Shadowrealm

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

6 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms

Abelar gripped the makeshift harness and steadied himself atop Furlinastis's back. Shadows poured from the dragon's purple and black scales. A cloud of ink stained the air around them and left a path of smeared black in their wake. The rain felt like sling bullets against his exposed face. The roar of the wind filled his ears, pierced only by the keening of the undead.

Living shadows thronged the air, swirled around him, a colony of red-eyed bats on the wing. They swooped and dived at him and the dragon. Furlinastis wheeled, pulled up, bit at the undead within reach of his jaws. His teeth closed on three of the creatures and they boiled away into oblivion. His claws shredded several more into gossamer ribbons carried off in the wind.

Holding the rope harness with one hand, Abelar tried to anticipate the dragon's movements while he slashed and stabbed with his enchanted blade. A shadow darted in from his right, arms outstretched, and his blade tore through the space between its head and body. Its red eyes winked out as Furlinastis beat his wings rapidly and wheeled right to avoid a throng of the undead. A shadow swooped in and passed a hand through Abelar's chest. His heart rebelled, constricted. Cold sank into him. Grunting, he stabbed the shadow through the back as it streaked away. He felt the slight, tell-tale resistance that indicated the magic of his blade had found purchase in the incorporeal flesh. Whipping around, he saw another shadow streaking for him from the right. A reverse cross-cut slashed it into a dissipating cloud of foul-smelling smoke.

The dragon roared, reared, and slashed at a score of shadows congregating around his head and neck. His jaws killed several, but more streaked in to replace the dead.

"Down!" Abelar shouted at the dragon.

Furlinastis dived, leaving the shadows and their keening behind. Abelar bent low and held on.

On the plain below he saw his company between the breaks in the cloud of shadows, a circle of white light holding their ground against a swirling army of shadows. He saw flashes of rose colored brilliance, holy power channeled through priests and those given over to Lathander, saw shadows turned to vapor before it.

In the pauses between thunder, lightning, and the dragon's roars, he heard the shouts and chants of his company, the men and women who stood in the light. He raised his blade, hacked at a shadow that came within reach, and watched some of its form boil away into the darkness.

Furlinastis pulled up and wheeled, sending Abelar's stomach into his throat. The dragon swooped through a group of shadows.

Claws, teeth, and Abelar's sword destroyed half a dozen of the undead as the dragon streaked through and past.

Thunder boomed, rolled, and lightning ripped the sky and struck the earth near the battlefield. Abelar turned to look and saw several trees burning on the plain.

From the right, a throng of shadows, a hundred or more, flew like arrows at Furlinastis. More streaked toward them from the other side.

The dragon roared, beat his wings, and angled upward.

Nearly unseated, Abelar held on, feeling the tendons in his forearm stretch. He cursed and kept his wits enough to wave his blade at a nearby shadow, but missed. Another appeared from nowhere, passed through htm. Cold settled in his bones, but Furlinastis's speed carried Abelar away from the creature.

The dragon veered again, swooped downward, and Abelar caught another glimpse of his company, of their light. Had he still stood in Lathander's light himself, he could have healed himself, could have turned his blade into a beacon, could have channeled the Morninglord's power through his body and soul and used its light to sear the shadows out of existence, could have rallied his company against even the Shadowstorm. But he had fallen, descended so far into shadow that he rode them into battle.

He shouted, slashed, stabbed, and killed. Shadows whirled around him, around the dragon. The sky was filled with them. They reached through his armor, tried to still his heart, tried to steal his life. He thought of his son, of his friends, and roared defiance. He slashed, cross-cut, and stabbed.

Furlinastis answered his shouts with roars of his own, the sound as loud as the thunder. The dragon wheeled through the sky, a Gondsman's engine of destruction. Great claws swept shadows from the sky like so many stinging insects. Teeth snapped up the undead by the half-dozen.

But the shadows were numberless, and Abelar knew that another would rise from the body of each man and woman of his company that fell to their life-draining touch. And as the storm moved across Sembia, it would add still more to its numbers.

He feared he was looking at the end of the world.

Furlinastis dived low, swooping over the company of Lathanderians. Abelar couldn't make out faces. He noted only the rise and fall of blades, shouts of pain and anger. Some had fallen. He saw their bodies flat on the black earth, spattered with mud and shadows.

