Shadowstorm

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

30 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms

Rivalen and Brennus drew Tamlin into the darkness and transported him to the top of the walls. Dawn lightened the eastern horizon, casting the sky in red and orange. Tamlin looked out onto Saerloon's massed forces. They looked even more imposing in the growing light. Hundreds of standards flapped in the breeze. Thousands of spear points glinted in the sun. The Saerloonians stood arranged in a thick line, twenty ranks deep, a rectangle of flesh and steel.

Onthul paced among the men. "Here we go now, lads. Here we go."

The two armies regarded one another in eerie quiet. The wind stirred the drought-dried grass. To Tamlin's right, the waters of the Elzimmer glittered in the rising sun.

A small group of twelve men and women emerged from the Saerloonian lines. They bore blades at their sides and wore no armor, not even helms.

"Spellcasters," Tamlin said.

Rivalen and Brennus nodded.

The Saerloonian wizards formed themselves into a large circle. All of them moved through a variety of complex gestures and incantations. Their spell chants carried over the plains. Tamlin could not make out the words.

"Protective spells," Brennus said. "And divinations."

Two of the wizards, both older and paunchier, stepped within the circle and intoned spells of their own. Their voices sounded the complex couplets of powerful spells. Energy gathered.

"A summoning," Brennus said.

"The battering rams, at last," said Rivalen, and Tamlin wondered at his meaning.

"Can we do nothing?" Tamlin asked.

"Not at this range," Brennus answered. "Best to wait and learn what comes."

The spells reached a crescendo and ceased. The Saerloonian drummers beat a slow, steady beat, then…

The earth rumbled, groaned. Outside the circle of wizards, ahead of the foremost lines of the army, the soil rippled, churned. Towering forms lurched from the rock and dirt in an explosion of grass and soil.

"Earth elementals," Rivalen said.

The Saerloonian army cheered and raised spears toward the sky as the huge creatures rose fully upright.

Composed mostly of soil and rock, with odd bits of sod and roots sticking from their forms, the elementals stood five or six times the height of a man. They stood on legs as thick as tree trunks, with arms the width of a man's waist. Misshapen heads perched atop uneven shoulders half as broad as their height. Their bellows sounded like a landslide.

"Dark and empty," Tamlin breathed. There were seven of them. Their heads were level with the top of Selgaunt's walls. He could well imagine what the creatures' powerful arms and rocky fists could do to the city's fortifications. And he had no illusions about what they could do to a man who stood in their way.

The two summoners within the circle of wizards gestured at Selgaunt. All seven elementals turned to face the city.

A nervous murmur ran through the city's defenders. Many of the militiamen rose and looked as though they might flee. The professional soldiers in the ranks ordered them down. Tamlin understood their fear. He tried to control his breathing.

"Trebuchet and crossbows as they come, lads," shouted Onthul, and he shook the trebuchet spotters to steel them. He stalked along the walls, nodding. "If they can walk, they can be knocked down. Steady, now. Steady."

"Ordinary crossbows are useless against such creatures," Brennus said softly.

His homunculi squeaked and darted into the safety of his cloak.

"What do we do?" Tamlin asked Rivalen.

Rivalen kept his eyes on the field. "The magic that holds them on our plane can be ended with a counterspell. It is not certain, but it can work. But they must be closer."

"They will be closer soon enough," Brennus said.

Tamlin shouted out so that his war wizards and the Sharran priests could hear him. "Counterspells on the elementals as they near. The magic will unbind them."

"May unbind them," Rivalen corrected.

Brennus pointed at the field. Despite daybreak, shadows swirled around his outstretched arm. "More to come, still."

The summoners moved through another series of spells and when they finished, a dozen towers of flame sprang into being amidst the earth elementals. The flames weaved and darted with obvious purpose.

"Fire elementals," Rivalen said.

Brennus said, "Merelith intends to tear down the walls and burn the city."

Tamlin said nothing, merely stared, heart pounding.

The fire elementals' tops reached only to the earth elementals' waists. Their forms ignited and consumed the grass near them, leaving nothing but charred earth. Black smoke and storms of glowing embers spun into the sky from each creature.

