"You're up early," Mathew said to them.
"So are you," Collin replied, handing him a cup of hot tea.
"Where's, uh . . ."
"She's with the other women, two tents down," Daniel said.
"Did she say anything last night?" Mathew asked.
"Nothing you'd want to hear," Daniel said. "She was... well, a little, ah ... oh heck, you know Lara."
Mathew winced. "Great." He sat on the edge of Daniel's cot and leaned forward, holding his cup of tea in his hands. "Duren's out there trying to kill me, and she's probably willing to help him. What are you both doing up at this hour?"
"We were watching old Duren through Daniel's far-sighter."
"Really? Where?" Mathew asked, looking across the field.
"Over there on that little hill," Daniel said, pointing. He offered Mathew the brass tube.
Mathew put his teacup on the ground and took the instruments. Closing one eye, he squinted through the tube with the other. Duren was under an awning of some sort, sitting in a high-backed chair, his sword resting against the side of it. He was dressed all in black again. Mathew pulled the tube away from his eye, blinked, and put it back. There was something unnatural about Duren's posture. With the small field of vision the lens provided, it was difficult to tell for certain, but Duren actually looked to be under strain. His whole entire body appeared stiff and tense, and his arms tightly gripped the sides of his chair.
"How long has he been like that?" Mathew asked, taking the tube away from his eye.
"Ever since last night when Lara and I got here," Daniel said. "He was the same way this morning. I don't think he's moved all night."
"Strange," Mathew said under his breath. "What is?" Daniel asked.
"Look," Collin said, "before you get another idea into your head and go running off again, how about telling your friends? I'm in enough trouble with Lara as is."
He was about to respond when he saw Jerrel Rozon's lean form walking by. He was talking with two men. The short iron-gray hair and rigid shoulders hadn't changed much since Devondale.
"Jerrel, may I speak with you a moment?" he called out, standing up.
Rozon stopped, and his hard blue eyes fixed on Mathew. "Ah, Mathew, there you are. I've been meaning to speak to you as well. In all the commotion yesterday, I didn't have an opportunity to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your father. He was a fine man and a good soldier."
"Yes, sir. Thank you very much," Mathew replied.
"What was it you wanted, son? I'm in something of a
hurry this morning. It seems the enemy is already stirring."
Mathew looked across the field and saw what Rozon was referring to. There was indeed movement now in the enemy camp—a lot of movement.
"You were at Anderon, weren't you?" Mathew asked. "Yes."
"I was told that Duren used fire and explosions to gain his victory there ... among other things." "That is correct. Why do you ask?" "Did anything like that happen here yesterday?" Rozon frowned and thought for a moment. "No, there was nothing like that."
The two men with Rozon moved closer to listen. Rozon didn't bother introducing them, though his face grew increasingly serious.
"Mathew," he said patiently. "I have no time to pass the day with idle questions. What is your point? If you are worried, perhaps it would be better—"
When the boy stiffened, Rozon knew he had made a mistake. "I'm sorry, lad," he said quickly. "That was uncalled for. You've more than proven yourself, but part of what I said was true. I am quite pressed for time."
The apology had the intended effect. Mathew relaxed. "There is a point to my questions," he said. "Is it true that Duren has been sitting there since yesterday?"
"Since the later part of the afternoon when the battle was joined," one of the men with Rozon said. "He was standing at first, but then some of his people brought him that chair he's sitting in now."
"Don't you find that strange?" Mathew asked them. "To be perfectly candid, I find everything Karas Duren does to be strange," Rozon said, looking across the field. "Now I really must be—"
"Those wooden contraptions in the field—they're catapults aren't they?" "Correct."
"Could they be trained to lob a rock at Duren from where they are?"
It was only in the last few minutes that Mathew had begun to actually understand what was happening.
"A good idea, lad," said the shorter of the two men with Rozon, "but those catapults are not terribly accurate. The chances of scoring a hit would be quite slim. Besides, the rocks are too heavy to fly that far."
