by Sam Bowring
Pity, came his voice. Now there’s no time to wish you luck.
•
Dakur stood at the window, sword drawn, trying to see through sheets of water. He was her guard, damn it, and it wasn’t going to take much provocation for him to abandon the hut, whatever her orders were – especially if the dark mage’s companions entered the fray. He might not be able to protect Elessa from bolts of energy, but he could certainly beat back blades.
‘So tell me, friend,’ said Corlas, still standing in front of the cot with his axe ready, ‘what is your plan for my son if we survive this?’
‘He’ll be taken to the Open Halls,’ said Dakur, not turning from the window, ‘where he’ll be safe from the shadow and can be raised in the light. And then, one day, he will claim the south from the Shadowdreamer.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Corlas. ‘And his father? Where does he fit into all of this?’
Dakur remained silent.
‘Where?’ bellowed Corlas, startling Dakur.
‘I don’t know,’ said Dakur, turning to hold Corlas’s gaze. ‘That will be for Throne Naphur to decide.’ He frowned suddenly at the man. Was his face familiar?
‘I see,’ said Corlas, and when Dakur turned away again, he ran his fingers up and down the axe handle. ‘Mirrow, my heart,’ he muttered to himself, ‘you were right – you cannot take on every danger with an axe.’ His eyes narrowed on Dakur’s back. ‘But there are some, my love. There are some you can.’
•
Fazel lay in the mud, his broken bones painfully mending. He’d been caught off guard, having underestimated her willingness to attack.
Well, well, he thought, must be getting old.
Elessa launched another attack, but this time his defences went up and her power slammed into his. He grunted as he struggled to his feet, joints creaking and exposed muscles flexing. His admiration for the girl went up another notch – she had followed up on her success without hesitation.
The air around him began to thrum. Light shone from Elessa’s body, illuminating her determined face as she sent power towards him. He directed his own back towards her. Light and shadow crashed against each other like breaking waves and Elessa screamed. More despair than pain in that scream, he thought. He was too strong for her and she’d know that now. It would be all she could hope just to keep him at bay. He sighed.
He sent a tendril of darkness creeping towards her like a floating serpent. It eased forward steadily, worming its way through her glimmering defence. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she struggled to halt its advance. The serpentine shadow hovered before her, then darted in to touch her stomach. There was a flash of blue energy and she went flying, her muscles contracting to squeeze her bones, her lips pulled back in a silent scream. She hit the ground in a twisted, shaking heap, gasping for air through constricted lungs.
Come on, girl, Fazel thought. Get up.
She flooded her body with light, which he knew would hurt her, but would also nullify any shadow energy it touched. He raised his hand for a spell that would pop the organs from her body, but it crackled into the ground where she had been but a moment before. She had managed a dodge spell, and reappeared a few paces from where she’d been, her defences shooting up again.
Good girl, thought Fazel, smiling grimly as he sent a new wave of power crashing against her. Just win, girl. Win.
•
Crouching beside Tyrellan on a gnarled branch at the clearing’s edge, Rhobi watched the battle raging. He’d never seen conflict between such strong mages and was fascinated. Elessa and Fazel staggered around each other, emanating light and shadow as their hands spewed forth power.
‘How long do you think we’ll have to wait?’ he asked.
Tyrellan did not take his eyes from the fight. ‘Fool,’ he muttered, not with venom, but as if it were simple fact. ‘Do you suppose the day is already won?’
Rhobi glared at him.
Tyrellan turned to meet his eyes. ‘Mages have their uses,’ he said. ‘Does that void us of ours? You,’ he said, jabbing a black claw at Rhobi, ‘skirt the perimeter of the clearing. Stay out of sight. Get to the hut.’
‘While you sit safely in the trees?’ Rhobi asked, scowling.
‘I’ll draw out the mage’s guard, which means attacking her with steel. If you think you can launch a physical attack on one of her magical prowess and survive, be my guest. I’ll fetch some marshmallows to toast over your charred remains.’
