It took Aunn a moment to recognize the word, a term for half-elves. 'Yes! Gaven.'
The undead guard made an eerie sound that was half growl and half wail, and Aunn's fear returned in force. 'Your blaspheming Khoravar friend killed our priestess.'
CHAPTER 30
Someone shouted her name. Rienne looked up from the blood-soaked ground and saw Kyaphar at the edge of the clearing, beckoning to her.
'The Mosswood Warden calls us to battle!' he cried. 'Come!'
It's too late, Rienne thought. The battle is over.
The healer's spirit bear shifted nervously on its feet, punctuating its whimpers with an occasional quiet roar. The healer herself seemed lost in a trance, one hand planted on the ground, grave concern written on her face. The Blasphemer had already started to break the seal, and the battle was lost.
'We can still drive him back!' Kyaphar shouted. 'We can limit the damage he does! Come!'
Rienne forced herself into a run. Kyaphar was probably wrong-this final charge had little chance of success, and was most likely just a headlong rush into destruction. But she had to try. She had committed her sword to the defense of this site, and she would not back down.
'This way,' Kyaphar said.
Rienne shot past him, unhindered by armor and empowered by the energy coiled in her soul. She heard him laugh behind her-grimly cheerful on this day of doom-and then his laugh turned into a growl. He loped beside her in the shape of a shaggy black wolf, easily keeping pace with her light steps.
They charged together through the woods, bounding over fallen trees and scrambling beneath low branches. It was exhilarating. The leaves and twigs that brushed her as she passed seemed to gift her with some of their life, as if the forest was fortifying its defender. Kyaphar must have felt it as well, for his bestial form raced with increasing vigor, keeping pace with her as she sped up.
He barked and jerked his head to the side, and they altered course. A moment later, they emerged from the grove onto the slope of a hill overlooking the battlefield, and Rienne slowed her pace, then stopped. The sky was a black dome of smoke, neither day nor night but a ruddy twilight of fire and shadow. From her higher ground, she saw the barbarians arrayed in a wide arc, with a wall of flames at their back, driving them forward at their fiendish leader's urging. The Eldeen defenders were a ragged ring, unable to hold the barbarians back. Dragons flew here and there above the fray, occasionally loosing blasts of fire or frost, bolts of lightning or sprays of acid down onto the soldiers below.
Rienne couldn't see any sign of the seal breaking, but she could feel it-a sense of wrongness radiating up from the violated land. It reminded her of Starcrag Plain, the feeling she'd had as wave after wave of monstrosities, the hordes of the Soul Reaver, spilled out of the earth and washed over her.
Elestrissa stood a few paces away, surrounded by a clump of warriors, mystics, and rangers. The men and women gathered around the Mosswood Warden wore superior armor and carried weapons that shone with magic, clearly setting them apart from the rank and file soldiery. A few of them, like her, bore the signs of their own struggles against the Blasphemer's dragons. These, she guessed, were the greatest heroes of the Eldeen Reaches, gathered from across the lands that the Blasphemer had already devastated-a half-dozen humans, about as many shifters, a few elves and half-elves. Two dwarves covered in thick hide armor stood beside a goliath who towered over them; its leather armor left much of the patterned markings and rocklike protrusions on his stone-gray skin exposed.
'Ah! Kyaphar,' Elestrissa said, gesturing toward them. Rienne turned to look at the Sky Warden, and saw the tall, proud man once more where the wolf had been a moment before. 'And Lady Alastra Dragonslayer. Good! We have precious little time.'
Elestrissa turned back to face the battlefield, and Rienne stepped forward to join the others at her side.
'There he is,' the Mosswood Warden said, pointing toward the center of the arc of flame. 'The Blasphemer, the opener of the seal. He has spread his forces thin, because he knows that our defense is thinner still. That means there aren't many soldiers between us and him. Our plan is as simple as it is desperate: We charge straight for the Blasphemer. The greater our speed, the less chance he will have to put more of his forces in our way. If we're fast enough, we'll cut right through his lines and get to him. One man cannot stand for long against twenty of us. And when he is dead, our hope-our only, desperate hope-is that his sundering will cease. Perhaps none of us will survive this day, but if we succeed, the world can rest tonight free from fear.'
Elestrissa turned and let her eyes range over the men and women gathered around her. Rienne watched emotions flit across her face as she met the gaze of each individual-it was clear that Elestrissa knew all of these people personally and held them in the highest respect. Rienne felt sadly out of place.
'Sky Warden Kyaphar,' Elestrissa said as her eyes fell on him, 'your place is not at my side this day. I want you with the Lyrandar airship.'
Jordhan! Rienne couldn't believe that she had all but forgotten him in the press of the battle. She searched the sky, and saw the airship drifting over the glade behind her, as if it had followed her from the healer's clearing. Elestrissa must have held it in reserve for this moment, knowing that revealing it too soon would make it a target for the dragons.
Elestrissa was still addressing Kyaphar. 'You may choose a few others to join you, and your task will be to rain the fury of wind and storm down upon our foes. If we succeed in destroying the Blasphemer, the survivors will need help getting back through his forces. Clear them a path.'
Kyaphar bowed. 'As you command,' he said. He sounded pained, as though he wanted to be part of the ground assault-or else he was already grieving those who would surely fall.
Then Elestrissa stood before Rienne and looked solemnly down at her. 'And you, Lady Dragonslayer. Do you still wish to stand with us in our foolhardy defense of this place?'
'But the Blasphemer's end lies in the void, in the maelstrom that pulls him down to darkness.' Rienne's dream flashed through her mind, and briefly she wondered whether she should flee-fall back to the river, join the Aundairian defenders there, and seek to bring about the Blasphemer's end the way her dream suggested.
'What is the Prophecy?' she asked.
Elestrissa looked confused.
'Is the vision in my dream an immutable image of what will be, regardless of what I choose? If it is, then what I do now doesn't matter-one way or another. I'm fated to end up facing the Blasphemer at the river. I can join your charge knowing that somehow I'll survive, even if no one else does, because my destiny is to face the Blasphemer in two weeks, when he reaches the Wyr.'
'But we and the Eldeen Reaches are doomed,' Elestrissa said, scowling.
'Or perhaps my vision was just a glimpse of what could be, a foretaste of what might come to pass if I make the choices that lead me to that point. In that case, I'm free to choose a different path and perhaps arrive at a different destination. That would mean I could die in this foolhardy defense, or I could defeat the Blasphemer two weeks early.'
I wish Gaven were here, she added silently.
Elestrissa frowned. 'Such questions are best discussed in the groves of the druids in times of peace,' she said. 'Now is a time for action.' She took a deep breath, and seemed to swell with it, growing taller and broader. 'Perhaps we all die here today, but perhaps our charge is necessary to weaken the Blasphemer so he can fall at the river.' Her skin, where her hide armor left it exposed, was transforming into thick bark, and leafy twigs appeared in her hair. 'Perhaps you will live to see the Blasphemer fall, Lady Alastra.' Her voice rumbled and resounded like thunder over the noise of the battle, and her limbs became the mighty trunks and branches of an oak. 'Then you can tell the tale of this day, and ensure that the story of the defenders of the Mosswood is told until the end of days!'
A cheer went up from the battle-worn heroes, and Rienne smiled. She would fight beside Elestrissa, and if fate allowed, she would destroy the Blasphemer before his fated day. Perhaps she would die without having seen Gaven again, but after all the times she had told Gaven that he was the author of his own destiny, she couldn't do otherwise.
