Her gaze scanned the surrounding buildings, a far-away look on her face. “A great and powerful mage of Suheylu Ra used the Khar’s own weapon against them. He combined the magic of our world with the Onslaught and used it to attack the Sky Portal. When the portal collapsed, everything that belonged to the Netherworld returned to the Netherworld—and that included the Turan Khar. The backlash killed everyone in the region and tainted the air forever.” Xiana’s eyes grew distant. “That was the last time the Khar ever walked this world… until now.”
Looking around at the hauntingly empty city, Rylan asked, “How did they come back?”
Xiana paused and turned to him. “Recently, another portal was created and left open long enough for there to be crossover between our two worlds: the Well of Tears. Your father helped destroy it, but by that time, it was too late. The Turan Khar had already crossed.” She looked down. “And now they’ve created a new portal.”
The thought made Rylan’s heart shudder in his chest. The day seemed suddenly darker. Colder. He could feel the corruption in the air needling his skin. He stood staring at Xiana, frozen by trepidation.
She took a step toward him. “Now do you understand why it’s so important for you to learn all that you can, as quickly as you can? Look around you. Shiran society was far more advanced than any civilization in the world today. And yet, even they were no match for the Turan Khar. And now the Khar have set their sights on your homeland. How will your people survive?”
He stood looking at her, unable to respond. His gaze wandered the ruins that surrounded him, his ears taking in the totality of silence. Never before had he sensed such presence of death.
“They won’t,” he whispered.
28
A Fool’s Errand
Following Ashra, Gil stumbled down the steps of the Lyceum and stopped in the middle of the street, turning slowly as he surveyed the damage to the surrounding district. The building directly across from them was on fire. As Gil looked on, part of the roof collapsed, throwing up a gush of flame and showering the street with embers. From the distance came the sounds of screams. Black smoke poured from the district just to the west.
“What happened?” gasped Ashra, gazing wide-eyed at the smoke.
“Stay here,” Gil told her. “I’m going to have a look.”
Ashra caught his arm, halting him. “Stop. Send some battlemages. Let them do their jobs while you do yours.”
Gil’s face grew instantly hot as his cheeks flushed. He opened his mouth to say something.
Before he could respond, she interrupted, “You are a commander now. That is your duty: to command. Not to run toward the front lines! Have you forgotten Payden?”
His blood overboiled. “You’re my acolyte, not my mother. Let go of my arm!”
Ashra’s face pinched in anger. “I’m your friend,” she snapped. “And as your friend, I’m telling you you’re wrong!”
A loud explosion jarred the street. Gil reached for the magic field, throwing up a glistening shield between them and the flying debris. A block away, another building collapsed, crumpling in on itself. Dropping the shield, Gil jogged forward and surveyed the damage. Many of the Lyceum’s guards lay dead in the street, others moaning on the ground.
He sprinted over to the nearest injured guard and sent a flood of healing energies into him. The man gasped once then slipped quickly into the healing sleep while Gil moved to the next victim. Kneeling beside a third, he caught Ashra’s hand and let her feel through him as he worked. Together, they went on to the next. Within minutes, they stood alone in the street with only the unconscious and the dead.
Gil explained, “My men can’t stop the fire strikes. But I’m stronger than all of them. That’s why they made me Warden. I’m going where I’m needed, and that’s that.”
Her dark eyes narrowed in frustration. “My father told you this would happen. You didn’t listen to him. But you still can—it’s not too late.” She set a hand on his arm. “Tell the Prime Warden to abandon the Lyceum. Then send your mages to help my father.”
Gil took a deep breath, summoning every last scrap of patience he could muster. “I’m not going to do that. Now, are you going to come with me? Or go run to your father?”
She stared at him hard. “You’re a fool,” she growled, her eyes glinting with ire. Looking away, she heaved a sigh. “But I’ll come with you.”
With a curt nod, Gil strode forward down the street, the sounds of Ashra’s footsteps dogging his heels.
