Victory Of The Hawk Part 7

Then her teacher's power spun in the opposite direction, back the way it had come and then farther still. Past the central gathering hall and its trees of living wood and sculpted stone, past the stable cavern, and out to where sunlight shone down on trees and cliffs and graveled earth, where Faans.h.i.+ had never consciously ventured. This was the land inside the bounds of the Wards. Borne along by Kirinil's awareness, she sensed the terrain by the shape of the Wards he'd woven on it. Every branch and rock and blade of gra.s.s caused a ripple in the s.h.i.+elding magic-and so did every creature it touched. Birds. Beasts. And, as each one kindled a spark at the edge of Faans.h.i.+'s thoughts until she seemed to float in the heart of a sea of stars, the minds of humans and elves.

Deep within Dolmerrath, Faans.h.i.+ couldn't tell them apart at first, not until Kirinil poured greater power into the layers of older s.h.i.+elding on the land. Only then did she feel the Wards swirling in irresistible currents toward certain ones of those distant minds. The sea of stars became a thunderstorm, and each gathering pulse of the magic a lightning bolt.

Even as she sent her own magic in an unstinting flood into her teacher's form, Faans.h.i.+ realized that the lightning bolts of the Wards would strike friend as well as foe.

Rab. Semai. Lady Ganniwer. Celoren. Kestar. Julian.

They wouldn't be able to fight for Dolmerrath if the Wards drove them away.

She had no time to beg Alarrah or Kirinil for guidance, and no thought to spare for speech besides. Nor, if the power the two elves were raising was any sign, could they spare an instant to speak to her. There was but one option before her, and without hesitation, Faans.h.i.+ took it. The link she'd formed with Kestar when she'd healed him had not in truth been sundered, merely muted as the two of them learned to build s.h.i.+elds around their minds. She'd been able to touch his mind since, for out of all the people she'd ever healed, Kestar alone had elven blood.

By Djashtet's grace, she had to reach him again now.

Her body still stood at Kirinil's side, and on one level she could feel it breathing now in unison with her teacher's. Her heartbeat had fallen into the rhythm of his, and she could even feel the press of the chair against his back and the pressure of her own hands on his shoulders. It was almost like the bond she'd shared with Kestar, which should have scared her. All that kept the connection from doing exactly that was a veil of detachment across her senses, letting her keep a fragment of herself apart, a single cloud in the midst of the tempest the elf was unleas.h.i.+ng. Thus she couldn't tell whether she shouted aloud or within the confines of her mind, nor could she truly see the faces of those the tempest struck. But she remembered where she'd appeared when she'd spoken to Kestar in their dreams-a high mountain meadow she knew only because he'd loved it as a boy, and which lived in the center of his being now, just as her hearth lived in hers.

She could see her hearth in her mind's eye. Her mind's hand was stretched forth into its golden fire, giving it a path to travel up and out to Kirinil. But she could see the meadow too, ringed in conifers, with sunlight smiling down on the wildflowers.

With all her mind's strength, she called out toward that meadow.

Kestar!

Kestar and Celoren had been born too late to fight in the war with Tantiulo, as had most of the other Hawks in active service. But that had never stopped the Order from training its cadets in the skills of soldiers, for their teachers had fought in the war-and they always swore that any Hawk worthy of the name should be prepared to fight in defense of the Anreulag, the Church and the Crown. Some part of Kestar had always wondered if he'd ever be called on to use that training in more than just occasional hand-to-hand combat.

Yet he'd never thought he'd be lifting his sword against his own Order.

Not surprisingly, the elves of Dolmerrath didn't want the humans on the front line of their defense, for that would put them far too close to the Wards. Neither did the elves leave the humans alone. The scouts rode out in the first wave, led by Jannyn and Tembriel, but many more elves stayed nearer to Dolmerrath to prepare a second line with the humans, once word spread that the boats had escaped out into the open waters of the ocean. Gerren himself took charge of those who remained behind, organizing them by who could fight with what weapons-bows, muskets and blades-and then sending small groups scattering in different directions through the caverns. To Kestar's relief, Celoren and the others who'd come with him from Shalridan stuck close to him, and no one saw fit to separate them.

But to his surprise, Gerren elected to join them where they'd gathered in the stable cavern. With him came two other elves, the oldest Kestar had ever seen in his life. One was male, with liberal streaks of gray in his hair and the beginnings of weathering in his otherwise ageless visage. The other was female, with hair gone completely white, and a face that bore plentiful wrinkles despite her visibly pointed ears.

