The Siege

CHAPTER ELEVEN

20 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic Loose

Keya released her bowstring on command. Her arrow hissed skyward with a thousand others, passing through the mythal and arcing down toward the thin line of beholders and phaerimm floating out in the Vine Vale. Shimmering rays of disintegration magic swept back and forth across the volley, dissolving hundreds of shafts before they neared the blackened vineyards. One of the mythal's golden meteors came streaking down from the heavens and burned a twenty-foot swath through the sizzling cloud of sticks. Hundreds of missiles missed their targets and planted themselves in the soil like a crop of newly sprouted feather sticks. Of the few dozen arrows that found their marks, most were deflected by powerful shielding magic and clattered harmlessly to ground, but a few enchanted shafts penetrated the phaerimm defenses and lodged themselves deep in enemy bodies.

One phaerimm and two beholders went limp and began to sink toward the ground, then a fierce counterattack blossomed against the mythal and prevented Keya from seeing if they recovered. She nocked another arrow-the last in her quiver-and awaited the next command. Like the rest of the Long Watch, she was standing inside the Meadow Wall with nothing between her and the enemy but the battered mythal and seventy paces of open ground-close enough that when she was not trying to blink the magic-dazzle from her eyes, she could see the big central eyes of the attacking beholders.

What Keya could not see were any bugbears, illithids, captured elves, or any other phaerimm mind-slaves. There were only the thornbacks themselves-less than two hundred in the whole vale, according to rumor-and perhaps a thousand beholders. With a full ten thousand elves ringing the city, it definitely appeared that the odds favored Evereska, but where the phaerimm were concerned, appearances were always deceiving. The mind-slaves could be anywhere, lurking invisibly on the other side of the Meadow Wall or hiding in tunnels under the Vine Vale, ready to burrow under the elven defenses the instant their masters weakened the mythal. "Loose!" came the command.

Keya set her aim on the eye of the closest beholder and released her bowstring. She lost sight of her arrow as it joined the dark cloud sailing into the Vine Vale, but she chose to believe that hers was the shaft that survived to plant itself between two of her target's writhing eye-stalks. Another phaerimm spell-storm exploded against the mythal.

An arrow runner lifted Keya's empty quiver off her belt and replaced it with a full one. She grabbed the next shaft and was horrified to feel green, moist wood. To save Evereska, even the trees had to sacrifice-not that they would live long if the mythal fell. She slipped the nock onto her bowstring and raised the tip to the air.

The phaerimm began to retreat, fleeing so fast that one flew into a mythal-meteor and vanished in a golden flash. In the next instant, a cone of sparkling gray flame shot out from behind the Meadow Wall, engulfing a pair of phaerimm who had made the mistake of drifting into a single line. They erupted into screeching tornadoes of silver fire.

Khelben Arunsun appeared at the Meadow Wall where the cone had originated, his hand still pointing at the two burning phaerimm. In the next instant, the Vaasans and the rest of the archmage's escort appeared to both sides of him, ail grunting with effort as they hurled a flight of golden javelins after the fleeing phaerimm. The beholders caught the first wave of spears in their disintegration rays, which only turned them into pure magic and sent them streaking into their targets with the speed of lightning bolts. The second wave followed a little more slowly, but two dozen weapons found their marks. Three phaerimm dropped to the ground and disintegrated into piles of dust, and two more were injured so badly they teleported away.

The surviving thornbacks came streaking back, driving their beholder slaves ahead of them and hurling such a spell tempest at the mythal that Keya had to turn her face away from the heat of the dissipating magic. Khelben and his escort simply laughed and strolled calmly away from the Meadow Wall, their backs to the enemy. They passed through the Long Watch lines not twenty paces from where Keya stood awaiting the command to loose her next arrow. If Dexon-or any of the Vaasans- noticed her standing in line, they did not betray the fact by looking in her direction.

"Well done, Khelben!" chortled Kiinyon Colbathin. "Five this time!"

