Noonshade

by James Barclay

  They would barely make land before they were caught and still more ships came into sight. There had to be two dozen and more now. If they were Wesmen, the four-College cavalry was finished.

  To Darrick's left, a mage shot into the sky, ShadowWings shaped for height and glide. The General tracked her as she flew away south toward the approaching fleet, waiting to see the arrows fly high, trying to bring her down. Silence reigned. All that could be heard was the creaking of timbers, the ruffle of canvas, the push of bows through the water and the splash of oars. The mage continued on. Darrick realised he was holding his breath.

  Three shapes rose on an intercept course from the lead ship; and they weren't arrows, they were mages. A cheer went up all around the squadron and Darrick's face cracked into a smile. The Wesmen had no mages. Whoever they were, they were friends.

  All eyes were on the quartet of mages circling at close quarters in the sky above. Whatever they were discussing seemed to take forever and Darrick found himself grinding his teeth, impatient for knowledge. Presently, though, the mage was back on deck, excitement firing her eyes and bringing a flush to her pretty but dirt-streaked face.

  She began breathlessly, her words tumbling from her mouth in a stream of delighted incomprehensibility. Darrick laughed and placed a hand on either shoulder.

  “Slow down,” he said. She nodded and breathed deeply, flashing a smile of her own.

  “I'm sorry, sir, but the relief I feel…”

  “We all feel it,” said Darrick. “Now tell us who our new friends are.”

  “It is the army of Gyernath. And at their head are Barons Blackthorne and Gresse.”

  This time, Darrick's laughter echoed through the fleet and across the calm waters of the Bay of Gyernath. He slapped the mast against which he stood.

  “I don't believe it!” he said. “This meeting will be a real pleasure.” He ordered the flagmen signal a return to their original course and turned, the smile wide on his lips, and anticipated his meeting with the two magnificent Barons.

  Just before midday, with the two fleets moored as near shore as their draughts would allow and with the multiple dinghies and shallow transport barges of the Gyernath force ferrying men and horses to shore under the watchful eyes of ShadowWinged mages flitting in the sky, Darrick crunched across the sand toward Blackthorne and Gresse.

  The two Barons were standing side by side, watching the beaches fill with troops, determination in every move they made and in the set of their faces. As Darrick approached, they ceased their discussion and moved toward him, both with hands outstretched. Darrick shook them in turn.

  “This is happy coincidence,” said the Lysternan General. “I had thought to travel to Gyernath to stir the army before marching to Understone. Now I find that two of our supposedly uncaring Barons have saved me seven days and that the army stands on this very beach.”

  “Uncaring, eh, Blackthorne? What do you make of that?” Gresse rubbed at the stubble on his chin.

  “Upstart young Generals with air for brains are commonplace. Fortunately, we are not standing before one of them,” said Blackthorne.

  “And nor are the pair of you uncaring, though the same cannot be said for certain of your brotherhood,” replied Darrick, bowing slightly at the compliment paid him.

  A look passed between the two Barons and Gresse's eyes narrowed. “There will be actions taken when this is all over. But that is for another day. Now, General, let us tell you what we have been doing and we can plan the liberation of Blackthorne.”

  “Liberation?” Darrick's heart skipped a beat and he looked at Blackthorne, who raised his eyebrows. “Did they not drive straight for Gyernath and Korina?”

  “No,” said Blackthorne. “They clearly wanted my town as a southern staging post rather than Gyernath which, for you, is lucky since you hoped to raise an army from there. Much of their force headed north to Understone but it didn't get there.”

  “No more summaries,” said Gresse. “We should sit and analyse this properly. We want to be at the gates of Blackthorne before nightfall.”

  Darrick felt energised, his whole body powered and healthy. This unexpected turn of fortune changed a great deal. Not only had Gyernath been able to repulse the Wesmen attack but it seemed that the north—south supply line was not in place and now would never be. For the first time since he rode through Understone Pass to help The Raven, Darrick firmly believed Balaia could be freed from the clutches of the Wesmen.

