her black blade into the tentacle and pulled the creature toward her, bringing her iron dagger up to meet it The blade sank a finger's depth, and the third tentacle came around, burying its hook in the back of her knee and trying to jerk her off her feet Vala was too nimble. She gave it a dead leg, letting her foot rise while she pushed and twisted the dagger. The blade sank perhaps another knuckle.
Galaeron pulled a strand of shadowsilk from his pocket and wadded it into a ball, beginning the incantation for a shadow ball.
'Galaeron!' Vala yelled, hopping on one foot as the thing whipped her impaled leg to and fro. Somehow, during all this, she still managed to knock the shadow-silk from his hand. 'No more-' 'Shut the hell up and fight!'
Galaeron kicked the thing's beak off of him and rammed his sword up through its body. Leaving it buried there, he pulled a small cylinder of glass from his pocket and rolled through the incantation for a normal lightning bolt and felt nothing.
Well, not nothing, exactly. There was a cold prickling as the shadow magic tried to rise into him where his body was touching the ground, but he pushed this down and opened himself to the Weave so he could cast a normal, bright, searing lightning bolt-and there was nothing. He had lost the Weave.
Vala exchanged her dagger for his sword's hilt, pushed, twisted, slashed, then cried out in alarm as the thing wrapped its dehooked tentacle around her ankle. Instead of allowing it to pull her foot out from under her, Vala dropped to her back, pulling Galaeron's sword from the creature's body and bringing a cascade of entrails with it.
The thing screeched in anguish and exploded into a bloody cloud as a huge shadow ball burst through its center. What remained plopped down between Galaeron and Vala, its slimy tentacles still twined around Vala and her darksword. She quickly used Galaeron's sword to cut herself free, then flipped it around and shoved the hilt at him.
'Don't ever-I don't care how darkly shadowed you are-don't ever tell me to shut up.'
'And don't you ever-ever-interrupt a spellcasting,' Galaeron snapped back. 'Or the next time, I'll let it snap your head off.'
'Better a…' She looked at the three-eyed thing and curled her lip in disgust, then continued, '… a monster I don't know than one I do.'
She dropped his sword in the mess, then rolled to her feet and limped off through the carnage, leaving Galaeron to face Telamont and Hadrhune as the pair came up behind the monster's disemboweled body. The Most High nudged it with a dark boot.
'Our enemies from the shadow plane attack us even here,' he said. 'The 'monster' is called a malaugrym. You did well to unmask it. One might even say that we all owe you our lives.'
'One might,' Galaeron said, struggling to his feet, 'but it seems a simple 'thank you' is too much to ask.'
Telamont's eyes sparkled. 'If that is what your shadow needs to hear.'
'My shadow?' Galaeron growled. 'It's just common courtesy.'
Then, remembering how Vala had saved his life when his lightning bolt failed, he realized Telamont was right. Vala had been, too. His shadow had been completely in control-perhaps it still was.
Telamont motioned to Hadrhune, and both kneeled before Galaeron-causing every shadow lord who happened to be looking in the direction to do likewise.
'Galaeron Nihmedu, on behalf of Shade Enclave,' Telamont began, just a hint of mockery in his voice, 'please accept our most sincere-'
'Not necessary,' Galaeron said, realizing how ignoble he was to be demanding thanks when so many had died. 'Forgive me for asking.'
Telamont did not rise. 'You see, you can live with your shadow.'
'Sure I can,' Galaeron scoffed, looking past the Most High's shoulder. He owed someone an apology. 'Where'd Vala go?'
Telamont rose and turned, then said, 'There are some things even I do not know.'
'Have no fear for her comfort,' Hadrhune said, looking in the same direction as Galaeron. 'Vala saved Prince Escanor's life. She will always be welcome in his villa.'
CHAPTER SIX
15 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic
With Boareskyr Bridge hidden somewhere beneath the brown lake that had once been the plains north of the Trollclaws, Laeral's relief army was crossing the Winding Water on a fleet of rain-soaked log rafts. Laeral herself had flown three magic guidelines across two miles of muddy water, and along with her hippogriff-mounted scouts and several dozen of her best battle mages she was standing guard on the western shore, expecting a phaerimm attack at any moment.
This was the last river they would cross before reaching Evereska, and if the enemy meant to stop them, it would be there, and Laeral knew there was a good chance that they would.
In addition to slowing the progress of the relief army to a crawl, the horrid weather was taking a terrible toll on the health and spirit of the army. There was not a fighter among them who doubted that they owed their lives to the forces of Shade. Had the Shadovar not appeared when they did at the High Moor, the enemy horde would have beaten them to the high ground and obliterated the army to a warrior.
Many officers were beginning to question the wisdom of continuing the march at all. While the priests and healers were keeping deaths from illness to a bare minimum, most soldiers were feverish and-with the constant rainfall spoiling rations-weak from hunger. Even if they reached Evereska in time, it seemed likely that their poor condition would only be a burden on those already in place.
Laeral refused to hear these arguments. Sooner or later, the weather would break-it had to-and a few days of sunshine would do wonders to rejuvenate the army. More importantly, she felt certain the phaerimm would eventually find a way to defeat the shadowshell. When that happened, the thornbacks would learn from their mistake and scatter across Faerыn, and the only thing capable of stopping them would be the sheer numbers of Laeral's relief army.
Most of all, there was her beloved Khelben to think about. He had vanished at the Battle of Rocnest, defending a trio of Evermeet's high mages as they attempted to open a translocational gate that would have allowed Waterdeep to send relief forces in a matter of moments instead of months, and Laeral was determined to find out what had become of him. She would have known if he had died-as a Chosen herself, she would have felt his loss in the Weave-so he had either been sucked into another plane when the phaerimm captured the gate, or trapped inside Evereska with the elves. She was gambling on Evereska, if for no other reason than she had already done what little was possible to contact him in the planes beyond.
The first rafts appeared out of the rain, the deep voices of two hundred Uthgardt barbarians chanting a somber hauling song as they pulled themselves along the guide rope. Laeral began to think her army would actually make the crossing successfully. The rafts were spaced about thirty paces apart, just far enough to avoid being caught if a magic fireball, meteor storm, or some other area attack struck the raft in front, yet close enough that the warriors on any one raft could help the others if they did come under attack.
A distant thunder began to roll over the horizon from the direction of the Forest of Wyrms. Laeral assigned her battle mages to ground defense, then took her hippogriff riders into the air to establish a protective screen fifty paces ahead of the shoreline. The thunder grew into the unmistakable roar of pounding boots and growling voices, but the rain clouds were so thick that Laeral couldn't see their enemies even from a hundred feet above the ground.
The roar grew steadily louder and passed underneath her. Laeral dropped down until she saw first the hazy darkness of land, then thousands of oblong boot prints simply appearing in the mud. Someone had turned the entire army invisible, and that meant phaerimm-probably several of them.
She aimed her palm at the front rank and spoke a few syllables of dispelling magic, and a ten-yard circle of charging bugbears appeared no more than thirty paces from the shoreline.
