Ravensoul

by James Barclay

  ‘What did you do, my old friends?’ whispered Densyr. ‘Why did you try to outwit the master? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry it had to end like this.’

  Densyr took one last look at the dust cloud that covered the scene of their deaths and closed the balcony shutters on his crime. In his deep armchair by the fire, Septern was studying the ward lattice. The sheen of sweat on his face didn’t encourage Densyr’s confidence.

  He sank into the chair opposite and sipped at the tea his servants had left them. All the way down the line, he’d made the right decisions. He was certain of it. What the dead had told him really did make no sense. There was no other home. No escape route. Just like every time before, Balaia had to stand up and fight for herself. And win. Just like every other time.

  Maybe he had been a little heavy-handed with those he once counted as close friends and allies. But decisions had to be made and some people always had their noses put out of joint. Not everyone would ever be happy. And at least his people, the Xeteskian people, knew he was doing all this for them.

  Should it have worried him that Auum claimed to have seen all this before? Surely not. If indeed he was thousands of years old as he claimed, things move on. The elves had had no magic back then, no defence. Densyr had the might of Xetesk and the unexpected advantage of Septern. Balaia had to survive, and for that to happen, Xetesk had to remain strong. The right decisions still had to be made.

  Even if it meant his friends had to die.

  ‘Septern, can you hear me?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Septern, his voice clear enough though a little strained.

  ‘You needn’t concern yourself with The Raven now.’

  ‘I know. I felt it. Saw it. Doesn’t feel so much like casualties of war now, does it?’

  ‘No,’ whispered Densyr. ‘Tell me what you can do.’

  ‘The news isn’t too good.’

  Densyr’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The enemy is cleverer than I thought.’

  ‘Smarter than you?’

  ‘Let’s not give them too much credit. The problem lies in shutting off the mana flow.’

  ‘Not doing so isn’t an option I’m prepared to entertain.’

  ‘I know, Densyr. But the risk to the Heart is greater than I thought. It is possible that they intend us to shut off the flow, triggering an explosion in the Heart. Mana will be pumped up into the atmosphere . . .’

  ‘To be collected by the machine hanging up there for just that purpose, if it can collect mana that way.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘But you can stop that, Septern, can’t you?’

  Septern’s face held the first element of doubt Densyr had seen.

  ‘Probably,’ he said.

  ‘Probably isn’t good enough.’ Densyr leaned forward in his chair. ‘You know the stakes here. We cannot fail. Not now.’

  ‘Now your friends are dead.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Densyr pressed his lips together. ‘And anything you do, do quickly. We don’t have much time.’

  ‘I shall attempt the cell-by-cell closedown. That way, I can isolate surges in mana being fed back and dissipate them through harmless areas of the grid.’

  ‘If you say so. And what if it begins to go wrong?’

  ‘A mage can always act as a buffer if necessary,’ said Septern.

  ‘Get going.’

  ‘They know what we intend, I’m certain of it,’ said Sol. ‘Brynar. Hirad needs attention. Ilkar, Sirendor. Assess the next jump and the bridge the ClawBound has left. Thraun, let’s see if we can’t find ourselves a better route than the one we already have. But don’t go far. Quickly. The enemy are closing.’

  He stood with Diera and his boys. All four of them in a huddle and he at least realising that it could be their last. The Garonin still came on. He had counted eight of them. Moving carefully over the rooftops, no doubt aware of the capacity of the TaiGethen and hopefully unaware of their current whereabouts.

  The rooftop to which they had jumped from the collapsing building was a work in progress. They were standing amidst the debris of a building site. Half-built walls, piles of stone, sand and barrels of water. Pots of whitewash, brushes, trowels and even a couple of straw hats. A block and tackle had been hanging from the near edge of the building but the ClawBound elf had stripped it for its rope. Every tool of the trade was scattered about, evidence of a hurried evacuation or perhaps merely a poorly run site.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Diera.

  ‘Because while the bulk of them stand and guard their machine, these eight are heading right for us. Raven, I want an ambush plan. Here or at the next intersection.’