"Talnor and Gyllerah are my guards, and they're not about to let me out of their sight," Gerren announced without preamble. "And as I'm not about to let any of you out of mine, I'll have to trust we can all work together. Follow me now, if you would."

He gestured toward one of the ways out of the cavern Kestar hadn't yet explored, but before any of them could do as he asked, Julian spoke up. "You're a fine one to speak of trust if you can't see fit to take your eyes off us." His voice wasn't cold, but there was challenge in his stare, and expectation in those of Rab and Semai and Ganniwer.

Gerren didn't flinch. "It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of communication. I've sent Faans.h.i.+ to work with Alarrah and Kirinil to strengthen the Wards. I expected that all of you would wish to stay together, and that you'd wish to know immediately if anything happened to her, and likewise, that she'd wish to know any news of you." His gaze tracked from face to face, not lingering long on any, save Julian himself. "Am I mistaken?"

Kestar eyed the Rook as well, cognizant of how the other man had been looking at Faans.h.i.+, and how the healer had been looking at him in return. Julian shot him an answering glance, but before either of them could speak, Ganniwer stepped forward. She bore a quiver of arrows along with her borrowed bow, and she'd never looked more of a baroness, especially when she replied, "Of course not, and we appreciate your concern for us and for Faans.h.i.+. If you and your guards will guide us to where you wish us to be, our weapons are yours."

"Djashtet's will for us all remains clear," Semai agreed. "I will fight in Her name, but all of us will fight in yours."

Behind Kestar, Celoren put in blandly, "I can't speak for the cloud-head, but I for one am rather piqued that the Order's seen fit to chase us all the way here. They're interrupting our holiday."

"I certainly see no other option than to go out and express our displeasure at such barefaced effrontery," Rab said, equally deadpan. To Celoren, he added, "I trust you won't look askance if I chastise a few of these intruders on your behalf?"

"Not at all. Just try to remember to point your knives at them, won't you?"

Julian smirked at both of the younger men, enough of a glimmer of better humor that Kestar thought he might just be able to find something to like about the a.s.sa.s.sin after all; for Faans.h.i.+'s sake, at least, it seemed as if he should. And when Julian gave him the slightest of nods, Kestar said at last to Gerren, "My mother speaks for all of us, steward. Take us to where we need to be."

"Then come."

Dolmerrath's steward led them up a staircase winding through the very rock, and for the first time Kestar saw what the last free holding of the elves in Adalonia looked like on the side that faced southward to the woods. They emerged into a long, narrow bunker of stone, with nothing in it save locked wooden chests. One of these proved, when Gerren produced a key and opened it, to contain powder and shot for muskets, and arrows wrapped in oilcloth. There were muskets in the second, and a crossbow and quarrels in the third. The others quickly divided the weaponry between them.

His attention went out through the narrow windows set all along the bunker's south wall, slits through which rounds or arrows could be fired. In the distance he could see the northern edge of the woods that led up to the cliffs. Between the line of trees and their vantage point was open terrain dotted with rocky outcroppings and short, wiry shrubs shaped by ocean winds. The ground didn't run even-their bunker was set into a short rise, one of the last before the ridge sloped downward to the sea.

They could see the distant trees, and they were close enough to the edge of the woods that all three elves scowled off into the distance. Kestar's eyes weren't as good as theirs, but nonetheless he could see flashes of motion among the trees, swiftly moving shapes that could be nothing but mounted riders weaving through the edges of the forest. Occasional bright bursts of light marked the position of the one Dolmerrath scout who was unmistakable even from a distance-Tembriel, unleas.h.i.+ng her fire magic along with her arrows. But there were other lights too, lights Kestar recognized immediately as blazing amulets worn by Knights of the Hawk, each and every one of them reacting to the presence of elven blood and elven power.

"They're fighting," Gyllerah barked, before she cast a sharp glance at the humans around her. She looked almost envious, and primed to bolt out to join her comrades at the slightest provocation. "Can you hear them?"

What the others might have answered, Kestar never knew. Neither did he notice if he offered an answer of his own, for all at once the world vanished from before his eyes.

A ma.s.sive bolt of lightning lanced down from the heavens, searing everything in its path. Trees burst into flames. The charred husks of birds, wings burned to ash, fell from the sky to litter the ground below. Right on the heels of the lightning came the thunder, a great rattling crack of it that shook bones within flesh and made the very earth rumble in ominous reply.

