by Lou Hoffmann
In the middle of battle, the enemy was gathering the dead—Han had seen that and wondered. Soldiers piled dead bodies on travois, and now he saw the Ehstenners were laboring over the rocky path to take them away… to where? To the Hand? Han would not have expected the Terrathians to care for their own dead, much less their dead thralls, even after the fighting was over. Why would they be using soldiers to clear them out of the field now?
Then he got another shock as he realized they took not only their own dead, but the Sunlands fallen too! Struggling to digest what he was seeing, he got a glimmer of what surely must be going on, and a shudder of dread passed through him like a cloud of pure evil.
“Uncle Han!”
The urgent tone of Luccan’s thought speech instantly claimed Han’s attention. “Luccan? You’re okay? Thurlock?”
“Yes, but Han, this is important. You have to stop killing them! And don’t let them take the bodies.”
Perhaps this shouldn’t have confused Han, given what he’d just been seeing and thinking, but still…. “What?”
“They use them, Han. They turn them into soldiers. They’re dead, yeah, but they walk and fire arrows and use swords and fists and…. Gods, Han, they’re horrid. You can shoot arrows through them, take chunks out of them, and they still keep it up. Stop killing them, and don’t let them take the bodies.”
Han didn’t even answer. He whistled and four of his tail—soldiers who followed him to whatever part of the battlefield he visited—came to his side.
“Stop them from taking any more bodies off the field—even their own. And spread the word to everyone to try much, much harder than usual to take prisoners—no more killing unless there’s no other way!”
Three of the soldiers took off immediately to follow orders, but the fourth, older by a few years and perhaps more experienced seemed confused. “Sir?”
Han understood the man’s confusion—usually winning the battle was more important than saving enemy lives, and only relatives and close friends ever prioritized guarding a body in the middle of a fight. “Listen, these people aren’t really our enemies. Long story, but that’s the short of it. I don’t want to kill them if we don’t have to. Added to that—and more important, believe me—when we kill them and they take the bodies, we’re helping them win. All but the most unavoidable killing stops now. You have orders. Go.”
Han worked the battlefield as always, engaging here and there, but as his change in plan was implemented, he saw a need for some reorganization. Soon he had details assigned to guard bodies on the battlefield and others to get them secured away from the fighting. Others were set to the task of getting prisoners into places where they could be held. No matter what they did, the mesmerized enemy wouldn’t cease trying to kill Sunlandians, so Han got the medics to administer drugs.
He made these arrangements, saw them implemented, and then he got the call that changed everything.
“We need you,” Lucky said, and then seconds later, “Hurry, Han. Thurlock says we need you!”
Chapter Thirty-One: In the West
BY THE time L’Aria got back to the camp in the cave, Tiro had returned and was just about to send someone after her. His ire was up, L’Aria could see that, but before he could begin a scold, she spoke.
“Papa, I’ve seen something terrible. And the song…. Can’t you hear it?”
He seemed to listen, but then shook his head, “Perhaps not, daughter. I… I do feel something amiss with the song of the sea, though. Is that what you speak of?”
“Yes… no. It’s that but it’s more.”
Bayahr, Eldos, and Lieutenant Mohra—the woman in charge of the cadre of reserve soldiers Han had sent with them—had apparently overheard her distress, and they gathered around as she described the scene she’d witnessed over Hope Inlet. To L’Aria’s surprise, Eldos spoke first when she’d finished her tale.
“This far north, we wights and our wolves are hardy. Hope Inlet is not unknown to us. If you wish”—he addressed this to Bayahr—“to meet the enemy and eliminate the twisted dragons, we can help. It’s difficult to traverse the coastal mountains there, but we know some of the ways. And though we’re not a warlike people, unwilling service to the god of Naught and his captains has taught us to fight well.”
