Knightfall: Book Four of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  The attackers anticipated something like this, probably even counted on it as part of a ploy. While the defenders on the wall concentrated their efforts on the ship in the harbor entrance, the others spread out along the outside of the low harbor wall. At this hour of the morning, the tide was low; the wall was plainly visible a few inches above the water. They brought their ships in close and halted while the roofed-over barge stayed well back.

  I’m the one who insisted on public education. They say knowledge is power. Well, in a world with magic, knowledge really is power—directly and literally. A hundred years ago, you couldn’t put a hundred wizards in the same place. Today, they shipped several hundred and they all threw spells at us.

  I’m not sure exactly what spells they used or how they managed to throw them so hard. The scryshields around the ships were still up; the Mocharan wizards only disrupted the magic on the lead vessel. I could still see the ships as though flying over them, though. Dozens of groupings, each with three to six people, suggested some ideas.

  Interestingly, battles involving wizards have some trade-offs. Individual wizards are usually pretty versatile and useful, but only on a personal level. Groups can be much more dangerous, but have their own problems. Casting a spell in a serial fashion—helpers contribute energy to a central figure who does the actual spellcasting—can amplify the power of a wizard, but there’s a limit to how much a single wizard can channel at a time. Casting a spell in parallel—where each wizard assembles his part of the larger whole of the spell—can generate spells without worry about overloading someone. Unfortunately, the coordinated, precise efforts required for parallel casting grow more difficult with greater numbers (coordinating a quartet is easier than conducting an orchestra), have more risk of failure (if anyone makes a mistake, there goes your spell), have less versatility (everyone needs to know the same spell), and are more easily disrupted. Not ideal in a battle.

  There’s a reason groups of wizards gather together in private to do their big spells, and it’s not just the fearful locals with pitchforks and torches.

  Once they launched their spells from the ships, though, they passed through momentary gaps in the shields. I could zoom in close and watch the spells zip past like watching bullets go wheet! past my head. Not an ideal way to analyze a spell. Lances of energy speared out toward the wall, striking it and detonating. Waves of energy pummeled the defenders, washing through steel and stone and flesh from every impact point. Most of the people on the wall or behind it were hit by one or two overlapping waves of energy. Some sections, especially near the gates, were slammed with three or four.

  Nobody seemed hurt, as such. They just stopped moving.

  I used the largest of the mirrors to zoom in on someone standing still. A close examination didn’t reveal any damage. A more magical examination didn’t show any ongoing spells, either. Whatever it was, it affected the subject and went away. That is, rather than placing a spell on the person—like a curse, for example—it was more like a gun. It didn’t latch on to the person and stay there, performing a function. It hit the person, did its damage, and dissipated, leaving the damage behind.

  The trouble was, I didn’t see what it did. The guy I examined simply stood there, looking blankly out over the harbor, loosely holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. He’d just stuck the point down into a brazier to ignite it when the spells started to hit. Now the arrow shaft was on fire and the flames were working their way up.

  Wizards in the harbor continued to hit the walls with their spells, but sporadically. Their initial volley slowed from a barrage to light sniping. I watched my test subject for a bit, waiting until the flames reached his hand. They burned him for a moment, then he yelped and dropped the arrow. He looked wildly around, took in the situation, and reached for another arrow. Another spell hit near him and he froze in position as though he forgot what he was about to do. Only now, he couldn’t even decide.

  Meanwhile, men disembarked from the ships on either side of the harbor entrance. They cut or unhooked the cables and chains between the obelisks. Another ship risked itself by pushing the flaming hulk on into the harbor to clear the way. If things kept going like this, the ships would take turns advancing while the others kept up a covering fire, disabling defenders, so troops could unload on the docks.

  One of the drawbacks to fortifications is their dependence on active defenses. Walls are great if you’re at the top and holding people off. Without someone to drop rocks, walls are just obstacles; anyone with a ladder can go right over.

  Which is exactly what they started doing.

  About then, the sunlight started to sting. I expected it to be painful sooner than that; I felt the sunrise tingle long before the image in the mirror started to be brightly painful. Apparently, a scrying mirror—at least, my version of the spell—will allow the sunrise or sunset to hurt me, but it does cut down on the intensity. I don’t know if I can survive a full sunrise or sunset through a mirror and will not be testing it if I can avoid it.

  I temporarily moved the viewpoint of the various mirrors inside the structure of the wall, shielding them from the sun. Then I waited, impatient and angry, for the sunrise to run its course. I wasn’t patient enough to go clean up. I used a spell and paced around the table, watching the shifting sand as it copied the battle. Seldar came in while I waited for the tingling to die down.

  “I greet the day and Your Majesty.”

  “Morning,” I acknowledged. “Did you oversleep?”

  “I was told the attack should happen at dawn. Has it begun?”

  “They got an early start.” I explained the events leading up to the present. The sunrise finished doing its thing while I spoke.

