The smell of smoke grew stronger. Lilia turned back to the woods. “Taigan?” she said. “How far back were those people coming from Meyna and Yisaoh’s camp?”
“Oh, a day,” he said. “But I told the scouts I encountered that it would be nice to blink them over here instead of making them walk. It turns out you have an omajista here who’s very good with winks, they said. A Dorinah boy? Remarkable.”
The air crackled. Voices came from the woodlands. The wind picked up.
Lilia shivered. The sense of foreboding had to do with more than the sky. All this power, all these omajistas in one place, these gates opening and closing… they were painting a target on this beachhead.
“Stop them,” Lilia said. “Maralah! Have everyone drop their star! Stop pulling on your stars!”
As she cried out, the spill of refugees came up from the woods, bringing with them the smell of burnt hair and smoke. Kai Ahkio walked at the front, Meyna behind him. Ahkio carried a child – Meyna’s? Lilia’s heart clenched. Where was Tasia? Namia?
“Drop your call on the stars!” Lilia said, limping toward them, half-hoping for good news, for a miracle.
A roaring blur knocked into her, putting her onto her back. Namia lay on top of her, squeezing her tightly.
“Namia!” Lilia held her as the others streamed past. “Emlee?”
Namia made the sign for “taken.”
“Tasia? Oh no, Tasia.”
“Death,” Namia signed.
Lilia got to her feet. Namia loped after her.
The smoke overhead grew lower and thicker as the wind shifted. Meyna, face blushed from exertion, sweaty tendrils stuck to her forehead, hurried to Maralah’s side, one hand pressed against her burgeoning belly.
“Shao Maralah!” Meyna said. “You must know. We were attacked. The camp, the whole camp, as if they knew exactly where it was. Who would have told them, after all this time? We never–”
“You fool,” Maralah said. “You’ve led them right here! How many are with you?”
“Not many,” Meyna said. “Maralah, I know it’s too soon, but our partnership–”
Maralah slapped her. Meyna fell heavily, clutching at her belly. Ahkio put the child down and ran to her, as did her husbands Rhin and Hadaoh. Hadaoh drew an infused weapon. Maralah burnt it from his hand. He cried out, clutching at his seared skin.
Lilia held Namia close.
“We were careful,” Meyna said. “No one was–”
“You bloody fool,” Maralah said. “As if you ungifted wretches would be able to tell if a Tai Mora scout trailed you.”
The air thickened again, so heavily this time Lilia lost her breath.
This wasn’t just the people in the camp drawing on the satellite’s power, or even the Dhai refugees. This was something far worse. Far, far stronger.
Oh, Oma, she thought.
The air around the camp began to shiver and ripple like water. Lilia knew exactly what this was, and if she had any breath at all in her aching lungs, she would have screamed.
All around them, reality began to tear away. A dozen searing gates parted the woodlands surrounding the camp, cut tents in half, sawed through unlucky bystanders. Their yawning mouths vomited forth a wave of Tai Mora soldiers, all shiny in their chitinous armor, their infused weapons held aloft.
The smell of burning intensified. Lilia heard someone screaming, screaming. The trees above them lit up, instantly torched. Bits of char and winking embers rained from the sky.
Namia tugged at her hand, but Lilia found herself rooted to the spot, unable to move, frozen in some nightmare. It was all happening again, an endless cycle. One fiery raid after another, on this very spot, in some other world, and now here, with infused weapons: Kirana’s army, invading world after world. She imagined a whole slew of Kiranas from a hundred thousand, a million worlds, cutting through these people, torching this same wood, again and again, as they had done to her people before, as they were doing to their people now.
Lilia reached. She was not sure what she reached for, something deep within her long lost. For so long she was filled with only revenge, hatred for these people. For everything they had done, were doing, again and again.
But as she watched it all happening again, here, on the same spot, she saw it for what it was. Something terribly broken. One people, ripped apart into a million, trillion pieces.
How could they ever be put back together again?
Screaming. The woods themselves were screaming.
