"You're sure this is going to work?" Kiinyon asked.
"like grease on ice," Kuhl answered. "When we get there, just keep hold of my belt with your free hand and swing with your sword hand."
"Very well."
Kiinyon drew his borrowed darksword and signaled the attack. Keya heard the battle mage start his spell, then there came a dark eternity of falling. Her stomach rose into her chest, and she grew weak and dizzy and cold. A dead silence filled her ears, and she felt nothing but her own heart hammering fast and hard in her chest-and she was somewhere else, the ground rumbling beneath her feet and her eyes and nose burning with the brimstone stench of Hell.
"Swing!" shouted a familiar gruff voice.
Reminded of the sword in her hand, Keya swung even as her mind struggled to make sense of her smoky, fire-blasted surroundings. She hit nothing, but heard off behind her shoulder the wet slap of a sword cleaving flesh and spun instinctively toward the sound, bringing her darksword around in a vicious backhand.
This time, Keya hit something and felt her blade bite deep. Blood, hot and sour-smelling, splashed her across the jaw and throat. A squealing whirlwind filled the air with dirt and ash, then golden bolts of magic appeared from nowhere and began to ricochet off her spell-turning bracers. Some of them came bouncing back past her head, deflected by identical bracers worn by all the warriors in the Company of the Cold Hand.
Keya glimpsed an expanse of thorny scales and finally recalled where she was and what she was doing there. She reversed her blade and brought it back across the phaerimm's body, this time stopping at the end of the stroke to plunge the tip in deep.
The creature screamed again in its windy language. Its tail came arcing up at her face, the barbed tip already dripping with its paralyzing poison. Kiinyon reached past her shoulder, catching the attack on his borrowed darksword and flicking the barb away before it could strike. Keya thanked him by bringing her own weapon, still plunged deep into their foe, down the length of its serpentine body.
The phaerimm pulled itself off her blade by floating a few feet backward. Keya thought it would teleport to safety, until Burlen's darksword came tumbling past and split the thing the rest of the way through. It fell to the ground in a pile of blood and entrails.
Burlen extended his hand toward the sword. It rose out of the gore and tumbled back into his grasp, then Kuhl’s big hand grabbed Keya by the belt and pulled her back into position.
"Time to go."
Realizing that she had released her own grip, Keya started to reach back for Burlen's belt-then heard someone cry out from above.
"Keya?" The voice was so weak and hoarse as to be unrecognizable, but it was speaking Elvish. "Can that be you?"
Keya looked up the vale, and two terraces above, saw a hall-starved wood elf scout peering through a gap in a wrecked wall. Over her shoulders and head, she had a makeshift camouflage tarp covered with withered grape vines, but Keya could see enough of the scout's face to tell that her red-rimmed eyes were as sunken as a banshee's and her lips cracked and bloody with thirst. A hundred paces behind her, a mixed company of beholders and illithids were rushing down the vale to investigate.
"It's time!" Burlen urged. "Grab hold."
"Wait!" Keya called as she started toward the elf. "She needs help."
"No time," Kuhl said. Still holding her by the belt, he lifted her back into the fighting square. "We kill and run."
Keya tried to break free, but the Vaasan's grasp was too powerful.
"I can't just leave her!"
"And you won't help her by getting yourself killed," Kiinyon said. To the battle mage, he added, "Get us there and IT1-"
The battle mage cast his spell, her stomach rose into her chest, and there came that cold eternity of falling. A dead silence filled her ears and she began to feel queasy, then she was someplace not too different, the ground still shaking beneath her feet and the stench of brimstone still burning her nostrils.
Keya felt the weight of the darksword in her hand, and recalling the last time they had teleported, she began to swing.
Her sword hit nothing, but a familiar elf voice cried out, "What are you doing, you bear-stinking oafs? Hold your blades!"
The Vaasans had picked up enough Elvish to realize that they were being addressed, and Keya glanced over her shoulder to find an exhausted wood elf glaring up at them. Even as haggard as the elf was, Keya recognized the brown eyes and cupid's bow smile as those of her brother Galaeron’s favorite scout, Takari Moonsnow. Lying on the ground and covered to the shoulders in dirt and withered grape vines, it looked as though Takari was crawling up out of the ground, a sight that only added to the confusion of Keya's afterdaze.
"Takari?" Keya gasped. "What are you doing here?"
A rumbling cloud of black fume appeared two terraces down and began to rain tiny spheres of magic. As the balls struck the ground, they exploded into crackling sprays of fire, lightning, or hissing green fog. Keya felt her knees weaken as she realized how close the strike had come-how close she had made it come-to the spell sprays.
"Good thing you moved!" Takari said.
The withered grape vines rolled aside and Takari emerged from beneath the camouflage tarp. She was protected by little more than a ragged suit of leather perforated in so many places it could no longer be called armor. Nor was she wearing any magic-not the boots of secret passing given to all rangers who served Evereska, nor even a pair of spell turning bracers or one of the mind-shielding helms Evermeet had sent to equip the elven army.
Keya motioned Takari into the group as a rosy glow fell over them. She turned to see the pink cone of a magic-killing ray illuminating them from the great central eye of a beholder on the next terrace. With the beholder were another half-dozen of its kind and twice that number of mind flayers.
"Lolth's fangs!" Kiinyon cursed. "Over the wall!"
Keya had no chance to obey. Kuhl was already lifting her by her belt, wrapping her into an arm the size of a thkaerth and diving over the wall. Keya barely had time to turn the blade of her darksword away before they came down on the other side, Kuhl crashing to the ground like a magic-felled roth? and Keya landing atop him as light as a feather. Burlen flashed past overhead and smashed down beside them in a heap of clattering armor.
"Stay low!" Kiinyon yelled from somewhere beyond Keya's feet. "Ready your magic bolts."
"Magic bolts?" the battle mage gasped. "We need to leave… and now!"
"Do it!" Kiinyon ordered. "Kuhl, Burlen, watch our backs."
It sounded to Keya like the lord commander was preparing for a holding action instead of a fast retreat, but after coming so close to causing a disaster just moments earlier, she knew better than to question the order. She slipped off Kuhl barely in time to avoid being crushed as he rolled to his stomach and crawled off across the terrace.
The pink radiance of the magic-killing beam vanished, and the mordant smell of rock dust began to fill the air as the beholders swept their disintegration rays back and forth across the wall. Keya readied her magic bolts, then lay listening to the sizzle of dissolving stone as she awaited Kiinyon's order. He seemed to take forever, though perhaps it only felt that way because she knew the phaerimm who had assaulted their previous position would know where they were and would be moving up to attack.
Finally, in a surprisingly calm voice, Kiinyon said, "Beholders only. Three, two, now."
Timing her move so she came up behind the sweep of the disintegration ray, Keya peered over the top of the smoking wall and loosed her spell at the second beholder in line. Three golden bolts streaked from her fingertips, striking the central eye and causing it to erupt in a bloody spray. The creature screeched in pain and began to spray the beams of its remaining eyes haphazardly along the length of the wall.