“The rest is going to depend on General Utros,” Nicci said.
Elsa worked her way through the crowd to join them. She wore a distracted, worried look. “I set up several transference runes here in the city, anchor spell-forms that I can use once we get out on the battlefield.” She smiled. “It should be quite a surprise.”
Hundreds of arena warriors joined the congregating army, well muscled and scantily armored because they liked the freedom of movement. They carried whatever weapons they had preferred during their exhibition battles. A group of fierce-looking morazeth walked among them, and Nicci was glad they fought on the same side now. The branded runes would protect the women against magical attacks, but their main fight would be against Utros’s thousands of hardened warriors.
Lila followed as Bannon came toward them. He carried one of the iron-tipped cudgels, but his sword also hung at his side. “We’re ready to fight.” He looked at the ever-growing crowd of armed defenders. “We all are.”
Nathan clucked his tongue. “Dear boy, this is not a game. It’s going to be hard, very hard.”
“But, we will do it,” Bannon said.
“Yes, we will. Let’s go out and fight!” said Timothy, who held a short sword in one hand and an iron-tipped cudgel in the other. “Nobody beat me during training, and no one will beat me during the attack.”
A far less enthusiastic Jed and Brock also joined the group, each wearing one of the colorful new silk cloaks provided by Lady Olgya. Neither of the brash young men seemed like much of a warrior to Nicci.
As the darkness deepened, the thousands of troops gathered, restless. From outside the walls, the enemy army could not see any of the preparations. After days of tense silence, Nicci doubted Utros would suspect this surprise move late at night. They would march out at midnight.
As the fighters organized into ranks, they received water and food. They talked among themselves, bragging about their prowess, shoring up their own bravery, while some were justifiably nervous. Most had never faced a real battle before. Nicci watched their excitement build as the duma members made their own preparations, spoke with High Captain Stuart, surveyed the large numbers of angry troops. The wizards and sorceresses of Ildakar would unleash the greatest destructive powers as part of this sortie.
She remembered other nights before Jagang’s army would launch full attacks. He would let his soldiers get drunk, gamble, go into the pleasure tents and abuse the slave women. Jagang didn’t care what his soldiers did, so long as they won the following day.
Nicci preferred more discipline. These people were fighting for Ildakar, and she had advised the duma to carefully time the charge for when their enthusiasm was at its peak but before impatience and doubts could set in.
At midnight, without pounding drums or sounding horns, the wizards removed the locking spells from the towering main gate. It took four men working together to roll back the enormous crossbar. The duma members gathered, swollen with their own magic, anger, and maybe too much confidence.
Nicci mounted the bay charger that had been provided for her, and she turned in the saddle, holding the reins. She looked impressive in front of the troops. The other powerful duma members also rode sturdy horses from Ildakar’s stables, but the long-isolated city did not have enough mounts for an entire cavalry, only for the commanders of the city guard and wealthy, gifted nobles.
The duma members were focused on one another, staring toward the enormous gate, but the aloof council was not good at rallying its people. Nicci knew how vital that was, and after a restless moment, she raised her voice. A hush fell over the thousands of fighters. “We will charge out and attack our enemies. We must strike hard, cause as much damage as possible, and ransack their camp. This blow will send them reeling.”
Although she didn’t want to alert the enemy army, she couldn’t stop the troops from responding with a resounding cheer. Quentin, Damon, and Oron turned toward her, giving an appreciative nod. Lani and Olgya were also mounted, ready to fight. Only Elsa remained on foot, near Nathan.
She drew a deep breath and continued, “Tonight Ildakar fights together, slaves, arena warriors, city guards, gifted nobles. Everyone has a stake in this.” Nicci didn’t explain her own reasons or Nathan’s, but she would do her best to lead by example. The Ildakaran defenders could rebuild their city once they were free. First, General Utros had to be defeated.
“Follow us,” Quentin shouted to all of them. “We’ve waited fifteen hundred years to fight this enemy.”
The soldiers roared their readiness to do battle, “For Ildakar!”
