The Summoning (31 page)

A pair of the smaller phaerimm left the group and called up an opposing wind that stopped the Vhoorflames three hundred paces from the Deadwall. When the blaze continued to burn, they called rain down from a clear sky. The water merely turned to steam. They used a ground-moving spell to flip a huge wall of dirt back onto the fire. The Vhoorflames continued to burn, consuming the dirt as though it were coal. The fire began to advance again.

Finally, one phaerimm tried to dispel the magic that had created the fire curtain. Normally, dismissing the spell of a fleet mage was no easy task, but the phaerimm were far more than normal magic-users. The creature had barely stopped waving its arms before a section of flame faded, leaving a thirty foot breach in the blazing curtain.

A blinding bolt of silver fire came streaking through the gap to catch the phaerimm in the torso. The thing erupted in a dazzling flash, hurling thorns and arms thirty feet into the air.

“In the name of Angharradh!” hissed Aubric, turning to Rhydwych. “What manner of spell was that?”

Rhydwych only gestured to the plain, where a robed man

stood with a black staff in one hand. Aubric was just starting to make out the shadow of a thick beard when another ball of Vhoorflame streaked down to seal the gap in the fire curtain.

“It appears our help may not be needed,” whispered Rhydwych.

“1 pray we will be so lucky,” said Aubric, “but we must be ready. Prepare the eye shield.”

“There is no harm in being prepared.” Rhydwych turned away to join her small cluster of Lordly Wands.

If the newcomers thought the destruction of one phaerimm would discourage the others, they were badly mistaken. The creatures merely spread out and floated forward in a line, then dispelled the entire wall of Vhoorflame at once.

This time, there were no streams of silver fire, only a flurry of lightning and golden bolts. The phaerimm vanished inside nine columns of roaring magic, each one pelted by such a tempest of spells that the ground split and the sky shook. One creature spun madly around and dropped in a heap of gashed flesh, but the others floated firm where they were, returning the attacks in kind.

A long rank of wizards—some looked human, others elf— was approaching through the fading smoke, all visible now that they had attacked. They fell in twos and threes, or sometimes just vanished into blood and smoke. Fearing his allies were not as well-prepared as he’d thought, Aubric longed to call out to them to change tactics, for he and his Swords had discovered the hard way that spells hurled at phaerimm had a nasty habit of ricocheting back at the caster. On the other hand, there was value in keeping the thornbacks busy, and perhaps that was all the newcomers intended. Clearly, they had come with a plan—and at least a few surprises.

Aubric tried to find the bearded figure again, but quickly realized it was hopeless. Deciding the time had come for Evereska to unveil a surprise of her own, he stood and drew his sword.

“Arrows and spells!” he yelled. “Loose at will, slow advance!”

Bowstrings thrummed the air, sending a wall of hissing death down into the mindslaves trapped against the Deadwall. The first volley and most of the second dropped the illithids before they had a chance to whirl and use their mind blasts against the company’s spellcasters. The Lordly Wands hurled a few fireballs and ice storms to keep the enemy off balance, but eight of the dozen remained quiet and assumed positions in the first rank of advance.

When the beholders finally recovered and turned their death-dealing eyes toward the invaders, Rhydwych called, “Eye shield!”

Together, the Wands uttered an incantation and poured a handful of powdered silver to the ground. The air in front of them shimmered with mirror like brilliance, and the beholders’ rays ricocheted off in all directions. Aubric’s archers took aim at the eye tyrants and waited, then, when the creatures spun their big magic-dispelling eyes around to dispel the eye shield, they loosed their arrows. Most of the beholders dropped to the first volley. The handful that survived perished in the second.

The confused mindslaves, now on their own, turned to meet the attack in a jumble.

“Spare them if you can, but be quick!” Aubric cried. “We must show our friends at the Rocnest how to kill phaerimm!”

Rhydwych and her Wands unleashed a flurry of spells, dropping a full third of the mindslaves into a deep slumber. Another twenty fell into helpless fits of laughter, and dozens more dropped their weapons and simply wandered off. A handful went blind and fell to their knees screaming. Unfortunately, a full two-dozen warriors remained to block the Swords’ advance.

