The Sorcerer rota-3

by Troy Denning

  As Vala spoke, Burlen continued to speak to Kuhl from the other side.

  "She wants you to charge out there alone, doesn't she?" Burlen asked. "She wants you to get yourself killed."

  "I won't," Kuhl replied. "She doesn't know. She'll never get my sword."

  There was a darkness in his eyes that Keya had never seen there before, something cold, monstrous, and terrifying risen to mask the laugh-lined face she had come to consider that of one of her human brothers.

  "What doesn't she know?" Keya asked.

  "You'll see," Vala said. "If s Kuhl or Takari now. There's nothing we can do about that, except decide whether we're ready to use it Are you?"

  Keya glanced along the embankment in both directions and saw a long line of warriors in position to charge up the hill. To an elf, their faces were pale and their knuckles white from squeezing their sword hilts, but their jaws were set and their eyes fixed on Keya, awaiting the command to charge.

  "Ready when you are," Keya said. "May the gods forgive us."

  "If s not the gods we should ask," Vala replied.

  She placed a hand on Kuhl's shoulder then raised her head and pointed into one of the bluetops still standing behind the mind-slaves' breastwork.

  "There she is, Kuhl," said Vala.

  "None of this is your doing," Burlen added. "The pointy-eared vixen seduced you."

  "That's right," Vala added. "She let you get a child on her on purpose." As she spoke, Kuhl started to darken-not only his expression, but his face and hands, his eyes, and even the huge ranger's cloak Lord Duirsar had presented him. "All Takari wanted was your sword."

  "Oh, she wanted the child, too," Keya said, catching on to what the Vaasans were doing. "The Sy’Tel’Quessir sell their half-human children to pay for wine."

  Vala and Burlen dropped their jaws, and Keya thought for a moment she might have taken the fib too far.

  Kuhl turned soot-black, blurring around the edges like a shadow or a ghost, and he let out an angry wail. He rose and did not bound over the embankment so much as soar over it, and the slope instantly above exploded into a roaring tempest of death as the defenders hurled all manner of missiles and magic down upon him.

  Thinking it had been the Vaasans' purpose to goad Kuhl into drawing the first wave of enemy attacks, Keya raised her hand to call the charge. Vala caught her arm and pulled it down.

  Wait. Vala spoke in elven fingertalk — the only speech that would not be drowned out by the crash and roar of battle. Let him get a little ahead of us.

  Ahead of us? Keya retorted. There can't be anything left of him.

  But when she peered over the rim of the embankment, she saw that there was. Through a wall of smoke and flame twenty paces thick, Keya saw Kuhl's black silhouette still weaving and twisting up the hill. Lightning blasts passed through his shadowy form without slowing him down. Magic bolts glanced off him, trailing long wisps of black murk. Disintegration rays struck his dark aura and dissolved. Boulders he always managed to duck or dodge, spears he deflected and slipped, arrows stuck only in the strongest parts of his armor. It was as though he had become half phantom and half roth? a creature of the shadows that could be seen but never stopped. Keya watched in awe until he vanished into the thickening smoke, then turned to Vala and raised her own darksword — or rather her husband's.

  Can this sword do that? she asked.

  No!

  And never try! It was Burlen who added the explanation, He's given himself to his sword. It can't be undone.

  The roar began to abate as Kuhl continued his charge, and Vala looked up the hill and spoke a single syllable. She didn't shout or use fingertalk, but Keya didn't need words to understand her meaning. She brought her arm forward then rose and charged over the rim of the embankment.

  From Takari's perch high among the rustling bluetops, the charge of the Cold Hand looked the stuff of songs.

  Through the smoke and flame came a golden-helmed tide of elf spellblades, words of mystic power pouring out of their mouths, forks of silver and gold flashing from their fingertips, swords glinting in their hands and armor gleaming on their breasts. The mind-slaves met the onslaught with a tempest of ray and rock, hurling boulders, flinging death bolts, spraying fire. Still the elves came, bounding over blast craters, scrambling across fallen bluetops, leaping through fire curtains and falling by the dozens but never wavering, never dropping for cover, never slowing.