Tamlin had prepared the city for the possibility of flaming projectiles. Scores of men and women stood ready in various quarters of the city, armed with buckets, barrels of water, and shovels for hurling dirt. But he had not expected flaming creatures that could burn with purpose and intelligence.

"Onthul," Tamlin shouted to his captain. "Alert the bucketmen."

Onthul nodded, grabbed a messenger by the shoulder, issued him a series of curt orders, and sent him off.

One of the wizards forming the circle broke ranks and stepped near the fire elementals. He wore a red robe and his proximity to the fiery creatures appeared to do him no harm. The wizard moved through the gestures of a spell and when he finished, he and two of the elementals vanished.

The Selgauntans murmured, looked nervous questions at one another.

"Where did they go?" Tamlin asked. He was in water too deep, and he knew it.

A few moments later, the conjurer reappeared alone amidst the remaining elementals. He began to cast a spell.

A shout from the walls drew Tamlin's attention.

"Look! There!"

Men pointed back into the city. Tamlin turned to see the Hulorn's palace beginning to burn. One of the elementals that had vanished with the red-robed wizard moved methodically along its roof, leaving a trail of flame in its wake. Elsewhere, smoke rose from within the Noble District.

"He is teleporting the elementals into the city," Rivalen said.

Tamlin cursed. He knew weapons did little against fire elementals.

"Issger, Rheys," Tamlin shouted to two of his war wizards. "Put down those elementals."

The mages nodded, cast spells of flight, and launched through the air toward the palace.

"The fire elementals are a distraction," Brennus said.

"A good one," Tamlin snapped in irritation. "I cannot let the city burn."

A rumble from the field turned his attention back to the Saerloonian lines. All seven earth elementals lurched into motion and lumbered toward the walls. Their steps shook the earth and the sound of their approach was the rumble of an earthquake. Their motion flattened the grass, crushed trees, and left huge indentations in their wake. They started ponderously but gathered speed quickly, charging at the walls with such force that Tamlin could not believe the walls could withstand the impact.

A small inn, long abandoned, stood in their path and they crushed it underfoot, leaving little more than splintered timbers. Saerloonian drums beat time with their approach.

"Trebuchets, ready!" Onthul shouted, and the barrels of alchemical fire were loaded into the trebuchet slings. One of the spotters raised his hand, waiting until just the right moment to give the command to fire.

The walls vibrated under the approaching onslaught. The elementals closed the distance, raining dirt from their forms.

"Steady!" Onthul ordered, and crouched behind a battlement. "Steady!"

Halfway between the Saerloonian lines and Selgaunt's walls, before the spotter gave the order to fire, the earth elementals melted into the ground and merged with the soil. They left no trace of their presence.

Tamlin knew earth elementals could move through soil and rock the way men move through air.

Curses ran through the men. Selgauntans leaned over the walls to look down. Seeing nothing, they eyed one another with panic.

"Where are they?!" shouted some.

"They will come up under the walls!" said another.

"Hold your ground, men of Selgaunt," Onthul shouted. He stood and walked the walls, blade in hand. "Hold your ground."

Sergeants echoed his words and killed the rising panic. The men held their posts. Long, tense moments passed but the earth elementals did not reappear. The drumbeats from the Saerloonian army ceased.

"What in the Hells?" Tamlin asked.

Brennus intoned the words to a spell and gazed down on the earth before the walls as if he could see through it. "They are there," he said to Rivalen and Tamlin. "They are waiting."

"For what?" Tamlin asked.

"Our nerve is being tested," Brennus said.

Tamlin feared he would fail the test. He could hardly breathe.

Saerloonian drums began to beat anew, slowly at first, but gathering tempo.

The red-robed wizard incanted another spell and vanished from the field along with two more fire elementals. Eyes turned back to the city to see where the elementals would appear. A young soldier near Tamlin pointed up into the sky, toward the bay.

"There! Gods preserve us!"

Gasps and oaths sounded from all along the wall. Tamlin looked into the sky expecting to see fire elementals, but what he saw was much worse.

