Jaioun sighed and rubbed his knuckles.
Daphne pulled free of her unconscious body, the dream skills she had learned from Kalayne unaffected by the loss of her other powers. She looked down on the wagon as it was pulled along the cobbled streets of the settlement towards the fort. Her body was in the hidden compartment beneath the floorboards next to Douanna. She had been bound up like a parcel, with a bag over her head, but Jaioun had also set her lower right leg, attaching a splint and bandaging it up.
She looked out over the town. The queue at the gates of the fort was small, and moving. Once they got in line, she estimated that they would be through in under an hour.
She turned to the west, and soared, flying over the miles between the tunnel and the fords where the Severed Clan were due to make camp. The long hours of practice she had undertaken in the Rahain Capital, when she had been covering the distance to Slateford, now made the trip to the river seem easy, as if her dream powers had no connection to her physical health, or her inability to use her innate vision skills.
The fords glittered as she approached, and she hastened over them and beyond, scanning the roadside for signs of a camp. She found it, sprawling a few miles to the west, a mass of wagons. A few fires still burned, but the majority of the camp was dark and silent.
As she began her search of the wagons, a voice cried out. Her daughter had found her.
Karalyn’s dreaming mind rushed up from the camp and intertwined with Daphne’s thoughts. The child sensed her mother’s fear, despite her attempts to hide it, and Karalyn dragged Daphne’s mind down to the tent where her body lay in a cot next to Killop’s bed. Together, they entered his mind.
Daphne, he said, his own dreams interrupted. What’s happened? Are you all right?
She felt his love envelop her, and she held onto the embrace for as long as she was able. The pain in her body was causing it to awaken, and she knew she would be pulled back soon.
Killop, she said, I lost my powers, and Douanna captured me.
Where are you?
Close to the tunnel entrance.
I’m coming for you.
Her body shuddered and she opened her eyes, gritting her teeth in agony. She felt for her battle-vision, and found it. The reserve was small, but she was able to draw enough to take the edge off the pain.
She had been gagged, and the rough cloth was cutting into the sides of her mouth. She gasped for air in the dark, close compartment.
‘Oh, do be quiet,’ Douanna whispered. ‘I’m trying to get some sleep. Really, you can be so selfish at times.’
Chapter 35
Risen
Outside Plateau City, The Plateau – 20th Day, Second Third Winter 506
The domes and spires of the imperial capital were swathed in smoke and flames. The clouds above were reflecting the glow of the burning city, and the night sky was lit up as if it were day. Keira had sent fireball after fireball over the walls, aiming for the palace complex and the area around the cathedral. Agang followed the firewitch as she made her tour along the northern side of the city walls. Flora went with him, cradling her crossbow, but her attention, like everyone else’s, was on the flames.
The ranks of Sanang troops lined up in front of the walls stood back and watched as Keira pounded the city. A tower toppled, and crashed into the enormous silver dome of the palace, rending a great breach in the stonework. Flames roared up through the hole in the dome, consuming the interior of the massive building.
‘That’s the palace fucked,’ Flora muttered.
‘And the fires are spreading,’ Agang said.
Leah approached. ‘You seen Kylon?’
Flora shook her head.
‘Not for a while now,’ Agang said. ‘Not since the firewitch started the attack.’
Leah frowned at him. ‘I’m still uneasy with you just walking around.’
‘The firewitch said it was fine,’ Agang said, ‘and Flora’s guarding me.’
The Holdings woman shrugged, and they turned back to gaze at the city.
A few yards ahead of them stood Keira, Fern by her side. The firewitch was flicking her right hand every few seconds, sending more fireballs from the nearby bonfires on their trajectories into the city.
‘There’s no doubt she can put on a show,’ Leah said.
‘And she’s kept her attacks to this side of the city,’ Agang said. ‘From what I remember of the layout, only the palace and cathedral are in this quarter. She’s not been hitting the main civilian areas.’
‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up,’ Leah said. ‘At some point, Keira’s going to have to break into the city. The Sanang will rush in, and what do you think will happen next?’
Flora shuddered.
Leah gazed about. ‘Where is that arsehole Kylon? This is not the time to be wandering off.’
Agang shook his head as he stared at the burning city. So much waste. He caught B’Dang out of the corner of his eye and tensed. The warlord was striding towards them, leading a small group of officers.
‘How long’s this going to take?’ he said to Leah, ignoring Agang. ‘The boys are getting restless.’
Leah shrugged. ‘Go ask her.’
B’Dang frowned, and turned to face the firewitch. With the eyes of his officers upon him, he began walking towards her.
As he approached, Fern tugged on Keira’s sleeve. The firewitch turned, and gave B’Dang a look of contempt, a smirk on her lips.
‘Aye?’ she said, lowering her arms. She took an offered bottle of wine from Fern and gulped down half of it. ‘You want something?’
‘A hole in the wall would be nice,’ B’Dang said. ‘The boys are all ready, just get us into the city and we’ll do the rest.’
Keira stretched her shoulders and gazed at the flames rising into the night sky. The northern quarter of the city was engulfed in a raging conflagration and smoke was belching up from behind the walls in thick, black clouds.