  Leading the charge was a shadow-cloaked bear of a man, out ahead by twenty paces or more, twisting and turning, taking magic blasts full in the chest, eyes shining like bronze embers, darksword in hand, burly legs carrying him up the wrecked hill at a speed no elf message runner could match.

  Kuhl.

  Swaddled in murk though he was, Takari would have known the slope of those huge shoulders from a thousand paces distant, would have recognized among an army of men the grace with which her paramour carried his mighty frame. As humans went-as males of any sort went-he was a magnificent example, ferocious when there was need and kind when there was not, always brave and never boastful, a lover who knew how to give and take.

  Takari could not be sorry for how she had used him-or she would never have known him as the gentle giant he was- but she was sorry for what had come between them, for the curse that had turned her simple plan into a deadly rivalry.

  But the fault lay with Kuhl, not Takari. He should have warned her about the curse before he lay with her-and never mind that she had told him not to worry about children. She had not said there wouldn't be any, only not to worry about them. Even after the mistake had been made, all the stupid roth6 had to do was share. Had he only been strong enough to lend her the sword, everything would have been fine and there would have been no need to-

  Takari did not grasp what she was about to do until she found herself staring down the length of an arrow at Kuhl's chest The shaft was marked with black fletching, of course, for she had only two death arrows remaining. The rest of her quiver she had exhausted trying to soften up the mind-slave defenses for Keya. But even had there been another choice, she knew better than to think she would have found anything else on her bowstring. It had been the curse that nocked the arrow, and the curse wanted Kuhl dead.

  Takari released the tension on her bow slowly, but deliberately did not move her aim away from Kuhl. There had to be another phaerimm down there somewhere or the mind-slaves would not be fighting so hard, and Kuhl was in the most danger. Having seen how slyly the curse worked, she would be stronger than it was and protect Kuhl from afar. She was not some base human whose will could be dominated by a sword.

  The shower of death ebbed as more mind-slaves fell to the onslaught of elven spells, and as they exhausted their supply of boulders and magic. The charge gathered speed, with an ever-growing number of Cold Hand warriors pouring up the hill from behind, pressing those in front onward and taking their places when they were struck down. Twice, Kuhl was attacked by spells powerful enough to have come from a phaerimm, but each time Takari traced the flash trail back to mind-slave mages. Through a break in the smoke, she glimpsed Keya dancing up the slope with Vala and Burlen pounding along at her heels, then a pair of beholders found her hiding place and began to attack the base of the tree with their disintegration rays. She slipped around the trunk out of their view, then raced along a limb and jumped into another tree.

  By the time Takari found a new hiding place, Kuhl had crashed into the enemy lines and was whirling his way down the entrenchment, his darksword opening bugbear bellies left and right, his feet sweeping legs from under elf mind-slaves, his boot heels crushing the skulls of fallen illithids. Somehow, his free hand had tangled itself in a snarl of beholder eye-stalks, and he was swinging the eye tyrant around like a shield, catching bugbear axes and elven swords on its leathery body.

  Takari was alarmed-and a little repulsed-to find herself feeling a secret thrill of delight Though Kuhl showed no sign of slowing down, he had to be hurting. Even through the finest Evereskan ar
mor, the bugbear blows alone would be powerful enough to snap bones and crush skulls. Kuhl would soon fall, and she would have only to stretch out her hand-

  No.

  Takari did not dare speak the word aloud-not with two beholders hunting her-but she did think it. She was stronger than the curse. She was a wood elf, who knew what was important in life (dancing, honey wine, and jolly company)-and what was not (power, wealth, and authority). She would help Kuhl-if only she could find a way- and they would share the sword.

  Kuhl's helmet came flying out of the melee, its chinstrap broken and its gaudy gold brim buckled by the impact of a bugbear axe. Takari thought that it was done then, that Kuhl would fall beneath the feet of his attackers and vanish.

  But the Vaasan bear fought on, reaching the back of the trench and scrambling out onto the hillside. He spun on a knee and lopped the heads off a trio of pursuing bugbears. He smashed a foot into the face of an elf mind-slave and sent him tumbling back into the breastwork. He was free, with no living enemies within a dozen paces of him.

