“Down to whatever hell will take you!” Regg shouted. He brandished his shield, showed them the rose of Lathander, and let some of his soul move through him and into the rose.
A wedge of rose-colored light flared from the shield, vaporizing the three shadows attacking Trewe. A backhand crosscut slew another shadow and he grabbed Trewe with his shield arm, pulled him to his feet, and let healing energy flow into the young warrior.
“Well enough?” Regg asked.
“Well enough,” Trewe answered.
Both men turned and eyed the horde of shadows that filled the air so thickly it was nearly impossible to separate one of the creatures from another. Black bodies clotted the sky, made the air impenetrable. Hundreds of them veered high to engage Abelar and his dragon. Regg didn’t stop to consider how Abelar might have bent a shadow dragon to his service. He didn’t care. He cared only that his friend fought with them. They couldn’t hope to hold for long, but they would hold as long as they could and hope their sacrifice meant something for the Saerbians.
“Keep us in light, Roen!” he shouted, and slashed another shadow. “Hold this ground, men and women of Lathander!”
Riven fell to his knees, his head thrown back in a scream. The sky seemed to echo his agony with booms of thunder and flares of lightning.
Cale knew what Riven was feeling, the emptiness that accompanied revelation. He knelt beside the assassin, let his shadows cloak him, comfort him.
Rivalen watched them both intently, golden eyes alight, the Black Chalice already recovered from where Riven had dropped it and returned to the extra-dimensional space in which the Shadovar stored it.
“It will pass,” Cale said to Riven. “It will pass.”
Riven gritted his teeth, hugged himself, writhed, and screamed again.
After a time the screams ended. He drew a shuddering breath and let Cale pull him to his feet. His good eye regained focus. He doubled over, vomited. When he was done, he looked up at Cale.
“It’s that simple? It’s been there all along?”
Cale nodded. “That simple.”
They stared at one another for a long moment.
Both knew that one of them, at least, must die. Both if they failed to kill Kesson Rel.
“We need to know where he is,” Cale said over his shoulder to Rivalen. “Now.”
The shadows around Rivalen swirled. He cocked his head, consulting his brother through some unseen magical means.
“Kesson Rel is not in Ordulin,” Rivalen said, his tone mildly surprised.
“Then where in the Nine Hells is he?” Cale said.
Brennus communicated Kesson Rel’s location to his brother then cut off the connection. He closed his hand around his mother’s necklace and placed it in his pocket, where he would keep it forever.
He couldn’t murder his brother. Murder itself didn’t trouble him, but murdering his brother did. The consequences were too great.
If he betrayed Rivalen, his father would kill him. His other brothers would wonder what had happened, would eventually learn of it. Sides would be chosen and his family would splinter. The revived Empire of Netheril would die stillborn.
He couldn’t do that to his family, to his people. He would bear the knowledge of Rivalen’s deed alone, just as he would bear his mother’s necklace.
But he would not do nothing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
6 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms
Abelar gripped the makeshift harness and steadied himself atop Furlinstasis’s back. Shadows poured from the dragon’s purple and black scales. A cloud of ink stained the air around them and left a path of smeared black in their wake. The rain felt like sling bullets against his exposed face. The roar of the wind filled his ears, pierced only by the keening of the undead.
Living shadows thronged the air, swirled around him, a colony of red-eyed bats on the wing. They swooped and dived at him and the dragon. Furlinastis wheeled, pulled up, bit at the undead within reach of his jaws. His teeth closed on three of the creatures and they boiled away into oblivion. His claws shredded several more into gossamer ribbons carried off in the wind.
Holding the rope harness with one hand, Abelar tried to anticipate the dragon’s movements while he slashed and stabbed with his enchanted blade. A shadow darted in from his right, arms outstretched, and his blade tore through the space between its head and body. Its red eyes winked out as Furlinastis beat his wings rapidly and wheeled right to avoid a throng of the undead. A shadow swooped in and passed a hand through Abelar’s chest. His heart rebelled, constricted. Cold