Bayahr watched Eldos intently during this speech, and when it was over, he nodded, his gaze still fixed on the elder cairnwight. “Yes,” he finally said. “Thank you.” Then he turned to Tiro. “Listening to L’Aria, I believe she is right. I do wish Thurlock was here, as he is much more experienced in battle wizardry, but I’m afraid I’m the best wizard we have. I’ll do my best, if you agree we should go.”
Tiro said, “L’Aria rarely speaks in haste. Her mistakes are few. I believe her assessment of what she has seen is accurate enough, and we must not stand by and allow the Terrathian threat to steal in the back door to take Ethra from us. Yes. We should go, and we should fight. As few as we are, though, I will hope that all the good gods of Ethra will lend us strength.”
Preparation was quick. Within two hours L’Aria, Tiro, and Bayahr on Salvatohr set out in early daylight, headed for the rough coast. A troop of twenty soldiers traveled with them, and six cairnwights—three of them with two wolves each and one with a lone wolf. L’Aria remembered facing these creatures as enemies in Black Creek Ravine, and that was something she didn’t want to do again. She was glad this time the wights were on the same side she was on.
She spared thoughts for many things she was grateful for while they were on the way, but most of her attention went toward a song to strengthen the blood of her fellow travelers so they could move swiftly without tiring. Perhaps it helped. Definitely, the wights’ knowledge of pathways among the rocky slopes aided their progress. But most help of all was whatever magic Bayahr was doing. L’Aria could feel shifts in the nearby waterways, like skipping a verse of a song, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what happened, or when, and definitely not how.
Perhaps Bayahr sensed her wonder, for he winked and smiled, seemingly jolly even at a time like this. But within ten breaths after that, they crested a rise and gained a view of Hope Inlet.
They were, it turned out, late to the battle.
In the waters of the inlet—named Hope for a reason, for no one could be sure of safe harbor there—a half dozen ships tossed about in the waves. From a second deck high up out of the waters on two of the ships, archers were firing flaming arrows at a trio of drakes that were flying overhead and harrying the ships. L’Aria had only ever seen small boats and ferries, and she was impressed by these ships, which seemed monstrous to her. Probably twenty yards long, their rounded hulls occasionally pushed up out of the water onto the ice, then crashed back down as the flow twisted away. They seemed to have an extra skin of curved boards around the waterline, and often it plowed into floating ice and pushed it out of the way. They sported large, square, single sails that billowed in a stiff but turning wind. L’Aria watched the small figures of sailors constantly adjusting ropes and sails. She felt a kinship with the sailors, for they seemed to at least to hear the songs of water and spray-soaked wind, even if they couldn’t sing it. She adjusted her song to include them and everything they loved, everything their lives touched.
“I am not a fighter, daughter, and my role will be different here. I go into the waters now to soothe the creatures of the sea, to let them know our violence is not meant for them and lead them away from the drakes if I can.”
“These sailors, Papa, they’re fighting with us, though they don’t know we’re here.”
“Yes, the sailors of the North Seas are born to the waters. You feel a kinship with them, do you not? I also feel that tie. I’ll spend some of my song to calm the waters under the hulls, steady the wind in their sails. I’m grateful for them; they fight for what is right, and they fight fiercely. I believe already they’ve slain some of the drakes—something that seems to me a mercy to those creatures. But I delay too long. I’ll ask you to stay near
Bayahr, L’Aria, and let him protect you as he can.”
“I will, Papa. Be safe as you go, please.”
He kissed her cheek, started a dive in human form, and ended it as a sleek otter.
L’Aria was a fighter, though, and she knew that though the sea might sing to her, her place in this battle would be on land, singing to the smaller streams that carried life within living bodies. They would search among the towering rocks of the near shore, find and attack the Terrathian enemy and any others who stood with them. She could, as she had before, sing confusion and despair to the enemy. It was not work she loved, but she would do it. She could sing strength and healing into her allies too, and she would do that to the best of her ability and until the last of her own energy was spent.