"Yes," Khelben answered. "If we had forty hours and a thousand Corellon's Bolts, we could kill them all-but we don't. We're not going to save the mythal by teleporting in to attack once every hour."

"What do you suggest, Lord Blackstaff?" asked a familiar voice.

Keya glanced over her shoulder and found Lord Duirsar standing a dozen yards behind her with Kiinyon Colbathin and what remained of Evereska's Hill Elders. They were surrounded by the Company of the Cold Hand, a hundred hand-picked Spellblades chosen to wield the sixteen darkswords borrowed from the Vaasans who had fallen when the phaerimm escaped their ancient prison. Because the weapons would freeze the hand of any wielder not of the owning family, the idea was that the first warrior would use the weapon until his hand grew too cold to hold it, then pass it to the next, and so forth.

Khelben stepped to Lord Duirsar's side. "We must carry the attack into the Vine Vale, and soon."

"Leave the mythal?" Colbathin gasped. "Do you know how many warriors we'll lose?"

"A fraction of what we'll lose if we let them wear it down and enter Evereska," Khelben countered. "The shadowshell has already weakened it, and this battle is draining it by the minute." He turned to Lord Duirsar. "Milord, even if Evereska had arrows and magic enough to squander in this way, the mythal won't last. We must reduce the enemy."

"You forget that we will be reduced ourselves, tenfold," Kiinyon objected. "Surely, it is better to take what kills we can from the safety of the mythal-"

"Do those pointed ears not hear, elf?" roared Khelben. "The mythal won't last!"

In spite of herself, Keya found her attention wandering from Khelben and the high lords to her cherished Dexon. To her dismay, the Vaasan had noticed her as he passed through the lines of the Long Watch-was, in fact, studying her with the dark look of an angry bear, holding his darksword across his breast and towering over not only the elves, but Khelben and even his fellow Vaasans. Even the night before, when she had spent so many hours climbing over that massive body, she had not realized just how large-how brutish-a man he really was.

When he noticed her watching him, Dexon gave a melancholy smile and extended an index finger in her direction. At first, Keya thought he was trying to use elven fingertalk, but then she sensed someone looking over her shoulder and realized he was pointing. She looked forward again to find Zharilee, the sun elf who commanded her company, standing in front of her impatiently tapping a long finger on her extravagant armor of gold scales.

'Truly, Keya, it is nothing to me if you are attracted to these hairy brutes, but I insist that you leave the flirting until after the battle." Zharilee turned away, then raised her magic command horn to her lips and shouted, "Loose!"

Keya drew her bowstring back and sent an arrow arcing over the Meadow Wall into the blinding storm of flame and lightning that was the Vine Vale. She reached for another of the green shafts in her quiver. "Hold!"

The command came not from Zharilee, but from Kiinyon Colbathin himself-and he sounded none too happy.

"Split by ranks, swords the first, spears the second, bows the third."

Heart leaping into her throat, Keya slung her bow over her shoulder and pulled her spear out of the ground beside her. Khelben's argument had prevailed, and Lord Duirsar had given the order to leave the mythal to engage the phaerimm. A low, ground-shaking rumble rolled up from the rear as the elite companies trotted up to take attack positions behind the Long Watch.

Even had Keya not learned tactics on her father's knee, she would have known what was happening. As the most inexperienced element of Evereska's military, the Long Watch would lead the charge over the wall and absorb the brunt of the phaerimm attack. With any luck, the elite companies following behind would reach the enemy ranks intact and force the thornbacks to engage in their least favorite kind of combat-close.

Though Keya desperately wanted to steal a last glance over her shoulder at Dexon, she resisted the temptation. Looking at him would only make him worry about her when he should be thinking of killing their enemies. As the rightful wielder of a darksword, he was one of Evereska's most potent weapons against the phaerimm. His shadowy blade could cut through even their mightiest defenses, and he already had three of their tails tucked into his belt to prove he knew how to get close enough to use it. "Long Watch, charge in three ranks!"