A crackling noise overhead made him look up. The incoming fireball was like a meteor, streaming a flaming trail behind it as it began its descent. He opened himself to the magic field, drawing it in as quickly as he could, filling himself to his limit. Then he hurled everything he had into the sky, a lance of solid air that impacted with the projectile. Flames erupted from it, but the missile remained intact, continuing its descent. His action had done something, at least: the fireball altered its trajectory just a fraction. With a crackling roar, it hurled over the roof of the Lyceum, exploding into the neighborhood just beyond.
The thunder of the impact was deafening. The entire street jolted as a massive gush of flames erupted into the air, producing thick clouds of billowing smoke. Gil looked at Ashra with an I-told-you-so glare, then set out down the street, moving as fast as he could while dodging scattered debris and chucks of buildings.
Two blocks away, they found a group of six armored mages guarding an intersection along with the last vestiges of the Lyceum Guard. They were hunkered down behind a hastily improvised barricade, while beyond them, on the other side of the intersection, a horde of Khar soldiers filled the entirety of the street. All carried poleaxes and shields, and all wore the characteristic gray faces and jutting cheekbones… all except the four pairs of linked mages who stood in the center of the intersection, ahead of the lines.
Seeing them, Gil halted, sucking in a frigid breath. Each pair of Khar mages was tethered to a black-cloaked prisoner.
“Oh, gods,” Ashra breathed. “They’re using them as shields.”
The Khar mages stared across the intersection at them with disdainful expressions. Their captives slouched, bloodied and bruised, looking beaten in both body and spirit. Gil knew all four of them.
He felt suddenly, physically ill. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. It took a great effort to will his feet to move forward again. He drew up beside Caster, a lanky Empiricist with a kind disposition, who had no business being on a battlefield. The man was gawking over the barricade, his hands clutching a short sword so hard that his knuckles were a creamy white. Gil crouched down next to him, the man hardly noticing.
He threw up a shield over their position then turned to Fowler, the only battlemage in the group. “What’s the situation?”
“The situation is we’re fucked,” Fowler replied, spitting on the ground. He rubbed his bald head and then raised his hand, pointing past the pairs of chained mages to the ranks of footmen behind them. “The strikes were a diversion. While we were focused on the fireballs, their main force crossed the canal west of Kazri Souk. Where the hell were you?”
Gil cursed himself, wanting to put his fist through his own face. He swung around with a growl and paced away, fingers clenched in anger. When he turned back around, he was standing face-to-face with Ashra.
“Command,” she reminded him.
She was right. He nodded.
Moving past her, he strode over to Fowler. “Take four mages,” he ordered. “Keep the Khar out of the Souk.” He turned to a group of men wearing the black uniforms of the Lyceum Guard. Choosing the one with the most stitched bars on his sleeve, he told him, “Split your men up between me and Fowler. Half will go with him, the other half will stay here with me.”
The man turned and immediately started carrying out the order. The guards quickly divided themselves into two groups. Suddenly, every hair on Gil’s neck stood on end. A bright spear of light strobed the air. The howls of agony told him what had
happened even before he turned to look. When he did, he saw a dozen guards smoldering in the street.
Fowler bellowed something, and the remaining guards scrambled forward as another bolt of lightning stabbed the ground where they’d just been standing. The smell of ozone was thick in the air. Overhead, the clouds rumbled with rolling thunder. Gil looked over the barricade and saw two of the Khar mages standing with arms stretched over their heads.
The air around him heated with a terrible rushing noise. Behind, a group of guardsmen erupted in flames. Gil reinforced the shield over the men nearest him, weaving a web of light over their heads. The next stab of lightning shattered against it, making him stagger with the force of the impact.
A man across from him dropped dead where he stood. Before Gil could recover enough to summon a second shield, another man went down. Gil staggered, catching himself on the wheel of an overturned cart still hitched to a dead horse with splayed legs.
He yelled at Ashra, “Can you weave a shadow web?”