FOR L’ARIA, the Battle of Hope Inlet, once she and her allies entered the fray, didn’t in the least resemble that of Black Creek Ravine. There was no witch calling the shots or sorcerer controlling Earthborn thralls, no cairnwights arrayed against them over magical bridges. Still, some things factored in both battles: hard hearts, cruelty, human misery, blue drakes, and cold magic. As to the drakes, those haunting the shores and skies of Hope Inlet could never compare to Sahlamahn. As to the cold magic, this time it was an ally.
As they descended the rock spires, following the nimble cairnwights along tight, winding paths from ledge to saddle to ledge, they encountered a wizard working in a rock hollow that was almost, but not quite, a cave. L’Aria found him suspicious from the start because of the jarring music his blood made singing through his veins. When they got closer, they saw a small area marked off with stakes and ropes. Inside those areas, chains and iron cuffs that looked like they would have fit around a prisoner’s ankle. The makeshift pen was empty now, but the nearby stone bore a dark stain, and the area reeked like blood and sulfur.
If that had not been enough to assure the company from the Sunlands that the wizard was aligned against them, they were convinced when he barked an order to the six guards with him, and they came at them with spears and swords. The soldiers handled those encounters easily, disarming the attackers with nothing more troublesome than a couple of well-timed blows. Those people—the guards—weren’t evil; they were scared and confused. The glacier wolves, following the whistled instructions of their wights, cornered them and kept them at bay, but they weren’t given the order to go in for the kill.
Bayahr prepared to take on the wizard, mumbling a few syllables and raising his staff, but evidently when the enemy wizard called out his attack squad, it had only been a maneuver to buy time. With a loud final word, he disappeared into the pillar of black mist he’d apparently created. Lieutenant Mohra and two soldiers stepped forward as if to give chase, but Bayahr stopped them from entering the mist-shadow as there was no way to see inside it and know what—or where—waited on the other side.
Almost immediately after the wizard made his escape, a laser-sharp line of blackness emerged with lights in magenta and electric-blue swirling around it. It crossed through the mist-shadow pillar at about L’Aria’s eye level, and within scant seconds pushed out farther and farther in two directions until its end couldn’t be seen.
Lieutenant Mohra, looking wide-eyed, said, “What the…?”
“It’s a connection,” L’Aria said, sure of her assessment. “It’s seeking something.”
“How do you know that, dear young lady?” old Eldos said, clearly shaken by the strange circumstances.
“I can hear it. It’s so very clear, I’m a little surprised nobody else can.”
“Ah, well, perhaps the wolves understand. But what is it looking to connect with?”
“Very good question, Eldos,” Bayahr said, squinting at the slender line of dark power. “I have some theories, but as every wizard knows, it’s unwise to jump to conclusions. I need more information.”
He stepped out of the hollow that held the black pillar and despite his limp made his way efficiently and quickly down a series of high steps formed by piled rocks and collected pebbles. L’Aria followed him to a small clearing nearly choked with a bramble thicket. There the escaped wizard’s former guards stood immobile, facing the wolfish beasts’ double rows of dangerously sharp teeth and resisting any urge to run any farther, which would land them in thorns. After a word from Bayahr, the wights had their wolves back off slightly, so the guards might answer some questions.
Bayahr set his staff and drew himself up to his full height, fixing a look on his face that said, I am a powerful wizard. He opened his mouth to speak…. He sagged, looked embarrassed and said to his companions. “I’m afraid I never learned to speak Weston.”
L’Aria smiled at the old wizard, whom she thought of as grandfatherly. She was becoming quite fond of him and his bumbling ways, though she realized his manner deceived. Her father had called him the second most powerful wizard he’d ever met, and Tiro had been around long enough to meet more than a few. Still, she thought. He’s sort of sweet.
She turned to the captives and asked, “Do any of you speak Karrish?”
One man, his iron-gray hair and beard making him appear to be the oldest among them, had been standing with arms crossed studying them and looking perplexed. “Aye,” he said. “Some small bit.”
Bayahr slapped his forehead, “Oh my goodness. Sometimes wizarding is hazardous to the common sense.”
