Vasen scanned the riverbank for the other Shadovar, spotted him twenty paces down the river, on the opposite side, strapping himself into his saddle.
“Shoot him!” Vasen said, pointing.
The second Shadovar’s veserab shrieked in answer, showing its fangs. It beat its wings and tensed to take flight while Eldris, the best crossbowman among the Dawnswords, dropped his blade, took crossbow in hand, and cocked it rapidly.
Vasen ran in the Shadovar’s direction, although he had no idea what he intended. Byrne, Nald, and Orsin trailed him.
The sails of the veserab’s wings collected air and the creature rose into the sky, and with it went Vasen’s hope. The pilgrims were more than a day away from the abbey, more than a day away from the Dales. The Shadovar would escape, report their presence, and a full patrol would come and find the pilgrims on the plains. Vasen would not be able to protect them.
Eldris’s crossbow sang and a bolt sizzled through the shadows and tore a gash in the membrane of the veserab’s wing. The creatures emitted a highpitched shriek, lurched, beat its wings frantically, and spiraled back to the ground. A cloud of shadows swirled around the Shadovar and his mount. The huge creature lurched about on the ground, shrieking, flapping its wounded wing. The Shadovar spun in the saddle, his red eyes glowing in the black hole of his face. His gaze fixed on Eldris and he held forth his free hand. A column of dark energy streaked across the river at Eldris, blasted him in the chest, lifted him from his feet, and drove him to the earth.
“Eldris!” shouted Nald, but already Eldris had rolled to his stomach and climbed to all fours.
Meanwhile the Shadovar shouted at his mount, thumped it in the side with the flat of his blade.
“We can’t let him escape!” Vasen said.
Byrne and Nald already had crossbows to hand and let fly, one bolt plowing into the soft earth beside the veserab, the other striking the Shadovar but dying in his darkness before ever reaching flesh or armor.
Vasen eyed the river, desperate. It was too wide. He’d never get across in time.
“Keep firing,” he said, although he knew it would be futile.
Responding to the furious prompts of its master, the veserab again coiled its body and launched itself into the air. Its wounded wing made flight awkward, and for a moment it struggled to get height under it. The Shadovar shouted at it, slapped its side, all the while staring back at Vasen with hate in his face.
“Take this,” Orsin said, and shoved his quarterstaff into Vasen’s hand. Before Vasen could ask any questions, the deva was gone, sprinting over the uneven ground, zagging through the thick scrub and bounding over fallen logs, toward the river.
“What’s he doing?” Byrne asked, reloading his crossbow.
“I don’t know. Come on.”
Vasen and Nald and Byrne ran after Orsin but could not approach the deva’s speed. Orsin reached the river at a dead sprint and launched himself into the air. A column of shadow formed under Orsin’s feet as he went airborne and Vasen, Byrne, and Nald stopped cold, gasping as Orsin sailed high into the air, completely over the river and into the airborne veserab and its rider.
“By the light,” Nald said.
Vasen thought light had little to do with Orsin’s feat.
The deva hit mount and rider in a tangle of limbs and wings and swirling shadows. Unready for the impact or the weight, the veserab lurched sidewise and lost altitude. It shrieked, its wings beating furiously to keep it airborne. Orsin hung on, swinging free in the air, one hand closed on the veserab’s saddle strap, one hand around the Shadovar’s ankle.
“Shoot it!” Vasen said. “Shoot it!”
Nald and Byrne fired again, one after another, the bolts slamming into the veserab’s flank.
It keened with pain and lurched sideways. Blood sprayed from its wounded side, spattered the scrub below. Orsin swung like a pendulum but did not let go.
The Shadovar, nearly unseated by the lurches of the wounded veserab, managed to steady himself enough to hack downward at Orsin with his black sword. Orsin released his grip on the Shadovar’s ankle to avoid losing a hand, but before the Shadovar could pull his arm and blade back, Orsin seized his wrist. The moment he had it, he twisted his grip somehow and the Shadovar shouted with pain. The sword fell from the shade’s fist and spun to the ground. Still holding the Shadovar by the wrist, Orsin let go his hold on the veserab’s strap and took the shade’s arm with both hands. Using the arm as a lever, he flipped his legs up and got them under the armpit and around the Shadovar’s neck. The veserab careened wildly through the sky as the men atop it struggled. A fog of shadows swirled around Orsin and the Shadovar. Vasen could see only glimpses of the tangle of limbs, the Shadovar’s gauntleted fist rising and falling as he punched at Orsin.
“Come on!” Vasen said, and crashed through the scrub toward the river. He lunged into the cold water without stopping, Byrne and Nald on his heels. He hoped that his height would keep his head above water.
The veserab shrieked again, and so, too, did the Shadovar. Orsin dislodged the Shadovar from his mount and shade and man plummeted earthward in a cloud of shadows.
Vasen cursed, the current pulling hard at him, turning his straight course into a diagonal, but the water never rose above his chest and he cleared the river. Eldris and Nald called out behind him. Neither was as tall as he, and both were getting pulled downstream by the current.
“Help them, Eldris!” he shouted over his shoulder, not knowing if Eldris could even hear him.
He clambered up the muddy bank, his boots slipping in the mud, using the scrub to heave himself up. By the time he crested the top, shadows oozed from his flesh. Faith filled him and he channeled it into his blade. The weapon ignited, lit with a rosy light.
He spotted Orsin and the Shadovar twenty paces to his right. Darkness churned around the Shadovar and he appeared unwounded from the fall. Orsin circled him at a few paces, favoring a wounded leg.
Vasen charged straight at them. He shouted Orsin’s name as he ran and hurled the deva’s quarterstaff toward him. The weapon spun wildly as it flew, but Orsin bounded back from the Shadovar on one leg, caught it, and spun it over his head and before him so fast it hummed.
The Shadovar’s red eyes glared as he looked first at Orsin, then at Vasen. He extended a hand at each and black energy streaked from his palms. Orsin tried to dive aside but his leg slowed him and the bolt caught him in the hip, spun him halfway around, and slammed him to the earth. Vasen interposed his shield and the bolt slammed into the steel so hard it drove him from his feet. The metal cooled at the magic’s touch, and dark energy crept in tendrils around the shield’s edge and dissolved the strap, but it dissipated before doing any more harm.
The Shadovar drew a secondary weapon, a black mace, from his weapon belt and stalked toward Orsin. The deva rolled to his side, tried to stand on his wounded leg-Vasen could see it was broken-and fell back to the earth, grunting with pain. The Shadovar would kill him easily.
Vasen leaped to his feet and renewed his charge, shouting a prayer to Amaunator and channeling the power of his faith into his shield. The entire disk blazed with light. He gripped its edge in his hands, spun a circle, and hurled it at the shade, who saw it coming a moment too late. The blazing shield cut through the darkness around the shade, slammed into his side, and staggered him, continuing to blaze with Amaunator’s light. Wincing in the blazing light, the Shadovar recoiled and shaded his eyes with his own shield.
Vasen rushed toward him, his blade held in a two-handed grip. Orsin planted his quarterstaff in the soil and used it to pull himself to his feet, hopping on his one good leg.
Vasen hadn’t taken four strides before the Shadovar’s darkness extinguished the light from his shield. Vasen didn’t care. His blade glowed with light enough.