“I am quite capable of mounting my own horse, my queen.”
She gave him a narrow-eyed look, but nodded. “Fine. Stay close to me.”
“I am here to protect you, my lady. Not even Kusurus are invincible.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, but smiled warmly. “We are not.”
A thunderous, creaking sound stole their attention then. The outer gate had fallen, and it was likely that the other three had, too. This was it. Artemi hopped onto her horse with the grace of smoke on the wind, and kicked it to a trot to stand before their men. “My loving boys. I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but Blazes knows I have a city and an army as strong and as heavy as a bloody charging herd of oxen! The city is our weapon in this battle. It is also our shield. Use it. Let it bury our enemies. Let it set Calidell
free!”
Morghiad smiled broadly as the army roared, and offered his own words over their voices, “And let it protect our queen!” The cry crescendoed, and he felt genuine hope. He’d always known the army had remained in love with Artemi, just as he had, but he’d underestimated the sheer depth of it.
When the Hirrahans finally stormed in, the Calidellians had moved back to the safe line of the houses. It was then that Artemi’s traps came into force. Great rolls of flame engulfed advancing soldier after soldier, and streaks of lightning struck at them in hundreds. The ground was soon piled high with red-uniformed soldiers. But, if nothing else, they had to be credited for their relentlessness. The enemy continued to pour in through the broken gate,
and as Artemi’s stolen battle plan had indicated, they came with a slew of wielders. Morghiad ran ahead of his men to engage them, withdrawing his sword as he rode forward.
The Hirrahan soldiers put up a tough fight around their wielders, but it did not take long for Morghiad to reach the first of the women. A short side-slash dispatched her kanaala, and soon he had his hand around her neck. He felt no joy killing the pale-haired woman in the same way that Artemi had died. But this was war, and this woman threatened the life of his queen. She collapsed at his feet, her blue-green eyes glazed. Artemi appeared at his side then, and threw a blast of searing flame at the wielder nearby. It knocked her off her feet and left her lifeless body sprawled atop a pile of others. Another wielder dropped from
Jarynd’s hand just beyond them, and Jhontin was dealing with a fourth.
“They’re no longer a concern,” Artemi said. “We need to move back into the houses now.” A loud boom sounded from the eastern side of the city, followed by a tower of dust. They’d already started collapsing the buildings there. Silar’s quarter. Trust him to be ahead of everyone else!
“First line - away!” he ordered.
The green and black soldiers retreated with him, and Morghiad picked up one of the injured Calidellians as he went. There weren’t too many of them, thankfully. When they’d backed up to the first row of houses, Artemi unleashed a massive hail of fire at the stilladvancing Hirrahans. It was enough to send them reeling back and give the Calidellians time to retreat further. A runner quickly came to relieve him of the wounded soldier; he would soon be out of the city and safe.
“Koviere!” He did not see the giant, but he’d clearly heard the call, for a series of fires sprung to life in the nearby housing stacks. A flurry of plainly dressed men and women proceeded to run from the buildings they’d laced with explosive. Boom, boom, BOOM the houses went as they collapsed onto the soldiers below.
“That’ll give them something to clamber over. No horse can cross that. They’ll be forced onto foot.” Artemi grinned.
Morghiad nodded, and jumped as another boom sounded from the west of the city. Perhaps it was working. “Second line – away!”
Back they moved again, and down came the towering piles of houses upon their enemy. Back and back, explosion after explosion. The smoke and dust had grown so thick and heavy in the city he could barely see three feet in front of his eyes. He could barely breathe. Tens of thousands of bodies lay about the rubble, a terrible waste of life. It was enough to turn his stomach, almost enough to make him want to stop. “Now!” he called to Koviere. Another tumble of green limestone, and the red army was swallowed by empty shops and warehouses.
