by T. A. Miles
Korsten couldn’t help but to wonder yet if what clung to him was in any way a threat to Vassenleigh’s defenses. They didn’t seem to have enough immediate presence for anyone outside of the Superiors—and not even all of them—to notice, unless they manifested. Korsten wondered now if they had done so in Ashwin’s presence while he was sleeping … and perhaps been inspired by jealousy. Uncomfortable as that was, it seemed to align them more with his emotions than with any machinations of their own.
Thinking of the collision of Vadryn in the northern valley, he wondered how many of Serawe’s attachment had eradicated the new ones. Perhaps it was primarily Serawe’s that had returned to him, which might mean that the new ones, for all of their potential, were still too young yet. How much would Renmyr have been able to affect them in such a short time?
A hand touched his shoulder while someone moved past them, and Korsten turned to look at Ceth, who was on his way toward the center of the wall. He stopped to speak with another of the Superiors, the maned bearer of blue. Korsten could only imagine what invention Ceth might have applied to their defenses and how his fellow Superior might have helped. It was comforting to have their ancient wisdom and skill, unsettling to know that that had not prevented the near destruction of the Seminary a century ago.
The thought directed Korsten’s attention to Merran’s hand, which he subsequently took in his own. Merran’s fingers, gloved partially and forever in silver, wrapped around his. A long period of waiting began.
The first signs of the enemy appeared, not in the form of soldiers, but in the form of beasts. Beasts the likes of which Korsten had seen once already. It seemed impossible.
Had Renmyr mastered whatever magic Xelonwyr had used to create these creatures in such a short time? Or had Xelonwyr been assisting the Vadryn all along, in spite of the disagreement the two had had in Korsten’s presence. The northern sentinels loped out of the tree line in the setting sun, seeming wrongly like gigantic hares, or some other denizen of the forest that should have been harmless. Korsten recalled the state of the buildings in the northern city and pictured their nightmarish forms tearing down the gates of Vassenleigh. The only comfort he had in that moment was knowing that the people of that city were able to combat it. They were not indestructible.
The troops in the field held their ground, in spite of the oddness of the enemy’s first line. Mages assigned to the battle were already casting Barrier. Korsten could tell by their stances, and he felt relief that they had done so, particularly as the northern beasts took notice of the soldiers, and broke into an uncoordinated run toward them.
Korsten tensed helplessly during the charge, and especially when the beasts came up against the Barriers. Those of the battle specialists were particularly strong, and knocked more than one of the creatures back, nearly to the line of Morennish soldiers who had begun making their way behind the sentinels.
Shortly after that initial assault, a tremendous rush of sound echoed from the top of the wall, out to the field. Korsten looked down the length of the wall in a vain attempt to see the source of the sound, then back at the battlefield in the moments powerful Blast spells were throwing the beasts back yet again. This time several of the creatures were literally thrown into the forces behind them. The Morennish soldiers scattered beneath the impact.
Korsten retraced the path from where the Blasts struck, managing to locate silver rods arranged on various roof tops and sections of wall, as well as in the field below. The spell had been amplified. It was in the midst of that discovery when Ceth arrived beside Korsten and Merran once again. The Superior pointed toward the rods Korsten had already eyed up.
“There, there … and there,” Ceth said. “The rods sit higher than the outer Barriers for now. Concentrate your spells in the direction of them. Pace yourselves. At this level you have only one layer of amplification to work with.”
Merran seemed unsurprised, accepting the instruction with a simple nod while Ceth departed to instruct others. Merran cast a Blast toward the field, and Korsten followed suit.
Aligning his focus was not difficult, but it was certainly a different way to implement the magic.
“It’s similar to the strategy we used in Indhovan to turn back the wave,” Merran eventually explained.
Korsten took that to mean that Ceth had been consulted once again before the wave. Given the lack of time he recalled Indhovan having, Ceth must have gone to the city directly, which was astounding, but also heartening.
The beginnings of the battle played out with much the same tone for a time that was only measured by the sun’s gradual descent. The creatures were eventually defeated, having done minimal damage. That was when Morenne brought forward its own magic users, who attempted to counteract the Barriers with assaults that were difficult to descry from afar. The most important aspect of their tactics—much of which involved various forms of fire—was that it eventually tired the Barriers on the field. They were dropped and a true skirmish began. Men and mages alike went at trying to kill one another, by spell or by sword. Korsten began to feel nervous over the amount of blood that seemed to swiftly get spilled once the true fighting began.
“I wish they weren’t out there,” Korsten mumbled.
Though he didn’t know if he meant to be heard, Merran answered. “Where else should they be?”
“I don’t know,” Korsten admitted. He began occupying himself with watching for Vadryn to rise out of the fallen enemy soldiers.
And then he noticed night coming. Or was it still too soon? Much of the sky remained in the purplish tone of evening. He noticed when he looked up from the battlefield that it wasn’t night. A familiar darkness rose up from the horizon, above the trees and began to move across the fields, toward the Seminary.
“Renmyr,” Korsten whispered, watching the curtain of darkness stop at the threshold of the battlefield itself, stacking upon itself until it was high enough to block half the sky.
