lay still beside a slowly dying nightmare. It kicked at her as she neared; Elyana sidestepped and hacked deep into its neck. It stopped moving after that.
She knelt beside Renar and loosened his helm. He was pale, and blood trickled from his mouth. His eyes rolled. He'd taken a nasty slash through the thigh from a blow that had found a gap in his armor. He was bleeding out.
She pressed hands to his forehead, coughing in the acrid smoke. She centered her magical energy. And then another series of coughs racked her, disrupting the spell.
She put fingers to his neck. The boy's pulse was slowing. Elyana was overtaken by a coughing fit. She couldn't concentrate.
"Elyana?" Arcil knelt at her side. She saw a stoppered leather vial in one hand. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"
"Renar—" she said weakly, and coughed again. "I'm fine. Renar's dying."
"I only have the one left—"
Elyana snatched the vial, ripped the cork free and tossed it aside. Her fingers shook as she coughed again, and she had to steady them with her other hand. She bent the vial to Renar's open mouth, then tipped it in. The liquid gurgled through the pale lips. She steadied the vial against him, and, still coughing, cradled the back of his head with her other hand, lifting him up so that he wouldn't choke.
"We need to get both of you out of the smoke," she heard Arcil say. "Sareel!"
A good suggestion. Elyana staggered to her feet and did not fight off Arcil's steadying hands. She grasped Renar by the arms and started dragging.
"This way," Arcil said. And then Sareel was lifting Renar's legs and moving him became far simpl
er.
They set him down in the dark grass and Elyana knelt by the young man while Arcil watched. After a moment she had her breath back, and she looked up in search of the half-orc.
The smoke was drifting slowly from the battlefield, revealing the carnage. Drelm leaned heavily against his axe as he surveyed the field of twisted limbs and bodies. One of the nightmares was still flaming, twitching its legs, but all others were motionless.
Renar coughed and struggled to rise. He grinned weakly up at Elyana.
"Are you all right?" she asked him.
"I'm fine. I think. Thank you for healing me."
"Thank Arcil. It was his elixir."
Arcil smiled thinly at him.
Renar bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Arcil replied with gravity.
Elyana helped Renar to his feet. She had to use the last of her magic on a deep wound in Drelm's arm. Sareel was unhurt, though still coughing. No one else had any healing spells, so there was nothing to do for a wound in Drelm's thigh save to clean and sew it closed, which Elyana did while Arcil fretted and Sareel stood watch.
It took a few minutes for Renar to round up the remaining horses, who'd had the good sense to gallop to safety.
Elyana longed for nothing so much as a good long rest, but she climbed wearily back into the saddle. "Let's go. The trail grows colder by the moment."
The others followed her example, Sareel taking one of their extra animals.
Elyana pushed on as hard and as swiftly as she dared. She would have been thankful that the tracks were so easy to follow if it had not been because Vallyn had forced Persaily to a near continual run. The poor mare had been bred for endurance, but even she would have to be giving out by this point.
Elyana's calm grew increasingly strained the longer they rode. Signs of Persaily faltering grew more and more frequent. There were constant twitches in the trail as the mare stumbled.
It couldn't have been that Vallyn was so frightened of pursuit. Likely he hadn't even expected Elyana to survive and track him. It was fear of the shadow realm that had kept him galloping, on and ever on, hoping for some landmark he might recognize. He had no companion to calm him or jest with him, only the laboring horse and the endless miles of darkness and quiet. Then too, he might have glimpsed strange things in the skies, or pursuit of his own.
Perhaps it was his own conscience he feared.
After another long while the character of the steppe altered. There were slopes before them, and when they topped one Elyana saw a cluster of dark square shapes on the horizon.
Renar came up to the hillock and looked with her. "Is that a city?"
"It looks to be." Elyana pointed down the sandy slope, where there were clear marks. "Vallyn was pretty eager to find it."
"How far ahead is he?"
"No telling. He might be in the city." Elyana nudged the gelding down the slope.
The trail grew more obvious in the shorter grass and dry soil.
When the walled black outline of the city still lay what looked like four to five miles off she saw a low shape in the grasses and knew immediately it was no boulder or dirt mound. The gelding was weary and slow to respond, and she had to kick him into a gallop.
There, crumpled in a heap, fur slick with foam and swollen tongue hanging out, lay Persaily. Dead.
Elyana swung off and stared at her horse.
The others soon reached her, watching helplessly as the elf sank to her knees and wept like a mother who has lost her child.
They dismounted, but by mutual consent did not advance to comfort her.
"It was a special horse," Renar told Arcil quietly.
"She was always sentimental," Arcil replied gently. "It is something I like about her."
"She is soft," Sareel said.
"Silence!" Arcil hissed, fury clouding his features.
The warrior woman bowed her head. "I beg forgiveness, master." She dropped to her knees.
Arcil readied to backhand Sareel, then felt Renar's eyes upon him. He lowered his hand, frowned at Sareel, and hurried over to the elf. The soil crunching beneath his boots seemed loud as thunderclaps.