“Final defence!” Morghiad shouted to his soldiers, and they ran toward the castle gates. They’d hold that line until all battalions from across the city had returned. He looked to his right. The entire eastern side of the city had
been flattened, the green bricks dyed red with uniforms and blood. To his left, a final band of buildings wobbled unsupported. They would have to go down in tandem with the southernmost houses.
Silar was already at the castle gate when he reached it.
“Did it go smoothly?”
Silar was dusty, weary but buoyant. “Oh it did. I plan on staying here to fight a little longer, if you don’t mind.”
Morghiad nodded, and watched as Romarr bid his goodbyes to Selieni beyond. He really didn’t like charming assassins preying upon his wards, especially ones who fell in love so easily. The Hirrahans were re-grouping from the north and east, clearly excited by the prospect of the exposed fortress before them.
Another crash sounded, signalling the fall of the last houses of Cadra. It was swiftly followed by the rolling thunder of an army of feet running to the castle gate. The citizens-turned-detonators were the first to make it to the castle gates, their faces turned grey-green with smoke and dust.
Tallyn was at their head. “Good to see you’ve stayed alive,” he said once he’d reached them. “Not so pretty with a bit of dust and mud, are you, my lord?”
“I don’t doubt it.”
The Kusuru grinned and winked at Artemi, who was emanating a considerable degree of annoyance. “The army should be safely inside the castle walls by the time the Hirrahans get here. We don’t need to engage them.”
Vestuna pulled an expression of displeasure as he joined them. “Shame.”
“That’s it, sire,” Rahake drew near. “City’s done with.”
“Not quite,” Artemi glanced towards The Heart on her saddle. “Time to return to the castle.”
They traipsed over the arc of the wooden drawbridge, and stood back as it began to rise.
Morghiad felt every muscle in Artemi’s body seize. “Stop!” The drawbridge groaned to a clunking halt. She turned to face him. “There are still men on the walls. I can feel them.” She leapt from her horse then, and tucked The Heart under her arm. “Take my horse with you. Get out of here. I will finish this.” The queen ran up the bridge where, just
beyond, the Hirrahan army marched ever closer. They were too close. She vaulted over the top and out of sight.
“I’m going with her. Close the drawbridge behind us. Silar and Vestuna, see that you seal up and hide the exit when the last people are out.” They nodded as he dismounted and ran after his queen.
“...Bloody idiot will get himselfkilled!” came Tallyn’s voice, “Bloody Achellon and t’anher an cunhadar!!” The assassin was shouting something, presumably obscenities, behind him as he leapt over the moat. He could hear the drawbridge rising again, and a continued stream of expletives as he ran after the sprinting figure of Artemi. She was headed for one of the service doors to the wall - the only place where Hirrahan soldiers were not
yet crowding. The advancing soldiers had created a narrow alley down which he ran, dodged missiles and swept away arrows. But the army was closing in on him inexorably, and the bodies and rubble were becoming more difficult to traverse. The ground was unstable, too. A swathe of red-clad soldiers with bloodlust in their eyes and clean blades were about to touch him, but were swallowed by a collapse of the ruins at the last second.
He was close to the wall now, and Artemi was already inside it. A curve of soldiers with braided hair crowded in before him. He had no choice now; he’d have to fight his way through. Morghiad withdrew his blade and made a broad swipe at the men in front of him. Seven of them managed to parry, but five w
ere cut by the slash. He moved quickly
between them to dodge the attacks, slicing and carving the air as best he could to prevent them from touching him. A flash of black and red swept past him as he fought. Tallyn.
They battled their way towards the wall without a word, whirling about each other to meet the incessant onslaught of the enemy. For every single Hirrahan Morghiad dispatched, he was sure that the Kusuru beheaded another ten. But something made him nervous; he could feel a wielder nearby.
Morghiad looked everywhere he could as he swiped and cut at the advancing men, but no woman was apparent. “Can you see her?”
“No,” Tallyn said breathlessly.
