A Place Among the Fallen [Book One of The Omaran Saga]

by Adrian Cole

  Through the Opening, Ternannoc's skies began to turn violet. The earth there heaved and then boiled as the great forces sent into it began to take effect. Whatever had been dormant below Ternannoc, chained, was not asleep any more. As the shudders of the impact of Omara's released power hit it, it woke. Abruptly the portal closed, and there were more tremendous booms, as though thunder fumed right here in the very chamber. The Opening had gone dark. Korbillian performed the working spell to seal it. Ratillic crawled to a sitting position, his hands burned, his clothes ripped.

  Silence gradually asserted itself, and the dust began to settle. Korbillian noticed the solitary figure. Ratillic was trying to get to his knees. He dragged himself closer. ‘What have you done?’ he gasped.

  Chest heaving, Korbillian drew himself up. The light in his hands had subsided, but the glow remained. ‘Omara is safe. The old power is gone. There is nothing here to Chain.’ He pointed to the remains of the Children of the Mound. ‘All we need to do now is clear away the rabble from the streets and put Xennidhum to the torch.’

  Ratillic's tears still ran. ‘What have you done?’ he repeated.

  Korbillian stared at him as he lurched to his feet as if drunk. He knew that Ratillic had seen the final act. ‘I elected to save Omara,’ he said. ‘As I swore to its people that I would.’

  Ratillic staggered closer, blinking away the tears. ‘You have destroyed Ternannoc. I saw it. Not dead.’

  'And would you have welcomed it, a place without power, the very Ternannoc that you did not want, you and all the other Hierophants?’ Korbillian snapped. ‘You refused to sacrifice all power to save Ternannoc. A world with no power, you said, would not be acceptable.’

  Ratillic had no strength to argue, and stood, bemused.

  At that moment the Opening behind them burst, showering out light and great chunks of earth and stone. They were flattened, but Korbillian was quick to turn to see what had happened.

  'The old powers,’ he murmured. They were clashing, annihilating each other in a storm that dwarfed every storm in the history of time. Winds tore through the ruptured Opening, but Korbillian forced himself to rise and walk to the lip of the Opening. He tried to summon up what was left of the Hierarchs’ power, and although there was little remaining to him, even that was fading away, dried up by the enormous releases of energy in the working. Even so, he sought to reseal the portal, to ensure that the havoc in Ternannoc did not extend to Omara.

  Ratillic felt as if his bones had been squeezed to pulp within him, but he overcame his agony to lurch to his feet. They used him! But he should have seen it, should have known they would want only their way. He had let the power rule him. What was he doing with it now? What remained of it? A sudden terrible thought came to Ratillic. The Hierarchs. They had deceived Korbillian from the outset. Were they still? Was he now releasing the last of their power for —?

  He rushed towards Korbillian. ‘Wait!’ he howled above the wind.

  'I must seal the gate!’ Korbillian shouted back, but his words were torn from him.

  'They must die!’ Ratillic cried, but Korbillian could not hear. Ratillic looked around him desperately. Beside the ashes of one of the Children of the Mound he saw its fallen pike. He rushed to it and snatched it up. The Hierarchs are not dead! He means to let them back in to Ternannoc. His mind was howling in unison with the winds. Quickly he ran forward.

  Korbillian could feel the gate being forced shut as the last of the power began to drain out of him. A final effort would do it. Ratillic came up behind him as he focussed his concentration, and drove the point of the pike as fiercely as his anger-fuelled strength would allow. It seemed to surge eagerly through Korbillian's body, ripping out from his chest, grating through his rib cage. Korbillian was flung forward into the darkness. It swarmed forward, enveloping him, and his last conscious thought was that he had succeeded. Within seconds the great hole had closed up behind him, shutting off the wind like a slamming door. Silence closed in and the noise died.

  Ratillic stood before the dark wall. The gate was sealed, and he knew that it could never be reopened. But Korbillian would not survive nor would the powers he carried. Neither, Ratillic knew, would Ternannoc. It would scatter like the wind. The first surge of guilt struck him then. Korbillian had not been trying to release the Hierarchs at all! He had been sealing the gate. He had tricked them, of course he had. Cheated them when he sacrificed Ternannoc. But I wanted my revenge, Ratillic confessed to himself. For being wrong. For my jealousy, my anger, I have murdered him.

