Authors: Paul S. Kemp
The connection ended. The pain did not.
Elyril screamed with agony and railed with rage as the magic of the Nightseer’s ring consumed her body. Kefil climbed to his feet and circled her excitedly, tail wagging.
Did the Nightseer bend his knee to you? Kefil projected.
She kicked at the dog, lost her balance, and fell to the floor. He licked her face.
“Get away!” she screamed.
He sat back on his haunches, panting.
The door to her room flew open and there stood the balding steward in his nightclothes.
“Help me!” she said, and climbed to her feet.
He stood still, shocked, wide-eyed.
“Help me!” she screamed, and ran toward him, arms outstretched.
He mouthed an oath, turned, and fled the room.
Elyril raged after him from the doorway. Her entire arm was little more than a withered stick. She felt the magic root in her chest, neck, and face. Half of her was melting like a candle, collapsing on itself. She whirled around and Kefil put his paws on her chest and tried to lick her face. His weight drove her against the wall.
“Away!” she screamed, and pushed him with her good arm.
Have you summoned the Shadowstorm? he asked, tail still wagging, eyeing her adoringly.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” She put her handsthe one a mere nubto her ears. She screamed, terrified, dying. Panicked, desperate, she scrambled around the room searching for a blade with which to cut off her hand, her whole arm, if necessary. If she could only get free of the ring …
She turned over the night table with her good hand, threw drawers to the floor, toppled a small armoire, tossed her bedding about the room. The book to be made whole fell to the floor. So, too, did an oil lamp, which broke and sent its contents spraying across the floor. It ignited and spread immediately to the toppled side table and bedding. She did not find a blade. She found only the book to be made whole and hugged it to her breast.
“Divine One!” she wailed. “Volumvax! Aid me!”
Her speech was slurred. Half her face hung slack, ruined.
Kefil lingered around her, standing in her shadow, whining. You are mad, he said.
Her leg shriveled under her and she fell to the floor. The fire spread to the wall tapestries and they burst into flame. Heat and smoke filled the room. She coughed, gagged, cried.
Kefil licked her, whined more. She pushed him away with her good foot. He fled the room at last, tail between his legs. As he exited the doorway, he said, You are mad and none of this is real. You have always been mad. None of this is happening…
Elyril sat in the middle of the inferno and stared at the shadows on the wall. She eyed the wreckage of her body, and an uncontrollable giggle shook her. She saw it all, then, understood fully, and knew what she was to do.
She called to mind a transformative spell that might save her, a spell she had never before used on herself, though she had on others. She giggled again, inhaled smoke, and fell into a coughing fit.
When she recovered, she touched her holy symbol and struggled with her ruined mouth to speak the magical phrases that would transform her body.
The bed caught fire. The sheets curled as they burned. The heat in the room blistered her already shriveled flesh. The smoke set her eyes to watering. She ignored it all and carefully pronounced each word of the spell. When she completed it, she held her desiccated arm before her body and watched the magic transform her flesh again. Her skin darkened, became insubstantial shadowstuff.
The Nightseer’s ring blackened further, the amethyst flared anew, and a charge went through her metamorphing body. Her nerves blazed with pain. She screamed, but her spell, corrupted by the Nightseer’s ring, continued to transform her. When the magic turned her fully insubstantial at last, the ring fell through her hand and rolled into the flames.
Free of the Nightseer’s spell, she cavorted in the fire. She saw the book to be made whole and flew to it. When she touched it, it
turned as insubstantial as she and she held it to her breast.
She laughed aloud and collected the Nightseer’s ring. Her touch turned it insubstantial and she secreted it on her person. She was living shadow. She could read Shar’s portents in her own transformed flesh.
Screaming not in pain but in ecstasy, she fled the residence for Selgaunt, for the Nightseer. She would yet be the author of the Divine One’s Shadowstorm.
And she would make the Nightseer pay.
“I have a ring to return to you, Prince Rivalen,” she said.
ŚŠŚŚŠŚ ŚŠŚŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ
Mirabeta placed the sealed missive into Rynon’s pudgy hand. Vendem, in human guise, stood beside her, smiling his overlarge teeth at Rynon. The house mage’s uncomfortable expression showed his discomfiture.
