by Greg Curtis
It would have been nice to have asked Darnial Marn who these other peoples were, but the woman was standing there like a statue, watching them go through the ceremony, and answering very few questions. Marnie reminded her at one point that their people would have to accept the same strictures on their acquisition of spells – three spells every seven days and a maximum of twenty – and the woman's response was only a nod of her head. She didn't even look at them, her attention fixed on her people.
Then again, she had tended to treat the strictures as guidelines, as she, Tyrollan and many others now had more than twenty spells.
Her silence though gave Marnie a chance to study the people more closely. And to experience a sense of wonder as all the stories of the bards appeared in front of her eyes.
The other thing Marnie noticed about the people was the number of them. If there had been over a hundred floating carriages of their people absorbing the spells, there were just as many of these other races. That impressed her. In all the time that they'd been running their operation in the Hold and then here, she didn't think she'd seen a single man or woman from Styrion who wasn't already marked, accept a gift. And they had actually been attacked by the behemoth's servants! Here they had over a thousand unmarked people, lining up to accept spells. That amazed her.
But then for them she realised, this was not an affliction. It was hope. A hope they clung too even when their leaders told them they had absolutely nothing to worry about. They had not been raised to believe that those who were marked were somehow, diseased. For them the markings were just that – markings. And the only thing that mattered was that they could protect their people.
It took the best part of another hour to go through the ceremony for the newcomers, and by the end of it Marnie was becoming quite tired. Two hours of just standing there, watching as person after person absorbed their spells, was hard on the feet. And they still had their own Guild members patiently waiting their turn to go through the ceremony. But eventually they finished and she watched as the last of the newly marked people floated off back to the portal. Now they only had to finish up and then she could return to her normal duties. And perhaps have some lunch.
“It's been an interesting morning Darnial Marn.” Tyrollan finally broke the silence between them. “I look forward to learning in the coming week how your people have adjusted to their new spells.”
“I will have a report for you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Marnie was caught by surprise.
“Of course. We thought it best to do as you do, and divide our people up into seven different sessions. So tomorrow another fifteen hundred gifted and the same number of our people will attend the ceremony.”
“Oh!” Marnie was completely unprepared for that. And now she did start to wonder if they had enough fragments of the magic metals after all. Because the first barrels of each of them were almost empty just from this session. But at the same time she realised as she did the sums, that meant that there were over ten thousand of their people living among the Mythagan. She hadn't expected that.
“We will see to it that more supplies are brought to the Abbey as quickly as possible,” Tyrollan told their guest, the practicalities foremost on his mind. “But because we weren't expecting so many people, we may have to limit next week’s ceremony to one or two spells each while we gather barrels of fragments from the other towns and cities. But in a few weeks things should be as they are now.”
He was hoping they would be, Marnie thought. Neither of them had any idea how many more barrels of the fragments were being held in the other temples and abbeys throughout the realm. All they knew was that the barrels were meant to be sent to them when they were full. They didn't even know how many temples there were. Fifty maybe? One in each city. Plus a few more abbeys in the larger towns.
In the meantime they were going to have to speed up the collection process. That meant they would have to pay for the fragments. Hendrick was going to be busy mining more gold! But since he was spending his days running with unicorns, she thought he could spare the time. And it was about time he returned to do something useful.
“I see,” Darnial Marn pursed her lips in concentration. “I will trust in you to do the best you can. But please ask if there is anything we can do to help.”
“We will, and thank you.”
With that they said farewell to their guest and watched her step into the last carriage and float off back to the portal.
It was only after she'd vanished and the last of their Guild members had absorbed their new spells and left that they could discuss their plans for the coming weeks. Plans that now mostly consisted of getting more fragments. Ten thousand gifted and another ten thousand people from the other worlds of this world spanning empire! How could they possibly deal with such large numbers?
And yet it did mean that wherever and whenever the beast's servants struck, there was going to be a force ready to face them. It had taken them all this time to get just a few of the cities of Styrion defended, and now, in one day, everything they had done had been eclipsed by the Mythagan. That was a good thing she supposed.
But as they walked slowly back to the Guild, another thought occurred to her. And sadly it wasn't a new one.
“You know, he takes one journey up a mountain, makes one discovery and sends one message out through a friend, and our world turns upside down again. Is it possible that Hendrick actually is a disciple of the Goat Footed God?!” She was only half speaking in jest.
Tyrollan turned to her, a tired look in his eyes. “Actually I'm beginning to think it more likely that the Goat Footed God is a disciple of Hendrick’s!”
Chapter Forty Nine
Battle came upon them sooner than any of them had been prepared for. One moment members of the guild were sitting at an outdoor table eating their lunch, the next a portal popped into existence on their front lawn. Indle came running through it, yelling at them.