Keya counted a one second delay, then set her spear tip at a slight incline and started forward at a two-step-per-second run-swift enough to cover ground quickly, but not so fast that the charge would disorganize their formation. Instead of starting forward to meet the charge, the phaerimm and beholders hung back, content to hurl spells at the mythal and create a gauntlet of magic for their attackers to struggle through. It was a tactic that would serve them well against the Long Watch-but bring the elite companies behind into the middle of their ranks.

Keya was ten steps from the Meadow Wall when Khelben’s voice came to her in her mind. Nothing to fear, my dear.

Who's afraid? she retorted. Just kill the thornbacks- and tell Dex to keep his mind That was as far as she made it before the first rank reached the Meadow Wall. With only their swords in hand and light Evereskan armor on their bodies, they leaped onto the wall in one stride and disappeared over its crest on the second. Keya and the rest of the second rank were slower. They had to brace a hand on top of the wall and swing their legs up beside them-and by then, the first rank was already stopped dead in its tracks, filling the air with eerie wails as their legs crumbled into ash.

Keya kept herself from going over by dropping to her seat and bracing her spear on the other side of the Meadow Wall. In front of her, Zharilee and half a dozen other elves seemed to be melting into the ground as first their legs, then their hips and torsos dissolved into a pile of gray cinders. She nearly fell when the shaft of her spear crumbled as well.

A young Gold elf from the third rank crashed into her from behind, and she grabbed the back of his helmet to prevent herself from going over. "What's the hold up?" he demanded. "Get a move on!"

"Not wise." Keya pulled his head over the wall and forced him to look at the dissipating ash piles. "Those are our friends."

The young sun elf turned the color of a withered birch leaf, but many in the Long Watch were not so fortunate. Much of the third rank simply leaped onto the backs of the second rank, forcing them over the wall into the Vine Vale and beyond the protection of the mythal. As soon as their feet touched the blackened ground, their bodies crumbled into cinders and collapsed.

Without the constant rain of arrows from the Long Watch, the phaerimm and beholders finally began to float forward, coming closer to the mythal. Keya glanced back and, over the retching figure of the elf who had nearly pushed her to her death, saw the Company of the Cold Hand charging up to vault the wall behind them.

Still sitting astride the wall, Keya raised both hands. "Khelben, stop them! You made a mistake!"

"Mistake"?" Khelben's voice boomed across the valley like a clap of thunder. "Impossible!" "Khelben, it is possible-the Vale is a death trap!"

For a long and terrible moment, the Cold Hand continued to rush forward. A golden mythal meteor roared down behind her, cratering the blackened ground and spraying her with so much dirt and stone that she was knocked off the wall back into the meadow. Lord Duirsar’s mages launched a volley of lightning bolts and black death rays that streaked overhead and-so far as Keya could tell from where she was cowering down behind the wall-had absolutely no effect on the enemy.

Then, much to her horror, an avalanche of stones shot across the wall above her and found the young Gold who had nearly pushed her into the Vine Vale. The pile took him square in the chest, reducing his torso to a spray of blood and bone, then crashed to the ground behind him and rolled off trailing a spray of crimson.

That was enough to halt the charge of the Cold Hand-and send what remained of the Long Watch scurrying back toward Evereska. The enemy had attacked into the meadow. The mythal was weakening, and fast. Keya suppressed a gasp and rolled into a crouch, then poked her head up to find a beholder hovering not a spear's length away, its great central eye projecting a powerful antimagic ray into the failing mythal. Behind it, a phaerimm was floating forward to exploit the resulting gap in the LastHaven's magic defenses.

Keya had just time enough to see that the scene was much the same in other places along the wall before the phaerimm pointed in her direction. A stream of stones rose off a vineyard wall and came streaking in her direction. She rolled away. The rocks slammed into the Meadow Wall behind her, smashing through and raining shards of broken granite into the meadow. Finding herself alone next to the breach, she took a deep breath and reached for her sword. Keya, no! came Dexon's voice.

