Again the ground shook under their feet. Cale had no time to ponder Riven's words. "We're out of time. We use the shadows. I will take us. Rivalen, hold as long as you can. I need only a moment."
Shadows churned around Rivalen but he nodded. Darkness poured from his holy symbol, supporting the shrinking hemisphere.
Cale ceased lending his power to the support of the barrier. The release elicited a strained grunt from Rivalen. The hemisphere shrank in on them. The specters pounded against it like mad things.
Cale peered through them, looked in the direction Riven had indicated.
He saw it in a depression below them-a temple.
The whole of it was composed of smoky quartz streaked with veins of black. A dome capped the structure. Spires stood at each corner, just more bones of the dead jutting from Ephyras's dust. Long threads of shadow weaved in an out of columns, arched windows, statues. Closed double doors faced toward them. Cale was surprised to see the temple intact. The fact that it stood whole on an otherwise dead world struck him as somehow obscene. Magic-or something else-must have preserved it.
Beyond it, he saw what Riven had seen. The earth fell away. A black hole several bowshots in diameter yawned in the earth, a void in the world. The ground immediately around the hole slowly turned, like the flow of water around the edge of a maelstrom. It cracked, crumbled, sent up a cloud of dust, collapsed into the hole that was eating the world. It was getting larger as it fed.
He wondered if there were other such holes on Ephyras, other voids devouring the world.
"Transport us!" shouted Rivalen.
Cale pulled his eyes from the hole and drew the darkness about them. For a moment, he considered leaving Rivalen behind. He looked back, met Rivalen's gaze, and saw in the Shadovar's golden eyes that he realized what Cale was thinking. Cale saw no fear there.
Cale included Rivalen in the shadows he gathered. They would need him to defeat Kesson Rel. The darkness deepened around them as Rivalen shouted, fell, and the sphere collapsed entirely. The specters swarmed them, arms outstretched. Their touch reached through armor and flesh, cooled bones, slowed hearts, stole life. They filled the air, turned the already cold breeze frigid.
Cale held his focus in the midst of the chaos and rode the shadows to the temple, Riven and Rivalen in tow.
Regg mounted Firstlight so that his company could more easily see him. She remained calm despite the rain, thunder, and the onrushing Shadowstorm. Regg turned his back to the darkness to face his company, knowing as he looked upon them that all of them would die in the darkness and some would rise again as shadows. In the distance, Sakkors hovered in its cloak of ink.
Regg did not shout. He did not draw his blade. He spoke only loud enough to be heard over the rain. As he spoke, Roen and the priests moved from soldier to soldier, using spells and wands of pale birch to ward the men and women against the life draining power of the Shadowstorm. A flash of soft rose-hued light denoted the wards taking effect.
"Turn and look," Regg said to his company. "See the men and women and children you are bound to protect."
As one they turned, looked down on the Saerbian refugees huddled in their wagons and blankets against wind and rain, against evil and darkness.
"That is why we fight," Regg said. "They need time. It is their only hope. We must give it to them."
He patted Firstlight's neck and dismounted.
"Go," he told her, and swatted her flank. "Bear someone to safety."
She nuzzled him then trotted off to rejoin the rest of the company's horses.
Regg nodded at Trewe and the young soldier sounded his horn to signal the march. Heads emerged from wagons, tents, and carts. Hope animated the gazes of the refugees, though fear lurked behind it. Shouts carried over the rain-well-wishes. A small boy stood at the back of his cart, soaked by the rain, one hand in a trousers pocket, the other raised in farewell. He didn't wave, just held a hand aloft, as still as a statue.
Regg returned the gesture, turned, and led his company on foot toward the darkness.
"That is why we fight," Trewe said from beside him.
The lightning framed the silhouette of a horseman on a rise to the right of the company-Abelar on Swiftdawn. He held his blade in hand and with it, formally saluted them.
Thunder boomed.
Every blade of every man and woman in the company came from its scabbard and returned the salute as they passed and marched into darkness.
Abelar sat his saddle in the rain and watched his company march on the double quick toward the Shadowstorm. He felt drawn after them, pulled by the faith that had been his companion for years. But his love for Elden tethered him to the camp. He could not abandon his son again. Elden couldn't take it. And neither could Abelar.
But he feared he could not take abandoning his company either.
He watched the company until darkness and the rain began to swallow them. They looked tiny, insignificant as they marched into the black wall of the Shadowstorm. He tried to catch their silhouettes in the frequent flashes of lightning but eventually lost them to the smear of night.
The Shadowstorm roiled and churned, as if eager for their arrival. Abelar had his doubts that mere men would be able to slow it. But he had no doubt that they had to try. He would hold out hope.
He dismounted Swiftdawn, took her to the outskirts of the camp where the company's other horses gathered, heads low, whickering in the storm. He rubbed Firstlight's nose. The other horses neighed, pranced nervously. Perhaps they smelled coming battle in the wind.
"Keep the rest of the horses calm," he said to Swiftdawn and Firstlight. "We may need them yet."
Both horses tossed their heads and neighed.
If he had to, Abelar would do as Regg had suggested. He would put every refugee he could on the company's mounts and charge them over the Stonebridge. The Shadovar would resist, but perhaps some would get through.
After seeing to the horses' needs, he left them and walked through the rain among the Saerbians, asking after their spirits, calming them with his presence. They smiled gratefully for his attention and asked Lathander to bless him. He looked off in the distance, in the direction of his company, and felt unworthy of blessings.
A young mother with a child at her breast looked up at him from out of a rain soaked tent. Rain pressed her brown hair to her head. Tears streaked her thin, wan face.
"Will we make it to Daerlun, Abelar Corrinthal?"
Abelar looked at her, at the suckling child, and found that his throat would not dislodge words. He nodded, forced a smile he did not feel, and turned back into the rain.
Frustration bubbled up in him, needing release. He wanted to shout his anger into the sky but held it in for fear of alarming the refugees. Instead, he walked the camp with clenched fists and clenched jaw, until he regained control of himself.
When he had, he fixed hope on his face and returned to his covered wagon, found Endren and Elden within. Elden's brown eyes brightened when Abelar entered.
"Papa!"
He hugged Elden while Endren looked a question at him. Abelar shook his head in answer. Endren sagged.
"You all wight, Papa?"
"I'm all right," Abelar said to his son, and cradled his head. But he was not. Nothing was all right. His body was with his son but his thoughts kept returning to his company.
Cale, Riven, and Rivalen materialized in a dust-choked courtyard. The ground shook and Cale imagined the earth upon which the temple stood cracking, crumbling, falling into the annihilating hole devouring the world.