by Jo Spurrier
Isidro snatched it, drawing it in in a heady rush, like the first gulp of cold water after a battle. The flame-spike fell, but slowly, almost lazily. Isidro reached up to catch the tip, and at his touch it melted away, flowing into his hand and down his arm like a liquid stream of fire.
But as that stream of molten power flowed into the store along his spine, it changed, taking on the taint of his poisoned well. Nearby, someone roared with frustration and fury, and he realised the sound came from him.
At the feel of it, slimy and stinking like spoiled meat, all he could think of was Kell’s leering face, his dry cackle as Isidro had writhed and convulsed at the first touch of tainted power, and the last dying breath of the man he’d slain with a mercy thrust. The image made him hesitate. No. I can’t do this. It can’t be this way. I’m not a Blood-Mage.
Inside his head, Rasten gave a wordless growl of frustration and pushed Isidro aside. He flung one hand out to the mage ahead, sending a rope of blood-red flame shooting through the darkness. At the flare of it, the mage broke and ran, and the shaft of power speared into his back, lodging there like a harpoon, jerking him off his feet as the man screamed in pain. Then, while he was held fast, Rasten turned his attention to the other, and struck him in the small of the back with a whiplash of power. It knocked the mage off his feet, and with the first still anchored by that cord of flame, Rasten strode to the other. He reached the Akharian as the lad tried to crawl away, legs trailing uselessly in the mud.
Rasten felt along Isidro’s belt for a knife, but he’d had only the one and it was dropped when they killed the first mage. Don’t you have any others? Rasten said with exasperation.
Why would I need more? I’ve only got one cursed hand.
Never mind.
Rasten formed another crude bludgeon, and slammed it against the crippled man’s skull. The sodden ground was so soft that he only drove his face into the mud, but Rasten pounded again and again until the back of his head was a mass of blood and splintered bone. Then, he turned on his heel and marched back to the other mage, still tethered with a line of force.
The man was on his feet, but only just, and as Isidro drew near he tried to face him, a knife in his hand. But Rasten yanked on the harpoon cord, jerking him off his feet. Isidro felt the mage’s life-force pumping through it, draining his strength with every pulse of his heart. By the time Rasten reached him the mage had lost the strength to fight, and simply lay limp in the mud, his skin ashen grey. Rasten was utterly impassive as he hooked a foot under his shoulder to roll him onto his back.
Beneath the mud his eyes were rolled back into his skull, and his lips were blue and bloodless. Rasten hauled on the cord once more, and the body sighed one last breath, his strength draining away through the cord.
Alright, Rasten said. There’s a start. Where next?
Delphine swallowed hard. Good Goddess, have mercy. If anything’s happened to him, I’ll never forgive myself. Her eyes kept searching the crowd, even though she knew it was useless. The whole camp had been roused, and with men and women rushing everywhere in the darkness and the drizzling rain, she had no hope of finding him.
She could only hope he had come to his senses before he wandered out beyond the camp boundaries. If the Akharians found him, the fact that he was a one-armed man with addled wits meant nothing — they’d fill him full of arrows the moment they saw him.
The thought almost sent her retching out of sheer nerves. Oh Gods, how am I going to tell Cam and Sirri that I lost him?
It was too late to alert the sentries. She’d made it only halfway to the edge of camp when a blood-red gleam on a distant hillside lit up the rain-filled night, followed by a distant rumble that was like, and yet utterly unlike, thunder.
She wasn’t the only one to spot it. Horns rang out through the camp, sounding the call to arms, and now the camp was full of men and women rushing to join their squads, while others tried to calm frightened children even as they grimly gathered up any weapons they could find. If the soldiers fell, their motley collection of axes, spears and clubs would be the only weapons raised against the Akharians who came to reclaim their property. Delphine wondered how many of them were at this moment feeling for the knives on their belts, weighing up a plan to open their own veins rather than be put in chains again, and found her hand reaching for her own belt-knife. She was an enemy of the state, now. If she was captured, they wouldn’t wait for her babe to be born before they strangled her in a public execution.
