but intact for the moment. The moans of despair turned to wails of frustration.
Riven moved to the edge of the barrier and peered through the darkness, through the specters. Only the veil of Cale and Rivalen’s power separated the assassin from hundreds of undead. The specters, driven mad by the proximity of their prey, scrabbled against the hemisphere, moaning desperately.
“I see it.” Riven gave a start, went pale. “Dark, Cale. The world is disappearing behind it.”
Again the ground shook under their feet. Cale had no time to ponder Riven’s words. “We’re out of time. We use the shadows. I will take us. Rivalen, hold as long as you can. I need only a moment.”
Shadows churned around Rivalen but he nodded. Darkness poured from his holy symbol, supporting the shrinking hemisphere.
Cale ceased lending his power to the support of the barrier. The release elicited a strained grunt from Rivalen. The hemisphere shrank in on them. The specters pounded against it like mad things.
Cale peered through them, looked in the direction Riven had indicated.
He saw it in a depression below them—a temple.
The whole of it was composed of smoky quartz streaked with veins of black. A dome capped the structure. Spires stood at each corner, just more bones of the dead jutting from Ephyras’s dust. Long threads of shadow weaved in an out of columns, arched windows, statues. Closed double doors faced toward them. Cale was surprised to see the temple intact. The fact that it stood whole on an otherwise dead world struck him as somehow obscene. Magic—or something else—must have preserved it.
Beyond it, he saw what Riven had seen. The earth fell away. A black hole several bowshots in diameter yawned in the earth, a void in the world. The ground immediately around the hole slowly turned, like the flow of water around the edge of a maelstrom. It cracked, crumbled, sent up a cloud of dust, collapsed into the hole that was eating the world. It was getting larger as it fed.
He wondered if there were other such holes on Ephyras, other voids devouring the world.
“Transport us!” shouted Rivalen.
Cale pulled his eyes from the hole and drew the darkness about them. For a moment, he considered leaving Rivalen behind. He looked back, met Rivalen’s gaze, and saw in the Shadovar’s golden eyes that he realized what Cale was thinking. Cale saw no fear there.
Cale included Rivalen in the shadows he gathered. They would need him to defeat Kesson Rel. The darkness deepened around them as Rivalen shouted, fell, and the sphere collapsed entirely. The specters swarmed them, arms outstretched. Their touch reached through armor and flesh, cooled bones, slowed hearts, stole life. They filled the air, turned the already cold breeze frigid.
Cale held his focus in the midst of the chaos and rode the shadows to the temple, Riven and Rivalen in tow.
Regg mounted Firstlight so that his company could more easily see him. She remained calm despite the rain, thunder, and the onrushing Shadowstorm. Regg turned his back to the darkness to face his company, knowing as he looked upon them that all of them would die in the darkness and some would rise again as shadows. In the distance, Sakkors hovered in its cloak of ink.
Regg did not shout. He did not draw his blade. He spoke only loud enough to be heard over the rain. As he spoke, Roen and the priests moved from soldier to soldier, using spells and wands of pale birch to ward the men and women against the life draining power of the Shadowstorm. A flash of soft rose-hued light denoted the wards taking effect.
“Turn and look,” Regg said to his company. “See the men and women and children you are bound to protect.”
As one they turned, looked down on the Saerbian refugees huddled in their wagons and blankets against wind and rain, against evil and darkness.
“That is why we fight,” Regg said. “They need time. It is their only hope. We must give it to them.”
He patted Firstlight’s neck and dismounted.
“Go,” he told her, and swatted her flank. “Bear someone to safety.”
She nuzzled him then trotted off to rejoin the rest of the company’s horses.
Regg nodded at Trewe and the young soldier sounded his horn to signal the march. Heads emerged from wagons, tents, and carts. Hope animated the gazes of the refugees, though fear lurked behind it. Shouts carried over the rain—well-wishes. A small boy stood at the back of his cart, soaked by the rain, one hand in a