Then she wielded. A bolt of flame came straight for them, and Morghiad was just fast enough to deconstruct it while he fought. A
shower of harmless fire-lets showered down around them. He made a slash at an especially hairy soldier, and suddenly found himself flying through the air. He landed on a pile of hard rubble with a thump, losing all air from his lungs. His armour was smoking. Beyond his feet, the Hirrahans were crowding around something. It wouldn’t be long before they turned and came for him.
Morghiad reached for the stone flower in his pocket, and felt its gentle fires burning his palm. He wielded with it, blasting thirty Hirrahan soldiers out of the way. They turned to look at him then: afraid, terrified of a man who could wield. He rose slowly and began to walk. They parted before him, revealing a hook-nosed wielder with hair the colour of copper. At her feet lay Tallyn, his chest full of
poison blades. Morghiad sent the same sheets of ice at the wielder that he’d seen Artemi make, which sent the woman careering back into the men behind her. A thick cocoon of flame around himself and the Kusuru would hold long enough to protect them. He rapidly went to kneel at the Calbeni’s shoulder. The dark man was breathing rapidly, cursing between breaths. “I know when I’m dead.” His grip on Morghiad’s arm was still surprisingly strong. “Don’t be a bastard. Stay alive for her. You may be able to handle Blaze like no other man, but you’re not as invincible as your massive ego seems to think.” Black liquid leaked from Tallyn’s mouth then, and he spluttered more of it out. “And take my weapons. They’re always a bugger to find after two decades.” His olive eyes glazed over then,
and his throat rattled its final gasp.
Artemi would be deeply upset by this, but Morghiad was surprised at his own sadness. This man had helped him immeasurably, in spite of his obvious dissatisfaction with Artemi’s choice of lover. Morghiad owed him his life, and a considerable degree of his sanity. He removed the dead man’s blades swiftly, feeling their peculiar sparkle of Blaze Energy against his skin, before he stood and pushed the flame cocoon towards the wall. The door had been hidden behind a cloned image of the wall, but it didn’t take long for him to find the handle and step into the damp darkness. The new silence was strange and hard against his ringing ears. He could sense his queen some way above him.
Morghiad began his ascent of the
narrow, winding stairs. His sadness grew as he did, feeling a sense of nostalgia about the black coldness of the basalt stone. It may not have been his original home, but it was his city - a part of him. The lamps still burned their final flames, lit by some conscientious soldier. He hoped that individual still lived. “Artemi!” The steps became steeper as he climbed them, and the air drier. He could sense that she was shouting at someone. She was worried. He quickened his pace to toward the top. His thighs were aching with acid, he realised, and his body was exhausted. Up and up he pressed, gritting his teeth against the pain and weariness. At last daylight began to fill the stairwell, and Morghiad strode into its brilliance.
He saw her, standing straight with
swords at her back and glittering Blaze around her. Artemi was concentrating hard on something beyond the battlements, toward the castle. When he looked to it, he immediately understood. Six young men walked through the air, high above the rolling mass of Hirrahan soldiers that now filled the former city. The man at the rear of the sky-walkers was her little brother. The boy glanced back at Morghiad and his queen as he walked away, and dropped his head in shame. At least there was still time for him to get to the escape tunnel. Morghiad looked back to Artemi, whose long hair streamed behind her in shining waves of old gold and fire. He could die with her here, and die a happy man. As he approached her, he heard something whisk through the air. She stumbled backward with a
gasp, and fell between the battlements. His next movements happened too rapidly for him to register. Somehow he’d stretched forward, muscles and sinews protesting at his every movement, and caught her by the ankle. She was dangling upside-down at the outer side of the city wall. A long arrow jutted out of her thigh, the same thigh she’d injured nearly thirty years earlier. Hundreds of feet below, the men in red seemed to be celebrating.
With every ounce of remaining strength, he hauled her back onto the walkway, and set about removing the arrow.
“Thank you. We could have done with an inner wall shield, as well.” She smiled weakly, but it faded as her face creased with confusion. “You saved the air bridge.”
