Whatever the outcome of the discussions with the envoy sent to meet the Caelish army, it was obvious Jaxyn intended his felines to fight this day.
'Perhaps if we widened the channel here, my lady?' Warlock suggested, looking at the thin black line stretching back toward the oil seep.
'Do you think it will help?'
'It can't hurt, my lady.'
Elyssa nodded in agreement. 'Have them start digging again, Cecil. We don't have long.'
Warlock turned and hurried up the short slope to where the foreman waited with his canines. They were freezing, Elyssa having forbidden any fires that might give away their position or their intentions — not to mention the risk of fire so close to an open oil seep. The foreman glared at Warlock, clearly resenting the large Crasii's favoured position with Elyssa.
'My lady wants the channel widened,' Warlock told him. 'The oil isn't flowing fast enough.'
The Crasii nodded with a frown, not pleased his orders were being relayed through a third party. But he turned to his workers, hefting his mattock. 'Well, lads, seems we don't have to stand around here freezing our tails off after all. Let's do as my lady wants and make this channel wider. Get to it.'
The canines quickly spread out along the channel and soon the thumping of mattocks pounding the frozen ground silenced any other noises coming from the surrounding forest. Warlock watched anxiously as they dug, willing the oil to flow faster, and after a time the canines' work seemed to be having an effect. As the volume in the channel increased, Warlock hurried back to where Elyssa was standing, watching the negotiations that preceded any war.
'Their envoy is heading back already,' she remarked, as Warlock stopped beside her. There was no need to report on the improved oil flow; Elyssa could see it for herself. Across the ice, the smaller sled Jaxyn must have dispatched in Warlock's absence was heading back toward the portable podium where the King of Glaeba and his retinue waited. 'The forms have been met, the offer for surrender rejected.'
A figure leaned down from the podium to receive the report from his envoy. The two appeared to speak for a moment and then the figure on the podium straightened, turned and said something to the others standing with him. Then he signalled the heralds.
Another trumpet blast cut through the morning, this one different, more strident, more urgent, than the last.
'And so, Cecil,' Elyssa said with a heavy sigh, as line upon line of Glaeban feline warriors rose to their feet and prepared to move forward, 'the Tide has not even peaked yet and, once again, we are at war.'
CHAPTER 23
Arkady pulled her fur coat a little tighter as the trumpets announced the order to advance. She stood at the back of the podium beside her father, behind the immortals, with Jaxyn's loyal Crasii bodyguard, Chikita, watching over them to prevent them trying to escape. The only other mortal standing on the war platform Jaxyn had commissioned for the invasion was Mathu Debree, the young King of Glaeba. To Arkady, he looked pinched and cold and uncertain. She could tell he was putting on a brave face to impress his wife.
Arkady had no sympathy for the young king. If he didn't want to be here, he could end this right now. He was the Glaeban king, after all, and if he ordered a withdrawal, Jaxyn would have to comply unless he was willing to completely blow his cover and reveal who he was.
But Mathu didn't have the spine to stand up to his wife, or the wit to know when he was being manipulated. So here they were, at war with their closest neighbour and ally for the most spurious of reasons, her husband leading the forces arrayed against his own countrymen — all for the entertainment of a handful of power-hungry immortals.
'Tides, I never thought I'd live to see this day.'
Arkady was forced to agree with her father, but didn't answer his muttered comment. She wasn't sure what to say to him about anything any longer. Things had not been the same between them since she'd asked Jaxyn to heal him and saved him from certain death.
Even worse', after their last failed attempt to escape and Clyden Bell's death, he had completely withdrawn from her. Arkady wasn't sure if that was because Clyden was dead, because she'd forced her father to live, or because he'd been forced to acknowledge that the Tide Lords were real.
Still, she understood what he meant. They were close enough to the shore to see the forces lining up against them. The Caelish army seemed pitifully few in number compared to the tens of thousands of felines Jaxyn had mustered and brought across the ice with them.