She started to tell him to mind his own business and let her do her duty, then hesitated when she realized that would be the last thing anyone ever heard from her. In that moment Dexon added, Here!

Keya looked toward the Company of the Cold Hand and saw Dexon's darksword flying toward her hilt-first. Reaching up to catch it, she thought, Thanks, Dex-love you.

Deciding those were much better last words than what she had been thinking a moment before, she brought the darksword up before her and spun into the gap in a squat-and came nose-to-mouth with a crawling phaerimm. For an instant, she was almost too stunned to comprehend what she was seeing. Thornbacks did not crawl, they floated… and why was she still alive anyway? It had only to think a spell and she would be an elf-shaped cinder.

It opened its toothy mouth and stretched four spindly arms toward her, and suddenly none of that mattered. She brought Dexon's darksword down, splitting it open for two feet past its mouth, then brought the blade around and slashed it in the opposite direction. The phaerimm whistled and recoiled, grabbing Keya by the shoulders and rearing up on its tail. She kicked at its torso with both feet, hacking herself free of its arms and dropping on her shoulder.

Still using no magic, the thing lunged and snapped at Keya's feet. She kicked free and rolled over her shoulder-then glimpsed one of the beholders shining its antimagic ray over the phaerimm and understood. She drew her dagger with her free hand and flipped it at the eye tyrant in one swift motion.

Keya was no bladesinger. The dagger struck pommel first-hardly fatal, but enough. The beholder blinked, and in that instant, the mythal's magic returned to the gap. The phaerimm screeched and started to retreat back into the Vine Vale, but not quickly enough to avoid the golden meteor that streaked down from the heavens and slammed it to ground-where it quickly dissolved into a pile of ash only a little larger than those left behind by the first wave of the Long Watch.

Before the stunned beholder could recover, Keya leaped onto the Meadow Wall rubble and brought the darksword across the middle of its spherical body. A cascade of dark gore spilled out of the wound, and it dropped to the ground without so much as a curse. Keya brought the darksword around and started down the wall toward the next beholder, then cried out in astonishment when she felt a magic hand pluck her off the crest and carry her back into the Company of the Cold Hand.

"Let's not get carried away, young lady," Kiinyon Colbathin said, stepping to her side. He gestured down the way, to where the survivors of the Long Watch were charging back to the Meadow Wall behind a storm of spears and arrows. "Let someone else have a go at them."

"Yes, you've done your part many times over," Khelben agreed, plucking the darksword from Keya's hand. He hissed at the cold and quickly returned the blade to Dexon, then raised his swarthy brow. "That didn't freeze your hand?"

"As a matter of fact, no." She displayed her hands. Aside from the calluses she had earned in weapons practice, they remained as healthy as her eighty-year-old cheeks. "They didn't even get cold."

Dexon's jaw dropped, and Burlen and Kuhl fell to chuckling. Khelben frowned. "What are you two laughing about?"

The battle din built to a roar as the Long Watch reached the Meadow Wall and began to assail the enemy at close range. Unable to use their own magic within the antimagic zones created by their beholder slaves, the phaerimm hung back.

Khelben's scowl only deepened. "This is important. If there's a way for the Company of the Cold Hand to wield your comrades' darkswords-" "The Cold Hand wouldn't care for it much," said Kuhl.

"The Cold Hand will do what it must to defend Evereska," Kiinyon growled. "They are elf warriors."

"It won't work," Kuhl said. "Most of the warriors in the Cold Hand are male-and I doubt even elven magic can get a Vaasan baby on a male warrior."

"B-baby?" Keya stammered. "What are you talking about?"

Burlen grinned and nudged her arm. "Come on, Keya, you know how these things work," he said. "You and Dexon are family now."

From the ruins of the Secret Gate, high in Evereska's Upper Vale, Laeral had watched in horror as the first rank of elves poured over the Meadow Wall and disintegrated into swirling piles of ash. When the phaerimm launched their counterattack, using their magic to hurl half the stones in the Vine Vale through the breaches the beholders had opened in the mythal, she had gasped out loud. As the young warriors of the Long Watch somehow rallied themselves and came charging back to drive off the beholders, she felt tears sliding down her cheeks.

