He crouched and the little boy threw his arms around Auum’s neck. The TaiGethen put his arms under Hirad’s legs and held him piggyback-style. Diera breathed deeply. Miirt and Ghaal had returned over the terrifying gap.
‘We’ll all do this together,’ said Auum.
He bounced Hirad on his back and walked back a few paces. Diera, with the Tai either side of her, let them take an arm each.
‘Don’t think about it,’ said Ghaal. ‘Just run as fast as you can. We’ll do the rest.’
Diera’s heart was pounding. ‘I don’t think I can do this.’
‘Don’t think at all,’ repeated Ghaal. ‘Do.’
Garonin were closing. Diera could see them only three streets away. She gathered her tattered courage.
‘All right,’ she said.
‘Go,’ said Auum.
They ran for the edge. Diera’s scream built on her lips, and as she planted her foot and felt the TaiGethen pull on her arms, she let it have full voice. She cycled her legs in thin air and closed her eyes momentarily. An endless heartbeat later she felt another rooftop beneath her. She stumbled but the Tai did not let her fall. Diera opened her eyes and looked back and then into Hirad’s beaming face. Auum crouched to let him down.
‘Run to the far end. Join the ClawBound. Tai, we fight.’
And in no time the elves had jumped the gap again and were running back along the rooftops, straight at the Garonin.
The pain in Hirad’s chest caused by the arrival of the vydosphere made his head swim. He and Sirendor were seated together, holding each other upright. The Unknown and Jonas were standing, arguing, and Ilkar, bless him, was still trying to find a safe way out of their prison despite the crushing weight he must surely be feeling.
‘The door will trigger any ward near it,’ said Sol. ‘We cannot take that risk.’
‘Then what do we do, Father? Sit and wait for Densyr to come back and kill us? I’m prepared to take the chance.’
‘And we will if we must. But not yet. Let Ilkar do what he can first.’
Away to the east, they could see the Garonin machine hanging in the air. They had heard explosions and Ilkar had felt a massive flood of mana as the whole ward grid activated.
‘Even if we do get out of here, there is nowhere to run,’ said Jonas. ‘There will be wards everywhere, won’t there?’
‘He’s right, Unknown,’ said Hirad, gasping for breath. ‘Ilkar?’
‘Wait,’ said Ilkar. ‘I’m just . . .’
Ilkar’s face tautened visibly, like his skin was being stretched over too much bone. Where his hands were in contact with the ground, it seemed to shimmer slightly, obscuring his fingers.
‘Ilkar?’ The Unknown began moving towards him. ‘Ilkar.’
‘Gods . . . burning.’
Hirad struggled to his feet, bringing Sirendor with him. The pressure inside his body was growing steadily more intense. The pair of them began to move towards Ilkar.
‘Talk to us, Ilks,’ said Hirad.
‘Help . . . me . . . trapped.’
‘Trapped how?’ asked The Unknown.
‘Does it matter? We have to move him, don’t we?’ said Hirad. ‘We have to break him away from there or his soul will be torn out.’
‘And set off a ward or ten? Think, Hirad.’
‘You know that’s never been my strong point.’
Hirad pushed Sirendor away from him and began to run at Ilkar.
‘Hirad, no!’ shouted The Unknown.
‘My advice would be to duck,’ said Hirad.
He had planned to dive at Ilkar, to knock him carefully aside from his entrapment, but the pain in his chest flared throughout his body. He stumbled once, lost his footing completely and fell into the returned mage, barging him from his feet and taking them both into the wall of a building and then into a heap on the ground.
The ward Ilkar had been probing triggered. Flame seared across the street at an angle of forty-five degrees from the ground and on a line five yards wide. The blaze clipped the back of Hirad’s boot and his entire foot was engulfed in mana fire. He dragged his foot clear, hooked the heel into a crack in the stonework of the building and pulled. Hard. Heat grew incredibly fast inside the boot. The leather smouldered and began to melt. He pulled harder, crying out as his toes started to cook.
Mana fire chewed through the laces and tongue. The boot released and he yanked his foot out, gasping as he did so. Still the flames rushed out of the ward. Their power magnified in the narrow street, reflecting from the walls opposite before channelling upwards into the dawn air. Hirad could hear Jonas crying and through the flame could see The Unknown covering him as best he could. Clothing and hair were smouldering and skin would be blistering.
