To the west, the other golems were flexing their chains. Chalos could hear the steady boom of the Ektan sorcerers as they countered and the flash of their magery flickered on the edge of his vision. But his eyes were on the billowing dust beneath the closest golem, where Samine had been.
'Mysa,' he gasped. 'She can't be...'
'No,' said the bird. 'Look.'
Attuned to magic in the depths of her artificial soul, the bird had sensed the build-up of magic before the healer had. A bright flash under the golem sent it toppling from the saddle as its horse convulsed. The vast animal's spine glowed like a line of coals before exploding upwards from its back, shredding the saddle. The beam of magic pierced the animal, streaking into the sky. The horse shuddered and collapsed in on itself like a huge building that had lost its keystone.
And Samine, still grinning, darted out from under it just in time, her shadamar leaning heavily to one side as it weaved clear of the destruction.
But the golem itself was not dead. It was climbing to its feet even as the Black Talon swarmed over it. Unable to pull his eyes away, Chalos watched as the Krune bounded up the monster, hacking at it with their weapons. Sparks flew from its hide. A great hand, wrapped in thousands of metres of bandages, swept through the swarm of warriors, sending bodies spinning through the air. Samine's magic hit then hit the golem in the side of its hooded skull and it moaned, swayed on its haunches, and then fell back.
A cheer broke from the Duke's army.
But then it looked west.
The army of the Ten Plains King was pitted against six of the Pheg-Tol. The lengths of rusted chain, each link twice the size of a pavarine, were whipping back and forth in a deafening, overpowering assault. The ranks of Rovann soldiers were being chewed up, great red gouges appearing in their lines. The Skull-Strippers, eager to get close to the enemy, broke formation and tried to make the distance before the chains lashed out again. They were too slow, and their long-limbed bodies were dashed apart by the dozen.
The Ektan and the Phaeron fared better. The army had already begun to adjust to the new threat, its more heavily armoured warriors rushing to the fore to plant their shields in an attempt to halt, or at least slow, the lashing chains. They did well, but at a cost, as the chains smashed into them, crushing the first line but barely nudging those beyond. Well-drilled and fearless, the next line of warriors kicked the dead out of the way and lifted their shields, ready for the next whipping. All to buy time for the Phaeron archers and the Ektan to gather their might and strike.
The Phaeron unleashed a glittering volley of arrows. The nearest golem was peppered with hundreds of missiles, many of them glancing off its hide or sticking harmlessly in the rags of its hood or the horse's patchwork coverings. Even so, plenty embedded themselves in the giant's textured skin and once there, a sinister magic began working. The arrows started to flicker and melt, the shafts glowing fiercely. The golem threw back its hooded head, snatched at its wounds and then fell downwards towards the earth, passing right through its mount as the horse disintegrated beneath it as if some ancient spell had been broken. Another cheer went up, this time from the King's army.
The Ektan would not be outdone by the arrogant archers of the Phaeron. They pilloried one of the other golems with a constant percussive barrage of sorcery before it too eventually crumbled beneath the relentless show of power, turning into what resembled a rockslide as torso and limbs tumbled apart to gather in a towering heap.
But the Duke's force could not watch the battle to the west for long as they themselves faced two of the Pheg-Tol. The chains of the giants drove in, murdering shadamar and rider by the dozen. Samine was pouring magic at the outermost golem but this torrent was weaker than the last as she was already starting to tire, having pushed herself beyond sensible limits in her assault on the first golem. The beam of her magery splashed against the side of the golem's massive mount, blasting flakes of surface material away but stopping far short of crippling the beast.
'What can we do?' Chalos asked Mysa, following the Black Talon's mounted warriors at a distance and gripping the reins of his shadamar so tight that his hands ached.
'Get away from the main force,' the bird said. 'The golems are about to retaliate.'
'What?' Chalos scoffed. 'Retaliate? They've killed hundreds of us already!'
'I think the chains were to drive us off, and that hasn't worked. Now they'll just annihilate us with extreme prejudice.'