Above the wind, above Furlinastis's roars, Abelar heard several of the men shout the battle cry of his company.

"We stand in the light!"

Growing despair made the words at first seem silly to Abelar, trivial in the face of a darkness that could not be slowed, a darkness that ate its victims and vomited them back up in a new form to serve it. But he found a kernel of hope in the words and grabbed at it. He realized that the only thing to do in the face of darkness was stand and fight beside like-minded men and women. He had fallen into shadow, true, but there was light in him still.

Shouting, he slashed a shadow, stabbed another, another. One of the creatures struck him in the chest and arm, turned his sword arm numb. He waved his blade ineffectually as the shadow reached into his chest. His breath left him. His heart lurched.

Another abrupt dive by Furlinastis left the shadow behind and saved Abelar's life.

He gathered himself and looked back, expecting to see the shadow army in pursuit. Instead, he saw them peeling off, streaking in the opposite direction.

Below and behind, a cheer went up from the battlefield. Trewe's trumpet blew a victorious note. The dragon, too, roared.

Abelar watched the shadows wheel away, gather some distance away, and felt only dread. The shadows swarmed around a point perhaps two long bowshots away from the company. Their numbers stunned him. The swirling column of their forms seemed to reach from the ground to the clouds.

"So many," he said, marveling at their numbers.

Without warning the rain and thunder stopped. Trewe's horn and the cheers of the company went quiet. For a moment, all was silent, pensive.

Cold seeped across the battlefield, a deeper cold than that of the shadows. Supernatural fear accompanied it. It reached into Abelar, sent his teeth to chattering, stole his nerve. The dragon growled his discomfort. Abelar heard inarticulate whispers in his mind. He discerned no words he could understand but the sibilant tone touched something primal in him, set his heart to racing, lit his mind afire with terror.

A moan went up from his comrades below. He heard Regg shouting to the company, his old friend's voice on the verge of panic. "Hold! Hold!"

Abelar fought through the terror as best he could and scanned the darkness for the source of the cold and fear. He could see little through the impenetrable cloud of living shadows. He sensed something at the fringe of his vision, something large, dark, remorseless, terror given form and set loose in the world.

"What new evil is this, dragon? I cannot see!"

Furlinastis extended his neck to look behind them, hissed, and veered left.

"A nightwalker," the dragon said. "But I have never seen nor heard of one so large. Terror lives in its eyes, and death in its hands. This foe is beyond your companions, perhaps beyond even me. They are lost, human, as is the battle."

The cloud of shadows parted like a stage curtain and the nightwalker stepped between them. It towered as tall as ten men, looming over the field like a siege engine. It had the shape of a man, but hairless, featureless, its entire form smooth and black, like an idol carved from onyx by the jungle savages of Chult. The shadows broke ranks and darted around its massive form like flies around a corpse.

It regarded the battlefield, Abelar's company, and another wave of terror went forth from it. Thousands of shadows keened.

Abelar's company answered not with another moan, not with shouts of terror, but with the clarion of Trewe's trumpet.

"Back, dragon!" Abelar shouted. "Turn back!"

Furlinastis shook his head as he flew, completing his turn. "It is over, human. I will take you to-"

"Turn back! Now!"

"My service to the Maskarran does not extend to self-sacrifice. It is over."

From behind and below, Abelar heard Trewe's trumpet issue the order to form up.

Desperate, Abelar took his sword in both hands, turned as best he could in his makeshift harness, and put it in the divot on the dragon's back between his beating wings. He made sure Furlinastis felt the point.

"You will turn back or I will sink this to its hilt! They will not stand alone!"

The dragon's head whirled around, jaws open, streams of shadow leaking from his nose and throat.

Abelar pressed down on the blade. "Do not test me, wyrm!"

Furlinastis hissed in rage.

"Try to dislodge me or use your killing breath on me and I'll do it. It will take but a moment. You may not die, but you will not be able to fly and you will face the nightwalker on foot."

Anger stoked the fire in the slits of Furlinastis's eyes

"How will you have it?" Abelar said, and pushed the point of his blade harder against the scales. "How? Decide!"

The dragon roared with rage, snapped his head forward, and started to wheel about.

"You are no servant of the Morninglord," Furlinastis shouted above the wind.

