Chapter 8: The Price of Power
I owe Imoen a huge apology.
Ilyrana jogged towards the camp where her companions were rolling up bedrolls and stuffing them inside their own Bags of Holding.
"My lady, they're far enough up the path that I fear we can't slip out of here undetected," Anomen said.
"How in the name of Hell did they get this close without you seeing them first?"
"I had just taken over that abomination's watch," Anomen bit out, turning his attention to Sarevok who was coming up behind her. "I was talking to Sir Keldorn, I-"
"Was too busy exchanging pompous platitudes with the paladin and failed to notice the army approaching," Sarevok finished for him, eyes faintly glowing as he stared the cleric down.
"I hadn't realized you disappeared so quickly," Anomen sneered, his hand dropping to the handle of his mace. "You seemed to be in such a hurry to get somewhere."
Anomen's blue eyes shifted to Ilyrana, and she could practically see him adding Sarevok's swift departure from watch up with the fact that the two of them had appeared out of the shadows together just now. His gaze snapped back to Sarevok, hand tightening on his weapon, and opened his mouth to speak. She didn't give him the chance.
"How many of them are there and how long until they find this place?"
"It looks like a scouting party," Keldorn answered for Anomen as he approached them, Carsomyr drawn and gleaming in the light of the dying campfire. "I counted thirteen torches. Unless they turn around and go back, they'll be here in minutes."
"We can handle thirteen unaware mercenaries easily enough," Ilyrana replied while drawing out her sword belt, bow, and a quiver of arrows.
"My Raven!"
Ilyrana bounded toward the wall Haer'Dalis was keeping watch on, the one that Valygar had previously been at. The tiefling extended a hand down, she took it, and he helped pull her up before turning and pointing wordlessly into the darkness. Ilyrana blinked as her infravision briefly blinded her with scarlet. In the distance, lights began growing brighter, white and red blending together so that, for a second, she thought the dawn had decided to come a few hours early. More mercenaries, also carrying torches, the white hot light making it impossible to estimate a number.
"They're too far away, and the torches are screwing with my infravision."
"I know," Haer'Dalis agreed before turning to sweep his gaze around the labyrinthine boulder-strewn terrain.
"Fuck," Ilyrana hissed as more lights began to appear in the distance, scattered from all different directions.
"Either that army somehow grew wings and managed to spread themselves out to converge on us like this, or that's more than one force."
Ilyrana's mind began racing with possibilities. She couldn't get an idea of their number, but in seconds the horizon was pulsing with crimson. They were coming from all sides, from the West which they had come, the East where the mountains lay, and from the plains to the North and South. A red tide rolling in on the enclosed hot springs. They couldn't all belong to Balthazar, could they? She highly doubted any of them were aligned with Abazigal, a dragon, and Sendai, a drow. How did they know where she was?!
"Ilyrana?" Keldorn called, the urgency in his voice forcing her to put aside her questions for now.
Hopping back down, she reached into her bag and began drawing out her armor.
"There's hundreds. We're surrounded. Even if we kill those scouts, we would have to navigate the rocks in the dark with several armies out there."
"There's only the one way into the hot springs, we can at least manipulate how many of them can come at us at once, if we make a stand here," Keldorn replied grimly.
Valygar laid a hand on her shoulder and gave a comforting squeeze as he moved past, heading toward the path, already armored and with his bow strung. A small ember of fear began to burn in her stomach. They had faced far worse odds than this before and won, but rarely had they made it out unscathed. This late in the game, so close to ending this damned war, Ilyrana couldn't help but feel like this was going to exact a much higher price than she was willing to pay.
"Alright, make sure everyone knows what we're up against, and have them head to the entrance when they're ready."
"This is suicide," Sarevok snapped as he began buckling on his plate mail.
"I'm open to suggestions," Ilyrana snapped back, perhaps a bit more forcefully than was necessary.
