Ravensoul lotr-4

by James Barclay

  ‘So much of ourselves will be gone. And the people are confused and scared. They do not understand why Yniss will not act to save them. Many will perish unless the teachings of the ancients excite them to do what they have to do in order to survive. The ClawBound are doing all they can to bring the words home but I fear not all our ships will be fully laden. And there is tragedy in that.’

  Auum inclined his head. ‘Tragedy lies all around us already. Go to the ships. I will bring our warriors to you when we can do no more but die.’

  ‘Do not overstay your welcome in the faces of our enemies.’

  ‘Tual will guide my hand; Yniss will guide my mind. I will not fail.’ Auum turned to his TaiGethen cell. ‘Tai, we move.’

  The three TaiGethen flowed over the parched ground and out of the forward camp that now lay less than a mile from the invasion front. Ahead of them through the withering rainforest were the orange glow of the burning canopy, the stultifying heat that pushed on before it and the last desperate defence against the Garonin.

  Auum ran slightly ahead of Ghaal at his left shoulder and Miirt at his right. It had been hard learning to trust a new cell but he had chosen well, he believed. Now would be the test to end all others.

  The land they trod was no longer their own. Auum knew they were moving south but no scent, no trail and no recognisable set to the foliage remained. He could no longer read this place. It had ceased to be their home, more alien than Balaia, to where the survivors would flee. Yniss had surely turned his back on them, unable to assist.

  Smoke choked their lungs. Ash lay heavy in the air and crumbled underfoot. The green beauty was gone along with Tual’s children, the forest denizens, replaced by a churned, dead land. The war had been lost the moment that Garonin had landed. All that was left now was survival.

  The fight against the Garonin was confused and it had to be that way. The warriors of the TaiGethen and Al-Arynaar used the density of the canopy as best they could, keeping the enemy guessing. But with every Garonin pace forward, that density lessened and the fire that came in its wake took more lives.

  Auum ran past an elf lying prone, his back a mass of charred flesh. Another tended to him but it would be hopeless. Not even magic could save him, and magic was being taken from them.

  ‘Keep tight,’ he said. ‘Strike in, turn out. No hesitation.’

  A series of white lights flashed through the trees at just above head height. Like teardrops but slicing horizontally, ripping through bark, sundering timber to pulp and bringing down mighty trunks. Fires leapt up where the teardrops impacted. Fire dampers ran in, those that still lived.

  Warrior elves in deep green and brown camouflage clothing and paint criss-crossed his path. They were close now. The thud of the machines, the roar of the fires and the steady crump of beasts treading the ground filled the air.

  ‘Do not be afraid to die,’ said Auum. ‘Our souls are promised to Shorth and he will find them.’

  But images of the priestess in the temple of Shorth crowded into Auum’s mind and he found himself doubting his own words.

  ‘Yniss protect us,’ he whispered. ‘Your servants.’

  And there they were. Garonin.

  Auum stopped in his tracks, feeling a unique sense of fear. Just like before. Ancient history repeated.

  ‘It’ll never be over, will it?’ said Miirt, her voice steady.

  ‘They may not have changed. We are different,’ said Auum.

  ‘They do not need to change,’ said Ghaal, who had stopped a pace ahead of him.

  Auum followed his gaze. An arc of soldiers protected three harvesters, each pulled by two of the great beasts. Hanfeer, the elves called them. Created for this single purpose. The harvesters were huge, bulbous skins taut with the pressure of the gas they contained. Their funnels belched waste into the sky, sensors sought new pockets of mana to exploit and the rumble of another detonation cloud built above.

  The massed hundreds of warrior elves faced no more than sixty of the enemy and yet they were losing the fight here and on four separate fronts of which Auum had certain knowledge. The rainforest was being laid to waste.

  ‘This is not as before,’ said Auum. ‘This level of destruction. This number of soldiers.’

  ‘They come not just to harvest,’ said Miirt. ‘Their memories are long and bitter.’

