launch the attack?'
'By all means-thank you.' As Laeral waited for the riders to mount their veserabs, she turned to Lord Imesfor. 'I know you'd like nothing better than to see the outcome of the battle, but the Shadovar infantry will need someone to lead them back to the relief army.'
Imesfor raised his hand, displaying a set of stubby white digits that did not yet look quite like fingers. 'Say no more. It will be my pleasure to guide them through the Passing.'
'Once the outcome is apparent, of course,' Lamorak clarified. Imesfor nodded. 'Of course.'
Since the infantry would not be able to step foot into the valley below without being disintegrated by phaerimm magic, the prince's plan called for them to return to the holding action in the mountains and catch the enemy from behind. Given the tremendous advantages of holding the high terrain, the tactic was certain to save a lot of lives in the relief army.
The cavalry commander reported his readiness, and the two Shadovar princes mounted their own veserabs. Laeral cast a flying spell on herself, then raised her arm and led the way out of the Secret Gate down a hanging gorge that opened into the High Vale itself. The life-draining magic of the phaerimm had reduced the slopes to barren pitches of rock and dirt, lacking even a rotted stump to hint at the forest of old growth spruce that had once covered the valley.
As soon as Laeral cleared the shelter of the hanging vale, she turned and streaked for the Vine Vale as fast as she could fly. The cavalry came behind her, fanning out across the slopes in a great blanket of flapping black wings. Mistaking the Shadovar and their mounts for a legion of some new, hell-spawned horrors come to aid the phaerimm, the elite companies of Evereska raised their voices and weapons and started to press forward.
Khelben raised his arms and staff and called out something in a thunderous voice that brought the Evereskan companies up short, but the damage was done. First one, then a dozen, then half the phaerimm at the Meadow Wall drifted away from the mythal and swung their toothy jaws toward the descending Shadovar. Laeral reached the highest terrace of the Vine Vale.
A scintillating wall of colors rose in front of her. Foolish phaerimm-still didn't know who they were dealing with. Laeral dispelled it with a gesture, then did the same to the curtain of flame that appeared next. By then, the Shadovar were sweeping past to both sides, spraying dark bolts into the enemy. The valley ahead became a storm of shadow magic and black flapping wings. Laeral saw a dozen thornbacks drop out from beneath the tempest and disintegrate into long mounds of ash. An instant later, she was in among them, flashing past scaly, worm-like bodies and deflecting barbed tails with her quarter-staff.
Climb! Lamorak's voice came to Laeral as a bare, faint whisper inside her head. Cast the shadow zone!
Laeral and the Shadovar ascended high into the sky. The phaerimm started after them, but their floating magic was no match for the swift-climbing wings of the veserabs. Even Laeral had to extend a hand and allow herself to be drawn along by a passing shadow lord. Blasts of silver lightning and golden magic chased the riders skyward, filling the air with black blossoms of blood, wing, and shadow armor.
Clariburnus, Lamorak, and several powerful Shadovar spread out over the Vine Vale, then released the reins of their mounts and began to drop wads of shadowsilk. They spread their hands palm downward and called out something in ancient Netherese she could not quite catch. The wads flattened into translucent disks of darkness and fell to the valley floor, forcing the phaerimm and beholders down beneath them. As the first creatures touched ground, they wailed in pain and crumbled to ash.
Perhaps two dozen thornbacks and twice that many beholders perished before the disintegration spell was nullified. The survivors writhed about under the disks for a moment, then finally broke the surface of the shadow like fish rising from a pond. The Shadovar were already diving on them, peppering them with shadow bolts as they emerged from the darkness, their mounts spraying them with streams of noxious black mist. Laeral released her escort to join the assault and curved back toward the Meadow Wall, concentrating her own attacks on the beholders. Unlike the Shadow Weave spells of her allies, the phaerimm were less likely to be injured by anything she hurled at them than they were to absorb it and heal themselves. Of course, a blast of her silver fire was sure to slay even the mightiest phaerimm, but she could use that only once an hour, and so it seemed wisest to hold that particular attack in reserve.
