Mar scattered five more concentrations of Phaelle’n legionnaires and obliterated three artillery positions in the time it took a man to walk fifty armlengths. He worked his way clockwise around the Citadel, sending warning shots where he could, but striking directly at any siege engine. He made a point of demonstrating his power, dropping missiles on long arcs so that their screeches reverberated over the city. By the time he reached the northern side of the Citadel, the enemy had begun to flee at his approach.
Scanning the streets immediately around him and seeing no one, Phaelle'n or Mhajhkaeirii, he swung lower and paused above the broad ochre expanse of a three storey marble-faced building. Letting the raft hover just an armlength above the peak, he slid off onto the gentle slope and walked about to stretch his cramped limbs and back. His bare feet soaked warmth from the sunlit tiles as he stared out across the city. There were almost no fires in this portion of the metropolis, hardly any smoke, and sounds were distant and muffled.
Though still stiff, after several moments, he reluctantly climbed back aboard and took stock of his much-diminished raft. Only another twenty-nine spheres could be scavenged if he held true to his original plan. The forward cleats were gone and he could no longer stretch his legs out completely. Resignedly, he detached fifteen spheres and began to convert them into missiles.
Several hundred paces to his east along a wide avenue sat a great circular plaza with some type of monument at its center. Though obscured now by intervening buildings, he had scouted it well before he had landed. The plaza radiated avenues like wagon spokes and one prominent way ran south, climbing a slight rise to reach a set of modest gates in the outermost wall of the Citadel. He had sighted a trebuchet firing from the head of this avenue and every few minutes continued to hear the crack of its flung stones striking the fortification.
Finishing his missiles, he carefully attached them with blue piping tones to the raft. The blue tones were delicately formed and allowed him to detach the spheres with a simple tug, but were strong enough to hold the spheres in place during flight. Then, bone weary and gnawed at by his hunger, he sat unmoving for many moments.
His need for food and water was desperate, but he could not stop now. If he slacked his pressure, the Phaelle’n were certain to attempt to regroup.
Taking firm hold of the cleats, he smoothly rolled right and set off in precise level flight across the rooftops toward the plaza.
He allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction. His flying skill had improved greatly. He had found that he could better steer the raft if he did not focus on the details, but simply let it fly, and had grown adroit in automatically adjusting for the pitches and forces generated by various attitudes. He could swing about, dive, and accelerate with hardly a bobble.
As he cruised toward his target, he scanned the sky in all directions. He had began to wonder again if the Phaelle’n had mastered the magic needed to make objects fly. The skill seemed rather elementary to him, considering that he had discovered it in a single day, and he could only expect that at some point windborne opposition would confront him.
No enemy in flight presented itself. Wondering, he turned his gaze toward the bay, slowing unconsciously in an attempt to gain a steadier view. He could barely catch sight of the warships, some leagues away. What little he perceived in the dim distance did not indicate that any alarm had yet been raised there.
With his inner warning screaming too late, he ran headlong into a swarm of arrows.
Mar ducked reflexively as the arrows sliced all through the air about him. Whipping his head about, he sighted archers crowding a high balcony down to his right and instantly hurled the raft sharply left. Almost as an afterthought, he blinked. An arrow had passed close enough to scratch his eyebrows with its quills and another had slapped stingingly at his shoulder, but none had pierced his flesh. The deck of the raft itself had shielded him from most of the shafts, a goodly number having struck its underside. Fearing a further attack, he made the raft swerve and dance as he sped away.
The arrows had not penetrated the spheres, but bounced from the tight glassy surfaces with odd and frightening sounds. Searching their structures for damage, he discovered a spreading fragility in several and realized that the containment bonds of almost a dozen would burst in less than a heartbeat. Frantic to prevent the catastrophic failure of the spheres, he broke down all the artificial ethereal constructions and released them back to their normal states.
The raft was transformed instantly into a falling shower of sand.
