Anticipated victory shone in the Tingur’s eyes as Blaine parried a second too late, taking a gash on his forearm. Blaine swore and knocked the blade away, but not before his sleeve stained red with blood, leaving a trail of crimson on the snow.
The blast of magic rallied the Tingur. Blaine was feeling the strain of the rapid march to reach the battle and the fatigue of combat. He feared that the drain of his connection to the magic slowed his reactions and muddied his thoughts. His sword felt heavy, and his body ached. As he had learned to do in the mines of Velant, Blaine focused his anger on keeping his body moving, one step at a time, intent on making an end of it so that he could go home.
Blaine felt a sudden surge of magic like lancing pain, and he lost his footing. His attacker saw the advantage. The Tingur swung again, and Blaine managed to deflect the blade before it bit into his shoulder, sensing where the Tingur planned to strike through his new ability. A predatory smile spread across the Tingur’s face.
“Tired, are you?” the Tingur taunted, mistaking the reason for Blaine’s sudden slump. “Just stand still, and I’ll send you to your rest.”
Sheer tenacity made Blaine rally, lashing out with unexpected speed. His blade caught the Tingur across the wrist, slicing across bone and tendon, and the harvesting knife fell from the man’s hand, giving Blaine an opening to drive his sword deep into his opponent’s chest. The Tingur stared in astonishment at the blood that flowed down his chest as Blaine yanked his sword free.
“I thought I had you,” the man gasped, hands pressed to his bloody chest as his knees buckled under him and he fell facefirst into the trampled snow.
Blaine staggered back, still off balance from the powerful magic that vibrated through his body. He could feel the burn and hum of the magic deep in his mind, and he wondered if he could have survived the fight had it not been for the few seconds of foresight. Will the foresight remain, once we properly anchor the magic? he wondered. If it stays when we’ve worked the new ritual, will it get stronger? And just because the last Lords of the Bloods gained new abilities, will it work the same way when we do the ritual this time?
“What in Raka was that?” Piran said as he and Blaine battled their way forward one bloody inch at a time in the bitter wind.
“More importantly, whose side sent it?” Blaine replied. He was shaking from the resonance of the bond, and struggling to catch his breath.
The bodies of newly dead Tingur fell atop the snow-covered heaps of past days’ battles. Steadily falling snow covered the dead. But while the storm limited visibility, the sound of battle was a constant beacon.
“Push harder, lads! We’ve got them on the run!” Blaine shouted. The command echoed down the line. Those still on horseback drove the Tingur ahead of them, sending them stumbling over treacherous footing, trampling them when they fell.
The Tingur’s unpredictability was more dangerous than their swords. Now that their confidence in a quick victory was dashed by the number of their fellows who lay dead, panic replaced triumph. They fled the battle, stumbling into the thick of the chaos as they careened into Lysander’s advance.
The wind shifted, giving Blaine his first clear view of the battlefield in quite a while. His side had advanced. Lysander’s soldiers fought the Tingur to push them out of their way and clear a path for the assault on the Solveigs’ fortification. That trapped the Tingur in a no-man’s-land between Blaine’s troops and Lysander’s forces.
Blaine’s soldiers charged with a battle cry, overrunning the Tingur stragglers and attacking the flank of Lysander’s army. It took Lysander precious moments to realize that he could not afford to devote his army’s full attention to scaling the Solveigs’ walls. And in those moments, the battle began to turn.
“Where in the name of the gods is Verner?” Piran grumbled. The snow closed in around them once more, isolating them.
The buzz in the back of Blaine’s mind grew louder. He staggered, and Piran reached out to steady him. “It’s the magic, isn’t it?”
Blaine nodded. “It’s here and it’s strong, though I’ll be damned if I could tell you what the mages are actually doing.”
“Sweet Esthrane!” Piran yelped. “What’s going on?”
Blaine followed Piran’s gaze. The main group of their soldiers were fighting valiantly. But at the outer ranks, the soldiers stumbled and milled about in confusion as if drunk. As Blaine shouted to them to rouse them, Lysander’s troops rode in to cut the men down.