She turned to face Leah.
‘Where’s Kylon?’
‘Fucked if I know, boss.’
‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘I did tell him to fuck off.’ She frowned at B’Dang. ‘Let’s get this done, but not here.’
She nodded to Fern, and began walking east towards the corner where the wall turned south. The entire company of guards that were encircling the firewitch also began moving, keeping Keira and the others in the centre.
The firewitch walked for several minutes, passing the corner tower, and continuing south until she reached a section of the wall where the city wasn’t burning. She halted close to a bonfire, and the guards formed a wide circle around her and the others, their shields facing out.
‘We’ll do it here,’ she said. ‘No point being subtle about this one.’
She reached up with both hands and an enormous, surging mass of fire lifted into the air, leaving nothing behind but a pile of ashes where the bonfire had been. She grunted as she compressed the great mass of fire into a white-hot ball the size of a wagon. She heaved it at the walls, striking a section halfway between two towers. The wall exploded in a crescendo of fire and deafening noise, flinging huge blocks of masonry into the air. Some crashed back into the city, while others landed in the muddy earth between the ranks of Sanang warriors and the gaping breach in the wall.
The army let out a roar of triumph.
The ground began to shake. A violent tremor shook the earth, sending warriors falling all around. Agang flew forwards, his left knee hitting a rock as he landed. He cried out in pain, and held on to his leg as the ground rolled and jerked.
Agang stared at his knee, unable to comprehend what was happening. He was feeling pain, and blood was flowing from the inch-long gouge out of his flesh.
Why wasn’t he healing?
Leah grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet as the ground stilled. He staggered, clutching his knee.
‘What the fuck’s the matter with you?’ she said. ‘That’s barely a graze.’
He
glanced up, trying to stand, but his mind was panicking. Around them, the warriors of the Sanang army were getting back on their feet.
‘Was that an earthquake?’ he muttered.
‘See?’ Flora said to Leah. ‘I told you he was clever.’
‘Maybe there’s a Rahain mage working for the Emperor,’ Leah said. ‘Crazier things have happened.’
B’Dang walked out towards the gap in the wall. Rubble was piled high in places, but the breach was wide. Beyond, the streets and houses of the city lay waiting.
The warlord puffed out his chest.
‘I am B’Dang D’Bang,’ he crowed. ‘Tonight, I will do what that coward Agang Garo was too weak to do. This city is ours!’
He drew his sword and the army roared. He raised it high, and they charged.
Agang staggered forward to watch, his mouth open. The warriors surged towards the gap, clambering over the strewn debris and racing into the streets on the other side. Thousands were gathering at the breach, ready to pass through.
Keira approached Leah and the others, Fern by her side. The firewitch was gazing at her hands, a strange smile on her lips.
‘My job’s done,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘You’re not staying?’ said Agang.
She snorted. ‘What would be the fucking point?’
‘You could be empress. You could rule the world.’
‘Why the fuck would I want to do that?’
She began walking back through the mass of gathered Sanang. Groups of them were peeling off from other sections of the wall to join the crowd waiting to pass through the breach. The ring of guards kept the area around Keira clear, and they moved up the bank, away from the walls.
Keira halted at the brow of the old earthen bank, and turned to gaze over the city.
‘That earthquake,’ Agang whispered to her, ‘it felt strange. Did you feel anything?’
She frowned at him. ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’
Agang nodded and looked away. His knee felt like it was on fire. Was this what being injured felt like? He realised that he had never appreciated what others being in pain meant, and if Leah was right, and he had only received a scratch, then he couldn’t begin to imagine how a serious wound would feel. True, he had been injured in the past, when he had suppressed his powers and endured a beating rather than reveal what he could do, but even then he had been blocking the pain, and had healed himself as soon as it had been safe to do so.
He forced back tears. Since his teens he had relied on his inner powers, and kept them secret from every living soul, and now they were gone.
‘Over there, boss,’ Leah said, pointing up at the battlements next to the breach in the wall. A group of crossbow-armed imperial soldiers had assembled, and were shooting down into the mass of Sanang as they entered the city. ‘That lot could probably do with getting a few bolts of fire shoved up their arses.’
Keira scowled. ‘Nah. As I said, I’ve done my bit. It’s up to them now.’
Leah’s eyes narrowed. ‘Eh?’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Keira snapped. ‘You gone deaf?’
‘No, boss, I heard you.’
‘We’ll wait until most of the Sanang boys are through the wall,’ Keira said, ‘and then we’ll be off.’
No one spoke. Agang gazed at the city. The flames from the northern quarter were spreading south into the main residential areas and were edging in the direction of the markets beneath the walls of the Old Town. Above the roar of the fires, the sound of screaming and steel striking steel echoed across to the bank where they stood.
At the breach thousands of Sanang were still waiting to pass through, pushing and shoving each other to reach the city. Agang noticed the pressure change in the mass of warriors making their way through the gap, as if the way ahead was becoming blocked. The warriors compressed into a tighter mass as they strained to pass the breach.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Leah said. ‘Why are they stopping?’
‘Maybe the city’s putting up more resistance than we expected,’ Flora said. ‘And all those Kellach in there. They won’t go down without a fight.’