TWENTY-NINE
142nd Year of the Reign of the City
(1644 After the Founding of the Empire)
Ghorn nh’ Rzhem, commander of the Defenders and 3rd Lord of the Council of War, could no longer repress his grunts of pain as the surgeon bound together the ripped flesh of his leg with brutally efficient stitches.
“Quickly man!” Ghorn demanded, struggling ineffectively against the heavy hands of the men who held him to the bloody table.
The surgeon grinned and then splashed a cup of doubly distilled brandy onto his patchwork. The fiery pain ripped a choked outcry from Ghorn’s throat.
The surgeon was white-haired, retired off a ship as were most surgeons attached to the legions, and like most of them had an inborn contempt for landsmen. “If’n I was t’ hurry, milord, you might grow corruption in th’ wound and then it’d be better if’n I was t’ just slit yer throat right now.”
“Curse you! Hurry! The South Gate has fallen!”
The surgeon gestured with an arthritic finger at the pale face of the boy on the next table. “Aye, I hear’d th’ messenger. He might live, if’n you’ll shut up and let me finish so I can start on him.”
Ghorn gritted his teeth to bite back a useless reply as the man went to work with needle and thread once more. A Phaelle’n blade had gashed his right leg from hip to knee in the desperate, panicked retreat to the Citadel.
The light darkened as a large shape moved across the doorway of the gatehouse. A captain of marines, taller by head and shoulders than the surgeon and his burly assistants, eased into the room, stepping carefully around and over the many wounded men packed into the improvised surgeonry.
Surprised, Ghorn repressed an urge to leap up. “Mhiskva! What news of the battle?”
The captain was filthy, covered in dust and blood, some of it, by the look of it, his own. His armor, never more than plain and practical, was scarred and pitted, many of the leather straps were broken and dangling. The front half of his right pauldron was missing entirely and the chain mail sleeve below it was split, the metal cloth dangling free as he moved.
Mhiskva swept a simple pot helmet from his head and saluted. His craggy face was grave. “Your brother is dead, my lord Ghorn.”
Ghorn slumped back against the table. His older brother had commanded the defense at the Southern Gate.
“You are certain?”
“Aye, my lord. We have recovered Lord Dreznor’s body.”
Wetness pooled at the corner of Ghorn’s eyes and a single tear of rage and pain leaked through the sweat and dirt that plastered his cheek. He raised his shoulders and with the strength of desperation, thrust the surgeon’s assistants aside. Shrugging, the surgeon nimbly nipped a last stitch with a pair of shears and jerked a thumb to direct his men to the next table.
Wincing, Ghorn swung his legs over the edge and made to stand. He gasped as fire lanced through his leg and only managed to prevent himself from collapsing to the floor by grasping the splintered edge of the table.
Mhiskva stepped forward quickly and caught him by the arm with one massive hand. With almost frightening ease, the large man raised his commander to a standing position.
“Take me to the battle,” Ghorn commanded flatly.
Mhiskva’s face remained impassive. “There is no battle, my lord. The legions of the Monks were destroyed only moments ago.”
“What? How?”
The captain hesitated. “We are not sure, my lord
, but it appears to be some sort of magery. After the South Gate fell, there were loud concussions in the distance, towards the west, perhaps near Reef Street. I thought at first that it was the work of the Monks, but as we regrouped and formed to face the assault, the enemy arrayed on the Avenue of Triumph was attacked from above and decimated. First a single legion, with thunder and fire, then all the rest in a terrible single blast.”
Ghorn frowned. “I heard that. The entire building shook. I had thought it was some new evil weapon of the Monks.”
“Nay, my lord. I saw this with my own eyes. There was a small ship or boat, though not like a boat at all, which floated above the city. A man rode upon it, guiding it.”
Mhiskva smiled slightly. “He waved down at us. He was too high for me to tell what manner of man he was, but he fought the Monks and if that does not make him an ally, I know not what does.”
“Magery, you say?” Ghorn’s tone was filled with disgust.
“It could have been nothing else, my lord. I have never heard of the like, even from the Monks.”