“They looked bewitched!” Piran exclaimed.
The battle shifted, and the wind dropped suddenly, clearing the air. Blaine got his first good look at the battlefield in several candlemarks.
The Solveigs’ fortress still stood, damaged from the assault. Any surviving Tingur had either run away or been absorbed into Lysander’s army. On the far side of the battlefield, where Verner’s troops had been, was a blackened crater.
“Oh my gods,” Piran swore. “Do you think…”
Blaine stared at the charred ground before the snow closed in once more. “I don’t think we’re going to be getting any help from that direction,” he said quietly.
The hum in Blaine’s mind grew deafening, and pain drove him to his knees, threatening to black him out. Overhead, the sky exploded in flame. The soldiers on the edge of Blaine’s group caught fire like tinder, and their agonized screams sounded above the wind. In that moment, when the air felt thick as deep water and it was hard to breathe, Blaine understood.
“It’s the mages,” he managed, trying not to retch or pass out. “They’re spending their magic defending us against the kind of strikes that destroyed Verner.”
Piran helped him to his feet, though Blaine’s head swam and his body felt leaden. The magic tethered through Blaine’s blood drew from his life force, and Blaine was weakening. Gritting his teeth, Blaine raised his sword, signaling for the troops to charge, and they surged against the Lysander troops, seizing the moment when Lysander’s mages would be too spent to launch another attack.
Blaine’s head snapped up at a cry from across the battlefield. The portcullis on the Solveigs’ fortress was raised, and armed men poured out with a fierce roar.
Renewed by the appearance of fresh troops, Blaine’s soldiers took up the shout, pushing past exhaustion to make one last press against the Lysander forces.
Once more, Blaine felt the painful buzz of magic. In the space between where Blaine’s troops held the line and where the Lysander army began, the snow trembled. From beneath their icy shrouds, the dead shuddered and woke. Here and there, ragged, bloody hands thrust up from the trampled snow, struggling free.
Cursing and scrambling, the Lysander troops scrambled back. Blaine gave a feral grin. He could feel Tormod’s necromancy sending its tendrils of power out to the fresh dead, waking them from their slumber, calling them to arms. Seeing the enemy flee in fear was worth the pain the magic caused.
Curses and cries of alarm rose above the storm as the snow-covered corpses struggled to their feet, lumbering toward the terrified Lysander line. One last service the dead could do for their brothers-in-arms and that was to send their killers into retreat. Mottled with the cold, covered in blood, marred with the gruesome death wounds that had sent them to the Sea of Souls, they’d been called by Tormod Solveig to a final duty.
“Those dead are our men,” Blaine shouted, raising his sword like a battle standard. “Let’s do them proud. Forward!”
With a roar, Blaine’s army surged forward, as the Lysander troops recoiled from the frozen corpses that staggered toward them. The animated dead moved slowly, but as more and more struggled from their frozen graves, they formed a front line that had nothing to fear from the enemy troops.
Blaine watched the lurching corpses in fascinated horror. He knew that Tormod was controlling them like a master puppeteer, that the dead had not risen on their own, and that he and his men had nothing to fear, and yet he shuddered. Blaine let the dead men take the lead, driving Lysander’s soldiers back
with a buffer of fighters who were beyond the harm of mortal weapons.
For a moment, the line held. The corpses stopped. They stood, pale as the snow, trembling. With a muted bang, hundreds of corpses exploded at once. Frozen gobbets of gore splattered Lysander’s soldiers as the bodies blew apart. Bone and tissue, hair and skin rained down on the enemy troops.
Blaine’s soldiers surged forward, followed by the Solveig troops. Lysander’s army ran, stumbling and falling over the corpses that littered the snow-covered field, terrified that more of the dead would rise up to take their vengeance. Blaine snagged a riderless horse and swung up into the saddle. He saw Piran do the same. Together, they led the charge. Lysander himself was nowhere to be seen, and his mounted officers spurred their horses to full speed, outpacing the hapless infantry.