“They've attacked, and Sana was right! We need every warspell you have!”
Marnie froze for a moment, a chunk of bread covered in gravy half way to her mouth. It was too soon! They'd barely had a week between when the new regime had begun and now. Not nearly enough time. She looked into Indle's eyes and saw her shock and fear reflected back. He was barely managing to keep himself from complete panic. She had seen that look before and she knew what followed. It was never good. It could not be allowed.
“Every warspell!” She got to her feet, knocking the bench back in her hurry as she shouted to her people. “Or a useful defensive spell! With me! We have to help our brothers and sisters!” And with that she rushed out from behind her table and ran for the portal. “And someone find Hendrick!” She yelled the last just before she went through.
Seconds later Marnie emerged on the other side of the portal, her staff of life already summoned, to find herself staring directly into the maw of a ghost dragon.
Marnie screamed and threw herself to one side just as the giant head swooped straight through where she'd been, and the others with her did the same. But not all were fast enough, and she heard a scream followed by the sound of something wet and heavy falling to the ground just behind her. She didn't turn around.
“Life!” Marnie screamed it at the sky, staff in hand, and instantly the world was bathed in glorious living green light. At the same time she heard the ghost dragons screaming. Not shrieking as they would be normally, but screaming in pain and fear. The screams sounded odd though. As if they had been muted.
This was her living war cry, the only true warspell she actually had, and she loved it! She was infinitely glad she had continued absorbing new spells. The spell sucked the life from her enemies and bestowed it on her allies.
Even as she stood there, putting all her strength into the spell, she watched a dozen of the flying horrors fall out of the sky around her, dying. Meanwhile the other guild members were being charged with strength. Those who were injured began healing. And those who had come to figh
t, remembered their duty.
The sky was suddenly filled with light as her fellow Guild members arrived. Lightning bolts sizzled across the sky and hail stones the size of wagons flew. Fireballs blazed overhead, turning winged ghosts into bonfires. Tornadoes appeared from out of nowhere to scatter the creatures in all directions. Those not caught by the tornado were turned to stone in mid-air and fell from the sky, shattering when they hit the ground. And as more and more of her people came running through the portal to join her, the destruction they began wreaking on the beast's servants only grew.
But it was too late for many. Even on the hillside where they had emerged, there were bodies all around them. And not all of them were bodies. Many were just pieces of them. It looked like the contents of a slaughterhouse. Except that many of the pieces of meat lying on the grass were wearing clothes.
Soon the ghost dragons were falling from the sky in their scores. So many of them that they covered the ground all around them like leaves falling from the trees in the fall. It was a glorious thing. But even killing as many as they were, it simply wasn't enough. And while the shrieking sound they were making was distorted, it was still painful. Whatever spell was being used to try and muffle the deadly sound, it wasn't perfect.
Worse, even with their magic Marnie could see that they couldn't win. There were simply too many of the creatures. Worse, as Marnie looked into the distance and saw the ghost dragons' target, she knew that they were already too late. They could slaughter these creatures all day and all night – it just wouldn't be enough.
And the price of their failure would be incalculable.
The city she could see in front of them was vast. It filled the entire valley from one side to the other and extended away into the distance as far as she could see. It had to be five leagues across and as many deep. And the buildings were many stories high, some of them seeming to reach for the very sky.
How many people called it home? She found herself wondering about that as she fought. She was used to cities of up to a million people. Cities like Styrion Might and the Hold. But this had to be twenty, fifty times as large. More. And it was in flames! Some of it was even in pieces. Even as she watched she saw one of the huge towers collapse into a pile of rubble, and she knew that everyone inside it had just died.
The people in the city were fighting back. She could see the fire and the lights, hear the thunder as they sent all their magical fury into the enemy. They were lighting up the sky with their fire. It should have been enough. But as large and powerful as the city's defence force was, the enemy had come in still greater numbers. The ghost dragons were filling the skies, darkening them with their numbers. Sana had said thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Looking at them now Marnie thought she had been far too conservative.
Against that horde of winged darkness they were only a small flickering light on a hillside overlooking it. They couldn't stand against them.
“Shite!” She cursed her misfortune. She cursed the gods too for allowing this travesty to happen. But she kept her spell burning bright. As bright as she could for as long as she could. And at least the ghost dragons kept falling all around them. Their light kept burning. It even burned a little brighter as more of their people came through.
“Why aren't the beast's shrieking at us? What's stopping them?” She yelled at a wounded Mythagan she spied not far from her He had half collapsed to the ground, but was trying to sit up. With the amount of blood pouring from his leg though, she knew he clearly wasn't going to get much further than that.
