The Sorcerer rota-3

by Troy Denning

  The phaerimm pulled itself off her blade by floating a few feet backward. Keya thought it would teleport to safety, until Burlen's darksword came tumbling past and split the thing the rest of the way through. It fell to the ground in a pile of blood and entrails.

  Burlen extended his hand toward the sword. It rose out of the gore and tumbled back into his grasp, then Kuhl’s big hand grabbed Keya by the belt and pulled her back into position.

  "Time to go."

  Realizing that she had released her own grip, Keya started to reach back for Burlen's belt-then heard someone cry out from above.

  "Keya?" The voice was so weak and hoarse as to be unrecognizable, but it was speaking Elvish. "Can that be you?"

  Keya looked up the vale, and two terraces above, saw a hall-starved wood elf scout peering through a gap in a wrecked wall. Over her shoulders and head, she had a makeshift camouflage tarp covered with withered grape vines, but Keya could see enough of the scout's face to tell that her red-rimmed eyes were as sunken as a banshee's and her lips cracked and bloody with thirst. A hundred paces behind her, a mixed company of beholders and illithids were rushing down the vale to investigate.

  "It's time!" Burlen urged. "Grab hold."

  "Wait!" Keya called as she started toward the elf. "She needs help."

  "No time," Kuhl said. Still holding her by the belt, he lifted her back into the fighting square. "We kill and run."

  Keya tried to break free, but the Vaasan's grasp was too powerful.

  "I can't just leave her!"

  "And you won't help her by getting yourself killed," Kiinyon said. To the battle mage, he added, "Get us there and IT1-"

  The battle mage cast his spell, her stomach rose into her chest, and there came that cold eternity of falling. A dead silence filled her ears and she began to feel queasy, then she was someplace not too different, the ground still shaking beneath her feet and the stench of brimstone still burning her nostrils.

  Keya felt the weight of the darksword in her hand, and recalling the last time they had teleported, she began to swing.

  Her sword hit nothing, but a familiar elf voice cried out, "What are you doing, you bear-stinking oafs? Hold your blades!"

  The Vaasans had picked up enough Elvish to realize that they were being addressed, and Keya glanced over her shoulder to find an exhausted wood elf glaring up at them. Even as haggard as the elf was, Keya recognized the brown eyes and cupid's bow smile as those of her brother Galaeron’s favorite scout, Takari Moonsnow. Lying on the ground and covered to the shoulders in dirt and withered grape vines, it looked as though Takari was crawling up out of the ground, a sight that only added to the confusion of Keya's afterdaze.

  "Takari?" Keya gasped. "What are you doing here?"

  A rumbling cloud of black fume appeared two terraces down and began to rain tiny spheres of magic. As the balls struck the ground, they exploded into crackling sprays of fire, lightning, or hissing green fog. Keya felt her knees weaken as she realized how close the strike had come-how close she had made it come-to the spell sprays.

  "Good thing you moved!" Takari said.

  The withered grape vines rolled aside and Takari emerged from beneath the camouflage tarp. She was protected by little more than a ragged suit of leather perforated in so many places it could no longer be called armor. Nor was she wearing any magic-not the boots of secret passing given to all rangers who served Evereska, nor even a pair of spell turning bracers or one of the mind-shielding helms Evermeet had sent to equip the elven army.

  Keya motioned Takari into the group as a rosy glow fell over them. She turned to see the pink cone of a magic-killing ray illuminating them from the great central eye of a beholder on the next terrace. With the beholder were another half-dozen of its kind and twice that number of mind flayers.

  "Lolth's fangs!" Kiinyon cursed. "Over the wall!"

  Keya had no chance to obey. Kuhl was already lifting her by her belt, wrapping her into an arm the size of a thkaerth and diving over the wall. Keya barely had time to turn the blade of her darksword away before they came down on the other side, Kuhl crashing to the ground like a magic-felled roth? and Keya landing atop him as light as a feather. Burlen flashed past overhead and smashed down beside them in a heap of clattering armor.

  "Stay low!" Kiinyon yelled from somewhere beyond Keya's feet. "Ready your magic bolts."

