Velathalar turned and gave Storm an "I told you so" look that was so clear and comical that Rune found herself giggling.

Despite more mercenaries than she could count mounting the last corpse-strewn slope with bills and glaives and spears ready in their hands that even now were being lowered to menace her.

"My honor," Storm told the elf, before Velathalar could begin a reply, "comes from staying alive to win more of it, in days and months and years ahead. You do all Tel'Quess more service if you live to fight and defend beyond the next few minutes. If you're fighting for grass and trees, why these, just here, in particular? Once you're dead, you'll never again be able to defend any of them."

The bard hadn't raised her voice, but her hair was stirring around her shoulders, and her words carried to every elf along the ridge. Magic or Weave work. And most of the elves pulled back a few strides to open ground.

"They're here," Arclath said warningly, as he backed carefully to join them, Rune at his side and Velathalar guarding his other flank.

The angry elf looked at Storm, and Storm gave her a sunny smile in return.

About then the elf realized the two of them now stood alone, a good three or four paces ahead of all the other defenders. She grimaced, sighed, then turned and retreated with more haste than grace. Storm stood behind her, guarding her back all the way-as the mercenaries reached the end of where they'd dared to clear bodies aside, and broke into a stumbling charge across the heaped and slippery bodies, with ragged yells that mingled into a general rising roar.

And the din of battle broke out again, metal clanging on metal, laced with screams and grunts and yells. Storm's tresses thrust forward like tentacles, wielding hand axes and daggers and at least one stolen mercenary spear, and the elves of Myth Drannor fought alongside her with a lithe agility that Arclath had already learned he had to keep from watching, lest he be fascinated for an instant too long and pay for his distraction with his life. The elves were skilled and fighting for their home-but they were also weary from days of fighting. No matter how many mercenaries they slew, the motley human hireswords just kept coming, in a great sea of helms and shields and breastplates, flooding through the trees in a flow beyond counting, a surge of bodies trampling their own fallen that forced the outnumbered defenders slowly back, and back again, and then into a hasty hacking scramble along the ridge to keep from being cut off and buried in thrusting enemy blades, and ...

"Fall back!" Velathalar shouted, too beset by attackers to snatch at his horn. "Sound the retreat!"

High, fluting horns promptly did just that from behind the foremost elves, then larger and more distant horns took up the blaring call.

Storm's hair curled around three throats from behind, and snatched that trio of Velathalar's attackers off their feet; he used the respite to swiftly slash the other two and clamber up a heap of dying men he'd helped to build, to bellow, "Back, and rally!"

He shouted it twice, and by some magic of Storm's, his second shout rolled through the trees like thunder. A glowing banner promptly unfurled atop a rise to the east, as a rallying point-but out of the trees beyond the mercenaries came a black, howling cone of biting jaws and raking claws, pouring through the air just above gleaming, bobbing mercenary helms to pounce on the banner.

The rise became briefly a dark cloud of swirling death and tatters of banner, but then the air turned bright, and the claws and jaws were beaten back, fading to nothingness.

Storm's face, as she fought, turned grim.

The city wards should have stopped that Shadovar spell; it shouldn't have taken a counterspell from an elf in the fray.

The inevitable end was coming much faster than she'd feared. Hereabouts, in this particular battle, perhaps in her next panting handful of breaths. Despite all the reinforcements Fflar had sent.

Elves who could not be spared, so if they fell here ...

And in the end, she must do her utmost to preserve Amarune, and take her far from this, no matter what else happened or who fell.

She thought all of this without one moment of hesitation in her deadly dance of ducking, twisting, lunging, and leaping, sharp blades of steel thrusting and slashing at her constantly, many blows so heavy that sparks flew at every parry. She slew mercenaries with the same brutal ruthlessness they were trying to use on her, and they were falling in their dozens and scores, shoved onto the blades of those behind them, kicked to make them fall and trip their fellows, stunned from above by branches groaningly spell-bent for a moment, and beset by hails of fallen weapons flung in their faces by Storm's tireless tresses. This was to the death, with no parleys nor ransoms, no chivalrous agreements for breathers or chances to retrieve the wounded or the dead.

