The cave stretched into a wide, twisting tunnel, and they emerged into a well-lit chamber, where a few rebels were sitting by a roaring fire. More were coming in from other entrances and all were staring at Keira.
‘Is it really her?’ said one.
A tall man frowned as he approached, walking as if he thought he was important.
‘Is this the fire mage?’
‘Aye,’ said Kallie. She gazed around at the faces in the chamber. ‘This is Keira. She has returned.’
About forty or so rebels had now gathered, forming a circle around Keira and Flora, who stood close to her.
‘Ya fucking beauty!’ cried someone, and the chamber rang out in cheers.
‘We’ll give it to those fucking lizards now!’
The tall man continued to frown. ‘The fire mage, eh?’
Keira frowned back at him. ‘Aye. And who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m the leader of the rebels in these hills,’ he said. ‘If you’re here to fight, then you’ll be under my command.’
‘The fuck I will,’ Keira said. ‘I commanded an army of a hundred thousand Sanang. I’m not going to be taking any fucking orders from you.’
He turned to Kallie.
‘Did you not explain the situation to her before you came here?’
Kallie shrugged. ‘She’s the fire mage, and I’m following her from now on.’
‘But…’
‘Me too, boss,’ said a female warrior with an enormous battle-axe strapped to her back. ‘Sorry.’
The folk in the chamber began to chant her name, Keira, Keira.
She smiled and raised her arms in the air. ‘Let’s plan our first attack over some whisky. Ye have got whisky, haven’t ye?’
‘Oh aye,’ said an old woman. ‘Loads.’
‘Ye know, Kallie,’ Keira said. ‘I might get used to being here after all.’
Keira gazed through the lens of the long lizardeye at the enormous mining compound. It was several times bigger than any town in Kellach Brigdomin had ever been, and included the minehead, where a great wooden tower stood, surrounded by mountainous bins of extracted coal. Beyond that, a quarter of the compound was given over to dozens of long, low buildings where the slave-miners lived. It was surrounded by its own palisade fence. An army garrison occupied the third quarter of the compound, laid out like its own little town, while the final quarter was sealed off with a high wall, the area where the rich merchants and senior officers lived their pampered existence.
The entire compound was enclosed by a series of ditches and palisade walls, and was protected on its landward flank by a fortress. On the other side, long palisade fences stretched a mile down to the cliff-edge. In this protected area, herds of cattle grazed and fields were being farmed.
She felt a nudge in her side, and passed the lizardeye to Flora, who was lying on the raw stones of the hillside next to her, a look of deep fatigue in her eyes.
‘This the last one?’ she said.
‘Aye. The last big one, anyway. Kallie said there’s a few smaller places we’ve missed, but they can be mopped up after we’ve finished.’
‘They’re panicking,’ Flora said, peering through the Rahain-made instrument. ‘Loading up wagons, and soldiers are running around all over the place.’
Keira chuckled. ‘Guess word reached them of our wee tour across Northern Kell.’
‘It’s only two days since we attacked the last place,’ Flora said. ‘Are you sure the imperials don’t have a vision mage?’
‘That’s what Kallie says. Think about it though. The bastards seemed surprised when we hit them, they never saw us coming. These guys down there must have seen the smoke rising from the last place, or maybe a survivor managed to escape.’
‘I don’t know, you were pretty thorough.’
‘As always.’
‘How you coping with it? I must admit, I wasn’t sure you’d do it all again, not after the Plateau.’
Keira shrugged.
‘You sleeping alright?’
‘Whisky helps.’
‘You seem calm on the surface, but…’
‘Enough. Let’s just blow the shit out of this place, and get the fuck back to Domm.’
She turned her head and glanced at the dozens of Kellach rebels standing among the giant boulders of the broken hillside. The wood they had salvaged from the previous compound was being unloaded from six wagons, creating a great mound of fuel.
Keira jumped down the slope towards them and Kallie saw her approach.
‘How’s the range?’ she said.
‘I can hit the front half of the compound from here,’ Keira said, ‘and the fortress. I’ll start with that, then work my way to the minehead.’