The delay frustrated Diala; Arkady could tell by the snide remarks she'd been making to Jaxyn on the way here. But the man couldn't be faulted for his tactics. He wasn't going to risk this invasion failing because he didn't have the numbers.
The felines rose to their feet and began pounding the ice with their spears, a rhythmic tattoo that reverberated through Arkady's bones. Felines were not fond of weapons as a rule, preferring to use their claws. The spears were for a series of single volleys designed to winnow the numbers of the advancing Caelish forces.
And to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies with that ungodly racket, Arkady decided.
She couldn't see Stellan from where she was standing on the platform beside her father, but she had no doubt he was out there somewhere, watching over the battle the same way Jaxyn was watching over it from this side. Arkady wished she'd had a chance to speak to her husband. There were so many questions she had for him. Questions about her father, questions about what had happened after he left her in Torlenia, questions about how Jaxyn had managed to frame him for the murder of the King and Queen of Glaeba, about how one of Glaeaba's favourite sons had found himself standing with the enemy. Her feelings for
Stellan were so ambivalent. On one hand she despised him for what he'd done — imprisoning her father to silence him while letting her believe the old man was dead. On the other, Stellan had been her friend, mentor and confidant for more than seven years. She knew him to be a loyal Glaeban, devoted to protecting the king. To find himself facing Glaeba's army as an agent for their enemies must be tearing him up inside.
As the trumpets faded, Arkady wondered if Jaxyn's earlier message to the Caelish queen, which was — essentially — a demand for instant surrender, included a note that Stellan's wife and father-in-law were among the Glaeban forces and things would go much easier on them if the advice to surrender was heeded sooner rather than later.
Jaxyn would not have expected his threat to change the minds of the Caelish, but by delivering the warning Stellan would know she was out here.
Is Jaxyn hoping to distract Stellan by making him fear for my life?
He'd misjudged Stellan badly if he thought that would work. This was the man who'd let his own father-in-law rot for seven years in gaol to protect his secret. Threatening to harm the wife he'd taken for the sake of appearances, or the man he'd imprisoned to ensure his silence, wasn't likely to sway him from his purpose now. Not with a couple of Tide Lords at his back equally determined to secure themselves a kingdom. Stellan might wish his wife no harm — Arkady was certain of that — but he wouldn't risk the greater prize to save her.
Arkady glanced over her shoulder — as casually as she could manage — at the drop from the podium to the ice beneath them. The distance was about four feet. She'd have to be careful not to twist an ankle when she jumped, or she'd not get more than a few steps before they recaptured her. And then there was the problem of her father. He was healthier than he'd been in years —
thanks to Jaxyn's magical intervention — but she doubted he was capable of making the jump without doing himself a serious injury.
Tides, who can think with that racket going on? She returned her attention to the lines of felines, wondering when the pounding would stop. Arkady glanced at Chikita surreptitiously, hoping the noise was distracting the Crasii too. It wasn't. Chikita smiled at Arkady when their eyes met, as if she knew exactly what Arkady was planning.
'The battle will be joined soon, my lady,' the feline remarked, speaking up to be he
ard over the pounding.
'Won't that be fun,' Arkady replied with a scowl. The feline seemed amused, and not very overawed to be standing in the company of so many immortals, which Arkady thought a little odd. Still, she was alert and had her wits about her. Arkady would have to find a way to distract Chikita before she and her father jumped, or she risked being shredded by those claws, which made the prospect of a twisted ankle academic.
A signal from the king this time — after consulting Jaxyn. Another blast on the trumpets so loud her father jumped in fright, and the felines began to move. Arkady had thought listening to them pound their spears was ominous, but when they marched, every third beat was of their spear butts on the ice, ringing off the ranges. The podium didn't move — Jaxyn had decided this was close enough — but the sea of feline warriors moved forward at a ground-eating, relentless pace that would cover the remaining distance between their army and the Caelish shore in very little time.