Wonder of wonders, she leaned against the side of his leg, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. He stroked her hair gently, making soothing noises. He hoped that they didn't sound as awkward to her as they felt. The moment was marred for him only because he had lost most of the feeling in his fingers years before.
All too swiftly, Elyana regained her composure and leaned away. She climbed to her feet, taking in the bleak tableau. Sareel and the others looked on. Her eyes fell once more to her horse.
"I'm going to find him, and I'm going to kill him," she promised. "But going into Woodsedge, now ..." she shook her head.
"Are these your saddlebags, or his?" Arcil pointed down at the leather bags slung over Persaily's motionless flanks.
"His," Elyana answered.
Arcil crouched, unfastened the saddle bag, and reached inside. He stood a moment later, holding up a ball of fabric.
"It's a shirt," Drelm said.
"It is," Arcil said, and his teeth showed in a predatory grin. "But it will have his scent. And if it has his scent, I can summon a beast to track him."
"Do so," Elyana told him.
He stepped aside, and in moments his words had conjured a small black winged thing with which he held a whispered conversation.
Renar watched the wizard in conversation with the strange little creature, aghast. It looked like some kind of little demon or devil. Renar wasn't really sure of the difference. Elyana rejoined him, her eyes red. "Put on your cloak," she said sharply.
It took a moment for him to follow her reasoning. If they were to enter Woodsedge again, he finally realized, it was best not to do it in such attention-grabbing armor. And so he fumbled with his gear, one eye still upon the elf woman.
Her gaze was directed at neither her dead horse nor the shadow city, nor the wizard crouched by his familiar. She looked instead upon some point visible only to the mind's eye. Her face was lined with worry, and for the first time Renar could ever remember, she seemed worn and old. He shrugged himself into his cloak, then stepped over to her.
He gently plucked at her sleeve. "Elyana?"
She turned slowly.
"I'm sorry about Persaily."
She did not respond, and Renar turned away to see Arcil's familiar vanish in a puff of black smoke. Arcil stood, his head bent over something that glinted in his hand. A small mirror, Renar thought.
"Renar, Drelm, eat something," Elyana said distractedly. "Drink. We'll be heading in soon."
She left them and went to sit cross-legged beside Persaily's body, head bowed. Renar thought that she might be praying. He had never seen her do that before.
Drelm grunted and sat to dig into his dried rations.
After a moment, Renar joined him. He looked forward to seeing the sun, and the sky, and the green grass. All of his former wants and longings, though, had become bittersweet, at thought of the love that had flared so brightly and then died away. The ache was so deep he was not sure he would ever feel the same.
Still numb, Elyana finished her silent meditation and climbed to her feet. She discovered that Sareel was staring at her, and Elyana could not help feeling that she was being sized up as a potential opponent. She wondered whether she could take the warrior woman in battle. She'd glimpsed how swift Sareel was, and how accomplished, and could guess she'd have a longer reach.
"Elyana."
The wizard was walking toward her, the silver mirror shining in one hand. He looked worried.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"We're too late. Vallyn doesn't have the crown anymore."
"Who does?"
He s
hook his head. "I don't know."
Elyana clenched her hands into fists. "Then we'll track down Vallyn and ask him."
"That's going to be more challenging than you might think. The Galtans have thrown him in a prison cell."
Chapter Nineteen
Renewed Acquaintances
The aid of a wizard of Arcil's power made everything simpler. Only a few whispered words of incantation altered Drelm and Renar. In a moment, Drelm looked like a muscular farm hand, and the lance from the star tower that Renar carried seemed only a simple spear. Sareel did not fare as well—with more human features she looked like a hulking farm girl rather than a dangerous and exotically pretty warrior woman. As for Elyana, Arcil offered his mirror to her, showing blackened hair, and ears reshaped until they were almost human.
"You are still a striking woman," Arcil told her, "but you do not look like Elyana."
"It's true," Drelm agreed.
Arcil was all for teleporting immediately to an alley near the jail, but Elyana was insistent that the horses not be abandoned in the Plane of Shadow. He grumbled a bit about wasting energy, but sent all the living animals away in a wink of white light.
"There, Elyana," Arcil said. "Now they're standing in our plane in the fields outside Woodsedge."
"Let's get on with the rest, then," Elyana told him.
They materialized in the same shadowy alley his familiar had observed. Elyana breathed in the city's stink as its sounds assaulted her. They faced a weathered brick wall. It might have been dirty, but it was red, and the sky just visible in a line between the roof eaves was blue-gray and thick with heavy clouds. They'd been on the Plane of Shadow so long that the colors themselves seemed otherworldly.
Elyana wished that they could have teleported directly into the cell, but Arcil had detected wards placed to prevent magical entrances and exits from the jail.
Arcil led the way from the alley and Elyana discovered a familiar square. The industrious Galtans had finished a new guillotine, one with an enormous arch, all the better for watching the blade drop. As the device already sat on a platform raised above the square, the frame from which the blade would fall reached almost to a nearby third-story window.
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