The spell shut off.
Cold air rushed to fill the gap and it tasted so sweet. Slowly, they stirred, barely daring to move. Ilkar’s body shivered beneath Hirad’s and the barbarian rolled away to let him sit up and breathe. The elf in human skin nodded his thanks and winced at the sight of Hirad’s foot.
‘It doesn’t feel so good.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Hirad heard footsteps. He turned in time to be hauled from the ground by his lapels. The Unknown’s face pushed in to his.
‘I told you to think, you idiot! You could have killed us all.’
‘I had to save him, Unknown. I had to try.’
‘You had to wait, you bastard. Look at us now. As if being here wasn’t enough, we all look like we fell asleep in the sun for five days. Look at my son.’ The Unknown spun him so he could see. ‘Look at him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Hirad. ‘I didn’t—’
‘No, you never damn well do, do you?’
Sol thrust Hirad away, winding him against a wall. He put down his foot to steady himself and the pain tore a cry from his lips.
‘Burned, is it?’ asked Sol.
‘It’s a little tender,’ said Hirad.
‘Good. It’ll remind you what an idiot you are.’
‘I saved him, didn’t I?’ Hirad spread his arms. ‘What were you going to do? Stand there and watch the life getting sucked out of him? Because that’s what it looked like was happening. At least I did something.’
The Unknown bunched a fist, thought for a moment and then let it drop.
‘You just don’t get it, do you? Dead for ten years and you still have no more sense than when you fell. Septern’s grid is interlinked in ways that even he probably barely understands. You could have set off five, ten, twenty more wards, all in this small space. What then, eh? Who was going to head west and kill himself to save the living and the dead then?
‘Sorry, Ilkar, but if you had died before we came up with a plan, that was just going to be tough.’
Ilkar nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I understand.’
Hirad felt heat in his face but it was from inside him. ‘Right. I see. So you’re ungrateful too, are you?’
‘No, Hirad. I just see the bigger picture.’
‘I’ll tell you the big fucking picture,’ said Hirad, voice rising in volume all the time. ‘We’re trapped in this dusty little street, Xetesk at one end and the Garonin at the other. And neither you nor the Unknown has the first clue how to get out, do you? What happened to you anyway?’
Hirad’s last thought took all the anger from him.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘I got sidetracked.’ Hirad rubbed his hands across his face and tried to ignore the burning throb in his foot. He gave the Unknown a light punch on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, big man.’
The Unknown nodded. ‘I know. And as usual you were luckier than a fox born in a chicken run.’
‘Sorry, Jonas.’
‘It’s all right, Hirad. Do I really look all red and blotchy?’
The Raven quartet all nodded simultaneously.
‘Look what’s happened to my clothes. Mama’s going to kill me.’
The Unknown ruffled his hair. ‘I think she’ll forgive you
just this once. So, Ilkar, is it the usual news or do you have something good to tell us for a change?’
‘Good, I think. Look, the whole ward grid has gone active. Septern has done some very clever things with how mana is channelled between groups of wards. Some of the energy from an exploding trap goes to activate other so-far-dormant groups, that sort of thing. Don’t say it, Hirad. If you can’t understand me, assume I’m talking to someone else, all right?’
‘If you insist.’
‘I do. The point I’m getting to is this. The whole system is clearly linked all the way back to Xetesk and draws its mana direct from the Heart, because that way no mage has to expend mana stamina. All very clever so far. But the Garonin have found a way to tap into it. They are drawing off huge amounts of mana, direct from the Heart. Septern’s whole grid is like one big feed pipe to them. Hirad was right: I was literally having the life sucked out of me. Every mote of mana I possessed, dragged out kicking and screaming all the way.’
The Unknown laughed but there was little satisfaction in it. ‘Poor Densyr. He refuses to listen to what is coming. How unprepared he is.’
‘So the good news is, the Garonin can drag off mana as fast as they want in the short term and so don’t need to attack the college directly,’ said Sirendor. ‘But there’s an obvious problem, isn’t there?’