  He stared at the dark gate. From above it came a trickle of sand, and it struck him as he watched that the walls of the chamber were under a great strain now that the twin pillars had fallen to the ground. They had cracked so badly where they had fallen that already parts of them had turned to dust. The history inscribed upon them was disjointed, faded, never to be read again. With the passing of Korbillian, the last of the Hierarchs’ power had gone. And so it seemed had that of the Sorcerer-Kings. Naar-Iarnoc had been the last of them. And I? thought Ratillic. Am I the last of the Hierophants?

  A huge chunk of masonry crashed down not far from him. Quickly he turned and ran down the corridor to the place where he had first arrived beneath the Mound. Darkness rushed in like a tide filling a cave. There were a number of creatures about, the mindless servants of the Children of the Mound, but they were staggering around as if bereft of all reason. Some groped at Ratillic, but he brushed them off easily. He stepped to the centre of the circular chamber and gazed up. Far overhead the moonlight streamed down and he felt himself lifting up towards it.

  High over the chasm, Kirrikree circled, watching the flickers of the angry power like the fires of a volcano far below. He saw the Mound shuddering like a frightened beast and heard the thunder deep below it where it seemed the very gods made war upon each other. Around the top of the Mound the battle was now raging, the forces of the Mound trying to push back the defenders to the lip of the opening. Kirrikree's bird army had ripped from the skies the awful things that flew there, and now concentrated on swooping down upon the grim defenders of the city. As Kirrikree watched the chasm, he saw the single figure drift up from it, almost an illusion. Moments later the gaping hole was gone, and on the dust where it had been stood Ratillic.

  'It is over,’ he told the owl as it dropped down beside him. ‘Omara is safe.’

  'And Korbillian?’

  Ratillic shook his head. ‘He sacrificed himself and the power he carried to save Omara.’

  'Is the power Chained?’

  Ratillic drew a deep breath and nodded. ‘Better than that. It is no more. Destroyed. The creatures that attack us have no masters to serve. The citadel below us will collapse upon itself.’ As he said it, the ground shook, and the first crack appeared in the ground.

  'Then we must get the army away!’ cried Kirrikree, taking to the air. ‘The Mound is going to collapse. I can feel it. The powers that raised it are gone. It will return to what it was.’

  While Ratillic moved away from the centre of the Mound, shadowed as he did so by the three forms that abruptly materialised from the very earth, Wargallow was rallying the army. Exhausted yet determined, he spurred his Deliverers on, and gave fresh heart to the commanders of Guile's warriors and Strangarth's survivors. They had no difficulty in outfighting their opponents, but sheer weight of numbers pressed them back. Wargallow had realised that there were concussions going on far under the Mound, but he forced himself to concentrate on the defense of the ground he had been told to hold. At last he saw the forces surrounding the army pulling back, re-grouping as if for a new attack. But the skies were alive with seething cloud, and the ground heaved gently like a ship in a swell. What powers had Korbillian stirred below them?

  'They're pulling back!’ Guile cried to one of the soldiers beside him, scarcely able to repress a note of hysteria.

  'Hold your position!’ Wargallow yelled, and the cry was taken up. ‘If we give chase now, they'll drive wedges i
nto us and cut us to pieces. Hold, I say!’

  Ratillic had found him at last. ‘We have to flee the Mound,’ he gasped. ‘It will fall in on itself. Look, they're already breaking ranks.’ As he pointed, the enemy did exactly as he said. Whatever controlled them had lost its grip. Like herds of wild steeds, they swarmed down off the flanks of the Mound, back into the city, as though they sensed that the earth was about to open.

  Wargallow looked at Ratillic, saw his hands that were bound, the exhaustion. ‘This power that Korbillian seeks to take from us—”

  But Ratillic was shaking his head. ‘He had been deceived, Wargallow. The Hierarchs were using him. But he cheated them. Omara is safe. There's an irony in it, too. The Hierarchs wanted us all sacrificed to make good the Chaining. Our blood would have ensured success.’