She scrambled to his side and clung to his arm. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to stabilize herself or him. “I can try! I’ve never made one before!”
“Just do your best!”
Gil straightened, letting go of the wagon and moving toward the barricade.
He looked around for the officer he’d just spoken to and found him lying dismembered in the street. He searched desperately for the nearest uniformed guard, not caring if it was an officer or a new recruit.
Signaling a man over, he told him, “I’ll draw them away from the barrier. As soon as I do, order your men through.”
“I’m not in charge!” the guard protested.
“You are now.” Gil swung away from the man and extended his hand to Ashra. “Come with me.”
She didn’t hesitate. She took his hand, moving with him toward the barricade where they hunkered down and waited. Gil leaned forward, looking out through a gap between stacked crates. Ahead, two pairs of enemy mages stood ready to attack anything that moved, keeping their black-cloaked captives near them on short leashes. The woman on the right was Chandra Mourey, a gentle Querer who had just started a family. The man chained on the left was one of Gil’s own battlemages, a tall, blond-haired man named Horton.
“We need to do something about their mages,” Gil said, feeling his anger and frustration mounting. He motioned at the Empiricist squatting across from him on the other side of a wheelbarrow. “Caster!”
The man scrambled toward him on all fours, crawling up to crouch at his side. “Yes, boss?”
Gil scowled, hating himself for putting the man in the position he was going to need him in. But he didn’t have a choice. “I need a diversion. Take a couple guards and head up Badek Street toward the theater. Cut around to the south and attack their flank.”
Caster’s face paled a bit, but he nodded gamely. Patting his shoulder, Gil sent him off and turned back to the intersection. The Khar mages lingered in the street, scanning the barricade for any target they could claim. Chandra and Horton remained chained at their sides. Chandra’s eyes were fixed on the ground, a cut slanting across her face from chin to ear. Horton stood battered but defiant, his shoulders squared, his back rigid.
They lingered there for minutes at a stalemate, the Khar mages unable to attack through their shields, their own forces unable to mount a sortie because that would take them out from under the shields’ protection. Gil turned around and sat with his back to the barricade, his pulse throbbing. He didn’t want to look at Chandra and Horton. The sight of their faces made his stomach twist into knots.
A series of explosions rocked the square. The Khar soldiers in the intersection screamed in outrage, then surged toward the sounds of Caster’s diversion.
“Come on!” Gil cried to the guardsmen behind him. Standing, he ducked out from behind the stack of crates and stormed into the intersection.
Spears flew toward them, impacting with Ashra’s shield. Gil raised his hand and drew the magic field into him until he glowed with power. The Khar mages jerked their captives back against them, directly in Gil’s line of sight. He let out a cry of frustration.
“Gil!” Ashra shouted behind him. “Remember Payden!”
He didn’t need her to remind him. He looked at the first black-cloaked mage directly in front of him: Chandra. She’d been kind to him at the Lyceum, had even taken care of him when he’d fallen ill with scarlet fever.
He reached inside Chandra and stopped her heart.
Flooded with rage, Gil struck out at her captors. Both mages hurled backward into the building behind them, their bodies striking brick with alarming force. A shout from Ashra made him turn. Another pair of chained mages strode toward them, pulling a Malikari captive along behind. Together, they lifted their linked arms over their heads, reaching for the sky. Webs of power crawled over them, scintillating over their bodies.
Crackling thunder clapped down from the sky. Gil put every ounce of power he could summon into his shield. The lightning strike overwhelmed Ashra’s web and attacked his shield, its energies sucked in and redirected into the ground. Before Gil could recover, another pair of mages step forward, arms raised to the sky. He almost didn’t react fast enough.
This time, it wasn’t lightning.
It was thunder.