Amidst the far hills came another flash of light, a deep, bloody red, the colour of the setting sun.
It was in a different place, some way south of the first pulse. What did that mean?
Eyes on the distant hills, thoughts pulled in a dozen different directions at once, Delphine slipped on the muddy path. She would have fallen had not a soldier caught her by the arm. ‘Hey! You alright there, miss? You’re heading the wrong way, non-combatants are to gather at the heart of the camp.’
Stammering her thanks, Delphine turned, only to have the guardswoman reel back as she recognised her. ‘My — my lady, may I escort you somewhere? I could never face the king if some harm came to you or the babe, and it looks like there’s fighting on the way.’
The king. She’d seen Cam shy away from the title, but the folk who followed him didn’t seem to notice or care. It didn’t matter to them that there was no crown, no throne, no trappings of royalty. They believed he would take them home, and that was enough. ‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ Delphine said. ‘I … I need to find Commander Rouldin, or the mages …’
In minutes, the woman brought Delphine to the command post near the western edge of the camp and then, with a crisp salute, melted away to find her squad.
From out in the hills red light still flickered. The burst of power must be massive — at this distance, it seemed as though a whole valley had been consumed in flame. Why were the Battle-Mages burning through their power before they’d even made contact with the enemy? It wasn’t just that one valley, either — there was more power flaring in the night.
Delphine was still watching as Rouldin strode over to meet her. ‘Ah, Madame Delphine, I just sent a runner to find you. Will you assist the defence?’
‘I may not be a Battle-Mage, but I’ll do what I can to protect this camp,’ Delphine said.
‘Very good, my lady. We have men and horses waiting at the rear of the command post.’ He pointed through the rain to a dozen horses tethered with their rumps into the wind. ‘If the camp falls, they’re charged to take you to the king and Lady Sierra. If they say it’s time to go, do not argue.’
‘Commander Rouldin —’
‘These are standing orders. If the king’s brother can be found, he’s to be evacuated the same way. These are your orders, madame.’
‘Very well,’ Delphine said, pressing a fist into her aching back. Good Goddess, I hope it doesn’t come to that. ‘I take it there has been no sign?’
‘None, I’m afraid, madame. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’
Delphine had already seen her students, clustered together under a corner of a pavilion in an attempt to get out of the rain. They watched the distant red light and the answering flickers in the surrounding hills, but as Delphine drew near they turned to her, grim faced.
She ought to say something stirring, something to fire them up … but it felt like a lie, and she was afraid it would show in her face and voice. In terms of mage-craft, they were no different than green young boys who’d first laid hands on a wooden sword only weeks ago. The men out there would crush them.
No, she told herself, don’t think that. They’re survivors, every one of them.
She cleared her throat, just as the baby squirmed within her, and she laid a hand on her belly as though to calm it.
‘All of you are fighters,’ she said. ‘You volunteered for this duty because you have the strength to see it through. You haven’t come this far to lay down in surrender now. But those of you who are new to th
e craft, don’t engage with the enemy mages. Concentrate on the soldiers, do what you can to cut them down. You may be untrained, but you are not weak and you are not powerless, and even Sierra herself was once as scared and uncertain as you are now. Just remember your lessons — keep a calm head about you, and keep in mind that even the newest mage has the upper hand when facing a soldier with as much power as a clod of dirt.
‘The rest of you, my old hands, those who’ve faced mages in battle before, think of this … while a bull might trample a lone wolf, a pack of wolves can take him down. They think you are weak, but their arrogance makes them weaker. Find a way to exploit it, and you will prevail.’
Just as she finished, there came another flare of red light — no, not just a flare, a spear, a pillar of it, a vast bolt shooting up from the earth, lighting up the clouds and transforming the night into a storm of blood and flame.
‘What in the Fires Below is that?’ one of her students blurted out.
