direction. She rolled away. The rocks slammed into the Meadow Wall behind her, smashing through and raining shards of broken granite into the meadow. Finding herself alone next to the breach, she took a deep breath and reached for her sword. Keya, no! came Dexon's voice.
She started to tell him to mind his own business and let her do her duty, then hesitated when she realized that would be the last thing anyone ever heard from her. In that moment Dexon added, Here!
Keya looked toward the Company of the Cold Hand and saw Dexon's darksword flying toward her hilt-first. Reaching up to catch it, she thought, Thanks, Dex-love you.
Deciding those were much better last words than what she had been thinking a moment before, she brought the darksword up before her and spun into the gap in a squat-and came nose-to-mouth with a crawling phaerimm. For an instant, she was almost too stunned to comprehend what she was seeing. Thornbacks did not crawl, they floated… and why was she still alive anyway? It had only to think a spell and she would be an elf-shaped cinder.
It opened its toothy mouth and stretched four spindly arms toward her, and suddenly none of that mattered. She brought Dexon's darksword down, splitting it open for two feet past its mouth, then brought the blade around and slashed it in the opposite direction. The phaerimm whistled and recoiled, grabbing Keya by the shoulders and rearing up on its tail. She kicked at its torso with both feet, hacking herself free of its arms and dropping on her shoulder.
Still using no magic, the thing lunged and snapped at Keya's feet. She kicked free and rolled over her shoulder-then glimpsed one of the beholders shining its antimagic ray over the phaerimm and understood. She drew her dagger with her free hand and flipped it at the eye tyrant in one swift motion.
Keya was no bladesinger. The dagger struck pommel first-hardly fatal, but enough. The beholder blinked, and in that instant, the mythal's magic returned to the gap. The phaerimm screeched and started to retreat back into the Vine Vale, but not quickly enough to avoid the golden meteor that streaked down from the heavens and slammed it to ground-where it quickly dissolved into a pile of ash only a little larger than those left behind by the first wave of the Long Watch.
Before the stunned beholder could recover, Keya leaped onto the Meadow Wall rubble and brought the darksword across the middle of its spherical body. A cascade of dark gore spilled out of the wound, and it dropped to the ground without so much as a curse. Keya brought the darksword around and started down the wall toward the next beholder, then cried out in astonishment when she felt a magic hand pluck her off the crest and carry her back into the Company of the Cold Hand.
'Let's not get carried away, young lady,' Kiinyon Colbathin said, stepping to her side. He gestured down the way, to where the survivors of the Long Watch were charging back to the Meadow Wall behind a storm of spears and arrows. 'Let someone else have a go at them.'
'Yes, you've done your part many times over,' Khelben agreed, plucking the darksword from Keya's hand. He hissed at the cold and quickly returned the blade to Dexon, then raised his swarthy brow. 'That didn't freeze your hand?'
'As a matter of fact, no.' She displayed her hands. Aside from the calluses she had earned in weapons practice, they remained as healthy as her eighty-year-old cheeks. 'They didn't even get cold.'
Dexon's jaw dropped, and Burlen and Kuhl fell to chuckling. Khelben frowned. 'What are you two laughing about?'
The battle din built to a roar as the Long Watch reached the Meadow Wall and began to assail the enemy at close range. Unable to use their own magic within the antimagic zones created by their beholder slaves, the phaerimm hung back.
Khelben's scowl only deepened. 'This is important. If there's a way for the Company of the Cold Hand to wield your comrades' darkswords-' 'The Cold Hand wouldn't care for it much,' said Kuhl.
'The Cold Hand will do what it must to defend Evereska,' Kiinyon growled. 'They are elf warriors.'
'It won't work,' Kuhl said. 'Most of the warriors in the Cold Hand are male-and I doubt even elven magic can get a Vaasan baby on a male warrior.'
'B-baby?' Keya stammered. 'What are you talking about?'
Burlen grinned and nudged her arm. 'Come on, Keya, you know how these things work,' he said. 'You and Dexon are family now.'