  But his belief was tempered by a growing concern. Though they had, by his latest reckoning, around twenty days, time was nonetheless short and, as the brown stain ate the sky over Parve, the noon shade grew, marking the progress toward Balaia's doom at the hands of an army of dragons. Again, The Raven had the task of saving the continent in their hands and again, Darrick had to try to support them, keeping Wesmen from their path. Now he had made landfall in the East, he had to contact them. Because, if anything befell them, only he and Styliann could pass on the knowledge of the threat to the Colleges. And he didn't trust Styliann as far as he could throw him.

  Sha-Kaan sat heavily in the Melde Hall feeling every one of his four hundred and more cycles. Elu-Kaan, the Great Kaan's hope for a successor, lay on the verge of death in a melde-corridor, tended at last by his Dragonene, the old elven mage, Barras. He was doubtful whether the expert ministrations of the Julatsan or the healing flow of channelled interdimensional space would be enough but they had to try, despite Barras’ personally desperate siege situation.

  At least Sha-Kaan was able to advise Barras from his own painful experience concerning the nature of Elu's multiple wounds. The Great Kaan's scales were covered in tiny scratches, his eyes smarted from the touch of claws and inside his mouth the ice of their bite dulled his fires. He chewed on bales of Flamegrass, reflecting that he had escaped lightly, the human's spells critically weakening the sea of Arakhe who had attacked them. Elu-Kaan hadn't been so fortunate, stumbling across the full fury of the Arakhe and suffering horrible wounds deep into his throat. It was these that Sha-Kaan feared and that he had exhorted Barras to heal if he could.

  For himself, he needed rest. Ideally, that rest would have been in his own melde-corridor under the ministrations of Hirad Coldheart and The Raven but, much though it rankled, he accepted that was not possible. So he had to content himself with first the energy of the Melde Hall and then, when he tired of its noise, the calm and quiet of Wingspread.

  He ached from constant toil. The wounds from his battle with the Naik above the southern plains were not healed and the muscles at the roots of his wings protested though the wide spans themselves were furled and stowed. He looked along the length of his body, noting with displeasure the fading hue of his golden scales. Once so bright they dazzled in the orb light, they were now a dim indicator of his age and health. They hadn't begun to lift just yet and his wings maintained their full lubrication but it wouldn't be long. And part of him even looked forward to the day when he no longer had the weight of the Kaan on his broad back. But there was so much that still had to be done and the fate of them all blew with the vagaries of the wind.

  Sha-Kaan swallowed the last of his bale of Flamegrass, the alarm sounding in his mind before he had resettled on the warm quiet mud. He breathed out long and deep, smoke drifting from the corners of his mouth as his irritation fed through to the glands inside his gums. He had known deep inside of him that there would be no real rest but he could have expected at least a few beats. Snatching another bale of Flamegrass, he switched out of Wingspread, the call to the Brood forming on his lips.

  The sight at the gateway shook Sha-Kaan to the core. Though the guard around the roiling brown mass was doubled, they seemed pitifully few against that which they had been detailed to oppose. And the Naik were coming in strength, and with allies. Out-fliers had pulsed warnings back through the net of Kaan minds, forcing the Brood-at-rest and the Brood-awake into concerted action, implementing the defensive plan drilled into them by Sha-Kaan.

/>   But Sha-Kaan himself had to force away doubts that it would work. The gateway had grown far more quickly than he had feared in his worst moments and now was linked fast to the sky above Beshara, grabbing at its edges as it fed its voracious appetite. A thin line of cloud now bordered the gateway and Sha-Kaan knew that would develop, bringing obscured vision as yet another problem to the defenders.

  In time, the gateway would collapse, its structural instability forcing it in on itself. But that would not happen until long after the Kaan and Balaia were destroyed; and the shockwaves it would send through the whole of interdimensional space would ripple tremors through every dimension, though none worse than through the ruins of Balaia itself.

  Sha put the thoughts from his mind. For now, the Kaan simply had to survive the coming battle. From every point of the sky, his Brood came to the defence of their melde-dimension and themselves while from the north, a dark blotch signified the mass of the Naik and their enslaved allies.

