Silver Shadows - Elaine Cunningham [118]
Arilyn continued the swing, pulling her right elbow back until her two-fisted grip was tightly pressed against her right shoulder. She face off against the nearest man and stepped toward him, her left foot leading and sword thrusting out straight and hard toward his throat. He could not even lift a blade in time to parry.
Pulling her sword from the dead man's throat, she spun about to see how her companions were faring.
Not well. Hawkwing was down, and Ferret was pressed on all sides. The elven war leader was doing his best to work his way through to any one of the beleaguered females, but he was badly outnumbered. Even if he'd been fighting one-on-one, Foxfire's bone dagger was not designed for battle against tempered steel.
As if in response to her thoughts, the elf's dagger shattered under the attack of a mercenary's sword. The elf leaped aside, agile and quick, but several men closed in, and Arilyn knew he could not long avoid them.
Her next response was pure instinct. She held her bloodstained blade high and shouted a command to the magic imprisoned within: "Come forth! All of you!"
At Arilyn's summons, magic exploded from the moon-blade-a white, swirling mist that rose into the air with a force and fury rivaling that of a waterspout at sea.
Every combatant on the field froze and stared at the brief, spectacular manifestation. Then it was gone, and in its place stood several battle-ready elven warriors, each armed with a sword identical to the moonblade that had called them forth. These advanced on the befuddled humans, and the battle began anew.
For a moment Arilyn could do nothing but gaze in awe at her ancestors, all the elves who had wielded her moonblade since the days of its forging in long-ago Myth Drannor.
There was Zoastria, tiny and wraithlike-the most insubstantial of the elfshadow warriors. The elf woman's angular face was a mask of frustration as she slashed at the human mercenaries with her sword, a sword that drew no more blood than would a breath of wind. Yet Zoastria's efforts were not without effect. The mercenaries shrank away in terror from the ghostly elven warrior-and onto the blades of the others.
A tall, ancient elven wizard, his long white hair a mass of tiny braids, held his shadow-moonblade out at arm's length, point-down, as if it were a mage's staff. The sword blazed with blue fire, as did his eyes and the fingertips of his outstretched hand. Pinpricks of blazing eldritch light darted toward the mercenaries like vengeful fireflies.
A small, slight male elf held his sword with two hands, yet he wielded the single blade with a dizzying speed that brought to mind the dual swords of a bladesinger's dance. The crest on his tabard, a bright-plummaged bird rising from flames, proclaimed him to be Phoenix Moonflower, the elf who, centuries before, had imbued the sword with its rapid strike.
Another male elf, this one with, flame-colored hair, wielded a shadow-sword that flickered and seared with arcane fire. Heat rose from the blade, which glowed a red so intense that it brought to mind a dwarven forge. Arilyn recognized him as Xenophor, the elf who had lent the power of fire resistance to the blade, and she watched in awe as he fought, for his shadow moonblade leaped and darted and licked like wildfire in a capricious wind.
There was a tall, rangy elf woman who seemed oddly devoid of color. Her skin was starkly white, her eyes and hair the color of jet, her leathers and boots a dusty black. There was nothing colorless about her fighting, though. Never had Arilyn seen anyone fight with such bloody fury. And there were others as well-Arilyn's own elfshadow and two males, one small and fierce and the other taller than the rest and golden-haired.
All this Arilyn noted in an instant, for the churning battle did not allow for leisurely