  God’s Eyes castings struck at three enemy soldiers advancing on the left flank. One went down. The other two staggered and were driven to their knees under the force of the assault, their armour flaring a blinding white. Immediately, two TaiGethen cells sprinted in, backed by a number of Al-Arynaar warriors and mages.

  Every Garonin head turned. In every hand, weapons were brought to bear, raised to the eyes and their power unleashed. Streams of white teardrops fled away. Vegetation from ground to ten feet in the air was obliterated, a path of energy driven towards the attacking elves and into their midst. Auum turned his eyes from the impacts but his ears could not block out the screams.

  Elves ran in from all sides.

  ‘Diversion,’ said Ghaal.

  Auum was already running. ‘We are TaiGethen. We do not stand and watch our brothers die. Tai, to my mark.’

  He made a curving run. Ahead and right an Al-Arynaar exploded under the weight of white tears thudding into her chest. Another lost an arm even as he raised it to strike. Auum kept his head down, pushing his legs to more speed, dragging hot, painful air into his lungs.

  His target hadn’t seen him yet. The soldier was moving steadily forward, his weapon still facing the initial attack point.

  Auum’s head cleared. He could hear his every breath and the sound of his feet on the cracked ground between the trees. He used what remained of the immediate cover as best he could. The world slowed around him. He closed on his enemy, his Tai at his heels. The Garonin saw them eventually, weapon beginning to come to bear. Auum planted his right foot and used it to launch himself. He twisted as he came off the ground and brought his legs together. He spun in the air, his body a spear, his heels its tip.

  Auum struck the soldier in the neck just above his weapon. The enemy could not absorb the blow and crumpled backwards. Auum raised his arms for balance, straightened and landed softly, coming to a crouch and drawing his twin short swords from their back-mounted scabbards. He turned.

  Ghaal and Miirt were there before him, blades hacking and stabbing into gaps in the Garonin armour. Auum knelt across the enemy’s neck and ripped away his helmet. The white lettering across the armour faded. What stared back at him was not human. Black orbs bulged from bony sockets. Flat nostril slits flared. The huge mouth clacked together, toothless ridges sampling the air. There was no fear in that face.

  ‘We will find your weakness,’ said Auum. ‘And we will stop you.’

  ‘Auum, you know better than that. You cannot beat us. Not in this world, nor in the next,’ replied the Garonin. ‘Yours will be the race extinct. None who escaped us once will do so again.’

  The Garonin growled deep in its throat and vanished, leaving Auum clutching at empty air.

  ‘The hanfeer,’ he said. ‘We can give them pause. Tai, we move.’

  ‘He knew you,’ said Miirt while they ran towards the great beasts. ‘How did he know you? You cannot be so aged, even for an Ynissul.’

  ‘My time is longer than you think,’ said Auum. ‘And it is not done yet.’

  Precious few had broken through the protective arc to run towards the harvesters, their beasts and the Garonin who marshalled them. Auum tried to shut out the sounds of pain behind him. God’s Eyes arced in overhead, splashing harmlessly against the shielding the harvesters possessed, doing little damage. The rumble was deafening here. The crushing of age-old timbers under the hooves of beast and runners of machine was an ugly symbol of death.

  The fires at the rear of the machines ate at the dead ground and gorged at the excess gasses in the air, torching tree stumps and incinerating anything living that came into contact. Nothing would be le
ft in the wake of their passing. Nothing.

  Auum ran directly at a trio of Garonin in front of the centremost machine. His Tai were level with him. That the Garonin saw him was not in doubt, but their confidence was such that they did nothing to halt his advance. Theirs was millennia-old information. And it told them the elves would turn aside. Ten yards from them, Auum saw the first flicker of concern in the slight turning of a head.

  ‘Split,’ he ordered.

  His Tai stepped aside left and right. Two paces later, all three dropped and rolled below the sweeping fists of the marshals, coming up behind them. Auum drove his blades into the gaps between boot and calf armour. The Garonin shrieked, anger and pain clashing as he pitched forward. Auum leapt on to his back, dragged his head back and drove a blade into the eye slit of his helmet. The Garonin jerked and disappeared.

  Miirt and Ghaal had followed his lead, but to either side none of the other attacking elves had got any further.

