The surviving marines, only about half of those that had been alive at the start of the ambush, crouched, slumped, or leaned wearily against the frescoed walls. Most were wounded to some degree or other, but luckily the lances were self-cauterizing. Several of the marines, however, appeared to be unconscious.
With a roar, a lance hurtled through a large winged casement into the broad room and smashed an exquisitely upholstered couch into kindling and ruptured stuffing that immediately caught fire.
Mar ducked and covered his face against the shower of glass. When he raised his head, he found all the marines, including Mhiskva, looking to him. As grizzled as most of them were, Mar realized that the Mhajhkaeirii were utterly unprepared and unequipped for this magical battle. As armsmen, they relied on their training and experience to guide them, but in this sort of combat, they had absolutely none. Against steel they would fight till victory. Against magic they could not stand.
The thoughts behind the looks were easy to read. One and all expected him to perform yet another amazing feat that would win the day.
But his only desire was to escape alive; this battle was lost. He had no idea how the Phaelle’n made the fire lances and knew that he could not simply block them forever. If they tried to fight their way to the intersection and he missed even one, someone would die. If he were struck, his shield would fall and they all would die.
He knew when to run, and this was definitely one of those times.
He faced Mhiskva to speak, but then hesitated as a cold feeling of alarm struck him. The Mhajhkaeirii captain, whose strength had appeared to be limitless, was swaying.
The captain brought his hand up in salute and visibly steadied. “Your orders, my lord?”
Mar grimaced. Mhiskva had put it into words: Mar was in command.
Whether he wanted to be or not.
He did not stop to think. Run High was automatic. “To the top floor, as quickly as we can. We’ll escape across the roofs if possible.”
Mhiskva turned smartly to the bulky door breaker. “Berhl, see to it. Have men put out that fire. Then everyone to the highest floor and set two of the ablest men to shield the lord magician.”
Berhl nodded. “That’d be me and Ulor. Khrupr should organize the wounded.”
“Have it done.”
Berhl saluted and began barking orders.
Without waiting, Mar rushed up the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. The landing let upon a hallway and another, less ornate, stairway. Circling the landing, he mounted these stairs in turn. Behind him, he heard Berhl curse as he and the other marine labored to catch up.
The third floor of the house was entirely open, a solarium with an unsealed roof structure and tall windows all along the east wall. Luckily, the street side was the west. The pounding of the lances had already cracked the plaster covering this wall. A fresh assault shook chunks of a fanciful forest scene loose to shatter in splashes of colored dust. Couches, large pillows, and potted greenery were scattered randomly about the highly polished rosewood-inlaid oak floor.
In another time and place, the grandness of the place might have set Mar to searching for the concealed wealth of the owners. Instead, he ran to the sun wall to look out.
Disturbingly, the next roof was lower by about two manheight. The hale men could leap down quickly, but the injured would have to be handed down carefully, almost certainly exposing them for far too long to possible attack by the Phaelle’n fire lances.
He could perhaps hold the lances at bay once again, but in which direction were they to run? The ambush had been well laid and he had no way of knowing whether there were other Phaelle’n about.
Berhl appeared from the stairwell, huffing, and trotted over to Mar’s side with a thoroughly disapproving scowl. Ulor, the second marine, taller and broader than Berhl, but not distressed nearly as much by the run up the stairs, followed.
“My lord,” Berhl grumbled, “we’ve been ordered to protect you and we can’t nearly do that with you running about.”
This struck Mar as oddly funny. He laughed hollowly. “How are you going to protect me from the Phaelle’n magic? By standing in front of me?”
Berhl’s expression was completely serious. “Yes, my lord, just that way.”
Mar felt his face flush with anger. “No! Get back and stay out of my way. I’ll not have it.”
Berhl did not budge. “The Captain has said we are to protect you, and that’s what we’ll be doing.”
