‘Now it starts,’ he said.
Next to him, Skiriin, first arrow nocked and ready, nodded nervously. The first strangers broke cover and stepped tentatively onto the flags of the apron. They spread into a loose line twenty men wide, all with weapons drawn, all moving with the cautious assurance of experienced soldiers, eyes everywhere as they advanced towards the temple.
Around them the forest was hushed, but the quiet was broken by a sharp warning from one of the strangers. One of the mages. A quick exchange followed and the attackers began to scatter.
‘They’ve divined the wards,’ said Rebraal. ‘Now, Flynd. It’s got to be now.’
Upwards of fifty men were on the apron when the southern perimeter wards were activated and tripped in the same heartbeat. Simultaneously, the scattering force ran into areas covered by wards already set and the apron became a furnace.
Explosions ripped along the length of the stone, hurling bodies into the air, showering others with lethal flame and rippling the stone itself. A wall of flame grasped at the sky, climbing fifty feet into the air, cutting off those on the apron from any help and forcing them towards the temple. Rebraal could see figures wreathed in flame staggering blind, dying and confused, and their wails and desperate shouts echoed against the blank unsympathetic walls of the surrounding forest.
The trapped tried to flee but more explosions held them in. Bodies were littering the apron now as steam hissed in great clouds into the sky. Around the edges of the apron, the rest of the strangers were running, looking for ways to save their comrades, shouts and cries lost in the roar of another FlameWall carving at the dawn. But for those on the apron, there would be no salvation and Shorth would see them to torment in death.
‘Wait, Skiriin, wait,’ whispered Rebraal, hearing the elf’s bow tense.
The wards hadn’t worked as Rebraal had planned. Not enough men had been on the apron, and though the effects had been devastating and perhaps forty were dead, the elves still faced enormous odds.
The first FlameWall died away and, heedless of further danger, dozens of the strangers ran onto the apron. Anger had replaced helplessness and orders rang back and forth. While some men picked up comrades, dead and alive, three mages knelt in the centre of the stones while others moved towards the door again.
The call of the motmot rang across the apron, and before any of the strangers had paused to look up the trio of mages were dead and the Al-Arynaar were checking their next targets.
All semblance of order disintegrated as panic gripped the attackers. Some injured were dropped, others dragged unceremoniously over the apron to apparent safety in the forest where the stake traps claimed more screaming victims. A few crossbows were brought to bear and bolts fizzed harmlessly into the trees.
Rebraal watched one of the leaders. He was a tall and powerful man, large axe held in one hand, a heavy growth of beard covering cheeks, neck and chin. He was striding towards the doors of the temple bellowing commands to follow him.
‘Excellent,’ said Rebraal under his breath. ‘Let’s hurry you all up.’ He tracked right and saw a terrified man debating a run back into the forest. He drew back his arm and let fly his arrow, the tip skewering the man’s leg at the top of the thigh. The intruder fell to the ground, staring blindly into the trees, a shout of pain and fear bubbling from his mouth. Another man stooped to help him up. A shaft from across the apron took him clear through the eye. The arrows had the desired effect. The injured man struggled to his feet and joined his comrades fleeing towards the temple.
Faintly, almost inaudibly, Sheth’erei cursed. Rebraal tensed.
‘Spell,’ she muttered.
And so it was. Droplets of pure fire swept from the cloudless sky, lashing into the trees either side of the apron. The soaked leaves of the banyan and fig trees at the edge of the clearing began to smoulder as the strangers’ mage flame struck and bit. Across the apron, fire had already taken hold fifty feet up in the canopy, but still the arrows flew and still the strangers fell. A drop struck the platform on which Rebraal stood, where it hissed at the wood, blackening the area around it and sending new smoke into the sky.
‘Sheth, your turn,’ whispered Rebraal.
