Noonshade

by James Barclay

  But what disappointed him most was the failure of the General, whom Tessaya had been informed was in charge at Understone Town, to live up to his reputation. Shame. He should have been another exciting adversary. As it was, he had proved as much a coward as the rest. Darrick was a name the Wesmen would quickly forget to fear.

  The door to the inn opened and his elder Shaman walked in. Without the Wytch Lords’ power he was no longer a man Tessaya had to watch but the Lord of the Paleon tribes bore him no less respect.

  Tessaya poured him a drink, the two men sitting across a table in the shadows at the rear of the building.

  “You're looking tired, Arnoan.”

  “It's been a long day, my Lord.”

  “But over now, by the sounds of it.” The noise of celebration was building.

  “How are your injuries?” asked Arnoan.

  “I'll live.” Tessaya smiled, amused by Arnoan's fatherly concern. The burn down his right forearm was sore and blistered but treated, clean and dressed. He had been quick in the dive as the FlameOrb had splashed, so had lived.

  The cuts he sported on his face, chest and legs were merely trophies of fierce fighting. Still, at his age and influence, looks weren't important and besides, he found himself tiring of the attentions of women. His line would survive the war; his sons ranged from babes in arms to muscled youths. And now their father had led the tribes to victory at Understone. Where next? It was a question clearly taxing Arnoan.

  “What will the morning bring?” asked the Shaman.

  “Rest and building. I will not lose Understone Pass again,” said Tessaya. His expression hardened. “Lord Taomi and the southern force should be with us in a day at most. Then we can plan the conquest of Korina.”

  “You really believe we can achieve that?”

  Tessaya nodded. “They have no armies. Only city defence and reservists. We have ten thousand here, fifteen thousand within two days of the pass, another twenty-five thousand who crossed Triverne Inlet to attack the Colleges and whatever the south brings us. Who is going to stop us?”

  “My Lord, nobody disputes that the military advantage lies with us. But the mage strength of the Colleges is considerable. It would be a mistake to underestimate them.” Arnoan leaned forward, his bony fingers knotted in front of him.

  Tessaya hefted his burned arm. “Do you think I am in danger of doing that?” He eyes narrowed. “Arnoan, I am the oldest tribal Lord, with the largest tribal Council under me. It is so because I have made a habit of never underestimating my enemy.

  “The mages are powerful and the Colleges will stand against us in strength. But a mage tires quickly and without a guard is quickly slain. Losing our magic was a blow but we were born to the sword, not the spell.

  “The Wesmen will rule Balaia and I will rule the Wesmen.”

  No help would come to Tessaya from the south. The Wesmen were routed and running for Blackthorne Town while its namesake Baron rested high in the crags above the battlefield of his victory. With him were the concussed but otherwise happy Baron Gresse and around five hundred men and mages, all dreaming of a return to their homes.

  But the euphoria of the victory at Varhawk Crags would soon wear off. Their situation remained parlous. All but a dozen or so mages had been killed by the white fire, the wounded outnumbered the able-bodied and the Wesmen's defeat had everything to do with their confusion at losing the Wytch Lords’ magic. Blackthorne and Gresse had merely stoked the fires of panic. If the Wesmen chose to come back looking for them, a second victory would be hard won indeed.

  Blackthorne, however, considered such a return very unlikely. In the confusion at the Crags, there was no telling what strength either side had and he knew if he were the Wesmen commander, he would retreat to Blackthorne, lick his wounds and plan his next strike while waiting for reinforcement from across the Bay of Gyernath.

  The Baron came to the entrance of the overhang he'd taken as his command position. There was not much room for anything but a fire at the entrance and a few of his senior people inside. Gresse was there, propped up against a wall, his head, Blackthorne knew from experience, thudding wildly and inducing waves of nausea if he dared move.