She couldn't let herself be distracted right now; not with an army bearing down on them. Even though her heart was still racing, not because of the impending battle, but because of what almost happened with Sarevok. The memory of his body pressing hers into the tree, his breath against her neck, completely vulnerable to anything he wanted to do to her.
And I would have let him.
The ember of fear ignited into a small flame, fueled by that realization. She had ached for more, feeling as if she would go mad if he kept her bound any longer; unable to touch him, to glide her hands over the expanse of his chest, feel the muscles in his shoulders beneath her palms, and trace his scars with her fingertips.
For once, just once, she wanted to let go. Surrender her strength, her power, to another who could handle it. Someone who could match the ferocity in her blood without being afraid of her.
Yoshimo had feared her. Each of the handful of times they had been intimate, he couldn't hide the wariness. Looking back, she wanted to believe it was hesitation because of the gaes, and perhaps that was part of it, but Ilyrana knew that every time they shared a bed, the knowledge of who, of what, he was touching was foremost in his mind.
Her only other lover, Kivan, hadn't been much better, despite neither of them knowing at the time that she was a bhaalspawn. Though it wouldn't have mattered. The first time had happened because of a brush with death that led to the need for life-affirming sex. The second time he confessed to feeling unfaithful to his dead wife, and that he didn't know if he could be with her because of that. The third time, the last time, he had told her that he wasn't comfortable with how rough their lovemaking kept becoming. A complaint that Yoshimo had voiced as well, though he had at least tried to make a jest of it, but she had seen through it just the same.
Anomen wanted her. Had wanted her since she met him at the Copper Coronet in Athkatla, years ago. Since he decided she was a damsel in distress and needed saving. Unlike Yoshi, Anomen seemed to completely blind himself to the fact that Bhaal was her father, which was just as bad as caring too much about it. Forgetting, or disregarding, whose blood ran in her veins was dangerous, especially when he had seen the side effects of the taint and either shrugged them off or chalked them up to yet another reason why he should rescue her from her fate. She hated the burden that Alaundo's prophecy placed on her shoulders, but it was hers to bear. She would see it through, one way or another, for Imoen's sake, if not her own.
If Ilyrana fell before this was all over, it would fall to her half-sister to end the war, and either stop Bhaal's return or usher him back into this world. She honestly didn't give a damn what the outcome would be, neither did Imoen, just so long as it ended. She knew her sister cared about the innocents caught in the middle of this conflict, and the damage it was doing to Faerun as a whole. Ilyrana, however, didn't. All she cared about was getting Imoen out of this alive, and preferably herself as well.
As she finished donning her leather armor, Ilyrana began hurriedly stringing her short bow as Jaheira hastily motioned that the scouts were almost upon them. Silently moving into position among the backline with Edwin, Imoen, Valygar, and Viconia, she knocked an arrow and shivered as various defensive magics fell over her. Some of them overlaid the ones enchanted into her rings and armor and others had no effect at all, like the Infravision spell that would allow the others with no elven blood to see in the dark.
"How intriguing, cousin," Viconia murmured to her in Drow.
"What's that?"
"Judging by how you have the stench of male on you, and the fact that the Deathbringer can't keep his eyes off you more than usual, I would say these mercenaries interrupted something I would be very interested in hearing about in vivid detail."
"Nothing to tell," Ilyrana replied through clenched teeth, and shooting a glare at the dark elf.
"Indeed? Well, if we survive this, you better take advantage of him, he may be a human, but his size, abbil-"
"We are not talking about this right now!" Ilyrana hissed.
"Do you think he's proportionate?"
It said a lot that Ilyrana was almost relieved as the sound of shouts and steel meeting steel erupted from the scouting party as they stumbled almost blindly into their frontline.
"Hold!" She said as Imoen raised her hands to begin a spell. "They can handle them, save your spells, we're going to need them."
"Ugh, I hate waiting," Imoen growled, clenching her fists.
Her sister's response gave Ilyrana pause enough to tear her attention away from the melee to study her. Imoen's eyes were hard, glinting red from the Infravision spell, which gave her a sinister look.
