Spells of the Curtain Volume One

by Tim Niederriter

Fort Ash had fifteen-foot-high walls of stone. Above the stone, they were reinforced with taller battlements of wood that could not survive the charge of greater elk, or bear, or land levoth for long. Edmath and Orpus Lengbyoi took their place among the animals. Chelka and her lancer rode alongside him. Tusami Gesa and Morior Lem each rode behind another lancer, opening tears all along the charge. The magic flowed with them and they drew it in. Chelka and Edmath did the same as the formation thundered closer to the line of crab soldiers.

  In the distance a battery of ballistae fired from the walls of the fort, aiming for the troops in the center of the line. A handful of heavy bolts flew from the walls and toward the charging cavalry.

  Edmath made the sign of the branch and shielded himself behind a wall of iron hardwood. He only wished he could protect the others the same way, but he heard the scream of an elk as it was hit, though he could not see the animal or its riders anywhere in the crush. Orpus Lengbyoi sped up, racing toward the enemy alongside the second line of cavalry. The crab soldiers grew larger in Edmath’s vision, huge shelled heads and bodies with tiny black eyes. Human arms bore shields and axes. Each had four legs where a human would have two. A sudden burst of light filled his vision, brighter than the rising sun.

  He glanced at Chelka, his vision blurring. Her stethian unleashed torrents of smoke. A bright flame burned among the crab soldiers and blackened bodies fell to the ground in a ring around the remains of those she had struck. Edmath realized with a sense of dread that the crab kings he’d seen the previous night were nowhere to be seen.

  The earth to the left of the fort shuddered and burst open to reveal a huge carapace. Edmath had only a second to stare as the thirty-foot-tall crab crashed into the far flank of the lesser elk cavalry, and then Orpus Lengbyoi’s stride hurled him into the line of crab soldiers along with the rest of the bears and elk.

  Edmath raised his stethian with his right hand and pointed it from behind his ironwood shield as he made the sign of the thorn. Razor-bladed vines flew from the tip of the weapon and knocked a crab soldier already stuck on the end of a lance to the ground. He made the sign of the branch, and let fly a spear of wood into the ranks of the crab soldiers before him. The battle became a blur of signs and striking as he searched for more power. The greater elk in front of him went down with its only remaining rider stabbing at a crab soldier with a broken spear. Orpus Lengbyoi’s ghostly root pierced through the crab’s midsection and pinned it to the ground.

  The violence of Lengbyoi’s motion surprised Edmath. He swallowed hard and looked away from the kill. The tree’s voice cracked with fury over the din of the battle, loud and ferocious now, not soft or kind. Chelka’s blazing and smoking stethian cut a path through the crab soldiers. Finally, she leveled it at the wall where the human troops were massing with pikes and swords. Light shot forth.

  A huge burning rent burst in the wood and spilled a section of the wall down to the ground. Crab soldiers bit and hacked at the elk cavalry but when greater bears attacked from the third rank, their resistance quickly fell away. The crab soldiers retreated or fell before the bears.

  Lengbyoi carried Edmath closer to the wall. A spearhead stuck in his shield of wood with a loud crunch of breaking bark. Standing behind the shield, he made the sign of the thorn. Bladed vines swept pikemen off the battlements. Edmath sprang out onto an exposed branch and sent a stream of nettles into the warriors before him. He ran to the wall in the ensuing chaos. The screams and stench of burnt flesh filled his senses.

  Cersun Palanse appeared beside him, his bear must have carried him up the wall, climbed with great claws. The bear lord brought his heavy-bladed halberd down on a worm soldier. Though the man blocked with a metal shield, the blow forced him to the ground. A trio of other bears hit the wall and scaled its side.

  Edmath caught a glimpse of Tusami Gesa sending a stream of black venom into the rallied crab soldiers to the left. He scrambled onto the highest level of wall, following the bears. Kassel Onoi’s high stone keep rose up before him in the center of Fort Ash.

  Behind him, the elk cavalry broke off the attack as the bears scaled or smashed the battlements at all points. Chelka flew up the wall on a summoned vine and, in a flash of light, blasted a trio of Worm Tribe pike men out of Edmath’s path. He stared at the place where the soldiers had stood. Charred shreds of cloth drifted through the air over the blackened stones.

