Doors opened all along the semicircular corridor that bordered the great hall on one side and in came the council. Thirty men and women, expectant but a little anxious at being called from their beds so early. Each took his or her allotted place at the table. Not a one spoke aloud though Heryst could feel the odd surge of Communion as some tried to get a hint of what was to come from friends they thought in higher places than themselves.
‘My friends, I apologise for the intrusion on your rest this morning and for my appearance,’ said Heryst, when all were seated. He had no doubt the fact he was still dusty and sweaty from the road had raised a few eyebrows. ‘But there are things I need to know and you need to hear.’
There was a murmur around the table. Heryst looked to his immediate left, straight into the eyes of his mentor, Kayvel. He touched the arm of the white-haired strong old man, smiled and nodded.
‘It has come,’ he said quietly.
Kayvel sighed, his grey eyes sparkling in the sun and lantern light. ‘And in my lifetime.’
‘And I thank the Gods you are here to advise me.’
‘Speak,’ Kayvel said.
Heryst turned to the council table and spoke.
‘My friends, you will know I am just returned from Dordover. I had thought to seek assurances from Vuldaroq that the conflict at Arlen was at an end before riding to Xetesk to seek the same from Dystran.
‘Instead, I find that we are facing our gravest crisis for hundreds of years. We have suffered animosities and skirmishes in my lifetime but all these disputes were settled by negotiation. What we are facing now, my friends, is war. War between powerful colleges at a time when the very existence of magic is being questioned on Balaia. At a time when surely we should be pulling together to repair the damage magic has done to our land, two colleges seek to rip us all to shreds. All over a dead girl and the information two dying elves can give.
‘Should we have been surprised? Possibly not. After all, we have seen Xetesk and Dordover battle over Lyanna; we have seen Dordover betray Erienne, one of their own, to the witch hunters; and we have seen our own General Darrick so sickened by our liaison with Dordover that he deserted his command. And the results of what Xetesk’s Protector army did to Arlen are there today for all to see.’
‘But is it war?’ A voice sounded from the far side of the table. ‘Could this not be another flexing of muscles?’
‘I rode here and probably killed my horse in the process because it is war. Both colleges want it and we will be swept up in it, whether we like it or not. I fear for us and I fear for Julatsa because I do not believe this fight will end when either Xetesk or Dordover is beaten. The balance of magic will be irrevocably altered and the victor will inevitably desire dominion.
‘Vuldaroq informs me that Xetesk has cleared its refugee camps by riding the people out like animals. They have scattered, many towards the Dord to the north. Some will inevitably come here.
‘Kayvel, I need you to contact our deputation in Xetesk. Make sure they are unharmed and free. Are there any questions?’
He looked around the table. No one spoke.
‘Good. I am going to rest and change. You are going to stay here and begin planning. And remember, if war comes to our borders and our negotiations come to nothing, we may have to defend not just ourselves but Julatsa too.’
The doors at the end of the chamber opened with a crash.
‘My Lord Heryst, council. I apologise but I must speak.’
Heryst stilled the irritated murmur with a hand and acknowledged the head of his mana spectrum monitoring team.
‘Go ahead, Dunera.’
‘My Lord.’ She nodded. ‘We’ve got a problem in the spectrum over Arlen.’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But whatever it is, people are going to die. Lots of them.’
‘And the signature?’ asked Kayvel.
‘The mana is in flux, density increasing. It’s huge, or it will be. And it’s offensive in nature, no doubt of it.’
‘Who’s casting it?’
‘Xetesk.’
‘Do we have anyone in the vicinity?’ Heryst kneaded his forehead.
‘Yes. We have representatives with the Dordovans,’ said Dunera, head dropping to her chest. ‘They have refused to leave and I have already commended their souls.’
Commander Senese ran along the back of the Dordovan lines, urging his men to greater efforts. Three days they’d repulsed comfortably the Xeteskians’ attempts to push them out of the northern streets. But now this.