The premonition struck and vanished again with such speed that it left him gasping. Someone grabbed his shoulder and called his name in alarm, and Kestar reacted without thought, whirling to tackle his mother and throw her to the stone floor beneath their feet.

"Everyone get down!"

There was no time to see if the others complied before lightning struck the cliff in truth, momentarily flooding the daylight with blue-white brilliance. The shock of impact shook the entire ridge, and granules of stone and earth rained down from the ceiling. One particularly large chunk of stone smacked into his shoulder blade, but Kestar ignored the sting of pain along with Ganniwer's yells of protest-at least until he heard Gerren and his two guards all crying out in frantic bursts of their own tongue. Only then did he scramble up from the floor and throw himself toward one of the narrow windows, to see what had just manifested before them all.

He'd seen Her before, in Arlitham Abbey, when a renegade priest had used the Rite of the Calling-a spell that no one but the High Priest of the Church of the Four G.o.ds should have known-to bring Her into their midst. Now, as then, She appeared as an apparition of silver and white. But this time She stood in the midst of a raging surge of power so potent that Kestar could see it even from many yards away. It surrounded Her in shades of eldritch fire, and the force of it rolled northward into the bunker and sent Ganniwer crumpling into Celoren's hasty embrace. Semai snapped his head aside, muttering what sounded like a desperate prayer to his threefold G.o.ddess. Julian and Rab both thrashed as if they'd been physically punched. All the color drained from Julian's face, while his partner choked back what sounded suspiciously like a sob.

"It's the Wards," Gerren shouted. "Kirinil's pouring power into the Wards."

Not just the Wards, Kestar wanted to answer him. But he couldn't tear his gaze away from the sight on the open ground between them and the woods, and he couldn't seem to find the strength to speak.

Then something else rang across his mind, like the peal of a golden bell.

Kestar!

Faans.h.i.+. He latched onto her mental call in desperation, for her contact drove off some of the fear threatening to choke off everything else in his awareness. And only then was he able to hear his mother shouting in a ragged voice, "What in the name of the G.o.ds is happening?"

"She's found us, Mother," Kestar said. "The Anreulag is here."

Chapter Ten.

Dolmerrath, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 10, AC 1876 She appeared on the crest of a ridge beside the ocean, a blessedly open s.p.a.ce filled with light and air and the salt smell of the sea far below. There were trees not far away, tall and towering and undisturbed by the intrusion of human axes, and she might almost have taken pleasure in their presence if she hadn't sensed the tumult of fighting among the greenery. Somewhere nearby, too, was the one with green eyes-for her magic told her what her senses could not, whispering that she'd come to the right place.

Yet magic not her own rose up to meet her as soon as her bare feet touched the earth, a power far younger than her own, and not without its strength. It engulfed her in flame that fought to hold her fast, blocking her way both to the north and to the south, and her fury rose up in reply.

Magic meant one of her own kind, but that didn't matter. No infant mage was going to hinder her path. No one was ever going to hinder her path again.

Giving full shrieking voice to her anger, she reached deep into the cliff with her magic. The living earth replied, filling her blood and her bones with a new wave of power. Her every nerve sang with it. Her fingers and palms burned with it. And in exultation, she lifted her hands high to send fire of her own roaring out into the s.h.i.+elding magic that dared to try to block her way.

Jekke Yerredes had never before ridden in battle, and she'd ridden into this one in panic, afraid that she'd disgrace the G.o.ds and the Anreulag, as well as her captain and all her fellow Hawks. But when her compatriots' voices rose up with her to sing in honor of Saint Merrodrie, for the first time since she'd been ordained into the Order, Jekke felt as though she belonged.

Elves on horseback came galloping into the edge of the woods to meet them, and her world constricted to the narrow, focused needs of the moment. Everything became a blur of dodge and shoot and turn and parry. The fear stalked around the edges of her mind, threatening to rise up again the instant her concentration slipped. Thus Jekke kept singing, every verse of "Merrodrie's Lament," over and over again until her voice began to give out from exertion and she had to gasp for breath between every line. Only when she sang could she beat back the fear and mark her fellow Hawks by the radiance of their amulets. More than one fell to the arrows of their opponents. Others fell to musket rounds, for some of the elves had guns, and it shook Jekke badly to see that the Good Folk of the North had learned the use of human weaponry all too well.

Without warning, the brightest light of all flared up somewhere north of the trees, and both Jekke and the elf she was fighting froze in mid-swing of their swords. A rumble louder and deeper than thunder shook the air and the earth alike, while every amulet in Jekke's line of sight flared into blinding incandescence-then went suddenly dark.