"You okay?"
"Fine."
Ilyrana raised an eyebrow, but let it go; she couldn't afford anymore distractions.
"Gods, can they be any louder? If those armies don't already know where we're at, they certainly do now… why can't they just cleave through them quietly? Do I yell when I clobber something with my staff? No, I do not…"
Ilyrana gave Edwin a killing look, which only reduced the Thayvian to mumbling.
"Ilyrana, they're not Balthazar's!" Keldorn suddenly shouted above the dying din of combat.
"Then who the Hell do they belong to?"
Her answer came in the sound of massive beating wings. It was an unmistakable sound that she would never forget for however long she lived. It was the same sound she had heard while fighting Irenicus's monsters in Suldanessellar. The sound Nizidramanii'yt had made when he had flown above them. The sound of an approaching dragon.
A few things clicked into place in the back of Ilyrana's mind as she began screaming out commands.
Of how Mellisan, a "benevolent friend of the bhaalspawn", knew where Sendai and Abazigal's respective strongholds were located.
How she had left that knowledge with Balthazar, a monk who lived in one of the most strongly spell-shielded monasteries she had ever seen. A monk who kept a mercenary army encamped within his city, with little regard for the effect they had on the locals.
How said army had begun moving in their direction, effectively herding them to this place.
And how Abazigal obviously possessed a similar army, which was now closing in for the kill.
They weren't going to survive this.
A screeching roar rent the air as the dragon dropped from the skies, landing atop one of the granite walls, the claws of his wings digging in to steady itself. In the light of the moon and the pre-dawn, Ilyrana struggled to understand why the brown beast was quite a bit smaller than the ones she had encountered in the past, about twice the size of a wyvern. If he had been the first she had encountered, she would have said he was gargantuan, but as it were, she had met a few, and all of them were almost twice this one's size. Wouldn't a bhaalspawn dragon be bigger?
"Abazigal, I presume?" Ilyrana called, arrow knocked and pointed at the beast.
"Nay, elf, my father has more important matters than dealing with a tiny upstart such as you."
Father?
Upstart?
"Careful, wyrm, I've killed several of your kind, all of whom were much older and larger than you," Ilyrana shouted back, aiming at its left wing joint and waiting.
"You are in no position to make threats, elf. You are surrounded. You have been betrayed."
No shit.
"Why the banter then, lizard? And why did Abazigal send his runt here in his place?"
The dragon hissed and lashed his tail in fury. If dragon's had one weakness, it was their ego. Every single one she had met, Irenicus's black, Firkraag, Thaxll'ssillyia the shadow dragon, even Adalon the silver who had been an ally in the Underdark, could not stand any kind of disrespect, or just anything other than utter adulation.
"Or does daddy not know you're here?"
Ilyrana glanced around to make sure the others were in position and that the mages were ready to cast Protection from Fire spells. When the beast opened his maw to speak again, she let her arrow fly, not giving him the chance to stall any longer for the army to get here.
As always, it hit its mark, sinking into the delicate tendons of the dragon's wing joint to the fletching. The monster screamed in pain and reared back in surprise, tail undulating for balance. The granite crumbled beneath one of its clawed feet, and the beast pitched forward, wings outspread to slow its fall, and landed heavily on the ground.
"Move in, spread out, and watch the tail!" Ilyrana yelled as she let another arrow loose, aiming for the other wing joint. She could try for it's eyes, but those were hard shots to make; better to ground him and keep him distracted.
What felt like ice water flowed through her as the spells that would protect them from it's breath were cast. As she walked away from the path, firing off arrows as swiftly and methodically as was rote to her by now, her eyes swept over her companions.
Keldorn swung Carsomyr at the dragon's ankle, forcing it to take a step back. Like a serpent, it's neck shot down to bite at the paladin, but an axe bit into the tender skin behind it's skull, Korgan still hanging onto the handle of his weapon.