The huge gates swung open on titanic hinges, and the army surged like a storm out onto the moonlit battlefield.
CHAPTER 35
The defenders of Ildakar were filled with energy, anger, and a sense of invincibility. Finally unleashed, they yelled and ran forward, holding cudgels, swords, spears. They intended to leave General Utros reeling. Riding at the forefront, ready to lash out with their gift, the duma members were confident, full of energy.
As planned, the army rushed headlong to the targeted enemy ranks near the boundary hills. The front lines of eager arena warriors and city guards ran out, holding their weapons high and howling at the unsuspecting army camped beyond the walls. At the forefront, Nicci rode on her bay horse, one slender arm upraised. With her uneven blond hair, she looked like a vengeful spirit in the starlight.
Since Elsa had never ridden a horse, much less into battle, she had stubbornly insisted her horse be given to a more appropriate fighter. Seeing her reluctance, Nathan also decided to fight on foot. “I’ll stand with you, my dear. We’ll be powerful enough together. Now that I have my gift back, I can defend you against the rigors of the battlefield.”
She looked at him skeptically. “I don’t need your protection, Nathan. Why don’t we fight together, so we can cause twice as much harm to the enemy?”
“That sounds like a fine idea.”
They were swept along with the tide of fighters.
Nathan felt grand, as if marching with Richard Rahl’s army again. In that moment he had no doubt the united defenders would deal a painful blow to the ancient army, yet he was pragmatic enough to know that the feeling would be short-lived as soon as the two forces actually collided.
Elsa did not look particularly athletic, but she was resilient and had great stamina. She kept pace with Nathan as they ran along with the foot soldiers. His ornate sword was in its scabbard at his side, because he intended to fight as a wizard for now. He held his left hand open, fingers cupped, as his magic brewed to a boiling point.
Utros’s army had scattered countless campfires up to the dry grassy hills, which looked like a swarm of red demonic eyes, each representing hundreds of enemy soldiers. Nathan caught his breath as the sheer numbers began to sink in. “I have fought desperate battles before, but never against quite such an overwhelming force.”
“You’ve never fought with me before, Nathan.” Elsa raised her voice against the racket of the charging army. “We will show them how it’s done.”
After studying the arrangement of the enemy warriors from the city walls, the duma members had all agreed on targeting their strike against only the companies encamped on the northern side of the valley. They would hit there.
As the Ildakaran defenders rushed into the first clash, the ancient army stirred with a clatter of weapons and shouted orders. The response of the huge military force was not quite the panic and clamor Nathan had hoped for. The well-disciplined enemy soldiers formed ranks, lining up alongside their subcommanders to defend their entrenched positions. The alarm spread as criers raced from company to company, informing them of the surprise sortie. More torches were lit, and the outcry grew louder.
In the distance, Nathan could make out the wooden headquarters where he and Nicci had met with Utros, but this unexpected strike would be much closer than that, limited to the troops camped nearest the walls.
He could see Nicci riding at the lead, summoni
ng a storm. She called down searing bolts of lightning that exploded among the foremost ranks of the enemy. A second bolt skittered sideways to rip through a line of makeshift tents and hurl ten warriors into the air like chaff caught in a crosswind. Her lightning was mixed with blue-black spikes as Nicci called upon her Subtractive Magic as well as more conventional Additive Magic.
Alongside her, Oron, Damon, and Quentin also used their gift, summoning catapults of condensed wind, lashing storm gales so powerful they bowled over lines of Utros’s soldiers in formation.
Wild with exuberance, the defenders ran forward. “For Ildakar!”
The first lines of the ancient army crowded shoulder-to-shoulder as they made a stand, holding their shields, raising antique swords to block the charge. Ildakaran fighters crashed into them, running at full speed and unable to stop. Nathan saw members of the city guard, arena fighters, even Bannon and the morazeth Lila throw themselves into the clash. Sluggish ancient soldiers defended themselves against the flurry of iron-tipped cudgels. The din erupted like an avalanche.