A huge green form bore down on the city from out of the sky. Even from his distance Tamlin could see the creature was enormous. Vermillion scales glittered in the sunlight. Huge, leathery wings stretched from its sinuous reptilian form. Terror went before the creature in a palpable wave. It roared and Tamlin's breath left him entirely.

"Merelith has a dragon," Brennus observed.

His homunculi cursed.

Cale, Riven, and Magadon awoke, ate in silence, and checked their gear.

"I think every arrow in this quiver is enchanted," Magadon said, examining the arrows he had taken from the elf woman in Kesson's spire. "I have never seen such craftsmanship. Look at these."

He held one up for Cale and Riven to see. To Cale, it looked like any other arrow.

Riven chuckled. "It's an arrow, Mags, not a woman. Don't get so attached to it you won't let it fly."

Magadon stuffed the missile back into the quiver. "You need not worry about that."

Cale figured they were as ready as they could be. "Link us, Mags. And see through my eyes."

Magadon, the circles under his eyes as dark as the shadowy air, nodded. A burst of orange light haloed his head and a faint hum sounded. Cale felt the tickle under his scalp, behind his eyes.

Done, Magadon projected.

"We play it as a feint and finish," Cale said.

Riven nodded. "Like old times."

Cale donned his mask and cast a series of spells in rapid succession. He warded himself, Riven, and Magadon against the dragon's life-stealing breath. He enchanted his armor, increased his strength and speed, and finally summoned unadulterated power directly from Mask. When the spell's energy filled him, the shadows around him deepened. He grew to twice his normal size, gained the strength of a giant. Riven watched him throughout.

"Put the same spell in the stone," Riven said to Cale, and withdrew from his belt pouch the small spell-storing stone he had taken from the Sojourner. He tossed it into the air before his face and it took up orbit around his head, whirring softly.

A year ago, Cale would not have considered sharing such a spell with Riven. He had been too protective of his unique relationship with Mask. No longer. He and Riven were the First and Second, the Right and Left. They had killed Kesson Rel together. He cast the spell and Riven's stone absorbed the energy.

Come when I call, he said to them.

Riven held up his ringed finger. "We'll be there."

Magadon concentrated for a moment and a sheath of mental energy formed around his body. He took an arrow and nocked it in the bow he had taken from the elf in Kesson Rel's tower. The arrow's tip flared red as his mind charged it with power.

I will be watching, Magadon said, and Cale felt the tingle in his eyes that indicated Magadon was seeing what Cale saw.

Cale imagined Furlinastis's swamp in his mind, pulled the shadows about him, and rode them there. He materialized in the fetid shallow water of the swamp, Weaveshear in hand. Sickly, brownish fog floated around his knees. The stink of decay filled his nostrils. He heard none of the usual shrieks, howls, or buzzing of insects. The swamp was silent.

Furlinastis was near.

He tested the mindlink to ensure it was working at his unknown distance from his companions.

Mags, Riven?

Here, Riven answered.

Here, Magadon said. And I see what you see.

He's near, Cale said.

Shadows and fog walled him in on all sides. Stands of broad-leafed malformed trees jutted from the bog. Cale did not see the dragon. Furlinastis was as much shadow as Cale. He could be anywhere.

A hiss and the sound of a whispered incantation sounded from Cale's left. He chose a random stand of trees fifty paces away and stepped through the space between shadows. He materialized in the trees, but not before the spell took effect and stripped him of every ward and enhancement spell he had cast.

He cursed, shaped the shadows around him into illusory duplicates of himself that mimicked his every move. He looked back in the direction from which he had heard the dragon cast its dispelling incantation.

He saw nothing. His breath came fast.

The dragon's a spellcaster, he said to Magadon and Riven. My wards are gone.

Riven cursed. Get clear, Cale. We'll rethink it.

A soft splash from behind him whirled Cale around.

He had only a fraction of a heartbeat to process the sight of an onrushing mountain of scales, claws, teeth, and shadows before the dragon's gargantuan form buried him, his shadow duplicates, and the entirety of the copse of trees.

