“This doesn’t mean we are giving up,” the wizard Nathan had insisted, “but even if every single person in Renda Bay killed a hundred enemies, General Utros and King Grieve would still have enough fighters to grind your town into dust. We’ll still find a way to hurt them.”
“I need to keep our people safe,” Thaddeus agreed. “We will load the three sailing ships and every fishing boat we have, and others will flee into the hills and hide. We have to get our people out of here. We have to!”
Accompanied by squads of D’Haran soldiers, Norcross marched up and down the streets, pounding on doors. Criers shouted for all citizens to pack up their food and run for their lives. By the time General Utros arrived, Renda Bay would be a ghost town, stripped of any resources he could use.
Down by the docks, lines of men and women carried satchels of their most precious belongings as they boarded boats to get away. Wailing children clutched their mothers’ hands or tugged on their skirts; one pigtailed girl grinned as if this were a great adventure.
In order to make more room on the Daisy, Kenneth had tossed any crates, barrels, and tools overboard. Now loaded with people, the fishing boat rode so low in the water that Kenneth looked concerned. He pulled up the boarding plank. “Can’t take any more people. There are other boats.”
Even though the relentless army was less than a day away, according to scout reports, the villagers remained mostly calm. They waited for more vessels to reach the docks as the Daisy set sail and moved off past the stone defensive towers. Once the heavily laden craft reached open water, Kenneth turned north, followed by ten other equally full vessels in a civilian flotilla. They sailed away, hoping to be far out of sight before the armies closed in.
As more boats took on passengers, one old woman wrestled with two goats. She stamped her foot on the dock boards, but the fisherman captain waved her away. “You can’t come aboard with the animals. There’s no room! We have to save the people.”
“But Choo and Loo are like people. They’re my children.” She wrapped her bony arms around the goats. “I won’t leave them behind.”
The passengers already aboard called out from the deck, frightened and impatient, “Leave them, Maggs! That army’s coming.”
“I know! And those soldiers will eat Choo and Loo.”
Sensing the tension, Norcross hurried among the people. “Take your animals deep into the hills and hide, ma’am. Turn the goats loose, and they’ll be fine, but be sure to go far enough away from the army. You can stay out there with them, or come back here to board a boat if you make it in time. We just don’t have enough vessels to carry livestock!” The goats bleated pitifully, and Norcross frowned. “No matter how cute they are.”
Old Maggs left in a huff, yanking the ropes and leading her goats through the crowds and out of town.
In small dinghies, sailors rowed load after load of people out to the three large cargo ships anchored outside the bay. After overseeing the evacuation, Norcross would join General Zimmer and Thaddeus, who were already aboard Captain Mills’s ship, directing the movement and retreat.
Amber accompanied him, along with Sisters Rhoda and Eldine, while the other Sisters of the Light worked their way through the town with Nathan, Oron, and the remaining gifted defenders. They were preparing a surprise for the ancient army.
“We’ve been separate for so long,” Amber said to him with a smile. “I want to stay with you.”
“I missed you, too,” he said. “When we’re aboard our ship, we’ll have plenty of time to catch up, but for now, all these people…” He sighed. “There must be a thousand left to evacuate!”
“I’ll help however I can,” she said, lifting her chin. “Prelate Verna was very patient in teaching me how to use my gift. She taught me amazing things.” She looked away to hide her sad expression. “I really miss the prelate. She was so kind to me and so wise.”
“She did meet a brave end.”
Amber nodded. “Yes, but it was still an end. I’d rather she were still here.”
Lila and Bannon came down to the docks, flushed from running. The young man looked upset. “That’s a stubborn family! What do they expect to do? Throw clay pots at thousands of soldiers?”
Lila seemed equally annoyed. “It is a potter’s shop, not a gold mine. We could not convince them.” She glared at Bannon. “And you refused to let me knock them senseless and drag them here.”