Again, the worth of the bird's wisdom was quickly proven. The golem pulled back on the reins of its horse, making the towering beast stamp its massive hooves and forcing the Black Talon back. Then it threw the chain through the air and released its grip sending a whistling train of huge links through the air. It landed in the midst of the Duke's retinue, pummelling Elites and sherdlings in an instant of glibly indiscriminate destruction. Keeping its left hand on the reins, the golem lifted its free right hand and cast back its hood.
The giant's head was a huge grey boulder with silver veins of ore running through it. On the front was a horseshoe-shaped metal visor, dropping downwards, with two glowering white discs along the top and three down each side. In the centre of what passed for the face was a complex circular carving that glowed violet. This was the ninth eye. The eye that had seen and recorded countless centuries of war. And now it was wide open and peering at the Duke's army.
'Run, Chalos!' the bird shrieked. 'That eye does more than see!'
'I don't understand – '
'It has recorded more wars than you could number,' Mysa continued. 'Consumed horror and tragedy, brutality and torment on scales grander than any you could imagine... and trust me, Chalos, that eye is not a one-way street... all it has seen it can unleash!'
Realisation dawning, the healer kicked his heels into the shadamar sending it hurtling forward. Leaning to the side, he guided it out of the Tarukataru line and out onto the plain towards where Samine rode alone, far from any allies. Something white and searing, like the concentrated light of the sun, coursed through the air above him and to the rear rose a chorus of wails. He heard the hissing of fused metal and incinerated flesh.
'Don't look!' the bird said. 'Just ride!'
Chalos obeyed. His Accomplice, however, craned her neck around to watch, seeing the beam blazing from the golem's ninth eye. The column of light was being sprayed left and right, wiping the Duke's retinue out rank by rank.
The other golems were following suit. The army of the Ten Plains King was starting to peel away and fall back. Now the Phaeron and Ektan were being directed to draw the fire of the four golems that still stalked the King's army. Glittering volleys of arrows drew the attention of the giants who responded by blasting the Phaeron with those blinding columns of light. As a consequence, every volley of arrows was smaller than the one before, until not a single missile flew.
The Ektan peppered the giants with sorcery as the King's army started to fragment. One of the golems went down under the assault, its ninth eye becoming dim. One of the others swung its lethal gaze across the Ektan, thirty mages instantly turning to ash under the beam.
Then a loping, armoured figure emerged from the heart of the King's army. Not the monarch himself, of course, but one of the Fenc, his most revered bodyguards. Extending itself to twelve feet, the figure, whose limbs were encased in exquisitely patterned silver armour adorned a flowing white robe, ducked the sweeping beams of light. It drew from its hip a long blade that flashed a deep, pulsing blue. In moments it was leaping, clearing the giant horse of the nearest golem and bringing its blue blade down in an arc. The great hand that gripped the reins was severed at the wrist. It fell away and the golem let loose a low moan.
Landing on the horse's neck, the Fenc hefted the sword in two gauntleted hands and drove it down, breaking the beast's spine. As horse and golem fell into a cloud of dust, the Fenc jumped again and drove his sword into the golem's ninth eye as the beam weakened. The sword was vaporised but the blow killed the giant.
&nb
sp; The Fenc did not have enough time to find his feet before the other golem was upon him. He dodged the hooves of the giant mount but not the giant's hand, which seized him, lifted him up and then crushed him before discarding what was left over its shoulder.
A line of Fenc now stood between the King's army and the remaining three golems that were closing in, their chains and beams working in unison to decimate the southerner ranks. The Fenc moved around the ankles of the giant mounts with a brutally economic grace, hacking away at the rock and metal of the hooves, drawing the ire of the Pheg-Tol as the King rallied his ragged horde of troops behind them.
'What carnage,' the bird muttered.
'Are we losing?' Chalos asked, keeping his eyes on Samine.
'There can be no victory in wars like this.'
He was close to the Dread Spear now. She was practically still, a few metres from one of the golems, eyes closed as though meditating.
