“We have to help you now. You do not need hostages. Let them go.”
Another tremor shook the temple. The far wall cracked, crumbled, collapsed.
“Let them go,” Cale said again.
Rivalen eyed him, nodded, and specters poured in through the walls, the collapsed dome, all of them with arms outstretched, their translucent faces twisted by desperation.
Cale understood their language and read their lips.
Help us, they said, but the words only came out as moans.
“I cannot,” Cale said. They were dead, along with their world.
Rivalen grabbed the chalice, whispered a word, and it vanished into his palm. He reached out and started to pull the shadows around them.
Above, another tremor shook the temple and the image of Shar in the dome broke loose, fell intact toward the floor, toward Cale. She would crush him, them.
The darkness grew deep and Cale felt the lurch of movement between worlds.
They materialized in the depths of the Shadowstorm, on the shore of Lake Veladon.
The storm bore down on the refugees. Abelar decided to take it as truth that Regg and the company had slowed it, that their sacrifice had given it pause. He stared at the darkness a long while, tried to pierce its veil through sheer force of will. He sought any sign of his company—a flash of light, the distant clarion of Trewe’s trumpet—but he saw only the storm, heard only the rain and thunder.
A peculiar feeling had hold of him. He felt unsettled, foreign to himself, as if someone else were living through his body. He had never before stood idle when darkness threatened.
But he had no choice. Elden’s safety was his foremost concern.
“I must live with myself.”
The roll of thunder mocked his claim.
He turned and looked south toward the Stonebridge. Sakkors hovered in the air, dark, foreboding, only partially visible through the rain and shadows. Large, winged creatures flew in threes and fours in the shadow-shrouded air around the city, their Shadovar riders leaning over their saddles to eye the land below for any refugees who might try to cross the river or sneak across the bridge.
None would. The refugees huddled in their wagons, carts, and tents, awaiting their fates. Lightning bolts lit the sky and the relentless, hungry thunder of the storm hammered at the camp, eroded the refugees’ spirits.
Abelar left off his self pity and walked among the refugees, peeked into tents, into carts, and offered words of encouragement. Again and again he saw the beginnings of surrender in their tired eyes. They did not have much time and they knew it. Fear polluted the air. They exhaled it with every breath.
“Darkness behind and darkness before,” said an elderly woman shivering in a wool blanket in the rear of a wagon. Fever and fear had turned her pale. “What will we do, Abelar?”
“Endure,” Abelar answered. They could do nothing else, at least for the moment. The word became the spell he incanted to all of them, though he knew it held no magic.
“Endure. Dawn follows night. Endure.”
When he had no more to give the refugees, he slogged through the mud and rain to the covered wagon in which his father and son sheltered. He found Endren standing outside, braving the rain to eye the storm. Endren’s weathercloak billowed in the wind. His moustache and beard drooped from the wet but Abelar saw no sag in his shoulders, no want in his spirit.
“Elden is asleep,” Endren said, seeing Abelar approach and anticipating his question.
“How’s he holding up?” Abelar asked.
“He’s wearing thin.”
“So are all the people,” Abelar said. “This sky drains hope.”
“Aye,” Endren said. “How are you holding up?”
Abelar smiled wanly. “I am wearing thin, too. But I still have hope.”
“As do I,” Endren said, and put a comforting hand on Abelar’s shoulder.
Together, father and son watched the lightning, the boiling black clouds. From a wagon nearby, audible in the small gaps between thunder, Abelar heard a woman’s sobs. He did nothing because there was nothing he could do.
“The storm has slowed,” he said to Endren.
“But not stopped.”
“No, not stopped. I have no word from Erevis Cale.”
“We have hours,” Endren said.
“Perhaps not that long.”
Lightning lit up the storm.
Endren turned to face him. “What will you do if the situation does not change?”
“I will mount the people double and triple on the company’s horses and attempt to cross the river.”
“The river is too fast for horse or man to swim.”
Abelar nodded. “We will charge the bridge. I will lead it.”