work toward his purpose and trust his sister to keep herself alive. To do anything less was to betray the warrior spirit in her… and that of Evereska herself.
Galaeron found the Chosen near Dawnsglory Pond, still in their phaerimm disguises and hurling spells back into the main body of the Company of the Cold Hand. At first, he thought they were just trying to protect their identities and escape until they could execute his plan. It took a moment of careful observation before he realized that their spells were all flash and thunder, and that they were carefully positioning themselves to catch the phaerimm in a flanking attack. Seeing they could do even better, he backed deeper into the underbrush, then motioned for the others to arm themselves and follow.
Kuhl moved more like a forest cat than the cave bear he so resembled, and the four companions slipped around the phaerimm flank guard. Galaeron sprang out of a bush behind an illithid, and the thing's heart stopped beating before it realized someone had driven a sword through it. As Galaeron was dropping back out of sight, Takari's death arrow droned past his head and killed the illithid's beholder partner, then Vala and Kuhl charged out of the underbrush to attack four astonished bugbears. The closest pair raised their battle-axes to block. The Vaasans' darkswords slashed through the thick oak shafts like bread, then opened the throats of both creatures. The second pair of bugbears, alarmed as well as stunned, thought better of fighting and turned to roar the alarm.
It was a bad mistake. Galaeron hurled a dark bolt, Takari fired two more death arrows, and the Vaasans threw their darkswords. Only Vala targeted the nearest one, but her black blade sank to the hilt between the monster's shoulder blades. He took three more steps, then crashed to the ground in a lifeless heap. The other bugbear fell where he was, head lost to Galaeron's magic, heart burst by Kuhl's darksword, legs shriveling around Takari's black arrows.
The first sign of a counterattack came when a huge blue-top trunk burst into flaming splinters. A terrific cracking echoed down through the boughs, and Galaeron looked up to find what seemed an entire sky of leaves and trunk crashing down toward him. He flicked a wad of shadowstuff up at it and shouted a word in ancient Netherese. A web of dark strands appeared overhead, anchoring itself to surrounding trees to catch the falling bluetop.
The swirling crackle of meteor stones reverberated through woods from somewhere ahead. Galaeron dived behind the nearest bluetop and glimpsed a smoke trail bending toward him as the pebbles adjusted course. They struck the tree with a series of staccato bangs. He scrambled forward and peered around the other side of the trunk and almost lost his head to a black ray. He rolled back in the other direction and was flash-blinded by a fork of oncoming lightning.
Galaeron dropped flat and bit dirt as the bolt cracked past overhead. With time passing at the same rate for everyone, he was no match for a phaerimm. He pulled back, readied a shadow shield, and barely had time to raise it before the undergrowth parted a dozen paces away and a thornback head rose into view.
Vala emerged behind it, ran her darksword down the length of its back, and disappeared back into the brush just before a beam of green radiance disintegrated the foliage where she had been standing. Takari's bow sang, and the ray vanished. Vala leaped up, waving a severed phaerimm tail in Galaeron's direction, and started through the forest again.
Before following, Galaeron said, 'Khelben, they're trapped between us. We're coming from the opposite end.'
By the time he rolled out from behind the tree, Kuhl had already killed a second phaerimm rushing to aid the one that Vala had slain. Galaeron returned to his place in the battle line, and they sneaked through the undergrowth, slaying several more bugbears and two more illithids before Takari threw her voice into the trees overhead and gave a warning bird whistle.
A conflagration of fireballs and lightning bolts streaked up toward the sound, setting two bluetops ablaze and showering the forest floor with burning boughs and broken limbs. Galaeron followed one of the spells to its source and spied what appeared to be a cone-shaped log standing suspiciously upright in the heart of big honey bramble about twenty paces ahead. He sent a flight of shadow arrows streaking toward the log, then dived for cover and started rolling. He was helped along the way by several concussion waves and a wall of magical heat.
