King Toth had arrived on the battlefield.
Chapter Thirty
Markal was still reeling over Memnet’s death. Even as they fought on, bringing down the marauders who had somehow landed on the roof of the Golden Pavilion undetected, broken their way in, and then emerged to murder the master, even as Wolfram gave battle to Hamid and killed him, and even as Chantmer arrived and shouted that they must renew the fight, he kept looking at the master’s lifeless form. Kept remembering the way Memnet’s soul had bled from his mouth and nostrils to be devoured by the cursed red sword.
That sword had found its way to Wolfram’s hand, and fought on their side now. That was Memnet’s doing, he was sure, and in a sense, the great wizard was still alive in there. But that didn’t ease the terrible pain. Or change the fact that they were now leaderless, and King Toth was riding toward them at the head of an army with two of his dark acolytes by his side.
Narud spun him around. “Markal! Tell us what to do.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“By the Brothers,” Nathaliey said, “you must.”
Don’t you see? It was my fault. I could have saved him. I had the spell, I had the magic. And I fumbled it away.
But they were all looking at him: the other wizards, the acolytes, lesser apprentices, keepers, and archivists. Even Chantmer. Nearly thirty of them. Presumably, the rest were dead. This was everyone who remained of the Order of the Crimson Path. And they were looking to him to save them.
Toth and his acolytes threw sorcery at them, and his knees buckled. The Eriscobans in the meadow began to falter. The first troops of the second Veyrian army were almost around the lake, having slogged their way through swamps and clouds of biting, stinging insects. Through treacherous bogs and stinking mud. Thousands of foot soldiers stretched around its bank, all coming this way.
“Markal!” Nathaliey said.
“Ring the bell,” he said at last. “Knock back that sorcery. Don’t enter alone—there might be a marauder still up there.”
He turned to Chantmer, who looked strong and confident. Apprentice or not, he was as powerful as any of them. “Defend the trench. Take as many of the order as you need.”
“Send Narud instead.”
Markal gave Chantmer a sharp look. “That’s where the enemy will first hit. That’s where the glory is.”
“It’s Narud’s trench. He is the better defender.”
“What does it matter who dug the trench?”
Nathaliey reached the bell, and it rang deeply as the hammer struck. Another gong, then another. Each time it rang, powerful magic surged out. The bell drove back the enemy’s sorcery, and when it hit the Blackshields, who’d been milling about on their horses, Wolfram lifted his sword and gave a shout. Scores of paladins rode out from the Golden Pavilion to meet Toth and his forces.
“It’s what the master would have wanted,” Chantmer said. “Markal, you have to trust me.”
“Narud, go,” Markal said. “Defend the trench.”
The Blackshields met advance elements of Toth’s army and hacked them down, and such was their zeal and the ferocity of their assault that they made an army of thousands falter, which gave the main Eriscoban force a chance to advance into their flank. But the barbarians shortly came under attack by archers from their left and the dark wizard’s sorcery from in front, and the advance slowed. Keepers heaved up defenses from the meadow, battering Toth with stones, shaking the ground beneath the Veyrians’ feet, and making horses panic.
Toth cast a black thunderbolt at Wolfram. The Blackshield captain lifted Soultrup, and red fire appeared. The blast of shadow hit the sword, raced along the blade, and vanished, absorbed by the weapon.
Markal now stood alone with Chantmer at the base of the Golden Pavilion. “What do you mean? What exactly did the master want?”
“You have to listen to me,” Chantmer said. “And listen carefully.” He sounded more sincere than Markal had ever heard before, earnest and almost pleading. “This has to be done before Toth crosses the trench. Do you understand? Once the enemy crosses the trench, all is lost.”
“We’ll throw him back.”
“No, Markal, we will not. Look at the battlefield. Look at what is happening. By the Brothers, be honest with yourself. Memnet the Great is dead, and the battlefield looks like this.”