She nodded and cast. Sweeping in from the north came a horizontal storm of hail, razor-sharp and as fast as if driven by a gale. It slivered flesh from unprotected faces and hands, buried itself deep in leather armour and packed the strangers ever faster towards the temple doors. The cacophony was suddenly deafening. The crackle of flame from burning wood mixed with shrieks from deep within the forest as creatures fled what they feared the most, while on the apron the strangers yelled at each other and the blank face of the forest around them as they tried desperately to defend themselves against the DeathHail.
The hail was mercifully short. But the mercy, also, was short-lived. Arrows flew unhindered, flashing out from the platforms, most finding their targets but the odd one skipping away off the stone or burying itself in the bole of a tree or lost in the undergrowth. Already, those struck first were feeling the effects of the poison. Their balance betrayed them and they staggered or fell. Their vision tunnelled then disappeared altogether and finally, before death took them, blood streamed from ears, nose and mouth, the poison rupturing vein and artery.
Over half of the strangers were now dead or dying. They had bunched ten yards from the doors to the temple. Ten yards from their goal. Their bearded leader had organised a rough shield defence, and once again crossbow bolts whipped out, chancing to find an enemy.
‘They’ll try to divine the ward on the doors,’ warned Sheth’erei.
Rebraal loosed another arrow. He was running short, as was Skiriin. ‘Can you stop them?’
‘We need to distract them,’ she said, but paused and drew in a sharp breath. ‘Oh no. Erin, no.’
For the first time, fear edged Rebraal’s heart. ‘What is it?’
But he could see. The HotRain still fell but across the apron; it didn’t reach the trees any more. Erin’heth was shielding it and the arc of cover was like a beacon to an enemy mage.
‘We’ve got to break silence,’ said Sheth’erei. ‘They’ll be killed.’
Rebraal nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’
As one, they set up the staccato call of a water eagle. It was the flight warning and sounded too human. Immediately they’d finished, Rebraal, bow slung over his shoulder, led them down the ladder off the platform. Already he could hear the strangers reacting and the sound of running feet.
But it wasn’t himself he was scared for. Turning at the bottom of the ladder, he saw four columns of fire streak down from the sky to plunge into the forest right above the two platforms. It was a spell he’d heard about but never seen, the one that sought souls and took them to hell. And Erin’heth’s shield crumbled under its power.
Wood planks and splinters flew from the forest, carrying with them the tattered remains of protective leathers. The flash of the impact threw the temple and its surrounding into sharp relief, revealing them to their attackers for a vital instant. Rebraal saw a flaming body plunge from a platform to land in the undergrowth in a hail of sparks and cinders, the heat setting the vegetation smouldering and pouring out smoke. He heard an awful cry, cut off abruptly. The nine became five at a single stroke.
‘Sheth, we have to trip that ward!’ he shouted, all thought of stealth gone.
‘I’ll deal with it,’ said the mage, her voice thick with anger.
She dropped to her knees and began to cast, her fingers weaving intricate patterns in the air, her eyes closed against the fire that consumed the corpses of her friends. Beside her, Skiriin’s bow thrummed and another stranger died. Rebraal unclipped his jaqrui pouch and grasped one of the throwing crescents, sending it skimming head-high into the half-dozen strangers coming at them, not thirty yards away. It caught one on the side of the neck, slicing deep. The man cried out, dropped his weapon and clutched at the wound which jetted his life’s blood to the earth.
Reb
raal drew his sword. In the same instant Sheth’erei cast with devastating effect. Standing to give herself a clear view of the group by the temple doors, she pushed her hands outwards, palms up. The ForceCone spread away, invisible, a battering ram of mana crashing into the front rank of shield-bearers who, completely unprepared, were hurled backwards into their comrades. The Cone pushed on, and while some scrambled clear of its influence, others were driven back, helpless, tossed head over heels. The result was inevitable. One of them fell into the temple doors.
The flash seared into Rebraal’s eyes and he half turned away. The detonation shook the ground under his feet and the branches of the great banyans overhead. The temple doors exploded and a beam of fire scoured outwards like the breath of a great dragon, deluging everything in its path with super-heated flame. It reached halfway down the apron and the wall of air following it knocked the surviving Al-Arynaar from their feet.