For a moment Delphine couldn’t talk. Terror had stolen her voice. She was no warrior, no Battle-Mage. She was just an academic, weary, pregnant and cut off from the ones who had been her strength and reassurance since she’d turned her back on the nation of her birth.
After a moment, however, her scholar’s instincts reasserted themselves. What in blazes are they doing? the analytical part of her mind wondered. Do they want us to know exactly where they are and what kind of numbers they can field?
It didn’t make any sense. The Akharians had no reason to believe they’d been discovered. Rouldin’s scouts hadn’t yet reported back. They should be trying to take the camp by surprise.
No, there was something else going on out there. Something had gone wrong.
Delphine heard footsteps behind her and turned to find Rouldin returning with an entourage of officers and advisors. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘can you tell me what in the Black Sun’s name that was?’
‘I … I think something’s gone wrong. For them, I mean. This doesn’t make any sense, they wouldn’t go wasting power and giving away their position, unless …’
‘Unless what? They’re under attack? From who?’
Where in the hells is Isidro? Delphine thought. No, it couldn’t be him. As much as she loved him … he just wasn’t all there. She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
At Rouldin’s side, a young man called Larken was staring out at the distant hillsides. Delphine knew him well. He was one of her more adept students, with the makings of a fine mage. ‘It … it’s Blood Magic, sir. I can smell it. It’s faint, but I’d know it anywhere. When Lord Rasten freed my slave-train, I smelled it for hours before he struck.’
‘Really? It can’t be him, he’s miles to the east. But if their attention is elsewhere, we’d best strike while the iron is hot. Madame Delphine, is there anything else you can tell me?’
They called him Lord Rasten, bestowing the title with a certain hush of awe. She pushed that thought aside and shook her head. ‘No. Larken will be more use to you if he can sense the tainted power at this distance. Keep him close, commander.’
‘Very well. Your orders remain as stated, madame.’ With a nod, Rouldin strode away. Delphine wasn’t fool enough to think herself a military mind, but she’d spent long enough with Cam and Isidro to know it made sense to strike while the enemy was distracted. However, it meant riding into a storm of power and destruction she couldn’t explain and that turned her cold just to think of it.
And what if Isidro is at the centre of it? Before, she’d been terrified to think of him wandering through the camp, lost, alone and confused. But what if she was wrong? What if he truly was out there, in the heart of that storm?
Delphine wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
‘Sirri?’ Cam ducked his head through the door just as Sierra was pulling on her boots. ‘Any word?’
‘Nothing yet,’ she said. He grimaced in reply, then stepped aside to let a pair of attendants duck through, the young lads bowing their heads.
‘Our escort’s ready to ride,’ Cam said, watching the boys hastily roll up their bedding. ‘We should reach the camp by mid-morning.’
‘Any sign of the legion?’
‘None. They won’t be back. Whether or not this gamble pays out, their part of it is done.’
Sierra nodded. ‘I’ll be right out,’ she said.
She wrapped her coat of oiled wool around her and gathering up her hair, tucked it under the hood. She had to conserve power in case Rasten called for it — she couldn’t afford to waste it keeping off the chill of the wet and windy night.
Her heart felt in low spirits as she bound the coat tight around her, and once again she tried to reach for Isidro. Nothing. What if she never felt him again? Just keep trying. It’s all you can do.
She stepped out into the rain with the two attendants on her heels, loaded down with gear. The lads skirted around her at a run to deliver their loads to the packhorses. Sierra felt very old as she watched them, though she was no more than a handful of years their elder.
She found herself thinking back to when she’d been warm and dry with a man’s arms around her, lost in the softness and the scent of his skin.
See? she said to herself. Nothing good ever lasts. Seize it while you can.
Chapter 9
His ears were ringing. The night was quiet, now, but his head was full of noise, the shrieks of dying men caught in an endless echo inside his skull.
Bright streaks marred his vision, as though he’d been staring at the sun. He kept shaking his head to clear it, even though he knew it wouldn’t help. He couldn’t stop himself.
The battle was over, though some pockets of skirmishing still raged in the hills around him.