Norcross let out a heavy sigh, knowing that there were many families who simply refused to leave. “It might not be a gold mine, but it is their home. I only hope they’re sensible enough to flee as soon as they see the army approaching.”
Over the next hour, the last fishing vessels sailed away. The three cargo ships were nearly full after a constant succession of rowboats carried groups out to where the ships were anchored and came back to pick up more evacuees. When it was time, with the town mostly empty behind them, Bannon and Lila climbed aboard a dinghy so they, too, could take a place aboard Captain Mills’s ship.
“This is a great improvement over our last boat,” she remarked, and Bannon agreed.
Norcross and Amber remained behind to round up the last few boatloads. Thorn and Lyesse jogged down the streets, making a beeline toward the harbor as they sounded the alarm. “The first enemy soldiers are no more than an hour away!”
“We killed only four before we had to retreat,” Lyesse added. “I don’t think we slowed them much. They are more wary now.”
Thorn frowned. “Nathan commanded us not to fight any more of the army for now, because it puts us at unnecessary risk.” She sounded disappointed. “It seems wrong.”
“Oron, Olgya, and Perri concurred.” Lyesse sounded equally downcast. “But since they are all that remains of the wizards’ duma from Ildakar, we must obey them. They told us to go.” The two morazeth watched the next dinghy come in, rowed by two muscular sailors.
“We all have to obey orders,” Norcross said. Behind him, the town was empty. He could see the deserted wooden houses, shops, inns, town hall, and the open square. “There aren’t many boats left for Nathan and the others. Are they almost finished?”
“Who can know about the work of wizards?” Lyesse asked with a snort. She sprang from the dock into the dinghy even before the sailors had tied it up. Her morazeth sister joined her.
Amber smiled at her brother. “Let’s get out to the ships. It’s our turn.”
Norcross and Amber rode with the two morazeth and several other stragglers as more empty rowboats came to the docks for the last evacuees, which would include Nathan and his companions.
The burly sailors were weary at the oars, having gone back and forth several times already. Seeing this, Thorn and Lyesse moved them from their bench. “You require rest. Let us row.”
Surprised, the muscular men relinquished the oars. The morazeth rowed with great vigor, pulling them toward the nearest three-masted sailing ship. As they passed beneath the tall siege towers at the mouth of the bay, Norcross looked up with a pang. He saw the catapults lined up, ready to hurl boulders at oncoming serpent ships. He had worked so hard on the town’s defenses. “We were prepared to hurt the Norukai, but we won’t get the chance.”
“We’ll get a chance.” Amber clutched her brother’s arm. “This is our chance to survive.”
When the dinghy reached the sailing ship, Norcross and the passengers climbed up a slat ladder to the deck, which was already crowded with Renda Bay evacuees. Captain Mills stood at the stern shading his eyes, deeply worried. In the small boat below, the sailors prepared to set off again, glad for their brief rest while the morazeth rowed.
Norcross stared back at the deserted town. A gigantic army would swarm through those streets before long, ransacking empty buildings. He hoped Nathan and the others would make it back soon.
A lookout high on the mainmast used a spyglass peering southwest. “Confirmed, Captain! Sighting confirmed!”
Mills began clanging a brass bell mounted next to the wheel. He ham
mered the clapper back and forth for all he was worth. “Prepare yourselves! They’re coming.”
Norcross turned to look out at the open sea and saw a line of ominous ships just coming into view, all of them with midnight-blue sails.
* * *
Nathan went from building to building in Renda Bay, scribing spell-forms on bare walls, laying down protective webs, and adding anchor points. He fervently wished he had Prelate Verna there to help him, or Elsa with her transference magic. “Dear spirits, I don’t normally use my gift for so much destruction, unless I absolutely have to.”
“This time you absolutely have to,” said Perri. The woman’s gift was weaker than Leo’s had been, but as a shaper Perri could use magic to shift wood and stone. She used her finger to embed gouges and spell-forms in the walls of town buildings, inscribing them swiftly and perfectly, whereas Nathan would have had to carve the designs more crudely with the point of his knife.