  In front of him, the crags stretched away north and south. Following the victory, he had brought his men and mages south, upwind of the stench of so much death. His fallen people had burned on pyres, the Wesmen dead were left to feed the scavengers. The overhang sat at the top of a gentle rise away from the treacherous edge and scree slopes of Varhawk. On the little plateaus and shallow slopes, his men rested under a warm but cloudy sky. Fires burned in a dozen places despite the Wesmen threat and Blackthorne's perimeter guards were under strict instructions not to turn to the light until their watches were complete. In key positions, elven eyes pierced the night to give early warning of any attack and so calmed the nerves of the sleeping.

  There was little noise now. The celebrations had given way to excited chatter, then a low hum of conversation, then fatigue as night fell. Blackthorne permitted himself a smile. To his right, a man cleared his throat.

  “My Lord?” Blackthorne turned to face Luke, the nervous youth he had sent to count heads.

  “Speak up, lad.” With an effort, the Baron softened his automatically stern demeanour and placed a fatherly hand on the youth's shoulder. “Where are you from, Luke?”

  “A farm three miles north of Blackthorne, my Lord.” His eyes scoured the ground at his feet. “I'll be the man of the farm now. If there's anything left of it.”

  Blackthorne could see Luke, no more than sixteen, biting back tears, his long dark hair covering the sides of his face. The Baron squeezed his shoulder then let his hand drop.

  “We have all lost people we love, Luke,” he said. “But what we can take back, we will, and those who stood with me and saved the East from the Wesmen will be known as heroes. The living and the dead.” He stopped, lifted Luke's chin so that the youth's shining eyes met his.

  “Was it a good life on your farm?” he asked. “Speak truthfully.”

  “Hard, my Lord,” said Luke, the admiration burning in his face. “And not always happy, if I'm honest. The land isn't kind every year and the Gods don't always bless us with calves and lamb.”

  Blackthorne nodded. “Then I have failed you and everyone like you. Yet you were still prepared to lay down your life for me. When we are masters of Blackthorne once again, we will talk at greater depth. But now, you have some information for me?”

  “Yes, my Lord.” Luke hesitated. The Baron nodded for him to speak. “There are five hundred and thirty-two altogether, my Lord. Of these, eighteen are mages and five of them are too badly injured to cast. There are five hundred and fourteen men at arms and more than four hundred of them have some form of wound from battle. Of the worst, one hundred and five cannot fight. I have not counted those who will die by morning.” Luke stopped. “My Lord,” he added.

  Blackthorne raised his eyebrows. “And what makes you so sure these men will die?”

  “Because I have seen it often enough on the farm, my Lord,” said Luke his confidence finally growing. “We aren't so different, people and animals, and I hear it in their breathing and see it in their eyes and the lie of their bodies. Inside, we know when our time is near; so do animals, and it shows.”

  “I'll have to take your word,” said Blackthorne, fascinated by the realisation that he had probably seen less death in his long life than the youngster in front of him. Though they had surely both seen enough in the last few days to last a lifetime, he had never studied it. To Luke though, death of livestock was an economic problem and a risk of his occupation. “We must talk more another time, Luke. Now, I suggest you find a place to lay your head. We face hard days and I need men like you at your best.”

  “Goodnight, my Lord.”

  “Goodnight, Luke.” Blackthorne watched the young man walk away, his head a little higher, his stride a little longer. He shook his head gently, the smile returning to his face. So were t
he fates at birth. Another day, Luke the farmer's son might have been born a Lord. Blackthorne was sure he would be equally at home in a Castle as a cowshed.

  The Baron mulled over the numbers Luke had given him. Less than four hundred and fifty men able to fight, terribly short of mages and of those he could press into action, the overwhelming majority were hurt in some way. He guessed the Wesmen still outnumbered them two to one. And he had no idea how many were still in his Town, or at the beachhead, or on the road to Gyernath, or spread throughout the East. He bit his lip, quelling the sudden flutter in his heart. Hard days. And he had to be stronger than he had ever been.

  The reality was that, unless some form of organisation grew from the chaos that ran the length of the Blackthorne Mountains, the Wesmen could still reach Korina, despite the loss of their magic. The Colleges would have to step in further. Take control. And while that was unpalatable, it was preferable to the alternative.