Step-step-bang ... Step-step-bang ... Step-step- bang ...
'What are those black lines on the ice?' her father asked her in a whisper.
Arkady stood on her toes, straining to see past the immortals. The lines her father spoke of were narrow marks scoring the ice just in front of the first rank of
felines. There seemed to be three of them — long parallel lines; the distance between them was hard to judge from here.
Step-step-bang ... Step-step-bang ... Step-step- bang ...
'Range markers, probably,' Jaxyn told him, glancing over his shoulder, just to make certain they knew he was aware of them, Arkady suspected. 'Perhaps Stellan fears his Caelish marksmen aren't bright enough to work out when we'll be in range.'
'Shouldn't our forces be carrying shields?' Lyna asked. 'If they hit us with a volley of arrows, we'll lose our entire front rank.'
Step-step-bang ... Step-step-bang ... Step-step- bang ...
Jaxyn smiled, opening his arms to encompass their icy battlefield. 'So what? There's plenty more where they came from.' He looked back at Arkady and smiled even wider. 'Lovely day for a battle, don't you think, Arkady?'
She didn't answer him. There was nothing to say, in any case. Arkady fixed her attention on the city in the distance with its ice-locked wharves and its useless ships trapped against the shore.
Step-step-bang ... Step-step-bang ... Step-step- bang ...
Tides, I wish that noise would stop.
Amused by her rigid manner, Jaxyn turned his attention back to the battle. The Caelish forces hadn't moved yet. They were waiting for something, Arkady thought, and she doubted it was the Glaeban army. They would be foolish beyond words to allow the invaders to reach the shore, but then, perhaps that was their intention.
Was their plan to thin the Glaeban forces as much as possible with arrows and spears and then take the fight to the town? Cycrane was a hilly city with narrow winding streets and very few open places for a
pitched battle to take place. Fighting in the streets would significantly reduce the advantage the Glaebans enjoyed because of their superior numbers.
Step-step-bang ... Step-step-bang ... Step-step- bang ...
That would make it much harder for her to get away too, she realised. Arkady was counting on the battle coming to them. She was planning to grab her father and make a run for it in the confusion when the attention of Jaxyn, Diala and Lyna, and — more importantly — that wretched Crasii he'd set to watch over them, was fixed firmly elsewhere.
This time, it would be much harder for Jaxyn to find them. For one thing, he wouldn't have time. And for another, she had no friends in Caelum to hide her.
No friends he could randomly kill.
Arkady's grief for the kind and loyal Clyden Bell and her thoughts of escape were interrupted by a sudden whoosh as a wall of flame shot up in front of them. The felines' orderly march toward the city instantly transformed into a wild, screaming panic. Another two whooshes sounded, one after the other in rapid succession. Another two walls of flame shot up behind the front ranks, billowing black smoke as they burned, splitting the Glaeban forces and turning them from an organised army into four panicked squealing mobs separated by walls of fire. The felines' fear of the fire robbed them of any sense. The rhythmic step-step- bang ... step-step-bang...step-step-bang ...of their advance was gone, replaced with the panicked screams of thousands of trapped, frightened and injured Crasii. Her father gripped her arm in horror. The sound tore at Arkady's soul, making her feel ill.
Jaxyn's orders — even to those felines still within earshot — fell on deaf ears.
There was no time to wonder what had happened. The fires seemed to have leapt up out of the ice, but she didn't think it was magic that had caused the
sudden conflagration. Jaxyn was screaming orders at the felines and generals, not turning his attention to the Tide. She was sure that would be his first reaction if one of the Tide Lords on the Caelish side had decided to stop the Glaebans by using magic.
Arkady glanced around, realising this was her chance — her only chance. Already the first wall of flame was burning lower. Acrid black smoke roiled across the ice toward them, making her eyes water. Although she was only a few feet away from Jaxyn and the others, she couldn't hear what they were saying over the screams of the wounded Crasii. Chikita, her feline guard, was staring at the flames, transfixed by the sight of them.