Rolling his eyes in disgust, Mar turned back toward the windows. These Mhajhkaeirii were beginning to seem like depressingly single-minded folk.
Disappointed by the options presented by the view, he strode agitatedly back toward the centered stairwell. Berhl and his companion paced him determinedly.
Mar stopped, looked up, and then pointed at the dark rafters a manheight above his head. “Make a foot hold.”
“My lord?” Berhl looked confused.
“Put your hands together like this. I’m going to step in them and climb up onto your shoulders so I can reach the rafters.”
“That’s not safe, my lord.”
Mar cocked his head threateningly. “Just do as I tell you or I’ll change you into a rat.”
Berhl eyed the younger man carefully. “You can’t do that.”
Mar raised his hand theatrically. “Try me.”
Berhl narrowed his eyes and planted his hands on his hips. “Go ahead.”
Despite his better judgment, Mar grinned. “Alright, so I can’t. I still need to get up in the rafters. I have to find out if there’s a hatchway up there. We won’t be able to take the wounded out those windows without leaving them hanging in the open. Maybe the angle of the roof will shelter us as we carry them out.”
Berhl considered this then nodded. “Aye.” He put his beefy palms together.
Mar sprang up, hopped off his left foot pressed into Berhl’s cupped hands to the marine’s shoulder and jumped straight up to catch hold of a thick joist. He doubled his legs up and wrapped them around the joist, then pulled himself onto the top of the timber. Swarming quickly up an angled brace toward the peak of the roof, he peered about.
There was a hatch – several of them in fact. Square covered openings about two thirds of an armlength on a side, they were most likely used as summer vents.
He hooked his foot and one hand around the brace and stretched out to grasp the matching brace of the next truss in line. Swinging from truss to truss in this fashion, he moved down to the closest vent.
As he expected, the covers were not latched. Carefully, he set his feet down, balancing on the upper surface of a tie beam, and reached up to push against the fitted wood planks. The cover seemed heavier than it ought to be until he realized that it must be sheathed in lead against the weather. He continued to raise the cover until a thin line of sunlight beamed in.
After failing to detect any lances of fire streaking toward him, he slid the cover off onto the roof, bathing his face in light and forcing him to squint against the glare.
“What do you see, my lord?” Berhl called up from below.
“Nothing yet! Be still!”
Berhl made a vulgar comment about crazy young magicians, but spoke softly.
Taking a deep breath, Mar reached up to grab the lip of the vent and popped his head up through the opening.
He was on the eastern slope of the roof, more or less midways, about an armlength below the ridge. He could not see over the ridge toward the street and the long roof blocked his view of the intersection as well. Neither of the adjacent buildings to the north and south was as tall as the house they sheltered in and it would be very difficult to lower the wounded down to either roof. The south route would be surely exposed to the green lances in any case.
He lowered himself back in, climbed down the truss, caught the top edge of the joist in both hands, extended his feet down while hanging by his arms, and then dropped to the floor.
“Well?” Berhl questioned.
&
nbsp; “We can’t get out that way. Not all of us, anyway.”
The other marines began to appear from the stairwell then, the severely wounded carried in improvised slings made of embroidered curtains and fine bedcovers. The wounded were laid on couches and most of the rest sank to rest as well. Mhiskva came last, in company with a quad of mostly fit marines. All had swords drawn, save the captain, whose axe still hung over his shoulder.
Alarmed, Mar dashed over to the imposing Mhajhkaeirii, who had halted at the head of the stair. “Are the Phaelle’n in the house?” he demanded.
Mhiskva’s appearance was still garish, but his strength seemed to have improved. “Nay, my lord, but if they had rushed, we had to be ready to defend the bottom of the stairs as the others climbed.”
Berhl, at Mar’s side, said suddenly, “The attacks have stopped.”
It was true. The pounding of the lances had ceased. The rasping breath of the nigh two dozen men in the solarium sounded unnaturally loud in contrast.