By the time Galaeron stopped, the forest ahead was disintegrating into splinters and flame. He came to his knees and found an illithid stumbling in his direction, its tentacled head looking wide-eyed back over its shoulder. Galaeron barely had time to draw his sword before the thing ran onto the point and impaled itself. He finished the job with a few blade flicks, then shoved the illithid away.
The situation was much the same along the rest of the battle line, and Galaeron had no doubt that it was because the Chosen were behind the enemy, attacking. The phaerimm mind-slaves were blindly fleeing the inferno, running headlong into Vala and Kuhl. The Vaasans were taking a terrible toll, spinning and whirling, cutting in two any monster that came within reach of their darkswords and using their pommels to knock unconscious the occasional elf mind-slave.
But there were only two of them and easily a hundred mind-slaves. Dozens slipped past and crashed off through the brush. Takari did her best to stop the monsters, emptying her quiver into their backs and slowly working her way forward so she could conserve arrows by plucking once-fired shafts out of dead bodies. Galaeron used shadow bolts to cut down a pair of bugbears and a beholder angling toward her back, then Takari felled a fleeing illithid, and there were no more enemies.
The patter of falling rain sounded behind Galaeron. He turned to find a small torrent deluging the battle line, dousing the fire and filling the wood with billowing steam. The storm would do nothing to save the trees already burning, but it would at least prevent the flames from spreading.
When a trio of phaerimm emerged from the steam cloud, Galaeron found himself preparing a shadow bolt. He knew by how the forest murk seemed to cling to their bodies that they were the Chosen, but that didn't prevent him from cringing. The disguise was more convincing than he had realized, and he suddenly understood why it had been so hard to convince Keya of his identity back at the Groaning Cave.
'A sad thing to lose so many bluetops,' Khelben said, twisting his head-disk around to look back toward the battle line. 'Most are older than I am.'
'Evereska has been invaded,' Galaeron said. 'The trees must pay along with the rest of us.'
Takari's jaw dropped in outrage. She started to rebuke him for saying such a thing, then reconsidered and simply cast an accusing look in Vala's direction.
Vala shrugged and said, 'Don't look at me. I'm not the one who told him to embrace his shadow.'
'I'm not saying we should let the forest burn,' Galaeron retorted. 'Only that we should remember what will become of Evereska's forests if we let the phaerimm take Evereska.'
'Sometimes the lesser of two evils is the only good possible,' Laeral agreed. She started toward the edge of the meadow. 'Let's see if Keya needs help, shall we?'
But the Company of the Cold Hand had the situation well in hand. Without their phaerimm masters to guide and intimidate them, most of the mind-slaves had already lost interest in fighting and started to withdraw. It required only a couple of thunderbolts from the flank to turn the retreat into a rout, and Evereska's forces were alone in the field only a few minutes later.
Keya gave orders to gather the wounded and retrieve the darkswords, then waved Aris out of his hiding place on the opposite side of the meadow and came over to join Galaeron and the others. With a battle-jaded face and worry lines in her brow as deep as field furrows, she looked immeasurably older and grimmer than when Galaeron had last seen her, but stronger as well. With Burlen at her back, she stopped and gave Vala a warm- though weary-embrace, then stepped back and studied her brother.
There was a hardness in her eyes that made Galaeron worry she blamed him for what had happened in Evereska, and he began to fear their reunion would be less than a joyful one. He was more than willing to accept responsibility for his blunders, but the thought that his mistakes might drive a wedge between him and his sister was more than he could bear. It was bad enough that the war he started had taken their father from them; that it should also destroy the little that remained of his family would be a punishment worthy of Loviatar.
Finally, Keya dropped a hand to her protruding belly and said, 'You heard, I suppose?'
Wondering what her pregnancy had to do with his mistakes, Galaeron replied, 'Storm told me.'
'Well, what are you waiting for?' Keya moved her hand back to the hilt of the darksword hanging in her