  Wargallow gasped. ‘The giving of blood—”

  'But Korbillian gave his own, and that of the Hierarchs to destroy the evil powers.’

  'Then we were not needed.’

  'I think we were. But let us discuss it when we are free.’

  Wargallow nodded. ‘We must avoid panic. Our escape to the city must be orderly. I will form columns.’ He was gone at once, already shouting out his orders.

  Moments later Brannog and Sisipher were beside Ratillic. ‘What has happened?’ said Brannog.

  Ratillic looked at Sisipher, trying to mask the stab of fear he felt for her safety. He had seen the vision that Korbillian had forced from the Hierarch memory, and knew that she carried her own death within her. Perhaps, he thought, she might be safe if she does not bear a child. But there was no time to think of that now.

  'He's dead,’ said the girl.

  'I think he knew it was inevitable,’ said Ratillic. ‘But Omara is safe.’ He had come to cling to those words. Omara is safe. A litany that abjured his own sins.

  The ground rocked and another split appeared. Several men were trapped by it and disappeared beneath the earth.

  'Hurry!’ Ratillic bawled, and in a moment the entire army was on the move. It was a further tribute to Wargallow's skill that there was no panic, no wild flight. Keeping together, they trotted as one down towards the city below them, which had already absorbed the fleeing enemy.

  25

  FLIGHT

  'How many have we lost?’ Brannog asked Wargallow.

  'A third.’ He studied the men behind him, leaning up on his horse to see that there were no stragglers. Beside him, Ratillic sat silent and thoughtful as they came to the first of the buildings. ‘Tell me something,’ Wargallow asked him. ‘You say we were not needed for the sharing of power. Korbillian had been deceived. Then there is no power in us?’

  Ratillic stiffened. ‘There is. We may yet need it.’

  'But the old powers are destroyed?’ Wargallow was looking back at the Mound. Already the top of it had crumbled, sending out jagged cracks down its sides like questing serpents.

  'Yes. When Korbillian found out how the Hierarchs had sought to trick him, he sacrificed himself and their powers.’

  'Then they were not dead?’ gasped Brannog.

  'I think not,’ Ratillic lied.

  Guile had nudged his horse up beside them. He looked even more disheveled than the Hierophant, his eyes wild. ‘It seems cruel that he should die for us.’

  Ratillic nodded. ‘I misjudged him. It seemed to me that he was prepared to sacrifice everything but himself for his cause. I was wrong.’ And now his death sits upon my conscience. I cannot tell them! It is better that they don't know that he sacrificed Ternannoc for their world. It would sadden them to know it, and there will be sorrow enough when they count their dead. ‘You played your parts,’ he told them. ‘Korbillian needed you at his back while he undertook the working. This has been no wasted journey.’

  'We may have saved Omara,’ said Wargallow wryly, ‘but we ourselves are far from safe. Look.’ His arm swept in a curve around the buildings. They knew then that they would have to fight their way out of Xennidhum. Up from below the last of the servants of the Mound had come, disturbed by the colossal upheavals of the Mound's collapse.

  'Their leaders are dead,’ said Ratillic. ‘They are like beasts with no mind of their own. If they attack, we shall beat them off.’

  Wargallow shook his head. ‘Perhaps. But I want to take no chances.’ He rode back along the ranks, speaking to the men, conferring with those who now controlled Elberon's troops. Within moments the army had prepared itself for defence. The Earthwrought were alert, their senses tuned to what was waiting in the city. They heard the roar of falling earth, and the Mound heaved, further cracks appearing as it folded, swallowing buildings and rubble. Great clouds of dust rose up, swirling down upon the army below, covering it and masking it.

  Shielding their eyes from the dust, coughing, the army waited, and the inevitable attack came. Thousands of the denizens of the city came rushing forward in a wave, intent on pushing the army back to the brink of the huge pit that had opened behind them. Steel rang on steel and shrieks rose up dreadfully. As Wargallow fought, he knew at once that this was organised. He cut down his enemies like wheat, then at last found himself facing a white robed figure whose strange eyes blazed with anger and terrible purpose. This being fought with a staff, and as Wargallow smote it, sparks flew from it.