“Barrier!” Someone on the wall called out, and those along it—including Korsten and Merran—were actively working the spell when the wall of darkness shuddered, and out tumbled a band of shadow, so fast and forceful that it collected the earth in its wake. It shuddered against the just formed Barriers, knocking them down and piling them swiftly into the soldiers on both sides. All of it struck the main Barriers, knocking back everyone on the wall.
Korsten helped Merran to catch himself, though they both wound up half crouched before the battlement behind them. Korsten looked above him, watching the debris from the dark cloud roll over the dome new Barriers formed over the Seminary. Afterward, he hurried to right himself and take in the damage below. His gaze stuck on the mounded collection of bodies strewn at the base of the wall.
The darkness continued to swell, sweeping across the sky and over Vassenleigh as if a storm that had built directly overhead. It was blacker than a storm, though. Had this been what it was like the first time?
Korsten broke away from the view of the bodies below, looking to Merran, whose gaze was fixed further out. Korsten followed his partner’s gaze to the tree line, where new lines of soldiers were emerging. There were many more than the first wave. From their vantage, it looked to be thousands.
Looking to the yards behind the wall at the soldiers who were protected, it was plain to see that they didn’t have enough of their own forces. Reinforcements were supposed to be coming from nearby areas, including the Old Capital, but it didn’t seem they would have enough time to arrive.
A stirring began in Korsten’s blood, something akin to his demonic passengers scuttling about in their hiding places. He looked again to the battlefield at the oncoming army. Some of them wore armor, others wore oddly shaped vessels that were similar in appearance to what Serawe and the crone had made. Regardless of casing, Korsten knew certainly that the majority of them were Vadryn.
“Merran,” he said, but formed no further words when he
noticed the pale and pristine figure riding toward the gates from within. Recognizing the white-garbed form and long tail of white-blonde at once, he still could only say Merran’s name.
They both began for the stairs. Korsten leaped down several steps and was nearly to the ground when he felt Ashwin’s eyes fall upon him, in the instant before he cast a Reach and carried himself out of view. Korsten wheeled about and ran into Merran, then pushed around him to make his way back to the top of the wall.
Ashwin, don’t!
Korsten knew at once that Ashwin was trying to correct a past wrong, that he hoped to confront the enemy and spare a lengthy battle and potential infiltration that would lead to another massacre, one that would then be repeated at the Old Capital, which would crush the heart of Edrinor, finally and perhaps forever. Korsten wanted to trust Ashwin, that he had some spell or plan to implement that would simply end this, but his dread was stronger in this moment than his trust.
He arrived at the top of the wall and leaned into the battlement, searching for his mentor. Merran’s hand was soon pressing at his back while he did the same.
Ashwin’s Reach had placed him directly below. He sat upon a towering horse as dark as his twin’s hair. The animal would have been lost to the darkness if not for the near glowing white of Ashwin. He sat there in the face of rows of the enemy, as calm as if he were going to give a lesson in spellcasting to a room of his students.
What was he doing?
Korsten felt without breath, anticipating another assault from the dark wall, one that would be directed solely at Ashwin.
And then he noticed Ashwin calmly maneuver his hands in the casting of a spell. A Release spell, which thundered from his hands with force equal to the rolling cloud of darkness that had smashed into their Barriers. A tremendous wave of light raced from the Mage-Superior’s hands and across the enemy’s forces, like a wave of gods’ fire. Every line of the Morennish soldiers collapsed. There was not one beast or man left standing.
Korsten had felt the tremor of the spell’s force through the wall, and he felt Merran’s hand tighten over his jacket, as he also had not escaped the sensation. The quiet that took the very world in that moment was absolute.
The darkness spanning the sky tried to match it, expanding like a pool of blood, seeping across the ground, toward Ashwin.
The force that had transferred from Ashwin, across scores of bodies stowing the Vadryn, felt more empowering than draining. The casting had been immense, but so had been the magic Ashwin had been collecting and storing for centuries. Demartas—the beast he had become—was not alone in his accumulation of power. Without assistance from a betrayer of Ecland’s age and skill, and without the full element of surprise, he would not be penetrating their Barriers. Ashwin had reinforced them upon his exit. No one would be penetrating the Barriers, from either side, which meant that Ashwin and all the energy he had gathered was, right now, for the enemy.
Disembodied Vadryn lifted from their collapsed vessels, drifting like snakes on water through the confused light of the battlefield. Ashwin cast Fire, further illuminating the air and their forms, several of which were rent apart while others were forced back toward the darkness. He would do this, as many times as was necessary, until the Vadryn were no more. Whether Demartas elected to show himself before their fall or when there were none left but him made little difference to Ashwin. The spell in no way sapped him of any of his strength, and this time he had a single focus. He stared into the black wall, delving into it with his gaze, seeking contact.
I remember.
The wall itself bellowed, sending a wave of shadow out that disrupted the bodies on the field and the attempts of the Vadryn to reach them and draw strength from the blood those vessels yet contained.