  Chelka gave Edmath a glance, her face grim. She approached him, keeping a low profile. Morior Lem dropped onto the battlements beside them. The old Saale folded the wings of his eagle tosh and struck a fresh tear.

  “Careful,” he said. “Be sure you have the power left to attack.”

  Chelka took cover behind a low wall of wood Edmath summoned on the inward edge of the battlements.

  “I understand.”

  The worm and crab tribe archers in the center of the courtyard scattered as another wide section of wall tore away to the right of Edmath and the other Saales. Cersun Palanse’s greater bears scattered foe after foe. Soon the battle on the ground broke from organized formations to countless small and desperate struggles for survival.

  Morior and Chelka led the way along the wall, attacking with spells. Edmath and Tusami followed them, throwing out defensive spells as they went. Morior did not seem to have the same level of specialization as the younger Saales. The small, older Saale must have had time to master multiple styles. His rapid switch from a shield of flexible chitin to a torrent of bone spikes to a whirling storm of burning bile impressed Edmath. As they reached the keep, a great roar came down from the sky. The fractal-winged shadow of Tamina Roshi’s mirache heralded the arrival of the Roshi’s second army.

  He glanced up at the sky and then ducked, his head turned. Behind him a crab king tore through the wall to get at the bear cavalry who seemed to finally be getting worn down by the defenders and their long pikes and arrows. The fighting bears wore chain and plate armor, but the Worm King’s soldiers had begun to find their weak points. Edmath knew he needed to turn away, to return to his own battle. He moved, but too slowly.

  The mirache dove at a circle of bears, which stood surrounded in the center of the courtyard, near the breach, and sent one tumbling to the ground. Tamina flew parallel to Edmath’s position, lances of light shooting from her hand to pierce equally bears and riders. Several of the great creatures fell and Edmath’s teeth went on edge.

  He needed to stop the Roshi’s slaughter of his fellow Zelians. Morior and Chelka reached the bridge leading to the keep’s middle level. Edmath drew in mana and then gave a shout as he made the sign of the thorn.

  Never before had he put such power into the thorn spell, using the stethian or not. He grabbed the roots as they appeared in his hand and the long vines streamed through the air, arcing to tangle with the mirache’s wings. Long thorns cut into the smaller wings that made them up. Tamina looked in his direction, surprise mixed with anger on her features. Edmath doubted what he had just done. He grimaced.

  Morior turned and called out to him as Edmath braced himself against the spiked edge of the battlements.

  “Edmath, let go!”

  Chelka’s voice joined Morior’s as Edmath’s boot slipped, dragged closer to the edge of the floor.

  “You can’t win, Ed! You aren’t strong enough to pull down a mirache!”

  He gritted his teeth and poured more magic into the spell, raw and barely channeled. Blood erupted from the mirache’s fur and feathers. It spun slowly to face him. Tamina’s face showed more anger than fear. One of the fox heads bit through Edmath’s thorny vines with its teeth.

  The mirache hurtled towards Edmath just as he had rashly wished it would in the outrage he felt from seeing the bears fall. A single thought entered his mind. He did not want to die.

  With what felt like incredible slowness, he released the vines and hurled himself flat. He put his hands over his head, the cool, metal handle of the stethian crossing his neck. The mirache’s charge never came. A burst of r
ed light at the corner of Edmath’s vision faded to reveal Chelka’s smokeless stethian and a blazing wound in one of the beast’s six heads. The wounded head fell limp. The other five roared with pain and cursed in the fox language.

  Edmath picked himself up and saw Morior, already at the wall of the keep, cutting through the outer door with a blade of bone with a glowing edge. Chelka walked toward Morior, keeping her stethian trained on the mirache hovering between her and Edmath. Tusami ran along the bridge behind her and at the same moment, the mirache flew backward, smashing into the bridge.

  Chelka saw the beast coming and threw herself toward the door, out-pacing Tusami. The wooden bridge broke apart at its center. Edmath ran toward it, but too late. The two halves of the bridge fell, just as Morior pulled Chelka inside the door. Tusami fell through the air, making a hand sign. In a daze, Edmath made the sign of the branch and rode a bridge of wood out towards the mirache. He saw Tusami hit a lower tower not far below the bridge and collapse.