"Not if you increased the elevation and decreased the mass," Daniel said from his cot. Everyone turned to look at him.
"It's simple, really," he explained. "It's just a matter of physics. If you raise the launch angle of the catapult and put a smaller rock on it, I'd bet you could reach him."
Rozon smiled and shook his head. "I appreciate the suggestion, but Karas Duren is only part of the problem. Right now there are a hundred thousand of his soldiers getting ready to come down on us. I suspect they won't just go home if we hit their leader with a rock."
"I'm not interested in hitting him," Mathew said, "only distracting him."
Rozon looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Listen," Mathew continued, speaking rapidly, "I think he's found a way to block me from using the ring, but it's taking all of his concentration to maintain whatever he's doing. I'm almost certain of it. Otherwise he'd have done the same thing to us he did at Anderon."
"The ring," Rozon said, nodding. "The wildest stories
are circulating about you and this ring. I saw what happened on the trail yesterday, or at least I saw the aftermath. It was impressive, but I must tell you that I'm too old and tired to start believing in magic and goblins."
A long blast of a horn from the enemy camp turned Rozon's head in that direction. It was followed by an answering blast from their own camp. Suddenly, people were moving all around them. At the far end of the field it was obvious the enemy was massing for an attack.
"Jerrel, we need to get ready," the second man prompted.
"We'll talk about this later," Rozon said, patting Mathew's arm. "In the meantime—"
"Meantime be damned," Mathew shot back, throwing Rozon's arm off. "How long do you think we'll be able to hold out against their numbers? You've got to listen to me."
Rozon's eyes turned as hard as diamonds, and he repeated, "We'll talk later," then spun on his heel and walked rapidly away.
"I don't believe him," Collin said angrily. He was now on his feet too.
Mathew stood thinking for a moment. He liked Jerrel, but the man was inflexible and he hadn't been there to see what had happened at the cave or to the Nyngary fleet. He almost didn't believe it himself. Rozon was a soldier and thought like one. Show him an enemy and he'd fight, but this was like trying to grab smoke.
"Collin, find Father Thomas and Gawl and meet me at that catapult there on the left as quickly as possible."
"Right," Collin said, and sped off.
Lara was just coming out of the women's tent when she spotted Mathew trotting toward her. Despite some charitable efforts on her part, she was still angry about his bolting off the day before without so much as a word to her. After an entire evening to think about it, she decided to give him a good piece of her mind. As he approached, she folded her arms across her chest and mentally rehearsed her speech. But she never got the chance to give it. Before she could get a word out, Mathew grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her full on the mouth in front of all the other women there. Then he dashed off again, calling over his shoulder, "I love you in that gray dress."
A mixture of gasps and titters came from behind her. Lara heard them but kept looking straight ahead. She took a moment to calmly smooth the front of her dress and blow a lock of hair that had fallen across her forehead out of the way, then turned to her open-mouthed companions, shrugged, and said, "He's in love with m
e. I can't seem to do much with him."
She walked off humming to herself.
Mathew reached the catapult in under a minute. A brief try to use the ring while he ran proved to be as unsuccessful as his previous efforts. The same wall was there between him and the source.
"What news, lad?" the corporal in charge of the catapult asked.
"Rozon wants you to train this on that hill over there
and begin firing at once."
"Rozon? When did he take charge of the catapults? I thought Delain wanted them to concentrate on the centertoday."
"Look, you haven't much time. The enemy is about to advance."
"Doesn't make any sense," the corporal said, frowning. "There's no one up there except Duren and a few of his people, and they're out of range. He turned to the soldier next to him and said, "Frederick, run back to the camp and get these orders confirmed. No offense, lad."
"Right," the man replied, and took off across the field.
"But—"
"You just stand out of the way till Frederick gets back, lad. It shouldn't be just a minute. What's this, now?" he asked, looking over Mathew's shoulder.
Father Thomas, Collin, and Gawl were running toward them, along with Akin and Fergus.