She's preparing a fusillade, Chalos knew, having seen her like that before. But if she doesn't kill it in one shot, she'll have that ninth eye turned on her...
He kicked his shadamar again and it snorted with shock, pushing itself faster, nostrils flaring wildly. They reached Samine a heartbeat before she opened her eyes, flung out her hand and blasted the golem from the side. Chalos had to cover his eyes, so bright was the glare from the sorcery that issued forth. The beam of magery ripped up the thigh of the golem, splitting the limb like lightening splits trees. But then, suddenly, it fizzled out. Samine sagged in the saddle and then started to slip.
'Samine!' Chalos cried. 'Hold on!'
The golem turned down to peer at the tiny Rovann creatures on the earth next to it, the giant horse turning with it to stamp its enormous hooves. Samine fell from her shadamar as the hoof dropped onto the animal, breaking its back and driving it into the ground. The hapless creature's belly burst noisily, spraying entrails into the grass. Samine fell into the healer's outstretched arms and he held her, kicking his heels into his shadamar and wheeling away to the north-east.
'Oh no, Chalos!' he heard Mysa cry. 'The ninth eye – '
His eyes narrowed. He could see it up ahead, the edge of the Ruin, its gates and arches and towers, so ravaged by time yet still awesome to behold. It was the only real cover on the plains, the only place they might be safe from the Pheg-Tol.
'Mysa,' he said firmly, 'go high.'
'Eh?'
'Fucking fly!' he hissed. 'Make for the Ruin!'
The bird took off, flapping her wings frantically. Chalos took a deep breath and looped the reins around his left wrist. He then clamped one hand between Samine's breasts, where a triangle of pale skin was visible though her robes, and the other on the shadamar's neck. He felt her heart beat and focused on the steady thump.
Closing his eyes now, he found his mirror. It was too easy, he noticed, requiring almost no concentration at all. The world of magic had its hooks in him like never before, and it would not be long before he went mad, like Siune, blind to the real world, a wandering ghoul that lived in a dream. But he would have to worry about that another day. For now, survival was all that mattered.
He let the breath out, slowly. Magic tingled in his palms, the hairs on his arms standing up.
The ninth eye found his speeding form and rained death upon him in a blinding tunnel of fire. It scorched the plain, incinerating grass and blasting stones apart. Chalos felt the heat for a split second, and then the pain for a split second longer. Then there was only the sensation of wild magery coursing down his arms, pushed all thought from his mind. Love remained though, a glow in his heart. He was only vaguely aware of the shadamar beneath him, its flesh being made and unmade and remade under his hand. His right hand channelled energy into Samine as her skin blackened and split, before reforming under his healing touch. A conduit for the magic, the healer's own body defied the power of the golem's gaze, even as his robes vanished in a flash of white flame.
Then they were free. The sensation of riding returned, the shadamar giddily galloping over the plain. Chalos opened his eyes groggily and saw Samine's wide eyes staring at him, an expression of awe on her face.
'Gods and bones...' she whispered. 'Where did that power come from?'
'My heart, I think,' he said softly, lost in her gaze.
Then they passed under a stone arch. The shadow falling was like a slap across the face. Chalos gasped and flinched, sending the horse crashing into a column of stone. Its neck broke and it deposited its two riders onto a stone path. They rolled across slabs of grey stone, the gaps between crammed with dessicated yellow reeds, coming to rest in the shadow of a great tower.
'Chalos!' Samine pressed her hands to the healer's cheeks, hoisting him into a sitting position. 'Chalos!'
His eyes fluttered open.
'We're alive...?'
The Dread Spear laughed and laughed, hugging him close. Their bare bodies, robes and boots burned away, shone in the midst of all the dull grey of the Ruin's mauled splendour.
* * *
'Shit!' said the Wielder, rising to his feet. 'Did you see that?'
Laithe said something but it was so distorted and broken that it was practically indecipherable.
'One of those southern bastards made it into the Ruin,' the Wielder said. 'We can't let them get access to the Well... could you imagine the power it would give them, and how they would use it?' He shook his head. 'Oh well, looks like we have one last job to do.'