From the ruins of the Secret Gate, high in Evereska's Upper Vale, Laeral had watched in horror as the first rank of elves poured over the Meadow Wall and disintegrated into swirling piles of ash. When the phaerimm launched their counterattack, using their magic to hurl half the stones in the Vine Vale through the breaches the beholders had opened in the mythal, she had gasped out loud. As the young warriors of the Long Watch somehow rallied themselves and came charging back to drive off the beholders, she felt tears sliding down her cheeks.
'The stuff of legends, my friend,' Laeral said, looking across the window to Lord Imesfor. 'If those are raw recruits in Evereska, I shudder to think what will become of the phaerimm when the time comes to unleash your seasoned warriors.'
'I just wish I could be there with them,' Imesfor said. Though the magic of Waterdeep's clerics had regrown his fingers, they were still too clumsy and stiff to cast spells, or even hold a sword in combat. 'It is good to watch, to remind myself that the Tel'Quess never lose hope.'
Forcing their mind-slaves to hold at the mythal's edge, the phaerimm continued to hurl whole stretches of vineyard wall into the meadow. The Long Watch fell by the dozens and continued to attack, playing a deadly game of dodge as they tried to avoid breaches in the mythal while continuing to pour arrows into the beholders. One eye tyrant after another sprouted more spines than a hedgehog, then sank to the ground and disintegrated. Some, maddened by pain, finally broke free of their masters' hold and turned to leave, only to be struck down by the phaerimm themselves. Though it would have been a simple matter to send the elite companies forward to support the Long Watch and finish off the beholders, Khelben and the elf commanders wisely resisted the temptation. One way or another, Evereska would need its most experienced fighters later, when victory or death hung in the balance.
Laeral could see just see Khelben in the heart of one of the elite companies, a swarthy figure in black robes, his namesake black staff cradled in the croak of one arm as he discussed strategy with the elf lords clustered around him. How good it was to see her beloved again, even if he was little more than a black speck in a square of gleaming gray mithral.
'Lord Blackstaff seems to have them quite distracted,' said Prince Clariburnus, peering out the watch-loop adjacent to Laeral and Lord Imesfor. 'What say you, Lady Laeral?'
'I would say we dare not wait-the mythal is growing weak,' Laeral said, noting that the rain of golden meteors had tapered to a drizzle. 'You've seen their trap. We can't dismount.'
'That trap we will turn against them,' said Lamorak, who was watching opposite Clariburnus, 'but let us be alert for more phaerimm trickery. You Chosen are not the only ones who know the value of guile in war.'
Laeral met the prince's orange eyes. 'Always a good thing to remember,' she said, starting downstairs. 'I will hold it in mind.'
When the phaerimm had made no attempt to stop them from entering the Sharaedim, it had been Laeral who realized the thornbacks would attempt to breach the mythal and take refuge inside Evereska-and who had developed the strategy to take advantage of their plan. After emerging from the shadowshell and using her silver fire to open a gate in the weakened deadwall, she had sent the relief army to attack the enemy rear guard, then summoned Lord Imesfor from Waterdeep to serve as a guide. He had led the Shadovar army through the shadow fringe into the Secret Gate and safely past hundreds of elven traps-a gauntlet so devious and powerful that it had claimed several of the phaerimm before they finally gave up on clearing the passage and simply sealed the entrances-at least those they could find.
Laeral reached the exit vestibule at the bottom of the stairs, where a company of Shadovar cavalry stood beside its mounts in a long line stretching back across a marble bridge into the murky recesses of the Passing. With little more than lances, darkswords, and black helms, the veserab riders were lightly armed and thinly armored. Behind the cavalry, Laeral knew, ran an even longer line of infantry equipped just as sparingly. Against the magic of the phaerimm, massive blades and heavy armor counted for less than the swiftness of the strike and the agility with which one dodged.
Lamorak came and gave his orders, then turned to Laeral and said, 'This is your plan. Would you care to
