held the sword. It was a double-hand stack.'
'You don't know how quick Kuhl can be,' Takari said. 'I had to defend myself.'
Galaeron risked turning his attention from the phaerimm long enough to lock gazes with Takari.
'When he grabbed for the sword, you were going to fall and let the blade swing up in his groin.' There was no accusation in his voice, only insistence and certainty. 'It would have looked like an accident.'
Takari met his gaze for only a moment before her eyes flicked away, her defenses finally starting to crumble. She retreated to the edge of the Shadow Fringe and peered out through snarl of magic threads.
'Hanali’s gown is starting to look ragged,' she said. 'If we don't attack the SpellGather soon-'
'You can't ignore this, Takari,' Galaeron interrupted. 'Think back to when you borrowed Kuhl's sword at the Floating Gardens. You took the time to turn him face up.'
'I didn't want him to drown.' She sounded as though she were remembering, not explaining. 'He's not so bad, for a human.'
'But after you borrowed the sword…'
'I didn't borrow it You can't borrow what's s already…' Takari let the sentence trail off, then raised a hand to her mouth and turned to look at Galaeron again. 'And now I want him dead!'
'If s the sword. That one carries a curse.' Galaeron took her by the arm and gently pulled her away from the Fringe edge. 'It opens you to your shadow.'
'My shadow?' Takari gasped. It was the first time Galaeron could recall seeing true terror in her eyes. 'Will I turn into one of them?'
'That will depend on how you react, I think,' Galaeron said. 'I'm not sure, but I do know you mustn't take Kuhl's sword from him again. If you fall in that, you'll have to kill him, and if you kill him, you will be lost.'
'Great.' Takari's eyes slid away from his, focusing some-where beyond his shoulder. 'Manynests…'
Galaeron turned around to find the little bird flying into the tree above the phaerimm leader's head. In his beak, he carried something pointed and twice as long as he was.
'What's that he has?' Takari asked.
Galaeron twisted a few strands of shadowsilk together at the top, then uttered a spell and began to whisk himself with the brush end.
'I don't know,' he said. 'It's not part of the plan.'
Manynests landed on the lowest branch over the phaerimm's head-disk. He stretched his neck forward, letting out a sharp chirp, and released what he was carrying. The pointed end dropped first, spinning slightly so that the long spine rising along one side of the shaft grew visible.
'It's a tail barb!' Takari gasped.
The barb hit the phaerimm on the rim of the mouth and bounced off its missile guard. The creature puffed in surprise and tipped forward to retrieve the barb. It held the thing over its open mouth for a moment, then raised its head-disk toward the branch where Manynests sat scolding it in peeptalk.
'Ithinkthat'soursignal' Galaeron's words came out in a rush, for the spell of speed he had cast upon himself had already taken effect 'Remembertheplan.'
Without awaiting a response, Galaeron floated to the edge of the Fringe and sent two dark bolts hissing into the phaerimm leader. The first burned a fist-sized hole through the middle of its chest and sent it wobbling back into the tree trunk. The second clipped it along the rim of its mouth, gouging a long furrow along the side of its head-disk and lopping an arm off at the shoulder.
Takari's booted feet landed squarely in Galaeron's back as, executing her part of the plan, she caught him with a flying drop kick that sent him tumbling tall-over-arms out into the courtyard. He did not pass through the strands of Weave magic so much as they passed through him, burning like nettles and engulfing him in a crackling halo of green sparks. That was not part of the plan. He glimpsed the leader of the phaerimm wrapped around the base of the tree. Its three remaining arms rested limply on the ground and black gore oozed from the hole in its body. Galaeron brought himself to a halt and spun to face Hanali's statue.
The members of the SpellGather had stopped pulling magic and were already starting to drift away from the circle. Galaeron pointed two arms back toward the shadow from which he had emerged. Takari was already retreating into the shadows, her legs and the tip of her borrowed darksword just disappearing into the Fringe as planned. Galaeron gestured wildly in her direction, his arms throwing off huge sheets of green sparks as they sliced through the air.
'After her!' He used his magic to howl in Winds, 'She's getting away!'
Whether it was his accent or the sweeping lines of green sparks, the phaerimm were not falling for it. They raised their arms in his direction, and even with his speed magic, Galaeron barely had time to raise a shadow shield before a hundred golden bolts came streaking in his direction. He huddled down behind the circle and tried not to scream. The hiss of the approaching bolts rose to a sizzle, and the sizzle to a roar, and the roar to a deafening crash as the missiles reached his shield and vanished down into the shadow plane. The crash disappeared into a ringing silence that left the ground shaking and Galaeron's eardrums throbbing, his nostrils tingling with the rainwater smell of spent magic.
Galaeron did not wait He nipped the shield around and dived through it into the shadows, and even then he was very nearly caught by the storm of fire magic and disintegration rays that converged on the place he had been kneeling. He remained a moment to see if any of his attackers would be foolish enough to pursue him into the dark circle, then he closed it behind him and streaked through the shadows back to Takari's side.
'That plan worked about as well as a pixie ladder,' Takari said. 'I don't think they were fooled by your disguise.'
She was peering out into the courtyard, watching two trios of phaerimm work their way toward the shadow where she and Galaeron stood watching. “It doesn't look like it,' Galaeron replied, 'but my plan did work.'
Galaeron dispelled the illusion magic that made him look like a phaerimm, then took an arrow from Takari's quiver and began to rub it with shadowsilk.
'Really?' Takari sounded more than doubtful, she sounded distrustful. 'I don't see that'
'They stopped attacking the mythal, didn't they?'
Galaeron plucked a death arrow from her quiver and rubbed the head with shadowsilk. He uttered a piercing spell and passed the missile back to her.
Takari nocked the arrow and raised her bow, but turned to Galaeron before firing and tipped her head back, lips slightly parted.
'In case this one doesn't work either-'
'It will work.'
Galaeron took another arrow from her quiver, and Takari rolled her eyes.
'Same old Galaeron.' There was genuine disgust in her voice. 'Won't ever give a wood elf a chance.'
She set the tip of her arrow on the closest phaerimm, which was no more than twenty paces away, and pulled the bowstring back.
Galaeron laid his free hand over her draw arm.
Takari turned, her expression one of irritation.
'I do love you,' Galaeron said.
Takari's jaw dropped. Had Galaeron not tightened his grasp, she would have let slip the arrow.
'You're only saying that because we're about to die.'
Galaeron shook his head, then looked back to the approaching phaerimm. They had closed to fifteen paces. He cast another piercing spell on the arrow in his hand.
Takari ignored the thornbacks and continued to study Galaeron.
'You always did have a lousy sense of timing,' she said, 'but I'll take what I can get'
She loosed her arrow, and the shaft took its target square in the body. Galaeron's shadow magic allowed it to penetrate the phaerimm's missile guard and sink to the fletching. The thornback squalled in pain and teleported away, though not so quickly that Galaeron failed to notice the black disintegration crater forming around Takari's arrow.
The five survivors attacked with a veritable spell-storm of flames, meteor stones, lightning, and half a dozen other kinds of magic death. As the spells entered the shadow where Galaeron and Takari were hiding, they were tunneled through a shadow door that opened on the opposite side of the courtyard, and the phaerimm were blasted from behind by their own spells.