  ‘Strike and turn,’ said Auum. ‘Hesitation is death.’

  He led them to the two hanfeer yoked to the vydosphere. Dull eyes peered from beneath heavy brows. Bone stood proud from flesh, natural armour against predators. But the beasts were weak in the legs, just like their masters. Auum moved in for the crippling blow.

  This close, beast and machine were a sight to take the heart of even a strong elf. The hanfeer stood almost twice Auum’s height, their massive shoulders straining against the yokes that they bore. Hawsers as thick as his thigh ran from the yokes to the machine, tensing and relaxing with each measured pace forward.

  The vydosphere was a towering monument of creaking metal, raging heat and thrumming malevolence. Auum had no idea what much of it was made from. Its skin was not hide, more like expanding metal. The whole was as tall as a three-masted elven cutter, twice as broad as the ocean-going vessel and set on runners that barely settled on the ground, as if the hand of some giant were holding it just in contact. All that he saw, he logged for the future, for the time when they could strike back with an eye to victory, not to mitigate defeat.

  White tears ripped up the earth in front of them. Auum threw himself to his right, the ground at his feet blistering and bubbling in the heat of the strike. He rolled and ran into the lee of the hanfeer pair. His Tai were still with him. Ghaal had fear in his face, Miirt was burned down her left leg.

  ‘Strike and turn,’ he repeated.

  Auum’s blades whipped down into the lower leg of a hanfeer. The beast bellowed, a primeval sound, and fell forward, its ankles collapsing under its weight. Immediately, an alarm rang out from the vydosphere. With a squeal, it halted, belching smoke. Miirt struck at the second beast, Ghaal with her. Blood gouted from deep wounds. Another scream of bestial agony.

  ‘Run,’ said Auum.

  He led them right, away from the Garonin attacking them and briefly into the shadow of the vydosphere. Above him, its skin groaned and protested. He saw bubbles appear beneath its surface and a rippling that ran along a seam. Steam escaped.

  The fires were close, the heat unbearable. He turned to run back into the rainforest. The remaining Garonin were all staring at the stricken hanfeer and the machine halted behind them. Some were moving, hurrying even, towards the beasts. Tears fled from weapons held high. Flesh ripped from the beasts, heads caved in. In that same moment, two more hanfeer blinked into existence. So did another thirty Garonin.

  Auum glanced over his shoulder as he ran, free from attack for the moment. All the vydospheres had stopped. Every Garonin worked to shepherd the new hanfeer towards the yoke of the stranded machine. The corpses of the dead beasts were fading, taken back by their masters. Al-Arynaar and TaiGethen surged back to the attack, seeing opportunity.

  But Auum knew they had already achieved what they must.

  ‘Break off!’ he yelled.

  ClawBound heard him if no others could. The calls of panthers echoed across the battlefield. Warriors turned at once.

  Auum raced back into the relative safety of the deep canopy, not pausing until he had reached the forward camp. Rebraal was issuing orders. Carts were rattling away towards the docks at Ysundeneth, three days distant. Squads of warriors were forming up, ready to join the attack.

  ‘I thought I told you to leave for the docks,’ said Auum. ‘I need you standing with me at the Harkening.’

  Rebraal smiled. ‘Too many still left behind. I will leave with the last of them.’

  ‘That time is now,’ said Auum. ‘We have stalled them for the moment. Precious time is ours. Use it. Evacuate the rest.’

  ‘We can strike further. Damage them more.’

  Auum shook his head and leaned in to whisper into Rebraal’s ear.

  ‘No, my friend. More have come. And not merely to harvest this time. To destroy us. More machines are arriving too. Enough to lay waste the entire rainforest. They mean to destroy us and our lands.’

  Rebraal stared at him, not believing. ‘They will not let us go?’

  ‘And they will pursue us. They have not forgotten.’

  Scant hundreds of yards to their left, a huge detonation. Flame swept across the horizon. Trees cracked and fell. Elves and animals screamed, broke and ran.

  ‘How long have we lived here?’ asked Rebraal.

