by Hal Emerson
Let’s hope my luck held.
Joli and Qoric emerged from the end of the rushing tide of Commons fifty yards in front of them, each mounted on their horse and leading two other horses with them. And not a moment too soon – the heavily reinforced metal of Lorna’s breastplate’s shoulders was digging painfully into his chest and crotch with each long, loping stride.
Lorna swung him around and landed him on the ground beside her. His heel immediately began to burn again with an insistent fire, but he managed to take two limping strides and catch Aron’s reins. He pulled himself into the saddle and watched Lorna jump onto the back of hers, though, now that he thought about it, she might go faster without one.
Davydd spun Aron around and watched the retreating backs of the Commons: thousands had made it out and were now swarming up the hill, almost to the top. He glanced back at the clock tower and found it covered in shadows from their angle on the hillside. He looked up at the moon and saw it was nearly where it should be.
Five minutes, if that.
“You!” shouted a voice. “What’s the plan now?!”
Davydd turned to see the Bloodmage from before with the black markings around his eyes and face, calling to him. There were nearly half a dozen others with him, all bearing the same long quarterstaffs that he was. All of them were young men, all just under six feet tall, and with the trademark dark, sunken eyes of their caste that made Davydd’s lip curl up in contempt. Some still had freshly shaven heads, while others had weeks or even months worse of sparse growth that showed how long ago they’d left their black brethren behind.
This is what I would have become if my parents had had their way.
“Go!” Davydd shouted at them. “Go! Get as far away from the city as you can, take as many of the Commons as you can. Take the high road along the north side of the mountains for Lucien. Steal horses, oxen, mules and carts, anything you can. We will hold them until you are free of here.”
“Make – make for Lucien?”
“There is a Kindred army marching on the city even as we speak,” Davydd said breathlessly. “They are going to the Plains of al’Manthian.”
“Impossible!”
“We have killed five of the seven Children and brought one to our side,” Davydd said with a grin that split his burnt cheek. “I’m growing fond of doing the impossible.”
He turned Aron and spurred him back down the hill toward where the other Rangers had gathered and were now shooting arrows down the hillside, using the height to increase the distance of their shots. Davydd spared one final glance behind him and saw the Commons, led by the group of six former mages, begin their flight down the Imperial Road; thousands were flowing over the city’s final hilltop into the broad expanse of the Fields.
They needed just a bit more time, and he would buy it for them.
He hefted his sword once more, his beautiful Titania, and searched for Rikard. They were above the watermark now – lines had been cut in the rocky hillside to either side of them, and he could see the layers where sediment had built up hundreds of years ago, still present as a marker of times long past – and he had to keep Rikard and his men from crossing that mark. Rikard and his men were making their way out toward them, past the wide, beautifully carved walls ringing the outer limits of Tyne, connecting each of the Most High compounds. The White City shone even in the darkness from the harsh chemical fluorescence of the streetlamps.
The Aspect of Luck grabbed him by the throat, and his confidence turned sour.
He felt it even as he embraced it, like a drug coursing through his body that he should have rejected, that in a sober state he would have realized as dangerous, but now couldn’t resist. He rode the wave of it as it crashed inside him, and he heeled his horse forward.
“Davydd! Stop!”
He ignored the shout; he barely even recognized it had come from Lorna, the one person who had been able to rein him in in times like this. He rode forward, digging his heels recklessly into Aron’s flanks. Arrows shot alongside him, knocking off the first wave of guardsmen as he engaged them, and suddenly his sword was flying, killing men left and right as they tried to get up the hill past him through the narrowed level pass that made the easiest ascent up the hill.
Lorna was with him in the next instant, laying about her with her axe, moving faster than should have been possible. Her gauntlets had split and burst now too, the metal going the same way as the leather in her boots and sloughing off in ragged strips that sizzled as they landed in the grass.
The Fox Talisman directed him, pushing him here, pulling him there, so that for every one man he would have killed before, he now managed to engage and dispatch five. Commons continued to stream by him in droves, and he realized more were still coming from the city, having rounded the far side. Many held children or belongings in their arms, and some even looked like guardsmen who had turned their coats. These latter ones stopped and fought with him, looking shocked by their own actions. They laid about them into whichever of their former companions happened to escape around he and Lorna, and at the same time shouted behind them, urging on what Davydd realized were family members among the fleeing Commons.
But Davydd wasn’t here to kill guardsmen. He looked around wildly, killing another man in a spray of blood as Titania feasted on the man’s soul. Where was the Lion? Where was the one man here who could even attempt to stand up to him now, he, the Prince of Luck?
Arrows continued to rain down from the hill above them as the Rangers shot everything they had at the men charging from below, picking their targets carefully, killing or disabling with every arrow. Something tickled the back of Davydd’s mind, something that was wrong.
The dam should have burst by now. They’re late.
The thought almost brought him back down from the high the Aspect had sent him on, but at the same instant the crowd cleared as the battle shifted, and there was Rikard on his huge warhorse. He had pulled off his helm, and now shone in the night like a minor sun, the white light shooting from both his armor and the halo of his Talisman, which highlighted the statuesque arches of his cheeks and spread through his uncovered mane of long, chestnut hair.
