"We're not going to make it," Ryld said. "Not without help."
He paused as pain twisted his gut, making him gasp.
Halisstra's eyes widened.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "It can't be the spell ending?it's too soon."
Ryld allowed himself to sink to the ground and stood for a time with his hands on his thighs, breathing away the pain. When he felt steady again, he answered her question.
"It's the strain of levitating. I'm weak. Your spell delayed the poison, but by then the venom had already done a fair bit of damage, by the feel of it." He nodded at the Crescent Blade strapped to her backpack. "I'm expendable, but you have a job to do. If you're going to make it off this plain, you've got to save your magic for yourself. Leave me."
Halisstra didn't argue. She merely stared at Ryld, her eyes watering.
Lips pressed in a tight line, she took his hand and squeezed it. He nodded at her, encouraging her, and she started to turn away.
Then she stopped.
"No," she said, turning back to him again. "There must be away. Let me think. There must be a spell I can use?something that will help me to move more quickly."
Ryld nodded, staring dully at the falling snow. The flakes drifted straight down from the sky; there wasn't a breath of wind. Strange, then, that patches of falling snow seemed to be swirling, taking vague shape and breaking apart again. .
With a start, he realized what he was seeing.
Halisstra, he signed, not daring to speak out loud. Ghosts. We're surrounded by them,
"We m-m-may be among them, s-s-soon enough," Halisstra said through chattering teeth. "It's nearly d-d-dawn. C-come closer s-so I can c-c-cast?"
Quiet, Ryld signed. They can hear you.
One of the ghosts had glanced briefly in their direction as Halisstra spoke. As it did, it seemed to solidify a bit. Ryld recognized it as a soldier, his face so smudged with soot it was almost as dark as Ryld's own. The front of his wooden shield was burned nearly to charcoal. The ghost remained corporeal just long enough for Ryld to recognize the emblem on the back of its tunic?the tree of Lord Velar's army?then it dissolved into a swirl amid the snowflakes.
Ryld could see dozens of the ghostly figures, moving in the same direction he and Halisstra had been. He caught only glimpses of them?like the first soldier, they seemed to be shifting between solid and mistlike form?but those glimpses were enough to tell him that it was an army in retreat. Shoulders slumped and eyes staring dully at the ground, the soldiers listlessly dragged their weapons behind them. Every now and then a ghostly animal of the Surface Realms would race past, the rider on its back whipping it frantically. Whenever that happened the foot soldiers would glance fearfully over their shoulders as if looking to see what was pursuing the rider, and some would break into a run. After a few stumbling steps, however, they slowed to a trudge again, some of them falling and failing to rise, their ghostly forms sinking into the snow.
The army of ghosts took little notice of Ryld and Halisstra. The soldiers seemed to sense, somehow, that the drow were also walking wounded?that they too were trying to retreat from that cold, lifeless plain. One of the soldiers?a standard-bearer who still carried an iron pole topped with a pennant emblazoned with the tree emblem?crumpled to the ground right in front of Ryld, taking no notice of him. Though the pennant brushed Ryld's arm as it fell toward the snow, the pole itself made no mark in the smooth white surface. Like the standard-bearer's body, it sank into the snow without a trace.
Ryld noticed that the snow in front of him was slightly humped. Curious, he reached into its cold depths and felt a skeleton, and beside it a cold metal pole, its surface flaked with rust. Like the ghostly officer Ryld had met earlier, the soldier had acted out the final moments of his life, crumpling once again in the same spot where he had died, centuries gone by.
Ryld, feeling the pain in his gut start to grow, wondered if he was about to join him.
Halisstra touched the symbol of Eilistraee that hung from her belt.
"The s-s-spell," she said, shivering violently, then switching to sign language. I should cast it soon.
Ryld's attention, however, was focused on a ghostly rider racing toward them on one of the surface mounts?a "horse," Ryld suddenly remembered it was called. The horse's feet did not disturb the snow, yet Ryld could hear?faintly?the sound of hooves striking the ground. The horse was still strong, still capable of running swiftly?and was corporeal, at least for the moment. And that gave him an idea.
Grasping the fallen standard-bearer's pole, he wrenched it up out of the snow and stood as straight as the wracking pain in his gut would allow.
"In the name of Lord Velar, halt!" he shouted. "I bear a message that must reach your commander's ears."
For an anxious moment, Ryld thought his ruse wasn't going to work. The standard in his hands was ancient and rusted, the pennant long since rotted away. But the officer seemed to see it as it once had been. Immediately, the ghost pulled up its mount. Fully corporeal, the dead man stared down at Ryld. Its horse mirrored the ghost's apprehension as it flared its nostrils and?perhaps catching scent of a dragon that was long-since dead in Ryld's time?whinnied nervously.
The undead officer's eyes narrowed, however, as it glanced between Ryld and Halisstra.
"You aren't soldiers," the ghost said. "You're not even human."
"We're drow," Ryld said quickly, silently praying that his race had not been at war with those humans in their day. "Dark elves from the Realms Below who have come to fight beside Lord Velar."
"You're too late. Look around you. Lord Velar's army is defeated. The dragons. ."
The ghost shuddered, unable to go on.
"Yes, I know." Ryld raised his left hand, drawing the officer's eye to the dragon-shaped ring of Melee-Magthere on his finger. "I am quite familiar with dragons, and I know how terrible a weapon they can be. I have knowledge that can help Lord Velar defeat them?if I can reach him in time. Loan me your horse, and this defeat may yet be turned into a victory."
Behind Ryld, Halisstra stood shivering, her arms tucked tight to her chest.
The officer gave one last nervous glance over his shoulder, then swung down out of the saddle.
"Take her," the apparition said, thrusting the reins into Ryld's hand. The ghost drew its sword and turned back toward the direction from which it had ridden. " 'Better to die proud than live in shame, " it said, reciting the words like a quote.
The ghost officer strode away, dissolving into a swirl of mist amidst the thickly falling snow.
The horse, however, remained. As it shifted its weight, its legs ploughed a furrow in the snow. Reaching up to stroke its neck and steady it, Ryld found that he could smell the sweat and dust that clung to its hair. The animal's body gave off a welcome heat?one that Halisstra, shivering violently, could use to stay alive.
"Can you ride it?" he asked her?a bit belatedly, he realized.
Halisstra gave a shiver that might have been a nod.
"I've r-r-ridden lizards. This beast sh-shouldn't b-b-be any more d-difficult. Wh-what is it?"
"It's called a horse. I saw one for sale in the Bazaar in Menzoberranzan a few years ago. Heard it fetched a pretty penny but only lived a couple days," he said, then realized again that time was of the essence. "Sit in the saddle, and I'll?"
A wave of pain flowed through Ryld's gut, forcing him to gasp.
Halisstra gave him a worried look.
Ryld, irritated by his lack of control, forced the pain out of his awareness. He gave Halisstra a tight smile as he handed her the reins.