'Papa! You must come with me!'
Her father looked at her blankly for a moment and then nodded when he realised what she meant. 'Are you sure?'
Arkady checked that everyone's attention was fixed on the chaos in front of them. 'Yes, I'm sure!' she hissed. 'Come on!' Without giving it another moment's thought, she ducked under the rope barrier circling the podium and jumped to the ice. She didn't twist an ankle; she slid and fell heavily on her behind. But she didn't have time to worry about it. Scrambling to her feet, Arkady turned to help her father down. He didn't try to jump, but clambered down awkwardly — and with heart-stopping slowness — to the ice.
As soon as he was standing, she grabbed his arm and turned to run. Her sudden movement caused him to fall heavily. Arkady hurried to help him up, which proved to be a struggle on the icy surface, but finally he regained his balance. However, he looked ashen and panic-stricken.
'Going somewhere, my lady?'
Arkady turned from her father to find Chikita on the ice behind her. The Crasii hadn't been that transfixed by the fires apparently.
'I ... er ...' Arkady began, with the sinking realisation that there was no hope now of getting a third chance at escape.
The feline stepped toward them, pulling a knife from her belt. The noise around them was horrendous; the air filled with screams and smoke and death and the stench of burning fur.
'Lord Jaxyn will not be pleased if you harm us!' Arkady shouted, wondering if she could bluff their way out of this.
Chikita stepped closer, near enough to grab Arkady by the arm. She pulled her close, making Arkady lean forward. 'He'll be a lot less pleased if he thinks I let you escape,' the feline said into her ear. 'I can give you a few minutes' head start, my lady. After that, you're on your own.'
The little warrior pressed the knife into her hand and stepped back, adding in a louder voice, 'Tilly sends her love, by the way.'
Tides, Arkady realised. Chikita is a Scard. And working for the Cabal.
Arkady didn't need to be told twice. She turned to grab her father's arm, but he shook her off. 'You'll get further without me.'
'No!' Arkady said. 'I'm not leaving you behind! He'll kill you!'
'I'd already be dead but for you, Arkady,' he said, his eyes misting with tears. 'I don't fear death.'
'My lady, you have to go!' Chikita urged behind her.
'Go!' Bary insisted. 'I'll cover for you.'
'I can't leave you again, Papa! Not when I can save you!'
'You can't save me, Arkady,' he said, hugging her briefly. 'Now go. For once, let me save you.'
Although she was filled with doubt
s, this was not the time or the place to voice them. Her father seemed determined and he was right — she would travel much farther and faster without him.
But how could she leave him? How could she stay?
'Go!' he ordered. 'For once in your life, girl, do something I've told you to do without arguing about it.'
Arkady wished she had more time to think about this. More time to feel something other than gratitude. Mouthing the words thank you to the feline and her father, she pocketed the knife and then turned and headed into the chaos. She had only moments before Chikita would have to raise the alarm and inform her immortal masters that Arkady and her father had tried to escape, or risk being found out as a spy herself.
So Arkady ran, not back toward Glaeba, but forward, through the smoke and the writhing burned bodies and the panicked felines. Taking a diagonal track across the ice, heading in what she hoped was a northerly direction, she deliberately forced herself not to think of what she'd left behind. She couldn't afford to head for the city. Even though Stellan was there and she could count on his protection, there was still a good chance Jaxyn would carry the day. Only the front ranks of his vast army had been affected by those walls of fire. There were still plenty more warriors in reserve, and once he got them under control, the battle would be well and truly on.
Slipping and sliding on the ice, she fought her way through the chaos, ignoring the burned Crasii's cries for help, and her guilt at leaving her father behind. She crossed the black lines scoured into the ice, which she realised, from the smell, must have been filled with tar or oil, until finally she stumbled onto the snow- covered shore and found herself clear of the battlefield.
The Chaos Crystal Page 17