Mercenaries were dying at a sickening rate-yet elves were falling fast too, and soon there'd be too few to hold any ground here at all, and the battle would be into the city streets and flying bridges, catwalks and room after splendid room of the homes and mansions that- "Arclath!"

That anguished shriek nigh deafened Storm, and she whirled with her heart sinking, afraid that whatever had befallen Lord Delcastle, whom she had come to love and respect, would drive his beloved so mad with grief that she'd run right onto mercenary steel uncaring, or not seeing her peril at all.

And saw Arclath staggering back with a blade through his neck, the snarling mercenary who'd driven it there already dying, his fierce snarl sagging into bulging-eyed and agonized disbelief as a furious woman had leaped on him, her thighs now wrapped around his shoulders-and one of her daggers hilt deep in his nearest ear, her other dagger slashing at the man's sword arm as if its blade could slice right through plate armor if it just struck often and hard enough.

Rune was going to overbalance, her weight dragging herself and the mercenary she was riding down, down atop the already dead and dying underfoot, and there were three mercenaries with well-used swords already lurching forward, ready to hack and stab ...

Storm sprang to meet them, slashing viciously at faces and putting her shoulder into the chest of the first one, to topple him back into others and win space enough for Rune to come crashing down atop her mercenary without getting impaled on a reaching blade.

Storm sent her hair lashing out in all directions, to blind and to ensnare sword wrists and to tug at ankles and elbows, heedless of the pain as some of her hair was torn out by the roots.

Rune was down, crashing atop the mercenary she'd slain, his sword in Arclath and his dagger flying free into the air, and Storm sprang over her and landed on her toes right in front of the mercenaries she'd wounded and sent falling. She spent a precious spell to whirl up a dozen fallen weapons into a clanging, darting wall of slashing steel to keep back the mercenaries coming up behind those she'd felled, and spun around to try to get to Arclath.

Rune was there first, of course, sobbing and crying his name and trying to hold her man up-but stumbling helplessly to the ground with him. Or rather, thudding down onto the heaped bodies of the dead and dying. Storm shouldered her aside, to corral Arclath's head in one hand, and kiss him long and hard on his blood-drooling mouth.

As she brutally tore the sword out of his neck.

"What're you do-"

Rune stopped in midshriek as she saw silver fire leaking from around their joined lips.

Storm was holding Arclath up, kneeling over him, and in her strong but shaking arms Amarune saw her man writhe and stiffen. His eyes flared, momentarily becoming two silver flames.

Then he shuddered, arched-and fell back out of Storm's embrace, shaking his head and moaning like a bewildered child in pain. His eyes were his own again, but trailing smoke as they wept blood, his face clenched in racking agony.

Yet there was no blood welling out of his mouth anymore, and the great wound in his neck was-gone.

And Storm was getting to her feet with her face drawn and old, swaying and staggering, and throwing up her hands in a desperate magic that flung scores of weapons up into the air from the dead all around and whirled them at the mercenaries surging forward.

Screams and wet gurglings rent the air as the front ranks of the besiegers collapsed into wild butchery, blood spraying in all directions, as Storm turned grimly to Arclath, who was once more in Rune's fierce embrace, and said grimly, "It's past time that the two of you went into hiding-and stayed there."

"And leave you to die here? Leave Myth Drannor to fall?"

"Are we going to argue this?" Storm hissed fiercely, glaring at them both for just a moment before she found it prudent to whirl around and glare at the nearest mercenaries-those creeping around the edges of her spell to try to reach them.

"Y-yes," Rune managed, matching her glare for glare. "Don't think I'm ungrateful-"

"Oh, I don't," Storm replied, trading two swift parries with a mountain of a mercenary before dispatching him with a leaping thrust up through his mouth into his brain. "I think you're being stupid. Just as I was stupid to bring you here."