"The stuff of legends, my friend," Laeral said, looking across the window to Lord Imesfor. "If those are raw recruits in Evereska, I shudder to think what will become of the phaerimm when the time comes to unleash your seasoned warriors."

"I just wish I could be there with them," Imesfor said. Though the magic of Waterdeep's clerics had regrown his fingers, they were still too clumsy and stiff to cast spells, or even hold a sword in combat. "It is good to watch, to remind myself that the Tel'Quess never lose hope."

Forcing their mind-slaves to hold at the mythal's edge, the phaerimm continued to hurl whole stretches of vineyard wall into the meadow. The Long Watch fell by the dozens and continued to attack, playing a deadly game of dodge as they tried to avoid breaches in the mythal while continuing to pour arrows into the beholders. One eye tyrant after another sprouted more spines than a hedgehog, then sank to the ground and disintegrated. Some, maddened by pain, finally broke free of their masters' hold and turned to leave, only to be struck down by the phaerimm themselves. Though it would have been a simple matter to send the elite companies forward to support the Long Watch and finish off the beholders, Khelben and the elf commanders wisely resisted the temptation. One way or another, Evereska would need its most experienced fighters later, when victory or death hung in the balance.

Laeral could see just see Khelben in the heart of one of the elite companies, a swarthy figure in black robes, his namesake black staff cradled in the croak of one arm as he discussed strategy with the elf lords clustered around him. How good it was to see her beloved again, even if he was little more than a black speck in a square of gleaming gray mithral.

"Lord Blackstaff seems to have them quite distracted," said Prince Clariburnus, peering out the watch-loop adjacent to Laeral and Lord Imesfor. "What say you, Lady Laeral?"

"I would say we dare not wait-the mythal is growing weak," Laeral said, noting that the rain of golden meteors had tapered to a drizzle. "You've seen their trap. We can't dismount."

"That trap we will turn against them," said Lamorak, who was watching opposite Clariburnus, "but let us be alert for more phaerimm trickery. You Chosen are not the only ones who know the value of guile in war."

Laeral met the prince's orange eyes. "Always a good thing to remember," she said, starting downstairs. "I will hold it in mind."

When the phaerimm had made no attempt to stop them from entering the Sharaedim, it had been Laeral who realized the thornbacks would attempt to breach the mythal and take refuge inside Evereska-and who had developed the strategy to take advantage of their plan. After emerging from the shadowshell and using her silver fire to open a gate in the weakened deadwall, she had sent the relief army to attack the enemy rear guard, then summoned Lord Imesfor from Waterdeep to serve as a guide. He had led the Shadovar army through the shadow fringe into the Secret Gate and safely past hundreds of elven traps-a gauntlet so devious and powerful that it had claimed several of the phaerimm before they finally gave up on clearing the passage and simply sealed the entrances-at least those they could find.

Laeral reached the exit vestibule at the bottom of the stairs, where a company of Shadovar cavalry stood beside its mounts in a long line stretching back across a marble bridge into the murky recesses of the Passing. With little more than lances, darkswords, and black helms, the veserab riders were lightly armed and thinly armored. Behind the cavalry, Laeral knew, ran an even longer line of infantry equipped just as sparingly. Against the magic of the phaerimm, massive blades and heavy armor counted for less than the swiftness of the strike and the agility with which one dodged.

Lamorak came and gave his orders, then turned to Laeral and said, "This is your plan. Would you care to 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 the most stalwart company of veterans to a disorganized horde. At Khelben's side, however, Keya Nihmedu was cinching her chin strap and checking her armor. He turned a disapproving eye on her and was rewarded with a glare that could have cracked stone. "If you say one word about my condition-"

Khelben raised his hands. "Wouldn't dream of it," he lied.

In contrast to Dexon, who was hanging at her heels with a dazed look in his eyes, she seemed to be taking the news of her condition in stride. Khelben removed the magic bracers on his wrists and tossed them to her.