Rebraal was bowled over but stopped himself quickly and drove back onto his feet, his bow snapped and useless. Nearby, Skiriin was up and had drawn his own slender blade. Sheth’erei was still down but moving, and from the other surviving platform Rourke and Dereneer were running to join them.
‘Let’s finish this,’ said Rebraal.
He broke into a sprint, the three other swordsmen hard on his heels, forcing himself not to stop when he caught sight of the apron. The ward had wreaked appalling damage. Fires licked at stone where they had set undergrowth alight, bodies and parts of bodies, scorched and burning, lay scattered and twisted, and where a stranger had survived, he begged for death.
Of the group by the door, two were conscious and coming at them. One fired a crossbow, the bolt whipping by Rebraal to bury itself in Dereneer’s stomach. The elf sprawled to the ground, sword skittering away. Rebraal leaped a fire and slashed his blade into the crossbowman’s arm. The stranger dropped his weapon and staggered back and had no defence against the next strike, which tore across his throat.
Rebraal turned to see Rourke and Skiriin kill the other but behind them, away towards the path, more figures moved. Many more.
‘Oh dear Yniss, save us,’ he said. ‘Sheth’erei, behind you!’
But the groggy mage couldn’t react in time. Half turning in her crouched position she took a sword point through the neck, her scream turning to a gurgle before it and she died.
‘No!’ Rebraal ran at the enemy, sword raised in one hand, his other seeking a jaqrui. It howled across the closing space, bouncing harmlessly off a metal shoulder guard. A second followed it, this one whispering its danger, connecting with the sword hand of the same man, slicing through his thumb.
But still they came from the forest path. Ten, twenty and maybe more. Rebraal, Skiriin and Rourke took the fight to them, the elves’ ferocity keeping them back from the apron and tight to the trees where they couldn’t spread out. Rourke dragged his blade through the stomach of one man but the next was quick, jabbing into the elf’s chest, and blood welled from the wound. Skiriin backed up, defending furiously, blade licking out at great speed, slashing and nicking. He downed one man with a rip across the neck but it couldn’t go on for ever. There were too many of them and a blade split his skull.
Rebraal pressed an attack and prayed to Yniss for forgiveness and to Shorth for vengeance. He opened up the defence of his opponent and raised his sword to strike . . .
But his strike never came. He felt a violent impact in his left shoulder like someone had hit him in the back with a hammer. The pain was excruciating and he pitched forward, the dreadful orange glare of the fires greying to black.
Chapter 7
Baron Blackthorne was holding the latest report on the state of his lands handed to him by a trusted aide. He’d ushered the young man to a seat opposite him while he cast his eye down the summary sheet. It was a mild spring evening outside, though in the cool drawing room at Blackthorne Castle a fire roared in the grate between the fifty-one-year-old baron and his aide.
‘Have a glass of wine, Luke,’ he said, indicating the decanter of young Blackthorne red on the table in front of him. ‘It’s ageing well. We’ll get a good price for it in a couple of years.’
‘Thank you, my Lord,’ said Luke.
He reached forward and grabbed the decanter, topping up Blackthorne’s glass before filling his own. Blackthorne watched Luke sit back down on the hard armchair and a smile crossed his lips. The transformation in Luke had been remarkable. Blackthorne had encountered him first in the midst of the Wesmen wars as a scared sixteen-year-old who had lost all his family. He’d been struck then with the youth’s pragmatism and straight talking and had made good on a promise to develop him. Luke’s farming days were behind him but his experience on the land and his remarkable head for figures and organisation had made him absolutely indispensable.
Blackthorne was used to making people nervous. He was aware of his stature and the stern air lent him by his black hair, beard and hard angular face, and he exploited his advantages. Luke, though, had no fears and was one of the few who would challenge him. Blackthorne respected and admired him for it.
He took a sip of wine and looked down the page. ‘Am I going to like this?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Baron,’ said Luke. ‘Very much. Mostly.’
‘Quick précis then,’ he said. ‘I’ll read the detail later.’