"Oho! Yer a wee beastie compared ter the others I've carved up. Think I'll turn you into boots, or perhaps a-"
The dragon reared back, shaking loose of the dwarf and let loose a torrent of flame, trying to buy itself some breathing room. The others fell back, ducking behind boulders or shields to reduce how much their enchantments absorbed in order to prolong their effects.
"For Arvoreen!" Mazzy cried as she ducked underneath the dragon and slashed the beast's flank, her shortsword biting surprisingly deep, before jumping back and twisting, just barely avoiding it's tail.
"Cavalry!" Valygar cried, drawing Ilyrana's attention back to the path.
Mounted mercenaries, ten abreast in several rows, wearing heavy plate, their chargers also armored, were galloping down the path towards them.
"Edwin! Buy us some time!"
The mage turned, scarlet robes swirling around him, raised his hands, palms glowing and crackling with arcane energy, and began snapping out words of power. A grayish ball shot out from his hands and sped towards the mouth of the path. Just before the mercenaries breached the hot springs, the ball exploded, sending gray-green webbing flying in all directions. Horses screamed as they stumbled and fell, the sticky substance adhering them to the ground and each other, with many of their riders trapped beneath them.
Imoen followed up Edwin's web spell with one of her own. Yellowish fog billowed out above the ensnared riders and began drifting out and down. A Cloudkill spell. The mercenaries' first charge would be mostly dead in the next few minutes, as the vapor began making their throats swell shut. They needed time to deal with the dragon, or there would be no chance whatsoever of them living to see the dawn if they had to fight both simultaneously.
Seeing that reinforcements were delayed, and with its back literally up against the wall, the dragon lunged forward, dropping to it's smaller foreclaws, wings hanging uselessly at its sides, and spun.
"Get down!" Ilyrana cried, panic rising as she realized what the desperate creature was doing.
It's tail whistled through the air as the dragon used the momentum of it's body to swing it out in a devastating arch. All of her companions within range dropped to the ground to avoid being slammed into stone.
Before the beast even finished it's maneuver, it began chanting. Ilyrana took aim for the wound Mazzy had opened up on it's flank and fired.
The wound closed before her arrow hit, so that the projectile only dented a few russet scales and fell uselessly to the ground. It had been casting a healing spell.
"Shit."
The dragon reared back onto its powerful hind legs and spread it's now fully healed wings. Ilyrana aimed again for the joints, but was knocked to the ground before she could let her arrow fly. Rolling onto her back, she released her hold on the bow and drew out her short swords, crossing them in front of her, eyes darting to find what had attacked her.
Nothing.
As she climbed to her feet, another blow came from behind, hard enough that she fell gasping onto her knees.
"Invisible stalkers!" Someone cried out, followed by Keldorn's strong voice calling out to Torm to reveal their new enemies.
Suddenly, as if a veil were lifted, a human-shaped shadow, lined with a soft, glowing white light, wavered into existence in front of her, a leg speeding towards her face. She rolled to the side, adjusted her grips on her swords, and sprang to her feet, blades flashing out to sever the being's head.
As the shadow collapsed to the ground, Ilyrana looked up to see dozens of the things flitting towards her companions. Sheathing her swords, she grabbed up her bow and began trying to thin their number.
The dragon, scales now radiating with defensive magics, began pumping its wings, buffeting them with lashes of wind that sent up sand, stones, and other debris, practically blinding them.
"Arrogant little gnat! You think that just because I am young, that I am weak?" The beast roared, still buffeting them with his wings, forcing them to retreat before the gale force winds and the stalkers who were herding them towards the path where the sound of hooves could be heard clattering toward them yet again.
"You are weak!" Imoen shouted, her voice rising above the chaos and growing louder and shriller. "You want to see what power looks like?! Here! Take a close look!"
Ilyrana turned towards her sister's enraged voice, hardly recognizing it, hand over her eyes to shield them from the dirt flying around.
"Imoen! Fall back, what are you-"
Before she could finish, her sister's voice rose once again, this time in a chant.
