Shella shook her head. ‘If this is to be the grave of the migration, then I don’t want to survive. I would rather die here, with my people.’
Kylon frowned. ‘I understand how you feel, Shella. Many in Kell faced the same decision, and many chose to die, rather than flee or be captured. And you are right to think that the people are your responsibility. You have led them, ultimately, to their ruin, though that is the fault of the Rahain, not yours. But how do you best serve your people now? By dying here, or by living, for revenge, or justice?’
Shella laughed. ‘What possible revenge could exist to match this? What justice?’
‘Someone has to tell the free peoples of this continent,’ Kylon said. ‘Tell them what happened.’
‘You’re fucking delusional, Kylon. No one will care. No one cares now.’
‘Fine,’ Kylon grunted. ‘I swore I’d remain by your side until this whole thing was over, and I’ll stand by that oath, although it will mean my death, and the deaths of the other clansfolk here. So be it.’ He shrugged. ‘I still think you’re wrong.’
‘You won’t die here, Kylon,’ Shella snapped back at him. ‘Of that I’m sure. When the last one of us succumbs to illness or starvation, you lot will still be alive and thriving.’
Kylon said nothing.
‘It’s not his fault,’ Clodi said. ‘He can’t help that his people recover from sickness and wounds the way they do.’
‘I knew you fancied him,’ Shella sneered. ‘He’d fucking break you like a twig.’
‘Shella!’ Sami groaned, as Clodi’s face went red.
Kylon glared at her, shaking his head. As he opened his mouth to speak, a shout came from the door.
‘Commander!’ the soldier called. ‘You’re needed up on the roof!’
‘Come on,’ she said to Kylon. ‘You can deliver your reprimand to me later.’
The big Kell frowned, and followed her up the steps to the flat roof.
The evening sun was shining low to the west as Shella gazed upon the stricken city. So many dreams and lives, dragged hundreds of miles from Arakhanah only to end in poisoned mud. The red and brown bricks of the countless buildings glowed like autumn in the fading light.
‘What is it?’ Shella asked, looking around at the soldiers on the roof.
‘Over there, Commander,’ one pointed to the north, by the foot of the hills.
Shella stared out in that direction, seeing a few plumes of smoke amid the towering apartment blocks. She scowled, not understanding what she was supposed to be looking at. Then she saw it. One of the fires seemed to leap across to the others, making it grow in size, then another, so that several individual street fires were combining, and growing.
‘What is that?’ she said.
Beside her, she heard Kylon groan, a heartfelt noise torn from his lungs.
‘No!’ he whispered. ‘Please, no!’
‘What’s happening?’ she asked again, an edge of alarm in her voice.
Kylon said nothing, but his face paled, and for the first time, she thought he looked afraid.
She turned back to the north. The combined fires were forming into a wall, which was spreading to the east and west in a thin line. Screams were coming from that district, as the flames began tearing their way through buildings, always keeping to a straight line.
‘Fire mage!’ one of the soldiers gasped, and Shella turned to Kylon.
‘Kylon!’ she shouted, grabbing his arm. ‘A fire mage? One of yours? Tell me what’s happening!’
The big man fell to his knees, his head lowered. Shella stared at him, stunned, as he began to sob.
‘Your fire mage…’ she whispered. One of the soldiers cried out, and she turned to see that the wall of fire, now some four hundred yards in length, and still growing, had started to move forward, devouring everything in its path. It was half the height of the tallest building, but seemed to sweep right through them, causing the floors above and below to explode in flames. Up the streets it crept, while people ran screaming.
‘It’s coming right for us!’ Shella cried. ‘Evacuate! Everyone out! Into the cellars, or down to the river!’
As the soldiers around her fled, she pulled Kylon’s arm, but the big man wouldn’t budge.
Shella started punching him, and kicked his shin, but he remained immobile. ‘Great time for your fucking girlfriend to show up!’ she screamed at him.