The Sanang gathered outside were still pushing forwards, but all motion at the breach had come to a halt. In the distance, Agang could see the streets behind the breach were blocked with Sanang warriors, unable to move in either direction. A roar of flames burst up from a few streets away, arced through the air, and rained down on the warriors caught in the tight press, sending them alight, amid screams and panic.
Agang’s mouth fell open.
The Sanang in the middle of the breach were trapped between the masses still trying to enter the city, and the warriors fleeing from the fire-rain in the streets beyond. The crush in the centre grew, and warriors slipped to the ground, or died where they stood, their chests collapsing under the tremendous weight of flesh.
The intensity of the fire-rain increased, lighting up the entire street beyond the breach, now packed with burning warriors.
‘Have they got a fucking fire mage?’ Flora asked, her eyes wild. ‘How are they doing that?’
‘Where the fuck is Kylon?’ Leah muttered, her eyes dark. ‘Boss, what’ll we do?’
Keira said nothing.
The Sanang pushing towards the breach began to realise what was happening on the other side of the wall, and the pressure lessened as they pulled back, streaming up the bank. Many stared at Keira, imploring her to help them.
A chant of ‘kill-kill’ filled the night air, a hundred thousand voices taking up the refrain.
The firewitch stood on the bank, her face impassive.
‘Boss?’ said Leah.
‘Look out!’ cried Flora, as a rock-shaped missile flew through the air from the battlements, heading right for them. Agang jumped to the side, his knee throbbing as the object landed and bounced along the ground.
It was the head of B’Dang D’Bang.
Smoke was rising from the black holes where his eye sockets had been, and his mouth was twisted in a grimace of agony.
One of yours I believe, fire mage.
Agang stumbled, the voice in his head thundering out the words. He glanced up at the others on the bank. Flora had fallen to her knees, her hands over her ears, while Fern was crouching by Keira’s side, weeping. Leah’s face was shining in the reflected glow of the burning city. Her eyes looked like she knew the end had come.
Only the firewitch seemed unaffected. She was upright, standing with her head high.
‘He was an arsehole anyway,’ she said, staring towards the city.
Agang followed her eyes, and saw a man standing up on the battlements.
‘Who’s that?’
‘The fucking Emperor,’ Leah said.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Guilliam?’
You have been a nuisance, fire mage, the voice hammered in their heads.
‘I did my fucking best.’
Now watch as I destroy your army.
Agang stared at the figure on the battlements. Could it really be the Emperor? The man raised his right arm, and held it out to the south, towards the small river that ran through the city.
He started to move his arm to the left in a slow gesture, and the land under the Sanang warriors buckled at the far end of their ranks, as if a giant plough was scraping through the earth upon which they stood. Rocks, soil, grass, all were churned up at lightning speed. The warriors in its path were thrown into the air like toys, ripped apart by the force of the attack. The land rose up, consuming line after line of the Sanang army, and heading towards the huge mass of warriors by the breach, who stood transfixed.
The force unleashed by the figure on the battlements halted before the breach and the land stilled. For over four hundred yards to the south, a swathe of ground fifty yards wide had been turned over, and no warrior who had been there had survived.
The Sanang warriors by the breach stared in silence at the devastation. Someone broke, an
d began running north, and within seconds hundreds, then thousands, turned to flee. The protective circle of guards around the firewitch contracted under the pressure, and pulled in to a few yards from where Keira was standing.
Look at them run, how pathetic.
The figure on the battlements raised his arm again, then swept it out towards the great mass of warriors stampeding from the breach. At once the heads of the warriors started to explode in a burst of scalp, skull and brain matter. It began with those closest to the walls, then spread through the screaming press of panicking warriors.
Agang crouched down and put his arms over his head as the gore splattered over them. Hundreds were falling, thousands, and decapitated bodies stumbled on before falling, adding to the heaps of headless corpses piling up on the bank. On and on it went, reaching north to find any who had fled that far, until every warrior outside the city was lying dead, their heads missing. Every surface was coated in a thick red layer of blood and bone fragments.
Agang stayed crouched, trembling and panting for breath. He closed his eyes and waited for death.
The voice laughed.
Look at your army now.
Agang opened his eyes. Apart from him, only Keira, Fern, Leah and Flora were still alive. The tight ring of guards was clustered headless around them. Flora was shaking and weeping, while Leah had her head in her hands. Fern had buried her face in Keira’s cloak, kneeling beside her.
The firewitch was standing in the same position as Agang had last seen her. She was covered in blood, from her hair to her boots, but her defiant expression remained.
Agang stumbled to his feet.
‘Who are you?’ he cried.
I am the Holder of the world.
The figure raised his hand again, and a sleek arrow of fire rose up from the burning city. It shot down towards Keira.
Leah pushed the firewitch out of the way as the fiery bolt neared, and it struck her in the chest and disappeared. For a moment Leah stood there, staring down at her body, then flames rose up from her mouth, and she screamed. Her eyes melted as a stream of fire rolled down her cheeks and she sank to her knees, then slumped onto the ground, her body smoking and smouldering.
The Magelands Box Set Page 140
