"He's breaking free!" Hweilan shouted.
"Duly noted," said Menduarthis. He stood his ground.
Soran broke through the last of the ice and charged.
Menduarthis's hands were forming another spell.
Soran plowed into him. But Hweilan was his target, his one blazing eye fixed on her, and he simply crashed through Menduarthis like a stallion breaking through a half-open gate. Menduarthis hit the ground several feet away.
"Keep going!" Lendri said, and shoved Hweilan in front of him.
She went all of five steps before turning and drawing the knife sheathed at her back. She held the knife in one hand and brandished her father's bow in the other. Her body trembled, and the warning inside her seemed to be trying to claw its way out of her skull, but she would not run while her only remaining friends fought.
Lendri kept himself in a low crouch between Hweilan and Soran. Covered in blood, his long hair in a wild tangle, muscles trembling, the elf was a fearsome sight. He threw back his head and screamed. It struck Hweilan like a physical blow, and she realized there was nothing remotely elven in the cry.
But it didn't affect Soran in the least. He brought the broken sword around in a savage arc, aiming to cut Lendri in half. But Lendri ducked under the blow and lunged. He latched onto Soran and buried his teeth in the man's throat.
Soran didn't scream, didn't cry out in pain. With his sword arm pinned, he could not bring the blade to bear. But his strength far outmatched Lendri's. He grabbed Lendri's forearm and threw the elf off, sending him sailing through the air. Lendri landed not far from Hweilan, hitting the snow and skidding a ways before coming to his feet. When he rose, the wind blew his hair out of his face, and Hweilan screamed at the sight.
The bones in Lendri's face had thickened, his jaw elongated, and when his lips peeled back in a snarl, he revealed sharp teeth.
Soran swung his sword, but not in a strike. Lendri was too far away. He threw the broken blade, and it cut through the air, twirling end over end. Just before it was about to strike Lendri, a shard of ice, thick as a lance but moving swift as an arrow, slammed into the steel, shattering it into several pieces and sending the frost-covered shards into the snow.
Hweilan followed the path from which the shard had come and saw Menduarthis standing again, frost still leaking from one fist, like heavy smoke.
Weaponless, still the Soran-thing kept coming. But he was not coming for Lendri. Hweilan had half-turned to flee before she realized she had no idea where to go.
The wall of vines and trees at the edge of the hollow exploded in a gust of snow and wind. The blast shattered all but the thickest branches of the great tree and struck Hweilan like an avalanche. She flew through the air and hit the ground hard. She tried to breathe, failed, then tried again, forcing frigid air into her lungs.
She rolled over and sat up. A section of the wall wider than Highwatch's main gates had been completely blasted away. Leaves and shards of shattered wood and vines still rained from the sky. In the gap in the wall, framed by a storm of wind and snow, draped in feylight frost, stood Kunin Gatar.
How Hweilan had ever seen the queen as a young woman her own age, she could not imagine now. The being that stood at the rim of the hollow was ancient of days, queen of winter and wielder of all its power. She held storm in her hands, and in her eyes swirled the darkest moonless midnights. All the fey lights now shone cold and white, and they swirled around her in dozens of tiny cyclones.
Kunin Gatar spoke, her voice shook the ground, but the words were in a language that meant only storm and ice.
Lendri and Menduarthis were both on their hands and knees, looking up at her-Lendri in defiant fury, Menduarthis in a sort of resigned despair.
From a pile of forest debris and snow, Soran rose to his feet. More of his skin had been stripped away by the blast. But he did not even glance in the queen's direction. His eyes, one all dead flesh, the other a blazing red, fixed on Hweilan.
Lendri stood between them.
Kunin Gatar rose, lifted into the air by currents of air at her command, and entered the hollow.
The queen turned her gaze on Lendri. "You brought this on us? On me?"
The winds calmed around her, and when her feet touched the snow, she was already storming toward Lendri. He looked up at her, then spared Hweilan a glance. In his eyes, Hweilan could see that he knew he was about to die. He looked more relieved than frightened.
Soran, thinking perhaps that the queen was coming for Hweilan, lurched toward her. His muscles trembled and convulsed so strongly that his entire body seemed to be shaking itself apart, and tiny tongues of orange flames began to dance up his arms and crown his head with fire. He spared Hweilan only a glance before charging the greater threat.
Seeing Soran advancing on her, Kunin Gatar shrieked, "You dare?"
She thrust her hand, one finger pointing at him, like an angry teacher disciplining a rebellious pupil.
Hail and ice shot out of Kunin Gatar's body and struck Soran like a storm of nails, stripping away what remained of his skin and taking large chunks of flesh. His remaining eye exploded, and both empty sockets blazed like tiny forge fires. The flames dancing along his arms and head fell flat, but they grew in power, and although his gait slowed, he did not stop.
Soran struck the queen like the tide striking the shore. His fists ripped through her. She wailed, the sound of wind breaking rocks. Her physical form melted into the storm, wrapping round Soran, and pounding him again and again. The thinner bits of flesh round his skull, hands, and shoulders flew away, and the flames on him grew brighter still, burning away the frost in a hissing steam.
"We should go now!" said a voice beside her, shouting to be heard over the storm. Hweilan tore her gaze away from the battle. Menduarthis, wide-eyed and trembling, crouched next to her.
Lendri was just beyond him. He looked down at her and said, "Go!"
"What about you?" she said.
"I'll follow. I know the way. Now go!"
Menduarthis pulled her to her feet, she snatched her bow from where it had fallen in the snow, and together they ran for the woods.
Just before they reached the shelter of the trees, Hweilan risked a look over her shoulder. Kunin Gatar and Soran had separated, and both now seemed more elemental than physical-one of malicious winter, the other consuming fire. Lendri huddled in the snow not far away, watching them. The two combatants struck each other in a clash of howling wind and hissing steam. Hweilan felt the ground shake.
Lendri shouted something and pointed one fist-the one on which he had put the ring, Hweilan remembered-and fire spewed out from his fist, enveloping the queen and her adversary.
As Hweilan and Menduarthis plunged into the wood, a terrible shriek filled the world. Fury, fire, agony, ice… all combined into one great scream that rattled the trees around them.
The incessant pounding in Hweilan's mind exploded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Argalath's eyes rolled back into place. The final shudder shook him so hard that he fell to his knees, and his free hand came down right in the middle of the corpse. He could feel the hot blood and viscera between his fingers. The reek wafted upward so strong that he could taste it in the back of his throat, coppery and searing.
But he could see again. The eviscerated corpse of the Damaran. Sagar…? Had that been his name? It no longer mattered.
The other corpse-the one kept so carefully whole, tended so well after death, and laid so carefully beside the sacrifice-was sitting up. The corpse that had once been Guric turned its head and smiled down on Argalath.