‘They have forced her to do this,’ Kylon said, his voice hoarse. ‘They have her brother hostage. She would do anything to keep him alive.’
‘It doesn’t fucking matter! We’re going to burn if we don’t move!’
Kylon looked at the approaching wall of fire, and got to his feet.
‘She’s up there,’ he said, pointing at the ridge which crowned the Northern Heights.
‘Can you stop her?’ Shella asked, pulling him towards the stairs.
‘It’s too late.’
They rushed down the steps, and Shella noticed the temperature rising. The courtyard was abandoned when they reached it. They were about to race to the arched tunnel leading to the street, when there was a tremendous roar as the northern wall of the tenement was hit by the rolling line of fire.
‘The cistern!’ Kylon shouted, pulling her in the opposite direction.
They sprinted across the courtyard. Kylon smashed open the door to the basement, just as the flames consumed the walls behind them. The blast of heat and energy threw them forwards, and they fell through the door, and tumbled down the steps. Kylon dragged her to the trapdoor in the middle of the floor, and broke the lock with the hilt of his sword. He opened it, and gestured for her to climb in, but the heat was too much, and she felt her eyes close, as her skin blistered, and her hair frazzled.
The last thing she remembered was being dragged along the floor, and the sudden shock of a deluge of freezing cold water on her skin.
Chapter 31
From On High
Akhanawarah City, Rahain Republic – 3rd Day, Last Third Spring 505
Daphne lay still among the tangled hawthorn bushes that dotted the hillside, her squad of Holdings troopers huddled and hidden around her. She watched as the sun lowered in the reddening sky to the west, the last rays of the day’s light shining down on the Rakanese city and making it glow.
She stretched out her left leg, shaking off the cramp that had been attacking her since they had arrived that afternoon. Their gaien-borne transport had glided in with the others, separating at the last moment to deposit the squad onto the side of the hill above the city, where they had scampered into hiding places. The Rahain army were dug in along the top of the ridge above and behind them, giving them the perfect view of the devastation that the flood had caused ten days before.
The city was a mess. Daphne could see the dirty brown stains left behind by the torrent of mud, marking out the streets and buildings near the river. The bridges had all been swept away, and the network of canals, fish-pools and waterways lay brown and dead. Dozens of small pyres were burning the heaps of bodies that lay piled everywhere, easily visible from half way up the hill, where Daphne and her borrowed squad lay.
Father Ghorley had told them about the earthquakes, and the mage-powered release of millions of tonnes of waste from the scores of mines close to the two river-heads, in the mountains on either side of the Tahrana Valley. The Rahain had then demolished the dam, allowing the toxic sludge to surge downstream and flood the city, drowning thousands and contaminating the food and water supplies. Daphne and the troopers had sat in horrified silence throughout Ghorley’s speech, unable to comprehend what it meant to destroy a whole city, and all those who lived within.
Even now, as she looked down at the brick tenements, workshops and apartment blocks, and the mourning and purging fires at every crossroads, she had trouble taking it in.
‘Get ready,’ she whispered. ‘As soon as the sun touches the hills, we’re going in. Remember the meeting place if we get separated. Good luck, and may the Creator gu
ide us.’
She shuddered as she spoke the name of the Creator. Following her conversations with Ghorley, she had been left in little doubt as to the existence of the being called by that name, and she remembered the deal she had made with the voice she had heard in the Sanang forest. If he helped her escape, she would help him. The thought that it was real unnerved her. She felt even more uncomfortable to imagine that he had been watching her and might, even now, be observing her actions. She pulled her hood up and over her head.
To the west, the bottom curve of the sun kissed the top of the far mountains. Daphne rose into a crouch and started jogging down the hill, using a thread of her powers to help guide her steps in the growing darkness. There were three others in the squad who also possessed battle-vision. The ambassador had been reluctant to let them leave, but Ghorley had over-ridden him, and insisted that Daphne had the best troopers available to her.
As they ran, Daphne noticed the size and intensity of the funeral pyres start to increase. She kept going, getting closer to the northern edge of the city, where a series of half-built tenement blocks sat in a row.