He didn’t comprehend everything that had happened. A lot of it was simply beyond his understanding of mage-craft. When the Akharian commanders turned their mages on the enemy behind their lines, he’d surrendered control to Rasten and simply watched a storm of wrath and destruction. When he closed his eyes he could still see it in flashes — bright blood, yellow bone, flames everywhere, choking black smoke and an assault of noise.
The Akharians must have thought that Sierra or Rasten had somehow returned to the main camp undetected. And then, when the camp’s forces struck, the Slavers called a retreat in chaos and utter confusion. But the Ricalanis had no mind to let them get away so easily and harried their every step.
He felt very strange; impossibly weary, and yet at the same time full of buzzing energy. The tainted power had seeped into every pore and crevice of his body, as though he’d been dunked in a vat of rancid grease.
Isidro wasn’t sure he was going the right way. The rain had slackened off, but thick cloud hid the moon and stars. And so he just wandered, slogging through the churned and bloody mud littered with the dead and dying.
There was a scatter of lights across the slope, and for want of any better target, Isidro trudged towards them.
In the torchlight, Isidro made out a loose line of people sweeping across the field, cutting the throats of the wounded who still lived. As Isidro drew near, one of them straightened with a cry of alarm. At once, a dozen eyes were on him, and spears swung his way. ‘Who goes there?’ a voice called — either a woman or a young lad, over the ringing in his ears Isidro couldn’t tell.
‘Friend,’ he said in Ricalani, holding out his hand to show he was unarmed. He came closer, and one gasped, noticing his vacant right sleeve. ‘Are you wounded? Fires Below, get him back to the camp —’
‘No,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘No, I’m not wounded. I don’t need help.’
The effort of talking made his face hurt — the whole left side of it felt stiff and unwieldy, and those few words were enough to make his cheek throb and sting. He ignored it, but as he came into the light, he saw that his clothing was soaked in blood, and covered with clods that he hoped was mud. Thankfully, in this light it was hard to tell one way or another.
The ragged part
y watched him in wide-eyed silence. Isidro supposed he couldn’t blame them. ‘I got turned around,’ he said. ‘Which way back to camp?’
The one with the torch pointed behind her. ‘Head along this valley. You’ll see the lights a mile or so back. Sir? Are you sure you don’t need no help?’
She’d called him sir. She had to at least suspect who he was. The thought made him feel strangely unsettled.
But no use worrying about it now. A mile, she’d said. He hadn’t realised the Akharians were so close. ‘No,’ he said, ‘just make sure none of these dogs will trouble us again.’
The lass with the torch saluted. ‘Yessir.’
As he passed her by, one of the squad squatted down to pull off the boots of a soldier with his head half-struck from his body. Come first light, the camp would descend to scavenge the dead. He’d take first pick, too, in their place.
He left them behind, following the curve of the valley as more rain began to fall.
His mind was still clear. He couldn’t recall being lucid for so long, not since Kell was killed. What did it mean? He was too weary to make sense of it, and too sickened by the tainted power to consider the matter too closely.
Rasten had gone silent. Isidro could feel him there still, watching, but his shields were up, and he’d withdrawn as much as possible while keeping a toehold in Isidro’s mind. Another strange thing — Isidro didn’t mind his presence, when once it would have sent him into a spiral of rage.
As he left the carnage, slogging through the squelching mud, Isidro kept thinking back to the things he’d seen, the things he’d done. It seemed like sophistry to claim it was Rasten’s doing. Isidro had struck the spark, it would never have happened without his instigation. And this carnage would be in his own camp otherwise …
He hadn’t gone far when he felt a shifting weight inside his skull, as though a door had swung open.
Issey? a small voice said. Can you hear me?
He stopped where he was, feet cold within his sodden boots. He should have guessed the old barrier had broken down. What had happened here tonight was an echo of the ritual that had awoken his talent. He felt as though a storm had raged through his mind, shaping it into a new landscape. The barricade had been swept away. Hello, Sirri.