“We dare not let ourselves fall behind, my dear,” Nathan called to Elsa, summoning a globe of wizard’s fire in his hand. He held his fire, waiting for Nicci and the other duma members to ride ahead so he had a clearer shot. Elsa created a ball of conventional fire, unable to match a wizard’s power, but her flames would burn just as well.
Nathan lobbed his first fireball far over the front ranks of enemy soldiers, careful not to let any of the incinerating fire splash back on Ildakaran forces. The intense magical blaze erupted behind them, engulfing nearly a hundred ancient warriors. They screamed and staggered, collapsing into greasy ash.
Elsa hurled her own fireball, which exploded behind Nathan’s strike. Her flames caused less damage than wizard’s fire, but the blast scattered the confused enemy. Overall, the effect was quite impressive.
As he built his attack, Nathan called upon his gift, feeling the Han in his new heart strong within him with remnants of Chief Handler Ivan’s anger. He disliked feeling the insidious touch of that other wizard inside him, but he used the anger and darkness to create an even larger ball of wizard’s fire that exploded and drove back hundreds of the ancient warriors.
Ildakaran soldiers, furious but undisciplined, spread out as they struck the enemy ranks, like water splashing around rocks in a stream. They fought hundreds of individual opponents and began to crack through the swiftly organized enemy ranks.
Nicci’s lightning danced across Utros’s defenses, while the other wizards continued their magical attacks. Elsa set countless tents alight with her fire, burning lines of enemy soldiers who tried to flee. Nathan found reserves of energy inside him, called another ball of wizard’s fire, and blasted dozens more. Even though each strike drove back entire lines of General Utros’s troops, he knew the Ildakaran sortie couldn’t hope to make more than a dent in the overall ancient force.
Nathan realized he had to think bigger, find a way to cause more substantial damage, not just a hundred enemies at a time. As the remnants of his wizard’s fire continued to rush through the targeted part of the camp, starting secondary fires, he realized something that he and Elsa could easily do, and it might affect a much larger part of the besieging army. “The hills! The dry hills.” He gestured toward the brown slopes at the edge of the valley. “It’s a tinderbox! We can start a blaze that will sweep across the army.”
She immediately understood. “They’ll never be able to fight it.” Reaching out both hands, she used her gift to ignite fire there and build it. But while she was concentrating, a burly enemy soldier lunged forward with a curved sword to cleave her in two.
“No!” Nathan shoved with his other hand, making a shield of air that smashed the enemy off his feet and knocked his curved sword away. The warrior crashed to the ground, but Nathan was so incensed at the threat to Elsa that he slammed down hard with a fist of air and crushed the enemy’s chest and face.
Elsa gasped, thanking Nathan before she threw the next sphere of fire that had materialized in her hand, tossing it as far as she could toward the dry hills.
Nathan summoned more wizard’s fire, one ball in each hand, and launched them both. Blazing, alive with destruction, they arced like comets high into the night, so bright they illuminated the battlefield below. Elsa’s fireball struck first, erupting into a spray of sparks and igniting another swatch of grasses, while Nathan’s more powerful fire impacted higher on the hillside.
At first, the enemy soldiers paid little attention to the spreading grass fire, but Nathan was pleased to see the flames catch and build into a conflagration. Blazing curtains raced up the hillside and burned down toward the encamped army. He grinned at her. “Yes, indeed, that was a good idea.”
“Follow me, Nathan. I may need your help for something else.” Elsa ran deeper into the camp, away from the primary fighting. “I have more magic we can use.”
He saw where she was going. The ancient army was rapidly growing stronger as more soldiers from deeper in the camp gathered their weapons and ran toward the fight. Nathan had hoped to hit these separated ranks hard before too many reinforcements arrived. “Not there. We can’t—”
“We will,” she said. “It’s transference magic. Remember, I prepared for this.”
Elsa ran with surprising speed, and Nathan couldn’t leave her to fight all by herself. “Whatever you say. We did promise to protect each other.”