With an exhausted and acquiescent sigh he retrieved the shard of blade and slipped it into the sheath at his belt. Then he picked up the silver cutlass and slid it after the shard. A moment later he was gingerly finding his way down the side of the mountain, concentrating his mind to muster the power to magically speed his descent.
* * *
Eleven
The Tower
The last golems facing the King's army had fallen, their composite bodies giving way beneath a desperate barrage of sorcery. A group of Dread Spears, having survived the massacre of the Rovann lines, had concentrated their power against the giants and bolstered by a handful of surviving Ektan had managed to weaken them enough for the Fenc to dash in and deliver the killing blows. To the east of the plains, the Black Talon brought down another, the Krune doggedly pursuing the giant before swarming around the hooves of its massive steed to avoid the deadly glare of its eye. With swords and axes they hacked at the horse's limbs until the beast crumpled. Then, what remained of the Gilt Plates – their armour warped and cracked by supernatural heat and dented by lashing chains – clambered onto the rider and tore him apart.
There was little jubilation in the army of the Ten Plains King, however, because the dead now outnumbered the living, and of the latter the wounded outnumbered the fighting fit. Most of the shadamar were gone as were the majority of ranged combat units, the Phaeron having suffered particularly badly, having been a little too self-assured for their own good.
As the southerners staggered through their own dead, keen eyes spotted a line of dust beyond the Ruin. The King's scryers called out a warning and the lines of the army began to reform. They were ragged and despondent at first, shuffling their blood-stained boots in the churned-up dirt, but their stalwart officers soon stirred them to attention.
To the north was an opposing force made up of tens of thousands of Riln, dark-skinned and broad-shouldered, their fluttering emerald banners identifying them as the renowned Sabres of Tchiqua. And either side of this force, twice the number of Riln regular infantry from the city of Aphazail and its environs. Professional warriors, armed farmers, raw recruits, all ready for a last ditch attempt to repel the Ten Plains King from their lands.
Both armies were rooted to the spot as the dust of the golem attack settled, revealing the Riln Plains to be strewn with rubble from which giant limbs poked and patchwork cloaks quivered in the breeze. Here and there were patches of smouldering fire. Black lines had been burned into the earth for hundreds of metres where the golems had cast their deadly glare.<
br />
Mysa circled for a few minutes, wondering which general would blink first, and then returned to the tower.
She had perched upon it soon after leaving her master's shoulder, and from that vantage point she had watched him ride through a tunnel of fire, marvelling at his magery. It was to the tower that she had led the two naked, shivering slingers, and in its dusty upper rooms they found bundles of clothes and rotten rations.
Neither of the Rovanns had cared to ask to whom the clothing belonged, here in a city where nothing had lived for centuries and everything of worth had crumbled to dust. Mysa had an inkling, but did not venture her opinion. She just wanted to see them covered up and warm as the day edged towards evening, the sun beginning its slide into the jagged, black mountains.
'What's happening out there?' Chalos asked. The healer was lying on a bed of furs that had been prepared in the corner of the room. Someone had used it for slumber several days previously. It was warm, and comfortable. He had a vicious migraine, as if his corporeal mind was shattering, ready to slip into the world of magic forever.
Samine was rebuilding a fire that had once raged in the centre of the circular chamber.
'A stand-off,' the crow replied, hopping down from the windowsill to the floor. 'The golems have been vanquished and the King's army still stands, but now the Riln approach from the north in great numbers.'
'Who'll win, do you think?' asked Chalos, who was lying on a pile of furs that someone had recently used for a bed. His eyes were closed, pain pounding behind them. His brow glistened with sweat.
'Nobody will win,' the bird said with an avian approximation of a shrug. 'It won't stop them warring, though.'
'Such a waste,' Chalos said.
'I take it the crow has bad news,' Samine said, snapping her fingers. A spark, conjured from the air before her, lit the fire.
Healer's Ruin Page 17