  "Magic bolts?" the battle mage gasped. "We need to leave… and now!"

  "Do it!" Kiinyon ordered. "Kuhl, Burlen, watch our backs."

  It sounded to Keya like the lord commander was preparing for a holding action instead of a fast retreat, but after coming so close to causing a disaster just moments earlier, she knew better than to question the order. She slipped off Kuhl barely in time to avoid being crushed as he rolled to his stomach and crawled off across the terrace.

  The pink radiance of the magic-killing beam vanished, and the mordant smell of rock dust began to fill the air as the beholders swept their disintegration rays back and forth across the wall. Keya readied her magic bolts, then lay listening to the sizzle of dissolving stone as she awaited Kiinyon's order. He seemed to take forever, though perhaps it only felt that way because she knew the phaerimm who had assaulted their previous position would know where they were and would be moving up to attack.

  Finally, in a surprisingly calm voice, Kiinyon said, "Beholders only. Three, two, now."

  Timing her move so she came up behind the sweep of the disintegration ray, Keya peered over the top of the smoking wall and loosed her spell at the second beholder in line. Three golden bolts streaked from her fingertips, striking the central eye and causing it to erupt in a bloody spray. The creature screeched in pain and began to spray the beams of its remaining eyes haphazardly along the length of the wall.

  Rising alongside Keya, Takari fired five bolts into the first beholder in line and dropped it on the spot. Kiinyon and the battle mage destroyed the rest of the creatures, the wizard spreading his attacks among three of the eye tyrants and leaving nothing but starbursts of red gore, Kiinyon's magic splitting both targets cleanly down the center.

  "Cover!" the lord commander ordered.

  Keya and Takari dropped behind the wall side-by-side, then heard the heart-stopping rip of a fire storm erupt behind them. Recalling that Takari had no magical protection, Keya turned to throw herself in front of the wood elf. She found herself looking down the throat of a fiery spray of tiny red spheres. A handful of the flickering spheres-it could have been three or thirteen-came arcing in her direction, then encountered the magic of her spell-turning bracers and ricocheted off in a smoking meshwork of flame.

  Keya landed lightly on her side and knew instantly by the stench of burned leather and charred flesh that she had not prevented all of the fiery balls from getting through. She sprang to her feet facing the direction of attack, trying through smell and guesswork to place herself in front of the wounded wood elf.

  "How are you back there?"

  On the terrace below, she saw a pair of phaerimm moving behind the half-ruined wall opposite her, floating away from each other with only their arms and toothy mouths exposed. There was no sign of Burlen or Kuhl, though Keya knew better than to worry about that. The Vaasans had an uncanny knack for remaining unseen, even in the barest ground, until they attacked. Keya thought it had something to do with the darkswords, but if so, it was a trick Dexon had not yet taught her.

  When Takari did not answer, Keya asked again, "You alive back there?"

  "Do I sound dead?" Takari's voice was thin with pain. "How are you doing that?"

  "What?"

  A wave of ash and dust began to roll up the terrace toward them. Keya knew that, whatever was coming, she could not shield Takari from it by standing in front of her.

  Keya started, "On my-"

  Way ahead of her, Takari landed on Keya's back and slipped an arm over her collar to hold on. Keya could feel the other arm hanging limply against her back.

  "The darksword," Takari
said. "How come it isn't freezing your hand?"

  Keya glanced down at the weapon in her hand but was spared the necessity of explaining her circumstances as the wave arrived with a low, barely audible rumble.

  "Jump it!" Kiinyon yelled.

  Keya took three running steps and leaped.

  Though Takari was small for a wood elf and Keya's muscles were hardened by half a year of military service, she was still not strong enough to carry them both over something that was nearly as high as her chest. At the last minute, she decided her only hope was to dive.

  The wave caught Keya just below the hips. Though her bracers protected her from the magic itself, the momentum of the impact numbed her legs and flipped her high into the air. Takari's arm slipped free, and the Green elf went tumbling away. The world flashed past in a whirling kaleidoscope of blue sky and blackened ground, gray terrace wall and flickering orange mythal. Keya felt the darksword fly from her hand, then she crashed down flat on her back and felt the air leave her lungs in a single pained howl.