  'So a few of the Children have survived,’ said Ratillic beside him.

  'You'll never live to boast of your victory!’ snarled the robed one. ‘The Mound may have fallen, and many of the Children with it, but there are enough of us left to marshal the armies of Xennidhum. When we have wiped out your vermin, we will cross the deserts.’

  Wargallow thrust the figure back, ready for a fresh onslaught.

  'There are no restrictions upon us now,’ the figure laughed. ‘We are our own masters, and we make our own plans.’

  Before Wargallow could press his attack, three shapes bolted forward. Ratillic's wolves tore into the figure and within moments had ripped the life from it. Other creatures took its place and Wargallow found himself shoulder to shoulder with Brannog, whose axe took a deadly toll of the enemy.

  'We have to survive this,’ Wargallow called to him. ‘These hordes are not without leaders. They mean to break free of this black city and ride to war. Without preparation, the continent will fall.’

  'The streets are choked with them,’ Brannog called back. ‘Our men are drained. Unless we rest soon, it will be a matter of time before we are completely overwhelmed.’

  They fought on, well beyond the dawn, until it became impossible, for the slain were piled high on every side. But the army had not given ground. It had moved yard by yard into the city. As the sun rose, the enemy withdrew, and the army took fresh hope.

  While the army rested, eating what was now seen to be the last of its food, the leaders came together. Guile, who had thrown himself into the fighting with more energy than anyone would have expected of him, dabbed at a bloody gash on his scalp.

  'Take heart!’ he laughed. ‘I keep thinking of Sisipher's vision.’

  Brannog scowled at him as if to warn him to silence.

  'Five from the ten,’ Guile went on, no longer caring if Brannog or the others shouted him down. ‘And we have lost five.’

  Wargallow's face sharpened with anger. ‘Five? You speak of five? Are you blind? Can you not count the dead around us?’

  Guile inclined his head. ‘Of course. I mean no disrespect to them. But if five of our leaders are to survive this, why then, so must hundreds of others. Do you see?’

  Wargallow studied him, his strange expression, but thought better of argument and turned away.

  Ratillic frowned at him. ‘You have placed your own interpretation on Sisipher's vision. Only four have died.’

  'Korbillian—” Guile began.

  'Did we not agree that in the analogy, he was the body, not the hands?’

  'Stop it!’ cried Sisipher. ‘You cannot act on what I saw. Even I do not understand it.’

  'But you can show us t
he future,’ said Guile. ‘Use your gift and point us toward safety.’

  Her eyes smouldered with anger. ‘My gift! It is a curse! I have been conditioned, just as Korbillian was. I served my purpose when I summoned Naar-Iarnoc. This petty gift of seeing tomorrow is a trick. I will not use it again.’

  One of the Earthwrought, Ogrond, now their leader since the death of Ygromm, looked at her sadly. ‘Your gift of sharing, mistress,’ he said. ‘That is no curse.’

  At once she touched him, but she could not speak.

  Ratillic felt sorrow well up in his own breast, knowing that the girl was indeed cursed, and that if another one of them was to die, it could be her. Be childless, he thought again. It is your only hope. He heard the ground below them rumbling, but shut it out. He wanted to think of life beyond this terrible place.

  Ogrond's face was creased with anxiety. One of his men came to him. After a few words, Ogrond turned to the others. Wargallow listened, seeing in the eyes of the little man the face of Ygromm.

  'Bad,’ said Ogrond. ‘We have tried to find a way down through the earth. The Fall of the Mound has opened great splits below, but there are such things living there! And the earth itself seethes with power that will poison. This place is ill, masters. It is well that we have rid it of its rulers, but nothing will live here for generations. What can ever cleanse this ground?’

  'The Silences will contain them,’ said Wargallow. ‘When we return to our countries, we must see that the Silences are watched. Korbillian said we were the spearhead. The war has merely begun. We will have to attend to the placing of a circle of towers, a watch.’

  'Aye,’ Ratillic nodded. ‘And Kirrikree's folk will—” He looked up, suddenly noticing that the great owl was nowhere around. ‘Sisipher?’