Mhiskva frowned. “I have doubts that this is a positive development, my lord magician.”
Mar turned slowly, studying the walls, then slammed his heal down sharply several times. The floor did not vibrate. The house was quite solidly built with quarry stone and good mortar. The timbers in the roof were heartwood, well seasoned, and no doubt the floor joists were the same.
“Have your men all sit, Mhiskva, and have some hold the couches with the wounded. We’re leaving.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Mar delved the floor.
The ethereal substance of the wood was familiar. He recognized the similarly toned shades and patterns from the creation of his second raft. There were variations, which seemingly derived from the differences in the types of wood, but nothing completely new. He felt certain that he could imbue the individual boards and timbers with the surging brownish shades needed to weaken the earth’s loud crimson grip.
But in the solarium floor there were hundreds upon hundreds of boards and uncounted dozens of the much larger timbers that served as joists. Plus spikes, nails, and dowels.
“Are you sure this is wise, my lord Magician?” Mhiskva inquired tersely.
The Mhajhkaeirii captain had established himself near the head of the stairs, seated cross-legged with his axe laid across his knees. His rear guard group was crouched around him, also gripping their weapons, lest the enemy appear in the stairwell. All the other marines were seated not far from Mar. The couches with wounded men had been skidded close and stout men had been detailed to brace each. Many of the marines looked anxious and some outright fearful.
Mar looked at the big Mhajhkaeirii, unsure of what to say. He had no experience convincing others that a course he had chosen was wise; he acted on feelings and tenuous impulses often based on unclearly perceived information. He did what felt right and adapted as needed.
“I think we can fly out of here, Mhiskva,” he said at last, “but I’m fairly sure that we’ll never walk out.”
Mhiskva looked closely, as if reading the younger man’s face, then nodded resignedly.
Mar focused once again upon the floor. Guessing, he thought that he needed to treat the entire floor as one structure, rather than individual pieces. He could sense the entire floor at once; it seemed reasonable that he could infuse it all at once.
Tentatively, he swept an ochre vibration broadly about him.
He felt himself lifted marginally as the floor began to groan and creak loudly, as if it strained against a massive weight. The sections of the floor nearest the walls appeared to bow downwards slightly. Determinedly, he darkened the ochre and increased the intensity of its vibration.
Some of the thin frames of the windows in the east wall began to warp with high-pitched complaints and then abruptly split, a shrill tinkling cascading across the casements as panes burst. Several of the marines began to murmur and curse.
“Quiet!” Mhiskva ordered angrily.
Recognizing the ineffectiveness of his efforts, Mar abruptly erased the ochre and the floor sank back to its place.
It was clear that the construction of the house bound the solarium floor integrally to the load-bearing outer walls. While intrinsically sturdy in and of itself, his first effort had shown that the wooden floor could not lift the tremendous weight of the attached walls and the roof above.
He would have to leach magic into all of it, not just the wood he already understood but also the unknown stone and mortar of the walls and the perhaps familiar tiles of the roof. As he considered the problem, it occurred to him that to survive the motion of flight, the separate components of the solarium would have to be bound or held tightly together. And, since the remainder of the house would only be unnecessary weight, the solarium storey must be broken loose from the portions below.
All this would have to be done very quickly. He was certain that they had only moments before the Phaelle’n mounted an assault against the house.
Thinking that sand and stone were the same basic material, he attempted to apply his shrill purple sphere binding in a broadcast through the walls. He experienced a clear moment of satisfaction as the links propagated swiftly through the mortared blocks.
Distantly, the keening of incoming catapult stones impinged upon his awareness.
Mhiskva shot him a hard look.
Realizing that no time remained for careful experimentation, Mar indiscriminately washed about with the lifting ochre rattle and then willed the house upward.