  A deafening boom sounded from somewhere above her. Keya craned her neck around and saw the wall she had just left erupting into the air. She watched hi dazed fascination as the dry-laid rocks-each the size of an elf s head-separated from each other and flew off in their own directions.

  As the stones finally reached the top of their arcs, it occurred to her that what went up usually came down-and that the gray shapes rapidly growing larger in the air above were going to come down on her. Keya rolled to her side and wrapped her arms around her head, then counted one, two, three nearby thuds before the first crashing thump struck her pauldron.

  Keya's shoulder exploded into limp agony, and only the fingers clasped behind her neck prevented it from flopping away and leaving her head exposed. Her thigh went sore and useless as a stone struck it. Another glanced off her back and sent bolts of throbbing fire shooting into her temples and down to her feet. She tried-unsuccessfully-not to scream and told herself that the pain was a good thing, that as long as she could feel she could still walk-or run, given where they were.

  Keya took two more strikes-one on her rump and another in the ribs-before the stones finally stopped raining down. Her father had managed to drill enough tactical sense into her that she knew the phaerimm would not have launched a shock attack if they did not intend to follow it up with a rapid advance, so Keya allowed herself only one attempt to draw the wind back into her chest-it was as unsuccessful as her effort to leap the wave-before she rolled to her hands and knees and spun toward her attackers.

  She found them halfway across the terrace, their barbed tails dripping poison and their jagged teeth showing in the smiles atop their slug-shaped bodies. Dexon's darksword was nowhere in sight, but Takari lay a dozen paces farther down the terrace, twisting about in a pained daze, one shin canted at a wrong angle and the bones of her shoulder showing through the hole the first phaerimm attack had burned in her armor.

  To Keya's astonishment, the battered wood elf somehow managed to draw her sword and swing herself into a kneeling position. The phaerimm paid Takari no attention whatsoever, but the sight inspired Keya to extend a hand and call to the darksword as Dexon had taught her, by imagining the feel of the hilt in her hand.

  A moment later, the darksword came tumbling into Keya's hand from somewhere behind her. Only six paces beyond Takari, the phaerimm stopped and began to whistle to each other in their strange language of winds.

  "Takari, I'm right behind you," Keya called. She did not advance toward the wood elf for fear of prodding the phaerimm into action. "If you can drag yourself back to me."

  "Yes… I can do that"

  Takari's voice had assumed a strange distance, and Keya cursed silently, knowing that one of the thornbacks had taken control of the Green elf's mind. Where were the Vaasans? They were supposed to be protecting the rear… and what were Kiinyon and the battle mage doing?

  The last question, at least, was answered by a string of mystic syllables and the deep knelling that always accompanied the summoning of a large amount of iron. Keya turned and saw what looked like a rusty square cloud fluttering down on the terrace above. She did not even notice the charging illithids until they saw the shadow and looked up and began to screech in panic. The wall slammed down an instant later, so close that Keya felt a rush of displaced air and heard the crackle of bursting illithid skulls.

  A handful of the fastest illithids escaped being crushed and spun on the battle mage, their tentacles flailing in his direction as they attempted to stun him with their mental blasts. The attacks were no more effective against his helmet's magic mind guard than would have been a phaerimm’s attempt to make a mind-slave of him. As the battle mage leveled his hands in their direction, Keya glanced back at Takari and found her half a dozen paces away, sword in hand and still dragging herself up the terrace. Behind her, the phaerimm continued to float, content to let the wood elf do their work for them.

  Disturbed by their calm, Keya hazarded a glance in Kiinyon's direction and found him surrounded by lemure corpses, no doubt summoned by the phaerimm to prevent him from casting his escape magic. Another trio of the little devils appeared as she watched. With the darksword now stored securely in its scabbard, Kiinyon felled two with a kick and a dagger slash, but the third escaped and circled around to attack from behind.