The fear gnawing at her thoughts abruptly vanished, fast enough to leave her dizzy, and she had to cling to her horse's neck to keep from reeling out of the saddle. Yet her horse was now far more agitated than she, and as she fought to keep her seat, she caught sight of an apparition beyond the trees, a vaguely human shape limned in flame.

But those closer to the edge of the trees could see better, and Captain Amarsaed roared, "The Anreulag has come! Ani a bhota Anreulag, arach shae!"

Hope surged through Jekke. If the Voice of the G.o.ds had come, maybe the captain's prediction had been a true one-maybe She would bless their battle after all, and maybe they could restore the realm to Her favor. In jubilation, she took up Captain Amarsaed's call, along with the rest of her compatriots.

"Arach shae! Arach shae! Arach shae!"

Tembriel and her brother Jannyn loved nothing better than to fight humans. There was precious little opportunity to do so, as careful as they always had to be to protect Dolmerrath-and it had galled them that they'd had to resort to hiring human a.s.sa.s.sins to kill the Duke of Shalridan, rather than meeting him on a field of battle themselves. But now that Gerren had sent most of their people in the boats to escape, hopefully all the way to Vreyland or any other land where their kind wouldn't be met with fire and swords, they were free to commit themselves with abandon to the fight.

Jannyn had no fire magic, but what he lacked in magical gifts he made up for in speed and grace. It made Tembriel proud to fight at his side, and the two of them cut a swath through the regiment of Hawks who'd dared invade their woods. The accursed round-ears were singing a hymn in honor of one of the first Hawks, a song she'd heard far too often when she and her brother had been forced to fight in Tantiulo. It offended Tembriel to hear that song sung so close to Dolmerrath, and she took grim pleasure in shooting flaming arrows into the throats of any human who dared utter its words near her-until something roared across her senses, a flare of power far stronger than her fire magic. In horror she whirled her horse around to look to the north.

"No," she heard Jannyn breathe, even over the noises his own frantic mount was making in reaction to the outpouring of power beyond the edge of the trees. "No, no, no-"

Around them the Hawks began to shout, familiar, hated words in a language that humans for the most part had stopped speaking, save when calling down the power of their Church on elven heads. Yet Tembriel could spare no anger for their human enemies, not when all her attention was seized by a far greater threat.

She remembered the last time the Anreulag had appeared before her people, and how the survivors had fled to found Dolmerrath. She remembered the raising of the Wards-and she could feel the straining of the power that fueled them, striving to drive back the vengeful wraith who now filled the air with an outpouring of fire.

As she drove her horse forward to seek a clear shot with her bow, she felt the Wards begin to fall, and she could do nothing but shoot arrow after arrow toward the figure of the Anreulag and pray that she could strike. Her power was meant to burn, not to s.h.i.+eld. She could only pray to the Mother of Stars that it would be enough of a distraction for the Wards-and for the one who'd raised them-to hold.

"Kirinil!"

Faans.h.i.+ wanted to sob with relief when she brushed Kestar's mind, but the power Kirinil had raised was so overwhelming that she could barely think of anything else. Her own magic was beginning to react to the strain in her teacher's body, making her increasingly, urgently aware of how his heart thundered far too swiftly in his chest, how every inch of his skin had become soaked with sweat, and how blinding pain bloomed within the confines of his skull. She could feel Alarrah striving to keep the pain at bay, but her strength was not quite up to the task. Her sister could only dampen Kirinil's pain, not soothe it completely.

Her magic would sustain him-was sustaining him. But Faans.h.i.+ had never done three things with her power at once, and trying it now-reaching out to Kestar, loaning s.h.i.+elding strength to Kirinil, and chasing the agony from his muscles-was kindling pain of her own. There was fear too, for Kirinil was the very heart of the Wards on Dolmerrath, and she was the closest source of human blood in the path of the spell he was working to reinforce. Fear rolled through her, sharpened by her direct contact with him, and for a few agonizing moments it howled across her thoughts.

You know nothing of how to use your magic. Your impure blood shames you in the eyes of Djashtet. The Wards will fall and the Hawks will come and you will not be able to hold back death!

All at once, fear born outside of her rather than within sliced across the screaming of the Wards. In that moment Faans.h.i.+ was certain she heard Kestar bellowing, but to whom, she had no idea. His voice echoed across her mind, an alarm she could not ignore.

Everyone get down!