With great relish, Oron and Olgya went about setting booby traps. Lord Oron used paint to draw looping connective runes from one street to another, laying down what looked like an odd design but was actually a convoluted trap. This would become readily apparent as soon as the enemy soldiers triggered the small constructed spells in the doorways of major buildings and collapsed the interconnected webs. Olgya laid down magical trip wires across the main streets and inside the primary storehouses that were sure to attract the starving army.
Though he felt a chill about preparing such a cascade of powerful magic, Nathan knew this set of spells was not the same as Verna’s Weeping Stone spell, which had slipped out of her control. This was far simpler, cleaner magic, and they all knew how to use it and master it.
Nathan had mapped the streets of Renda Bay and picked their targets. His gifted comrades listened intently as he described his strategy. “We have to lure the front ranks into the destructive zone. Only then can we let the magic be triggered, otherwise it’ll be too soon.”
Oron gritted his teeth, “So long as they are dead, I don’t care where the magic strikes.”
“We’ll kill more of them if we let them reach the center of town before the trap is sprung,” Sister Sharon pointed out. “The prelate killed thousands when she brought down the canyon wall. Let us do the same in Renda Bay.”
“General Utros may be more cautious now,” Nathan said. “The important part is that we deny them any supplies. His soldiers are already starving, marching along and half dead. They will drop from hunger and weariness soon.”
“I’d rather they burn,” Oron said.
Nathan and Perri worked together in the town hall for the last stage of their plan. Standing inside Thaddeus’s office looking at the historic ledgers and books on the shelves, he felt sadness again. “More knowledge being wiped out. Again! I wonder how we will ever forgive ourselves.”
Perri asked, “Would you rather keep your musty old tomes and let the world be conquered? Sacrificing a few books does not seem like such a great cost to defeat the army.”
“I would rather survive and write new books.”
Perri finished marking spell-forms on the walls of the town leader’s office. “There, now the lines are connected from the tower down to the foundations. Renda Bay is evacuated, and everything is set. We should get to the ships.”
“Yes, the army is close.” Wearing his fine embroidered cape and vest, Nathan felt satisfied as he emerged from the town hall to meet his gifted companions. “Time to go. Everyone down to the harbor.”
They hurried toward the docks, where the calm, blue waters of Renda Bay awaited them. The fishing boats had loaded up and already sailed away to the north. The three large cargo ships remained anchored, filled with passengers and ready to depart, with just a few rowboats ready to carry Nathan and his gifted saboteurs. He glanced one last time at the vacant town. Everyone seemed to be gone. The homes were empty, except for the booby traps of magic they had placed in strategic places.
He heard a sudden loud clamor from the sailing ships out on the water, a bell ringing and ringing to sound the alarm.
Perri looked up. “What is that?”
“Nothing good.” Oron hurried down the street to the waiting rowboats at the dock, where anxious sailors urged them to hurry. Nathan and the others ran faster.
From the dock he could see at least a hundred serpent ships on the horizon, sailing directly toward Renda Bay.
CHAPTER 64
General Utros had not smelled the sea in fifteen centuries. Long ago, one of his military marches had taken him to the coast, and he remembered how he had stared out at the sun on the open waves, observed the sailing ships and fishing settlements, and known he wanted to conquer them.
Now, the relentless march took his army along a river that flowed to the ocean. Approaching Renda Bay, he smelled the salt air again, which brought with it a tang of freedom. The soldiers marched nonstop, hour after hour, though they were gaunt and starving despite the spell that numbed the gnawing hunger in their bellies. Along the river, they grabbed fish, waterfowl, even weeds from the current, devouring whatever they could find. And they kept moving.
Utros, Enoch, and Ruva rode in the lead as they approached a significant town at the mouth of the river, the largest settlement they had encountered since crossing the mountains. Along the way, his army had overwhelmed smaller villages, mining towns, and crossroads settlements, which had offered only lean pickings. Renda Bay at last would offer supplies and materials.