  Keya had little doubt that the renowned spellblade would be able to drop that one as quickly as the others, but the phaerimm strategy was working. Translocational magic was too complicated-even for someone of his skill-to cast while fighting hand-to-hand, and the thornbacks had more beholders and illithids rushing in from all sides. They had to do something, and fast

  Keya started forward, stretching a hand out as though to help Takari to her feet The wood elf's gaze was still blank as she reached out to accept Keya's hand, but her sword remained down by her thigh, ready to strike.

  Takari's grasp felt cold and clammy as it closed on Keya's. Something like alarm flashed in the depths of her brown eyes, then her hand clamped down hard. With surprising strength for one so battered, Takari jerked Keya down. The wood elf s blade came up in a smooth arc that, had it not met

  Dexon's darksword on the way, would have come down on Keya's neck.

  As it was, the darksword sliced through Takari's blade as smoothly as it did phaerimm scales. The blade tumbled away harmlessly, flashing like a trout in a forest stream. Keya planted a foot in Takari's chest and pushed her to the ground, then stepped forward and sent her darksword spinning toward the nearest thornback.

  A trio of screeching lemures appeared in front of the phaerimm. They were instantly sliced in half by the tumbling blade, but served their purpose by absorbing enough energy to send the darksword spinning to the ground. Both phaerimm turned to rush for the sword-and Burlen and Kuhl appeared behind them, rising from behind the far terrace like thieves stepping from an alley.

  They hurled their swords as one, taking the astonished phaerimm so completely by surprise that Keya doubted the creatures ever knew what had killed them. The thornbacks simply sank to the ground half a dozen yards shy of Keya's sword and lay there with the Vaasans' weapons in their back.

  "If s about time," Keya said. "What took so long?"

  "An argument," Burlen answered. "Kuhl doesn't think we ought to be using you for bait"

  He summoned his darksword back to his hand, and Kiinyon finally yelled for them to come running. Keya turned to see the black rectangle of a dimensional gate flickering in the air beside him. She summoned Dexon's darksword to hand, then cautiously removed her foot from Takari's chest and looked down to find the elf studying her with a look of utter astonishment.

  "Are you all right?" Keya asked. "Ready to go home?"

  Takari nodded, but seemed unable to take her eyes off of Dexon's darksword.

  "You've got to tell me how you can do that!"

  CHAPTER NINE

  17 Flamerule, the Year of Wild Magic

  Even for dragons, the flight t
o Shade was a long one. Galaeron hung in Malygris's grasp through the night and all the next day. At dusk he finally saw the city, a distant diamond of umbral murk floating low over the purple mirror of Shadow Lake. As always, it was swaddled in wisps of black fog, giving it the appearance of a lone storm cloud or a mirage. The swirling specks of a hundred or so vultures wheeled beneath it, in constant pursuit of the garbage that fell like rain from its refuse chutes. There were also larger specks, shaped like tiny crosses and circling the city in the tight formations of veserab patrols.

  Malygris raised his head, and Galaeron's skin suddenly began to prickle and his hair stood on end. A deep crackling erupted a few yards above his back, and the air began to dance with silvery flashes. He craned his neck around and saw an enormous ball of blue lightning blazing inside the dracolich's empty cage of ribs. Malygris opened his jaws, and the lightning shot up his throat in a blinding white fork of energy that left Galaeron struggling to blink the glow from his eyes.

  As Malygris announced his triumphant return to Shade, a terrible sense of fear and loneliness settled over Galaeron. His plan was a sound one, or the Chosen would never have agreed to the attempt, but it was also one that demanded more strength than he was sure he possessed and sacrifices that were not his alone to make. The last time he had glimpsed Aris, the giant had been hanging by his shoulders, chin resting on his chest and his captor's talons sunk deep into his flesh. Given Anauroch's heat and the dragons' refusal to stop for water, there was every reason to believe that Aris would be suffering from sun stroke in addition to whatever injuries he had endured during his capture.

  Not for the first time, Galaeron cursed himself for listening to Storm. He was beginning to question just how much Aris's absence would really have raised the Shadovar's suspicions. Having seen how callously the Chosen spent mortal lives, it was easy to believe they were risking his friend's life for only modest benefit If Aris were to die on behalf of the plan, Galaeron's resolve would be so weakened by guilt he would succumb to his shadow sell