A flash of silver light lit the vale behind Laeral. Her entire body erupted into fiery nettling as a bolt of lightning caught her in the flank and sent her tumbling through the air head over heels. She bounced off the mythal and quickly brought herself back under control, then turned to find a pair of cinder clouds settling to ground where the attack had blasted through two Shadovar warriors before exhausting itself on her.
About twenty yards away floated the phaerimm that had hurled the lightning, its toothy mouth turned in her direction and hanging agape. The bolt had been a powerful one. By all rights, it should have torn through her and continued on to another five or six targets, but Laeral was one of the Chosen. She could use the Weave to protect herself from many forms of magical attack, and this was one of the most obvious ones.
Laeral raised her hands and was about to blast her attacker with silver fire when a pair of Shadovar warriors swooped down on it from behind, their veserabs engulfing it in a cloud of noxious black fume that made Laeral's eyes sting even at a distance.
Guiding their mounts with their knees, they poured shadow bolts into it with one hand and raised their black swords with the other, hacking it into three pieces as they flashed past. Laeral waved her thanks and praying that Waterdeep's hippogriff riders never found themselves taking the sky against such a deadly air cavalry, she turned back to the mission she had assigned herself.
Not far ahead, a pair of beholders were using their antimagic beams to cover each other as they retreated from the Meadow Wall and laced the sky above with disintegration rays. Laeral cast a quick invisibility spell on herself and dropped to a few inches above the ground, then came up beneath the creatures, pouring golden streams of magic into them. Both beholders erupted into crimson starbursts, coating her head to toe in foul- smelling gore.
Laeral only hoped that Pleufan Trueshot still allowed humans into the Hall of the High Hunt. She had not seen Khelben in nearly four months, and she could see that she would need a long dip in the Singing Spring before their reunion could be a proper one.
Khelben's first glimpse of Laeral in the battle came when she emerged from the starburst of viscera and entrails that, until a few moments earlier, had been two beholders holding Keya Nihmedu's company of the Long Watch at bay. Even smeared in crimson, she was a sight for weary eyes — and not only because she had broken the siege of Evereska. Never had he spent four months as long as the last four, when he had not known when he would see his beloved Laeral — or even whether he would survive to do so. The Chosen did die, and — as he had so nearly learned at the Rocnest — the job of killing them required far fewer than two hundred phaerimm.
Khelben watched Laeral vanish back into the magic storm, then stood staring into the flashing bolts and scintillating sprays for a few minutes longer. Though the sheets of fire and swirling clouds of veserab breath made it impossible to catch more than glimpses of the action, the battle roar was as ferocious as ever, and the number of Shadovar wheeling up into sight was steadily diminishing. The phaerimm were standing their ground, no doubt because they understood what was at stake in this battle as well as Khelben did.
'Lord Duirsar, the time has come to commit Evereska's army,' he said, speaking to the Hill Elders as much as he was to Duirsar. 'We must break the siege now, while the phaerimm are still reeling.'
'What remains to us is hardly an army,' Kiinyon objected, 'and even less so, after we followed your advice the last time.'
'The attack cost more than I had anticipated, but it was also a crucial diversion.' Khelben pointed at the Shadovar swirling above the vale, then started toward the Meadow Wall. 'Now, with the Shadovar and the rest of the North's forces operating inside the Sharaedim, this is the phaerimm's last chance to breach the mythal. If we can make them withdraw now, we can break the siege and hunt them down at our will.'
Unconvinced, Kiinyon grabbed Khelben's arm and tried to hold him back. 'If we fail-'
'If we fail, we lose everything,' Lord Duirsar interrupted. 'We have been failing for the last four months, it's time to take a chance.' He nodded to Khelben. 'Call the charge.'
Khelben used a spell to carry his voice to every corner of the vale. 'Ready the charge! Long Watch, stand down!'
At the Meadow Wall, the young elves of the Long Watch began to disengage and fall back, clustering around trees, granite monoliths, and deep ravines where they would not hinder the charge. The process took several long minutes, for they were as inexperienced as they were exhausted, with casualties that would have reduced even