Kallie nodded. ‘Where do you want the strike squads?’
‘Straight through the front gate,’ Keira said, ‘as soon as the fortress is ablaze. Make sure they stay clear of the coal bins, I’m going to light those fuckers up, they’ll burn for days, the amount of coal that’s been stockpiled.’
Kallie nodded again, and started issuing orders to the others.
Keira rubbed her hands, waiting for everyone to get into their positions. The warriors trooped off, leaving Kallie and a half-squad as the mage’s personal protection. Flora opened the storm lamp.
‘Not yet,’ Keira said. ‘Anyone got a drink?’
A grizzled older man reached into his belt and pulled out a bottle. He bit off the cork and spat it out, then passed it to Keira.
‘Good man,’ she said, and took a long drink of whisky. She gazed at her right hand. Steady as fuck.
‘Alright,’ she said to Flora, ‘now.’
The dark-skinned woman opened the storm lamp, exposing the flame within. Keira closed her eyes, feeling for the living fire, sensing its desire to spread and consume. She drew back her fingers as if taking a pinch of salt and a thin tendril of fire leapt out of the lamp, igniting the heap of wood in a great whoosh of flame. Flora stepped back, the heat intense. Keira smiled.
‘Someone spot for me,’ she said, and Kallie gestured to a warrior, who ran up the slope and lay down at the top.
Keira flicked her wrist, and a ball of fire the size of a pumpkin soared through the air. Seconds later she heard it crash, and she glanced at the spotter.
‘You hit the inner wall to the right of the fort,’ the warrior yelled. ‘Pull back twenty yards, and angle thirty to the left.’
Keira nodded, and sent over another fireball.
‘You hit a building inside the fortress,’ cried the warrior.
‘Good enough,’ she said. She increased the size of the next fireball to that of a wagon, and sent it on the same trajectory. She then fired off a dozen more in quick succession, sprinkling them around the same area.
‘The fortress is burning!’ the warrior called down to her.
‘The coal bins next,’ she shouted back. ‘Same routine.’
She gazed at the pillars of smoke rising over the edge of the ridge, trying to remember exactly where the giant stores of coal lay. She flicked her wrist, and a smaller fireball whooshed towards the compound.
‘Too far to the left,’ cried the warrior. ‘Angle fifty yards to the right.’
She tried again, and again, narrowing in on the bins, until the warrior whooped. Above his head the flames could be seen rising.
‘You got it!’ he yelled. ‘Pyre’s arsehole, it’s burning like an inferno.’
Keira glanced at her diminishing supply of fuel. She weaved her hand through the air, pulling up everything that remained, and sent it over to the compound, over to where she knew the minehead lay. She waited for the whump as it hit, and smirked.
They clambered back up the ridge, leaving a smouldering black circle on the ground behind them, and gazed down at the compound. The fortress at the front was burning, flames ripping through its towers and interior buildings. The minehead had collapsed, and was on fire, but the light it made was insignificant next to the raging conflagration by the co
al bins. Black smoke was pouring up into the sky from where the mountains of coal lay, and the heat from it was igniting the structures around it.
Keira stared at the white-hot flames. From her attacks on the other compounds, she knew that the fire would rage on and on, until all the coal had been consumed, melting the rocks underneath the inferno, and scarring the land for years. She also knew that the cavern cities of the Rahain would be cold and dark that winter, and felt a savage revenge satisfied. Let those bastards suffer. Let their lizard arses freeze in the dark.
‘There’s the attack squads,’ yelled one of the warriors, pointing.
‘We’d better get down there,’ said Kallie. ‘There are still over a thousand soldiers in that garrison.’
Keira nodded, smiling to herself.
They sprinted down the loose rubble of the hillside, and ran towards the ruins of the fortress. They grew close enough to hear the screams from within, then turned and made for the main gates of the compound. Keira held her arm up as they ran, lifting a mass of fire from the burning fortress, and throwing it at the gates in front of where the attack squads had gathered. The gates exploded, their doors shattering from the burst of fire, and the attack squads funnelled through. Kallie swung her longbow off her shoulder, notched an arrow and shot down a Rahain guard up on the wall. Keira took another fireball from the fortress, and cleared the rest of the wall’s battlements, incinerating the other Rahain guards that were up there.
