the earth shook from tremors far below the battlefield, which seemed to bode ill for Gaven’s well-being.
The battle was over, as far as Rienne could see. Haldren’s soldiers had fallen or been routed from the field entirely, and until she drew near the chasm she saw only a few clumps of monsters scattering away from the field- heading for new haunts in the Starpeaks or the Silver Woods. She could see no dragons still aloft, whether they were all dead or driven away or just brought to ground. She spurred the stallion toward the towering shaft of light, a beacon in the midst of the furious storm.
She was halfway across the plain when the beacon flickered and went out. Her mind raced through a handful of possibilities as she spurred the stallion on: Had Gaven crossed the bridge to the sky, collapsing it behind him? Had he failed, proving that he was not the Storm Dragon after all? Had Gaven perhaps been wrong about the whole Prophecy and the Crystal Spire? Perhaps it was not any kind of bridge to the sky, but some kind of beacon or signal, and Gaven had destroyed it.
She drew a slow breath, calming her pounding heart, and tried to lose herself in the rhythm of the stallion’s gait.
She lost track of the distance to the chasm where the Crystal Spire had been, and the storm grew even fiercer ahead. Wind whipped her hair and small hailstones stung her skin, and she soon rode into a wall of rain. She guided the horse toward the heart of the storm, where lightning danced around a swirling whirlwind. The heart of the storm must be Gaven, she thought.
A new tide of monsters poured out of the storm toward her, a tumultuous mass of pallid flesh and flailing appendages, sharp claws and writhing tentacles, screaming mouths and staring eyes. They seemed to surge forward, clawing over each other in their haste to reach fresh prey. Each time she fixed her gaze on one creature, it disappeared under or behind the next wave of horrors. Terror and revulsion wrenched her gut, but she quelled them with another slow breath. If these monsters stood between her and Gaven, then she would have to fight her way through the monsters. She pulled the stallion to a halt and slid Maelstrom from its sheath.
There was no discipline to their advance. When they drew close, a monster with a single staring eye and a much smaller fanged mouth leaped ahead of the others and bounded up at her. The gaze of its lidless eye raked across her, blistering her skin as its claws reached for her throat. She drove her blade into its eye and deflected its momentum, sending its lifeless body spilling to the ground behind her. Her arms trembled-that would not do. Combat required discipline, focus, concentration, a perfect unity of thought and action.
Before she could steady herself, the waves broke around her. Action first-thought would follow. Maelstrom went into a dance of constant motion, spinning like a deadly shield surrounding her, blocking the creatures’ attacks and biting into their flesh. Many of the monsters reached up to grab her-and a few reached down from a greater height-and those were the first to die. Haldren’s horse proved himself one last time, rearing up to strike with its hooves and felling many of the smaller creatures. But before long the horse was pulled screaming under the surging tide, throwing Rienne through the air as he fell.
With a mighty shout, Rienne brought her energy back into focus. Like Darraun piloting the airship alone, action alone would not suffice against these hordes. Rienne came down on the chitinous back of a hulking monstrosity, then bounded off it to a relatively clear patch of ground. As she landed, she kicked a skittering buglike thing out of the way and slashed two other nameless things back, carving herself a place to stand. She banished her fear and lost herself in whirling motion, feeling Maelstrom surge to life in her grip. This was the style of fighting that had given the sword its name: a constant spinning, cutting everything within reach, wheeling the blade through an unending, intricate series of swirling arcs punctuated by sharp thrusts-what she thought of as lightning strikes within the whirlwind.
As she danced, the storm answered her strikes with lightning that shook the earth, and she had the sudden thought of fighting alongside Gaven on one of their subterranean expeditions. She smiled as gore flew from the tip of her blade. No claw could touch her, no tentacle stayed coiled around her wrist or leg for more than an instant before she sliced it through. Wide eyes tried to catch her gaze and assault her mind, sharp teeth tried to close around her but met the constant motion of her blade. Her feet moved with her blade, an intricate dance of steps and lunges that guided her away from dangerous blows and brought her near the weakest foes. She was utterly lost in the dance-no memory or anxiety about Gaven remained in the diamond stillness of her mind, perfectly focused on the battle at hand. A perfect unity of will and action.
The sea parted around her, and Rienne stumbled. A greenish ray of light shot through where she would have been if she had stepped where she planned. She stopped her whirling in order to keep her full attention on the monster before her. Its body was a gigantic orb hovering a few feet off the ground, a magical buoyancy holding it aloft. One great eye stared at her from above a mouth filled with needle-like teeth, and ten more eyes writhed at the ends of long stalks on its upper surface. Years of exploring the subterranean reaches had taught her to fear the beholder above almost all other threats of Khyber. One of those smaller eyes had projected the green light, and Rienne knew the touch of that light could mean her death.
Something lunged at her from the right and lost its head to a reflexive slash of her blade. The monsters seemed hesitant to attack prey the eye tyrant had chosen for itself, but they were also driven by some madness or rage or instinct that wouldn’t let them leave her alone.
Slowly Rienne started into a new dance, ready to slash at anything that came at her from the sides or behind, but focused on dodging the beams of light that came from the many eyes of the beholder.
Displaying more coordination than she had yet seen among the Soul Reaver’s hordes, two creatures came at her from both sides. The easy response to such an attack broke her rhythm: she ducked toward one and threw it at the other. Before she could return to her rhythmic pattern, though, two rays of light made contact with her body. One seared her flesh, opening a horrible wound in her arm, black around the edges, sending horrible pain jolting through her body. At the same moment, she felt an absurd urge to flee, to turn and run from the horrifying apparition before her, even though it meant plunging headlong into a sea of smaller horrors.
She swallowed her fear, telling herself that it came from the beholder’s magic and not herself, and found her stride again in time to dodge two more beams of light. The monster might have been laughing at her, opening and closing its mouth so that its teeth rubbed together. A ridiculous image of the beholder as a butcher sharpening a knife appeared in her mind, and the smile returned to her face. It was time to charge.
With three quick steps she built up enough speed for a great leap at the beholder. She landed just close enough, swinging Maelstrom down with the full force of her jump and cutting a shallow gash in its plated hide. As she brought her blade around for another strike, a bolt of lightning struck the creature, knocking Rienne backward a few steps with the thundering force of its blast.
The beholder swung its large eye around to look for its new attacker, even as it unleashed two more rays at Rienne. She vaulted backward to avoid them, then rolled forward beneath the floating orb. Realizing its danger, it started rolling in the air to bring its eyes to bear on her again, but before it did she drove Maelstrom up through its jaw and into its core. She didn’t know what organs the thing might have in its strange body, and she didn’t much want to, but her sword must have hit something vital. Had she not rolled quickly to the side, it would have crushed her beneath its bulk as it crashed to the ground.
“Rienne!”
It was Gaven’s voice, and it was all she needed to hear.
CHAPTER 53
Gaven ran to Rienne, though his feet didn’t touch the ground. The wind carried Cart behind him, and his greatsword cleared a path through the howling monsters before them. The fall of the beholder, combined with Gaven’s stormy advance, seemed to break the horde’s resolve-what had been a tight mob clamoring to get at Rienne quickly dispersed into smaller groups fleeing the field. He stopped beside Rienne just as she got to her feet.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
In answer, she threw her arms around him, clutching him as tightly as she could. He returned her embrace with equal ardor, burying his face in her soft black hair. It still smelled of the sea, and for just an instant he lost himself in the memory of holding her on the Sea Tiger.
“What happened?” she said at last, not releasing her hold but turning her head to speak into his ear.
