“I should not like to face her again unless it is for the last time,” she said softly. “I am not badly injured, I think, though my back pains me.”
Taren squeezed her shoulder supportively, though he thought the wound in her back looked more serious than she was letting on and would need to be treated right away. He looked around and saw Sianna nearby. Their eyes met, and she nodded.
“Well done, Taren,” Sianna said. “Father Wilhelm—we require some healing here.”
The skirmish atop the hill had ended by then. A number of guards and officers had gone down. The most notable casualty was General Keldor, one of Lord Lanthas’s fellow strategists, who lay dead with a hole in his chest. A handful of guards were moving about to ensure the fallen attackers were dead with swift thrusts of their swords.
Creel and Ferret seemed fine, albeit covered in their enemies’ blood.
The corpulent cleric came over to aid Sianna, along with a junior priest.
Sianna waved them away. “I’m fine. See to Mira and the others who defended us so bravely.”
Taren stepped away as the clerics tended to Mira. He noted Queen Shalaera watching a short distance away.
“You have my thanks, Your Majesty,” he said. “Your intervention was timely.”
The queen’s face softened when she smiled. “You are welcome, thaumaturge. I can only watch your talents with envy.”
Thaumaturge—again that word. He returned her smile and turned his attention back to the battle.
Even though they were in the clear for the moment, the fighting below was even more furious than earlier, and the Nebarans seemed to be pressing the defenders back. As he watched, his elation at their narrow survival swiftly turned to concern, then anger.
Enough of this—Nesnys may have escaped for the moment, but we can end this here and now.
He still felt the earth magic brimming hungrily inside him and gathered it for his next spell.
***
“Now! We’d best go now!” Kulnor watched the battle progress, aware of the rows of determined faces behind him, a hundred of their finest warriors eager for battle.
A force of the enemy’s elite warriors had just driven a wedge through the front lines of the defenders, threatening to shatter and break their lines.
Harbek handed him a loaded heavy crossbow. “Pick yer targets, lads. Ye all know how this goes down. One shot, then axes and hammers. We’re gonna go out there and save the bloody day!”
Growls of assent, nodding heads, and grim smiles filled the cramped space at Harbek’s words. The last of the warriors finished loading their crossbows and called out their readiness.
Kulnor held up one hand, the other gripping his holy symbol. He chanted a quick prayer to Reiktir and, with his god’s blessing, created an aura surrounding himself that bolstered the strength and hardiness of those in his immediate vicinity.
“Open ’er up,” Harbek ordered.
Four stout dwarves heaved the rock shelf up and sent it crashing away, and the view slot widened into blinding daylight.
Then Kulnor was charging ahead, squeezing through the breach, where only four abreast could pass. He ran a few strides then dropped to a knee, Harbek beside him, others filling in to either side. Like a well-oiled machine, their force of a hundred quickly formed up in two ranks. Off to their right, the battle seethed; ahead was a wall of black-and-gold, thousands of Nebarans still pressing forward into the opening their elite fighters had carved.
“Let ’em have it!” Harbek roared. “Loose!”
A hundred heavy crossbows fired into the flank of the Nebaran host. Nearly as many men fell at once, some quarrels even finding more than one target, a devastating blow delivered in an instant.
“Keep on me—charge!” Kulnor bellowed, already on his feet and dropping his crossbow aside.
They plowed into the side of the Nebaran column not like a spear but like a hammer blow. Strength flowed through Kulnor’s muscles from his spell, and his warhammer felt weightless in his hands as he smashed men aside with ease. Harbek’s axe was equally deadly at his side as Reiktir’s power bolstered them.
A blow fell on Kulnor’s helm, but he shrugged off what normally could have been incapacitating or even fatal. His hammer crushed his attacker’s hip to pulp, and the man spun through the air, collapsing and immediately getting trampled by his own men, scrambling to retreat from the fury of the dwarven charge.
Harbek hewed a man’s leg off at the thigh like the trunk of a tree, and the Nebaran fell, cleft arteries bathing Harbek in blood. The dwarf roared and hacked another down with his axe through the chest, the man’s chain shirt as worthless as wet parchment.