  As he reached the vicinity of the rip and felt its pull on his mind, strong like a wind sucking him toward it, the Great Kaan knew that what was to come had to be the last. If The Raven had not reached Beshara before the Naik attacked again, all would be lost.

  He pulsed greetings and orders and the first Kaan flights set out to attack.

  Julatsa's stone-clad grain store sat in the middle of a cobbled square providing a natural fire break from the predominantly wooden buildings which surrounded it. History had demanded it be strong. Times of shortage in ages gone by had forced the peaceful folk of Julatsa into desperate measures and the blood of many a starving man with a dying family back home had soaked through the stones into the earth below. And though those times were long gone, the grain store stood as testament and reminder, as well as being a fully functional city building.

  The Raven, with Denser overhead, Erienne now in his arms much as Ilkar had been over the Wesmen camp at Triverne Inlet, stood in the shadows of an alley that opened directly onto the square. They were parallel to the main street which led from the store, through the southern market and up to the College. Thraun had gone quiet but the hand-to-hand fighting was getting nearer and the level of noise from every quarter of Julatsa was rising. Hirad shifted grip on his sword. They were going to have to move fast and the Julatsans from the College would just have to be ready for them.

  The grain store measured better than ninety feet on its short side, which faced them, and perhaps double that on its longer. The Wesmen had stationed half a dozen guards outside the main doors, which faced the alley, and watchfires ringed the square in front of the four main access streets.

  When the hoped-for opportunity presented itself, Hirad seized it eagerly. A spell landed close by, sending flames lashing up into the heavens. Wesmen from two of the watchfires ran away to join the fighting that bordered the square to The Raven's left and the guards at the door were nervous and distracted, clearly unsure what they should do.

  “Now Raven!” shouted Hirad and he charged out of the alley, The Unknown right next to him and Ilkar, sword drawn, a pace behind. Above them, Denser flew low across the face of the store. From out of the sky above the guards, drops of flame, just a few, lashed down, setting fur and clothing alight. Panicked, the guards ran blindly away, not realising that The Raven were also attacking on foot.

  Beating at the flames that threatened to engulf him, the fastest Wesman ran headlong toward the waiting Unknown. The Big Man sidestepped smartly, left in a foot which the Wesman obligingly tumbled over and finally drove his blade straight through the prone man's throat. Beside him, Hirad ran forward to take on two more. One's gaze was locked anxiously on the sky until his companion tugged at his smouldering sleeve and both squared up to the barbarian.

  “Who's first?” rasped Hirad, springing forward and opening a cut in the face of the left-hand man. “You'll do.” He ducked under a wild axe swing and buried his sword in the Wesman's gut. He dragged his blade clear and rolled away from the attack of the other, who followed his movement and turned his back on The Unknown. It was the last mistake he ever made. Before his body had dropped to the floor, The Unknown Warrior had turned to face the three remaining Wesmen and Ilkar was sprinting for the grain store doors.

  Hirad ran in to support his old friend, though The Unknown scarcely needed it. Angling his sword hilt in front of his face and blade down left, he caught the first axe blow and thrust upward, tearing the weapon from the guard's grasp to go spinning away into the night. He lashed the double-handed blade back down across his enemy's chest and Hirad could hear the ribs shear. The man fell backward, clutching at his ruined body with the blood pouring through his hands.

  Hirad closed down the penultimate threat, clashing blades with the Wesman and kicking out straight to connect with his stomach. The man grunted but still thrust Hirad back and, though winded, held his blade steady in front of him. The barbarian smiled. Moving a pace forward, he feinted to strike right, switched grip and chopped in left. Hopelessly slow, the Wesman had barely moved his sword in the right direction before Hirad's entered his neck, cleaving all the way to the spine. He turned to see The Unknown wipe his blade on the body of the last man. He spread his arms wide.

  “Good, aren't we?” he said, smiling.

  “You know it,” said The Unknown, the corners of his mouth turning up. They ran on to join Ilkar, who was preparing to cast. Denser and Erienne circled above them.

