They went down together like a pair of jungle cats-rolling, clawing, and pummeling. Neither of them noticed at first that Keturah had begun to sing.
Slowly Kiva became aware of elven voices joining in with the woman's ruined alto. She broke away, backing away from the suddenly watchful Tzigone and gazing with disbelief at faces too long unseen.
The song faded. Quiet and watchful, the elven folk lingered near as if somehow their life task was not quite finished.
Tzigone rose. "It's over, Kiva. You've won. The elves are free."
Dimly Kiva became aware that she was shaking her head as if in denial. Yes, these were her kin, her friends. There was her sister, there the childhood friend who taught her to hunt, there her first lover. They were free. Her life purpose was fulfilled, and the proof of it stood by silently waiting for her to understand the truth of it.
Suddenly Kiva knew the truth. It was not finished, her task. All these years, everything she had done-she had believed that it was devoted to the freeing of her kin. But that was not what had driven her at all. Vengeance has utterly consumed her, leaving her less alive than these shadowy spirits.
With a despairing cry, Kiva threw both arms high. A flash of magic engulfed her and she disappeared from sight.
In less than a heartbeat, she emerged from the blind spell, one designed to take her to her one-time ally. She stood at the palace stairs, where a glum-faced Procopio sat and brooded.
He jumped like a startled cat when her fingernail dug into his arm. "Come, wizard," she said in a voice that was strange even in her own ears. "It is time for Halruaa to die!"
Kiva and Procopio emerged from the spell in the midst of an undead throng. The wizard gagged at the stench and lifted one hand to cover his nose.
The elf snatched it aside and pointed with her free hand to the place where Akhlaur stood, limned with black light.
"Look well, wizard," Kiva said in a voice shrill with madness. "He is your mirror. He is you. He is Halruaa, and may you all molder in the Abyss!"
She snatched a knife from Procopio's belt and plunged it into his chest. For a moment he stared down at it, incredulous, then he slumped to the blood-sodden field.
Deep in the ranks of his warriors, Akhlaur cast another spell. A terrible bone blight settled on a seething mass of warriors. The undead were not harmed, but the living received each blow with twice the force it might otherwise have had. Swords fell from shattered hands, and men dropped to the ground, writhing in agony as the fragile, jagged shards of broken bones stabbed through their flesh.
Gray-clad priests worked bravely, dragging the wounded aside and praying fervently over the fallen. Wizards, in turn, protected the clerics. A circle of wizards cast protective spells upon a cluster of gray-clad Azuthan priests, who chanted collective spells meant to turn away undead.
The forces of Halruaa, when united in purpose, were difficult to withstand. Skeletal warriors fell like scythed grain.
Akhlaur spun toward his lich. Vishna stood beyond the reach of the clerics. At a nod from Akhlaur, the undead wizard summoned a deathguard-guardian spirits ripped from the Ethereal Plane. These bright warriors glided toward the priests like fallen angels, as formidable as a charge of airborne paladins. Vishna began the chant that could summon an even more dreadful magic.
A dark web formed over the battlefield. As the corpse host spell took effect, the newly dead began to rise and living soldiers, untouched by blade or spell, fell senseless to the ground.
Cries of inarticulate dismay burst from torn throats as scores of living men realized that they were inhabiting corpses. Their own bodies, living but discarded, lay defenseless. Already the undead warriors stalked toward them like wolves encircling trapped prey.
The Halruaan warriors who had not felt the touch of Vishna's spell, who did not understand the spell, rushed to meet their advancing comrades. Not understanding, they cut down the confused and frantic undead. Abandoned bodies shuddered and died as the life-forces trapped in undead flesh were released to whatever afterlife awaited them.
The lich's eyes swept the crowd and found Zalathorm fighting hand to hand against an enormous, bony construct that seemed half man, half crocodile. Akhlaur sped through the gestures of a powerful enervation spell and hurled it at the king. Zalathorm jolted back, his face paling as strength and magic were stripped from him. For the briefest of moments the eyes of the two of friends met.
With a thought, a gesture, Vishna sent a bolt of healing energy toward Zalathorm. At the same time, he sent mental command to the undead warrior at Akhlaur's side.
The creature drew a rusted knife and cut the tether to the black cube at the necromancer's sleeve. It stumbled forward, bearing the ebony phylactery that contained Vishna's spirit. So engrossed was Akhlaur that he did not notice its loss.
Vishna took the tiny box from the skeletal hand and nodded his thanks. "I grant you rest and respect," he muttered. The skeleton bowed its head as if in thanks and crumbled into dust.
He scanned the battlefield, and his eyes settled upon small, green-haired female. With a gesture of his hand, the undead commander parted a path through the seething throng. He made his way to Kiva's side.
She glanced up at him with a haughty demeanor and hate-filled eyes. "Akhlaur commands you now. What do you want with me?"
"Only to finish what was begun long ago," he said. “I’ve come to free you."
The undead wizard plunged a dagger into her heart.
For a long moment she stared at him. Hatred turned to bewilderment, then, to a strange sort of relief.
Vishna released the dagger and let Kiva fall. After a moment he stooped and closed her eyes. He gathered to dead elf woman into his arms and walked into the blighted forest and toward the living trees. There, amid the roots оf an ancient tree, perhaps she could find the peace that had evaded her for so long.
At the end of the battlefield, the ghostly form of Halruaa's elves watched with sad approval.
Zalathorm thrust aside the dead crocodilian warrior and scanned the battlefield. The dying light touched the faintly glowing forms gathered at forest's edge. As the meaning came to him, a smile filled his face like sunrise, and an enormous burden lifted from his heart.
He shouted his enemy's name. Powerful magic sent the single word soaring over the field like the shout of a god. The combatants ceased and fell away. All eyes went to the wizardking. Zalathorm pointed to the watchful elven spirits. "The Heart of Halruaa," he said simply.
Akhlaur whirled toward the spirits of the elves he had tormented and enslaved. His black eyes widened in panic. His webbed hands sped through a spell that would command and control undead, but the elves were far beyond his reach.
The necromancer shouted for Vishna, for Kiva. There was no response.
"Let it go, Akhlaur," Zalathorm said, and there was more sorrow than anger in his voice. "Our time is finished."
He took from around his neck a silver chain, to which was attached a small, crimson gem. "One of our earlier attempts," he explained, holding up the glowing gem. "When our only thought was to sustain and protect each other for the good of Halruaa."
Zalathorm threw the gem to the ground. It shattered, and suddenly the weight of years crushed the king into dust. Where he stood was a small mound of bone heaped with moldering robes, crowned with a circlet of electrum and silver.
A terrible scream came from the necromancer and drew all eyes to the transformation overtaking him. Like Zalathorm, he withered away, but slowly, and he remained alert and in agony, shrieking in protest and rage. His skeletal jaw shuddered with fury long after the sound had died away. Then there was only dust, which blew away in the sudden gust created as every undead creature fell to the ground, released at last from the necromancer's power.