"They're catching up, Lorn," Segnbora shouted. The group rode like hunters, whipping their horses into a lather. Onward they rode into the screaming, stinging night. The scarp was right before them, lit with a pillar of blue Fire that flickered eerily on the cloud-bottoms and turned the wind-whipped snow to a blizzard of blue
sparks.
The riders went up the scarp like a breaking wave, the horses stumbling, foundering, finding the path by luck or Goddess's love. The way up was none too1 wide and could easily be kept clean of Reavers — for a while. Behind Freelorn and the Queen, the others closed ranks. Overhead, the daunt-ing blows of the Shadow's hatred, became1 suddenly audible, There was thunder in the snow clouds, and the wind shrieked, furiously around the steeples of the cliff-wall behind them..
Freelorn threw himself out of the saddle, pulled Eftgan, down and helped her over to shelter behind a rock, at the foot of the cliff. He pulled, out the knife, put it into her clutching, shaking hand. Crying with the effort, she braced herself against the stone and reached up to cut— Shouts and the clash of steel rang out on the plain, where some of the Darthenes were holding the approach to the path up the cliff. Sunspark, who had been bending over Herewiss
in concern, jerked its head up and stared down at the Reavers and Fyrd in rage.
(This is your fault!!) it cried in a thought that not even the smothering darkness could muffle.
It leaped like a skyrocket down to the foot of the scarp, reared, and brought down its forefeet with a crash that split stones. Wildfire burst up from where its hooves struck, and ran madly to either side in front of the scarp. The fire ignored the Darthenes, but any Reaver or Fyrd it touched blazed like tinder and was blown away across the snow, ashes, a breath later. The Reavers drew back in panic from the apparition that suddenly stood between them and the scarp: a huge, crouch-ing cat of swirling fire that stalked forward with blazing eyes, pausing to raise one flaming paw. — the blood ran down Freelorn's arm, and he pressed it to Eftgan's wound. "And we who are One — come on, Eftgan! — One and not-One say to the land which is us, and of us, be not—'"
The earth began to tremble. From the south, visible in this unnatural black as something blacker yet, a great wave of dark Power rose and rose above the mountains, leaned, and fell with a crash that couldn't be heard, only felt. Like death, like drowning, it rolled over them, past them, and in that wave's wake ten or twelve Darthenes dropped and Sunspark's fire went. out.
Even Herewiss's blaze dimmed and shrank, failing like a candle placed under a cup. But he did not surrender. When the snuffed-out stallion clambered up the rocks to his side, it found him clutching Khavrinen. He was forcing it to burn, pouring out everything he had. It was not enough. In the darkness where the blade's Firelight didn't reach, forms moved and grew solid. Eagerly they lifted long-rusted swords, bared long-rotted fangs, and looked hungrily up toward the little shelf where the Darthenes stood. (I can't change, I can't burn,) Sunspark cried in anguish, (what do I do now?)
Segnbora could feel it straining mightily, trying even to trigger that last burning in which a fire elemental ends its
existence as an individual… anything to hold the threat away from its loved. He can't hold off the Shadow alone, Segnbora thought, almost choking with the sheer hate that filled the air. There was nothing the Shadow hated so much as the Fire, except perhaps those who wielded it. Herewiss couldn't last forever, and when his reserves gave out, he would simply be dead.
The first rnan in a thousand years to have the Fire, the Queen of Darthen, the rightful King of Arlen, most of the forces that Darthen could field — all dead at once. The Shadow, imagining a world all to Itself, darkened.
Inside Segnbora the mdeiha were rumbling deadly threats that seemed absolutely empty to her. What can they do? They 're dead! DeathFire—
When someone with the Fire died, regardless of whether they had ever been focused during their life, their death focused the Fire for one final moment. Even those with just the spark of Flame that most men and women have managed to focus then. That was what gave one's deathword its power.
Segnbora stared with sudden cold purpose at the rising tide of dark malice. Suddenly she understood why Lang had died when he did, and why her parents were murdered. The Shadow had wanted to stop her before this moment, this realization. She held up Skadhwe and
looked at it. One life it will demand of you, Efmaer had said, and now Segnbora was sure which life the dead Queen had meant. The Shadow was betting she wouldn't dare kill herself.
A lethal wound would be enough. She could add enough Fire to what Herewiss had to aid him. in holding the Shadow off until the Binding was done1. And afterward, he'd heal her — or not —
It was a terrible chance she'd be taking. She' didn't want to die. But if the Fire she' had trapped inside.her could be ofu.se here, then. . Behind her Freelorn held up one' bleeding arm and with his free hand reached into the unwrapped saddle-roll for what
she had seen him grab before: a fistful of stones and dirt from Lionheugh. He held it to Eftgan's arm; her blood trickled down.
A crash like sudden thunder rocked the scarp and sent men and horses sprawling. Freelorn and the Queen fell apart. Herewiss pitched forward on his face, his Fire all but dark-ened. More than just hatred pressed down on them from the darkness now. The Shadow was invoking the worst fears of Its enemies, and on all sides men and women screamed and cowered from painful deaths suddenly lived in their own flesh, losses of loved ones, shames that formed darkly in the influence-ridden air. The Dark One still didn't walk among them openly, but was having no trouble driving the defenders to death or madness, one by one.
Out in the darkness, Segnbora saw the hralcins rear up. Ugly unearthly shapes lurched across the scarp at her, singing hungrily and reaching out at her as they had in the Hold. Crabbed claws sought to tear, but Segnbora's screams were frozen in her throat. Only escape was left. Frantically, looking around for a route, she saw Freelorn stand up, cursing with fear and shaking his wounded arm. It wasn't wr ounded any-more: the cut made by the sacral knife was just a white seam of scar. The Shadow could heal for Its own purposes. Leaving Eftgan, Lorn stumbled over to Herewiss and shook him conscious with savage efficiency. Segnbora stared at him, confused. He wasn't the same Lorn. There was purpose in those eyes. When she met them, Segnbora saw Her in them as she had been seeing Her in everything today. But there was a difference. There was knowledge, foresight. Freelorn knew now what Herewiss had dreamed in the Hold. He had seen the arrow in his back, and had seen himself turn toward death's Door…,
Stunned, Segnbora watched him turn away from her with awesome1 purpose; watched him turn, away from the gasping, shaken Herewiss, and rise out of his crouch. The hiss of an arrow whispered through the screaming wind. Slowly, slowly Freelorn sat down with the barbed Reaver shaft standing out from behind his right lung, and pressed a fistful of dirt already