concentration of the illusory army was in the north and the east and the west. The forces in the south were smallest.
In the south was the real elven army, and those of the Highlord's army who died there, died of arrows of oak and steel, of fire-forged blades in the hands of flesh-and-bone elves. Blood Gem swore to it, and he proved his belief by swooping low over the battleground and snatching up an elf from the melee. He broke the Wildrunner's back with one blow of a taloned claw, gutted him, and flung him bleeding to the ground.
Illusions don't bleed, but in the Dark Queen's name, how was Phair Caron to convince those fools on the ground who were dying in an illusion the elves had created? Her fist filled with her sword, she turned north and south, west and east, trying to see through magic's fantasy. Her army fought ghosts, and the ghosts came from where?
The sky thundered, wind beneath the wings of another red as Tramd came near. 'Mages!' he cried, thrusting his fist southward. 'Illusion-makers! I feel the magic coming from there!'
One order she gave, screaming it in rage. 'Find them! Kill them!'
On the ground, the Wildrunners advanced, tearing into the dragonarmy with the abandoned fury of those sworn to defend their homeland with blood and bone. Out from behind the tors, like sun from behind lowering clouds, came another flight of griffins, pride upon pride, and the largest, the oldest, was a male whose reputation was known among dragonkind. That one was Skylord, and if Phair Caron had never heard of the beast, she knew well the rider.
'Son of a bitch,' whispered the Highlord of the Red Wing of the Dark Queen's army. 'Son of a bitch!'
Lord Garan of the Silvanesti House Protector raised a mailed fist, his war cry ringing out in the cold air, dear as a clarion call as he led his vast flight of archers out from the shadows of the tors. Arrows rained like hail, leaping from the horny scales of dragons as the griffins and their archers flew in close to each of the remaining five, never aiming for the dragon riders or even the heart or belly of the beasts. Those elf archers had dear and simple targets-the eyes of the dragons.
Up from the ground a spear few, the steel head of it shining dully under the leaden sky. Launched by the brawny arm of an enraged ogre, the spear went high, soaring, and it struck the flank of one of the griffins. Blood blossomed on the golden hide, a bright stain so vivid that the truth of it could not be denied.
This time the Lord of House Protector and his griffins were not illusions, and this time the dragonarmy was well and truly caught between two forces of elves, one on the ground and running from the south, one in the sky and fighting anywhere it damned well pleased. Between, magic yet ran, and ogres and draconians and humans all fought ghosts as the plan of a minor elf-mage, a servitor in the Temple of E'li, bore fine and bloody fruit.
Dalamar closed his eyes, dropping down deeper into the magic, into his own heart, his own soul. He gathered the light running, the strength pouring out from Ylle Savath and her nine mages, filling himself with it, then letting it rush out again, raging into the earth.
A voice lifted up, crying in pain, in joy, the emotions no different now, one from the other. In the magic, in the whirling of light and dark and light again, with the strength pouring into him, pouring out of him, Dalamar couldn't tell whether that was one voice lifting up or the united cry of all the nine illusion-crafters. He searched around him using the eyes of magic, trying to make out figures in the spinning of light and dark. He saw only one person, tall and thin, and seeing her was like seeing the after-image of someone glimpsed in the moment of a bright flashing light. He willed his sight to clear, and saw the figure more sharply now. Ylle Savath, her face scored with lines of strain, running with sweat, lifted her two hands, and those on each side of her lifted theirs.
'Solinari!' she cried, her voice ringing round the glen, bounding back in echoes from one wall to another. 'Lend us your bright shining light! O Lord of the Silver Magic, lend us your strength!'
Down from the heights came a rumbling, then a roaring, like the sea coming wild to the shore. The Wildrunners lifted their own voices, shouting. Did they join their voices to Ylle Savath's, calling upon the son of Paladine and Quenesti-Pah? Did they shout to Solinari of the Mighty Hand? Dalamar had no way to know. All words were one now, and that one word ran raging like fire in him and in all those to whom he was bound, hand and hand, linked in the chain of enchantment.