Tyrellan seized Rhobi by the throat, pinning him against the tree trunk. Rhobi’s eyes bulged as his legs kicked the air. Tyrellan pulled up close, speaking softly in his ear. ‘I normally don’t brook recalcitrance with such good grace.’ He glanced back to the battle while Rhobi scratched at his grip, fighting for breath. ‘But you’re about to prove yourself useful whether you like it or not.’
He released Rhobi, who scrabbled for purchase on the slippery branch as he gasped.
‘Forgive me, First Slave,’ Rhobi croaked.
He prayed that Tyrellan would survive this night and leave the pleasure of sliding a knife between his ribs to Rhobi alone. Never had he been so affronted. Tyrellan had gone too far! He massaged his neck, wondering if he would bruise. Perhaps Tyrellan had earned himself a painful death. He could drug the bastard, tie him up, then eke out a slow revenge . . .
‘What would you have me do, First Slave?’
‘Get to the hut,’ repeated Tyrellan. ‘Wait until I draw out the Varenkai blade, then get inside. Deal with the woodsman, nab the child. Do not harm it. Get it away from this clearing, then head south as quickly as you can. Get out of the forest tonight. We’ll catch up once there’s no one alive to follow. Understood?’
‘Yes, First Slave,’ growled Rhobi.
He slipped off the branch into the darkness below, landing without breaking a twig. As he headed for the perimeter, he tried to exorcise the blissful image of Tyrellan begging for his life and concentrate on the job at hand.
•
Tyrellan smoothed a hand over his hairless scalp and thought about changing his vantage. Higher or lower, that was the question. Wherever it was, he needed to be able to get away from it fast once he had acted. Did he, even with his superb night vision and finely tuned reflexes, trust a drop from a tall treetop through these windy, rainy, branch-infested surrounds? And if he didn’t place the drop right, with a tree between himself and the mage, he would be falling exposed in the air, an easy target.
He fingered one of the daggers hanging from his belt. He would try for a killing strike, of course, but at this distance, through the wind and rain, he was doubtful. Even if he landed one, it was unlikely to deliver the instant death necessary to avoid a backlash.
He would just have to be very careful.
•
Before Fazel rose a translucent conjuration of a sunwing – a legendary warrior of Arkus. It was a golden-skinned humanoid, with oversized oval eyes and large, languidly beating butterfly wings. Through its insubstantial form Fazel could see Elessa, her brow deeply furrowed in concentration, her lips moving with incantation. The sunwing flipped a shining arrow from its quiver and notched it to a bow. It drew the arrow back, sighting Fazel.
The spell was a powerful one and Fazel was impressed. He dared to hope. He was gravely disappointed when he saw how easy it would be to counterspell. The girl was expending too much power to properly attend to her defences.
Fazel waved a skeletal hand and from the shadows beneath the sunwing erupted a darker visage. Cavernous black jaws exploded upwards, molten mud falling from a fish-like head with burning red eyes. Fazel’s counter-creature clamped shut over the sunwing, leaving only one wing exposed, which continued to flap uselessly. As the sunwing was dragged downwards, both enchantments faded, leaving no sign in the earth of their passage.
•
Elessa staggered backwards, tears of frustration streaming down her cheeks. It had taken all she had to force the sunwing through the mage’s defence, yet he’d squashed it like a bug. Now she felt the merciless push of his power once again.
‘Damn you!’ she screamed, her dress flapping in the wind. ‘Back to the grave!’
She pushed with all the strength she could muster and for a moment the shadows about her receded.
Dakur, she sent to the blade, while she could, he’s too powerful. Escape with the child.
I am your guard!
Escape with the child, curse you!
I will not!
‘No!’ she shrieked as another serpent head uncoiled before her face. It reared forward and she knew it was a death strike.
Lightning cracked the sky, and briefly the clearing was brightly illuminated. In that split second, the advantage was hers. She drew hard on the light, channelling a burst of power towards Fazel, destroying the snake head and piercing his defences with blazing yellow beams. He howled as skin, cloth, flesh and bone sizzled and smoked. The air suddenly stank.