"Collin told us what you want to do," Father Thomas
said as soon as he got there. "Are you sure about this, my son?"
"No, I'm not... but I think I'm right."
Father Thomas nodded and said to the corporal, "All right, let's get this thing swung around."
"Just a minute. I've sent one of my men back to confirm the order. Delain wanted us to concentrate on the middle, and now the lot of you come running up telling me something different."
Seeing the six men standing in front of them, grim-faced, the remaining two soldiers in the corporal's squad looked distinctly uncomfortable. Their discomfort only increased when Gawl stepped forward.
"I would hate to damage one of Delain's men." Gawl smiled, looking down at the soldier. "But I'm afraid that's what I'll have to do if you don't get out of our way in the next ten seconds."
The corporal, who was slightly below middle height, swallowed and took a step back. "All right," he said, "but this better be under orders."
At that moment the quiet of the early morning was shattered as the two armies met a little more than two hundred yards from where they were. It took only a glance for Mathew to see how overwhelmingly outnumbered the Elgarians were, even without the Bajani army on Duren's side.
"Hurry," Mathew yelled as everyone got behind the massive catapult.
They lifted as one and slowly began to turn it.
"It's not going to work, whatever you've got in mind," the corporal said when they were through repositioning the wooden machine.
When no one responded, he shook his head, then nodded to his companion. They reached for the levers and began to raise the base.
From the opposite side of the catapult the soldier said, "This is as high as it goes. I'm telling you, you can't reach them from here."
A blaring of trumpets in the distance caused Gawl and Father Thomas to look up. Seconds later a cheer went up from the hill where Prince Delain's tent was located. "The Mirdites," they both said together. "Uh-oh," Collin said. "Looks like Duren's just gotten to his feet."
"Quickly," Mathew said, piling seven or eight stones into the basket of the catapult's twenty-foot arm, some not much bigger than good-size pebbles. "Let's try to find the range."
The corporal climbed up on to the machine, made a few more adjustments with another lever, then jumped to the ground and came around to the rear.
"Everyone back," he said, grasping hold of the release lever. Satisfied, he pulled sharply back on it. The arm sprang out and upward in an arc, hurling its contents skyward.
"Short by thirty yards," Collin yelled, having had the good sense to bring along Daniel's farsighter. "How can we raise it any higher?" Akin asked. "You can't," the corporal said. "Like I told you, this is as high as it goes."
"Excuse me," Gawl said. In three long strides he stepped to the front of the catapult and grasped its frame. The men assembled there watched in amazement as the front wheels came off the ground.
The muscles in Gawl's arms and back stood out as he lifted again, and the machine moved higher.
"May I suggest you hurry?" he said. "I'm not as young as I used to be."
The soldiers rushed still wide-eyed to the pulleys to reposition the throwing arm once more.
"All right, here we go," Mathew said, dumping a handful of small rocks and pebbles in to the basket one more time.
"Clear!" the corporal yelled, and pulled the lever. There was a loud twang as the arm shot forward, hurling its cargo toward the hill where Duren stood standing. Collin tracked the flight all the way with the farsighter. Through the lens, he saw Duren look to his right. The chair he had been sitting in only a moment before was hit in rapid succession by three of the stones, the last of which shattered its back.
"Yes!" Mathew cried out, pumping his fist in the air. He felt the release in his mind almost immediately.
Then Duren's head swiveled in their direction.
"Damn," Collin said, pulling the farsighter away from his eye. "It looked like he was looking right at me."
The next moment, there was a loud boom, and the earth around them heaved itself up, knocking everyone to the ground. Gawl managed to let go of the catapult and jump clear of it in time. A second bolt of white light struck the main body of the machine, smashing it to pieces.