  Instead of turning along the back of the trench to attack the enemy's flank, Kuhl started up the hill into the forest. Takari thought he intended to slay her two hunters, but he ignored the beholders-who did not seem to realize she had escaped their attack and were busy searching for her body in the tree they had toppled-and he angled toward her new hiding place. Though it seemed impossible he could have seen her move when the beholders had not, his angry bronze eyes went straight to the bough on which she was perched. It had to be the darksword. The weapon could feel her desire for it, and it was leading him to her. Takari might be stronger than the sword's curse, but Kuhl was not He'd kill her, if she didn't kill him first

  That was nonsense. Kuhl was too heavy to move through the forest canopy like a wood elf. All Takari need do was stay high in the bluetops, out on the bough ends where Kuhl could not follow. What was it that Galaeron had told her? That she had opened herself to her shadow, and that if she killed Kuhl, she would be lost to it. Takari believed him. It was already working hard to claim her, to trick her into murdering the father of her child.

  Would it be murder if he died in battle?

  The question came to her in her own voice, but so wispy and cold that it sent a chill down her spine.

  No one would ever know.

  So startled was Takari that at first she didn't see the illithid climbing out of the entrenchment behind Kuhl. She was preoccupied with the voice, wondering whether someone was eavesdropping on her thoughts or her shadow had already grown strong enough to speak Of course, this distraction was exactly what the voice had intended. By the time she saw what was happening, the illithid had run a dozen steps toward Kuhl, and its mouth tentacles were extending in his direction. Angered by this manipulation, Takari did not think, hesitate, or even consciously aim. She simply drew her bowstring and let fly.

  The angle was not a particularly difficult one, at least not for a Green elf ranger who had spent her whole life making exacting shots. The arrow zipped down in Kuhl's direction, passing a dozen feet over his head but still close enough to make him duck, and it planted itself in the center of the illithid’s mouth tentacles. The creature flew off its feet backward and crashed to the ground as still as a statue and immediately began to shrivel inward.

  How Kuhl reacted, Takari never saw. The deafening boom of a magic blast rumbled up from the forest floor behind her, and she knew without looking that something powerful had found her hiding place. She jumped for a clump of leaves low on the adjacent tree, her stomach rising into her chest and limbs spread to slow her descent, one hand still clutching her bow.

  As Takari crashed into the boughs, she was slapped in the back by the giant hand of a blast concussion. It pushed her deep into the tangle of twigs and leaves face first, but she caught a fistful of a branch with her free hand and hooked her legs around another limb as thick as a Vaasan arm.

  Takari thought her descent would stop there, but she felt the limb shudder and suddenly found herself falling, staring up at the splintered end of a branch. She had just enough time to wonder why she hadn't heard it break, then she slammed down on the forest floor and was instantly buried beneath a snarl of leafy boughs.

  It took only an instant for Takari to realize why she had not heard the limb shatter and that listening for the enemy would do her no good. Her ears were ringing like a halfling dinner bell. She pushed out from beneath a log and found her last arrow still in her quiver. Takari cautiously climbed for the top of the tangle.

  Her shoulders ached, and her legs felt hall numb, but everything moved when she told it to. It was only a moment before she poked her head up to find Kuhl less than a dozen paces away, striding purposefully in her direction. Behind him were the two beholders that had been hunting her, making good use of his preoccupation to float up close for a sure kill.

  Takari pushed herself up onto a somewhat steady branch and nocked her last death arrow. Kuhl narrowed his bronze eyes and broke into a sprint, cocking his sword arm to throw and inadvertently blocking her shot at the beholders. She found her aim drifting to his chest-then she jerked it up and away.

  "No." More loudly, she yelled, "Kuhl, go left!"

  Reacting perhaps by instinct or perhaps because he realized that the arrow would already be on its way if it was meant for him, he stepped left-and threw the sword anyway.

  Takari cursed his human weakness, set the point of her arrow on the big central eye of the nearest beholder, and let fly. She watched only long enough to see her shaft pass beneath Kuhl's sword, then she dropped back into the tangle of boughs… and heard a sickly thump behind her.

