The dark dash of an elven death arrow flashed out of a bluetop behind the enemy breastwork and disappeared into the trenches. A beholder rose briefly into view, its sharp-toothed mouth twisted into a grimace of pain. Keya had just enough time to identify the Tomb Guard's distinctive black-feather fletching on the butt of the arrow before the Cold Hand's battle mages blazed the creature into a red spray.
A thick human hand grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her back down the slope.
"Get down!" Vala snarled. "Dexon will have my head if I let some beholder burn that pointy-eared head off your shoulders!"
Keya was about to protest when a purple ray droned past above, cutting a deep furrow in the rim of the slope, coming within a finger's width of disintegrating her skull. Her heart hammered in her chest so hard that she thought it would break a rib, but she managed to retain enough control of her wits to point her darksword up the slope.
"T-T-Takari!"
"Takari?" It was Kuhl who growled, "Where?"
"In a tree," Keya gasped. "Behind the enemy. I saw her arrow-"
"Which tree?"
Kuhl crawled to the rim and peered through the furrow that had nearly cost Keya her life.
"I don't see her," he said.
"Kuhl, she isn't after your darksword," Keya told him. The last thing they needed was to renew the fight over his ancestral weapon. "Takari's trying to help us break through."
"She's coming for my sword!" Kuhl insisted. He glanced away from the furrow long enough to scowl in Keya's direction. "And you-you're a thieving vixen just like her. The phaerimm took Dexon's leg, but you're the one who's stolen his sword-and his manhood."
There was a time when the raw rage in Kuhl's voice would have sent Keya fleeing, but now it only filled her with cold anger.
"Kuhl, I will overlook the affront to me because it is easy to see how your sword might be more powerful than your mind," she said, "but insult my husband's manhood again, and you will die choking on yours."
Keya glared at the Vaasan until she saw enough of the anger fade from his eyes that she felt certain there would be no need to make good on her threat She glanced over at Vala, who only shrugged and spread her hands. Keya frowned and nodded toward Kuhl. Vala looked away, thinking, then a veil of sadness seemed to fall over her face. She nodded and crawled up the slope next to Kuhl.
With the burly Vaasan safely under control, Keya turned her thoughts back to the battle. She hazarded a glance over the rim and saw that whatever Takari was doing up there, her attacks were having an effect A patrol of a dozen bugbears that had been dispatched up the hill to hunt her down lay scattered across the slope, some lying motionless with smoking holes through their torsos, others flailing about trying to pull long elven arrows from their backs. Several beholders were sweeping the forest canopy with their disintegration rays, reducing the number of attacks coming down the hill above Keya as well as raining boughs and limbs on the slope.
Keya slid to the bottom of the embankment and used fingertalk to order the Company of the Cold Hand to assemble behind her, leaving only the archers and every third battle mage to hold their current lines. Within moments, a long stream of warriors began to crawl along the base of the embankment Keya issued her orders to the first arrivals, along with instructions to pass them along, then she crawled back up to join Vala and the Vaasans.
Vala had her arm across Kuhl's shoulders and was whispering something into his ear that Keya could not hear.
"Another arrow!" Kuhl growled, pointing. "There she is."
Kuhl started to rise and charge up the hill, but Vala caught him by the belt.
"Not yet, Kuhl," she said, pulling him back down. "That's what she wants, isn't it?"
Kuhl considered a moment then nodded.
"Vala!" Keya gasped. "What are you doing?"
Vala whirled on her with an expression that could only be described as demonic.
"You want to use this or not?" she demanded. "Because Kuhl's the only chance we have to get there anytime soon."
As Vala spoke, Burlen continued to speak to Kuhl from the other side.
"She wants you to charge out there alone, doesn't she?" Burlen asked. "She wants you to get yourself killed."
"I won't," Kuhl replied. "She doesn't know. She'll never get my sword."
There was a darkness in his eyes that Keya had never seen there before, something cold, monstrous, and terrifying risen to mask the laugh-lined face she had come to consider that of one of her human brothers.
"What doesn't she know?" Keya asked.
"You'll see," Vala said. "If s Kuhl or Takari now. There's nothing we can do about that, except decide whether we're ready to use it Are you?"
Keya glanced along the embankment in both directions and saw a long line of warriors in position to charge up the hill. To an elf, their faces were pale and their knuckles white from squeezing their sword hilts, but their jaws were set and their eyes fixed on Keya, awaiting the command to charge.
"Ready when you are," Keya said. "May the gods forgive us."
"If s not the gods we should ask," Vala replied.
She placed a hand on Kuhl's shoulder then raised her head and pointed into one of the bluetops still standing behind the mind-slaves' breastwork.
"There she is, Kuhl," said Vala.
"None of this is your doing," Burlen added. "The pointy-eared vixen seduced you."
"That's right," Vala added. "She let you get a child on her on purpose." As she spoke, Kuhl started to darken-not only his expression, but his face and hands, his eyes, and even the huge ranger's cloak Lord Duirsar had presented him. "All Takari wanted was your sword."
"Oh, she wanted the child, too," Keya said, catching on to what the Vaasans were doing. "The Sy’Tel’Quessir sell their half-human children to pay for wine."
Vala and Burlen dropped their jaws, and Keya thought for a moment she might have taken the fib too far.
Kuhl turned soot-black, blurring around the edges like a shadow or a ghost, and he let out an angry wail. He rose and did not bound over the embankment so much as soar over it, and the slope instantly above exploded into a roaring tempest of death as the defenders hurled all manner of missiles and magic down upon him.
Thinking it had been the Vaasans' purpose to goad Kuhl into drawing the first wave of enemy attacks, Keya raised her hand to call the charge. Vala caught her arm and pulled it down.
Wait. Vala spoke in elven fingertalk — the only speech that would not be drowned out by the crash and roar of battle. Let him get a little ahead of us.
Ahead of us? Keya retorted. There can't be anything left of him.
But when she peered over the rim of the embankment, she saw that there was. Through a wall of smoke and flame twenty paces thick, Keya saw Kuhl's black silhouette still weaving and twisting up the hill. Lightning blasts passed through his shadowy form without slowing him down. Magic bolts glanced off him, trailing long wisps of black murk. Disintegration rays struck his dark aura and dissolved. Boulders he always managed to duck or dodge, spears he deflected and slipped, arrows stuck only in the strongest parts of his armor. It was as though he had become half phantom and half roth? a creature of the shadows that could be seen but never stopped. Keya watched in awe until he vanished into the thickening smoke, then turned to Vala and raised her own darksword — or rather her husband's.
Can this sword do that? she asked.
No!
And never try! It was Burlen who added the explanation, He's given himself to his sword. It can't be undone.
The roar began to abate as Kuhl continued his charge, and Vala looked up the hill and spoke a single syllable. She didn't shout or use fingertalk, but Keya didn't need words to understand her meaning. She brought her arm forward then rose and charged over the rim of the embankment.