She spun around and slashed another mercenary across his eyes, letting the force of her swing bring her back around to face them-and another mercenary, who stumbled back in alarm at her speed. "A mistake-"

She sprang to meet that stumbling mercenary, and at the last instant sidestepped and surprised the one beside him with a thrust through the man's leather-gloved sword hand. He shrieked, she twisted her steel free and fed it back to the stumbling man-right through his neck, just as Arclath had been wounded, something he winced at the sight of-and turned to add, "-I'll now-"

She spun around again, to strike aside a hurled spear, then pluck up a fallen mercenary with her hair and fling him at the ankles of a trio of advancing besiegers, forcing them into cursing falls, and added over her shoulder, "-rectify."

And without any warning at all she spun around again with her arms spread, and gathered Arclath and Amarune into a fierce hug.

Which became a tingling shroud of silver-blue fire, magic that snarled up into a rushing wind that flung all three of them aloft, soaring up in a great arc that tore through leaves and small branches to hurtle up into the sky, far above the countless helms and shoulders of the mercenary army below.

And on through air that was surprisingly chilly, high and far before it started to descend, the huge trunk of a gigantic shadowtop looming up to meet them- Storm hissed something that snatched all three of them abruptly aside, to the left, to miss crashing into that huge tree.

Instead, they smashed into the bough of another tree with enough force to wind and daze all three of them, and break Storm's hug-so the three of them tumbled on through a bruising, buffeting, deafening chicane of torn and whirling leaves, shattering twigs, and dancing branches, plummeting down, down, and- Through a tangle of vines and snapping, collapsing dead trees those vines had strangled, to crash at last to earth.

Or rather, several soft and mushy feet of dead leaves, to rebound out of muck that had a decidedly skunky smell, and roll to a painful stop in a thorn bush.

It was quite some time before Arclath had breath enough to groan. He rolled over, still moaning, and grunted, "Rune? Rune?"

"I'm fine," his beloved replied sourly. "More or less."

Arclath peered rather blearily in the direction Amarune's voice was coming from, and beheld a wincing Storm rolling over to her knees, his Rune tangled in the bard's long silver hair-and sliding off her back.

"While I," the bard informed Arclath gingerly, "have been better. Thank you for asking."

She got to her feet with a wince and a hiss of pain, her tresses setting Amarune upright with gentle care, and peered all around.

Distant mercenaries shouted, and they heard crashing as heavy-booted men hurried closer.

"Time," Storm announced, "to fly." And she reached out and hugged them again.

"Not like last time, I hope," Arclath managed, as magic swept them aloft again.

"No," Storm agreed firmly. "A moment ago I was making us all look like a catapult load, because some of yon hireswords will be itching to use the bows, which Myth Drannor's wards have been foiling, on something. This time, we'll be flying properly-with about as much control as a heavy, ungainly bird."

An arrow shivered off the nearby spreading branches of a duskwood, and Storm sighed and announced, "Change of plan. If arrows can fly, we're far enough from the wards to translocate."

"Translocate?" Arclath asked suspiciously.

"Teleport," Storm informed him-and blue light rose like a mist all around them, and fell over them like a cloak in the next instant.

Then they were falling through a soft blue void, all sounds of the forest gone, and ... standing on a flagstone floor.

"My kitchen," Storm announced. "In my farmhouse, in Shadowdale."

Arclath and Amarune looked at each other, then with one accord started slowly turning as they gazed all around.

They were in a low-raftered room with fieldstone walls and wooden countertops inset with marble tiles and sinks, furnished in sturdy stools and thick plank-topped tables. Diamond-paned windows looked out into a choked garden, overhung with trees so that dappled sunlight lanced down through them to the flagstones.

"What a beautiful place," Rune said aloud.

"Good," Storm agreed briskly, "then you won't mind tarrying here a bit. Without me."

Arclath gave her a frown. "While you-?"

Storm held up one hand to silence him, and with the other reached to a nearby pillar-and tore it open, a concealed panel swinging open. She plucked out a tiny metal box that was tarnished black with age, flipped it open-and the room flooded with almost blinding light.

Wincing, Amarune tried to peer past it. She saw Storm's long fingers silhouetted against that brilliance for a moment as the bard plucked whatever was glowing so brightly up out of the box and into her mouth.