The storm abated one more time, clearing just enough to afford the fleeing troops no cover. Blaine and Piran were in the vanguard, with the rest close behind. They took out their anger on the stragglers, cutting them down without quarter, trampling the bodies of the fallen as they pursued the rear guard of Lysander’s army. As they fought their way through the chaos, Blaine felt the buzz in his mind grow distant. He was exhausted from the weather, the exertion of battle, and the pull of magic, but he kept up the pressure on the retreating troops, bringing his sword down again and again, sending more of the enemy soldiers to the Sea of Souls. It was taking effort for Blaine to stay in his saddle, but he was resolved to see the battle through to its end.
Harried by the dead and pursued by the living, Lysander’s troops retreated, leaving their stragglers behind. Blaine’s men chased the enemy to the foothills. Exhausted, cold to the bone, and weary of battle, Blaine and Piran led their portion of the army back to rendezvous with Niklas, who was standing with Rinka Solveig.
Rinka’s blood-red armor did not stand out against the stained and sullied snow. Tormod was nowhere to be seen. Rinka eyed the retreating Lysander troops. “That was bloody expensive,” she said.
“I’d say we put a crimp in Lysander’s plans,” Blaine replied. “We definitely took a toll on his troops. Thank Tormod for us.”
Rinka grimaced. “My brother enjoys this kind of thing.”
“I don’t think Lysander will be coming back today,” Blaine replied.
Rinka looked at him. “Not today. But we haven’t broken him.”
“What about Verner?” Blaine asked.
Rinka jerked her head in the direction of the blackened crater. “Mage strike. Killed about a third of his men, injured a lot more. We’ve got medics getting the survivors to shelter.”
“Our mages had their hands full keeping that from happening to us,” Blaine replied. He looked out over the battlefield. “Let’s get my troops to shelter, and we can plan our next move from there.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
POLLARD DID THIS?” CONNOR LOOKED AROUND the ruined grounds. The sturdy gate hung askew from its hinges, its iron bars twisted and bent. A fortified inner door lay battered into splinters. A battle took place here. But there were no corpses, no newly dug graves, and no scorched pyres.
Penhallow nodded. “Not Pollard himself. One of Reese’s brood, on Pollard’s orders. That’s why there are no casualties. They were turned.”
On a gut level, Connor suspected that Penhallow was right. “Why?” The Wraith Lord also accompanied them, though he was visible only when he chose to show himself.
Penhallow looked out over the moonlit ruins as the Wraith Lord answered Connor. “Pollard and Reese hoped to keep McFadden from restoring the magic. They failed—and their loss at Valshoa cost them dearly. Pollard needs an army. He has far too few men left to wield the kind of power he desires.”
“Pollard’s forces must have used magic of their own to overcome the mages,” Connor said.
Penhallow nodded. “Which means that they’ve figured out how to use the ‘new’ magic without destroying themselves. Or they got lucky.” He paused. “I suspect it’s the latter. Pollard couldn’t stop magic from returning, so now he’s got to have mages of his own, thoroughly loyal, if he hopes to win any future battles.”
“And if the mages are turned, they’ve no choice except to be loyal,” Connor finished the thought. A small group of mages who had survived the Cataclysm and escaped both Quintrel and Reese had made a new home for themselves in a converted granary. They had politely turned down an alliance with Penhallow, and with any warlord, they insisted. They merely desired to practice their craft. For that, they had been slaughtered and brought across against their will.
“Do you think Reese will escape?” Connor asked.
Penhallow shrugged. “Nothing is certain. He can afford to be patient. After all, he can outwait the mortal players. Pollard’s lifetime is extended as Reese’s servant. He, too, has time. He’ll need it to rebuild an army, and time for his fledglings to adjust and gain strength.”
“Does Reese really have the support of some of the Elders?” Connor walked through the wreckage of the mage’s retreat. Scrolls and parchment were strewn everywhere. Tables and shelves were filled with glass vials, abalone shells, tins of herbs, and other mage tools, but anything that might have been a relic or magical artifact appeared to have been taken. Some of the vials and tins had been knocked to the floor and scattered.
