Dawnthief

by James Barclay

  For an hour, he seemed to be standing it well, but as the morning wore on, he slowed more and more, spending much of his time flanked by Denser and Erienne, or Ilkar and Erienne. The mages, all with well-tuned healing ability, watched anxiously as the wound in his shoulder and back pulled and strained, blood soaking into his leather and shirt and dripping down his left arm, which hung strapped to his side.

  At the first rest stop, and with the horses being checked, fed and watered by Thraun and Will, the rest of The Raven gathered around a gasping Jandyr as he lay propped against a moss-covered boulder. They had come to a stop at the head of a valley. Below them, the hills, windblown and stark, rolled away north and west toward Parve, while behind, the forest land they'd ridden through and which had provided such good cover lay like a coarse green blanket covering steep incline and shallow slope alike.

  Perhaps a thousand feet below them, the principal trail from Parve to Understone cut along the base of the Baravale Valley, which bored one hundred miles between the west's two principal ranges of hills and mountains. Now and again on the prevailing wind, the sounds of marching Wesmen reached them while they, out of sight, sat and considered their position.

  “Is there anything you can do to ease the pain?” asked Hirad. Denser paused from warming Erienne's hands and looked at her.

  “Hold on,” she said. She withdrew her hands and helped Jandyr turn on to his side, giving her access to his wound. She unpicked the crude stitching of his leather and, with Ilkar's help, eased the bloody jacket's parts aside, cursing at the ruination of her work of the previous night. “The wound is pulling from the riding, there's little I can do about that. What I can do is take the pain away, but he'll not be aware of any further damage he's doing. That could be dangerous.”

  “Jandyr?” asked Hirad.

  The elf breathed deeply, the sound a little ragged. “I can't ride on like this,” he said. “The pain is getting too much and I'll hold you up. There's a choice. Either you leave me here and come back when it's over, or Erienne casts the spell.”

  “You can't stay here alone,” said Erienne. “Without treatment you won't survive.”

  “Then the decision's made,” said Hirad.

  “He'll need supporting some of the time. He won't always be able to hold himself upright,” said Erienne.

  “What are you planning on casting?” asked Denser.

  “SenseNumb.”

  “That's a little strong, isn't it?” said Ilkar.

  Erienne hesitated.

  “What is it?” Jandyr frowned. “It's worse than you thought, isn't it?”

  She nodded. “The bleeding is worse than it should be. The flesh hasn't knitted at all. I know you've been straining it in the ride but it should be better than it is. I need to cast SenseNumb to keep you going at all. I should be able to do more tonight.”

  “Will I still be alive tonight?” asked the elf.

  “I don't know,” she said. “I haven't got a good record at keeping people alive, have I?” Tears were suddenly in her eyes and running down her cheeks. Denser put an arm around her shoulder. He looked to Hirad.

  “I think we'd better get on,” he said.

  Approaching the village there was magic in the air. Styliann slowed his advance and moved to the rear of the column of Protectors. Still mounted, they walked their horses in close formation, the innate magical shields of the Protectors overlapping to produce something the Shamen would have to work hard to penetrate.

  After leaving the Temple clearing, Styliann had turned south, his fury undimmed following a second humiliation at the hands of The Raven. And while he saw the sense of The Unknown's words, he had already made up his mind that his route to Parve would not be at The Raven's choice of pace. If he arrived in time to distract attention from them, so be it.

  He had chosen as his first target a village just inside the Heartlands which would have staged marches toward Understone Pass and, possibly, the Bay of Gyernath. The village lay less than two days from the Torn Wastes. It would be a fitting message to the Wytch Lords about where the power really lay.

  “Advance,” he ordered. “There are no innocents. Spare no one.” It was the only voice that was heard as the Protectors pushed their horses to a gallop, making an arrow formation with Styliann at its rear, already forming the mana shape for his favourite destructive spell. He smiled at the very thought of what he had just ordered.