Davydd ran for him, cutting down anyone who stood in his path. Lorna called for him to wait for her; she wanted him to slow down, to approach with caution, as she always did.
Not this time. This time I do it my way.
Rikard laid about him left and right with his second sword, a long, two-handed claymore he always wore into battle sheathed across his back. He roared Commands left and right, felling men with only his words, and knocking scores of others off-balance. The sound of the words even rocked Davydd, buffeting him but passing by, harmless.
Talisman cancels Talisman.
Golden lines pulled him right, and he went without complaint. A shower of arrows cascaded to the ground where he’d been a second before, and Davydd spun, throwing Titania as he did. It sliced through the air, flying end over end through the night. The white blade flashed and disappeared, and Davydd knew it had found its target. He pulled with his mind, calling upon his Spellblade connection with the sword, and the weapon came flying back to him, the white Valerium blade now steaming with gore.
Davydd turned again, cut down two more Imperial dogs that slashed at him uselessly with spears, and threw Titania, this time straight for Rikard’s horse.
The white blade seemed to quiver in the air, but it didn’t change direction; it flew true and took the white stallion in the chest as it reared back and flashed its hooves, intending to bring them crashing down on the solider below.
Triumphant neighing turned to a mortal scream of terror, and the steed fell; but the Prince of Lions somehow managed to catch the motion, sensing it with his knees, and jumped from the horse’s back. He landed, rolled easily, and came back to his feet, his voice ringing out with a single shout that dropped the dozen former guardsmen surrounding him to their knees, blood pouring from their ears.
Davydd snarled and p
ulled Titania with his mind, dislodging it from its place in the horse’s ribs; it flew to him with unerring accuracy. He caught the blade with one hand, used its momentum to spin him around, and attacked Rikard with an overhand blow that could have cleaved a bull in two.
The blow was met by Rikard’s shining, crystalline blade, and stopped dead.
“Die!”
The Command caught Davydd unprepared, and for a brief second the utter surety in Rikard’s burning white eyes, the certain knowledge he would be obeyed, almost threw Davydd out of step; but he held to the Aspect and the instant passed, leaving him unscathed. He smiled, full and toothy, and Rikard snarled in his face.
Davydd spun and threw his weight behind a heavy sideways swipe; Rikard stepped back just far enough to avoid the blade, and then swung his own blade in a perfect backhand. Davydd slipped in the muddy grass of the torn hillside, and golden lines pulled him down. He went with his momentum, falling just beneath the edge of the blade as the claymore whistled past his chin. Davydd rolled and kicked out at Rikard, but the Lion anticipated the blow, dodged, and came forward.
Rikard caught him by the throat, and Davydd’s mind went blank in complete shock; his mental grasp on the Fox Talisman, the Aspect of Luck, slipped somehow, and the golden lines that illuminated the world winked out like dying stars, fading in a blaze of glory like a shower of meteors crashing into the sea and leaving only the dark, cold night behind.
“Do not touch the Talisman again; do not move; do not think; do not breathe.”
The words vibrated through his skin, down to his bones, and latched themselves onto him, weaving the Command into his mind. Rikard saw the effect, and smiled.
Davydd felt fear course through his entire body.
A sound like a thousand trees splitting in half ripped through the air and Rikard jerked his head around in surprise. At just that moment, a figure with light streaming from gray hands and feet ran past him and grabbed Davydd in her arms, pulling him away from the distracted Prince of Lions.
Davydd found himself in Lorna’s arms as she ran at break-neck speed up the hill. Water began to spill in huge tidal waves over the sides of the hilltop to their right, coming from the remains of the Lionshead Dam.
Lorna was shouting commands out ahead of her, while Davydd lay paralyzed in her arms. His lungs were burning with the need to breathe, but he was unable to break free of the Lion’s Command, unable to even form a coherent thought. Titania had slipped from his grasp and now lay somewhere on the battlefield, while his hands, curled into unfeeling claws, were frozen in their final pose at odd angles.
Water rushed past them to their left, and Davydd heard Rikard shouting Commands behind them, shouting at his men to fall back, shouting at the water even to break to either side of them.
No … no, surely not, surely he can’t control that.
But even as he had the thought, the water began to split, forming smaller rivulets, and Davydd cried out silently, trying to get Lorna to notice, trying to tell her she needed to do something.
I can think again – the Commands are wearing off with distance.
His mind went to his sword, lying somewhere on the battlefield, and he realized he could feel it, realized he could reach through his connection to it once again. He pulled with his mind and felt it fly toward him. With every ounce of will power he had, he managed to shift in Lorna’s arms, and she stumbled, dropping him to the ground.
“Davydd!” she rasped. “What are you –?”
Crouched on all fours, he saw Titania flying toward him. They were at the top of the hill, just above the waterline, but the water wasn’t blocking the retreat now like it had been intended to: Rikard had Commanded it to flow around them, and it was doing just that. Davydd could see the man’s eyes as he came toward them, eyes that were glowing white, the aura of absolute power flowing out around him like a lion’s mane.