“Tonight we will eat well,” said First Commander Enoch, sitting high on his dark horse.
Utros considered making this fishing port his new base, where he could meet up with the Norukai fleet. After King Grieve and his serpent ships departed from Ildakar, the two great military forces had had no communication with each other, and their overall war plan was based on nothing more than crude maps and vague memories. During the long days of marching, Utros had pondered strategic possibilities about conquering the land, whether to use his army as a single battering ram to crush anything in the way, or to split the force into dozens of sub-armies dispatched in all directions. He would make his final decision once he conquered Renda Bay.
When the Norukai eventually joined with his army, the scarred raiders would inspire fear among their victims. Utros would let the reckless warriors bear the brunt of any resistance, suffering casualties so that his own men remained uninjured. That was his entire purpose for the alliance with them.
“Will King Grieve be here in Renda Bay? And his vile shaman?” Ruva’s voice turned sour.
“We shall see. We don’t need the Norukai, but we can use them.” He urged his black stallion toward the town’s outskirts. A ripple of excitement rolled through the ranks, an awareness that their destination was ahead at last, and the town would no doubt be filled with supplies and plunder.
They passed empty meadows, stripped orchards, abandoned farmhouses, vacant paddocks for goats, sheep, or cattle, but no livestock. Utros frowned. “The people have fled. Where are the animals?”
“That’s no surprise, sir,” Enoch said. “They must have seen our army coming for days. Who would dare to stand against us?”
Outriders broke into farmhouses and came out with blankets, some cook pots, and scraps of clothes, but they reported that the pantries were empty, every one of them. Even barrels in the root cellars were gone. More scouts ransacked the outlying buildings and issued similar reports. Seeing no food at hand, anywhere, the troops began to grow anxious.
Enoch’s expression hardened. “Should I make a sortie into town, General? See what we can find?”
Annoyed, Utros urged his mount to a faster pace. “We will all go.”
With a flicker in the air, Ava’s shimmering spirit appeared. “I went ahead, beloved Utros. Renda Bay has been abandoned. The people fled.” She drifted against her twin sister, and the green aura brightened, as if the two drew energy from each other. “The whole town is empty.”
Ruva’s voice echoed along with her twin’s. “
The wizard Nathan and his gadflies must have arrived first and warned them.”
Ava separated. “We should have killed him and all those others at Cliffwall! That might have appeased the Keeper while we continue our war.”
“Killing those people is of secondary importance,” Utros said. “Even if the town is empty, we will occupy it as our base of operations. I need to plan our next move, with or without the Norukai.”
He pressed his stallion into a gallop, and Enoch and Ruva rode beside him as if making a military charge. The soldiers in the vanguard let out a heroes’ cry and charged ahead to attack a silent city.
At the edge of town, Utros noted stables, farmhouses, a smithy, a sawmill, a brickyard, a cooper’s shop with half-finished barrels lying among piles of staves and iron hoops. At the center of Renda Bay they saw the main square, the large town hall. Everything was empty.
“Find them!” Utros pointed to the left and right. “Those are warehouses, grain silos. There must be some animals in the pens and stockyards. Report all food stockpiles you find. Our supply sergeants will divide up the spoils to best feed our men.”
The encroaching army roared with excitement. Soldiers broke ranks and rushed into the streets, ransacking the buildings. They smashed doors and charged into warehouses, but they came back out perplexed, angry, and empty-handed.
“There’s nothing, General,” reported one of the first scout captains. “The barns and warehouses are vacant. We didn’t find even a bale of hay for our horses.”
Utros adjusted the horned helmet and stared ahead. “I have conquered an abandoned town.” He pushed his stallion toward the central square. “There must be more here!”
Enoch gestured beyond the descending streets that led to the water and the open bay. “Down there, sir. Look at the docks—all the boats are gone.”
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