  With only the sound of their horses to reveal their presence, the Xeteskian Protectors swept into the unprepared Wesmen village. Built on classic Wesmen lines, the village was arranged in a circle around the central tribal totem and fire. It contained about thirty buildings, fencing for animals and open-sided, roofed structures for crop storage.

  The ninety-strong force divided into two around the circle, swords drawn and hammering down on the villagers, who scattered screaming in every direction. Men, women, children, no one in the way was spared the blade. And behind them, Styliann rode into the centre of the circle, spell prepared.

  “HellFire,” he said.

  A dozen columns of fire crashed through the roofs of occupied dwellings, deluging victims and devastating buildings. Wood and flame filled the air. Burning figures ran from buildings, noise pounded the ears.

  At the end of their sweep, the Protectors dismounted in almost balletic synchronicity and jogged back through the carnage, axes now drawn in spare hands. The village was in chaos. The dozen buildings hit by Styliann's soul-searching HellFire burnt fiercely, sending palls of black smoke into the sky. Survivors of the flames and the first Protector charge ran, some for the trees, some for their weapons. One marched toward the unprotected Styliann.

  The Lord of the Mount slid from his horse, his magical shield formed and deployed immediately following the HellFire, sword drawn. The Shaman cast, ten black tendrils coursing at Styliann, playing over the shield and sending lines of force around his body. The shield should have breached under the pressure. Styliann could see that in the Shaman's eyes.

  “Oh dear,” said Styliann. He walked forward and punched the Shaman with the pommel of his sword. Around him, the Protectors, silent, fast, ruthlessly efficient, were firing the remaining buildings and slaughtering everyone they found, young or old, suffering hardly a scratch as they advanced. The Shaman fell back, stumbling to his knees. Styliann's kick into his face hurled him clear on to his back, where he sprawled, blood covering his nose and cheeks. The Lord of the Mount crouched by him, the terrified man unable to do anything but stare into his face.

  “You will be a message to your masters, your village will be a shrine to all who follow me, its buildings left to blacken, its people carrion, rotting as they lie unburied in the sun.”

  “Who are you?”

  Styliann smiled. “Dare not challenge the power of Xetesk.” He slapped the Shaman's hand from his nose and placed his own hand over the man's mouth, holding it there while casting a FlamePalm directly into his throat. The Shaman died, writhing in agony, fire from his eyes and nostrils, hair smouldering and cracking. Styliann rose, dusted himself down and remounted his horse.

  “Disengage!” he ordered. He looked about him satisfied, wondering if Parve would burn as well.

  “Close up!” yelled Darrick. “Deploy shields.”

  The four-College cavalry was ploughing along the main trail between Understone and Parve before turning north to come at Parve from what Darrick assumed would be right angles to The Raven. They tore down the trail and hammered into the front of the Wesmen force, stopped along the trail and barely armed and ready by the time they were hit.

  “Shields up!” called a mage as the spearmen at the front of the column scythed the first Wesmen aside. The cavalry galloped through, swords slicing left and right, shields flaring as Shamen magic hit but couldn't penetrate the overlapping College spells. They didn't pause, didn't turn and didn't look back, and in their wake, seventy Wesmen would never make Understone Pass.

  Leaving the main trail shortly afterward for the
northern marches, two days from the Torn Wastes, Darrick drew his cavalry to a halt and a wellearned rest stop.

  “Was that really necessary?” asked one of his mages.

  “No,” said Darrick. “But I'll tell you something, it was bloody good fun.”

  And all about them, the smiles returned to the faces of his warriors.

  Barras stood in the watchtower, unable to drag himself away as light faded on the penultimate day of peace in Julatsa. Behind the old elf mage, his College City prepared for a war they couldn't hope to win following the slaughter at Triverne Inlet only three days before. So many men, so many mages had gone, and while relief had been promised, none of it had arrived. Xetesk had even reported Styliann on his way with a hundred Protectors, but Barras knew in his heart where Styliann had gone.

  And so he stood, watching the dark mass of Wesmen advancing. They would be within range of spells early the next morning, and Barras shivered at the thought of the white and black fire that the Shamen used, gouging the heart of Julatsa.