Salvatohr gave his behind a hard nudge and then started laughing—or at least that’s what it sounded like to L’Aria, and she joined in, but quickly quieted, as there was serious business to be dealt with here.
“Can you tell me why you were with the wizard, there?” Bayahr pointed up the slope toward the location of the pillar.
“No. I cannot.”
“Aha,” Bayahr said. “That is as I expected. And pray tell me, sir, why can you not tell me?”
“Because I don’t know. We follow them—this wizard, two others—but I don’t know why we go. They… magic? Touch our head. Make us go.”
“Yes, yes. I see. You were enthralled, then. Do you know what they are doing, though?”
“Aye. They make the… door? Port? To take the… lizard ones to battle in south mountains…. Um…. Fallows.”
“Of course,” Bayahr said, nodding. “They want to launch the blue drakes as a surprise in the Fallows. The things are so dangerous… hungry all the time… always in pain….”
He’d clearly been talking to himself, and the thicket went quiet as he trailed off, leaving a silence in which distant cries could be heard from the skies over the inlet—some the calls of agitated gulls, some the anguished and heart-stopping screeches of the drakes. Somewhere beneath those sounds, L’Aria heard the water’s disturbed songs, heard her father singing peace to the currents and the clouds.
A song started in L’Aria’s mind that had nothing to do with destruction, and everything to do with peace. She had an idea what she might do. She turned back to the group of people gathered on the side of the rocky hill in time to hear Bayahr ask another question.
“There are others—how many?”
“The wizards are three. One door.”
“Yes, yes.” Bayahr nodded an apparent thank-you to the man, and then started mumbling to himself again. “…three… mm-hmm… triangulation… yes….”
Lieutenant Mohra broke into his processing to ask about the prisoners.
“Cut them loose, sir?”
“Yes, yes. They were never the true enemy. Let them go. Fare them well.”
The wights whistled the wolves off their prey, and the former enemy guards ran away as if chased by the fires of Ahmadou himself.
“Come, everyone,” Bayahr said. “We need to find the other two power points and try to stop the final connection. If it is completed, the Drakes will be one more thing our people in the Fallows have to deal with, and that battle was going to be no walk in the park to begin with.”
Chapter Thirty-Two: Wings of War
HAVING MENTALLY dialed up Han and relayed Thurlock’s message, Lu
cky fought to regain focus on the battle. He knew he wasn’t the best soldier the Sunlands had, nor the best at magic, but he wasn’t helpless. He wasn’t sure what good the Key of Behliseth would be doing in this kind of situation, and he couldn’t even find what Heart-Wish to focus on—he wanted everybody safe more than he’d ever wanted anything, but that was so broad he instinctively knew the Wish magic wouldn’t be able to grip it. But he had Ciarrah, an incomparable living weapon. He called on her, needing both her experience and her blade. “Ciarrah, I need a sword that will reach from here to the ground. I need to stop the Earthborns from shooting up here, and maybe hold them back. I can destroy the zombies, but I don’t want to kill anything actually alive. Can we do it?”
“I can make the sword you ask for, Blade-keeper, but it will not have the strength of either the shorter sword or the focused beam. As far as not killing, that is not in my power. If you cut living flesh with my blade, the flesh may die.”
“But… didn’t my father do… other things?”
“Your father had much arcane knowledge, Luccan, as certainly you will too, should you live as long as he. But the ways were known to him, not to me.”
“Well, then… I guess I just do my best.”
Thurlock had joined the other magic users where they stood making their workings among the ancient trees around the spring. Lucky let Captain Hahris, who had stationed himself nearby, know he was going there.
“Aye, Suth Chiell, I’ll be glad if you stay there. If nothing else good comes of this fight, you must come through it safe. I’ve given my oath that you will, so I’ll be happy if you stay out of the line of fire.”
“Captain, I can fight, and I will. I just want to talk to Thurlock.”
He got a “Certainly, sir” from the captain, which seemed passing strange, but he didn’t have any time to address it.