Ghorn fell silent. Suddenly, the reek of blood and urine and the moans and cries of the injured men overwhelmed him. “Bring me outside, Mhiskva,” he ordered weakly.
The captain took his arm and bore his weight as he limped out into the court of the barbican, holding his leg out stiffly before him. Other less seriously wounded men were laid about, filling the small-flagged space save for a cleared aisle back into the bailey and another out through the gate.
“Send for a horse. I’m going –“
“No, my lord Prince.”
The simple refusal stopped Ghorn short. His cousin, Prince Kherl, had been young, of good heart and brave, but impetuous and headstrong and had died early in the day at the first battle in the Plaza of Imperial Glory. With Dreznor now dead as well, the title of Prince-Commander of Mhajhkaei and the command of all the forces of the city fell upon him. He was also, may all the gods curse rabid Phaelle to unending torment, now but second in line to the throne of The Greatest City in All the World, what was left of it, anyway.
“The Crown Prince?” he demanded. As the Council of War’s liaison to the Palace, the welfare of Prince Davfydd was Mhiskva’s first duty.
“Safe. The Lord-Protector has sealed the stairway leading to the Residence and he and his crew are camped at the base of the tower. He allows none to come near. They fired crossbows at me as I approached, though only warning shots.”
Ghorn and his captain shared a look that said much that could not be spoken aloud. The prince pointed to a wooden platform above the gate.
“I will base my command up there. Have messengers brought to me. I want reports from all the commanders of the North, East, and West quadrants. Send runners to Lords Purhlea, Zhelorthoz, and L’Ghevh. Inform them that I am now in command and that you are my Second. Order Commander Renz to me—“
“Dead, my lord.”
The Prince-Commander cursed vilely. “—then whoever commands the Defenders in his place.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Ghorn jerked his head toward the open stone steps that led up to the platform, ignoring the rasping pain generated when his ripped and bloodied trousers rubbed across his stitches. Mhiskva calmly assisted him upwards.
“I want more information on this sorcerer who appears to be helping us.”
“I have Berhl and two quads from my troop holding sight of him. They are riding the Upper Reach of the Tertiary Wall to keep up with him. He is moving north, attacking the Monks as he goes, staying within a league of the Primary Wall. Berhl’s last word to me is that the Monks are falling back before him.”
Ghorn grunted. “Perhaps this defeat can be turned.” He fell silent as the assent to the platform consumed all his energy, even with the steadying presence of Mhiskva.
When they had climbed a little more than half way, a man in the high boots, sleeveless leather brigandine, and gold-chased sea blue cloak of a Mhajhkaeirii’n Marine rode clattering through the gate behind them. Immediately, he leapt from his horse and started shouting Mhiskva’s name.
The captain steadied Ghorn against the wall, and bellowed down at the marine. The excited man spun, threw down his reins, and sprinted up the steps. Mhiskva reached out carefully and caught the marine when his haste threatened to pitch him off the stairs.
“Captain, the flying boat is down!”
“Steady Berhl. How and where?”
“Ten cables off the North Gate, sir! The Monks brought him down! Looked like arrows!”
“Does he live?” Ghorn interrupted.
Berhl turned and saluted. “I think so, my lord. He fell onto a house but the Monks’ legionnaires are thick about him.”
“Mhiskva, go now and bring the sorcerer to me,” Ghorn barked in instant decision. “Bring him to me alive, whatever the cost. Do you understand? Whatever the cost. We must have magery of our own if we are to have any hope of driving back the Phaelle’n.”
“Aye, my lord,” the captain answered grimly. “I understand.”
THIRTY
Lhevatr dug frantically with bleeding hands, throwing aside the crushed stone, wood fragments, and crumbled brick that had mounded in a small dome shape above the sloping side of the wide pit. The house that had stood on the site, like dozens of others near it, had fallen in on itself to fill its own cellar. His fingers slid smoothly across a soft surface that had the dimly perceived gray feel of ethereal force.
Rising, he waved both hands above his head and shouted at the other Brethren, “Here! He is here! I have found him!”