Abelar considered what he had done, knew that he would do it again if necessary.

"Perhaps not," he said softly.

Abelar looked over the dragon's wing as they came around and saw his company assembling not for a last stand but for a charge. Trewe's clarion rang out again, sounding the ready. Illuminated blades at intervals held the darkness of the Shadowstorm at bay. Dead men and women lay scattered about the field. Abelar presumed their souls, raised by the Shadowstorm, had already joined the army of shadows. He hoped that Jiiris was not among them.

The dragon continued its slow turn.

Regg stood at the forefront of the company. Abelar heard his voice but couldn't make out his words. He saw Roen and another priest moving quickly from soldier to soldier, healing with a prayer and a touch. The company answered Regg's words with raised blades and a shout.

The nightwalker held its ground, dark, ominous, surrounded by an army of shadows.

Trewe blew another blast, and Regg shouted, turned, raised his blade and lowered it. The company lurched into motion.

The shadows keened at their approach. The nightwalker watched them for a moment, then met their charge with one of his own.

Abelar cursed.

Each of the creature's strides covered a spearcast. The impact of its feet on the soft earth left deep pits in its wake, open graves waiting to be filled with Lathanderians.

"Turn, damn you!" Abelar said, striking the dragon with the hilt of his sword. "Faster, wyrm!"

The Lathanderians, a small island of light in the night of the Shadowstorm, charged to their doom. Regg led them, shield and blade blazing.

Trewe's trumpet sang. The nightwalker closed, hit the company's formation like a battering ram. Men and women screamed in pain, shouted in rage, light flared, winked out. The nightwalker crushed men and women under its feet or with its fists. Weapons slashed its huge form but seemed to do little. The company swirled around the nightwalker, surrounding it. The creature stood heedless in their midst, the black center of a whirlpool that drew into itself the light of the Lathanderians.

The dragon wheeled around at last and straightened. He roared and the beat of his wings propelled him toward the battle. The wind almost peeled Abelar from his harness.

He watched his companions, side-by-side, fighting, dying, aglow with Lathander's light. The nightwalker reaped a life with each blow of its maul-like fists, yet none of the company around it broke, none ran-not one-and their courage chased the despair lurking around the edges of Abelar's soul.

He understood them, then, in a way he had not before. They served Lathander, but fought and died for one another, for the men and women standing beside them. Abelar knew well the strength of feeling that bonded warrior to warrior, man to woman, father to son.

He thought or Elden, of Endren, recalled his father's words to him-the light is in you-and realized, with perfect clarity, that his father was right.

The men and women of his company did not stand in the light. The light was in them. Lathander was merely the reagent that allowed them to shine. They were the light, not their god. And they, and he, had not burned as brightly as they might.

The shadows saw the dragons approach and a massive cluster of the undead peeled off from the assembled mass and streaked toward Abelar and Furlinastis.

Abelar readied his blade, and gasped when he saw the faint illumination that tinged its edges. Fallen from service, he should not have been able to light his blade. And yet he had. And he knew why. He knew, too, what he would do, what he must do, for Elden, for Jiiris, for Endren, for all those he loved.

"Ignore them, Furlinastis!" he shouted to the dragon. "Take me over the nightwalker."

The dragon looked back, eyed him sidelong, but obeyed. With each beat of Furlinastis's wings, the light in Abelar's blade grew, the light in Abelar shone brighter. Abelar's soul burned, fueled by epiphany.

He was the light. They all were the light.

Below, he saw more of his company fall, saw the nightwalker's darkness growing, devouring Lathander's light. The cloud of shadows, red eyes blazing, flew toward him.

Abelar watched the light in his blade spread to his hands, his forearms, his torso. It grew ever brighter in intensity. His light penetrated the shroud of shadows that wrapped the dragon.

The dragon turned to regard him, winced in the light, hissed with pain. "What are you doing, human?"

"Endure it for a time. We are soon to part ways."

The dragon roared as Abelar's luminescence flared and haloed them both in blazing, pure white light.

The shadows, heedless, swooped toward them, drawn to Abelar's radiance. Darkness and light sped toward each other, collided, and the darkness of the shadows' fallen souls was no match for the light of Abelar's reborn spirit. In the fullness of his light he saw the fallen souls for the pathetic creatures they were, saw on some the wheel of Ordulin, and smiled that he had avenged Saerb.

