"I'll take care of the shadows," she replied grimly. She raised both arms above her head, her fists clenched. A look of dreadful concentration filled her face, and then she spoke a single word, opening her hands as she did so. The grass, which had been bending toward them in the hot wind preceding the storm, suddenly flattened in the opposite direction as the force of Polgara's will rippled outward. As that force passed over each shadowy Grolim illusion, the figures seemed to flinch, then shrivel, and then with silent detonations, each shadow exploded into shards and fragments of darkness.

Polgara was gasping as the last of the shadows on the farthest edge of the army vanished, and she would have collapsed had Durnik not jumped to her side to support her. "Are you all right?" he asked worriedly.

"Just give me a moment," she said, wilting against him. "That took a great deal of effort." She smiled at him, a wan little smile, and then her head drooped wearily.

"Won't they come back?" Ce'Nedra demanded. "What I mean is, it didn't actually hurt the real Grolims, did it? Just their shadows."

Polgara laughed weakly. "Oh, it hurt them, all right," she replied. "Those Grolims don't have shadows any more. Not one of them will ever cast a shadow again."

"Not ever?" the princess gasped.

"Not ever."

Then Beldin joined them, swooping in with the wind tearing at his feathers. "We've got work to do, Polgara," he growled even as he shimmered into his natural shape. "We're going to have to break up this storm they're bringing in from the west. I talked with the twins. They'll work on the southern side of it, and you and I'll take this side."

She looked at him inquiringly.

"Their army's going to be advancing right behind the storm," he explained. "There's no point in trying to hold it back now. It's got too much momentum. What we want to do is break open the rear edge of it and let it spill back over the Angaraks."

"How many Grolims are working on the storm, Uncle?" she asked him.

"Who knows?" He shrugged. "But it's taking every bit of effort they can muster just to keep it under control. If the four of us hit the back side all at once, the pressures in the storm itself will do the rest."

"Why not just let it pass over?" Durnik asked. "Our troops aren't children. They won't fall apart just because of a little squall."

"This isn't just a little squall, blacksmith," Beldin said acidly. Something large and white thudded to the ground a few feet away. "If you get four or five of those hailstones on top of the head, you won't care how the battle turns out."

"They're as big as hens' eggs," Durnik said in astonishment.