  When I reset the mirror viewpoints to look over the city, things were still in doubt. While the wizards on the ships took potshots with brain-jamming spells, a lot of soldiers disembarked, assaulted the wall, and killed a lot of defenseless people. A sizable percentage of the spells being thrown at the defenders were more directly harmful. Most of those, at least, were being intercepted and countered by magical efforts from inside the walls. The main magical threat seemed to be the coordinated efforts to shut down brains and keep shutting them down.

  I was pleased to see quite a lot of men in black armor hacking their way along the top of the wall, trying to drive the attackers back. They were also whacking dazed defenders to snap them out of it and get them moving again. Once they saw what sort of spell was being employed, they must have come up with a defense against it. They’re a well-trained and clever bunch. Then again, it might not be too difficult to block or counter—not that I could tell from my viewing room. If I was there, I could see the thing first-hand.

  It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t say anything about it to Seldar. It would sound like whining, at least to me. It would certainly be petty and unpleasant. I wouldn’t do that to Seldar. All it would accomplish was make him feel guilty and me feel like a heel.

  “Any ideas on how we can help?” I asked, instead.

  “What are these colored bands above and in front of the enemy ships?”

  “Defensive spells. Magic disruption and missile deflection, looks like.”

  “So, they are defenseless from the sides and rear?”

  “Yes, but they’re pointed at the wall. Can we divert forces from the city to somehow get around to the sides?”

  “If we placed someone on the outer harbor wall, that person would be beside or behind the ships. They could be attacked that way. It would allow the wizards in Mochara to devote their attention to the more mundane attackers, at least until the ship’s wizards expand and stabilize these shields.”

  “Agreed, but there’s no way out onto the harbor wall. The attackers control both piers and the ramps leading up to the gates. Men would have to leave the city, hustle to a point on the cliff directly over the harbor wall, and go down on ropes or something. There’s no way down there without them noticing.”

  “Is the gate char
ged?”

  “Some. Beltar and his people put a lot into it last night… Ah, I see! Maybe it’s enough, if we’re quick. Do we have anything a man can carry that will threaten a ship?”

  “Possibly.” Seldar looked thoughtful. “Can we deploy a man for each ship?”

  “Judging by our earlier performance, I think we could manage at least thirty before killing the gateway.”

  “I am not certain the angle will permit an attack on every ship.”

  “You’re thinking if we shoot one ship, the rest will notice and defend themselves.”

  “So we need to shoot all of them at once, yes, which I do not believe we can do.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Unless you intend to use the gate twice, any men sent through will be on one side of the harbor or the other. The seawall is divided in the center. Men must also run along the seawall to place themselves properly and avoid the arrow-shields. This takes time and will be noticed.”

  “Crap. Is it worth it to attack half the fleet?”

  “Definitely. If we can divert their efforts or destroy them, the new balance of forces will give us a clear superiority in wizards.”

  “We can divert some wizards from defense, concentrate on one ship at a time, and start whittling them away?”

  “In essence, Sire, yes—if we can destroy or disable enough of them.”

  “It’ll do. Let’s get moving.”

  “It will take at least half an hour to get everything prepared,” Seldar warned. “Only a fool keeps a hammered arrowhead on hand. They always explode, eventually.”

  “You raise a good point, as usual. I know I wouldn’t want a whole quiver of the things on my back. Go set things up. I’ll keep an eye on Mochara.” I put my pocket mirror on the edge of the sand table. “Call me and keep the line open; if anything changes I want you aware of it.”

  “Yes, Sire.” We established the link. He put his mirror in a pouch and hurried off.

  The defenders in Mochara were still holding the wall. It wasn’t pretty.

  Dazed individuals simply stood there, unharmed. They made good targets, though. The arrows fired from the ships and from the troops on the beach took quite a toll. The drawback, from the enemy point of view, was how shooting someone tended to negate the stunning effect. If the man survived, he was free to act again. Fortunately for us, it’s hard to kill a man with a single shot in the middle of a pitched battle. It’s more a matter of luck than skill. It’s one thing to hit the gold on the range. It’s another to hit it when there’s lightning, shouting, rays of fire, clouds of smoke, horns, thunder, screaming, and occasional rains of fiery arrows.

  I found it quite revealing in that the wounded didn’t seem to be affected by the stun-spell as much. It would take effect, certainly, but only for a moment. Could the pain of the injury undo the spell’s effect? The walking wounded did seem to be the ones making the most effective defense. Well, as far as regular troops were concerned.

  Torvil cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered part of the regular troops.

  He was on the wall, defending a section and drawing enemy fire. Wizards on the ground, behind the wall, kept refreshing and restoring his defensive spells, which freed him to focus on sprinting back and forth while dishing out mayhem. He was an excellent target. Arrows and spells came at him almost constantly; his backup wizards had their work cut out for them. Did he set this up in advance, knowing he would be a target? Or did he draft a dozen wizards and tell them what to do when things started going wrong?

  From the way Torvil sprinted back and forth, either he assumed he didn’t have long or he was in a hurry. He bulled along the defensive area atop the wall, killing every enemy he could reach, slapping en passant anyone stunned. He shoved the top of a ladder and it flipped away from the wall—even while loaded with men. Often, someone made it to the top of the wall. Torvil generally seized this unfortunate soul in one hand, lifted him overhead, and slammed him like a sack of laundry straight down on the top man of the ladder. This cleaned out everyone on the ladder, so he jerked the ladder up into the air, swiped his sword through it to ruin it, and went charging on to stop someone else.

