He and the ultroloth circled at a distance, eyeing each other. The slaughter went on below.
The bellows of the klurichir rang through the air. The seething of the swarm sounded like the waves of the Darksea.
The ultroloth began to incant, his fingers tracing an intricate gesture through the air. Pharaun answered with his own spell.
The ultroloth finished first, and a black beam streaked from his outstretched fingertips.
Pharaun swerved but too slowly. The beam hit him in the arm.
Negative energy soaked him and siphoned off his soul. His lungs froze for an instant. His body went weak. His mind clouded. The spell wiped half a dozen of his most powerful spells from his mind.
He struggled to maintain enough coherence to continue his own incantation. Blinking, dazed, he spat out the arcane words. When he managed the final syllable, he waved a weakened hand at the ultroloth, and a green field of energy enshrouded the creature.
It did not harm the yugoloth wizard, Pharaun knew. Instead, it merely prevented the ultroloth from teleporting or otherwise using magic to travel. It was a strange spell to cast, but the mage had an idea.
While the ultroloth puzzled over the spell his dark elf opponent had cast, Pharaun fought through the numbness and pulled a tiny ball of bat guano and a pinch of powdered quartz from his piwafwi. He would need to cast two more spells in rapid succession for the stratagem to work.
He held the guano between thumb and forefinger and spoke the words.
The ultroloth drew his blade and slashed at the green field that enveloped him. Pharaun assumed the blade must have the ability to absorb or dispel magical effects that it touched.
The blade met Pharaun’s magic, cut a visible slash in the energy field, and set the whole to vibrating.
But it did not fail. Pharaun breathed a sigh of relief and finished the first of his two spells.
The ball of guano transformed into a small bead of fire. He pointed a finger at the ultroloth and started his second spell.
The bead followed his finger and streaked away. It stopped right in front of the ultroloth without exploding. There it spun, building energy.
The ultroloth knew the bead for what it was—a fireball with a delayed blast. The creature moved his long-fingered hands through the gestures that would effect his own spell, possibly to counter the fireball.
Hurrying, Pharaun cast the quartz powder into the air and rushed through his second spell. He completed it at the same moment the ultroloth completed his.
Pharaun’s dweomer encapsulated both the ultroloth and the bead within a sphere of force. At the same time, the ultroloth’s spell—not a counter to the fireball; perhaps he thought his wards would protect him—caused a field of black energy to flare around the drow wizard. The magic gripped Pharaun’s body and held it rigid. He could not move even his little finger, though his ring still allowed him to fly. He was a floating statue.
The two stared at each other across the battlefield, the dark elf immobile and vulnerable, the ultroloth trapped and unable to teleport out.
Pharaun started a mental count: Four... three...
The bead near the ultroloth spun faster, glowed brighter.
The ultroloth understood his danger and frantically cut at the wall of force with his blade. The weapon’s edge slashed a tear in the dome but not large enough for the creature to slip through.
The bead spun faster, began to hum. The ultroloth cut another slash, crosswise, and tried to squirm out.
Two... one...
The ultroloth’s squeezed his head and shoulders out of the globe of force as Pharaun’s bead blossomed into fire.
A momentary inferno burned within the globe. A tongue of flame shot from the slash in the sphere’s side, engulfed the ultroloth’s head, and extended twenty paces into the sky.
From the battlefield below, a cry of shock went up from the yugoloths.
Within the sphere, the explosion turned back upon itself time and again. Pharaun did not doubt that the ultroloth had been shielded against fire and heat, but no wards could protect against the firestorm in the globe. The heat devoured the yugoloth wizard’s body, charred his head and shoulders into blackened cinders.
When the fire abated a moment later, a curled and blackened husk lay halfway in, halfway out of the sphere. Nothing more remained of the ultroloth.
Pharaun would have smiled if only he could move.
Chapter Twenty-one
Halisstra twisted Seyll’s sword in Danifae’s arched back, and the former battle-captive gasped with pain. Halisstra took satisfaction in each of Danifae’s bubbling, labored breaths. Behind Danifae, Quenthel Baenre looked on with surprise. Halisstra ignored her. She had eyes only for her battle-captive. The high priestess was irrelevant.
Danifae’s morningstar fell from her hand.
“Mistress... Melarn,” she said, her voice soft.
Halisstra decided that she wanted to look Danifae in the face before she died. She released her grip on Seyll’s sword and allowed her former battle-captive to turn around.
One third of Seyll’s blade jutted like a bloody pennon from the side of Danifae’s chest.
Danifae’s beautiful gray eyes stared out of an incongruously gentle expression. She looked upon Halisstra and smiled a mouthful of blood-stained teeth.
“Do not call me Mistress ever again,” Halisstra said.
Danifae’s full lips twisted with pain. She raised a hand as though to touch Halisstra’s face. The effort caused her to wince.
“Halisstra,” she said, each word divided by a pained breath. “I’m... sorry.”
It took a moment for Halisstra to understand the words. When she did, tears welled in her eyes; she could not stop them. In a rush, she thought of all that she and Danifae had shared, the secrets, the ambitions. They had been through so much together, had come to know each other so well through the Binding. She surprised herself by regretting what it all had finally come to.
“Sorry?” Halisstra said, and her voice broke. “Sorry? It never should have come to this!”
Danifae nodded. Blood seeped around the blade sticking out of her body. Halisstra had missed her heart.
“I know,” Danifae said, still holding out her hand.
Despite herself, Halisstra started to raise her own hand but stopped.
“I missed you, Mistress,” Danifae said.
Halisstra blinked away tears and finally took Danifae’s hand.
“I missed you t—”
As quick as an adder, Danifae grabbed Halisstra with her other arm and yanked her close, impaling her on the point of her own blade.
Halisstra gasped as the steel penetrated first her mail then her flesh. She felt the point scrape against her ribs and exit her back. Warm blood soaked her piwafwi.
She should have known. She should have known.
Her eyes looked over Danifae’s shoulder to Quenthel.
The Baenre priestess smiled, gloating, whip in hand.
Danifae wrapped her arms around Halisstra and squeezed her tight. Pain knifed through Halisstra.
“I am sorry for nothing,” Danifae hissed in her ear.
Halisstra fought through the pain and returned Danifae’s embrace, just as hard.
Both of them gasped with agony.
Their bodies were melded, joined by steel. Their blood flowed as one. A Binding of a different sort once again united them.
Halisstra rested her head on Danifae’s shoulder, a strangely soft gesture.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
Danifae reached up and stroked Halisstra’s hair, something she had done countless nights before.