All words, the one word, ran through him, racing along the pathways of his veins as if they were his very blood, racing, leaping through him and reveling around him. The energy of the magic, of the voices, of all the hopes given wing and set free to fly to the god, tingled on his skin, raised up the small hairs on the back of his neck, then set the dark hair of his head flying as though he were winged and wind-borne.
Soft like a shiver, like the first cold breath of winter, something rippled along the chain, hand to hand, heart to heart.
Doubt.
Weariness.
The nine mages joined in Ylle Savath's spell-weaving knot shuddered.
Understanding.
Heart thundering, Dalamar tried desperately to make his mind blank, to ignore the feelings pouring through the magic. He gripped the hands of Benen Summergrace to his left, pressing hard, feeling their fingers grind one against another.
Someone cried out, wailing in woe.
'Solinari!' Ylle Savath shouted, her voice like an eagle's piercing the sky, flying to the silver mansions where the god lived, there beneath the moon that bore his name. She threw back her head, her face to the graying sky. 'Solinari! Stand by us!'
And yet, though she prayed, her cry resonating in Dalamar's flesh and bones and in the hearts of all those gathered, her prayer came too late. Distracted by the exhaustion of one of her mages, Ylle Savath shuddered and lost control of her spell. Each mage felt the spells of illusion lose strength and coherence. Each mage tried desperately to regain focus, to weave the magic again.
Down from the sky, like ripping, like tearing, the voice of a dragon roared. Fire leaped across Dalamar's vision of magic, flames red as the sun, running like blood. Another dragon roared, a third shouted, and a woman's voice raised up in shrieking. It was a scream of agony and a feral, triumphant war cry. It was as distant and as near as though the one who screamed stood but a reach away. All the magic in Dalamar, in his heart, his bones, all that brightness spiraling around every cell of his body, leaping like lightning from one to another-
All that fell apart, turning to ash and lifelessness in the falling.
When he opened his eyes, staggering in the light of day, a light that seemed like darkest midnight now, Dalamar saw that two mages lay dead upon the ground. One was the woman who had held his hand in the chain. The other was Ylle Savath, and upon her face was writ in death such an expression of horror that Dalamar must look away and hope he would never recall the sight in nightmare.
A half-dozen Wildrunners, youngsters with long legs and swift feet, stood with one white-robed cleric in the shadows of the forest to watch as two armies met like boulders crashing down in avalanche. The elven illusion was gone, melted away, the air over the battle still shimmering as though in the heat of a high summer's day.
'Who could keep it going forever?' said one of the soldiers, striving for an off-handed tone. 'They said they couldn't, and so… it's all right. All must be going according to plan.'
The ground beneath the feet of the Wildrunners and the lone cleric trembled, groaning, as elven army and the warriors of the Dark Queen flung themselves at each other as though blood were their only food and they had come starving out of winter. Swords shining in the dull light of the sunless day, they hacked and they killed. War axes harvested. Daggers drank deeply.
'We'll have one more mission for you,' Lord Konnal had said when he'd positioned the exhausted runners along the edges of the forest, in the place between the stonelands and the foothills of the mountains.
One more, and that a mission of mercy, one that might succeed or might well fail.
Brush rustled deep in the shadows-a young man who'd broken the stillness to scratch an insect bite. A soft moaning sounded from the darker shadows behind him. The mages, who had spent themselves in mindspeech as the illusions were being set up and executed to perfection, sat huddled and weak, helpless in the doubtful shelter of the forest's shadows. One, whose name was Leathe, whispered to the cleric, 'My Lord Tellin.' She said nothing more. He knelt beside her, and their voices joined in the rhythm of prayer. He did not look so lordly, his white cleric's robe stained with dirt, his hair hanging lank with sweat. Leathe, though, looked worse. Her hair hung around