And then the light was gone, and Storm turned toward them a face that was young and unlined again. As she opened her mouth to speak, an echo of the blinding radiance winked inside her, just for a moment.

Rune gaped. What had she just seen? It looked like Storm had swallowed a tiny star. Some sort of ancient healing magic, or a spark of silver fire, or-?

"Later," Storm told her with a wry smile, "when the time is right. Full explanations, I promise."

"But-" Arclath started to protest.

She waved a flamboyant arm at him like a furious high priestess silencing a blasphemer.

"Later," she repeated sternly, and added, "Now stay here," she said, that order afire with a fierceness born of new vigor, then turned to Amarune, seeming somehow taller. Stronger. Renewed.

"If El and I and the rest fall," she said, "you are the future-the last Chosen of Mystra. She'll need you desperately. So stay. Please. The future of the Realms may depend on your obedience."

She spun to face Arclath, and commanded him as imperiously if she was the Queen of Cormyr. "See to it that she stays here-and defend her with your life."

"Lady," he replied, "that's not something you ever need to order me to do."

As he uttered the last two words, Arclath found that he was speaking to empty air.

Storm had whirled away from him to pluck a stone out of the nearest wall to reveal a niche, plucked a glowing blade from out of hiding there, blown them a kiss, and-winked into nothingness.

Arclath looked at the revealed niche, then looked away.

And then, as sudden silence stretched and deepened, and Amarune regarded him with a knowing smile, found he couldn't resist going to see what else might be hidden within it.

CHAPTER 13.

So Suddenly Swept Away

THERE WAS A LOUD CLATTER AS MATTICK'S SCABBARD RAPPED against the door of the audience chamber of Thultanthar in his breathless haste.

Then he and his twin, Vattick, had burst through the doors and were sprinting across the room to where the High Prince of Thultanthar stood addressing a half moon of nine silently standing, dark-robed men. Arcanists. Their brother Aglarel stood like a watchful stone statue behind their father, hand on sword, as he watched their undignified arrival.

Then Telamont Tanthul turned to regard them, and his face was as friendly as frost-touched iron.

"W-we came as quickly as we could, Most High," Mattick gasped. Vattick was too winded to manage words, and could only nod.

"Was personally inspecting the den of dalliance established by your nieces Manarlume and Lelavdra so important, at this precise time?" Telamont asked coldly. "I would remind you that we are at war." He turned back to the arcanists, and added over his shoulder, "And before you protest that we're always at war, be advised that such an observation would be most unwise. At least you remembered your swords."

Telamont surveyed the carefully expressionless arcanists, and so did his twin sons.

Who saw that all nine were wearing identical crystal pendants- before their father leveled an imperious finger at one.

A thin line of ruby fire sped from his fingertip to strike that arcanist's crystal. It pulsed once, and then the fiery beam was gone and racing fire curled in swift loops within the stone-only to leap across the room and stab at the uppermost glass globe of the tammaneth rod. Its dark glass flared, and a moment later red fire whirled within it.

Mattick looked back at the arcanist's pendant. It was dark and clear once more; the fire that had visited it so fleetingly was gone. His father had already repeated the process with the next arcanist, and was starting on the third. Mattick noticed that the fire streaking from each pendant went to a different sphere of the rod than the previous one, but otherwise ... he shrugged. Father's magic had always been well beyond him. He was happier with a blade in his hand, anyway, magic relegated to useful service such as keeping off the rain.

Eight, nine ... the last arcanist's pendant had relinquished its fire to the rod. When he saw that, the Most High turned to his sons, satisfaction clear on his face.

"Our forces continue to advance through Myth Drannor, taking more and more of the city," he told them, "and letting us reach increasing numbers of elven burial crypts. You will accompany these loyal Shadovar, and protect them as they destroy guardian baelnorn, then seize and drain the magic of crypt after crypt. Guard these two"-he lifted a languid hand to point-"above the rest, for they know where most of the crypts are. Slaughter any disloyal and disobedient among them without hesitation."