"I want you to wear these for me-and stay close," Khelben said. "I may need them."

"Of course." Keya's expression changed to dutiful, and she slipped the bracers onto her biceps. "What are they?"

"When the time comes," Khelben said. He raised his staff and waved it toward the Vine Vale. "To battle!"

Unlike every human charge he had ever led, this one started in near silence and seemed to grow quieter. There was no yelling, no banging of arms or clanging of armor, only the soft patter of thousands of graceful feet- and the much louder sound of the Vaasan boots pounding along behind.

They came to the Meadow Wall, and Khelben cast a spell of flying. He sprang into the air on the run, sweeping his black staff across a line of beholders floating out of the haze, their writhing eyestalks spraying all manner of rays and beams at the first rank of charging elves. Khelben held his staff across his body and caught half a dozen rays directed at him, then spread the fingers of his free hand and sent a stream of golden bolts pouring back at his attackers. Three of the eye tyrants sank to the ground with clusters of smoking holes drilled clear through their spherical bodies, but one of the creatures managed to sweep its antimagic beam up in time to block Khelben's counterattack.

A tumbling darksword split this one down the center, then the Company of the Cold Hand was streaming past into the Vine Vale, leaping the bodies of deflated beholders, wounded veserabs, and groaning Shadovar… even a few hacked and mutilated phaerimm.

Khelben sensed his bracers drifting off to the left and turned to see Keya Nihmedu leading Dexon and the other two Vaasans through the remains of the vineyard gate. Cursing her impetuousness, he circled around to meet her from the other direction-and found himself somersaulting backward through the air as a flurry of golden magic bolts caught him in the chest.

Sting though they might, the attacks harmed him no more than had the lightning bolt that had sent Laeral tumbling. He righted himself and returned more cautiously, weaving and bobbing, coming in fast and low, staff at the ready and silver fire crackling on his fingertips. He found Keya and the Vaasans battling a pair of phaerimm, the elf dodging and somersaulting as black death rays and tongues of fire erupted all around her. Dexon barely stood on a withered, smoking leg, Burlen had one arm hanging limp at his side, and Kuhl was still attempting to sneak up behind the nearest creature for a killing blow.

Khelben loosed a bolt of silver fire into the nearest phaerimm. That was all it took. As the first crumbled to cinders, the second creature attempted to teleport away-attempted, because Kuhl was already leaping on it from behind, driving his sword down into its mouth. The Vaasan landed face first on the ground, his sword coated in foul-smelling gore.

Khelben circled the vineyard once to make certain there were no more unseen threats, then dropped to the ground beside Keya, who was examining Dexon's mangled leg and assuring him-or perhaps herself-that Pleufan Trueshot and Hanali's priestesses were perfectly capable of restoring the limb. Dexon's face was pained, but he seemed more concerned about the possibility of another attack than his gruesome injury. "I told you to stay close, young lady," Khelben said.

As he spoke, he noted that the battle roar had all but vanished. Shadovar veserab riders were flying toward the edges of the valley, swarming around the tentacled orbs of fleeing beholders-the phaerimm had abandoned their mind-slaves and teleported away.

Looking back to Keya, Khelben gestured at the bracers. "What if I had needed those?"

"If you had needed them, you wouldn't have given them to me." Keya pulled the bracers off and thrust them into his hands, then, slipping a supportive arm around Dexon's waist, stretched up to kiss Khelben on the lips. "But thank you."

"Y-you're welcome," Khelben stammered. He felt himself blushing and smiled to cover it. "Very welcome, my dear."

Keya's eyes shifted past his shoulder and suddenly widened in surprise, as did Dexon's, and Khelben heard a familiar "ahem" behind him. He turned to find Laeral standing there, tapping the tip of a smoking wand against her crimson-streaked armor.

She cocked her brow, then shifted her gaze to Keya. "Tell me, young lady-what does a girl need to kill to get a kiss around here?"