‘Top marks,’ said Ilkar. ‘At any moment Septern and Densyr might close down the grid.’
‘And that is bad for us how?’ asked Hirad.
‘Well, they have two choices. Either shut down the grid nice and gently, rendering every ward inert. Or send a massive pulse through it and set the lot of them off.’
‘Ah.’
‘And from the Garonin point of view, someone will have shut off their flow of mana. What do you think they’ll do about that?’
‘Ah.’
‘We have got to get out of here,’ said The Unknown. ‘Ilkar, where are the wards around us?’
‘There are nine that I can divine, spread relatively evenly.’
‘Anything in front of that door, for instance?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Ilkar. ‘I don’t know what exactly, but it’ll either be very hot, very cold or make the walls fall on us.’
‘We’re going to have to take a chance,’ said The Unknown.
‘Oh, all right if it’s you, eh?’
‘Shut up, Hirad. Ilkar, do you have it in you to put up an Ilkar’s Defence?’
‘A what?’
‘Or maybe an Ilkar’s Heal My Foot spell?’
‘Hirad.’ The Unknown glared at him. ‘You’ll have to wait. Ruminate on why you got burned or something. Sorry, Ilkar, that’s the new name for a ForceCone.’
‘Very flattering, I’m sure. Look, I know where you’re going with this. Are you sure? I can’t guarantee the Cone will stand up to much.’
‘I can’t think of a better idea. Can you?’ Ilkar shook his head. ‘Then let’s get started.’
Chapter 26
Auum led his Tai back across the rooftops, across a fifteen-foot gap to the next line of houses, along five pitched roofs and into the lee of a huge chimney stack at the east end of the square. Here the smoke from the cook fires of every dwelling in the tenement house was released to the sky. He wasn’t sure if the Garonin had seen them coming but he was sure they had hit the roofs and ground looking for him and his kind.
‘Ghaal, what can you see?’
The Tai peered slowly out around the edge of the stack.
‘They have stopped about two hundred and fifty yards from us. Something’s happening. Perhaps they aren’t after us after all. On the ground they have stopped too, as if they’ve formed a perimeter at the edge of where they cleared the wards earlier.’
Auum joined him, Miirt went the other way.
‘The vydosphere is collecting,’ she said.
And so it was. The cloud was darkening slowly above the malevolent shape hanging in the sky, which had begun a lazy spiral. Funnels were belching out smoke and the metal rods across its bulk were fizzing and crackling with energy as the reaction built to detonation.
‘Where is it getting the mana from?’ asked Ghaal.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Auum was sizing up the distance to the enemy. ‘We can strike here. They are unprepared.’
‘They will follow if we do.’
‘So much the better. We need to bring them further into the grid and away from the others. We can do both if we’re quick.’
Ghaal was smiling. ‘Like a decoy run in the rainforest.’
‘With the rooftops as our canopy,’ said Miirt.
‘Are we one on this?’ asked Auum. ‘Draw them to the south if you can.’
‘Yniss will guide us,’ said his Tai.
‘Split and run hard, my warriors. Keep low and loose. Tai, we move.’
Auum hurdled wall, low chimney and alleyway. He sprinted on a long gentle curve, his angle and the presentation of his body making it hard for any projectile weapon to take certain aim. Seventy yards into the run, the Garonin began to fire, the entire front line of over seventy enemy soldiers carving up the dawn with their white teardrops.
Tile and flowerpot exploded by him as he ran. He saw Ghaal turn, dive and forward-roll while energy bit into a loft window where he had been standing momentarily. He came up low and ran behind a decorative wall. The fire followed him but when the smoke and debris cleared, he was long gone.
Auum had time to acknowledge his Tai’s skill before he approached a wide avenue. Thirty feet wide at a guess. He needed speed. The wind was already behind him. Garonin weapons tracked him. In his wake the tiles of a pitched roof shattered and melted. He leaned forward, gathering pace, stepped onto the building’s edge and launched himself head first, arms tight by his sides, body axle-straight. The white tears flooded his vision. He felt heat as they ripped by underneath him and he angled his body to allow a stream to pass by his left-hand side.