‘Miss!’ hissed her sergeant. ‘Look!’
Daphne glanced over as she ran, and pulled up in surprise.
The fires in this part of the city had joined together, making a long, continuous line, and were growing, both outwards, and in height. People were screaming, and Daphne could hear the flames tear through nearby buildings.
The Holdings squad jogged to the side of a low wall, and watched open-mouthed. The wall of fire was still spreading, forming a line hundreds of yards wide, running east to west. The eastern edge was only a hundred feet ahead of Daphne and the troopers, cutting them off from the centre of the city, and their mission.
‘Ghorley said nothing about this!’ the sergeant cried. ‘How the fuck are they doing it?’
‘Fire mage,’ Daphne said.
‘Shit,’ the sergeant grimaced. ‘The Kellach mage.’
Killop’s sister, Daphne realised, unless the Rahain had captured others. She looked out past the edge of the line of fire, trying to see if there was a way around, and the entire wall of flame started to move south, away from them, rolling through the streets and buildings, devouring everything in its path. Within seconds it had travelled several feet, leaving smouldering ruins behind.
Daphne signalled to the squad, and they moved out, jogging down the last slope of the hill and into the abandoned streets that ran between the empty and derelict tenements. They passed pockets of Rakanese squatters who were staring in disbelief at the flames raging through their city. Most of them looked diseased and emaciated, their skin peeling and blistered, or covered in sores, and their hair lank and falling out. Corpses lay piled by the side of the road, bloated bodies, grey, green and dark red, and Daphne’s extended senses were assaulted by the sickly sweet smell of decay.
Ahead, the wall of fire continued to crawl south, and Daphne followed it, rushing past any Rakanese on the way, most of whom were too ill or distracted to notice them.
They passed another street, with a small square, and entered the burnt zone. The ground was warm beneath their boots, and covered in ash and debris. Daphne noticed that the wall of fire had not reached everywhere. Seemingly at random, some buildings had been left untouched, and in the corner of the square was a tree with not a single singe mark on it, standing alone in a sea of devastation.
Daphne led them down a burnt-out street, the blocks to either side still burning, while always keeping a healthy distance behind the fire wall as it rolled towards the centre of the city.
They reached a canal, filled with burning corpses, blackened and rotten, and Daphne stumbled from the smell. It was starting to give her a headache. She called the squad to a halt under the arch of a collapsed building. Her troopers were looking as sick as she felt.
‘Wrap up your faces,’ she shouted over the roar of the fire, ‘and don’t touch anything.’
She soaked water over a scarf she had tucked into her belt, and pulled it around her face.
‘I’m going to take a quick look.’
She glanced around for the highest landmark and saw a tower to the east. She shot her line-vision up to it, and turned to scan the city.
The centre was now cut in two by the wall of fire, with an enormous black swathe of charred and burning remains on one side, and the rest of the city, still standing, on the other. Beyond was the river, and the southern bank of the city. She took a closer look at the palace, still safe for the moment, then trained her sight on the block where she had met the Rakanese high mage. She pushed into range-vision, using the weathervane at the corner of the palace square, and focussed in on the massive tenement. There was a group standing on the roof, pointing and gesturing towards the approaching line of fire. Among them, she picked out the mage, and the Kellach warrior Kylon.
‘I see the target,’ she said, pulling her vision back to her body, and staggering under the strain. Her senses felt battered, and the fumes from the burning city were making her feel sick.
She looked at her troopers, unsure how many would make it back if she pressed on.
The wall of fire was now well over a hundred yards ahead of them, crashing and incinerating its way closer to the palace square. She needed to move.
‘Everyone but the battlers,’ she said, ‘head back to the meeting place.’
The troopers glanced at each other.
‘Now,’ Daphne said, and all those without vision skills saluted, and started to jog back the way they had come. Once they had gone, Daphne pulled out a stick of keenweed and a box of Rahain matches from a pocket.