She waved her hand and a glowing sword appeared, solidifying in her grip. She drew close enough to strike and aimed a downward swing at his head – but he’d seen her coming and threw up his hands. The blade deflected, sliding down the length of his arm instead, shearing off a sheet of bone.
Fazel swung his other arm, hitting Elessa in the mouth with a bony smack.
Almost, girl, came his voice in her head. Almost.
•
Perched so high in the swaying tree that the trunk was no more than a handspan wide, Tyrellan watched for an opportunity. With one arm hooked around the trunk, the other twirling a dagger between his fingers, he seemed an extension of the tree itself. A shadowed branch and a single deadly dancing leaf.
Rhobi should have reached the hut by now, was probably waiting in the trees that bordered it. Far beneath, Elessa and Fazel forced each other back and forth across the clearing. By the Dark Gods, Tyrellan thought, she must be talented to have survived him this long.
Tyrellan knew enough about magic to prevent him flinging the blade while the mages were warring at their strongest. That would be when all kinds of defences were raised, and a lone physical attack from an unprotected source would result in almost automatic death for the dealer. He needed to wait, wait until she was hurt, confused, down from an attack. He needed to wait until her defences had been broken.
He did not have to wait long.
•
A twisting root shot from the ground, wrapping itself around Elessa’s leg. She hacked it away with her conjured sword and immediately two more took its place. They were thorny, puncturing her flesh as they wound about her. She disintegrated them with bolts of power, but knew she was only attacking the limbs of the spell, not the heart. More roots snaked up, binding her more quickly than she could hack or fry them.
She knew she took a risk in diverting enough power from her defence to kill the spell, but she also knew she had no choice. With a few well-directed bolts of energy she managed to free a single leg, then stamped it on the ground. A gaping crack ran out from her foot, exposing a mass of roots all split in two and squirming like beheaded worms.
Fazel wasted no time. With her power diverted, he shot bolts of blue energy at her. Several sizzled to nothing in her aura of light, but one penetrated all the way and cracked against her shoulder. The strength of it flattened her, leaving her in the mud fighting to think straight.
From high above came the flash of a turning blade. She heard a wet slap as the dagger buried itself in her side. She screamed, instinctively directing a stream of molten fire towards her new enemy with one hand while strengthening her defence against Fazel with the other. Her power surged, fuelled by rage, pain and fear. Then, as she gasped and drew the dagger from her flesh, a voice echoed in her head that fuelled her with hope as well. Hold fast, Elessa Lanclara, it said. Reinforcements are at hand.
It was another mage of the Halls, not far away!
•
Dakur saw the dagger hit Elessa and that changed everything. No longer was this a fight of magic alone.
‘What a fool I’ve been!’ he muttered as he thrust the door open to run out into the storm. ‘Tarrying inside like a snail in its shell!’
He darted into the trees at the side of the house and began to make his way around the perimeter of the clearing, keeping well hidden from the eye of the undead mage.
‘Forgive me, girl, I should not have listened to you!’
He slowed, moving stealthily from tree to tree, pausing with his back to each one, listening for any sounds of approach – though the storm would mask all but an ogre’s footsteps. Had Elessa’s fire scorched the goblin who had let the dagger fly? Was there just one of the little bastards running around out here, or two?
He started as Elessa’s voice echoed in his head. The one who attacked me is just ahead of you.
The blade glanced through the trees at the continuing battle, worried that Elessa’s communication with him might have cost her, but she seemed strangely empowered for all her hurts.
Look to yourself, he communicated back, but was thankful for the warning.
•
Tyrellan rested a moment. The liquid fire had not sprung from Elessa’s hand to him instantaneously, but rather had issued like a jet of water. Changes in her aim had to travel along the stream, so the whole thing had arced just a step or two behind him the entire way.
He had abandoned his perch as soon as the dagger had left his fingertips, swinging around the tree to place it between himself and the mage, then dropping straight down. As he dropped he’d heard fire hit the tree on the other side and follow his trajectory down the trunk. About halfway down, he’d caught hold of another branch and swung off in a new direction, hot cinders falling after him on the backs of raindrops. He’d leaped and swung from tree to tree, the stream of fire trailing after him. He knew he’d be dead the moment he paused.