They followed the squads through the broken gates and into the compound. To their right was another wall, enclosing the wealthy quarter, while to their left was the great inferno consuming the coal bins. Ahead, the Rahain garrison was forming up, row upon row of soldiers with shields and crossbows, all marching up the road at a trot.
‘Dear oh, dear,’ said Keira, raising her arm. ‘Yer going the wrong fucking way, ya numpties.’
She swung her arm down, and a sheet of white flame rose from the coal bins and cut through the air, like a whirling circular blade. It soared over the heads of the attack squads then, as Keira moved her fingers, it grew closer to the ground until it was at waist-height. It sliced through the ranks of Rahain soldiers, cutting them in two as it filled the width of the road.
Keira pushed with her hand, and the blade of fire went spinning down the road, annihilating everything that stood there. At the end of the street, Keira flicked her wrist, and the fiery wheel slammed into the gatehouse of the garrison barracks. She spread her fingers, and the flames moved through the buildings, leaping from roof to roof.
The squads stood and stared at the carnage carpeting the road all the way to the burning garrison.
Keira winked at Kallie. ‘A thousand, did ye say?’
She turned to the walled-off inner compound, where the wealthy merchants that controlled the coal trade lived. She strode to the gates marking the entrance, Kallie, Flora and the half-squad following. Warriors held up shields before the fire mage, but she could see no one up on the wall. She raised a ball of hot flame from the centre of the fire at the coal bins, and blew the gates apart.
‘Get out here,’ she yelled, ‘or I’m burning the place down.’
A group of Rahain soldiers appeared, their hands in the air. They scrambled through the smouldering wreckage of the gates, where Kallie lined them up against the wall, their weapons piled up by the road.
‘Where are your masters?’ Keira said to them in Rahain.
The prisoners glanced at each other.
‘Most have already fled,’ said one. ‘Last night, or at dawn this morning.’
‘North, I hope?’
The Rahain soldier nodded. ‘Back to the Plateau.’
‘Taking all their wealth with them.’
‘Whatever they could carry, ma’am.’
Kallie strode forward. ‘You said most. Are there still some inside?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Barricaded into the Merchants’ Hall.’
‘And you were supposed to stop us getting there?’
The prisoner nodded.
Keira nodded at Kallie, and stepped into the enclosed quarter. Once past the gates, she ignored the sounds of Kallie’s half-squad killing the prisoners, and gazed around. It was like being in a different town. The streets were filled with grand-looking houses, with shops, taverns and tree-lined avenues.
‘Looks quiet,’ said Flora.
‘That lamp lit?’
The Holdings woman nodded.
‘Keep it ready.’
They set off as soon as the half-squad had gathered round her. They strode down the wide street, passing a broken fountain, its stonework green with slime. On the far side of the square stood the Merchant Hall. Its front entrance had been blocked, and its windows were boarded up.
‘Good afternoon,’ Keira yelled, ‘my wee colony of rich lizards. Have ye got anything to say before I burn yer hall to the ground?’
A white flag poked out from a balcony window.
She looked up. ‘Aye?’
‘This is imperial property,’ cried a voice. ‘The Emperor will hear of this. Word has already been sent to the governor of Rahain. An army will come, and you…’
‘Aye, whatever,’ Keira muttered. ‘Flora, the lamp.’
The Holdings woman opened the door of the lamp, and Keira fired a small sliver of flame across the square to the Merchant Hall. It affixed itself to the eaves under a sloping side roof, and the fire began to lick up the wall. Keira moved her hand in a gentle swirl, and the flames spread, and grew, leaping across gaps to other parts of the hall, until the flames took a firm hold of the building. Keira lowered her hand.
She waited for the screams.