Dawn had seen fierce fighting on three fronts, with Protectors in every attack. His men were holding but only just, keeping key intersections secure as well as the southern edge of the Park of the Martyrs. But in the mana spectrum, something much, much worse.
They’d been following its development for hours; a cooperative spell that must be taking the combined stamina of over fifty mages. And planning defence and reaction was taking most of his magical resource, leaving this as a battle almost entirely without spell attack. Somehow, though, he had to break the enemy onslaught.
‘Don’t falter!’ he called. ‘Push on. You can break them.’
The power of the Protectors was awesome. Huge men, masked and silent, their dual sword and axe attacks directed by the soul mind so quickly and accurately. But Dordover had to stand up to them. To be exact, the scared men in front of him had to.
One of those men took an axe in his chest. He was cast into those behind, threatening for a moment to cause a breach in the line, but Senese filled it, sword deflecting a low strike.
‘Keep going!’
Their commander’s presence fighting alongside galvanised those near him. The din of order and weapon increased, and the Xeteskians’ grinding advance was halted. Senese wheeled his blade and drove it at a Protector’s heart. Without looking, the masked man whipped his axe across to block, following up with a sweep of his sword. Senese ducked, yelling a warning. The blade whistled just over him, slicing through stray hairs on his head and burying itself in the skull of the man next to him at the end of its arc.
Blood and brain sprayed into the air. The victim tumbled sideways to the ground. The Protectors stepped up their pace. Senese moved to block and thrust again and felt a presence at his right shoulder.
‘Sir!’ It was one of his field captains, a brave young man named Hinar. ‘Drop back. You’re needed at command!’
Senese flat-bladed a Protector across the mask, sending him staggering. Hinar saw his opportunity and thrust forward, his point piercing the enemy’s armour and penetrating his stomach.
‘Go, we can hold!’ Hinar re-gathered himself to turn away an axe, the heavy blow making him gasp.
Senese forced a regular Xeteskian soldier back and ducked out of the combat, another man immediately moving to take his place. He ran back towards the ruined bakery in which he’d set up his command post. The lead mage met him halfway.
‘We’ve got to pull back,’ said Indesi, his face terrified, his hands grabbing at Senese’s jerkin. ‘We can’t defend against this spell.’
‘Find a way,’ barked Senese. ‘We are not running.’
‘It’s too big, it’ll destroy us.’
‘Then combine your shields and talk up your mages.’ Senese stopped and spun Indesi round to look at the fighting. ‘See those men? Up against it but they believe. Start believing yourself.’
‘But—’
‘And where will we run to, eh? Those bastards will chase us all the way to Dordover. We can’t let them run the supply route from here to Xetesk. I will not yield.’
‘Then break through right now or they will win anyway.’ Indesi’s voice was toneless, dead almost. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘I understand we cannot afford to lose this town. That’s what I understand.’
A piercing scream from inside the command post went straight through Senese.
‘What the—’
But Indesi wasn’t
listening. He turned and ran to the door, shouted into its lantern-lit interior.
‘Weave the defence grid. No gaps, dual skin.’ He looked back over his shoulder at Senese before disappearing inside. ‘It’s coming. I warned you.’
Senese shuddered and began to run back towards the line. Perhaps there was still a chance. There were still men running across the small courtyard to the line he was defending. The enemy mages had to be right behind the Protectors. Surely the spell would be targeted by line of sight.
He opened his mouth to shout but swallowed it. A blue glow, brighter than the sun, washed over the buildings ahead, casting stark shadows down alleys, behind trees and across the courtyard. The fighting changed in tone. Voices lost their authority, blades fell with less power.
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Fight. Now you’ve got to fight!’
He began to run forward again but his men were wavering. The Protectors would slaughter them. But they weren’t moving, satisfied to stand by and watch. And the reason became all too clear.