The hundred dwarves very nearly split the entire column in two, sending living men fleeing and the rest to the grave, while the front of the host was unaware of their presence until too late. Harbek bellowed a command, and they pivoted right, pushing forward and attacking the rear of the ranks of foes before them who were moving to engage the allied front. Men were cut down left and right as the vice tightened.
“They found their stones again and be comin’ up behind us,” shouted a warrior keeping an eye on their backs.
“Keep pushin’ forward,” Harbek bellowed. “We don’t wanna get smashed ’twixt these bastards.”
Kulnor shattered a man’s spine before him, and their foes started turning, only becoming aware of the danger at the last moment. A raised sword swept down at him, but he crushed the man’s elbow to pulp with a quick jab of his hammer before it could land. The man screamed and dropped his sword. Kulnor’s next blow caved in his ribs.
Where are those elite bastards? I want at ’em.
His question was answered a moment later when Harbek’s axe blow to a man’s back rang like a gong, the surprised dwarf stumbling back a step. A man in plate armor stood before him, the armor folded from the mighty axe blow, but no blood spewed forth. Instead, Harbek’s opponent spun, revealing a smooth, inhuman face with glowing red eyes. A long dagger jutted from one wrist, the other hand curled into a fist.
“Construct!” Kulnor bellowed. “A whole mess of ’em!”
The elite force he had only glimpsed turned out to be a unit of the automatons he had encountered in the Nebaran camp during their escape, at least a couple hundred of the constructs, to his reckoning.
Harbek raised his shield, and it caved in from a blow of the automaton’s fist. He cursed and stepped back, avoiding a swipe of the dagger-arm. Kulnor smashed its knee with his hammer. Metal crunched, and the machine stumbled then regained its balance and limped clumsily in pursuit. But Kulnor and his warriors couldn’t fall back very far, and more automatons were turning to deal with the dwarven threat.
“’Ware behind!” came the shout.
Kulnor glanced back and saw the gap in the Nebaran column had closed up, trapping them between a line of constructs and thousands of troops.
Damn. Reckon we might find ourselves delivered unto Reiktir’s forge in a bit.
Chapter 26
Taren drew steadily on the earth magic, a powerful flow filling him until his nerves tingled with power. He strode toward the front of the hill, observing the struggling forces. Once-organized units had devolved into ragged groups, thousands of individual clashes forming as the fight raged on.
At the core of the Nebaran forces were a couple hundred automatons, which had driven a wedge of death and destruction through the center of the main army, splitting apart human and dwarven infantry units alike. Arrows were useless against the constructs, and defenders were retreating, on the verge of being routed as the broken bodies of their comrades were battered and smashed aside like driftwood by a mighty wave. Kulnor’s strike force was pinned in the center of the host. Their valiant charge had proven costly for the Nebarans until they ran into the back of the constructs. Surrounded and cut off, they were about to get slaughtered.
“Have the central units fall back fifty paces,” Taren called to one of the nearby officers.
“Yes, milord.” The officer turned and issued the order, as instructed to do if Taren was confident he could make a difference during the battle. A moment later, a series of horn blasts split the air.
“What will you do?” Mira asked quietly beside him. She was still pale, and dried blood caked her face, but her nose looked whole again. More importantly, the deep gash in her back had closed up to a long white scar, noticeable against her tan skin through the slash in her shredded tunic.
“I need to first take out those constructs,” he replied.
Within a few moments, the remaining men anchoring the central defense fell back, more than happy to give ground to the deadly constructs. The machine soldiers pursued them steadily, showing no mercy.
Taren reached out into the earth below the combatants’ feet, and he injected a burst of power into the ground, similar to what he had done a few minutes earlier while fighting Nesnys. Rocks and mud thrust upward, throwing some automatons backward as a wall of earth rose up to thwart their advance. With the time bought, the Ketanians gained a few precious moments to clear the area before the automatons began circling around the obstacle. As they did, Taren channeled more magic into the ground, breaking it apart.
Small fissures formed, turning swiftly into huge rents as Taren poured more power into the earth. The ground split apart, and a twenty-pace-wide section collapsed into an abyss, taking with it half the entire force of constructs. Taren directed the magic, and the chasms snaked deeper into the Nebaran column, taking more automatons with it, then stopped abruptly before Kulnor’s group. The dwarves stared at the crevasse before them for a moment, then they hurriedly backed away as loose soil crumbled into the depths.