"NO, YOU BLOODY FOOL!" Edwin roared, obviously recognizing the spell Imoen was casting. "STOP, GIRL! OR YOU'LL KILL US ALL!"
With her eyes squinted, Ilyrana peered through her fingers and that small flame of fear burning inside of her ignited into a conflagration at what she glimpsed.
Imoen, standing tall and defiant against the herd of stalkers and the dragon behind them, hands raised to gather power, wind and pebbles swirling in a vortex around her, and her eyes glowing as brightly as the sun that was just beginning to crest above the horizon.
No… gods, NO!
The irritability and paranoia. The eagerness to engage in battle. All of her recent behavior was because of the taint manifesting itself inside her.
She should have known. The signs were all there, so obvious to her now, as they should have been then. Would have been if she hadn't been so fucking focused on her and Sarevok's conversation, their memories, and the tangled web of conflicting emotions she had been battling because of all of it.
"IMOEN, STOP! IT'S THE TAINT TRYING TO USE YOU! YOU HAVE TO FIGHT IT!" Ilyrana screamed, even as she realized that she hadn't taught Imoen how to control, and resist, their sire's power.
She should have, when Imoen had begun having the dreams, and waking up with the knowledge of how to cast spells that she shouldn't be able to.
Someone grabbed her and drug her back. She struggled against them, needing to do something before this reckoning claimed the only person left that she loved.
"My lady, get back!" Anomen yelled into her ear as he half-carried her away from Imoen, trying to shield her from whatever her sister was about to unleash.
It was a noble effort, but futile. What can a knight do against the might of the very earth itself?
The ground shook. That was their only warning. The only hint they were given as to what spell Imoen had put into motion.
For just a few seconds, everything was completely still. The dragon froze, its wings raised back in mid stroke. The invisible stalkers paused, poised between them and the wyrm. The swirling debris fell to the ground as the winds died away.
Then...chaos.
The earth beneath the dragon opened up and swallowed it, the creature shrieking as it tumbled down the chasm Imoen created under it's feet. Before anyone could even process what they had just seen, the earth shook again, and the granite walls around the hot springs began to crack. The steaming pools began to boil, one of them shooting up in a geyser of scalding water.
When Ilyrana channeled the taint, she became stronger, faster, more resilient against wounds caused by steel or sorcery, and with heightened senses and reflexes. Sarevok had once harnessed that power to much the same effect. Imoen, however, was able to use it to fuel her magic.
The earthquake was violent but, mercifully, brief. Imoen collapsed to the ground, gasping for air, arms wrapped tightly around herself, and the glow of her eyes fading. Ilyrana twisted out of Anomen's hold, sprinting towards her sister as the invisible stalkers moved in on the vulnerable mage. Whipping out her swords, she didn't slow her speed as she leapt into the herd, slashing out with deadly accuracy.
"For the Doomguard I strike a blow!" Haer'Dalis cried out as he joined the fray; Chaos and Entropy, his short swords, becoming twin blurs as he spun through the stalkers, leaving the shadowy creatures littering the ground.
Sheathing her swords, Ilyrana turned and knelt beside Imoen.
"Are you alright?"
"Rana, I don't know what came over me, I've never been so angry before."
"It was the taint, but it's okay now. Come on, let's get you up."
"Gods, no wonder you're usually in a bad mood, that sucked. And now I ache all over, like my bones are bruised or something."
"Must be from the magic. Can you walk?"
"My raven, let me tend to her," Haer'Dalis said as he came up beside them. "You're needed against that horde."
Ilyrana reluctantly relinquished her sister to the tiefling and stepped back, knowing he was right.
"Go on, sis, I'll be alright, I just need to rest a minute."
Exchanging a concerned look with Haer'Dalis, Ilyrana once again took up her bow and turned towards her companions and the oncoming mercenaries. Before she could take two steps, there was a rumble as something giant detached itself from one of the cracked walls. As she realized what it was she was looking at, it was already too late.