Advocate Brother Zheltraw arrived first, sprinting. Zheltraw had been en route from the harbor when the tactical ward artifact had failed. He was covered with dirt and sweat from digging in the rubble, but unbloodied. Lhevatr did not know him well; Zheltraw was from a clandestine mainland cloister from the city of Pelthwoir.
“Does he live?” Zheltraw demanded breathlessly, dropping to his knees to assist, attacking the rubble with a marked enthusiasm. Lhevatr knew Zheltraw to be an adherent of the rigidly spiritual Brohivii’n Sect.
“His personal ward is active. If its dampening fields were functional, he should have survived. Otherwise … well, he will look like the others.”
Zheltraw put two fingers of his right hand to the back of his left wrist to make a circle, then adroitly turned his hand to bisect the traced image thrice. This symbol was the ancient sign of the Tripartite.
“The Work,” Zheltraw intoned, as was his right as junior.
“The Duty,” Lhevatr responded automatically then joined Zheltraw in the quiet chorus, “The Restoration.”
Ghme, Senior Encourager Third, Second Troop, 3rd Legion, jogged up slowly. He sank to his knees then sat back heavily.
“I found the High Prince. And his advisors – I think they were his advisors.”
“Dead.” Lhevatr did not make it a question.
Ghme nodded his head, his face pale with pain and his hair plastered to his head with sweat.
Like Lhevatr, Ghme had also miraculously survived the failure of the tactical ward. His right arm was broken in more than one place and that shoulder wrenched from its socket. Lhevatr had pulled him from the ruins of a wagon that had somehow shielded him from the full brunt of the wild forces released by the collapse. Lhevatr had bound the Senior Encourager’s arm to his side with bits of rope and a belt pulled from a corpse.
With a visible effort, Ghme roused to assist them.
Lhevatr waved him back. “Rest easy Brother. Brother Zheltraw and I are fit to this task.”
Ghme sagged, eyes drifting. “Are we all that are left?”
Lhevatr did not pause in his digging or take his gaze from the revealed curve of the ward. “The collapse destroyed only this portion of the city, Brother. The cloisters in other parts of the city are unaffected.”
Ghme was silent for several moments. Then, “Of the 3rd, I mean?”
Lhevatr felt his face grow hard. “I believe that the focus of the
blast was drawn to the restored devices with which the 8th Militant Cloister was equipped.”
In a halting voice, Ghme recited the First Caution, “Magic will destroy its own.”
“They have sacrificed their substance for the Restoration!” Brother Zheltraw declared proudly, eyes shinning. The thought seemed to lend the Advocate strength; he redoubled the speed of his furious digging.
Suddenly, the milky surface of the globe vanished and the debris began to subside around the revealed form of the Archdeacon. Lhevatr grabbed Traeleon’s reaching right arm and, Zheltraw taking his other, they dragged him out of the hole.
Traeleon gained his feet on the slope, calmly extricating himself from their grip. He appeared unharmed and undistressed, despite having spent nearly three hours trapped within the bubble of his personal ward.
Zheltraw fell to his knees, head bowed, praying. “Glory to the Duty, the Duty of All Men, and damnation to those who shun the Duty. . .”
Ghme made to rise, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over backwards in a faint.
The Archdeacon’s eyes flicked from Lhevatr to Zheltraw to Ghme then in a wide sweep across the destruction.
“Give me an accounting of this debacle,” he commanded.
“Of the Brethren,” Lhevatr relayed dispassionately, “it appears that the 3rd Legion no longer exists. This includes the 8th Militant and all of their equipment. None of your retinue save the Advocate Brother here has survived. Some number of the conscripts did survive as I saw them fleeing the area, but neither legion is any longer a viable force. High Prince Dralkor and the members of his council who were present also perished.”
Traeleon looked at Lhevatr sharply. “The pilot of the flying relic?”
“From my observations, I would say that he escaped harm entirely, my lord. He flew away to the northwest and continues to hary our forces.”
“What weapon did he use to break Brother Khlotr’s ward and how was the area of rupture so magnified?”
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