Extinction

"It is indeed, Mistress," said Danifae, her face expressionless. "The rogues who were in the vault before us must have dropped it."

She handed the wand to Quenthel, bowing her head.

Quenthel stroked Danifae's hair in what Valas, had he not known Quenthel as well as he did, would have taken to be a sign of affection.

"At last, Danifae, you've proven your usefulness. This will make finding the ship of chaos much easier."

So fixated on the wand was Quenthel that she missed something that Valas did not: the look on Pharaun's face. Once again, the Master of Sorcere was plotting something. Valas, neither wanting to know nor caring what it might be, turned away and stared, brooding, out at the lake. Then, spotting something in the distance with his keen eyes, he stiffened.

"What is it?" Pharaun asked, peering in the same direction. "More wraiths?"

Valas shook his head, and pointed to a distant spot where bats were frantically circling above a disturbance in the water.

"Something's stirring up the bats. . something big. And it's headed this way."

Chapter Twenty-nine

Ryld trudged along the open, treeless plain, following Halisstra's trail. She'd forbidden him from accompanying her, saying the quest for the Crescent Blade was something she had to undertake alone?but she hadn't forbidden him from following her. Not in so many words.

And so he'd bade her farewell when she left Eilistraee's temple, then set out after her as soon as she was out of sight. He'd been able to trail her closely during the three days she'd traveled through the forest, but when she struck out across the Cold Field, he'd been forced to fall back and follow only under cover of darkness. Even with his magical piwafwi there was no way for him to hide on the flat, featureless plain in full daylight.

He followed the faint traces of Halisstra's passage: a blank spot on the frosted ground where a pebble had been kicked out of place; a patch of lichen that had been scuffed off a rock; and a concave fragment of bone, recently kicked over, the frozen dirt clinging to its underside still fresh.

Flicking the fragment of skull aside with the toe of his boot, the weapons master stared across the desolate landscape, looking for Halisstra. As far as he could see the frozen ground was studded with crumbling pieces of bone, rusted lance heads, shield bosses, and chunks of chain mail so rusted the links had fused into a single, solid mass. It was as if the remains of the armies that had fought there centuries past had been seeded into the ground in the hope that they would one day rise again. Yet nothing grew there, save for a few faint traces of lichen on those rocks that hadn't been melted to slag by the fiery breath of dragons.

A bitterly cold wind began to blow, plucking at the ends of Ryld's piwafwi like the ghosts of the dead. Shivering, he peered nto the gloom, searching for Halisstra. She must have still been far ahead of him; he couldn't see her. Ryld wondered if the ground had swallowed her up, just as it had the fallen armies, then he realized his nerves were getting the better of him. That was the way of the place, though. The combination of the moldering death beneath his feet and the vastness of the sky above him made him feel vulnerable, exposed. If the dead truly did walk that barren landscape, there was nowhere to make a stand against them?no cavern wall to place his back against.

Running a hand across the crown of his head?his close-cropped hair had almost grown out and would soon need to be shaved back again?he trudged onward, eyes constantly flicking down to search the ground for Halisstra's trail. After a few paces, however, he stopped. There, some distance ahead of him in the direction Halisstra had been heading?was that someone moving?

Not someone?something. The figure was definitely drow-shaped but seemed to be lacking its lower half. Ryld could clearly see a head, shoulders, and arms silhouetted against the spot on the horizon where the moon was rising behind the clouds, but below the waist there was nothing but a trail of dark fog, twisting in the wind like smoke from an extinguished candle. He didn't need to see its legs, however, to determine which direction the thing was moving in. It sped briskly along, stopping every now and then to stoop down low over the earth. With a shudder, Ryld realized it too was following Halisstra.

He drew Splitter from the sheath on his back and sprinted forward. The ground beneath his feet blurred as his magical boots propelled him along at several times his normal running speed. To attempt stealth on the featureless plain was futile. All Ryld could count on to tip the balance in his favor was speed. That, nd the magic of the greatsword in his hand.