  “Clear at the moment,” said the Xeteskian. “The Julatsans have run into a little trouble just south of the market but the Wesmen aren't organised yet. Be quick because I can see a large force, probably two or three thousand, running in from the west. You don't have too long before they get here.”

  Hirad nodded and hammered on the padlocked, barred doors with his sword. The sound of voices, lots of them, could be plainly heard but he had to try anyway or someone would get hurt.

  “Get away from the doors!” he bellowed. “No time to explain, just get away.”

  Ilkar stood and backed away a pace, giving the slightest of nods to Hirad who could see his face wracked with concentration, his arms tight in front of him and cupped as if to catch a ball. Hirad moved aside.

  “Deploying,” said Ilkar quietly. He jabbed his arms forward quickly and the tightly formed ForceCone shot from the centre of his cupped hands and thundered into the heavy wooden doors. Built to withstand weapons they may have been, but not the ForceCone of a master. As the mana shape ploughed in, they first buckled at the lock then shot inward, the padlock and chain snapping and whipping away to clatter into the wall near Hirad's head.

  “Steady, Ilkar,” said Hirad.

  Ilkar shrugged. “I had to be sure,” he said. The three Raven men ran inside to confront a sea of faces and a thousand frightened voices.

  “Your job, I think.” Hirad patted Ilkar on the back. “You are a native, after all.” Ilkar gave him a sideways look and opened his mouth to call for quiet.

  For an instant, Thraun's eyes misted over as the life slipped away from man-packbrother. He felt it in the core of his being and the passing to the grey dust left a pit of loneliness inside his wolven heart. An agonised whine escaped his throat as he watched man-packbrother's head slip slightly to the side and his chest fall but not rise again. He looked up into the face of the human who tended him. She laid an implement aside, one which had been used to wipe man-packbrother's face, then moved a white covering to hide his still form.

  Thraun could see the sorrow in her and felt the helplessness which tinged that sorrow with anger. The instant passed and Thraun's mind was deluged with animal fury. He opened his mouth and howled at the sky blocked from him by the human structure as the blood-lust soaked into him and cast about for prey.

  The body of the tending woman now cascaded fear, it showed in her face and gushed from every pore. She backed away. He could smell it like he could smell the forest. It was fear of him and fear was good. It told him when a prey was beaten. But she had tried to save man-packbrother and he f
ound himself unable to bring her down. A vestige of thought swam through his crazed mind and he bolted into the open, another howl blasting from his mouth, his body racked, muscles glowing with rage, the blood on his mind and the forest in his nose.

  But outside he scrabbled to a halt on the cruel stone. Outside was fire and shouting in the dark. Outside was chaos and confusion. Humans ran everywhere and the overpowering scent of the hated ones whose flesh he remembered assailed him, mixed with the rotting stench of death. A mass of the humans, those untainted with the scent of the hated, ran toward an opening in the walls. Beyond it, the prey he desired.

  Thraun ran hard toward the opening, his savage barks scattering the humans whose inbred terror of the wolf had them leap from his path. He could feel their alternate fear and relief as he ran past them, intent on the one prey, the strong-scented ones whose blood he had tasted and desired to taste again. He cleared the opening and, sniffing the air as his legs blurred beneath him, drove straight to where he knew his prey waited, a third and final howl marking his grief at the loss of man-packbrother.

  Thraun ran toward the flickering light of a fire. Around it, the hated men were standing and he could feel their anxiety and incomprehension of the noise and flame the pack-humans had caused. His blond-flecked brown body slipped through the dark unnoticed, the noises covering his footfalls and the growls quiet in his throat.

  Prey.

  There was no desire to stalk. The pack were far away, the forest colours dim in his memory and his animal brain ablaze with the anger of something taken that could never be returned.

  At a dead run from the shadows he pounced, leaping high, taking his first prey in the throat, his jaws ripping for blood, his paws braced on the shoulders. The man fell under the force of the leap but had no fight in him, his life already flowing from the tear under his chin. Thraun lapped hungrily at the blood, careless of its spurting and flashing over his muzzle and coat. Lost in desire, he didn't hear the other men surround him but he felt the sharp slap as one of their metal sticks bounced from his impervious hide.