Tamlin fought his fear enough to utter the words to a weak spell as the dragon neared. He pointed his hand at the dragon and four bolts of orange energy streaked from his fingertips, hit the dragons scales, and bounced off harmlessly. Bolts of lightning, a beam of gray energy, and a series of silver orbs streaked into the air on the heels of his spell but none seemed to harm the onrushing dragon.

Beside him, Brennus and Rivalen incanted spells of their own as the dragon closed. A black beam went forth from Rivalen's hand and hit the dragon in the chest. Several scales shattered and rained down on the city. The creature roared with anger and pain, beat its wings, but did not slow its approach. A green beam shot from Brennus's finger, hit the creature in the wing, but did no harm that Tamlin could see.

The men around them shouted, screamed, pointed, cowered. Onthul tried to maintain order, called for crossbows, but his commands went unheeded. The dragon angled itself lower, streaked directly for the walls. The Saerloonian drums beat so fast they sounded like one long, loud hum.

The fear that accompanied the dragon intensified and drove Tamlin to his knees. Some of the men cowered in their positions on the wall. Others jumped down in their terror and shattered legs and ankles. A few tried to run for the gatehouse, knocking others down, trampling them. The dragon roared.

"Disperse!" Rivalen shouted down at the men in the streets. "Get back! Spread out!"

Brennus and Rivalen began to cast again. The dragon roared, swooped over them, opened its mouth, and exhaled a thick cloud of green vapor. Rivalen and Brennus completed their spells. Tamlin felt a hand on him, felt his body shimmer into mist. The screams and shouts sounded far off. The walls around him appeared to be only gray shadows. Rivalen and Brennus stood beside him.

"The ethereal plane, Hulorn," Rivalen said. "The dragon's breath cannot affect us here."

Tamlin saw the shadows of men near him writhing in pain, clutching at their throats, digging fists into their eyes.

"Put an end to the conjurer bringing fire elementals into the city," Rivalen said to Brennus. "Then summon Yder."

"The earth elementals?" Brennus asked.

"Variance and the priests, as best they can."

Brennus nodded. "The dragon?"

"I will handle the dragon," Rivalen said, and his golden eyes flared. "Prepare yourself, Hulorn."

Sound and substance turned solid as Rivalen took them back across the planar barrier. Men lay about on the walls, the ground. Some screamed. Others gagged, vomited. Hundreds lay still. An acrid, stinging stink hung in the air. Tamlin's eyes watered.

Behind Tamlin, the city burned. Around him, fully a third of his men lay dead or incapacitated. As he watched, shadows clotted here and there on the walls and the Sharran priests stepped from the darkness.

"Variance!" Rivalen called to one of the Shadovar.

The darkness around Rivalen churned and the tall priestess appeared before him. She threw up her faceguard.

"Handle the earth elementals when they come, and protect the Hulorn," Rivalen said. "If he comes to harm, you answer to me."

She looked at Tamlin, at Rivalen. She nodded and lowered her faceguard. The shadows swirling around her brushed Tamlin.

"What are you going to do?" Tamlin asked Rivalen.

In the sky above, the dragon flew over the Saerloonian army and started to wheel around.

"Kill that green," Rivalen said. He jumped from the wall and took flight.

Meanwhile, Onthul's voice boomed over the chaos. The tall captain strode the battlements, rallying the men. His voice was a croak, whether from gas or shouting, Tamlin did not know.

"You can die fighting on your feet or crawling on your stomachs. How will you have it? Up and ready crossbows! Get on your damned feet!"

A few hundred of the reserve units rushed up from within the city. They looked at the carnage with wide eyes. Onthul shouted at them to take station on the walls and replace the fallen.

Out on the field, the red-robed wizard stood before the remaining fire elementals, preparing to teleport them into the city. Brennus watched him closely, hands ready, the words to a spell sitting just behind his lips. When the red-robed wizard disappeared with the fire elementals, Brennus hurriedly recited his spell and smiled. "I have him," he said to Tamlin. Darkness swirled around him and he disappeared.

With the fire elementals clear of the field, the Saerloonian trumpets sounded a march and the entire army lurched into motion.

"Trebuchets!" Onthul shouted.

