Under the unlight of the darkened sun, the Storm Dragon lays down his mantle; he stops his song before it can be unsung, and so his storm is extinguished.
The dragonshard clattered to the floor in a shower of sparks, and the writhing tendrils of lightning withdrew into its gleaming surface. Phaine and Senya, released by the storm, fell to the ground, shrouded in reeking smoke.
"Senya!" Gaven gasped. He stepped toward her, but his leg faltered under his weight and he toppled onto the floor beside her. He was vaguely aware of voices outside the door, chattering in confusion and alarm, but he couldn't lift his head to look. His face pressed against the cold stone, he could see only the death mask of Senya's tattooed face.
"Senya, I'm sorry," he gasped.
Blackness swallowed his vision, but he thought he saw two smoldering green flames looking into his eyes before the darkness claimed him.
It would have been easy for Aunn to put on an elven face and blend in among the dozens of elves rushing into their temple to find out what was going on, but he did not. He saw some bluntly hostile glances, but no one accosted him as he moved through an open courtyard outside the temple. Flickering light-white like lightning, not the red of a fire-lit a high window near the top of the temple, and Aunn could feel the ground beneath his feet rumbling with the thunder of Gaven's storm. He could feel the fear of the elves around him, and it was no wonder. Aunn was terrified, and he had a pretty good idea what was going on. To the elves, this must have seemed like an angry divine manifestation.
As he climbed the stairs to the temple, he drew more angry glares. A few elves shouted at him in Elven, which he couldn't really make out. "No go in," one managed in Common, but Aunn ignored her and pushed his way into the building.
A pair of tall stone doors stood open inside the temple, and a few of the elves gathered inside, seeking solace in the spiritual presence of their ancestors in the absence of any priests. A dozen or so more huddled around the bottom of a staircase leading up in the direction of the storm-filled window, as if waiting for news to be delivered from on high. The flickering light cast eerie dancing shadows down the stairs, and the building trembled with the rumble of thunder. Aunn hesitated, unsure if he'd be allowed to climb the stairs or if he could even make it through the press of elves.
The building stopped shaking abruptly, and the flickering light went out. A hush fell over the crowd, but in a moment there were shouts from the top of the stairs. A murmur spread through the elves around him, and they turned toward the temple sanctuary.
Aunn bit his lip and started walking against the crowd. There weren't that many elves, but they were crammed into a narrow antechamber and moving with some urgency in the direction opposite the one he wanted to go in. Every time he collided with an elf, he provoked shouts and glares, and he understood just enough Elven to know quite clearly that he wasn't welcome.
Finally he reached the bottom of the stairs, and stopped in his tracks. A deathless soldier blocked his way, clutching the haft of a poleaxe with both bony hands and staring at him with eyes of green fire.
"You are not welcome here," the soldier said. "This is where we pay honor to our ancestors."
Aunn swallowed hard. His fear of the undead was utterly irrational, but that didn't make it any less paralyzing. It took root in him years ago, on one of his first missions during the war, in Atur-the Karrn city rightly called the City of Night. He tried to answer the soldier, but his voice froze in his throat.
You are mine. He felt Tira's breath on his lips again. I did not call you to live in fear.
"Please," he said, the memory of the presence in the cathedral giving him strength. "My friend is upstairs."
"Your friend? The Khoravar?"
It took Aunn a moment to recognize the word, a term for half-elves. "Yes! Gaven."
The undead guard made an eerie sound that was half growl and half wail, and Aunn's fear returned in force. "Your blaspheming Khoravar friend killed our priestess."
CHAPTER 30
Someone shouted her name. Rienne looked up from the blood-soaked ground and saw Kyaphar at the edge of the clearing, beckoning to her.
"The Mosswood Warden calls us to battle!" he cried. "Come!"
It's too late, Rienne thought. The battle is over.
The healer's spirit bear shifted nervously on its feet, punctuating its whimpers with an occasional quiet roar. The healer herself seemed lost in a trance, one hand planted on the ground, grave concern written on her face. The Blasphemer had already started to break the seal, and the battle was lost.
"We can still drive him back!" Kyaphar shouted. "We can limit the damage he does! Come!"
Rienne forced herself into a run. Kyaphar was probably wrong-this final charge had little chance of success, and was most likely just a headlong rush into destruction. But she had to try. She had committed her sword to the defense of this site, and she would not back down.
"This way," Kyaphar said.
Rienne shot past him, unhindered by armor and empowered by the energy coiled in her soul. She heard him laugh behind her-grimly cheerful on this day of doom-and then his laugh turned into a growl. He loped beside her in the shape of a shaggy black wolf, easily keeping pace with her light steps.
They charged together through the woods, bounding over fallen trees and scrambling beneath low branches. It was exhilarating. The leaves and twigs that brushed her as she passed seemed to gift her with some of their life, as if the forest was fortifying its defender. Kyaphar must have felt it as well, for his bestial form raced with increasing vigor, keeping pace with her as she sped up.
He barked and jerked his head to the side, and they altered course. A moment later, they emerged from the grove onto the slope of a hill overlooking the battlefield, and Rienne slowed her pace, then stopped. The sky was a black dome of smoke, neither day nor night but a ruddy twilight of fire and shadow. From her higher ground, she saw the barbarians arrayed in a wide arc, with a wall of flames at their back, driving them forward at their fiendish leader's urging. The Eldeen defenders were a ragged ring, unable to hold the barbarians back. Dragons flew here and there above the fray, occasionally loosing blasts of fire or frost, bolts of lightning or sprays of acid down onto the soldiers below.
Rienne couldn't see any sign of the seal breaking, but she could feel it-a sense of wrongness radiating up from the violated land. It reminded her of Starcrag Plain, the feeling she'd had as wave after wave of monstrosities, the hordes of the Soul Reaver, spilled out of the earth and washed over her.
Elestrissa stood a few paces away, surrounded by a clump of warriors, mystics, and rangers. The men and women gathered around the Mosswood Warden wore superior armor and carried weapons that shone with magic, clearly setting them apart from the rank and file soldiery. A few of them, like her, bore the signs of their own struggles against the Blasphemer's dragons. These, she guessed, were the greatest heroes of the Eldeen Reaches, gathered from across the lands that the Blasphemer had already devastated-a half-dozen humans, about as many shifters, a few elves and half-elves. Two dwarves covered in thick hide armor stood beside a goliath who towered over them; its leather armor left much of the patterned markings and rocklike protrusions on his stone-gray skin exposed.
"Ah! Kyaphar," Elestrissa said, gesturing toward them. Rienne turned to look at the Sky Warden, and saw the tall, proud man once more where the wolf had been a moment before. "And Lady Alastra Dragonslayer. Good! We have precious little time."
Elestrissa turned back to face the battlefield, and Rienne stepped forward to join the others at her side.
"There he is," the Mosswood Warden said, pointing toward the center of the arc of flame. "The Blasphemer, the opener of the seal. He has spread his forces thin, because he knows that our defense is thinner still. That means there aren't many soldiers between us and him. Our plan is as simple as it is desperate: We charge straight for the Blasphemer. The greater our speed, the less chance he will have to put more of his forces in our way. If we're fast enough, we'll cut right through his lines and get to him. One man cannot stand for long against twenty of us. And when he is dead, our hope-our only, desperate hope-is that his sundering will cease. Perhaps none of us will survive this day, but if we succeed, the world can rest tonight free from fear."