“I believe at least two of the Elders support his ideas, maybe more,” the Wraith Lord replied. By moonlight, the ruined compound looked even more forlorn. Pollard’s men had left nothing of value behind. “Whether or not they will back him in fact as well as in theory remains to be seen.”
The granary was the third incident in the last few weeks. “I didn’t think it was easy—or wise—to turn a lot of people at once,” Connor said.
Penhallow shook his head. “It isn’t. Fledglings are vulnerable while they get accustomed to the Dark Gift. Many of them don’t survive the transition. If Reese’s brood are turning all the mages they’ve taken, it’s a very risky proposition.”
“But they would be ultimately under Reese’s control,” the Wraith Lord replied. “Which may be his intent.”
“Can we stop him?” Connor asked.
“From killing mages? Probably not,” Penhallow acknowledged. “Even with Voss’s army supporting us, we’ll be busy enough holding Rodestead House and Westbain, plus Voss’s lands, and now sending a contingent to Mirdalur.”
He shook his head. “Each of the warlords has gathered mages,” Penhallow replied. “We’ve taken in our share, and so has Traher Voss. Pollard is targeting mages who refused alliances.” He shook his head. “This is a very dangerous time to decide to be independent, if you lack an army to back it up.”
“Is there any way to warn the mages?” Connor mused.
Penhallow grimaced. “Pollard’s strikes don’t leave survivors. So there’s no one left to spread the word about what happened. I doubt the other mages would listen.”
“Which is why we haven’t had a mob of mages arguing to be protected.” Connor sighed.
“We’d best keep going,” Penhallow said. “Nidhud will be expecting us at Mirdalur, and so will Traher Voss and his men. I’m anxious to see how Dolan’s research is coming, and whether he thinks Blaine can anchor the power soon.”
“Let’s hope Dolan’s been successful. The magic is too fragile to remain this way much longer,” the Wraith Lord replied. “And McFadden’s time is running out unless the anchor can be shifted.”
By the time they reached Mirdalur, Niklas Theilsson and his soldiers had left for battle north of Glenreith, and Traher Voss’s men had taken their place. Connor and the others found Nidhud and Dagur waiting for them in one of the reclaimed cellar rooms of the old manor.
“For a place that stood abandoned for so long, Dolan and the mages have managed to make it more livable than I would have expected,” Connor remarked. Several of the underground rooms had been cleaned of debris and set up for the use of Dolan and his mages, both the talishte warriors of the Knights of Esthrane and
a dozen mortal mages.
“McFadden, the Solveigs, and Verner pooled some of their mages and had them working at the Citadel,” Dagur said. “We felt their work would be more useful here, and they would be easier to defend. They’ve been a great help,” he added, “and with the rumors of mages disappearing, they were happy for the additional protection.”
Connor shook his head. “Those aren’t rumors,” he replied, and told Dagur what they had seen on their way from Westbain.
“Then I’m doubly glad the mages joined us,” he replied. “The Knights have been kind hosts.”
Nidhud chuckled. “And your mages have enabled us to progress much faster,” he said. “An excellent alliance.” He turned to Penhallow. “Welcome. Good to see you’ve arrived safely. You’ll be glad to know the repairs and fortifications at Rodestead House are nearly complete,” he reported. Rodestead House, Penhallow’s manor, had been badly damaged by the Cataclysm.
“Good to hear,” Penhallow replied. He accepted a goblet of deer’s blood from a tray on one of the worktables. Connor was quite happy with a glass of whiskey. “And what from Voss? I assume news came along with his troops.”
Nidhud nodded. “His men are guarding Rodestead House, as well as Voss’s own fortifications. These troops arrived a fortnight ago, at the request of Niklas Theilsson. He’s gone to support McFadden in the north, along with Rikard and the mages who stayed with Glenreith and the army.” He paused. “As for Voss himself, he sent word that he would love a chance to finish what we started at Valshoa.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Penhallow said, smiling. “Let him know that he’ll get his chance against Pollard again, though they’re the least of our worries for now.”
War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga Page 36