Above the level of tree and building rose a globe of fire, tinged deep Xeteskian blue and ringed by sparks and sheets of what looked like lightning but Senese knew was unstable mana.
‘Oh dear Gods,’ said Senese, staring up as the globe rose smoothly, its radiance glaring harsh, its size, bigger than a ship, awesome and stupefying. His men were starting to break. ‘Stay under the shielding. It’s your only chance!’
But while the Xeteskians stood and watched, the Dordovans scattered beneath the globe and the stillness that accompanied it.
‘Stand firm!’ screamed Senese, but they weren’t listening to him.
Weapons fell from nerveless hands, brave men stumbled and sprawled, legs pumping as they tried to flee, not heeding the most obvious fact. There was nowhere to run. Hinar came to his side.
‘Where are the mages?’ he shouted into the pounding of feet and cries of fear.
‘Trying to shield us. Pray Gods they can make it stick.’
Hinar nodded as the two men backed away, watching the globe gathering speed and, impossibly, size as it rushed over the heads of the Xeteskians.
‘Come on, Indesi,’ breathed Senese. ‘Come on.’
The globe struck the Dordovan outer shield. Mana flared and spat, the globe flattened over the curved surface, bulged down over them. Senese felt a sudden intense heat as the shield gave way.
He put his hands above him and crouched reflexively but the globe didn’t travel far, striking the second skin, but hard. The temperature was like the inside of an oven, the blazing heat of the Southern Continent desert and increasing. From the command post, Senese could hear screaming and voices urging effort.
‘They aren’t going to do it,’ said Senese, breaking at last. ‘Run.’ The two men turned, but at the same moment the second shield collapsed, the great globe crashing down into the courtyard. Senese was blown from his feet by the rush of displaced air and connected hard with the wall of a building. It jarred his back and he crumpled into a half seated position, winded and groggy. He focussed his eyes as the globe struck the ground.
Fire washed across the cobblestones, surging up the sides of buildings and blasting through windows and weakened timbers. Across the courtyard, a damaged tenement shattered under the blast, the rending of wood and squealing of nails torn from stays lost in the roar of flame. Everywhere, men, helpless under the spell, were rolled over or plucked from the ground, clothing and flesh charred in a heartbeat.
The heat in the courtyard intensified still further. Sword metal glowed red, stones blackened, timber disintegrated, glass dissolved. Roof tiles flew high into the sky as the globe breached another building, tearing it apart. A great pall of smoke billowed in the superheated wind, which took the screams of the dying and whipped them away like chaff in a breeze. A burning corpse struck the wall by Senese and broke apart, gaping skull pleading.
Indesi had been right; this was no ordinary FlameOrb construct. There was too much heat, too much energy. It consumed everything in its path, scoured the ground clean as would the fires of hell.
And as the heat lashed the moisture from his body Senese’s last view was of the Xeteskians, standing and waiting, their fire breaking over their mana shields which glowed blue and dissipated its power.
‘What have you done?’ he rasped.
The flame wall rolled over him like an angry sea.
Chapter 15
It was night. Yron was standing alone in the centre of the stone apron outside the ring of guard fires. Behind him, his men either stood nervous guard or tried to rest as best they could in the increasing humidity and heat that had penetrated the temple in the last few days. Presumably, the atmosphere had been spoiled by the removal of the doors but Yron thought there was probably more to it than that. It was like the ambience in the rainforest; he couldn’t put his finger on it but he knew all was not well.
He had come beyond the guard fires to listen and to think. Out in the forest the sounds of the night echoed around him; the growl of big cats, the calls of monkeys and birds under threat, the buzzing of an insect swarm under the canopy, awoken from rest. A spider scuttled across the apron right by his feet. The size of his hand, he watched it go, pursuing some prey he couldn’t see, perhaps one of the myriad frogs croaking all around him, or the cicadas rasping as they tried to attract mates.