Davydd caught Titania, pulled the barest trickle of luck from his Aspect, and threw the sword toward the Prince. It flew true, and forced Rikard to swipe it away with his claymore. Davydd anticipated the blow, and pulled the sword back again, this time sideways.
Rikard was caught off balance, and the pommel of the sword struck him directly in the temple. He shouted, falling to the ground, and the white aura of the Lion Talisman winked out around him.
Immediately, all the Commands he’d imprinted on Davydd’s mind disappeared, and so too did the Command keeping the water at bay. In a rushing tidal wave, the water coalesced into one huge stream, and roared down the mountain. Rikard pulled one of his own men off a horse, mounted it, and rode for the city, trying to escape the flood, and his men ran with him.
Davydd pulled Titania back to him with the last bit of will power left to him, and then sank back to him knees. Lorna caught him up and laid him over the saddle of her horse, and they galloped off into the night.
He’ll be on us as soon as the water settles, Davydd thought as he pushed back against the encroaching darkness of unconsciousness. He saw again the hate in the man’s eyes, and the lust for domination, those blank, terrible eyes that carried such unbearable, irresistible weight, and Davydd felt his chest shake as he tried to calm his wild breathing.
Well, that wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped.
Chapter Sixteen: The Plains of al’Manthian
The Plains of al’Manthian were barren, and burned.
They had always been barren; only dirt, mud, and clay had been seen here for the thousand years the land had lain fallow. It stretched all the way south from the city of Lucien to the Elmist Mountains and all the way east and west from the Barrow Hills that led to Tyne in the west and the Screaming Mountains of the Eyrie in the east. The Children had never directly fought over it, as it was a no-man’s land; but the Empress had never claimed it as explicitly Hers, and so they had fought covert wars through economic and commercial means as She had intended all along. It had been planted with every seed, and trodden on by every animal, but no crop had ever taken, and no herd had ever become self-sustaining. In the end, each Child who’d tried to grab hold of it was forced to abandon their claim.
And so still it stood: The whole plain a scourged ruin, a bald patch of ground that revealed hidden contours of tiny hills and concealed chasms that spelled a broken ankle for the unwary rider. And the roiling clouds that covered the city of Lucien, the clouds that showed the Empress’ power and dominance over the very sky itself, capped it, like a solemn shroud that contained and held the grave and maudlin air of a burial ground.
Autmaran and Raven sat side by side on their horses on the high ridgeline of the final mountain before these Plains, as the Kindred marched past below them, expanding from their cramped, compressed trail columns into sprawling, full-blown battle formations. There were more archers than Raven was used to, and many more light cavalry, which he had never truly appreciated until he’d met Autmaran, and all told their force was massive.
Even if half is made of untrained former peasants.
Tym shifted back where he was standing at the treeline, where he had chosen to wait for Raven and Autmaran’s commands. He’d become their most trusted runner, and, with his new body, one of their fastest as well. He had grown even more since Lerne, and was nearly the same height as Raven now, though he looked as though he’d been stretched to make it happen, his skin gaunt and tight all over. The camp cooks said he ate prodigiously, and Raven had commanded them to give him all he needed. He refused to leave Raven’s side now that battle was about to commence, and Raven had stopped arguing with him. If the boy wanted to be near him, then fine.
It’s better than having him out there, fighting. We need all the Aspects together.
Something about that thought caused him to remember what Geofred had implied before his death, what he had partially come out and said:
Only the Aspects can beat the Talismans.
But how could they all fight the Empress? They’d be lucky if just one of them made it through to confront her face-to-face
.
He felt a wave of unease pass over him, and again felt that nagging thought in the back of his head, the feeling that something had been left undone, that he had somewhere along the road missed a crucial turn.
Shadows and light; let Lorna and Davydd find their way to us in time.
They’d still had no word from the Ranger pair, and none of their Rangers had come back bearing messages, though that had been expected – with the distance from here to Tyne and the haste with which they’d be forced to ride, it was hard to expect a message to get through more than an hour or two before they themselves arrived.
The sound of approaching horses broke him from his reverie, and he turned to see Leah and Tomaz coming up the ridge, their cloaks billowing out behind them from the force of the steady wind.
“They’re ready,” Tomaz rumbled. “The captains are leading them into position now, and General Dunhold is keeping it all in order.”
“He may be a little off when it comes to strategy,” Leah said, “but he knows how to follow orders. They’ll be in position before the sun has fully risen.”
They’d woken before the dawn to get here, and the night’s chill was still hanging close about them. As if in response to his thought about the cold air, the wind picked up and blew fiercely past them, throwing Raven’s hood up and over his head, partially blinding him. He reached up and pulled it down again.
“Damn wind,” Raven muttered.
“Pray it dies down,” Leah said as she dismounted and came to crouch on the ground beside them. Her tone of voice was grim. “It’ll send our arrows flying every which way if it doesn’t.”