"Earth elemental! MAZZY!" She screamed, firing an arrow at the fifteen foot monster in a desperate attempt to divert its attention. It must have been awakened by the earthquake, and was now seeking to punish those who had disturbed it.
The halfling turned, throwing her shield up, but it was useless. A cart-sized fist struck the shield, sending Mazzy flying back into one of the pools.
"NO!" Ilyrana and Valygar yelled, both of them sprinting toward the fallen warrior.
Valygar reached her first. Ilyrana felt frost begin to form inside her heart as she watched him kneel beside the halfling, reaching out to examine her crumpled body, then lunge to his feet, bellowing for a resurrection from a healer. It wouldn't be forthcoming.
With an enraged earth elemental barreling down on them from one side, and a mercenary army about to crash into their frontline, Viconia, Anomen, nor Jaheira would be able to perform the spell. And the longer Mazzy was dead, the less likely it was that she could be brought back. Ilyrana could see that realization in her friend's face as he looked down at their fallen companion and she ached for him. Mazzy was her friend, too, but she and Valygar had become very close over these past couple of years.
A grief-stricken battlecry had her turning to see Korgan sinking his axe into the elemental's knee, the blow making the behemoth creature stumble, one colossal arm swinging down to crush the dwarf. A giant, disembodied, ghostly hand formed above and behind Korgan, curled, and smashed into the thing, sending rocks and dirt flying as it fell heavily to the ground and did not get back up.
"Ha HA!" Edwin roared triumphantly, exultant with his spellcasting.
Ilyrana almost grinned at the Thayvian, but her expression turned to one of horror as an arrow appeared through his throat. She didn't have time to yell for aid, or rush to the mage's side, as another arrow blossomed out of his chest, and he fell, gurgling on his own blood.
Watching a second friend fall, she felt the taint stir inside of her, feeding on her anger, burning through her veins, offering up its power.
Not yet.
Viconia's voice rose as she cast a Confusion spell on the charging frontline of the mounted sell swords. Ilyrana watched with savage glee as the soldiers began trying to hack away at each other, mid gallop, while others jerked on the reigns of their steeds, forcing the beasts to attempt to slide to a stop, so that the horses behind them slammed into them. Those that reached her warriors were swiftly cut down.
In seconds, the path was completely clogged with the corpses of the previously slain mercenaries and their mounts, as well as the aftermath of the chaos inflicted by the drow's spell.
Climbing atop a chunk of fallen granite, she began taking out the archers that had scaled one of the walls. Valygar joined her, adding his own, his eyes red with unshed tears.
An explosion off to their right had the backline turning in time to see that a rogue mage had blown a hole through one of the walls weakened by the earthquake. More soldiers began pouring into the springs.
"We can't keep this up, there's too many!" Valygar yelled into her ear as he drew out his katana, his quiver of arrows now spent.
"There's no way out of here!" She cried back.
"Rana!" Imoen yelled from somewhere behind her.
Ilyrana spun and felt a glimmer a hope at what she saw. The back wall opposite of them had cracked and there was a sizeable enough gap for them to escape through. Imoen and Haer'Dalis were standing near the hole, tossing out spells at any mercenaries foolish enough to come near them.
"Keldorn! Fall back! We need to get out of here!"
The paladin, his shining armor now covered in gore, began bellowing to the others to retreat. Ilyrana, still firing arrows at any of the enemy archers and mages that she could see, started moving toward their escape as well. Another explosion rocked the area, this time from their left. Like ants, soldiers began spreading out from the newest entrance.
They were in full retreat now. Her spellcasters had almost nothing left to cast, and her fighters would be exhausted and injured. Jaheira stopped halfway, turned, and raised her hands to begin a spell. Giant brown bears appeared before her, two pairs, gave bellowing roars, and began loping toward the sell swords.
"We can't leave Mazzy!" Valygar shouted and made to go back.