Luke ordered his analytical mind before speaking. Blackthorne relaxed into his chair to listen, a finger idly scratching at his beard, which contained an irritating amount of grey these days. But then it had been a hard winter, even in Blackthorne.
‘Grain supplies are holding up well and will see us through to first harvest at current population levels. We’re still monitoring two bakeries for possible black market sell-on but the others are clear. The scurvy outbreak has been contained. The mages are confident of no further spread and our shipment of oranges began to offload in the bay yesterday.
‘We’ve taken in two hundred more refugees, all families with children, and have now closed the town to more. Out in the fields, the planting is almost complete and spring crops should be ready for harvest in ten days or so. That’ll help vegetable supplies. By your order, mounted militia are patrolling the ripening fields, but since the first theft we’ve had no trouble and the refugee areas are being closely watched.
‘Livestock isn’t so good, though it’s not awful. The dairy herds are fine but we saw a marked depletion in breeding stock during the last two seasons, as you know. New calves, piglets and lambs are all down by up to seventy per cent. You’ll see I’ve made a recommendation in the report that we sell on all excess at the premium it’ll command and use the money to buy whatever surplus breeding stock we can find and start aggressively rebuilding our herds. If we play it right, we can establish a very strong market position when this thing blows over.’
‘But eat bread and vegetable stew in the meantime, eh?’ Blackthorne grimaced.
‘Not entirely, my Lord. We’ve had some success with the rabbits of late.’ Luke smiled.
‘Ah yes,’ said Blackthorne. ‘Those.’
It had seemed a grand idea at the time. Capture a few rabbits and breed them. Quick and easy meat, so they thought. Minimal effort and the children of the town had been excited at the prospect of helping. But they had proved susceptible to disease, and they dug. My, how they dug, forcing the fencing to be hammered ever deeper. Blackhorne had been about to abandon the whole project.
‘What’s different?’
‘Well, the mages have isolated the most common disease and devised a treatment for their drinking water that keeps them healthy. And they’ve also placed a border ward around the fence to a depth of twenty feet. Apparently, it’s a low drain spell and is harmless. Just undiggable.’
‘Good. Excellent.’ Blackthorne smiled. Where would they be without mages?
‘The figures are all inside. Shall I wait while you read them?’
‘No, no. Thank you, Luke, that’s excellent. I’ll come to you with any questions
.’ Luke made to rise. ‘Take your time. Finish your wine.’
‘Thank you, my Lord.’
‘And think on this, as I am. Now the colleges are at war, will the conflict spread here? And if it does, how many refugees will be pushed ahead of it? And when you’ve made that guess, tell me how you think our defences should be aligned and how our stores would be best protected.’
‘That possibility hadn’t occurred to me,’ said Luke. ‘We seem so far away.’
‘My job to think ahead, yours to tell me how we deal with it. Take your time.’
Luke stared into his wine.
Denser walked with his head bowed despite the beauty of the morning. Time was short and The Unknown didn’t really appreciate what he’d asked him to do: try and get Erienne to see reason beyond her grief. There was seldom an instant when he wasn’t pained by memories of their daughter, but he had chosen not to torture himself with the type of guilt with which Erienne had become so familiar. He didn’t want her to stop grieving; he just wanted her to understand that Lyanna’s death had been beyond their control. But today wasn’t quite like every other day. Today he had to persuade her to leave Herendeneth.
He knew where he’d find her; it was where she spent most of her time. Either tending the grave or lying by it, perhaps singing Lyanna a song or crying into the grass. Sometimes, mercifully, she slipped into sleep.
This morning, Erienne was watering the flowers as Denser approached from slightly behind and to her left. She had a bucket and a cup and was gently pouring water on to the vibrant blooms and into the earth around them, occasionally reaching in to pull up a weed or pick out a dead leaf. Finishing her task, she filled the cup again and poured the contents over her head and face, the water splashing onto her light-weave clothes and running in rivulets down her face. Three times she refilled the cup, then shook her head to send a fine spray of water into the air. She pushed her hands over her face and through her hair.
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