The spotters, still alive, peeked over the wall and raised his hand. On the ground below, three of the four trebuchets remained manned. Replacements hurried in.

"You are a spellcaster?" Variance asked Tamlin. Her voice sounded stilted behind her faceguard.

Tamlin nodded.

"Can you cast counterspells?"

Again Tamlin nodded.

"Ready them," Variance said.

A rumble shook the walls and the earth elementals exploded out of the ground in bursts of rock and dirt. Their heads reached the top of the walls. Tamlin stared into the blank, blunt-featured face of the one nearest him. It did not seem to notice him.

The elementals bellowed, raised their arms to the sky, and smashed huge, rocky fists into the sides and tops of the walls. The impact shook Tamlin from his feet. The Khyber Gate rattled on its hinges. Dust, men, and rock flew into the sky. A thin crack opened along the wall near Tamlin. Another. Men shouted, screamed. Vats of oil shattered, soaked the walls, and burst into flame. Tamlin heard Onthul barking orders through the smoke and chaos. Crossbows twanged and bolts sank into the elementals by the dozen.

The Saerloonians shouted, moved double quick. The Selgauntan trebuchets fired and huge, sealed vats of alchemical fire arced into the sky. The impact would shatter the wooden vats and the viscous fluid would ignite upon contact with the air.

It would not be enough, Tamlin knew. He was watching Selgaunt fall. The siege of his city would not last months. It would last hours.

He decided to die fighting on his feet. He faced the nearest elemental and started to cast a counterspell. While he intoned the words, he saw the vats of alchemical fire hit the ground and explode in flame and heat. One landed short of the Saerloonians and lit the plains on fire, but three landed in the midst of the army and turned men to torches.

The huge elemental took notice of him. It bellowed, raised its fist high, to smash Tamlin or the wall or both. Tamlin completed his counterspell and his magic warred with the power of the summoner of the elemental.

And lost.

Tamlin stared, frozen, as the elemental's fist descended. Darkness gathered around him.

"Not here," Variance said, and transported him away before the elemental could crush him.

Brennus appeared in the center of a wide, cobblestone avenue. The red-robed wizard stood in the middle of the street, his back to Brennus, flanked by columns of living flame twice his height. The flames crackled but there was order to the sound, and Brennus knew it to be the elementals' language.

The few pedestrians on the street fled in panic. An underfed donkey tied to a hitching post bucked and kicked, terrified, but could not free itself. Its cries of fear rang down the street.

Behind Brennus, powerful impacts reverberated through the city. The attack on the walls had begun in earnest.

The wizard uttered a command, pointed to his right and left, and the elementals moved to nearby buildings and lit them aflame. Muffled screams sounded from within.

Brennus incanted the words to a spell that would prevent the wizard from teleporting. The wizard heard him, whirled. His eyes widened at the sight of Brennus.

"Incinerate him!" the wizard called to the elementals, and ran for the cover of a nearby wagon as he started to cast a spell of his own.

The elementals left off the buildings and raced toward Brennus like wildfire, leaving trails of flame in their wake.

Brennus ignored them, finished his spell, and fired a thin green beam from his outstretched finger. It hit the wizard in the side. The spell did not harm him, but a field of pale green flared around him. The wizard cursed and aborted his spell, knowing that he was prevented from using magical transport. He had intended to transport himself out of the city.

The elementals charged into Brennus and engulfed him. His world turned orange; the elementals' crackling voices sounded loud in his ears. His wards entirely shielded him and his homunculi from the heat and flame, but the protective spells would not last long under the elementals' onslaught.

He held out his hands and shouted the words to a counterspell. His power engaged that of the summoner and overpowered it. The binding that held the elementals to the Prime Material Plane unwound and the creatures disappeared with a soft pop and a puff of smoke.

The wizard stared at him. He recognized that Brennus had overpowered his summonings with ease. He started backing away down the street, intoning a spell. Brennus walked after him, reciting the words to his own spell.

Heads poked out of windows.

"He banished the elementals!"

"He saved the city!"

"But what of the dragon?"

Brennus ignored the accolades. The summoner finished his spell, joined his thumbs, and blew on his hands. His spell amplified his breath, turned it frigid, and blasted it toward Brennus in a freezing sheet.