  But the Colleges were distant and the problems of Blackthorne would hardly register. He could expect little help from the north but one thing he could do was attempt a Communion with Xetesk. Communication was an advantage the peoples of the East would have to exploit if they were to win.

  Baron Blackthorne yawned. It was time to check on Gresse, and to sleep. Tomorrow, there were decisions to be made. He had to discover the wider picture. Understone, Gyernath, the scattered coastal and inland villages. He had to know where any help was coming from to drive the Wesmen back across the Bay of Gyernath. And he had to find a way to take back his town, his castle. His bed. Suppressing sudden anger, Blackthorne turned his back on the night and walked under the overhang.

  The Wesmen kept on coming. Thousands of them pouring toward the borders of Julatsa, scrambling over the bodies of their fallen kinsmen and heaving themselves against the stuttering College Guard. From his Tower, Barras gazed down on the confusion, saw the spells ripping into the invading army and saw them roll relentlessly on.

  It was midafternoon and the only respite in the fighting had been at the moment the Wesmen's magic deserted them. That moment, Barras’ heart had surged because he knew The Raven had destroyed the Wytch Lords. He had cried in relief and joy then; and he could have cried in frustration now.

  Because far from shattering the Wesmen, the setback merely seemed to inflame their anger. They had attacked again with a greater fury than before, their swords, axes and warrior passion driving them on and on.

  At first it had been slaughter, the College Guard able to hold as waves of spells devastated the Wesmen lines. Thousands had died under the might of the Julatsan barrage, defenceless against the FlameOrbs, IceWind, EarthHammer, DeathHail, HotRain and BoneSplinter.

  But the mana stamina of a mage is finite without rest and the Wesmen knew it. And the Julatsans had already spent so much on shielding men and buildings on the Shamen attack fronts. The Wesmen knew that too.

  Now, with the spell barrage reduced to a tactical trickle, the Wesmen were moving with awesome confidence, crashing into the ranks of the College Guard and the reservists, unafraid now of what the next mana strike might bring.

  To Barras’ left, the General of the Julatsan forces bit his lip and cursed.

  “How many are there?” he demanded of no one, his tone thick and exasperated. There had to be well over ten thousand.

  “Too many,” replied Barras.

  “I am well aware of that,” snapped the General. “And if that is meant to be a slur on—”

  “Calm yourself, my dear Kard. It is a slur on no one, merely a statement of fact. How long can we hold them?”

  “Three hours, maybe less,” said Kard gruffly. “Without walls, I can't promise any more. How did the Communion go?”

  “Dordover dispatched three thousand men yesterday at our request. They should be here by nightfall.”

  “Then you may as well tell them to turn back,” said General Kard, his voice bitter, his face suddenly aged. “Julatsa will have fallen by then.”

  “They'll never take the College,” said Barras. Kard raised his eyebrows.

  “Who's going to stop them?”

  Barras opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. Kard was a soldier and couldn't hope to understand.

  That the College might be taken was unthinkable. More than that, it was abhorrent, an eventuality that brought bile to the Elder elven mage's throat. And there was a way of stopping the Wesmen taking their prize.

  But as he turned his face back to the battle at the edge of the city and saw his people suffer under the blades of the invaders, Barras prayed it wouldn't come to that. Because what he had in his mind, he wouldn't wish on anyone. Not even Wesmen at the gates of his beloved College.

  T he scene in Parve's central square was one of terrified bewilderment. At the first cry of the dragon, all noise had ceased for an instant as every head, of man and beast, turned toward the rip.

  Untethered horses had turned and bolted while others threw their riders or bucked and strained at rails and posts, their throats choking out cries born of base instinct and the innate knowledge of prey under threat.

  But for men and elves, blind terror gave way to a kind of fatal interest as the dragon, first a relatively indistinct shape, descended. There was a definite satisfaction in the sounds of the cries and barks with which it greeted Balaian sunshine. It twisted, rolled and wheeled, wings beating the air arrhythmically, playing in the skies of its discovery.