  Sol looked after the ClawBound, who was still creating a path to the college gates. He had laid ropes and even knotted sheets where he could and left markers for jump points, so Thraun had reported. The Garonin were less than a hundred yards away now and would soon be in weapons range. Sol pulled away from his family.

  ‘Time to move. Brynar, how are you doing?’

  ‘Hirad is all right to walk now.’

  ‘Good. Freedom’s Wings for you again if you don’t mind. Brynar.’

  ‘Yes, my King .’

  ‘Not “king”, just Sol. And thank you for not abandoning my family.’

  Brynar shrugged. ‘What sort of man would I be? Besides, Auum made it clear the fate I would face if I ran.’

  ‘I’ll bet he did.’

  A short incantation and gossamer wings appeared at Brynar’s back. He held out his arms and Diera placed young Hirad in them. It was several hundred yards to the apron in front of the college gates. They had to traverse another four intersections and get across the heavily trapped open space.

  ‘I could take him all the way,’ said Brynar.

  Sol paused on the verge of agreeing. ‘But they wouldn’t let you leave. We need you.’

  ‘Keep out of sight of the college as long as you can,’ said Brynar. ‘I’ll open the postern gate for you.’

  ‘There isn’t a postern gate any more,’ said Sol.

  Brynar raised his eyebrows. ‘Trust me on this.’

  Sol nodded. ‘Diera?’

  ‘Gods drowning, yes, take him inside the walls. All right, Hirad? You go with Brynar to the college and he’ll keep you safe.’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘I’ll be there very soon.’

  ‘Go, Brynar,’ said Sol. ‘And thank you.’

  Brynar took to the air, skimming low over the rooftops. Sol watched him, a lump in his throat.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ said Sirendor.

  Sol glanced back at the Garonin and shook his head. ‘No. I’ve had an idea. The next roof is too open. Pretty garden but too open. Plenty of places to hide here.’

  ‘Good thought,’ said Sirendor. ‘The Garonin will have to drop out of sight of us before they reach the adjacent block.’

  ‘Good,’ said Sol. ‘Diera, Jonas. Time to go.’

  ‘Father . . .’

  ‘Don’t argue with me, Jonas. We don’t have the time.’

  Sol stooped to pick up a shovel. It was a satisfying weight in his hands.

  ‘The rest of you, I suggest you pick up your choice of implement. I will stand centre to make sure they know where to come.’

  ‘Sol . . .’

  ‘Diera, it’s all right. This is what I do. Did.’

  ‘Remember you aren’t thirty any more.’

  ‘Just take Jonas and run. And be careful on the ropes. Raven, hide where you can back me in a hurry. I know we wouldn’t normally lower ourselves to such tactics but today I make an exception for any underhand attack from the rear without warning. All these Garonin have to go down. You all know the attack signal.’

  Ilkar took no weapon but hid himself on a narrow ledge behind a wall that was to hold a dormer window. Sol heard him begin to mutter as he attempted to draw mana from the chaos around him. Sirendor picked up a crowbar, hefted it in one hand and picked up a cement tr
owel in the other. He moved forward of Sol and crouched by a group of three barrels.

  Hirad picked up a pickaxe, smiled and lay flat behind a stack of wooden beams to Sol’s right, pulling a canvas sheet over his body. Thraun had not yet returned but Sol was in no doubt that the dead shapechanger was keeping an eye on them. He looked forward to a few wolves entering the fight.

  The Garonin, just as Sirendor had said, had dropped briefly out of sight, forced to take a slightly different path due to the collapse of the building through which The Raven had escaped. Sol could hear them though, their heavy footsteps like metal sheets clanging together, the impact of their jump landings echoing against the surrounding blank, deserted buildings.

  ‘I hope my hip stands up to this,’ he muttered.

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s your head they’ll be aiming at,’ came a voice from beneath the canvas.

  ‘Thank you, Hirad. Here they come.’

  Sol tensed. The risks of his strategy became depressingly apparent and his words to Diera sounded awfully hollow. Eight giant soldiers in full body armour landed on the roof in a semicircle around him and began to close, their weapons trained exactly as Hirad had said.