Aubric led the crash into them, using his elven sword to parry the wild axe of a vacant-eyed human, then slipping inside to knock the man unconscious with a mailed fist to the jaw. As he spun away, he snatched the fellow’s axe and hurled it into a charging bugbear, dived under the monster’s legs,

and came up flinging sand into the eyes of three elves standing in front of the portal.

“Rest well,” he said, adding the arcane syllable that gave his command its magical force.

The knees of two elves buckled, but the third danced forward in the practiced steps of a bladesinger—a pattern that Aubric Nihmedu had often taught his most promising students at the College of Arms. He should have backed away and called to one of Rhydwych’s Wands for a killing spell, but he could not do that to one of his own pupils. Knowing what would come next, and trusting his own skill to defeat it, he blocked the low attack, slipped the lunge, parried the returning backhand, and knocked the fellow unconscious with an elbow to the jaw—then felt something hot and sharp pushing through his chain mail.

Aubric looked down to find a silver dagger protruding from his flank. “Oh, very good.” He pressed himself into the shimmering Deadwall portal. “Very sneaky.”

The world grew hot and flat looking. He experienced a strange instant of infinite expansiveness and intoxicating energy, then his side erupted in pain, and he fell.

The pain, Aubric promptly shunted to one side of his consciousness, to a place where he would be aware of what it told him, but not dominated by it. The falling, he threw himself into, flinging himself over his shoulders and rolling to his feet, his own blade and the dislodged dagger weaving a defensive pattern around him. He felt his sword slice across a body behind him and knew a human was trying to rush up on his left, which meant someone else was coming from the right. He flipped the dagger under his sword arm, aiming high for the throat and a quick kill. A strangled gurgle betokened an intuition still as sharp as two centuries before, but Aubric barely noticed. He had fallen into the grasp of the blood dance now, his mind and his body becoming one, an instrument being played by a will indistinguishable from the mad whirl of combat around him. His foot lashed out in a blind back kick, drawing a pained howl

from the man he had wounded an instant earlier.

Aubric spun, blade flashing, blood coursing. It would have been wrong to say he became a bladesinger again—such a thing was impossible for an elf of so many responsibilities and so little time—but a gift hard won and long nourished returned. He became stronger, quicker, more supple—if not quite the dancing sword with whom Morgwais had fallen in love those few centuries ago, then at least once more a whirling blade. The old battle song tolled in his ears, and he began to feel in the Weave everything happening on the field of combat. He saw the wall of glassy-eyed mindslaves rushing up to attack, felt Lady Bourmays and Lord Dureth pushing through the Deadwall behind him, heard the voices of Lordly Wands calling out incantations to both sides of him. In the plain ahead, he saw the phaerimm streaking forward through a tempest of blades and bolts, heard one of the creatures fife its pain as an iron spear impaled it, felt the crackling energy as a blue force-dome rose up to cover all of Rocnest

A strand of silk appeared in Aubric’s hand of its own accord. He flung it at a dozen charging mindslaves and called three arcane syllables. A golden web engulfed their legs and brought their charge to a halt Pounding feet sounded to his left. He dropped to a whirling crouch and swept his attacker’s legs with an extended foot, then knocked the woman senseless with a heel kick to the head. The smell of musk saturated the air, and he launched himself backward, somersaulting into the legs of an astonished bugbear, thrusting his blade up through its guts, rolling free before the gore came showering down. He sprang up and heard a pair of light feet approaching from his wounded side.

Aubric lowered his sword, then seeing no more mindslaves to attack, stooped down to clean the blade on a human’s tunic.

“Impressive,” said Rhydwych. She thrust a healing potion into his hands. “But you might want to leave the bladesinging to younger nobles.”

“Old habits die hard.” Aubric allowed himself a wince, then drank the potion down. Its healing warmth coursed through his weary body, but there remained a chill deep in his wounded side. “Damn, that’s one youngblade I wish I hadn’t taught so well.”

Rhydwych cocked her brow. “If you are too badly hurt—”

“When I am in too much pain to defend Evereska, you will know it by the pieces on the ground.”

Aubric glanced over his shoulder and found the rest of the company assembling. They had lost perhaps twenty Noble Blades, but still had all twelve Wands. He waved his sword toward Rocnest and started after the phaerimm.

“For Evereska!”

“For Evereska!”