Chantmer waved a hand at the meadow, and Markal couldn’t help but look with fresh eyes. The Blackshields were already faltering. They’d scythed through the front rants of the enemy army, but lost fifteen or twenty paladins to blasts of sorcery from Toth and his acolytes. Wolfram was withdrawing to join the main Eriscoban army, which was already hemmed in on two sides, with enemy troops moving to seal them in on the other two. Even worse, there was no effective opposition to the Veyrians coming around the lake. At their current pace, they’d be at the trench in ten minutes, maybe less.
Nathaliey kept hammering at the bell, but the magic it sent was losing strength, each ringing note slightly weaker than the previous.
Markal had seen a battle over the trench before, when the enemy attacked in much smaller numbers. When the master was still alive. When palace troops were on hand to kill those who made it over. When King Toth lost his nerve in the final attack. And it had still been a very close thing.
“There’s still a chance,” Markal forced himself to say. “If we can hold Toth himself on the other side . . .”
He didn’t finish. And how would they do that?
“It will be night in fifteen minutes,” Chantmer said. “Then the wights come over the garden walls.”
Markal blinked. “Wights? But we finished them off in the swamps.”
“You can’t seriously think that tens of thousands of wights were all gathered by the Harvester in a single night. You know that’s impossible. Hundreds must have escaped—some number of the dead always do—and if Toth bound those souls once, he can gather them a second time. The garden walls have fallen. There is nothing to keep them out.”
“Then we’re dead.” Markal’s voice sounded flat, like something from the grave itself.
“We are not dead,” Chantmer said. “But . . . we need to take drastic measures.”
Markal stared at him. He began to understand. “This is what you were talking about? The lines radiating out from the temple?”
“Yes.”
“Like the walled garden, the desolation we caused.” It was no longer a question.
“Yes.”
“And you’re talking about destroying the whole of the gardens, obliterating it all. Leaving it a dead zone where nothing will grow, where nothing but wights will flourish. A blasted desert forever.”
“I am not talking about the gardens, Markal. I’m talking about Aristonia.”
Markal barely managed a whisper. “No.”
“It’s the only way to be sure,” Chantmer said. “If you only destroy the garden, Toth will use his sorcery to fight clear, probably taking marauders and dark acolytes with him. We’ll have destroyed an enemy army, destroyed our gardens and our strength, but left the dark wizard alive. Alive with his cities, his sorcerous highway, his fortifications. But if we extend the destruction, he will never outrun it. It will overtake him and he’ll die.”
“But . . . but, how?”
“Lines radiate from here to the walls, and from there to the fairy forts, the standing stones, the old shrines, the Sacred Forest.”
Markal put a hand to his forehead, which had a sheen of cold sweat. “Even the Sacred Forest?”
“The master showed me how to activate the stones when we were returning from Syrmarria with the books. Not all of the old places are active, but enough are, and they will shatter the spells holding the others in place.”
The ground rumbled. Nathaliey stood atop the stairs behind them with her palms out, blood flowing down her forearms. The meadow threw up boulders and dirt and sod. Veyrians screamed. Others were at the trench already, hurling themselves into it, forced thr
ough by the sorcery Toth poured into them. Narud and his companions killed those who made it across, drowning them in dirt turned soft as mud, or even picking up stones and bashing them on the head.
Close now. Very close. King Toth was on the verge of a total victory.
And as Markal took it all in, he knew that Chantmer was right. As horrible as it seemed, the only way to defeat the dark wizard was to destroy it all.
To destroy Aristonia. Yet hadn’t Aristonia already fallen? The population was either in chains, burned in the inferno of Syrmarria, or fleeing south into the desert, where they’d be a people in exile in the sultanates. And now the gardens were gone, too.
He managed a nod. “Make it happen.”
“No, Markal. You will make it happen. Go to the platform and call up the desolation spell.”
“And you?”
“I will shield what I can, save who I can. Make sure there’s someone left to retrieve the books from their protective vault.”
“What about the books? Will the desolation . . .?”
It was a last gasp attempt to turn away from the inevitable. But the remnant from the library was well protected in its vault. The master wouldn’t have put them down there, then given Chantmer instructions to destroy the whole of Aristonia if the precious tomes, scrolls, and tablets could not be preserved. Indeed, this final, desperate defense was as much about the books as anything else. The master valued that knowledge more than his gardens, the Sacred Forest, his own life, and the lives of his followers. More than the entire, precious realm of Aristonia.