Brennus's body, infused with shadowstuff, resisted the magic of the spell and he endured the ice without harm. Completing his own spell, he pulled the summoner's palpable fear from his head and let the magic turn it against him in the form of an illusion.

Brennus did not see what form the illusion took, at least not clearly. He saw only a large shadowy form looming over the summoner. Its face suggested a muzzle; horns or large ears jutted from its head. The wizard collapsed to the ground on his knees, mouth open, eyes wide.

"Do not touch me!" he screamed to his fears.

Brennus's illusion reached out a muscular arm that ended in a pincer. It touched the summoner and he gasped, clutched his chest, and died. His fears blew away in the breeze.

Brennus walked over to the donkey. Its wild eyes rolled in its head and it backed off to the limit of its tether, but it was too exhausted to do anything more. Brennus reached out a shadow-shrouded hand, stroked its head. "There, now," he said.

His homunculi emerged from his robe and bit through the tether. The donkey turned and tore off down the street.

More and more heads poked out of windows and doors, all looking at him, back at the walls, up at the sky for the dragon. They wanted a savior and he had given them one. Rivalen would be pleased.

Through his ring, he reached out his mind for his brother Yder.

Come now, he said, and Yder returned a quick acknowledgement.

Brennus dared not transport himself blindly back to the walls, for fear he could materialize in a maelstrom. He did not know what damage the earth elementals had done. Using shadows as stepping stones, he worked his way back to the Khyber Gate.

The impact of Furlinastis's body drove Cale so deeply into the soft earth that the hole might as well have been a grave. The dragon's weight crushed him. His ribs shattered, his arm broke, his ankle. Pain lit a spark shower in his brain. He heard the dragon's roar, muffled by the mud that encased him.

Free us, said voices in his mind, and he knew them to be those of the souls trapped in the dragon's shadow shroud.

Cale? Magadon said, his voice tense. Cale?

He could not respond. He hung onto consciousness through force of will. Drawing on the darkness around him, he transported himself out from under the dragon. He appeared in another stand of twisted trees, a bowshot behind the dragon. Mud caked his cloak and trousers. He whispered the words to one of his most powerful healing spells and the magical energy reknit his bones. The shadowstuff in his flesh worked at the rest.

I am all right, he said to Magadon and Riven. He stood perfectly still and tried to control his breathing. His mind raced through his options.

Furlinastis reared back his long neck and cocked his head.

"I hear your heart, priest." He whirled his girth around with alarming rapidity. Shadows boiled around the dragon, faces formed, pleading with Cale.

"This is not as I would have it," the dragon said. "But one of us must die."

Cale did not bother to parse the meaning of the dragon's words. He invoked a spell that summoned a column of fire and immersed the dragon in flame. The spell appeared to cause no harm as the huge reptile roared and took flight out of the conflagration. The beat of his wings sent a gale of flames rushing across the swamp toward Cale. Trees and scrub shriveled in the heat. Cale ducked behind a tree and the firestorm did him no harm.

Airborne, the dragon pronounced a single eldritch word and the fog and shadows around Cale swirled, merged, and partly solidified. Cale could still breathe but could not see past his hands, and the fog resisted his movements as well as water. He knew what to expect next, even before he heard the beat of the dragon's wings above him and the inhalation of breath.

He frantically drew on the darkness to get him clear, but he was too slow. Furlinastis exhaled with a roar and the deadly, life-draining black vapor saturated the magical fog. Cale dived for a low spot in the earth but the fog stubbornly resisted his movements. The cold of the dragon's breath prickled his skin, entered his body through nose, ears, and mouth, and siphoned off much of his soul. He weakened; some of the power he used to cast spells drained away. He shouted with pain and rode the shadows to another stand of trees.

Riven's voice sounded in his head. Cale? Cale could hardly breathe. Soon, he answered, and leaned on a tree to keep his feet. Stand ready.

Rivalen watched the huge green dragon wheel in a wide arc. Its scales glimmered like emeralds in the morning sun. The same sun felt like needles on Rivalen's exposed skin. With an effort of will, he dimmed the light around him and flew toward the dragon, cloaked in shadow.