“You are fat,” the dragon said to him.
Rynon looked like he had been smacked. He colored, stuttered, finally said, “And you, sir, are a rude cretin.”
“Tasty though, I’d wager,” the dragon said, eyeing the mage up and down.
Rynon looked with shock at the dragon, at Mirabeta, said, “Overmistress, this is most irregular. This person is…”
Mirabeta cut him off. “You will transport yourself, my letter, and Vendem to the Lady Merelith. After she has read and acknowledged the contents of my missive, you are to return to me.”
“Provided I do not eat you first,” said Vendem.
Rynon refused to look at the dragon. “Will I be returning alone, Overmistress?”
She smiled and nodded. “Vendem will remain in service to Lady Merelith.”
Rynon bowed to Mirabeta, glared at the dragon. “I pity her.”
Vendem grinned.
“Leave now,” Mirabeta ordered.
Her letter to Merelith explained the true identity of Vendem and that he was in service to Mirabeta. The letter further ordered Merelith to proceed with an immediate attack on Selgaunt. With Vendem leading the attack, the siege of Selgaunt would be no siege at all. It would be a slaughter.
Mirabeta would have all of Sembia consolidated under her rule before Deepwinter.
24 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms
.A.belar and Regg, leading the company atop Swiftdawn and Firstlight, crested the rise and saw it first. Abelar raised his hand for a halt and the whole of his force came to a stop along the rise. Only the soft chink of metal and the occasional whicker of a mount broke the silence. All eyes looked below them on the plain.
Perhaps three long bowshots in the distance, a force of cavalry rode. They numbered perhaps twice that of Abelar’s company. Abelar could not make out their standard but he noted the color of their tabards Ordulin’s green.
A murmur moved through the men. Horses pawed the ground, snorted. Armor chinked as men shifted in their saddles.
“The sun sets and rises, Abelar.” Regg said, a sharp edge in his tone.
“That it does.”
Regg said, “They are many to our few. Twice us, I’d say, but not the thousand we’d heard. What are they doing out here, I wonder?”
Abelar knew the answer. “Forrin split his force to cut off retreat from Saerb. They’re angling around from the south. The rest of the army is hitting Saerb directly from the east.”
“Forrin cannot be far from Saerb, then,” Regg said. “Two days away, maybe three.”
Abelar nodded. “Get the standards up and sound a blast. Let them know we are here.”
Regg issued the order and the two standard bearers unfurled their pennons. Each showed a field of white adorned with a red rose for faith, a sun for light, and a boar rampant for strength. When the standards were up, the company’s trumpets sounded and their clarion carried over the plains.
Heads and horses in Ordulin’s company wheeled around. Fingers and blades pointed back at Abelar’s forces. Ordulin’s commanders put their boot heels into their mounts and moved briskly among the squads, pointing and shouting. Their shouts carried faintly over the plains. Men and horses reversed formation and began to form up into an arc concave to Abelar’s men.
“They see us, I think,” Regg said with a grin.
“That they do.”
Regg said, “All medium cavalry. I see crossbows but no massed archers.”
“Nor I,” Abelar said. The battle would be fought with blades, up close. He pointed to a pair of unarmored men among the forces. “But see there? Wizards. They probably have a few priests in their number as well.”
“Agreed. The wizards are to their advantage. But battles are won by flesh and steel, not spells. So it has been ever.”
Abelar nodded. “Put us into a loose line. We advance with flanks lagging.”
“Advance?”
Abelar nodded, his eyes on his enemy.
Regg shouted the order and the company moved into position. Sergeants shouted commands; horses neighed; men adjusted armor and shields.
Abelar watched his foes as they took formation. They moved with discipline, even skill. He figured many of them to be onetime members of Forrin’s Blades, experienced men, but dark hearted from all he’d heard.
He called his cadre of six priests to him. Each wore a breastplate over mail and bore a round steel shield enameled with Lathander’s rose. Led by Roen, they formed a semicircle around Abelar as Ordulin’s trumpets blared below. He looked each of them in the eye. Despite their limited experience, he saw only resolve there. The Light was in them.
“They have spellcasters in their force,” he said. “We will advance loose, flanks lagging. The casters will try to hit us as we close. Stay in the pocket behind us and watch for their casters.”