Mar and the marines were jostled about as the floor teetered and then were pressed downward forcefully as the solarium jumped upward. The floor beneath them twisted and moaned once again as great rending sounds burst from below and light and dust flared up through the stairwell. The scant few remaining windows in the sun wall shattered and spreading cracks appeared in the other walls.
For a moment, he could not gain trim in the solarium and the floor tilted dangerously toward what had been the south wall, causing several large pots and the plants they contained to topple and slide. Many of the marines resumed cursing and shouting.
Concentrating, Mar dismissed these distractions and worked feverishly to stabilize his huge new raft. Just as he managed to level out the floor and had begun an attempt to dampen a counterclockwise spin, a catapult stone punched through the roof at the former north end of the solarium and passed on through the floor, leaving matching jagged holes a manheight wide. The solarium bobbled, one corner nearest the breach sagging with much splintering and cracking, but did not slow in its ascent.
Beneath and behind them, a rolling thunder began as dozens upon dozens of stones fell onto the city.
Continuing to drive the solarium upwards despite some unsettling vibrations, Mar rose up on his hands and knees and crawled toward the sun wall. The roof and stone walls obscured his view and he did not want to venture horizontal flight until he could see out clearly. He stopped about two armlengths from the damaged frames, not trusting the floor along that side, and looked out.
They had risen – and were continuing to rise at a rapid rate – straight up and were now about seventy-five manheight above the massive mushrooming edges of the dust cloud that was all that remained of the neighborhood below. As far as he could tell, the Phaelle’n had mercilessly pounded the remainder of the house and the area for several city blocks around it into sand.
Judging their altitude sufficient to protect them from the magical lances, he eased back on the ochre and brought the solarium to a stop. The sun wall now faced northwest, with the landward walls of the city distantly visible. Carefully, he nudged the solarium around toward the south in order to bring the Citadel into view.
Rebelling against his gentle pressure, the damaged corner of the solarium wrenched itself away, frenetically shedding stone blocks and wooden planks and vanishing from sight. Air and light rushed in through the frayed rupture and a large section of floor, deprived of support, sagged toward the hole. Several of the marines scrambled away in panic, crowding together near th
e stairwell. The Mhajhkaeirii fell silent then, not even the wounded making any complaint.
Mar took a deep breath to settle his nerves and coaxed the solarium toward the Citadel, centered now through the sun wall. Fortunately, they were less than a league off and the flight would consume mere moments. As he accelerated, a steady wind forced itself through the denuded casements and stirred about the lightweight debris, curling some of it back into his face. A dust mote found his eye and left him blinking against tears as he struggled to hold their escape craft together. Tiles began peeling from the roof before they had traveled half the distance to the Citadel, admitting more light and air and adding confusion to the maelstrom. The shuddering of the solarium grew, opening the joints in the floor slats, and he could sense that the magic that he had used to bind the walls together had weakened.
“We’re going to set down soon!” he warned as the first of the triple walls passed beneath them. He saw armsmen on the battlements below and began searching ahead for a place to bring the solarium back to the ground.
“Everyone get ready!”
As his gaze darted with increasing frustration over the cityscape below, an anxious sweat began to bead on his forehead. Every large open area within the Citadel’s highest wall held throngs of people or assembling soldiery. Most plazas were covered with the multi-colored canvas of tents pitched closely together with only convoluted narrow paths winding among them. Even the parapeted rooftops of many buildings were crowded with the refugee citizenry of Mhajhkaei under improvised tarps and awnings. The passage of the solarium caused evident consternation and occasional panic among these last.
Mar turned. “Mhiskva! I need you here by me! We need an open space to come down!”
The captain rose carefully, braced his feet to sheath his axe over his shoulder, and walked slowly across the buckling floor. He took hold of a roof truss above him with one hand to steady himself, then pointed out with the other to the southeast.
“There, my lord, the Old Keep. Just south of the juncture of the Transverse and Transept Marches, see it? They will have kept the inner bailey free.”
Key to Magic 01 Orphan Page 30