The air split overhead then clapped back together with horrendous force, hurling them both off their feet. Gil cried out and brought his hands up to his ears. A shrill, ringing noise stabbed through his head, like someone driving a spear into his brain. Clenching his jaw, he managed to pick himself up off the ground. He reached for Ashra, but she was already rising, shaking her head violently. A shout from behind made him turn. The soldiers who had run to attack Caster had finished their grisly work and were rushing back their way.
Gil didn’t think. He just acted.
He raised his hands, striking out without thinking. The brute force of his magic impacted with the charging soldiers. Men up and down the line exploded, one after another. Blood sprayed, saturating his clothes and running down his face. Screaming war cries, more soldiers poured forward to take the place of those fallen.
Gil saw that even Ashra’s help wasn’t going to be enough. Not near enough. Their position was being overrun. He started mindlessly hurling magic, trying not to think of the number of people he was killing. He forced himself to imagine that the blood drenching his face was just water, that the screams of anguish were just random noise.
He couldn’t keep it up.
He couldn’t fool himself. Couldn’t stand himself.
Reaching out, he grabbed Ashra’s arm and gasped, “Run!”
They turned and fled back toward the barricade. He leaped over it, coming to a rolling stop on the other side. A terrible jolt rocked the street, and the world trembled. Then it erupted in chaos.
With a thunderous noise, multiple fireballs shot across the sky overhead. They impacted into the district behind them, one after another in quick succession. The area was instantly engulfed in flames, the light of day replaced by a dim, otherworldly twilight as the pouring smoke rose to block the sun.
For just a moment, Gil stood there, stunned.
Then someone bellowed, “They’re attacking the Waterfront!”
He turned around, breaking his attention from the leaping flames and took in the fires consuming the Souk District just south of the Waterfront. The men he’d sent with Fowler would be caught between the spreading inferno and the canal.
He had to get there, had to get everyone there. Looking beyond the barricade, he saw the enemy footmen were already regrouping. Their position was untenable. If he didn’t act fast—and act decisively—they would lose more than the Lyceum.
They would lose the entire city.
He shouted at the remaining mages, “Nolan! Cummings! Hold the intersection and don’t give it up! Everyone else, fall back to the canal!”
“Come with me!” he shouted at Ashra and sprinted toward a side street. He could hea
r fighting up ahead, see men engaged in battle several blocks away. He quickened his pace, all thoughts of protecting the Souk now gone from his mind. They were losing the Waterfront.
They halted just short of the melee. The Sultan’s lines weren’t where he’d left them—the Canal Road had already fallen. A dozen enemy soldiers noticed their arrival and broke off from the fight, careening toward them with weapons raised. Gil turned to flee, but more soldiers poured in from an alley behind them. Within seconds, they were surrounded.
He thrust his hands out, calling on the magic field.
Nothing happened.
The enemy soldiers ringed them in but didn’t attack. They stood around them in a circle, weapons raised, and did nothing. Gil turned slowly, looking from one gray face to the next, waiting for a spear or sword to take him down. His stomach twisted, and his heart stumbled in his chest. Beside him, Ashra let out a miserable groan.
Somehow, they’d been cut off from the magic field. Dampened.
He let his arms sink to his sides. He turned slowly, staring wide-eyed at the soldiers surrounding them, wondering why they didn’t strike.
The ranks parted to create a passage, and through that passage, a man and a woman came forward. A pair of Khar mages, chained together with manacles on their wrists. One held a spare chain in his hand. An empty chain. Gil shivered, Payden’s face filling his mind. He didn’t want to end up like Payden. And he knew Ashra wouldn’t want that either.
He wouldn’t let that happen to her.
Gil glanced down at the dagger he wore at his side. He stood frozen, his body numb, his shoulders going slack. He looked deep into Ashra’s face and saw it in her eyes: she knew what he was contemplating.
Staring back at him, she nodded. “Go ahead. Do it.”
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t draw breath.
“Do it,” she urged, her eyes hard as iron.
He moved his hand to the dagger’s hilt. His muscles tensed. He closed his eyes and gathered his courage.
Chains of Blood Page 25