He left Chantmer and climbed the stairs, his legs like blocks of stone. Nathaliey was on her knees at the edge of the platform, gasping with her head bowed in defeat. So much blood around her, a dangerous quantity. She’d used everything, had nothing left to give. She lifted her eyes as he moved past her, and a frowning question appeared on her face. He turned away.
The roof boomed, and the rafters shook. Bits of wood rained down from the hole cut by marauders, and the bell hummed with the vibration. Another boom, but this one trailed out like rolling thunder, and the whole building shook. Toth was bombarding them with stones.
He knew, even before he put his hand on the brass, that the initiating spell would be in the bell. As his hand met the cool metal, it hummed beneath his fingers, dark and terrible, ready to leap out at his command. He only needed to activate it. Only needed to destroy everything. Only that.
A scream from outside, and shouts. Veyrians were coming over the trench. Narud’s voice rose in the air, booming some incantation. The whole building shook, and a powerful spell blasted toward the enemy. Men screamed, horses whinnied in terror and pain. And still the attackers shouted and drove forward, and the bombardment against the roof carried on.
Narud had acolytes at hand to draw from, but whatever he’d cast to throw enemies back from the trench would have taken blood, must have taken the greater part of his remaining strength. Nathaliey was spent, and now Narud. Memnet was dead, his orb drained, and the meadow had given up its runes and wards.
What was left? Markal and Chantmer, that was all. Markal to destroy, Chantmer to protect. Markal wanted it to end, wanted to die before he had to witness the horrors that were to come, but knew he had to pull himself together and call up this terrible spell.
Both hands on the bell, he spoke the words in the old tongue. “The pure land sacrifices in its own defense.”
Pure, rich magic. It was in this shrine, and the meadow beyond. In the lake, the gardens, the forests and farmlands beyond. All of Aristonia.
The bell was humming, and the ringing echoed in his ears. It was no longer cool, but hot, and glowed with fire when he removed his hands. He pulled back the massive wooden bell hammer, hesitated when he held it drawn, and let it fall.
The single deep chime was unlike anything he’d heard before. It was a heavy, chilling ring that continued to reverberate and even grow stronger as it vibrated through the air.
No more warmth. In fact, the air grew cold and dry. And then everything went dark, and Markal’s legs crumpled underneath him.
#
Wolfram didn’t understand what was happening at first. It was almost dark, with the moon glowing cool yellow overhead, and he’d fallen back, unhorsed, lightly wounded, and exhausted. The Blackshields fought on, but many had died, including Sir Lucas, with a spear shoved through his shoulder that took him off his mount, and a dagger thrust under his breastplate before his companions could come to his aid. Wolfram had lost half his paladins already, along with hundreds of Eriscoban soldiers, either killed by Veyrians or torn to pieces by enemy sorcery.
Soultrup had cut down a score or more enemies. There were good, bad, selfish, and indifferent souls—all manner of people thrown into the weapon—and he kept control as the sword sang with the blood of its victims. Veyrians saw the red blade and fell back in terror, but others pushed them forward, and the killing went on. There were too many enemies. Far, far too many. He lost his horse. Found another. Lost it, too.
The only thing that kept his forces from being overwhelmed was the enemy’s ferocious assault on the lakeside shrine itself. Veyrians were attacking from all sides. They filled the trench with their dead, then scrambled over the bodies to get at the wizards fighting on inside. Just when it looked as though the temple would be overthrown and its defenders massacred, a single ringing note sounded from within.
It was a black note that rang and rang, and his guts turned to mush low in his belly, as though the Harvester himself had reached in his bony hand and torn out his soul. A collective wail rose on the battlefield, from enemy and friendly forces alike. A darkness deeper than night rolled across the meadow, and men, grass, and horses withered before it like handfuls of green leaves thrown into a fire.