32
It all happened very quickly, in a breath. Para rising. The incredible movement of the sky that awed and distracted. The winks opening. The air seething.
But Lilia was not awed. Not frozen. She had been waiting for this for a year. Waiting to fight back. Lilia moved.
“Roh!” Lilia yelled. “Defensive wall!”
Another parajista may have hesitated. One she did not know, maybe. One who had not been hounded and abused as Roh had after Para winked out a year ago.
But it was Roh, her friend Roh, the one who always wanted to be a sanisi, and so the shimmering wall of air whumped across the camp and smashed into the winks all around them an instant after her cry.
Kadaan raised a fist beside Roh. Dust rose from the ground. Bits of sand trembled and filled the air.
Lilia hurried over to them, calling to Zezili, “Get everyone with a weapon! Defensive line!”
Zezili leapt over the table. “Fucking finally!” she said and then, in Dhai, “Everyone with a fucking shield and a weapon, I want a defensive circle!”
“Taigan?” Lilia called back over her shoulder.
“There are fifty-six Songs of Unmaking coming through those winks,” he said, following her. He shrugged. “I can’t hold them all.”
“Try,” she said. She pushed past the mobs of frightened and mobilizing fighters and others, trying to get to Maralah. Namia followed after her, silent. Lilia finally climbed onto a table and called, “Fighters to the outside! Those who can’t fight, come to the middle! The center!” Panic could make people into mindless, self-destructive fools if no one took charge. Lilia had seen it before, on the harbor wall, and again during the madness of Kuallina.
Roh felt the air shift the moment he reached the trailhead. He was giddy, awed, already drawing deeply on Para. He and Kadaan had hugged back on the beach, delighted to be able to draw on their stars again, but Maralah was already running back to the camp, peering at the sky like some grim omen.
That had shaken him, and they went back up the trail after her, Roh using the delightful tails of Para’s breath to speed himself along, fairly flying, no longer the shuffling final figure to crest the top of the trail.
But the air was wrong. He dropped onto the sand. Lilia shouted at him from more than thirty paces away. “Roh!” and he was already drawing on Para again, the Litany of the Palisade already half-formed in his mind, “Defensive wall!” He saw the gates opening in the next moment, already tying up his spell. He cast the defensive walls almost before she had finished, throwing up a hasty bubble of air around the camp as the twining blue bursts of Para’s breath poured into the camp through the gates and attacked his defenses.
Kadaan reinforced his work, putting up a tougher defense on the inner layer of his.
“We need to layer these,” Kadaan said. “You’ve done that?”
“No,” Roh said.
“Watch me, then. This is the Song of Davaar, and the Song of the Proud Wall.”
Roh was aware of the rest of the camp moving, and Lilia shouting. But he concentrated solely on Kadaan’s voice and the purling lines of Para’s breath he wielded. Even as they came together, Roh felt the hammering of their defenses, like physical blows that pushed the power of Para back under his skin. It might have startled him enough to break his concentration, a year ago, two years ago, but now he was far more used to pain and disappointment.
“It will get worse,” Kadaan said, “as they realize how strong this wall is.”
; “I have endured worse,” Roh said.
Lilia went to Maralah’s side. Maralah stood rooted in place, hands raised, gaze fierce. A wall of flames licked up around the defensive wall of air, but Tai Mora were still bleeding through the edges of the winks, crowding around the outer edges of the defenses.
“Can you hold them?” Lilia asked.
Maralah did not answer. Lilia turned, surveying the camp. Fighters were moving to the outer ring of the camp, harangued by a gleeful Zezili. They were mostly Saiduan, who looked to Maralah before obeying. Maralah, for her part, gave them a nod.
Lilia broke away from Maralah, Roh and Kadaan. Taigan had said there were fifty-six Songs of Unmaking, that was fifty-six attempts to cut off their jistas from their satellites. The number of offensive spells that the others had to counteract would be far, far more. It would be all they could do to hold them.
She found Anavha cowered at the center of the group of civilians. “Where’s Saradyn?” she asked.
“He went to fight,” Anavha said.