  That could have killed her, he knew, and the sickness he felt had nothing to do with heights. Soaring out in front of the mirache, he turned and pointed the sphere of the stethian at it while striking a tear in the air beside him. He did not look down, but where he flew, near the side of the keep, there were no bear warriors left fighting. He made the sign of the forest and gave it all he had as Tamina’s mirache flew toward him.

  Roots and trunks blossomed from the ground below him, sending huge, twisted and gnarled columns of wood rising from the courtyard in a wide radius. They rose halfway up the side of the keep as he poured more power into the spell. Despite his invested magic, and the powers of the stethian many of the trees began to turn black and die in places, even as they grew in others.

  The mirache snapped one of the extending branches but was hit squarely in the belly by another trunk shooting up from below. It flipped over as Edmath leapt onto a rising branch and left his original branch to fall. He struck again as he watched the mirache fall through the massive trees he’d summoned. Vertigo seized him, but along with it, the thrill of power.

  He would never have dared use this much power without the stethian, never would have dreamed he would do something like this, in battle or in peace. Guiding the growing branch beneath him with the stethian, he flew down upon it, heading through the still growing trees toward the rooftop where Tusami lay on her back.

  He landed on the stone roof and ran over to her. She groaned and looked up at him. He did not see any blood near her head, which relieved him. Any Saale who had studied life arts knew the most vulnerable parts of the human body. Her right leg might be broken from the angle it jutted out, but that was the worst of it. She looked at him with an expression of disbelief on her face.

  “What happened? You beat her.”

  “Yes.” Edmath felt a thrill of power in his hands and heard it in his voice. “With this.” He raised his stethian. “Now, I need to get you out of here. We need to catch up with Chelka and Lem.”

  He heard a loud roar from behind him and turned as Tamina’s face appeared over the wall, followed by the rest of her and her mirache below her. She drew her sword and pointed it at him.

  “Edmath Benisar. You won’t escape this time.”

  Edmath knew that if he didn’t move Tusami wouldn’t be able to escape either. He stared at Tamina and her maimed steed. The head Chelka had hit still hung limply and the others hissed vicious sounds that he could barely tell were words, even in the fox language.

  “Kill. We must kill.”

  “Insults.”

  “Sticks and leaves.”

  Edmath threw himself into motion and ran along the flat rooftop. His sandals pounded on the tiles and his striker opened tear after tear with tiny flicks and pokes. The mirache chased him. He needed to get around it if he was going to get back to the trees where he might have a chance.

  The fresh morning sun was obscured for a moment by a cloud as he turned to face the oncoming mirache. The magic from his tears flowed away from him too fast for him to draw in much and he needed more power. He made the sign of the trunk and shot upward from the rooftop tiles, straight into the sky.

  The mirache hit his pillar of wood and splintered it at the base, sending it tumbling down. Edmath grabbed the side of the trunk as his feet left the ground. He dropped his stethian and made the sign of the trunk again as he fell. At his will, the wood appeared beneath him and, crashed through the tiles of the roof with him atop it. He grabbed the edge of the great gash it carved in the structure, just before the disintegrating summoned matter broke into dust.

  He panted for breath as he pulled himself up through the hole. His stethian lay on the rooftop beside him. The mirache circled in the distance in the corner of his eye. Looking out at the battlefield below, Edmath thought the empire’s plan might be working. The city could fall to this attack if the fort was taken.

  Edmath turned and struck so that the magic flowed directly into him. He grew a wooden shield from the remains of the first trunk he’d summoned and faced Tamina once again. Her mirache blazed in upon him, red fur matted with dark blood. He ran backward, dropping onto the roof near where Tusami had fallen and all the way to the edge of the roof, where he made the sign of the thorn with a weary breath on his lips.

  Tamina and her creature burst through the wall of wood and raced toward Edmath. Shards of stone fell across the tiles. He cast the vines around one of the mirache’s heads and held on tight to the root and the blades bit into it. Dragged off the rooftop by the massive movements of the beast, Edmath gave a wild yell and took aim with his stethian. If he made a sign he would drop into the courtyard. He would never survive the fall even with his stethian’s help if he killed the mirache.