Magic flared with concussive force, and with it, a physical jolt that shook the entire cavern. It threw Faans.h.i.+ backward from Kirinil and sent her cras.h.i.+ng into a wooden chair that toppled over hard at her impact. Its arm cracked beneath her, but she ignored it along with the dull pain of broken wood jabbing into her flesh. Neither was important, not when she had to scramble back to her feet and fling herself back to her teacher's side. As she staggered back upright, she could barely see. Dizziness threatened to tilt her sideways, while spangles of golden light splashed across her vision-her magic, driving off the pain of her fall. Alarrah also scrambled back up off the floor, horror flaring in her eyes.

In the same instant Faans.h.i.+ realized that the ambient magic in the air was beginning to fade, and worse yet, so was the snarl of protest her healing had raised at the agony in Kirinil's frame. She froze, unable to make sense of how her teacher had crumpled to the floor. How he lay there now, limbs twisted, blood streaming from his nose and his ears. And how he remained unmoving even as Alarrah let out a wail and threw herself down beside him, a glow leaping into life around her hands only to fade the moment after.

Faans.h.i.+ couldn't help but join her, for her magic-and the simple fact that this silver-haired elf had taken her under his guidance and treated her like a trusted kinswoman-demanded nothing less. Yet her magic roiled uncertainly as her hands connected with his flesh. Even as it latched onto broken bones, it skittered and lost its grip on something far more fundamental.

Then Faans.h.i.+ at last recognized what she saw before her, and what she now touched with her own hands. Cold and heat swept through her at the same time, along with revulsion so deep within her blood that she could barely acknowledge it consciously. She'd encountered death before-when Julian had killed a Hawk to defend her, and during the fighting when they'd escaped the cathedral in Shalridan. But this time it was different. This time was the first she'd ever experienced the death of a friend.

This was the first time she could proclaim death her enemy.

It was only a small mercy that Alarrah seemed to realize what had happened at the same time she did, so Faans.h.i.+ didn't have to say the words aloud. He's gone. Much more slowly than she'd kneeled, Alarrah stood up again. Tears streamed down her cheeks, in answer to Faans.h.i.+'s own tears, and in a numb voice the she-elf said, "The Wards are down, enorre. Can you feel it?"

Heavily, Faans.h.i.+ nodded. "Something's happened," she whispered. "I heard Kestar yelling-I touched his mind just before. Something bad enough that Kirinil-" She couldn't finish. She didn't have to. To her knowledge there was but one thing powerful enough to break down the Wards that Kirinil had raised on Dolmerrath.

Cold, stark comprehension dawned in Alarrah's face even as she bit out her words. "Astllemerron, carilan te-Oh, Faans.h.i.+, they're going to need us."

Mother of Stars, help us. Faans.h.i.+ hadn't had time to learn much Elvish yet, but those words at least she knew. As Alarrah reached to grasp Faans.h.i.+'s shoulders she did the same in return, swallowed hard, and prayed to the Lady of Time for courage. Still she couldn't bring herself to move as she cast a tearful glance down at Kirinil's form. "We can't leave him. Surely it would offend your G.o.ds if we-"

Another jolt shook the caverns, sending fragments of stone and dust drifting down on him, and Alarrah shot a fearful glance upward. "There's no time." Her voice cracked, but even so, she tugged Faans.h.i.+ with her toward the nearest entry curtain that led back out into the caves. "If we're right, we can't help him now and the others will need us more. We can't get trapped. Come on!"

They ran then, and Faans.h.i.+ almost outpaced her sister, for while Alarrah had an elf's speed and grace, Faans.h.i.+ had the advantages of youth and magic whose limits had not yet been reached. It distressed Faans.h.i.+ deeply to see Dolmerrath's halls deserted, still more to see cracks shooting along ceilings of stone or Tembriel's charmed mirrors shattering in sprays of gla.s.s. But there was no time to dwell on that either. She could only run, following Alarrah to the stable cavern. Almost all the horses were gone, taken out by the scouts, and what few beasts remained-Julian's Morrigh among them-had cl.u.s.tered into a tight, nervous herd at one end of the cave. The elves and humans watching over them were all armed, and one called out to Alarrah as she and Faans.h.i.+ burst into view. Alarrah called back in Elvish, too fast for Faans.h.i.+ to comprehend.

Still Faans.h.i.+ neither slowed nor stopped, for something else tugged harder at her attention. Her sense of Kestar was growing stronger, and even without Alarrah's shouted directions she bolted toward a stairwell that spiraled high up into the rock. Faans.h.i.+ neither knew nor cared where the stairwell led, or that the stone all around her continued to shake with unsettling force. All that mattered was that it led to Kestar and the rest of her friends.