They didn’t take long to reach her ears. Men, women, and children. Their cries rose up into the sky as the flames whipped through the building. Kallie glanced over at the mage, her eyes full of pain as the last sounds of the dying echoed through the square, but Keira kept her features impassive.
Desperate cries of terror and agony sounded much the same, no matter which race of folk she incinerated. The sound of bairns screaming, in particular. Didn’t matter if it was Rahain, or Sanang, or Rakanese, or Holdings. All sounded the fucking same.
Keira turned and walked from the square, the half-squad trooping in silence behind her.
The rest of the attack squads had formed up outside the wealthy quarter, their forms silhouetted by the coal bins burning behind them.
‘Garrison accounted for?’ Kallie asked a group of officers.
‘Aye, boss,’ said one. ‘There weren’t many left after the mage’s attack. It’s just the slaves to deal with.’
‘How many?’
‘I’m guessing in the region of four thousand, boss, based on the size of the sheds where they’re housed.’
Keira glanced over to the palisade wall surrounding the slave quarter, in the opposite corner to the wealthy area. She began walking towards it. Flora ran to catch up, while the Kellach watched her go in silence.
‘What are you going to do?’ Flora said.
‘What the fuck do ye think?’
‘You can’t, not again.’
Keira snorted. ‘Ye care about the lizards now, do ye?’
‘Not really, if I’m honest,’ she said, ‘but I care about you. About what slaughtering these slaves will do to you.’
Keira ignored her, and upped her pace.
‘Wait,’ Flora cried, sprinting after her. ‘I know you, Keira, I know you. I saw everything you did with the Alliance, and in that shithole Sanang, and on the fucking Plateau. Don’t do this. Please, Keira, you’re so far gone, I don’t want to lose you…’
Keira stopped a few yards from the slaves’ enclosure. The stout palisade walls reared up in front of her, and through the gaps in the planks she could see the faces of those locked within, the faces of the slave labour force that went down into the earth every day, digging for the black rocks. Their eyes were filled with terror as they watched her gazing at them.
Stupid lizard fucks.
/> Flora tugged her arm.
‘Please, Keira.’
‘Get off me.’
‘Don’t do it.’
Keira pushed Flora, sending her sprawling to the ground. ‘What the fuck’s it to you, anyway?’
‘I love you.’
Keira stared at the Holdings woman, unsure whether to laugh or fly into a rage.
‘Fucking pyre’s cock,’ she muttered, shaking her head. She held out her hand. ‘Get up.’
Flora took it, and the mage pulled her to her feet. Keira glanced at the slaves for a moment, then turned and began walking back towards Kallie and the attack squads, Flora running to keep up.
‘What’s happening?’ said Kallie as she approached.
‘Ask her,’ Keira said, nodding at Flora. She walked past Kallie and sat on a white-washed boulder marking the edge of the road. ‘Somebody get me a fucking whisky.’
A warrior ran over with a bottle and Keira drank deep.
‘So, yer not going to kill the miners?’ Kallie said.
Keira shook her head. ‘I’m done.’
‘What will we do with them all?’
‘Fuck knows, whatever ye want. I’m out of here.’
Kallie sat next to her on the boulder. ‘Back to Domm?’
‘Aye.’
Kallie sat in silence for a minute. Flora came over, and took a swig of whisky.
‘And you, Flora?’ Kallie said. ‘What do you want to do?’
The young Holdings woman gazed at the burning compound.
‘I want to go home.’
‘You mean the Holdings?’ said Kallie.
‘Yeah.’
‘What?’ said Keira. ‘I thought ye were coming back with me to Domm?’
Flora gazed at her. ‘If I thought there was any chance that you’d ever feel the same way that I do about you, then I’d be by your side forever. But I have to be realistic. You never will.’
Keira stared at her in silence. Something within her began to hurt.
‘Well,’ Kallie said, ‘if you’re going to the Holdings, then we may have found something that might interest you.’
‘What?’ Flora said.
Kallie stood. ‘Come and see.’
‘What is it?’ said Keira.
‘It’s of no concern to you if yer going back to Domm.’
The Magelands Box Set Page 169