  ‘Three thousand years and more, and now we have no time,’ said Auum. ‘Miirt, have that leg healed. There is more work to do. Tai, we move.’

  Chapter 5

  There was an acid taste to the air. It was the sort of taint that signalled trouble for delicate grapevines.

  Baron Blackthorne trusted that whatever caused it would not travel south to his burgeoning slopes. He was expecting a supreme harvest, much as Baron Gresse had been. And indeed the evening before there had been no hint of any problem. But this morning that aftertaste to every breath lingered.

  The two men stood on the wide, decked veranda of the plantation lodge hidden among the hills, terraces and valleys of the Gresse vineyards. They had enjoyed a fine dinner the night before and had broken fast well this morning. But now coffee was growing cool in mugs and frowns weighted the brows of both men.

  Gresse wrinkled his nose yet again.

  ‘Stinks like old magic,’ he said.

  His voice, gruff for as long as Blackthorne could remember, was further deepened to a painful phlegmy rattle.

  ‘You should have someone check out that throat of yours.’

  ‘Hardly, Blackthorne. Damn mages have done enough damage to my land and people over the years. I’m not going to start entertaining them in my house now. Too old for that sort of thing.’

  ‘You’re what, sixty-five? A few years older than me, anyway. Never mind damage; you might even get saved.’

  Gresse waved a hand impatiently. ‘Cancer is just nature’s way of telling you to step aside for your sons.’

  ‘And you think that’s what it is?’

  ‘If the blood I cough up and the pain when I swallow are anything to go by.’

  Blackthorne sighed. He couldn’t help himself. He stared at Gresse and those sunken brown eyes stared back, the hanging skin on his cheeks quivered and the pale small mouth tugged into a smile. At least he had the decency to blush a little.

  ‘Stubborn old goat,’ said Blackthorne.

  ‘It’s the progression of life, my friend.’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve lost enough to war, disease and demon to last two lifetimes. I don’t need to lose any more unnecessarily. Certainly not those with a part to play while we try and climb out of the mess the demons left behind. It’s not burning martyr I can smell but it surely should be, shouldn’t it? What by the Gods falling is this defeatism?’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘I am, as it happens, seventy-two, Blackthorne. Twelve years older than you. And I can’t be bothered any more, I really can’t. Look at you. I know the effort it takes for you to travel these days but you still haven’t gone grey. Just a few flecks in that sculpted beard of yours. Hardl
y a crow’s foot around the eye and think what you endured. Think what you still endure when the night releases the worst of your memories.’

  Blackthorne reached for his coffee mug and found the tremble in his hand that usually only came on waking from his nightmares.

  ‘So what’s your point?’ he asked a little more sharply than he intended. Gresse didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Can’t you feel it? It’s not just the stench of old magic in the air. Something’s on our skin. It’s absorbing through every pore. I’d had enough of fighting when The Raven beat the Wytch Lords. And when was that… fifteen years ago, wasn’t it? When the demons were defeated I thought we might actually see a lasting peace.’

  Blackthorne spread his hands. ‘Well, we have. Ten years and counting.’

  Gresse shook his bald head. ‘You know better than to believe it will last. You’ve had the visions and you’ve heard the voices. I can see it in your eyes.’

  There was no hint of age or his illness diminishing his mind. Indeed Gresse seemed particularly sharp this morning.

  Blackthorne studied the vines growing along the valley to the south of the lodge.

  ‘I have nightmares, not premonitions,’ he said.

  ‘It comes to the same thing,’ said Gresse. He coughed and put a hand to his lips. Blood stained the back of his index finger. ‘And I can’t fight any more. I just don’t have the energy. Nor the passion.’

  ‘So what is this smell in the air then?’ asked Blackthorne.

  ‘It is the start of whatever is to come. We’ll know soon enough.’

  Blackthorne drained his coffee, set down his mug and leaned on the veranda.

  ‘If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people being mysterious and oblique. Do you know something or not?’

  ‘It’s just a feeling, Blackthorne. I’ve had them before and I’ve always been right. This is just worse than all the others and I don’t have the will to face it.’