Below him, he saw the Saerloonian forces advancing through trebuchet fire on the double quick. Behind he heard the elementals, the world-shaking crash of their fists on the city's walls.

The dragon completed its turn, saw him approaching, and roared. It spoke a series of arcane words, beat its wings, lowered its neck, and arrowed straight for him. The moment the great reptile flew within range, Rivalen intoned the words to a spell that pit his will against that of the dragon. He had used a similar spell to cow a kraken. Few could resist its power.

The moment he completed the spell, the arcane energy rebounded on him, shaped by the dragon. He had only a moment to process the event-the dragon must have cast a protective abjuration that rebounded spells back on their caster, or perhaps bore a ring imbued with that power.

The power of Rivalen's own will twisted back upon him, tried to make him subservient to the dragon. His own voice sounded in his head.

Remain still and do not resist.

Magic made the words a compulsion. He fought it but his body went slack. He stopped in mid air and hovered. The dragon beat its wings, loomed larger in his sight. He could not move.

Roaring, the dragon exhaled a cloud of corrosive green gas that engulfed Rivalen. The gas burned his skin, melted his clothes to his flesh, and sheathed him in agony. The gas did not dissipate, as Rivalen expected. Instead it clung to him, continued to burn, to melt his flesh. He screamed as skin sloughed from him and rained down on the plains below.

Pain focused his mind. He fought his way free of the will-dominating spell a moment before the dragon's enormous form careened unharmed through its own breath and crashed into him.

The impact shattered bone, drove him backward through the air. The dragon followed up and deftly snatched him in a claw. The creature squeezed him more tightly than a vise. Ribs cracked, snapped. The dragon's corrosive breath, clinging to Rivalen still, burned his flesh more. He groaned and fought to stay conscious as his shadowstuff-infused flesh, sheltered from the sun by the dragon's body, sought to regenerate some of its injuries. Unable to concentrate to cast a spell, he swung his blade weakly at the creature's underbelly but did not so much as scratch the scales. Luckily, the creature's long neck prevented it from bringing its fangs to bear while flying and holding him in a claw.

"Debts are owed, shade, your kind to mine," the dragon said. "You are the first to pay, but not the last."

Rivalen swallowed blood, fought through the haze of pain, and snarled an answer. "This debt is between only us, dragon. And you now owe me."

The dragon growled and squeezed him harder. Bones splintered and Rivalen screamed with agony. He gripped his consciousness with both hands, forced himself to concentrate, and spat the single word of a spell that would teleport him from the dragon's grasp. His pain-clouded brain imagined no end point for the spell except away from the dragon, and he appeared in open air three bowshots away.

The dragon roared at his escape, turned its head on its long neck to scan the sky. It spotted him and started to turn. Its awkwardness in flight gave Rivalen some time, a thirtycount perhaps.

The dragon's breath finally flowed off his skin and dissipated, though it had left his flesh raw, ragged, and slicked with blood. He held his holy symbol in sticky fingers and incanted the words to the most powerful healing spell he knew. The energy flooded him, healing most of the injuries wrought by the dragon. He winced as his bones and organs squirmed back into their proper positions and reknit.

The dragon roared again as it continued its turn. Rivalen presumed the reptile would renew the power of its spell-turning as it came, and he knew his options were limited. More than half his spells would be useless. He would have to disjoin the turning magic with one of his most powerful abjurations, or face the dragon with only indirect spells and his sword.

He would prepare for either option. The disjunction was uncertain and sometimes failed.

Speaking quickly, he incanted a series of spells that doubled his size and that of his sword, increased his strength, his endurance, and gave him supernatural speed. He hefted his enlarged blade in his hand. It did not seem an adequate weapon.

He attuned his communication ring to Brennus.

Where are Yder and Sakkors?

The answer came immediately.

Close.

Rivalen searched the sky in the direction of Selgaunt Bay but saw nothing other than smoke from the burning buildings in the city and rock dust from the walls.