His light consumed the shadows utterly, dissolved them, shrieking, into a formless cloud or vile smoke through which Furlinastis streaked, roaring.

Abelar looked down, saw the upturned faces and raised blades of his comrades, saw hundreds more shadows take wing from their foul mass and fly toward him, and saw the nightstalker's featureless face turn its regard to the light in the sky.

The radiance bursting from his body shot beams of light in all direction, speared and destroyed dozens of onrushing shadows.

"The nightwalker," he said.

He slipped out of his harness, sat unrestrained on the dragon's neck, one hand griping the rope, as Furlinastis swooped toward the nightwalker. Abelar's body, armor, blade, and soul blazed.

"My gratitude for your service," he shouted to the dragon. "Please forgive me my threats. For a time I lost my way. Now I am found."

He held his blade in both hands and leaped off the dragon's back.

White light veiled the world. He did not see things, he saw into them, through them, saw the nightwalker and shadows for the insubstantial entities they were. The souls of his comrades glowed, their light dimmed only by self-imposed restraints, restraints Abelar had shed.

As he fell, his body ignited with radiance, an apotheosis of light. For a moment, he felt himself motionless, suspended in space, as if he had become the light. He savored the time, thought of Elden, his innocent eyes, his trusting soul. He loved his son-forever.

The moment ended. He plummeted earthward toward the nightwalker.

The creature shielded its face with a forearm, cowered before Abelar.

Abelar's soul swelled. No regrets plagued him or tortured his final thoughts. His mind turned to those he loved, his wife, his father, his son. He laughed, shouted Elden's name as he descended, and his voice boomed over the rain, over the thunder, over the darkness.

The nightwalker melted in the heat of his radiance, disintegrated in the light, and Abelar, blazing, fell through the creature's dissipating form toward the hard earth below.

The sun sets and rises, he thought, and knew he would feel no pain.

Abelar's voice boomed out of the heavens and shook the battlefield with its force.

"Lathander! "

Regg lowered his blade as the battle stalled. He shielded his eyes and watched, awestruck, as his friend's body transformed as it fell from glowing, to luminescent, to blazing, to a radiant dawn sun in miniature that chased away the darkness in the storm and in their souls. For a moment, the bleak, unending night of the Shadowstorm yielded fully to light. Beams of radiance shot in all directions from Abelar's form and annihilated the living shadows.

"Gods," Trewe breathed beside him.

The supernatural terror planted by the nightwalker in Regg's spirit, in all of their spirits, vanished, replaced by a surge of hope. And before that hope, before that light, the nightwalker, immense and dark, cowered.

"Abelar," Regg whispered.

The glowing form of his friend fell in and through the nightwalker like the sword of the Morninglord himself. The towering creature of darkness disintegrated in the luminescence, boiled away into harmless streamers of black mist, the groans of its dying a distant ache in Regg's mind.

Abelar slammed into the earth and lay still. His radiance diminished, ended.

For a long moment, the field was quiet, almost worshipful. Only the patter of the rain could be heard, the sky crying on Abelar's motionless form.

Jiiris's voice rang out, thick and broken with tears. "Abelar!"

Above, a small window opened in the churning black clouds of the Shadowstorm, revealing a flash of sky beyond, painted in the reds, pinks, and oranges of sunrise. Through the window a single beam of rose-colored light shone, cut through the darkness, and fell on Abelar's form. Bathed in the glow, Abelar's body looked whole, his expression peaceful.

The keening of the shadows turned to a groan that Regg felt more than heard. The multitude that remained flitted about in agitation, as if pained.

Regg's eyes welled and he fell to his knees, as did most of the men and women around him. The calm afforded by the light, the sense of hope, of awe, told him that the light was no mere light. It was a path to Lathander's realm, or the hand of the Morninglord himself. His friend had returned to his faith, and had brought faith back to all of them.

Abelar was sanctified. Regg smiled, cried for his friend.

The rose-hued light spread from Abelar to the company and its touched chased off fatigue and fear, closed wounds, reknit bones, returned strength, and planted a seed of hope in all their breasts.

The men and women of the company laughed, cried, and praised their god. The sky closed, the beam of light vanished, and Regg came back to himself, once more noticing the rain and the thunder.