If the reply was weaker and softer than Aubric would have liked, so was his own voice. The pain was spreading, filling his abdomen with cramping fire. The blade had pierced something vital, but there was nothing to do about it. Both of the company’s healers had long since been killed, so he could either fight through to Evereska’s allies and hope they had a good healer, or he could sit down and die.

Aubric closed off all awareness of the pain, calling on his old bladesinger talents to draw strength from the Weave and lead the charge across the charred plain. As they drew closer to Rocnest, he was astonished at the newcomers’ losses. Elves and humans alike lay scattered by the dozens, most motionless and quiet, some writhing and groaning. He saw at least seventy or eighty casualties himself, and guessed the total could easily be twice that number. He assigned half a dozen of his own walking wounded to do what they could for the injured, though everyone knew that would be all too little.

Seventy paces from the enemy, a tremendous crack echoed across the plain. The newcomers’ blue dome flickered and dimmed, then flashed out of existence. The phaerimm started forward again, only to be met by a volley of arrows and spears from Rocnest. The dark shafts struck in a

clattering cloud, many ricocheting harmlessly off the thornbacks’ scales, but a few finding soft seams. One monster dropped to the ground with the butt of an elven spear in its mouth, and two more trilled in anguish, but most showed no reaction at all to the sticks bristling in their bodies.

A hundred warriors appeared atop Rocnest, visible now that they had attacked and turning to scramble down behind the jagged lip. They made it only a step before the rim erupted into curtains of golden fire and showers of fuming black rain. There was a cacophony of crackling flame and anguished screaming, then another sound—four roaring voices booming out the same intricate spell, complementing each other, working jointly to twine together separate strands of the Weave in one creation.

“It’s a Circle!” Rhydwych said, coming to Aubric’s side. “The high mages are trying to open the gate!”

“How long?” Aubric asked.

‘Too long.” Rhydwych pointed at the surviving phaerimm, who were plucking the last of the arrows from their bodies and rising toward Rocnest. ‘Ten minutes, at least.”

Aubric’s heart sank. The whole battle so far had taken only fifteen minutes, and the newcomers had done well to delay the phaerimm that long. He thrust his arm into the air, extending his thumb and smallest finger in the “bow” signal.

“Arrows!” He turned to Rhydwych. “How many of us can you magic up there?”

“None, if you expect us to put up a fight,” she said. “There’s a moment of confusion after any translocational spell—and a moment would be all the phaerimm need.”

Aubric nodded, then closed his fist and lowered his arm, calling the Swords to a halt “Dying that way would do no good, but we must buy them time. Take your Lordly Wands and do whatever you can. The Blades will follow as we can.”

Rhydwych’s face paled, but she nodded. “For Evereska.”

“For Evereska—and all the elves remaining to Faerűn.” Aubric’s stomach turned hollow and queasy. It was one thing

to lead the charge into peril, quite another to order a dozen brave elves to their certain deaths. “May the Harp Archer watch over you.”

“And you as well, Lord Nihmedu.” Rhydwych gave him a weak smile, then kissed his cheek. “Don’t let them make a mindslave of me.”

“Nor you of me,” answered Aubric.

Rhydwych drew a pair of battle wands, then closed her eyes and used her magic to mindspeak with her fellow wizards.

Aubric looked toward Rocnest again, where five healthy phaerimm were already halfway to the rim. The other two remained closer to the ground, wobbling about on their tails as they tried to recover their wits.

“Loose and advance!” Aubric yelled.

A volley of arrows darkened the sky, a dozen flying toward each phaerimm. Perhaps a quarter of the shafts directed against the injured creatures struck home, lodging themselves deep between their scales or in the pulpy rim of the mouth. One thornback dropped writhing and flopped like a trout out of water. The second vanished in the glimmer of teleport magic. The other flights streaked to within a few inches of their targets, then struck some invisible shield and bounced harmlessly away.

By the time the arrows tumbled to the ground, Rhydwych and her Wands were in the air, streaking after the phaerimm like sparrows after hawks. Aubric started to raise a hand to call a ground charge, then saw a dark-bearded human step onto a jagged spur atop Rocnest. He held a black mage’s staff and wore heavy winter robes, and Aubric felt certain he was the same man whose silver flames had destroyed the first phaerimm.