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 Dead-wall. 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 mind-slaves 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