  Sol hefted the shovel, patting the shaft into his open left palm. The Garonin closed, stopping only when they could almost reach out and touch him. Weapons dropped very slightly. Diera and Jonas were way too close but getting more distant with every passing moment.

  ‘Fascinating weapons,’ he said. ‘You must show me round one.’

  ‘Sol,’ said a voice full of beguiling melody. ‘How disappointing. You stand alone. All your subjects have deserted you.’

  Sol shifted his feet, taken aback. ‘You. You’re joking with me? I killed you.’

  ‘Not so. Some among you are fascinating and worthy of some small investigation to further our knowledge of your world. You are one such. No other has demonstrated understanding and belief. No other has been able to leave our domain by an act of self-will.’

  ‘Your domain? I’ve heard from several reliable sources that it is no one’s domain but a transit to everywhere. A place you have infiltrated and where you can be beaten.’

  Sol considered he might have shown too much of his hand.

  ‘The risk of such an eventuality is small. But we do not deal in small, we deal in nil. And so your journey ends here, Sol. As it will for all your people in this city, your other major population centres and for those you think are escaping beyond your western mountain range.’

  Sol’s face must have betrayed him. One of the Garonin cocked his head.

  ‘Did you think we were not aware of those running west? Elves mostly. We concede that your people are brave and resourceful. We concede that we underestimated you and have been forced to move our vydospheres into the air, an inefficient use of vydos that we cannot afford but one that conserves our equipment.’

  ‘So why are you talking to me? If you intend to wipe us out, why bother to tell me all about it? Seems a waste of time.’

  ‘Not for us. Respect is a ritual.’

  ‘But all rituals are finite, aren’t they?’

  Sol tapped the blade of the shovel on the ground, once, twice, three times.

  ‘It is time,’ said the concerted voices of the Garonin.

  ‘Yes.’ Sol ceased tapping the shovel. ‘Time for you to meet The Raven.’

  Chapter 28

  Sol was fast. Even at fifty-one, he was the better of most men half his age. The shovel blade whipped up and forward, Sol darting in a step simultaneously. The cutting edge struck under the chin of the centremost Garonin. Sol felt it bite into flesh. Blood poured down the shovel’s muddy face.

  The Garonin reacted quickly. Weapons snapped up to ready. They spaced themselves for clear shots at Sol, who dived into the midst of them, bowling the stricken Garonin over. He pulled the shovel clear of his victim and rolled onto his back with the blade covering his face.

  A Garonin soldier readied to fire. He jerked violently. Blood flew from his mouth and he slumped forward onto his knees revealing Sirendor behind him, bloodied cement trowel in hand. He did not pause. The crowbar in his other hand swung across the back of an enemy skull. The soldier’s head rocked forward but he did not drop, turning instead to backhand Sirendor across the face with his weapon. Sirendor tumbled back into the barrels, scattering them.

  At the same time, Hirad leapt up from his hiding place and planted his pickaxe straight through the midriff of his nearest enemy, driving the man backwards from his feet. His weapon fired. Hirad screamed in agony.

  ‘Keep down.’

  It was Ilkar. Winter’s Touch flew from his open palms. A howling, super-cooled blast of air that struck the Garonin square on. Two turned their backs, taking the force of the freeze on their armour on which the runes flared white. Two were caught in the helmet, burning cold drilling into their eyes, freezing them blind in moments. Weapons dropped from hands to clutch at faces and claw inside eye slits.

  A weapon sounded close by Sol’s head. The half-built wall disintegrated into a shower of stone shard and cement dust.

  Sol scrambled to his feet, thrashing the shovel blade in front of him, clattering it into the legs of one of the two Garonin still facing him. The enemy fell. Sol moved to finish him. A blow caught him on the side of the head, sending him spinning. He rolled into a pile of sand.

  Sol spat grit from his mouth. He looked up into the darkening sky. The cloud framed the helmet of a Garonin soldier and his cruel weapon. Sol held his gaze. The weapon was raised. A black shape flew from left to right. Howls split the dawn. The Garonin’s fire flashed past Sol’s shoulder, kicking up sand.