Mathew's ears were still ringing from the blast as he pushed himself up onto his knees, trying to clear his head. Just as he had on the hill the previous day, he formed a picture in his mind of an impenetrable shield and raised it, protecting himself and those around him. Almost immediately two more bolts, louder and more powerful than the first, tore into the ground near them, sending a shower of dirt into the air. Mathew looked around to make sure the shield was holding. Desperately, he sought to recall what he had done in Elberton when the explosion occurred, but with all the chaos, it was impossible to concentrate. The most he could do at that moment was defend himself and his companions.
Far up the field, the Elgarians continued to fight, but they were steadily losing ground. Trumpets were blowing and screams seemed to be coming from everywhere at the same time. Mathew knew he needed time to collect himself, and Duren wasn't giving him any. Behind him, he heard Gawl's deep voice bellow for everyone to run. Collin grabbed him by the arm and pointed frantically at the hill where Duren stood. A cold shiver of fear ran down Mathew's back and his breath caught in his throat.
Rolling inexorably down the field at them was a wall of orange fire nearly sixty feet high and over eighty yards wide, obliterating everything in its path. Paralyzed, still on his knees, Mathew could do no more than stare at it. Then in the back of his mind Duren spoke to him, his voice scarcely more than a dry whisper, like the breath of
a grave.
"Too late, fool. You are too late. It is done. Your father is dead for your weakness. You could not save your friend from death, and now you will watch as your people die."
Thousands of miles away, far beneath the earth, a giant crystal in a long-forgotten cavern began to pulse and glow red, waking from three thousand years of dormancy as Mathew drew more and more power into himself. At the same time, a series of gauges in a laboratory came to life, and alarms went off in the darkness. Mathew Lewin slowly got to his feet, focusing all of his concentration on the thing before him. The fire itself seemed not like fire at all but like a shimmering liquid. Even through the shield he could feel the heat of its approach.
Meanwhile, Duren's voice continued to whisper in
his ear.
"A trail of death follows wherever you go, boy... How many more must die for you? . . . Oliver Donal. . . Zachariah Ward. . . Pryor Coleman ... his poor young brother Jaim . . . all dead. . . just like your father. And for what? A coward who cannot kee
p his hands from shaking . . . coward. . . coward," the voice echoed. "Yes, I know you for what you are.. . I have touched your mind, boy . . . hide it from others, but you can't hide it from me. Murderer. . . killer of innocent Cincar sailors . . . of women . . . of my sister. . ."
It went on and on until Mathew could no longer stand it. He recoiled from the relentless onslaught of Duren's words, staggering backward as the wave of heat approached.
For the second time in his life, a hatred so palpable he could taste it enveloped Mathew. It was fueled by the images of thousands of innocent people hanged and left to die along the cliffs in Tyraine, the faces of women and the innocent children of Anderon, people he had never
met or known. They burst into his consciousness with a clarity so great he was astonished by the vividness. His father, Giles Naismith, Captain Donal, all stood there watching him with solemn eyes.
Then, from deep within the core of his own being, a scream, primal and elemental burst forth from his lungs and he struck back. It was born of rage at the monster on the opposite side of the field, rage at everything he had done to his people and to his country—rage for the children.
When he thought about it later, much later, the vision still vivid in his mind, it was the faint smile that played across Duren's face that caused him to pull back from what he was about to do. Only at the very last second did he manage to draw back from that precipice, or everyone and everything within twenty miles would have been destroyed.
To those watching from both hills, and to the armies in the field, it appeared that a second wall of blue fire sprang up out of nowhere, directly in front of where the catapult had been. Both firewalls sped toward each other and collided, shooting straight up and spreading across the sky, blotting out the light. A terrible thunderclap shook the ground, knocking many off their feet, leaving a crater nearly fifty feet deep and over seventy-five yards wide in the earth.
Duren fought back with all of his considerable strength, hammering Mathew with blow after blow. The walls of fire joined as he and Mathew fought. The battle between them went on and on as the battle on the ground continued to take place around them. The commanders of the Alor Satar army redoubled their efforts, now settling on the boy fighting then leader as then objective.
Mitchell Graham - [Fifth Ring 01] - The Fifth Ring (v1.0) Page 48
