Too stunned to reply, Galaeron raised a hand to his throat and felt a gash four fingers wide. How the wound had missed his veins he could not imagine, any more than he could understand how he had the strength to continue standing. There was no pain, no dizziness, no sign of the injury except an overwhelming sense of cold, and even that seemed to be fading.
Takari drew her sword and, grasping Melegaunt's arm, turned back to help the others. "Let's go, then-but I'll never forgive you if you get yourself killed over a human."
They had barely taken two steps before Vala's darksword found one of the ghosts, cleaving it down the center. The creature came apart with a horrid screech, the two halves of its gossamer form paling into wisps of fading light. Melegaunt reached over her shoulder, spraying a string of shadowy darts through the second ghost. The black bolts vanished inside the creature with no visible effect.
Seeing what had become of its fellow, the ghost darted away from Vala and hovered alongside the bridge, well out of her reach. It stretched a hand toward her sword, then flowed into the dark glass and vanished from sight. Galaeron stretched out his arm, trying to slap the weapon from her grasp with the flat of his own blade. His reach fell just short. "Vala, drop your sword!"
Even as Galaeron called out, Vala's eyes went glassy and white. She whirled on Melegaunt, her movements now fitful and rigid as she raised her arm for an overhand chop. Jaw dropping, the wizard pivoted into the clumsy attack, throwing his arms out in a desperate block and catching Vala square in the chest. He bellowed two syllables and sent her body blasting past. She landed two paces away on the downstream side of the bridge, flat on her back and dazed from the explosion.
Vala's hand began to open, and the darksword dipped into the water.
"Grab her sword!" As Galaeron tried to spring past Melegaunt, he slipped on the mossy stone and fell to a knee. "It has her soul!"
Melegaunt stooped down and reached for the weapon, then her white eyes flicked in his direction, and he abruptly drew back. "She'll kill me!"
Vala slipped over the riffle and started a lazy spin downstream, quickly starting to sink as her scale armor pulled her beneath the surface. Ignoring the fact that even elven chain mail was not light, Galaeron dropped his own sword on the bridge and sprang over Melegaunt after her.
He entered the icy river headfirst and pulled himself down through the riffle with two quick strokes, then caught a handful of hair and continued to kick deeper. It would do no good to save Vala if he allowed the darksword to sink with her soul. He drew himself down by her hair, stretching his free hand toward the glass sword-then suddenly found the point driving up through the water toward his heart.
Still holding onto her hair, Galaeron rolled behind her and changed hands, then reached around her shoulder to grab her sword arm from behind. Vala whirled and kicked, trying to spin free, but managing only to drive them a few feet upward before they began to sink again. Galaeron released her hair and slipped his arm around her throat, using the crook of his elbow to clamp down on the vulnerable veins in her neck.
Vala went limp almost instantly Her head tipped to one side and her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and the hand holding the darksword came open even before Galaeron could twist the weapon free. He caught it by the hilt and kicked for the surface, already so cold he barely noticed its freezing touch.
Had he been fresh, or had Vala's scale armor been as light as elven chain, he might have pulled them both to the surface. As it was, he barely had the strength to keep from sinking deeper-and that strength was fading fast. Slipping her darksword back into her scabbard, he drew his dagger and began to cut the buckles on her heavy breast plate.
Galaeron had just finished one side when he saw Malik's chubby silhouette drift past above. He thought for a moment that he was merely imagining things, or that the cold water had finally taken him. The little human did not strike him as the heroic type, but there had been that time in Thousand Faces, and now here he was again, his turban unwinding behind him as he dived for them from above. Not taking the time to sheathe his dagger, Galaeron let it fall and raised his hand. Malik ignored it and circled around behind them, trailing a thin rope. Galaeron felt the human pushing something under his arm and took the line from his grasp, then passed it around Vala and back to his rescuer. Malik tied a quick knot, then the current began to pull at them as the cord caught. Wrapping his legs around Vala for extra security, Galaeron grabbed the rope with both hands and pulled-He had barely begun before the rope jerked them to the surface, and his breath returned in a series of cold coughs. He felt Malik clinging to his belt, crying out in terror and all but dragging him back beneath the surface as he struggled to reach the rope. Galaeron caught hold of the little man's collar and pulled him up.
"Malik! Our thanks!" Galaeron guided his hand to the rope. "That was a brave thing you did."
"Think nothing of it," coughed the little man. "I have a bad habit of doing brave things in bad causes."
Unsure of just how to take this, Galaeron rolled Vala onto her back, then finally looked upstream, to where the other end of the rope was attached to Kelda's saddle. The mare was just trotting into the archway beneath the bridge tower, pulling them diagonally across the current as she moved. Takari and Melegaunt were slipping and sliding along the bridge as they scrambled after her, while Aris, having somehow freed himself of the two shades, was kneeling at the edge of the bridge, stretching a long arm out to grab the line.
He finally succeeded, then pulled them to the side of the bridge and hoisted them to safety. Malik whistled Kelda to a stop, and Galaeron set to work on Vala. Her armor was scorched and dented from the spell that had launched her into the river, but any injuries the blast had caused her appeared less important than her near drowning. He turned her on her side and, bracing her between his knees, pushed on her back to force out the water. She began to cough, spewing cold river water from her lungs, and started to breathe on her own. "Shell live," pronounced Aris.
"But not recover." This from Jhingleshod, who was stepping around Aris's far side. "Not until she is free of this river."
Galaeron glared up at the ghostly knight, barely able to restrain his dark anger. "You might have warned us."
"And what would you have learned by that?" Jhingleshod looked away and continued forward, following Melegaunt and Takari into the shadows beneath the next bridge tower. "Were you not strong enough to defeat the servants, I do not think you would have been strong enough to defeat the master."
Galaeron glared after the rusty knight for a moment, then scooped Vala up and started after him. As they passed into the shadows beneath the bridge tower, she began to stir, her arm slipping around his neck, her eyes fluttering open.
"G-Galaeron?" She seemed barely conscious, hardly able to utter his name. "You… came after me?" "Did you think I would let you drown?" "Then we're alive?" "At the moment, yes."
He smiled, and, as they stepped out onto the dry road, Vala's lips were suddenly pressed to his, her warm tongue dancing softly against his. Surprised as he was, he would not have minded, were it not for the guilty shame in Melegaunt's eyes-or the hurt in Takari's.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
30 Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp
A bevy of meadow quail broke from the grass some miles distant, two dozen plump flecks scattering into the air. The sight of so many juicy birds brought the water to Aubric Nihmedu's mouth-as it did to the mouths of all the Noble Blades and Lordly Wands tucked into their spider holes across the sun-baked hillside. For a nearly tenday now, the Swords of Evereska had subsisted on crisped lizard and spell-baked mouse, forsaking even cacti and wolfroot for fear that the phaerimm would notice any plant-gathering. It was hardly the ordeal proud aristocrats envisioned when they joined the Swords of Evereska, but no one complained. Since forsaking open combat for ambushes and surprise attacks, they had cut their losses from staggering to merely heavy, and they had killed more than twenty phaerimm. By Aubric's estimate, the Swords would need only ten lives apiece to eradicate the remaining phaerimm from the Shaeradim.