Aswhin brought his hands together and then swept his arms swiftly outward, sending a white band of Mist at the wave of shadow. Both spells occupied the length of the battlefield, and collided with one another loudly enough to shake the very air. They negated each other, leaving a scattered gray vapor hanging over the terrain.
Lightning snaked out from the wall, with the drive of many spears, tearing the earth as they struck. Ashwin spread a dome of Barrier over himself and held his mount still while violet-hued energy scattered violently across the invisible shield, coloring the shape of it, but failing to penetrate.
The Vadryn magic eventually grounded itself, and Ashwin let the Barrier fall. He guided his horse forward slowly.
“You will go no further,” he said.
Renmyr heard him easily, and screamed out of his shroud—his hiding. The sound was incoherent, but came with an arm of darkness, which whipped out of the wall and across the battlefield. Ashwin diverted it with a Binding, wrapping his own magic around it and dragging it over himself and back onto the ground. It drove beneath the surface, scraping away layers of grass and earth, then was retracted, back to the wall.
“Is this what you desired all this time? To attack me?” Ashwin started forward again. “Then why didn’t you?”
Why did you murder those I loved? Why do you persist in murdering others?
Finally, Renmyr answered with words. To damage you. To disfigure you, emotionally.
What your actions helped to shape was not a deformation. It, in no way, mirrored you.
That inspired another bout of lightning. Ashwin quickly unsheathed his sword, attracting the bolts to it and then quickly casting the disrupted remains off, toward the wall.
Wind roared out of the blackness. Closer to its source, Ashwin’s mount felt less secure and reared back. Ashwin controlled him and otherwise buffeted the Wind back by Barrier.
“I tried to help you,” Ashwin said, his recovering memory granting him a fresh image of Demartas, when he was only a man. He was of a curious build, long but not disfigured. His features were foreign, his features enlarged with eyes of opposing color to one another. His skin was mottled in tone, but not sickly. He had been different … perhaps of another race of people. Where he had come from was a mystery, and not important to Ashwin or his family then. They were welcoming. Demartas’ temperament was odd and unpredictable. He spoke of peculiar things. Dark things. His aspect was often gloomy, but to Ashwin, his manner did not speak of violence or of malice. Not at first. “Was I a fool?”
It was then that the wall began to shift forward, rolling gradually to where Ashwin waited, as if a black tide. As it ebbed forward, Ashwin remained patiently where he was. And as it flowed back, leaving its deposit upon the earth—a dark stone washed ashore—he continued to make no further move and took no immediate action against the demon. The beast stood in its carefully selected and cultivated vessel, a body of strength and of beauty. The ambition and cruelty of this most recent addition had grafted upon to the collected consciousness of Demartas and the demon he had merged with, so long ago. He had sought this poison, or accepted it, before Ashwin had even been called to magehood, before many in Edrinor even knew what that could mean. It occurred to him now that it was perhaps in part because of this very individual that he had even been summoned to the task to begin with.
“You are a chosen champion of the Powers,” Renmyr said. “It might be that you yourself are a man, merged with the energy of one of the Powers. In that, you are like me, in your own way.”
“Perhaps,” Ashwin permitted. Whether or not such things were true were irrelevant now.
Renmyr disagreed. His face contorted into a scowl. “It’s true! You’re a lie! To yourself and to everyone you would surround yourself with. Servants to your power.”
“Not to mine,” Ashwin contradicted. “The Source of man’s power does not flow from me. I am not its custodian, but only a guardian.”
“A guardian of corpses and of a dying star, extinguishing within a box. I will free its power.”
“You would not know what to do with it, if I put it into your hands directly. You’re a chil
d with ambitions beyond your maturity.”
“I will take it from you!” Renmyr screamed, and in that moment Ashwin knew that he had come into contact with the youngest Camirey to have contributed to the mass, who had been so easily drawn into the collective of energy that this creature was. His predecessor by blood had been equally controlling and determined to control others. He had been freed from the entanglement, and he had survived. He lived out his years bereft of his senses, a ward of his captors until he eventually perished of his lingering mental illness. It had not been as long for Renmyr, and it might have been possible for Ashwin to Release him. He had little hope for separating out the others. By now their souls had woven into one another so completely, to isolate any one of them would be nearly impossible.
Renmyr lashed out, whipping a shadowed extension of his arm toward Ashwin within the span of a breath, which was all the time it required Ashwin to cast a Barrier between them. The demon’s elongated hand smacked against the spell wall, then withdrew and struck it again. He repeated the motion until it seemed that he might manage to disrupt it, if allowed too long.
Ashwin cast Wind and pushed both it and the demon back several paces.
Renmyr tumbled and righted himself, his arm reaching again, snapping across the space between them like a cord of black flesh.
Ashwin seized it with Binding and drove it down into the earth before him.
Renmyr’s other arm soared at him. Ashwin knocked it back with his sword, the smallest split in his concentration providing the demon enough window to break out of the Binding. He dragged his freed limb up and caught Ashwin’s horse by the neck. The unnatural limb began to distort with the shape of many writhing forms sliding through it, toward the animal and into its skin.