Lilia leaned over him. Took his arm. Said in Dorinah, “Can you open a gate to somewhere safe?”
“I… in Dhai? I don’t… the plateau, the temples… they are everywhere–”
“Somewhere else?”
“They are everywhere,” Anavha said, and began to cry.
Lilia took a deep breath. “Somewhere safe. In Dorinah?”
“No, not–” he broke off, then, “Aaldia,” he said, and that seemed to stem the terror, the tears. “I can take us to the farm in Aaldia.”
“A farm? Good. That’s good. No Tai Mora there?”
“No, but–”
“What?”
“It’s all right. Nusi will understand.”
“I’m sure they will,” Lilia said, having no idea who Nusi was, nor particularly caring in that moment. “Can you do it now?”
“What if the defenses break? What if–”
“A great many things could happen between this moment and the next,” Lilia said. “Including you getting us a way out. Can you do that?”
He nodded.
She stepped back, giving him space to work, and called away a few of the civilians near them. The last thing she needed was panic at the center. Panic at the center would make them all rush to the edges, and right into the Tai Mora.
Lilia spotted a reasonably calm young man and pointed at him. “You! Keep them away from him. Let him work!” The man nodded almost gratefully, as if pleased to have something to do.
She hurried back to the medical tent where Sola was frantically packing her things and yelling at people to move one of her injured patients.
“Sola!” Lilia said. “We are getting everyone out through a gate, there, at the center – see that young man, the one with the brown hair? You and your patients go first. We’ll need you on the other side for injuries.”
“Where–”
“It doesn’t matter where,” Lilia said, “it’s safe.” She said the last part with more conviction than she felt. She had to trust that Anavha had some idea of what he was doing, or she’d spend too long overthinking instead of moving. Their survival relied on fast movement, before the Tai Mora got a handle on their defenses. The parajista wall could go down at any time.
Lilia knew that nine parts of getting people to listen to you relied on confidence. Sola met her gaze, and she must have liked what she saw, because she nodded and called for another to help her move the injured.
“Zezili!” Lilia called.
“Fucking busy!” Zezili barked from ten paces away.
“Namia,” Lilia said. “Come here, I need you to be my messenger, can you do that?”
Namia nodded.
Lilia grabbed Zezili, made her touch Namia’s head.
“The fuck!” Zezili said. She handed over a weapon to a young woman.
“Namia,” Lilia said. “Show her the sign for retreat.”
Namia did.
“And show her, fall back. Good. And advance.”
Namia gave the signs.
“You understand?” Lilia said. “Namia can give you orders.”
“I can fucking manage this myself–”
“You can manage jistas and fighters against Tai Mora, in three different languages? No. Listen to me.”
Lilia turned abruptly.
A roar of heated air blasted her from behind. Lilia pressed herself to the ground as a purl of flame licked overhead. One of the forces on the other side had broken through. Roh and Kadaan were already moving forward together, back to back, exchanging a few words as they sought to shore up the breach.
Lilia crawled back up. Namia came after her. Lilia went to Anavha, who was still struggling to open a gate. The air in front of him wavered, but did not part. He sweated heavily, and was trembling.
She leaned close to him and said softly, clearly, “The Song of the One Breath. You know it?”
He shook his head. “What’s your litany?”
“Poetry. Tordinian?”
She wondered how he had been trained. Did they try to break him down, the way Taigan and the Seekers had tried to break her? Lilia didn’t think she could feel pity anymore, didn’t think she could feel anything at all, but watching this young man struggle to save them while the air pressure heaved and the air crackled, she remembered the feel of the Seeker Voralyn’s stick when the Seekers captured her years ago, and the long freefall when Taigan pushed her over the edge of the cliff, daring her to fly. I am not you, Taigan, she thought. And this young man was certainly not her.
“All right,” she said. “Find a point to focus on. That broken poppy there, see?” She pointed.
His gaze fixed on the trampled flower just on the other wide of the wavering air.
“Good,” she said. “That’s all there is. You and that… poetry. That song. The rest of this is nothing. It’s not anyway. You want to focus on that, and where you want to go. Where do you want to be?”