  The City and College Guards were ready, the College's mages were briefed and positioned, but Barras knew that, failing a miracle, Julatsa would be in Wesmen hands by nightfall the day after tomorrow. They simply had no winning answer to the Shamen magic. Yes, they could shield effectively against it, but the drain on mana and mage resources was so great, it left too few to cast offensively. And with Julatsan swordsmen outnumbered better than four to one, and with no walls around the City, the outcome of the battle was inevitable because the Shamen never seemed to tire.

  Barras felt his eyes filling with tears as he recalled the stories of his great-grandfather, who, as a young mage, had witnessed the first Wytch Lord-backed Wesmen invasion. Towns and cities on fire, crops torched, bodies scattered, children fatherless. Refugees clustered in shelter where they could, marauding bands of Wesmen murdering everyone they found and the Shamen, nowhere near as powerful as this time, performing rites and sacrifices as they claimed eastern lands for their own.

  It was all going to happen again and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. And this time there was no mage force capable of defeating the Wytch Lords, there was no army capable of routing the Wesmen. The only hope was The Raven, but Barras had so many doubts about their chances of success. His last prayer as he made his weary way down from the tower was that they would destroy Dawnthief if they couldn't cast it.

  A shudder went through his body, then a moment of calm. At least if the spell fell into Wytch Lord hands, the suffering of the peoples of the east would be short.

  Safe for now, with night falling to cloak their hiding place in the hills, Blackthorne, Gresse and the remnants of the Bay of Gyernath force sat in cold contemplation of their fate. Already, many of the mercenaries had left to prepare for the fights for their own families, or simply to run, meaning that little over four hundred swordsmen and mages remained to slow the relentless progress of the Wesmen toward Understone.

  Gresse, his left arm bandaged and good for little but lifting his fork to his mouth, bit into his bread, speaking after he had washed it down with water.

  “They'll be at Understone in less than three days if we don't delay them again. We have to try.”

  “It's suicide,” said Blackthorne, his face smeared with dirt and lined by the constant attrition of his forces. Five times they had attacked the Wesmen and five times they had been driven away by a combination of the Shamen magic and the increasing ferocity of the Wesmen themselves. They had two horses for every three men, and taking away the wounded and exhausted, around three hundred and fifty men fit to fight on.

  “We can't let them take Understone,” said Gresse. “Not without—what was it you said?—giving them something to think about. If they do, they'll control all the entry points to the east and the Colleges will be open from both flanks.”

  “So what do you suggest?” asked Blackthorne wearily.

  “First light tomorrow, we hit them from the front. The Shamen are far enough to the rear of the lines to give us a few seconds’ killing time before we have to put the shields up, and at least it'll stop them moving.”

  “They'll slaughter us.”

  Gresse nodded. “I know. But a battle lasting an hour will delay them most of the day once they have re-formed, burned their dead and made sure we are gone for good.”

  Blackthorne looked long at his friend, the older man's eyes still twinkling in his head, his energy seemingly boundless. He had a better idea, but the result would be no less final.

  “We'll take them at the Varhawk Crags,” said Blackthorne. “There, we can station archers and mages to cause trouble to the centre of the column while we make a double-shielded charge into the front.”

  “How far?”

  “We need to leave now or the mages will not get enough rest. And we need to leave quietly or the Wesmen will hear us.” Blackthorne felt himself coming alive. They were going to die but they were going to go down in a river of blood and mana fire.

  “We can be set by an hour after dawn.” Gresse put out his right hand, which Blackthorne shook heartily.

  “The Gods will see us to paradise,” said the old Baron.

  “And the Wesmen and Pontois to hell.”

  It was late evening and The Raven had arrived on the borders of the Torn Wastes. Dark cloud dominated the sky and a chill wind picked at branches, loose vegetation, cloak and hair. Like Selyn before them, they were to the left of the west trail guard post on the edge of the forest, looking out seven miles to Parve, the beacon fires atop the pyramid burning bright in the night sky. But unlike the Xeteskian mage spy who had provided crucial intelligence concerning Wytch Lord power, The Raven were not looking through a sea of Wesmen tents.