  Sol sat up. The ClawBound had arrived. The panther was ripping the throat from one enemy, the elf had enveloped another. Wolves streamed in. A solitary Garonin weapon traced teardrops through the air. One of the animals fell, soundlessly. The other three feasted in revenge.

  From behind him Sol heard the thump of metal on leather. Again and again. He climbed painfully to his feet. Back, arms, legs and now the side of his head. Everything was bruised. He put a hand to the hinge of his jaw. It came away wet. Sirendor straightened up from behind the tumble of barrels. His nose was bent across his face and blood covered his lips and neck. His crowbar too was covered in blood, hair and gore.

  ‘Never take a fallen man with a crowbar as beaten,’ he said.

  ‘Hirad,’ said Sol, starting to run across the roof.

  He jumped the bodies of the fallen Garonin, those that had not already faded back to whence they came, and dropped to his knees by the barbarian in his merchant’s body. That body was broken. White tears had blasted through his right shoulder and all the way down his body to the hip. Clothing had been burned away and the flesh was smoking and cauterised. Hirad still clung on to the pickaxe handle, his face buried in the Garonin armour.

  Sol rocked back onto his haunches. ‘Damn it,’ he breathed.

  Sirendor placed a hand on his shoulder and crouched by him. ‘Don’t despair, not just yet. He’s still with us. Just.’

  ‘What does it matter? He will never survive a journey to the west like this. His soul will be lost. We can’t stop it.’

  Sol’s mind filled with visions of Hirad’s outstretched grasping hands disappearing into the murk of the void, his mouth open in an eternal scream.

  ‘Not west. College.’

  Sol looked up into the eyes of the ClawBound elf. Blood dripped from the ends of the sharpened nails on his long fingers. His black and white halved painted face was impassive and his voice, as with them all, was hoarse and unused to speech.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sol searched the roof for Ilkar. ‘Sirendor, find our mage, would you? Assuming he’s alive behind that pile of broken stone, I need him to do whatever he can for poor Hirad.’

  ‘Thraun. Speak.’

  The ClawBound elf pointed to where the shapechanger was kneeling by his downed wolf. Sol nodded and dragged himself away from Hirad. The barbarian’s soul could ba
rely be breathing and Sol feared to move him lest he do more harm than good. Sirendor had made his way over to the shattered half wall and was kneeling behind it, already talking.

  Sol made his aching way to Thraun.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Thraun nodded. ‘They brought me back, you know? My soul had no direction when the Garonin ripped our resting place apart. They called for me. They needed my help. They knew something was wrong. And here they are, dying one by one. Three remain here. Four are lost in the city somewhere.’

  ‘We’ll save the rest. But tell me. Why does our ClawBound friend say we no longer need to go to the Wesmen? I’m presuming you know what we intend to do.’

  ‘I have spoken to Auum about it. The mage, Brynar. He is sure Septern knows the ritual of opening but is reluctant to perform it. Auum feels that he can persuade him.’

  Sol felt as if a door to hope had just been edged open. ‘And I thought he was taking young Hirad into Xetesk purely to keep him safe. My mind is clearly not sharp. Thank you, my friend. Get ready to go.’

  He straightened up and looked east. The black cloud swirling around the Garonin machine was growing deeper and spreading across the city. Dark blue light flashed within it. Ominous signals. So far, Xetesk appeared powerless to stop the drain on its Heart. But Sol could feel the pressure building. Densyr had already proved himself prone to desperate decisions and he would not allow this situation to continue.

  The enemy soldiers were beginning to fan out along the rooftops of eastern Xetesk. They were readying for something. Sol had to assume it was the final assault.

  ‘Sirendor, have you—’

  ‘Yes, he has,’ said Ilkar. ‘Didn’t anyone hear me calling?’

  ‘Sorry,’ sad Sol.

  ‘Clinging on by my bloody, literally bloody, fingernails for ages.’

  ‘And still alive,’ said Sol. ‘Which is more than we’ll be able to say for Hirad unless you can do something fast.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Ilkar knelt by the prone Raven warrior and studied his wounds briefly. He shook his head. ‘This is way beyond me, Unknown. He needs powerful focused magic. Only one place to get that.’