Morghiad looked over his shoulder,
toward the castle. He could no longer see the airborne travellers. “Did they make it?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” There was plenty of poison in her leg. He needed a sarkha, but remembered the stone flower. He could use the same form to clean her blood as Tallyn had.
“No. You mustn’t heal it now. It’ll sap my strength. You should go to the castle.” It was then that she noticed the extra swords at his belt, and the daggers in his boots. “He’s dead?”
Morghiad nodded. “I’m sorry, my heart.” A stab of pain cut through her body then. He could feel her urge to cry, and how she fought it. “Artemi, there’s not enough time to get to the castle now. We have to find another way out.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “I can protect you. But you have to surround yourselfwith something. A form of lightning or fire would do it. And I need you to take my blades, as well.”
“Alright.” He was beginning to look like a silver-spiked hedgehog with all these swords attached to him. That, or a competitor in The Spring Games.
“Protect yourself now,” she commanded.
Morghiad leaned forward and kissed her firmly on the lips. “I love you,” he said, and reached for the stone flower. A sphere of shooting lightning grew up around him then, and through it he could see Artemi as she unwrapped The Heart of Glass. It thumped in her hand, glittering in its impossible
translucence. And then her fingers touched its cold surface, and she melted into the walls of the castle.
A soft wind whistled through the narrow windows of the tower, cooling his sweat-ridden skin. The journey to the top had been tortuous and confusing, but it had been worth it. From here he could see the expanse of the fallen city below, now filled with celebrating and cheering soldiers. They cheered in exhilaration at their victory, and they lauded the efforts of their fallen brothers. A great many had lost their lives in this battle, but their sacrifice had been worth it. The Calidellians had greatly underestimated their opponent’s sheer size in numbers, and now the ruined city of Cadra was his. Lord Grey-Captain Swifen of the Third Arm had not witnessed much of the fighting himself, but he had marshalled many of those men into certain death. There was no guilt, however. He felt none of that. Blazes, how he hated Calidellians!
And how curious it had been to find the castle empty when his men had stormed the gate. He knew there were halls here big enough to hide thousands of the buggers. The cowards were in this depressing rock somewhere, he was sure. But what sort of king would shy from saving his people, and then desert his own throne? Swifen decided to stay his verdict until he found Lord Morghiad. A quick and lawful court would make more than enough proclamations as soon as they dug the craven man from whichever of his ancestors’ tombs he’d hidden in. He and his pathetic excuse for an army.
A
horn sounded to the east, signalling the arrival of King Xarrelsar. The red sea of soldiers parted before him in shining, crimson waves. Swifen was about to go to meet him, when he noticed something odd about the city wall. It seemed to... ripple. He leaned out of the window for a closer look. It was moving. Silence shuttered across the Hirrahan army as they came to notice the curious weaving of the dark stones. Even the king had ceased his
triumphant march through the rubble. Had it become unstable - something so solid? Then the tower floor began to weave from side to side. An earthquake, perhaps?
Swifen gripped onto the window ledge for support, and stared in awe as the city wall started to reach and grow upward into the sky. The ruins below appeared to liquefy and melt, wobbling beneath the soldiers’ feet. It was alive, he realised. The fabric of the entire place lived, and now the city walls arced over the Hirrahans like a lion flower closing its jaws about a swarm of trapped flies. Down the wall came, men screaming and yelling below it. Along it crept, swallowing people and rubble indiscriminately. There was no sound of stone scraping or rocks falling as the famous Cadran walls slid towards the castle. It was ghostly,
inexorable and cruel. Swifen saw it all as the walls touched the fortress below, and as the fortress turned in on itself. His stomach flew upward through his ribcage as the tower descended into the melt. All was quiet when he finally sank into the twisting, moving black stone. And it was not liquid, he discovered, it was still rock, still bone-breaking and cold.
The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle Page 94