"Valygar, stop!" She screamed, grabbing the ranger's arm and pulling him around to face her. "If we don't get out of here now, we'll be surrounded and overwhelmed. I'm sorry, but we have to go!"
Ilyrana's voice cracked at the end. She didn't want to leave Mazzy and Edwin's bodies here. She wanted to try and have them resurrected, but there was nothing to be done about it now. The rage, and grief, on Valygar's face made her reach for him, wanting to alleviate some of her friend's pain in some small way, and perhaps some of her own as well. He jerked away from her, his eyes full of loathing.
"Valygar?"
"Save it, Ilyrana," he spat, and turned to climb through the crack in the wall.
Her stomach knotted, and her eyes stung, as she watched the man disappear beyond the wall. He was her most steadfast of friends, the most understanding, and that look of hatred and disgust killed something inside of her. She knew he was grieving, would apologize for snapping at her later, if there was a later, but right now, it all just added to the stew of fury boiling inside her.
"Sis, it's clear on this side, right now anyway," Imoen called from beyond the wall.
"Alright, everyone through!" She snapped, sending more arrows into the army, aiding the four giant bears who were mauling anyone foolish enough to come within their range.
Anomen, Jaheira, and Keldorn went through. Korgan, Sarevok, and Viconia were the last ones still fighting.
"Come on!" Ilyrana shouted, covering their retreat.
Viconia, bashing one last head in with her shield, turned and made her way towards the escape. Ilyrana sent an arrow over the drow's shoulder and into the narrow slit in the helm of a heavily armored sell sword coming up behind her. As the man collapsed, Ilyrana saw a mage and a cleric standing shoulder to shoulder behind him, hands weaving their magics in the air.
"Vico-"
Lightning slammed into Viconia's back, knocking her to the ground before ricocheting into one of the bears, then snaking out to disperse among a cluster of soldiers. The spell left all those hit by it twitching violently on the ground.
Ilyrana dropped the mage before the lightning faded completely, eyes glowing almost white with fury. Reaching behind her shoulder for another arrow, and grasping at air for several seconds, she realized her quiver was empty, at the exact moment the cleric finished his spell.
"ILYRANA! HURRY!" Keldorn roared from the other side.
Snarling, she threw her bow across her shoulder, turned, and began running towards the hole on the wall. With each step, her fury grew. With each frantic beating of her heart, the guilt festered. She would have vengeance. If it took another piece of her humanity to do it, then so be it, but her fallen would be avenged. A dozen yards from escape, the cleric's spell manifested.
A faint red shimmer appeared between herself and the wall, as tall as the rock and just as wide. She thought it was a trick of the light, the dawn's rays reflecting off of the pinkish granite, so she didn't slow her sprint. An arm snaked around her waist and yanked her back, lifting her off the ground and pulling her against an armored body. Her flash of outrage turned to confusion then to fear as she realized that Sarevok had just saved her life from something she had never needed saving from before.
The red filmy barrier only feet in front of her was no trick of the light. It was a Protection from Evil spell that that cleric had cast. She could hear, and feel, an angry buzzing sound emanating from it, and it repulsed her, made her skin crawl and burn just to be near it. The reason why it had such an effect on her, when this particular spell hadn't done so before, made her sag back against her half-brother, clutching the arm around her stomach in disbelief.
"DWARF, STOP!" Sarevok yelled, but it was too late.
Korgan couldn't stop his forward momentum in time to prevent running through the red veil. When he hit it, his body disintegrated. Ilyrana, eyes wide with horror, could only watch as another companion, another friend, died.
"Rana! What are you doing? COME ON!" Imoen yelled through the crack in the wall.
Sarevok took a few more steps back from the barrier, pulling her back and to the side of him, both of them repulsed by the energy of the spell.
"What's wrong? Why aren't they coming through?" Imoen asked, her voice sounding small, confused, scared.
"Protection from Evil," Keldorn replied numbly, staring at the pair of them, his eyes full of emotion and unblinking.