  A howling wind tore at the trees, and Takari knew before she turned to look that Kuhl had not thrown at her, but that he had found the phaerimm she had been hunting.

  Ears still ringing, Takari scrambled out the back of the bough tangle and found the phaerimm lying motionless on the ground, opened down the center where Kuhl’s tumbling darksword had split it open. The sword itself lay a few paces beyond the dead thornback, so coated in gore it was barely recognizable.

  Takari stretched her hand out, preparing to call the dark-sword to her grasp. She thought of Kuhl, and waited. He would need the sword to meet the second beholder behind him, and if he had to fight her for it… but the sword did not fly to his hand. It did not even rise, or wobble.

  Go ahead-it's yours now, the dark voice inside whispered. The beholder is coming.

  "Be quiet!" Takari hissed.

  She turned her palm up and called the darksword to her hand.

  With the beholder coming, what choice did she have?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  2 Eleasias, the Year of Wild Magic

  The grim expressions on the high mages' amber faces as they examined the tattered hem of Hanali Celanil's stone cloak told Galaeron all he needed to know. The phaerimm had undone too many of the mythal's ancient spells for his plan to work. Before they could proceed, the circle would have to repair the damage-provided they were willing to make the sacrifice for a city that was not even their own.

  Not waiting for the high mages to announce the conclusion themselves, Galaeron turned to Lord Duirsar and the others waiting with him in the shadow of the great statue, and said, "Milord, the phaerimm have done too much damage." To make himself heard over the battle roar coming from the slopes below, Galaeron nearly had to shout "The high mages need time to do a high casting, and that means we must be prepared to defend them."

  "If time is all we need, we have this battle won already," said Kiinyon Colbathin. Like Lord Duirsar and every other Evereskan in the courtyard, Kiinyon was dressed in a full suit of much-dented battle armor that-by the smell of him- he had not shed in the better part of a tenday. "Young Lord Nihmedu's plan has proven an excellent one. We have only to send the Long Watch down the slope, and we'll have the enemy trapped."

  "For how long?" asked Storm. She was standing behind Lord Duirsar, towering over his shoulders with Khelben and Laeral. "Any
victory here will be short-lived until we repair the mythal. The phaerimm have tens of thousands of their mind-slaves scattered across Evereska, and I'd bet my hair that most of them are on their way here right now."

  "All the more reason to move swiftly," Kiinyon replied.

  He turned toward the back of the courtyard, where the Long Watch was forming into battle ranks as they emerged from Laeral's teleport circle. He summoned the company commander forward, then turned back to Storm and said, "Once we seize the breastworks, it will not matter how many mind-slaves the phaerimm send against us. Galaeron's plan is an excellent one, and I'm confident we can hold long enough to see it through."

  "Yes," Lord Duirsar said, making a point of casting an approving nod in Galaeron's direction, "you may well have saved us."

  "Not so easily as Master Colbathin suggests, I fear," Galaeron said. "The mind-slaves below are not the danger."

  "They are," Kiinyon declared. The commander of the Long Watch-a young Gold elf female named Zharilee- arrived at his side, and he turned and spoke to her. "When the Cold Hand drives the mind-slaves out of their entrenchment, they will have no place to retreat but here. The Long Watch will prevent that, descending through the forest to fall on them from behind. The enemy will be trapped between two of our companies, and it will be a simple matter to seize the entrenchment for our own use."

  He nodded and waved Zharilee away to execute his order. Galaeron bit his tongue to keep from calling Kiinyon-a former commander who had spent two decades making Galaeron's life as a Tomb Guard as miserable as possible-a fool.

  Instead, Galaeron said, "If s the phaerimm I'm concerned about. They can teleport into the courtyard as easily as we can."

  "Didn't you say that they wouldn't do that?" asked Storm. " "Without their leader, they'll be too disorganized and busy thinking of themselves to counterattack.' I'm sure you said that"

  "I did." Galaeron felt the heat come to his face but continued in a sure voice, "And without their leader, that would be so."