  A head swooped down to bite at him and he let go of the root, even as made the sign of the vine. Hurling its spiny loop over the branch of the massive tree he’d just flown past, Edmath caught himself and dropped onto a lower branch amid the tangled thicket of towering trees he had summoned moments ago. He hunched and tried to catch his breath even as he opened a pair of new tears to fill up his power supply once again.

  He aimed the stethian not at the circling mirache, but at the tree nearest it, and made the sign of the branch. A huge spear of new wood shot forth from the trunk and struck the creature in a welter of blood. A trickle of white smoke rose from the ball of his stethian as the mirache fell. Edmath’s eyes widened at the sight. He had killed the creature.

  He sank down with his back against the blackening trunk of the tree and looked down at the courtyard full of bodies and struggling warriors. Over the terrible sounds of the battle, Edmath heard a woman shriek with pain and hatred. Tamina raced toward him, springing from decaying tree branch to decaying tree branch, sword drawn. Her red hair streamed out behind her. Her torn and battered armor hung ragged on her shoulders.

  He barely found his feet before she was upon him. Her blade opened a gash in his shoulder before he could block with his stethian. He rolled forward, falling off the branch still full of power.

  Tamina followed his descent, sword pointed down at him. He grabbed another branch and swung around underneath it as she landed above him. His arms screamed with pain. He let go and grew a branch out from under the tree to catch him not far down. Tamina swung her sword down at him and the blade took a sliver from his ear even though he ducked. Red flecks drifted before his vision, blood from his fresh and painful wound.

  Staggering backward along the length of the branch, he leveled the stethian at Tamina. One shot. He only needed one shot. She leapt and he traced her movement upward while making the sign of the vine. Her sword slashed out, striking the stethian out of his hand. A sudden drain hit Edmath as his weapon fell into the courtyard below.

  Vines flew from his hand and trapped Tamina’s sword before she could bury it in his throat. He fell onto his back and threw her over himself, still tangled in vines. She flew off the branch and he rolled onto his back. He broke the vines by releasing his focus and let her f
all. She dropped to the rooftop beside Tusami and landed without bending her legs. Turning to look back up at Edmath, she strode toward Tusami, sword drawn. Her lips twitched with rage.

  Realizing her intent, Edmath grew a swift branch directly at her. Focusing, he sharpened the end of it into a lethal stake and rode it toward Tamina. She turned, body trembling with unseen power and thrust her sword at him over his on-rushing plant. He changed the branch’s course at the last moment and circled around her once, then twice, then three times, rising and narrowing the circle with every loop. Again and again, he wrapped the narrow branch around her. He stopped when he went over her head but her sword slashed through the wood, narrowly missing his foot. He leapt down and made the sign of the vine with one hand and the sign of the root with one and the trunk with the other.

  Tamina burst out of the branches, heading straight for him. The vines he summoned entwined her forearm and pushed the sword past him. The branch he summoned next shot up from the ground below her hurled her upward. Another vine tugged the sword from her hand. She leapt down and tackled him, wrestling him off the rooftop.

  They fell together, her hands finding his throat and forcing the air from his lungs even as they hit the ground side by side. Edmath’s world shattered into lights and sounds as his head cracked against the dirt. Tamina’s hands clutched tighter, squeezing around his neck. He couldn’t breathe. She pulled herself on top of him and drove a fist into his face.

  Edmath’s glasses skidded off. His ears rang with the force of it and his vision swam. He started to make the sign of the star with the hand pinned against his belly. Tamina hit him again and blood started to flow from his nose. Without his glasses, he could barely make out her face. He completed the sign with the last of his coordination and focused it into Tamina’s stomach. The sign of the star was one of Chelka’s favorites, he remembered through the pain. It was a shame he could never get it right when he tried it.

  The flash of light from his hand overwhelmed what was left of his senses. The smell of burnt flesh reached his nose. Tamina went limp on top of him. She fell forward. Nausea filled his stomach, the intense pain of the kill. Pain he had never experienced before, the pain he had dreaded since learning of it. It stabbed him from every direction, breaking his senses with no stethian to protect him. He gave into the pain, lacking even the strength to push Tamina’s limp body off of him. His eyes were open but the world was pure light just before the next spasm of pain turned it black.