As one the company rushed forward around Abelar, led by Regg and Jiiris.

Abelar's body looked unharmed, as if sleeping, despite the fall, but no breath stirred his breast. Jiiris stepped forward, crouched, stroked Abelar's hair, his cheek. Soft sobs shook hear. Tears smeared the grime of battle on her face. She sank to the ground, took Abelar's head in her lap.

"He smells of roses," she said, and wept.

"He is sanctified," Roen said. "His spirit will not rise in darkness."

Regg found his own eyes welling but he would have to postpone his grief. Many enemies remained. He still had a battle to fight. Lathander, through Abelar, had given them hope. Now they must use it.

"See her from the field," he said to Brend, indicating Jiiris. "Abelar as well. Roen, one of your priests lights their way."

With the help of two others, Brend and Jiiris carried Abelar through the company and away from the battle.

Regg, as well as every other man and women in the company, touched him as they passed. Regg felt a surge upon contact, and the hope planted in his breast blossomed. The light in him, the light he felt usually as a distant, comforting warmth, flared.

It was a sign.

"You are my friend," Regg said to Abelar, as Brend and Jiiris carried him away. A junior priest fell in with them, lighting his wand.

Then Abelar was gone. And darkness yet remained.

The silence over the battlefield ended with a roll of thunder. Lightning lit the sky. Rain fell anew. The keening of the remaining shadows-still a multitude-started once more. They swarmed in an enormous, whirling column.

"Form up," Regg said to his company. "We have been given a sign and the light is in you all."

"And in you," they answered, readying weapons, readying spirits.

A boom of thunder like the breaking of the sky rolled, shook the ground, knocked the men and women of the company to the ground. Lightning ripped the sky, again and again, until the coal-black clouds birthed a coal-black form that descended from the clouds, trailing darkness.

In size and shape it looked much like a man. Membranous wings sprouted from its back but did not flap as it gently descended to the ground. A robe of scaled leather draped its ebon-skinned form. Curving white horns jutted from its brow. Power seeped from the creature in palpable waves.

As surely as Regg knew his god had been present on the battlefield to bless them through Abelar, he knew at that moment that another god had taken the field. He was looking upon the creature that was the provenance of the storm, the origin of the darkness.

The sky again fell silent, the thunder and lightning but a temporary herald for Kesson Rel's arrival.

The column of shadows rendezvoused with their master in the sky, swirled around him as he descended. The moment he set foot on the ground, thunder rumbled and the earth shook anew.

Giant forms stepped out of the shadows to stand beside him, towering humanoids with pale skin and gangly limbs, encased in gray iron. They bore huge swords in their hands. Shadows clung to their flesh and their weapons. There were hundreds of them.

Regg knew the company could not defeat the shadow army and their master. But the hope Lathander had put in his breast would allow him no other course than to hold his ground. They had entered the storm to face the darkness. They would do so and they would die. Abelar was an example to them all.

Behind him he heard gasps from the men and women of the company, murmured astonishment. He turned to face them, to reassure them, and found that their surprise was not directed at Kesson Rel.

A clot of shadows had formed in their midst, a darkness the light of the priests did not illuminate, and Erevis Cale, Riven, and a Shadovar had stepped from it.

To Regg, Cale and Riven seemed weightier, somehow more defined than everyone else around them, save perhaps Kesson Rel himself. The men and women of the company seemed to sense the difference as well, for they parted around them.

All three looked past and through Regg, across the field to the shadow army and the dark god who commanded it. They strode forward and as they passed Erevis Cale put a hand on Regg's shoulder.

"Kesson Rel is beyond you, Regg. This is our battle now."

The growl of thunder broke the silence, low and dangerous.

Shadows poured from Erevis Cale, from his dark blade.

Regg could find no words. He turned to watch them walk without hesitation across the space that separated three men from thousands of shadows, hundreds of giants, and the god who ruled them.

Regg realized he was not breathing.

Trewe appeared beside him, eyeing the trio as they strode into battle.

"This does not seem a field for ordinary men," said Trewe.

Regg nodded, thought of Abelar, and clasped Trewe by the shoulder. "It is well, then, that there are no ordinary men on it." He turned to his company and shouted, "Form up! Await my orders. The Morninglord's work is not yet done on this field."