steam ahead. She continued forward until the line resolved itself into a rank of Shadovar warriors, all fully armored and carrying their deadly black swords. Arr's companions were instantly at her back, arriving by teleport magic even as the enemy began to advance.
Instead of breaking into a charge as Arr had anticipated, the Shadovar line stopped thirty paces from the rolled shadow blanket. A huge warrior with braided hair tails and bright coppery eyes stepped forward and raised his dark blade in salute. He was the one they called Escanor.
'With the phaerimm loose in the world again, I should think the Chosen of Mystra would have better things to do than rob Shade Enclave of its water.'
'If Shade kept its water to itself, we would,' Arr replied.
She had not expected the Shadovar to be more interested in talking than fighting, but she had to respond in kind. While phaerimm never hesitated to use force, she and her fellows had to behave as the Chosen would, and the Chosen were reluctant to start a fight until they knew they had no other choice.
'Your shadow blankets are flooding half of Faer?n,' she continued, 'and robbing the rest of rain. Since you refuse to remove them, we will do it for you.'
Escanor took one step forward and said, 'Faer?n's suffering is the price for restoring Shade to its birthright.'
Then let Shade pay the price,' Arr said, trying to put herself in Storm's place. 'Your birthright is no concern of Faer?n's.'
'It is. You abandoned us to the Plane of Shadow for seventeen centuries. You cannot imagine how we suffered.'
'We abandoned no one.' Arr wondered if she had conversed enough to seem like one of the Chosen, then decided probably not They talked a lot 'Leaving was your city's choice.'
'Choice?' Escanor scoffed. 'It was leave or die.'
'Then it is a pity Shade did not choose the latter,' she said. The Shadovar's talkativeness puzzled Arr. Surely, he knew as well as Arr did that there was going to be a fight-so why was he stalling? 'It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.'
'Rude, as well as ungrateful.' Escanor looked from Arr to Ryry and said, 'You are known to be the reasonable sister, Lady Alustriel. Surely, you can see that opposing us will only lead to more Tilvertons. Wouldn't your energies be better spent helping Faer?n's people adjust to the new climate than adding to their troubles by starting a war you cannot hope to win?'
'No one ever wins a war, Prince Escanor,' Ryry said, sounding like Alustriel in voice as well as meaning. 'They only lose less than the enemy. Given what Shade lost at Tilverton, I should think you would understand that.'
'Our city is still here.'
'And so are a hundred of ours,' Arr countered. 'Who do you think can stand to lose more?'
Escanor's eyes flashed orange.
'The question is not how many cities you can lose, Lady Storm.' His voice was sharp and seething, yet he seemed as content as before to stand there talking instead of fighting. 'The question is how many you can destroy. We have already proven what we can do.'
'And if you lose an army with each city, we will not have to destroy your city at all,' Arr said. As she spoke, Arr was running her gaze down the Shadovar line, searching for the other princes. 'By the third or fourth city, it will be ours for the claiming.'
'We have learned from our mistake.' Escanor glanced at the shadow blanket rolled up between them and said, 'You, apparently, have not. You will remove your tool and allow us to replace the shadow blanket I will ask this only once.'
Arr completed her search of the Shadovar line and finding no more princes placed a hand on her hip in the stubborn way Storm often did.
'And if we refuse?'
'The battle will not be fought here,' Escanor said. 'It will be Faer?n's cities that pay-'
'Liar.'
Nothing would have made Arr happier than to think the prince was telling the truth, but the Shadovar were too cunning to announce their plan in advance. She raised her arm and with a thought unleashed the spell she had spent most of her imprisonment in the Shaeradim developing. A steady stream of silver-white flame boiled out of her fingertips toward the prince. His spell-guard flashed black as the fire struck. The shadow magic in this defense triggered a secondary spell, sending an antimagic beam shooting from the head of the flame stream.
A gapping hole appeared in Escanor's spell-guard, allowing the white stream behind to pour through. The effect was a reasonable imitation of the silver fire of the Chosen, and Escanor fell, screaming and engulfed in flames.
Arr started to whistle a command to her fellows, then caught herself and yelled, 'Watch our backs! The other princes-'
She was interrupted by the hissing crash of a dark bolt striking home behind her. Beze went tumbling over the rolled shadow blanket and landed a dozen yards away, wisps of shadow rising from a gaping hole in her chest. She began to thrash about and whistle in pain, then rose into the air, too weak and dazed to hold herself on the ground.
'Laeral, no!' Arr yelled. 'Get down and be-'
The word 'quiet' was lost to a horrific roar as battle magic-both phaerimm and Shadovar-started to crack and sizzle behind her. Escanor's company answered with a thunderous war cry, then lifted their arms and began to gesture. Arr countered by raising a wall of scintillating color in front of them-Shadovar hated prismatic magic- then she realized she had forgotten herself and neglected to gesture and incant. She covered by waving her arm and booming out a dozen syllables of mystic nonsense, then toppled the wall over on the enemy.
A cacophony of crackling magic and anguished screaming filled the basin for a single instant then came echoing back off Untriwin's stony face and faded to an low murmur. It was a sound Arr loved well, the sound of astonished survivors struggling to gather their wits and reorganize.
She glanced back to find her companions standing behind their spell-guards hurling magic at half a dozen retreating princes. The bars of a half-completed shadow cage lay at their feet, slowly melting into the slushy water as its unbound energies dispersed.
The sound of sharp commands drew Arr's attention forward again, where the Shadovar survivors had already regrouped. Half a dozen were gathered around their burning prince, attempting to smother Arr's silver flames with their own bodies. The rest, perhaps two dozen in all, were following a tall warrior forward, their swords drawn and their gem-colored eyes glowing with rage.
This time remembering to cast the spell as a human would, Arr called up a wall of flame.
By the time she finished the necessary gesturing and chanting, the Shadovar were almost even with Beze's writhing form. Arr would not normally have hesitated to engulf one of her own in the conflagration, but Beze's defenses had obviously been overpowered by the enemy attack. If the flames killed her, she would revert to true form and reveal the truth about who the Shadovar were fighting.
Arr raised the wall behind the charging warriors, then reached behind her and grabbed Tuuh by the collar.
'Come along, Khelben,' she said.
She clambered across the rolled shadow blanket, Tuuh half-stumbling and half-floating over it as she pulled him along. When he turned and saw two dozen angry Shadovar only ten paces away, he forget himself and raised a barrier of thrashing blades without remembering to gesture.
'Allak thur doog.' Arr called, improvising.
The incantation was lost to the wet thud of the barrier's blades chopping through Shadovar armor.
Pulling Tuuh after her, Arr started around the far end, shouting, 'Remember yourself, Khelben.'
'A split second of warning might help next time,' Tuuh answered. 'Where are we going.'
'To help Bez-er, Laeral.'
'To help her?' Tuuh stopped. 'What for?'
'Because she's supposed to be your mate!' Arr hissed. 'And because my plan will be ruined if she dies and they see her revert'