“Our spells are weak, but we've managed to mute them … with shields of air.” He gasped it out as he gave his all trying to sit. But it wasn't enough and he collapsed back to the ground in failure. Then he just lay there panting.
Was that enough? Would it hold? Marnie didn't know. But she knew that if those shields of air muffling the ghost dragons' shrieks failed, they would die. There was no point in asking the soldier though. He knew no more than she did.
“What is this place?”
“Callanar. You would call it Prime or First. It’s the Capitol. It is where the Vordan Empire begins.” He pressed a cloth firmly against the blood pouring from the open wound on his thigh, trying to staunch the flow. But there was a lot of blood and he was looking pale. “And ends!”
Of course it was, Marnie realised! In Styrion the beast had struck first at Styrion Might, the capital of the realm. And at their King. He had tried to crush them with a single blow. Here it was the same. A single, killer blow, to shatter his enemies, break their morale and chain of command. Lady Peri was right. This behemoth was smart. It understood strategy. And it fought intelligently. Even with all the strength it had, it worried that it might not be enough to destroy everyone. And it wanted to do as much damage as it could. What could be a better target if it wanted to break the Empire?
Hendrick was right too. This was about rage. It wasn't about land or resources or some religious edict. It wasn't even about power and rule. These creatures – its servants – were monsters not soldiers. Their only purpose was to slaughter. This attack was about hatred, maybe even revenge. Just as it had been in Malthas. Different approach but the same goal. Total destruction. Even the crows knew it as they flew over the battlefield. They would feast tonight. What had these people done to so anger the behemoth? What sort of hatred could endure for over ten thousand years?!
For the moment though none of that mattered. Only concentrating on the battle and surviving mattered.
“Tie the leg with the knot over the top of the wound!” She yelled it at the fallen soldier, hoping he heard. But she didn't have time to do it for him. None of them did. Not when the creatures were attacking them. And as if to make that point for her a piece of ghost dragon crashed down onto the ground barely a dozen feet from her, making the ground shake. If it had hit her she would have been crushed. Even dead and in pieces they were deadly.
“I've got him!” A woman rushed to the injured man and quickly started ripping cloth from his jacket into strips to tie it around his leg.
It was Sana! She had two hands and two feet again, though she was still walking with a staff. And her red velvet dress was covered in the blood of those she was tending to. But neither of those things surprised Marnie. What surprised her was the fact that she was helping. She hadn't expected to see the young woman ever again – in fact she'd hoped not to – but above all else she would never have expected to see her helping. She was a killer not a healer.
“Sana?”
“Just concentrate on the battle. I'll help the injured!” Sana screamed it at her, but didn't look away from her patient.
It seemed she had a spell of healing. No sooner had she finished tying down the wound than she sent a ray of green light into it. What it did, Marnie didn't know and she didn't have time to ask, but if it helped that was all that mattered.
Marnie returned to the battle, redoubling her concentration, trying to make her light spread out further and brighten, though she knew there was nothing she could do that would destroy an army of the size they were facing. In all honesty, they had arrived just in time to see one of the largest cities she had ever imagined possible, fall. And after it had fallen she wondered, where would the ghost dragons go next? What would be the next city to fall?
Then even as her despair threatened to give way to fear, a sound boomed across the entire battlefield. A cry, a roar, a peel of thunder that seemed to shatter the very sky and make the ground tremble in fear. It seemed to turn her very bones to mush, and left her quivering like a frightened baby. For a moment Marnie thought the world had ended.
When Marnie finally dared to look around it was to see that it hadn't. Instead Sana was standing there, her back arched, arms flung out wide, as she screamed at the heavens, and she realised it was her. Whatever it was, what spell she was casting, Marnie didn't know. But it had to be powerful. Nothing that overwhelmingly terrifying could be minor. And even the ghost dragons seemed to know it. Because while San
a cried out even they stopped fighting. Everything stopped.
Yet once the sound ended, Sana returned to her duties without a word. The battle started up again and the ghost dragons returned to the attack. Nothing had changed Marnie realised. It had sounded like the end of everything, but it had only been a lull. A brief, terrifying pause. Whatever that cry was, it didn't change anything.
As she returned to her work, battling with her fear as she tried to put everything she had into her warspell, Sana and a few others returned to theirs. They kept running from body to body. Looking for those who were still breathing and helping them as best they could. Most though were beyond their help. They had been even before they'd come through the portal.
The rest of them threw themselves back into the fight. They were all wrestling with the same demons of fear and doubt that Marnie was, but all of them knew they had to fight. And so they continued casting their most powerful warspells, deep into the heart of the enemy horde, taking a small toll on them.