There was a single pinprick of light around the shrine, and he saw those within as through a bubble, protected as others died across the battlefield. The blackness reached the woods beyond, and trees withered, leaves falling into dust and bark sloughing off.
The wave came toward him, and he stared grimly, ready to die. But it rolled past him, and he was still alive.
To his astonishment, he realized he was within a light bubble of his own, together with Marissa, several other Blackshields, and hundreds of regular troops. Others were on the outside, including many of his paladins, and they looked back at him with horror, reached out for him even as shadows curled around them. Their faces opened in terror, their cheeks shrank to the bone, and their eyes blackened and ran like tar down their faces.
Wolfram called a retreat, and the bubble moved with him. The surviving Eriscobans followed, and they fled the battlefield. Others were still alive outside, somehow eluding the destruction that kept spreading out as the bell continued to ring. They were marauders in gray cloaks and dark acolytes with horses dying beneath them. But they didn’t last long. They ran a few feet, sometimes farther, until their feet turned to dust and their legs withered into blackened sticks.
He kept running and running, terror carrying him along with his surviving forces. They reached the crumbling gate just ahead of the spreading desolation. There, they found other Eriscobans in full flight. Some found their way into the protective bubble. Others didn’t and died.
The destruction kept spreading beyond the gardens. Trees withered, the ground split. Hedges, grassy hills, abandoned fields—all crumbled to dust. And still they fled west.
A horse and rider overtook them a few miles from the gardens, pushing past the Eriscoban army, fleeing inside his own bubble. The animal frothed, nostrils flaring, as the rider drove it relentlessly. The man was wreathed in shadow, reflecting moonlight like black obsidian, but Wolfram could see inside, see the man’s wheat-colored hair and intense gaze—a man not so different from Memnet the Great. With a chill, he realized that it was King Toth, the sorcerer himself, escaping the destruction. Toth rode past them and vanished on the road ahead.
Except that King Toth didn’t escape. They came upon him
a few minutes later, his horse gone, disappeared into ash and dust, while the sorcerer himself lay writhing in pain as the destructive shadow seeped through his spell of protection. The shadows pooled around him, slid over his body like dark shrouds. Toth threw back his head and screamed. His eyeballs melted, and his wight bled from his mouth and nostrils as he died.
Wolfram had hesitated to watch in grim, horrified fascination as his enemy finally died, and now hurried to catch up with the others, a staggering, exhausted army of survivors, before they left him behind and took the protective bubble of magic with them. After that, he ran and ran and ran, long past when he should have collapsed. The bubble, he realized, wasn’t merely protecting them, it was also carrying the survivors to safety.
Behind, the desolation continued to spread. Mile after mile after mile.
Chapter Thirty-One
Markal wished he hadn’t seen the desolation. He wished he’d either died, or stayed in a stupor, or been awakened by his companions at a later point, preferably in a land far away, only to be told of its aftermath. And told it in small portions until the entirety of events could be digested.
Instead, he witnessed its full horror.
He’d blacked out after striking the bell, but within seconds awoke to find Nathaliey and Narud dragging him across the upper platform to the top of stairs. A deep chilling note reverberated behind him, ringing and ringing.
His companions had exhausted their magic in the fight, and were barely able to stand themselves, let alone help him down the stairs, and he shrugged off their help. The paint blackened and peeled on the battered columns holding up the roof of the Golden Pavilion. The roof turned dark, the gold seeming to rust or turn to dull lead. The stairs warped and split beneath their feet.
Chantmer and the other survivors gathered in a shrinking bubble of light that expanded to envelop Markal, Nathaliey, and Narud as they approached. The pavilion itself remained outside the bubble and seemed to disappear into the blackness. Outside the bubble, everything was howling and black, like dust and shadow in a terrible, gathering desert windstorm. Bones fell from the sky, as if torn from the bodies of the armies and showered down as rain. They took refuge in Narud’s trench, atop a heap of dead enemy soldiers, while Chantmer worked to strengthen the protective bubble to shield them. The noise outside was terrible and unrelenting. Howling, moaning, shrieking.
The Emerald Crown (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 3) Page 28