Tamlin materialized with Variance on the avenue behind the Khyber Gate. The gate rattled on its hinges under an elemental's onslaught. The walls to the right and left of the gate cracked and shook under the fists of the huge creatures.

"Get me back up to the walls!" he said to Variance.

"That is no place for you," she answered.

Men dashed all around him, screaming, shouting. Several had dropped to one knee and fired their crossbows rapidly at the exposed heads of the elementals, which rose above the height of the wall. More of the men from the reserve units ran up to the walls, firing crossbows, shouting, adding to the chaos.

Tamlin heard Onthul's voice from somewhere above him on the walls, shouting orders. Lightning bolts and streaks of energy dotted the air as Selgaunt's mages unleashed spells on the elementals. Soldiers atop the walls shot crossbows and swung swords at any part of the elementals within reach.

The creatures shrugged them off and battered the walls, sometimes crushing a man. Bloody spatters stained the walls. Dozens of pulped corpses littered the ground. Cracks ran the length of the walls from top to bottom. Shards of stone rained down.

The elementals' assault on the walls and gate rang in Tamlin's ears. Boom after boom shook the walls, the earth.

"Counterspells only!" Variance shouted. "Cast!"

The priestess held her Sharran holy symbol and intoned the words to a counterspell. Tamlin interlaced his fingers and did the same.

Variance completed her spell. The elemental pounding on the Khyber Gate, fist raised for another blow, bellowed and dissolved into a pile of rock and dirt that showered the ground. Tamlin targeted another elemental and his magic again failed. He was no match for the summoner of the elementals.

"Dark!" he cursed.

Another elemental dissolved under the force of a counterspell. Another. A third, a fourth. Some of the soldiers near him, and those still on the walls, cheered. Tamlin did not know if the Sharrans were countering them or his own mages, and he did not care. From the other side of the wall, he heard Saerloonian horns. They sounded close.

"We need to-"

The ground before him erupted in a rain of cobblestones and dirt, knocking him and Variance to the ground. An elemental rose out of the earth, its body coated in the cobblestones of Selgaunt's own streets, and blotted out the sun. It had dug under the wall.

Men screamed, shouted, ran. Others fired crossbows and charged with their swords. Variance pulled Tamlin to his feet.

Tamlin, unwilling to waste time on another counterspell, incanted the words to the first spell that came to mind. He pointed his hand and discharged a sizzling lightning bolt into the creature. The spell tore a divot in the creature's body, spraying rock and dirt. The elemental took no notice. Variance pulled Tamlin backward, away from the elemental, while she intoned another counterspell.

The elemental bellowed, lowered its shoulder, and charged the wall from the inside. Men scrambled out of its way as best they could. Several moved too slowly and the elemental crushed them underfoot in a spray of gore.

It hit the wall with a sound like thunder. The cracked wall surrendered at last and crumbled under the impact. The creature's momentum carried it through the breached wall. It stumbled on the rubble, bellowed, fell.

Variance completed her counterspell and the elemental crumbled into mud among the rubble of the wall. At almost the same moment, counterspells destroyed the remaining two earth elementals.

But it was all too late. The wall was breached.

Horns sounded from the field outside. The Saerloonians had an open road into the city.

"They are coming!" someone shouted.

Onthul's voice boomed over the burgeoning chaos. He stood his ground near the breach in the wall. "Gather here, before the breach! Tight formation! Hold here!"

Horns blared. Men ran through the dust-choked air. The cries of the wounded and dying sounded from all around. Tamlin had no idea how many men he still had under his command.

The Saerloonian horns blew another blast.

They were coming.

Abelar returned to consciousness, slouched over Firstlight's saddle. His head ached but it paled beside the ache in his soul. Regg gripped him tightly and prevented him from falling off the horse.

Swiftdawn trotted beside him, riderless. She saw his open eyes and whinnied a greeting. Abelar did not respond. The rest of his company thundered around him. He felt no anger. Regg had done the right thing. He felt only loss.

"You are awake?" Regg said tentatively.

Abelar nodded once.

"I am sorry, Abelar. I hope you know that."

Abelar nodded again and watched the grass streak by, and watered it with his tears.

His god had failed him.

And Abelar had failed his son.