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The gnome frowned. “I thought you said ‘we’ would join the battle.”

Q’arlynd made a point of looking down at the deep gnome. Flinderspeld was tiny, barely half his height, the size of a child. “You’re too valuable to throw away in combat,” he told his slave. That said, he spoke the words to a glamor that rendered the deep gnome invisible. He drew his wand and strode toward the sounds of fighting.

The trees screened much of the battle, but it was well illuminated. Balls of silver-white light drifted through the trees, illuminating the scene with the brightness of several full moons, forcing the driders to squint. As he moved through the forest, Q’arlynd counted nearly three dozen of the creatures. The priestesses, many shielded by auras of protective magic, fought with sword and spell, singing as they attacked. Swords flew through the air as if guided by invisible hands, harrying the driders in the treetops.

The driders shifted position constantly, scuttling through the branches overhead and releasing arrows with deadly effect. One struck a priestess in the arm, a grazing wound, but she immediately reeled and fell. Poison. Another priestess rushed to her side and began a prayer, but a second drider dropped suddenly from a tree and landed on her back. As its fangs spread to bite, Q’arlynd blasted it with his wand. Jagged balls of ice smashed into the drider’s chest, knocking it away from the priestess. The blows weren’t enough to kill the thing, but the priestess finished the job, slashing with her sword in a backhand swing that decapitated the drider. As the head rolled toward Q’arlynd, he noted the pattern of fresh scars on its face which looked almost like a spiderweb. Odd.

The priestess looked to see who had come to her aid. Q’arlynd made a quick hand sign—ally—then bowed. The priestess nodded and went back to her healing spell.

Q’arlynd ran off to find more targets—making sure, whenever possible, that a priestess was on hand to observe him fighting. He battled the driders with blasts of ice, no longer caring if he depleted the magic of his wand. If the battle earned him a meeting with the high priestess, it would be worth it. He fought as well with the evocation spells he’d learned at the Conservatory. It felt good to be using his talents again. He blasted the driders with magic missiles or punched holes through them with jagged streaks of lightning. Once, when several priestesses were watching, he used the fur-wrapped rod that was that spell’s material component to stitch a lightning bolt through four different targets, delighting in its flashy display of power.

At one point one of the driders—one also with a pattern of scars on its face—attempted to cast an enchantment on him. Q’arlynd had been trained to shield his mind, and he laughed aloud when the drider tried to implant a suggestion that he flee. He pummeled it with a blast from his wand and ran on, searching for Leliana and Rowaan.

He saw someone he thought was Leliana battling two driders, but when he got closer, he realized it was a different priestess entirely. She didn’t seem to need his assistance. Q’arlynd watched, fascinated, as she released her sword, which sang as it flew through the air. As the weapon slashed at one of the driders, keeping it busy, she sang a prayer. Her hands swept down, calling a brilliant white light down from the night sky. It slammed into the second drider, knocking it to the ground. In the same instant, her sword stabbed the first drider through the heart. Then it flew back to the priestess’s hand.

The streak of light had left Q’arlynd blinking. As his vision cleared, he realized the priestess faced yet another opponent—not a drider, but a drow, a male in armor as black and glossy as obsidian, holding a two-handed sword with an intricate basket hilt. The warrior’s skin was covered in a tracery of fine white lines, similar to the scars Q’arlynd had seen on the driders’ faces, except that the lines were glowing.

The warrior swung at the priestess,