  And as it moved closer to the ground, its form became clearer, its size dreadfully apparent. Ilkar took it all in with an analytical eye, ignoring the shaking of his body, the pounding of his heart; the urge to run, fall, fight, hide, anything.

  The dragon was not as big as Sha-Kaan, the beast they had met through Taranspike Castle's dimension portal. Neither had it the same colouring or head shape, though its basic form was all but identical. The long, slender neck arched and straightened, its head searching the ground, its tail flowing behind the bulk of its body.

  But where Sha-Kaan had been well in excess of one hundred and twenty feet in length, this one measured no more than seventy. And where Sha-Kaan's skin and scale had glistened gold in torchlight, this one was coloured a dark rust brown, its flat, wedge-shaped head at odds with Sha-Kaan's tall skull and muzzle.

  The deep and penetrating stillness that had fallen on the central square evaporated as the slack-jawed watchers realised with an awful numbing slowness that the dragon was flying downward fast. A frenzy erupted. Darrick's normally ordered cavalry scattered into the streets, horses and riders colliding, barging and weaving as they wheeled in chaos, seeking the nearest escape from the immediate danger.

  Darrick, his voice hoarse, yelled for order and calm, two things he was never going to achieve. Behind him, The Raven and Styliann scrambled to their feet, fatigue forgotten.

  “Inside, inside!” shouted Ilkar, racing for the pyramid tunnel but pulling up short, The Unknown all but clattering into his back. He turned. “Where's Hirad?”

  The Unknown spun and shouted after the barbarian, who had covered several hundred yards and showed no sign of slowing, but the tumult in the square stole his words.

  “I'll get him,” said the big man.

  “No,” said Ilkar, an eye on the dragon swooping toward the city. The Unknown gripped his arm.

  “I'll get him,” he repeated. “You understand.” Ilkar nodded and The Unknown ran after Hirad who had just turned a corner and was out of sight.

  From the entrance to the tunnel, Ilkar saw his friend hunch instinctively as the dragon passed by, not twenty feet above the highest flat-roofed building, its bulk that of fifty horses. He saw its head twisting, looking down on the fleeing men, elves and animals, heard its bark and felt fear deep in the pit of his stomach and a clap of pain in his receptive ears, their protective inner membranes closing instinctively.

  The dragon rose, banked incredibly gracefully, and turned, diving lower, mouth agape, white fangs clearly visible against the black of its maw. Ilkar shuddered,
watching it move, then paled as the sun cast a great shadow of the dragon over the running figure of The Unknown Warrior.

  Everything was happening too fast. The Unknown looked up as the shadow engulfed him in an instant's dusk, turned and ran at right angles to the dragon's flight. Above and behind Ilkar, the rip shimmered and tore again, a sensation the elven mage felt through a repeat of the stillness in the air. Far from unleashing its fire, the dragon abruptly swept skyward, its bellow of disappointment echoed by another of pure rage.

  Hirad, tearing through the empty streets at the edge of Parve, heard the second roar. He gasped as a weight pressed on the inside of his head, already stumbling to a halt, hands covering his ears when the voice boomed “Stop!” and sent him sprawling to the ground.

  Climbing toward the boiling in the sky, Sha-Kaan felt the anger grow. It had been but a blink of an eye to him since he had warned the man, Hirad Coldheart, of the dangers posed by the knowledge he held and the amulet that had been entwined in his talons for so very long. And this was how he had been repaid.

  First, the theft of the amulet, then surely the use of its text and finally, the opening of an unrestricted corridor to his melde-dimension. The melde-dimension of the entire Brood Kaan.

  Behind him, the Brood flew from the Choul, unhappy at the sudden break from their sleep. Thirty Kaan, flying to join those already circling the gate in the sky.

  And from all corners, drawn by the presence of the gate and the surge it sent through the nerves of every dragon within its compass, came the enemy. If they could not warn away the opposing Broods, there would be a battle as had never been seen in the skies since the appearance of the one great human, Septern. Septern who had rescued the Brood Kaan, offering them the melde they sought at a time when their numbers had dwindled close to extinction.