He hit the ground running, burning droplets smattering his back as the fire engulfed a branch behind him. He dived away, always focusing on putting a high root or fallen log between himself and molten death. The whole trial had lasted seconds, but for him the time stretched like sap.
Finally he’d heard the magic hiss out behind him. He’d slowed his pace and curved back towards the clearing. His back stung, but the rain soothed it. Perhaps it wouldn’t scar. Tyrellan had never understood fools who showed off battle scars like trophies. Only the most formidable passed through a lifetime of danger unscathed.
He hadn’t seen whether or not his attack had drawn out the blade – or in which direction the man had gone. He reached the perimeter of the clearing and slipped into the lee of a rock, peering towards the hut. Either the guard was still inside or he’d already left; there was no way yet to tell.
Tyrellan bared his fangs and rested a moment.
•
Rhobi watched the blade burst from the hut and run into the forest. He passed so close that Rhobi could have leaped onto his back with a knife. But since the blade was going after Tyrellan, and Rhobi didn’t care which of the two ended up dead, he didn’t see any need to intercede. Instead he turned his attention to the hut.
Entering by the door was out of the question. It was surely bolted, and getting through would take time and place him in the open. Breaking a window, while quick, would alert both the woodsman inside and the Varenkai mage. The chimney? He peered up at it and saw smoke. He had no desire to dry off that quickly.
Damn this.
It was going to have to be a window. At least there was one on the tree side of the hut. Hopefully the mage would be too caught up in her own troubles to pay attention – and anyway, would she dare attempt an offensive when he was so close to the child?
Rhobi picked u
p a rock, tested its weight and stared at the window. He could see nothing inside save a wall dappled by firelight, the edge of a bed and the opposite window. He decided to try to smash out both windows with one shot, giving himself double exit points.
He hefted the stone and sent it flying, shattering the windows almost simultaneously. Would the woodsman even know from which direction the stone had come?
What a talented fellow I am, Rhobi thought with a grin, and somersaulted out of the storm.
As he whirled through the smashed window, he felt the waft of a great axe head swing just beneath him. He landed on the hut floor and leaped backwards in one fluid move, a dagger jumping into each hand.
Opposite him stood the woodsman – a hulk of a Varenkai with torn hair and beard. From under thick brows, enraged eyes met his, while behind the man the child wailed in its crib.
‘Why, you almost had me landing in two pieces,’ said Rhobi. ‘Didn’t your bitch of a mother teach you how to treat a guest?’
Before he’d finished speaking he was hurling one of the daggers at the man’s chest, but Corlas was ready. He flicked the axe head to intercept and the blade clattered harmlessly to the floor. Rhobi gave a nod of appreciation and drew his sword.
‘When I’m done with you,’ rumbled Corlas, ‘it won’t just be the rain you’re dripping with.’
He bellowed, swinging the axe before him in great sweeping arcs. It was a fearsome sight, and for a moment Rhobi was worried. Then he saw something so simple it made him chuckle.
In a lightning move he dropped to his knees, gripped the rug in both claws and yanked with all his strength. Corlas’s feet shot out from underneath him and, arms flailing, he fell. There was an almighty crash as his head cracked the floorboards.
Rhobi moved forward cautiously. Blood was creeping over the splintered wood beneath the man’s skull. The goblin smiled, and bent to retrieve his dagger.
Outside, the wind picked up with a great howl. The walls of the hut shuddered and Rhobi paused. Had he just heard voices? He shrugged, and lowered the dagger to slice the man’s throat. A second later he was almost knocked from his feet as roaring wind poured through the smashed windows. It drove into his clothes, pushing him, now pulling, churning like a sea of malice. Rhobi spun at a whisper in his ear, to be greeted by a slam of air to the face. Stricken by a fear that went straight to his soul, he fought the urge to flee screaming into the night.