She lit it, while the three battlers watched. She allowed the narcotic to focus her senses, blocking out the stench, and filling her with an artificial feeling of energy.
‘Smoke this,’ she said, passing it to them. ‘Just a couple of draws each.’
They each did as she commanded.
‘Ignore the pain,’ she said to them. ‘Ignore the smell, and forget all your feelings about what you are seeing. We’re here to do our duty to the Holdings, that’s all that matters. We’ll get the mage, and any other royalty or leaders we can find, and then we’re getting out. Are you ready?’
‘Yes, miss,’ the sergeant said, her eyes wide.
Daphne started running towards the fire, and they followed.
She allowed the keenweed and vision to guide her feet. Ahead, she saw the palace struck by the wall of fire, its towers and spires islands in a sea of flame. The pain in her head increased, but she ignored it. She dodged and ducked as an enormous block of red-hot brickwork fell from a nearby building, smashing on the cobbled street below, sending fragments of broken bricks in every direction.
As they approached the northern entrance to the square, she saw it was blocked, by a heaped pile of smoking and charred debris. Bodies, she realised, hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies, as if a stampede had developed at the bottleneck, a surging tide of Rakanese too slow to escape the rushing wall of fire.
They skirted to the right, avoiding the mound of dead, and ran down a blackened and scorched alley. They burst out into the square, and saw the fire-wall raging at the far end of the open space, still rolling towards the river. To their right stood the mage’s tower. The massive tenement block was belching smoke and flames, its roof ablaze, and its windows blown out.
‘Damn,’ Daphne muttered. ‘We might be too late.’
‘Look!’ her sergeant called, pointing.
Daphne followed her lead, and saw movement around the base of the building.
‘Kellach,’ she cried. ‘Come on!’
They sprinted across the square. Two big Kellach Brigdomin were pulling beams and bricks from the collapsed archway at the front of the tenement. One, a blonde woman, Daphne recognised from her trip down the river.
‘Leah!’ Daphne shouted.
The Lach woman turned and stared as she watched the four Holdings approach.
‘Where’s the mage?’ D
aphne cried as they reached the arch.
‘I don’t know,’ Leah yelled above the roar of the fires. ‘In there, maybe. With Kylon, maybe.’
Her companion, a big red-haired man, paused from clearing the piled debris. His clothes were ragged and scorched, and ash and grime smeared his face.
‘Help us!’ he called.
Daphne and the three troopers ran over, and began clearing the arch. Daphne climbed to the top of the pile. She removed the rubble from under the keystone, creating a small gap.
‘I think I can squeeze through,’ she shouted down to the others. ‘You keep clearing, and I’ll go look inside.’
‘The building’s not safe, miss,’ the sergeant called up to her. ‘It could collapse any moment.’
Daphne shrugged, buttoned down her rising fear, and crawled into the gap. She extended the climbing hooks under her left arm, and used them to wriggle through the tight, dark space. The archway rumbled above her, and the weight of the burning building swayed and rocked as she crawled, dust from grinding bricks falling onto her like a shroud.
She reached the far side, and pulled herself out into the open, clambering down into the courtyard of the tenement. While the upper floors still burned, everything on the ground level was blackened and scorched.
‘Mage Shella!’ Daphne bellowed at the top of her lungs. ‘Kylon!’
There was a crash of falling bricks to her left, as a floor somewhere in the upper building collapsed. She was about to start shouting again, when a small group emerged from an archway to her right. Two Rakanese and a Rahain, all males. One of the Rakanese was injured, and the others were helping him stand.
They eyed Daphne as she approached. They stank, and their clothes were drenched.
‘Where’s Mage Shella?’ Daphne asked them.
‘Who are you?’ wheezed the struggling Rakanese.
‘Rescue party,’ she replied, keeping her hand near her sword hilt.
‘It’s okay, Sami,’ the other Rakanese said. ‘I recognise her from before, she visited Shella a while back. She’s the one who punched Rijon.’
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