“Not here.”
“It has to be firm. Focus. See it. Taste it. Smell it.” She closed her own eyes, remembering how she had sung the Saiduan Song of the Dead and burned the image of the Dorinah camp at the base of the Liona mountains into her mind, where Gian had waited for her. An age ago. Before Oma was lost to her.
Anavha smelled smoke. All he could see, when he closed his eyes, was the world burning.
“Smoke,” Anavha said.
“Not there. There’s no smoke there. What’s there?”
He trembled. He felt the heat and rush of the wind again. Another breach in their defenses. Yelling, in Dhai and Saiduan. He couldn’t understand any of it, only what Lilia told him in Dorinah, and that frightened him and soothed him at the same time.
Safe. Where had he been safe? He once thought safety was a quiet house with Daolyn, when Zezili was away. Safety was sitting with Taodalain in the city, reading to her as her pregnancy progressed. He once thought safety was Zezili calling him hers. And for a time, yes, he had felt safe with Natanial, wrapped in his arms, ready to give him whatever he wanted because Anavha felt so safe there.
But when Lilia asked him where he felt safe, the image that bloomed in his mind was none of those places. Instead, it was rolling fields of golden grass. A house nestled among the hills that looked like a boat at sea. Safety was with Nusi and Giska and their rotating group of farm hands, called in during planting and harvest. Laughing at the table. Warm, clean beds. No violence. No raised voices. It had not been exciting, or dangerous. That made him anxious, those first few months. He kept waiting for the screaming. The flaring tempers. Getting locked in his room. Having things thrown at him. Fists raised to him. None of that happened.
“Nothing will happen to you here that you do not wish to happen,” Nusi had told him, and the idea of that, the promise of it, was breathtaking.
“The farm,” Anavha said aloud. “The planted fields. The dead man, from the sky. The hungry sheep. The dogs. I miss the dogs.”
He opened his eyes. A small tear in the seams
between their position and the next opened.
“A little more, Anavha,” Lilia said.
Anavha concentrated on exactly where he wanted to be, the precise spot. The hill north of the farm, overlooking the house.
The tear widened into a great round door, so large he gasped a little and stepped back from it. On the other side: a clear lavender sky, and rolling golden hills.
Lilia said, “Can you hold it open there, Anavha? I need you to keep hold of it.”
“I have it,” he said. And in a rush of awe, he realized that he did have it. The gate solidified. Did not waver. His hands did not tremble.
Natanial winced as the winks opened, and a shimmering wall of heat blasted their front line. The heat was unexpected.
“Hold the line!” Natanial called. The heat was enough to be uncomfortable, but not dangerous, as long as no one panicked.
Otolyn gazed over at him, questioning. He shook his head. Para was risen, and that did mean that a whole slew of parajistas had come back into their power. Natanial had a moment to wonder how Monshara would handle that. Four stars ascendant. Were there even existing battle strategies for that? Surely not.
“Forward!” Monshara cried, and the mass of bodies and bears and dogs was moving, groaning, creaking, yipping, growling.
The heat intensified, and as Natanial got closer to the winks, he saw a small but chaotic scene ahead. As he came through, a whirlwind of air and fire battered him. The spinning satellites made him dizzy, so he kept his focus on the ground. They were up above the sea on some spur of land. He smelled burning, yes, but the sea, too. Madah had opened a dozen winks around a small encampment. It couldn’t have held more than sixty people, all of them grouped up in the middle.
Natanial tried to push forward, but his troops ahead were meeting resistance. Parajistas had a wall up, and waves of fire were coming off it, pushing his troops and all those surrounding them back against the winks.
“Hold the line!” Natanial yelled. Who was countering their attack? It should have been an ambush, no time to plan or retaliate. They should have crushed them here as easily as they had back at the other camp.
Natanial scanned the figures at the center of the camp. Whoever their jistas were, they were in no formation, no line. He could not identify a leader of any kind. Two rings of fighters had formed around those in the center, though, which meant the center likely held both civilians and jistas.
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 134