Auum brought his arms in front of him, took the impact of landing on his right shoulder and turned into the direction of motion, coming to a stop on his haunches. The Garonin were just over the next roof apex. He could hear their footsteps as they advanced on his position. Beads of fire still swept into the sky, chasing Ghaal and Miirt. Auum unclipped his pouch of jaqrui throwing crescents, plucking one out and taking a short blade in his right hand. He moved diagonally up the slate-covered roof, heading for a cluster of chimneys at the centre of the building.
The Garonin felt no need for the same stealth, their tramping feet giving away the position of each of six soldiers. Auum put a mental picture of them in the forefront of his mind. He switched his blade and jaqrui around.
‘Yniss, spare my soul to do your work as dawn lightens tomorrow. Tual, guide my hand to smite my enemies. Shorth, hear my prayer; I commend my soul to you should I fall. Seek for me a path to my resting place. This I ask in the names of the great Gods of the Ynissul. Hear me, my masters. I am Auum, your servant.’
Auum reached the cluster of chimneys, stepped to the right and threw the jaqrui round-armed. The blade whipped across the rooftop, taking a Garonin under the chin guard and burying itself in his neck. He jerked backwards and fell, his weapon firing wildly into the sky. Auum dived back behind the chimney stack. He grabbed another jaqrui. Masonry and tile blew apart above his head under the wilting fire of the Garonin.
Auum ran left. He threw again. The holes in the body of the jaqrui caused it to make a keening, unearthly sound as it travelled straight and true. The target Garonin raised his weapon reflexively in defence. The blade sheared deep into the weapon, which exploded in the Garonin’s hands, taking off his arms at the elbows, ripping deep holes in his chest and forcing upwards to shatter his jaw.
Metal shards whistled as they flew. Auum flattened himself against the roof. The four remaining Garonin had turned their backs against any impact. Armour flared white. Auum was up and running left. He dragged his second short blade out with his right hand.
He leap
t and spun in the air, his blades flashing left to right in quick succession buoyed by the power of his turn and the pace of his body. The first slashed deep into the helmet of his target, the second, adjusted lower, whipped through his throat, ripping free and carrying blood and gore with it.
Auum landed facing right. The remaining three were moving towards him. They could not see Miirt sprinting up behind them and the fire from their fellows nearer the vydosphere was tracking Ghaal.
He heard the howl of a jaqrui. The blade flickered past his left shoulder and embedded in the arm of the leftmost enemy. The soldier jerked back, but steadied and fired. Auum glanced back to see Ghaal duck and roll under the stream of white tears.
Auum rose and ran. He came under fire from the other two. He dived left, rolling and rising, the roof at his feet obliterated. He dropped a blade, reached for a jaqrui and threw. The Garonin ducked it, his head moving to track it just for a moment. More than enough. Auum picked up his blade, ran four paces and launched himself two-footed at the Garonin’s midriff. He caught the soldier square on. The enemy doubled over, and as he fell, Auum’s blades jabbed up under both his arms.
Auum shovelled the body aside and came to a crouch. Miirt had leapt up and backhanded her blade through the back of a Garonin neck. Ghaal had jumped and struck the other in the eye slit. Blood was running down the side of the roof, staining the red tiles a dark shade of crimson.
‘Yniss saves us for greater deeds,’ said Auum.
He turned to the vydosphere. More Garonin were advancing. Fifty-plus breaking from the main force. Above them, the sky darkened by degrees and the pace of the cloud spin increased.
‘Breathe the air, my warriors. And let us run like the jaguars are on our scent.’
The Tai cell touched hands briefly, stowed weapons and ran south, exhorting Tual to guard their every move. Behind them not every Garonin turned to follow. Auum watched eight carrying on forward.
‘The Ravensoul worries them,’ he muttered. ‘I hope it is strong enough to turn them aside.’
Baron Gresse settled into his chair on the rooftop garden of one of Xetesk’s premier mages, it didn’t matter which, to watch his last, glorious Balaian dawn. The house was well stocked and he had one of his servants find him some fresh leaf tea, a plate of bread and cold meat and some fresh fruit. The table was laid properly, with white cloth, napkins and crystal glasses. Wine would follow the tea. A little early perhaps, but when one was short of time, early was not in the lexicon.
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