Elsa reached a large trampled area that had been a section of campsites. She studied the ground, as if hunting for something buried there. She extended an index finger, pointed at the turf, and began to run in a strange, drunkard’s circle.
Nathan caught up with her, panting. “What are you doing? How can I help?”
“Keep me safe. Don’t let those soldiers attack me until I finish drawing my pattern on the ground.”
“What pattern?”
“This transference rune.”
As she bustled along, Elsa’s extended finger released a thin trail of power like an invisible knife that cut a line on the ground, scribing a complex design. She ran to and fro, swirling her finger, adding a flourish to the lines in the dirt.
“It’s a spell-form,” Nathan cried.
“A transference rune,” Elsa said. “I showed you before.”
A force of more than two hundred ancient warriors charged toward him and Elsa. He realized that the partially stone warriors seemed not to see well in the darkness away from the main campfires, but they could surround their targets. Many carried torches, bright firebrands snatched from their own blazes.
“Here they come,” Nathan said. “I hope you’ve thought this through.”
“Yes, in great detail. I etched the corresponding rune on a cistern in Ildakar that holds nearly a thousand barrels of water.”
Not trying to guess what she meant to do, he summoned more wizard’s fire and bowled over the front ranks of charging soldiers. The fiery explosion wiped out the first fifteen, but hundreds more came. Needing to give Elsa time, he called wind and a blast of lightning to delay their attack.
“Almost finished, Nathan.” Elsa pointed to her intricate design that covered a large area on the ground. As the ancient warriors charged forward, Nathan saw he and Elsa would be engulfed at any moment. “Ah, there!” she said.
As the soldiers ran into the open area that Elsa had inscribed, she jabbed down at the ground, made a final connecting line that completed the transference rune, and linked the spell.
In that instant, all the water from the distant cistern suddenly occupied what had been solid ground, and hundreds of charging enemy soldiers found themselves in a slurry of thin mud and clinging quicksand. Rank after rank tumbled and plunged in up to their waists and shoulders, mired and helpless as if the ground had swallowed them up.
Nathan let out a heavy sigh. “I should never have doubted you, my dear.”
Elsa looked at her handiwork, all the enemy soldiers rendered helpless in an instant, and then glanced back
at the hills where the grass fire continued to surge. “No, Nathan, you shouldn’t have doubted me.”
CHAPTER 36
During his training on the Wavewalker, as a naive young man, Bannon had learned to fight with his sword, prancing across the ship’s deck as Nathan showed him true skills. He had never imagined facing such impossible numbers of enemies. Now he did.
He ran forward along with hundreds of fighters into the enemy ranks, reminding himself that they were only targeting a small portion of the huge camp. It should be something they could accomplish. These ancient warriors would have been extraordinary foes under normal circumstances, but now, to make matters worse, they were also partially stone.
Beside him, Lila didn’t seem intimidated at all. She threw herself into the fight.
Utros’s army formed orderly ranks for defense, while the Ildakaran warriors were independent and wild, turning any military response into a melee. Through sheer momentum and energy, their first charge crashed into the enemy’s hastily erected defenses, shuddering the line. Once the city’s surge broke the front ranks, each clash came down to single combat.
Bannon steeled himself and rushed into the fray, holding his iron-tipped club in one hand and Sturdy in the other. His discolored blade met the downsweep of a curved scimitar, and the ringing impact sent a shock wave down his arm. He grunted, but held firm as he swung the iron club in his opposite hand, bashing his opponent’s chest. The blow did little apparent damage, but it forced the soldier back two steps. Bannon pressed forward and swung with Sturdy, chopping the base of his opponent’s neck. The impact felt like an axe hitting solid wood, but the blade cut through even the hardened skin. The enemy toppled to the ground.
“That was good, boy,” Lila called to him, her lips pulled back in a hard grin. “Now do it a dozen more times, and we’ll make some progress.” With a feral hiss, she leaped forward, wielding an iron club in each hand. The muscles on her bare thighs rippled as she sprang, battering and clubbing. She moved from one opponent to the next, smashing hard. The ancient soldiers reeled, but they kept coming back.
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