  Torvil impresses me.

  As he ran along the inside of the parapet, anything hostile and foolish enough to come near him fell apart. Swords, armor, people—he cut them to pieces with a fine disregard for minor considerations like material, thickness, or screaming. Blood and body fluids went everywhere, and nobody threw any spells to keep him clean. Was it because they didn’t want to waste the energy? Or was it because seeing a seven-foot figure in black armor coming at you, covered in the blood and guts of your fellows, is demoralizing? Maybe both.

  I was glad people were looking out for him. He wouldn’t have lasted two minutes without a dozen wizards protecting him from the other wizards. Knowing Torvil and his competitive nature, my guess was he set it up. He was probably counting as he killed people. Of course, this also saved a lot of the defenders lives as the ships’ wizards focused on him. If we had ten more identical setups, invaders wouldn’t dare try the wall. As it was, Torvil was only able to cover one section. There were hundreds of yards of wall to defend, but the section Torvil protected didn’t need much else.

  As I watched, he did something not terribly impressive, but smart. He drew a narrow dagger and stabbed a stunned defender, putting a neat hole in the soldier’s left hand. This snapped the man out of his daze and drew a shout of pain and surprise from him. Torvil shouted at him for a moment, then went back to killing invaders.

  The bleeding man drew a knife of his own and started down the length of the wall, injuring other stunned defenders and getting them to help. Some of them fell victim to the mind-numbing spells of the invaders, but always shrugged it off after a moment when the pain of their injury percolated through to them.

  This might turn out all right after all.

  A bright flare of light attracted my attention. I zoomed in on one of the wooden drawbridge-gates in the seaside wall of Mochara, trying to figure out what caused the light. All I saw, at first, was a cloud of ash. Then I spotted Tianna. She was surrounded by four giants—excuse me, four of my knights, red sashes. Nothar also stood next to her, dressed in steel, with sword out and shield ready. Her hair was fire, easily visible in the early-morning light, falling down her back like a burning waterfall.

  The inside of the seaward wall was only ten or twelve feet high; it was much taller from the outside because it made use of the seaside cliff. A group of men were fighting atop the wall, invaders claiming a foothold and running more men up the ladder as quickly as they could. One of them made it to the inner edge, lowered himself by his hands, and dropped to the ground. This lucky soldier found himself standing next to one of the gates. There was no one near him, a fact I found decidedly odd. He didn’t waste time, though. He turned to the drawbridge-gate and grabbed for one of the bolts holding it closed.

  There was another bright flare. I watched him burn away in a matter of seconds. It reminded me of a special effect where a human body gets disintegrated in stages during a nuclear blast. He turned black, all his flesh flaked away at high speed, and his bones fell into a heap, burning. A cloud of ashes billowed outward.

  Ah.

  This is amazingly unfair, Boss, Firebrand complained.

  “I agree. But this is what you get for being the Dragonsword, the Sword of Kings. You stay with the King.”

  This king business stinks, Boss. You should quit.

  “I’ll work on it.”

  Tianna continued to stand there, slightly on fire, and simply wait. Her presence—and her line of sight on both of the seawall gates—explained why the defenders weren’t wasting any men on guarding the gatehouses. I was under the impression Sparky wouldn’t completely approve of this sort of thing, but, strangely, it actually made me sympathize with her. Tianna’s a headstrong young woman. On the other hand, I felt no urge to stop her, either.

  Is that a spell she’s
wearing to focus her divine gifts? I think it is. I doubt Sparky thought of it, which means it was either Amber, who, to my knowledge, isn’t trained in any mundane magic, or Tianna herself.

  You know that warm, swelling feeling in the region of the heart? I’m proud of my granddaughter.

  The thought made me wonder about Amber. I took a brief glimpse into the Temple of Flame. Civilians streamed in and out of the place in two lines, like ants. Going in, they carried flammables, like buckets of coal or charcoal, even chunks of wood. Going out, the buckets were empty and the wood was gone. They dumped all of it into the central portion of the main temple area, the part under the gazebo-dome with the oculus. The fire was huge, and had a familiar face. Amber was burning yellow-white and looked grumpy. It was possible she didn’t like being restricted to the temple while her daughter guarded the gates. I know I would be.

  I was no longer worried about Mochara being taken. All I worried about was how many people were going to die in the process of keeping it. It had a fire-witch, a lot of unused militia, a whole wizards’ corps, more than a year of knights, and a grumpy elemental of divine fire. They didn’t need me. It’s possible they never did.

  The Temple of Shadow was lightly guarded and mostly quiet. A priest was sweeping up along the entryway; it saw a lot of traffic last night. A pair of guards stood nearby, more of a police presence than anything. The other temples seemed about the same. The Temple of Flame seemed the only one with a lot of traffic. On the other hand there were a lot of elderly noncombatants and young children already praying in all of them. I didn’t poke my scrying sensor inside—that would be rude—but I can see through open doorways.