“Not hard for Roen to look over the line,” Jiiris said, grinning. “He sits the saddle as tall as an ogre.”
The priests laughed. Abelar smiled and continued. “Do whatever you can to disrupt their spells. Once we’re engaged, the casters will matter little.”
“We will counter them, Commander,” Roen said, and the others nodded.
“I know,” Abelar said, and meant it. “Stay in the light.”
He clasped each of their forearms in turn, holding Jiiris’s a beat longer than the others, and they rode off to take their positions behind the line.
Abelar took a final glance at Ordulin’s forces. Regg rode up beside him.
“I wonder if Forrin is among them?” Regg asked. “Doubtful,” Abelar answered.
Regg nodded agreement. He said, “The men are ready. They should hear from you.”
Abelar took his eyes off Ordulin’s forces. The time had
come to rally his men. He held up his shield so it caught the sunlight and shimmered. Regg did the same. As one, they offered a supplication to Lathander. When they completed their spells, their shields held the sun’s glow and hummed with power. They clasped forearms.
“Stay in the light,” Regg said, and grinned.
“And you,” Abelar answered, and did not grin.
Ordulin’s forces sounded a series of trumpet blasts and the cavalrymen gave a great shout.
Regg rode along behind the line of Abelar’s men, shield blazing. He thumped men and women on the back and offered quiet words of encouragement. Abelar took position before the line and faced the company.
A wall of flesh and steel extended to either side of him for three hundred paces. He saw Roen s head in the rear, flanked by his fellow priests. Helms and blades caught the sun and glittered in the light. But for Regg’s soft words and the flapping of the standards in the wind, silence fell.
All eyes were on Abelar, hard eyes, but eyes filled with faith. He had chosen the men and women of his company well. They were good soldiers. More importantly, they were good men and women.
For a time he said nothing. He simply rode along the line, making eye contact with the men and women who had chosen to trust him with their lives. He wanted them to see his strength of faith, his conviction of purpose.
They did. Some saluted; some nodded. None looked away. He returned to the center of the line and said, “The Morninglord’s light shine on you all.”
“And on you,” they boomed as one.
Abelar turned Swiftdawn and gestured with his shield at Ordulin’s forces. “Look out on them. See their souls. Know them for what they are.”
He stared down for a moment at Ordulin’s cavalry, which was finalizing its formation, before turning back to his own company.
“Know that their purpose was to cut off retreat from Saerb, to murder families as they fled another army that approaches from the east.”
Looks hardened. Men shifted in their saddles. Horses whinnied.
“This day, right now, they fail of that purpose.” As one, the company shouted assent.
Behind Abelar, Ordulin’s trumpets blared. The men of Forrin’s army let up a shout of their own and Abelar heard them start forward. Abelar kept his eyes on his own warriors. They kept their eyes on him.
“To a man, they are in service to a base cause, an evil cause, whereas we…” he paused and looked up at the sunlit sky before looking back at his command. “We serve a noble purpose, a higher calling, and the Light is in every man and woman in this company.”
He held up his blade and willed it to flare. It luminesced white hot, overwhelming even the glow of his shield, casting the entire company in its radiance.
His men cheered, raised their own blades.
Abelar turned Swiftdawn to look at the advancing enemy. Ordulin’s forces were moving at a hustle, and slowly gathering speed. They advanced in a concave formation, flanks curved and leading. A few crossbows twanged. A dozen bolts slit the air and rained down on the company. Shields and armor turned them all.
Abelar turned to face his men.
“Regg observes that they are many, while we are but few. To that I say, aye. The many are always willing to do evil. The few make a stand in the light.” He looked up and down his line. “Today we, all of us, make our stand in the light.”
His company again shouted assent, but Abelar was not done. “So, aye,” he said. “They are many. And we are few. Aye.”
He urged Swiftdawn into a trot and paced the line, repeating the phrase, giving it a rhythm. He thumped his glowing blade on
his glowing shield. “They are many, we are few. They are many, we are few.”
Regg echoed his gesture and took up the chant. Roen and the priests in the rear did the same. Soon the entire company was thundering the words, rhythmically beating sword to shield.