Her lungs heaving for air, with Alarrah hard on her heels, she scrambled up the stairs. The air grew heavy and close, as though a thunderstorm were about to strike. At the top of the stairs they found thunder in truth, for Gerren, his two guards and Celoren were all firing muskets out through narrow slits in the walls of stone. Julian, Rab, Kestar and Lady Ganniwer were reloading similar weapons, and though Faans.h.i.+ knew nothing of guns, she couldn't help but guess that those had just been fired. She couldn't breathe without inhaling the stench of gunpowder.

Beyond the others, out through the windows, she saw what drew their fire. She'd seen the spectral figure of the Anreulag only once before, but once had been more than enough. The Voice of the G.o.ds was unmistakable, shrieking Her fury at oncoming horses, Her hands uplifted to the sky.

With each syllable She screamed, She called down lightning.

There weren't many mages left in Dolmerrath. Oh, aye, they still had half a dozen or so who could sense magic, work simple charms or soothe a nervous beast. But until Faans.h.i.+ had come to them, bearing more power than Tembriel had seen in decades, there had only been Kirinil, Alarrah and herself with any significant power. Now, to her terror, she felt the Wards fall-which could mean only one thing. They now had fewer mages still.

She charged northward on her horse, away from the trees, away from the force of Hawks that had come thundering up from the south. The Hawks didn't matter nearly as much as the far greater threat of the Voice of the G.o.ds, and Tembriel's voice, heart and power roared as one in fury and in anguish. She had to hurl her fire high enough to keep from incinerating her horse. The beast finally reared in panic, and she leaped off its back and let it bolt even as she hurled fireball after fireball ahead to the figure wreathed in clouds of crackling power.

Gunfire sounded before her and behind, along with the building tattoo of the hooves of horses, as more and more riders charged out of the woods. She didn't stop to see who was closer behind her, the rest of the scouts or the Hawks they'd been engaging, for the world narrowed down to the Anreulag. Too many elves had died at Her hands. Tembriel smelled smoke as the leather armguards she wore began to smolder, but that didn't stop her as she called forth her largest fireball yet.

It flew straight toward her target, only to explode in a shower of light and flame. Wreathed by tendrils of fire, the Anreulag turned to face her. Hands came up in a gesture that mirrored her own, and then threw sizzling power straight back to her.

Tembriel had just enough time for one prayer to the Mother of Stars before something tackled her hard to the ground. Her head smacked into the earth, and for an instant her world swam out of focus. In the next she caught sight of her brother Jannyn standing protectively over her, whirling with his bow in his hands to face the Anreulag.

Then the lightning struck him and burned his body to ash.

Captain Amarsaed's Hawks couldn't have asked for a better distraction than the Voice of the G.o.ds Herself, appearing in all Her radiance on the last stretch of open ground between them and the heathen elves. When Her holy fire drove away the cloud of fear that had infected them all, they hurled forth their voices in a roar of jubilation. They renewed their charge on the elves, for the pointed-eared demons turned their attention to the coming of the Anreulag instead. The captain himself shot three of them, and five more fell to the guns of the Hawks who flanked him on either side. Jekke saw them all go down beneath the rightful justice of the G.o.ds, and each one's death made her roar loudly enough that surely the Father, Mother, Son and Daughter would hear and bless each blow struck in Their names.

Most glorious of all was when the Anreulag unleashed Her power. The she-elf with the gift of fire-the demon who'd helped kill Bron-could not stand against Her. Nor could the elven male who rushed forward to defend her. The Voice's own fire engulfed him so thoroughly that for an instant, nothing could be seen of him but the outline of his bones-and then nothing could be seen of him at all.

It was as if every tale the older Knights of the Hawk had ever told to young cadets about the Anreulag's might on the battlefields of Tantiulo and beyond had come true. Jekke had never seen the like, and she wept and screamed her joy, even as she brought up the rear of the charge, that the G.o.ds had given them such a matchless honor.

But the Anreulag didn't stop with mowing down the elves in Her path. Glowing blue-white from head to foot, inexorable and terrible, She strode closer and closer to the woods. With one immense thunderclap of power, She sent the limp forms of elf warriors flying in all directions.

Then She attacked the Hawks, and when Captain Amarsaed himself was the first to fall, their screams of religious fervor quickly gave way to panic.