  Thraun had brought them through the woodland surrounding the Torn Wastes without error, and they lay a quarter of a mile from the trail, their horses quietened under a command from Denser and marshalled by his mount. The Wastes themselves stood largely empty. Here and there, camp fires ate into the night, but they were sparse. The vast majority of the Wesmen force was now outside Understone Pass, or nearing it.

  But the atmosphere this close to the City of the Wytch Lords was charged with dread triumph. It oozed from the ground and carried on the air, pervading every sense and choking the heart. Standing and staring at the beacon fires, hearing the noise of Parve on the wind and feeling the cold against his cheeks, Hirad couldn't shake the feeling that they had arrived too late. But he couldn't afford to believe that. Not while people fought and died to save the lands he loved, not while the Wesmen marched to destroy his cities and not while The Raven still stood tall.

  A day and a half's hard riding had brought them within sight of their goal, and while the ride had taken its toll on all of them, Jandyr's condition was giving Erienne cause for great concern.

  “Well, here we are,” said Denser. “It's seven miles to the pyramid from here. One gallop and we're there.”

  Hirad, standing next to him and leaning on a tree, couldn't help but smile. “I wish it was so simple,” he said. “Wesmen perimeter defence, Shamen attack, a square full of Acolytes and a tomb full of Guardians.”

  “Well, you can always dream,” said Denser. “Seriously, how do you assess the defence?”

  “Just as I described,” replied Hirad.

  “And too much for The Raven alone,” said The Unknown. “Even if Jandyr were fit, our chances of reaching the pyramid and casting the spell are negligible.”

  “How is he?” Denser addressed himself to Erienne. The Dordovan mage looked up and held out a hand. Denser helped her up and the two stood, arms around each other's waists. The Raven gathered around Jandyr, who was lying unconscious under Erienne's latest desperate WarmHeal. Thraun stood by his head, with Will crouched by his friend, keeping his brow cool with a water-soaked cloth. Even in the sparse light of early night, the elf's pallor was plain and unhealthy, great dark ovals were around his eyes and his lips had lost their colour.

  “Not good,” sa
id Erienne. “Not good at all. I've cleaned and re-dressed the wound. Thraun and I bound it very tight this time including his left arm, so he'll have very restricted movement. The spell has knitted the muscle in his shoulder and is speeding the skin regeneration, but the riding has really hurt him. I'm afraid the SenseNumb stopped him realising the wound was becoming infected and he has a light fever. I can try a SurfaceMeld, but after that, I'm spent.”

  “But he'll live?” asked Hirad.

  “So long as he's not made to gallop seven miles to a nearby city and then rushed into a pyramid to face the waking dead, yes.” Erienne's lips turned up at the corners.

  Hirad thought briefly. “How tired are you, Denser?”

  “Very,” replied the mage. “As are we all.”

  Hirad looked to Ilkar and The Unknown. Both nodded.

  “That settles it, then,” said the barbarian. “The salvation of Balaia will have to wait until morning.”

  “And what then?” asked Will. “How can we do it alone? You heard what The Unknown said, we can't fight them all.”

  “We'll do what The Raven have always done.” Hirad moved to stand with Ilkar and The Unknown. “We'll walk careful, fight clever and run wise.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  The Unknown replied this time. “It means, Will, unless I've gone badly astray, that we'll walk our horses into the Torn Wastes perhaps two hours before dawn. If we're lucky, we'll make the City unchallenged and the odds will begin to swing. If not, we'll fight where we have to and run where we don't.”

  “But Darrick and Styliann?” Will was frowning.

  “We can't wait for them,” said Hirad. “We don't even know if they're coming. And you heard what Styliann told us. Understone and Julatsa will fall unless we can break the Wytch Lords. We've got to try or the battle will be lost.” He walked over to the smaller man and crouched by him, boring the look into his eyes that had fired The Raven so often.