Yron felt uncertain and that was a condition with which he was unfamiliar. The runner he’d sent to the base camp earlier today hadn’t returned and that worried him. He knew he should have sent two men but Pavol was very fit and wanted to see whether he could run all the way. Yron was a man to encourage endeavour and had loaded him with water skins and sent him at dawn.
Now he needed him back with news. There was danger coming and he was anxious about the sick in the camp. He needed to start moving back to the coast where his ships lay at anchor, and he was not about to leave anyone behind.
Erys finding the vital writings earlier that evening was good news in the extreme and Yron’s first squad was ready to go before first light the next day. He had outlined for them a different route based on his incomplete charts of the forest. It would take them up to six days to reach the ships, assuming they stayed healthy. They were a quartet in which Ben-Foran had faith and that was enough for him, yet he still felt nervous for them. The rainforest was a danger to all of them but more so now. Their invasion could not go unnoticed for long and inevitably the elves would seek revenge.
The elven guard at the temple had surprised him with their ferocity but there was much worse out there and it was those elves he feared and those elves that he was sure were coming. He knew his men didn’t understand why he was splitting his force. They had been taught there was strength in numbers, but in the depths of the rainforest it didn’t always hold true. Small squads of men, quiet and careful men, would have more chance of survival out there.
Yron blew out his cheeks and swatted at a fly that buzzed around his head. How long before the enemy got here? Should he call up the reserve from the ships to cover his retreat? How long could he give Erys and Stenys to research? Should he cut his losses now? After all they had the main prize, if Erys was right, and all but those papers were leaving for the ships tomorrow. Erys would take the most valuable material himself.
Looking up into the heavens, Yron could see it was clouding over again. Thunder rumbled distantly. Another downpour was on its way. He turned to go back to the watch fires but a crashing in the forest stopped him. He spun round, cocking an ear. Whatever it was was blundering wildly. Probably a wounded animal. Whatever it was was coming straight towards them. He backed up and drew his axe, listening to the snap of branches and the calls of distress that set off the howler monkeys and the wild shrieks of birds in their nests.
He reached the ring of fires.
‘Crossbowmen ready. If it’s injured, we need to take it down. It’ll attack anything that gets in its way and that includes us.’
A heartbeat later and those cries
of distress resolved themselves into something that set his heart racing.
‘Stand down!’ he ordered.
He was already hurrying towards the path when the figure stumbled out of the forest, ran a few unsteady steps across the paving, slipped and sprawled on its damp surface.
‘Erys!’ Yron shouted, running to the fallen figure. ‘Get out here now. Bring me some light. Move!’
He slithered to a halt by the man, who was heaving in great ragged breaths, coughing and shivering the length of his body. He knelt and put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
‘Calm down, Pavol. You’re safe now,’ he said.
Pavol tried to push himself up on his hands, his head shaking violently.
‘No,’ he managed through a clotted throat. ‘No.’
‘Shhh,’ said Yron. ‘You’re scared and hurt. Take your time. Come on, let me help you over.’
Using his knees as a pivot, Yron turned the young man over so his head lay in the officer’s lap. One of his men brought over a lantern and the two of them gasped.
Pavol’s face was shredded. The left side had been clawed away, taking his eye with it. Bite marks covered his neck, the punctures oozing blood, and there was a flap of skin hanging from a deep gash in his forehead that had poured blood over his face. His clothes were ripped and torn in a dozen places, his right hand was mangled and broken and across his stomach more claws had gouged their paths.
‘Erys!’ yelled Yron. ‘Where is that bloody mage?’
‘Here.’ Erys ran up with Ben-Foran.
‘Get to work. See what you can do, then we’ll get him inside,’ said Yron. ‘Ben, remember those leaves I showed you earlier? Not the snakebite ones, the others. Take one man and a lantern and collect as many as you can. Get them in a pot and boil them. Make a drink but don’t throw away the paste you have left behind. All right?’
The Raven Collection Page 175