"Huh? Okay, so Sarevok is screwed, but that doesn't mean Rana can't come through," Imoen said, looking from the paladin, to her sister, to Jaheira, and back. "Rana isn't evil."
"The gods say she is," Jaheira replied quietly.
"Sir Keldorn," Ilyrana called, surprised at how steady and calm she sounded, when she wasn't feeling that way at all. "Get everyone out of here. It's up to Imoen now to kill Sendai and Abazigal. Aid her, as you've aided me. Protect her, guide her...that's my final order."
"Rana?! No, wait, this isn't right! YOU'RE NOT EVIL!" Imoen screamed, leaping forward, arm outstretched to climb back through the hole, but Haer'Dalis and Jaheira grabbed her.
"Keldorn?! You're not seriously considering leaving her, are you?!" Anomen demanded, rounding on his superior.
"I will do everything in my power to keep Imoen alive and help her finish this war. I vow it, Ilyrana," Keldorn called to her, his hand gripped tightly around the handle of his holy sword, a tear trekking down his anguished face.
"WHAT?! WE CAN'T JUST LEAVE THEM!" Valygar cried.
A pain-filled roar echoed behind them, and she and Sarevok turned to see another bear fall, leaving two alive now. Snarling, the Deathbringer moved to intercept a mercenary who had slipped past the beasts and was running toward them, spear raised.
"Go! We'll hold them off as long as we can!" Ilyrana managed to yell, her throat tight with unshed tears as she unbuckled her empty quiver of arrows, letting the now unnecessary weight fall to the ground.
"NO! I'M NOT LEAVING YOU! RANA!" Imoen shrieked, frantically trying to throw off Haer'Dalis, but he and the druid held her firmly between them.
Anomen and Valygar were yelling into Keldorn's face, both intent on going back through the wall to stand with them.
"They can't cross that barrier, and we won't make much of a difference against that many sell swords!" Keldorn roared, stunning the two men into silence with his fury. "This is killing me just as it is you, but there's nothing we can do! Ilyrana and Sarevok are two of the most skilled fighters I've ever seen, they may be able to survive until that spell fades! Until then, we have to get Imoen out of here and keep her safe!"
Ilyrana stopped listening as another bear fell heavily to the ground. Keldorn was right. They could survive. It was highly unlikely, but there was one option still open to her, one she would wait until the last possible moment to use, and hope it was enough.
As she unslung her bow and let it, too, fall to the ground, she tried to block out her sister's wailing cries, now dwindling as her remaining companions began to make their escape. Tried to ignore the blinding pain in her heart as Imoen's screamed denials blended with the memories of her own screams as Gorion drug her away from Sarevok. The pain quickly changed to wrath as she drew her swords and moved to stand beside her brother.
The taint whispered through her blood, fueling the adrenaline, offering up its power for her use. She accepted it. Allowed it to suffuse every part of her mind, body, and soul, fortifying every muscle and bone, honing every primal instinct. Accepted the price it would demand from her for it's gifts.
"I would say that I hope you have some kind of plan, but I know better by now," Sarevok said dryly. "You have no plan other than to die and hope in doing so that your sister makes it out alive."
"Pretty much," she replied.
Sarevok turned to say something else, but the last of Jaheira's bears finally fell, and he went quiet. Now there was nothing standing between them and the army. Now, the real fight was about to begin. Most likely their last fight. It was fitting, in a way, that they would be standing together for it.
Stepping forward and moving away from Sarevok to give them some room to maneuver, Ilyrana felt his half of their soul brush against hers. She didn't pull away this time. What was the point? Instead, she reached back with her half, and felt that weird sense of vertigo again. Then, a sort of awareness of him. He was no longer in her line of sight, but she knew exactly how far away from her he stood. Knew just how heavy his greatsword was while clasped in only one hand. Knew that he was going to pull back from the morningstar being swung at him, then take the head of the man who wielded it. Knew that he felt the same awareness of her.
And they both knew that this surprising use of their shared soul just evened up the odds a little bit.