Once the ground began splitting, encouraging it to continue was easy, like a brittle piece of pottery whose whole structure became compromised once it received an initial crack. Kulnor’s warriors carved their way through the faltering Nebaran men on the left flank to rejoin the other dwarves. The Nebaran soldiers appeared to fall into disarray at the display of Taren’s power. As the dwarves escaped the danger area, he sent another rift tearing through the ground and split the Nebaran column in two. Confusion turned to terror as men fled the collapsing ground, many thrown off their feet by the bucking earth while many more tumbled to their deaths in the abyss. Within moments, their entire force had devolved into chaos.
Taren withdrew his tendrils of magic from the ground, instead forming fire, twin curtains of it that swept out to flank the Nebarans and contain them. The air shimmered from the heat as walls of flame spread, first a hundred paces across, then expanding to thrice that distance. A blast of wind sent the fires sweeping forward, consuming grass and shrubs and then screaming men as they became pinned between the fires and the chasm in the earth.
The Nebarans were in a full-on rout by that point. Archers whittled their numbers down further as they fled, the only retreat from the flames and chasm due south. Constructs emerged from the flames, glowing like steel pulled from a forge furnace, some partially melted, but their numbers were few.
Taren was aware of sweat pouring down his face and the strain on his body as he called ever more fire. His knees felt weak, and a wave of dizziness passed over him.
No. I will end this now.
He held on relentlessly to the flow of earth magic. After some minor experimenting with air currents, he sent the flames roaring in pursuit, wind blowing harder and driving the flames faster, seeking to totally cut off the Nebaran retreat. The distance was too great to directly affect them with his magic, but the wind continued propelling the flames in that direction. Men fell screaming as they were burned by the hundreds, if not thousands.
Gods, this is what I was meant to do. Finally, I can make a difference, do something for good. Put an end to this once and for all.
A small group of Nebarans had somehow escaped the flames and were fleeing through the thickets to the west, but he let them go, confident the elves would mop them up.
He focused on the thousands trying desperately to flee his trap and hauled on more power even as dark spots flickered in his vision.
***
Mira watched, speechless at the destruction Taren wrought on the Nebaran forces by both sundering the ground and igniting the fire, sending countless men and automatons plunging into the lightless depths of the earth, followed by many more burning.
The fighting had ended, and the allies were cheering. The Nebarans tried their best to flee, but Taren’s magic thwarted them, flames pushing them into the abyss in the ground or burning them outright. Even once the enemy force was clearly decimated, he kept on doggedly as if he would scour the ground of every last one of them.
They are fleeing. He should spare them.
She searched his face, worried. His eyes were blazing like orange coals, as brightly as she had ever seen them. Sweat streaked his face, and he looked as if determination alone was keeping him on his feet.
Mira flinched when the Weave suddenly appeared before her eyes. Taren glowed like a sun, influencing everyone on the battlefield. Instead of seeing the precise pattern of familiar golden tendrils, glowing threads on a loom interlacing all people, the Weave had lost its radiance, darkening and turning sickly. The rays of light linking Taren with everyone around had become like malevolent vines ensnaring them.
He’s losing control, and it is affecting the Balance.
She hesitated a moment, alarmed, yet afraid of what she knew she must do to her friend. His eyes were wide, but she knew he was seeing not with his physical eyes but with what he called his second sight.
“Taren! You must stop!”
He didn’t seem to hear her, absorbed in his magic.
Mira reached out a hand to shake him but paused, afraid he might put up some type of shield so she couldn’t reach him. “Please forgive me for this.”
She stepped near him then, with a single knuckle extended, jabbed Taren with a quick chop, striking the nerve in the soft spot just behind his jaw. At the same time, she injected a bit of her ki—a technique to not only cause a temporary spasm of pain, but to disrupt Taren’s own ki.
Taren jolted from her blow as if he’d been stabbed, and he crumpled instantly. Mira caught him in her arms and eased him to the ground.
The cacophony of battle had turned to cheers and celebration around her, but she ignored it all, only focused on Taren. He had fainted, his eyes rolled back. She placed a hand on his chest, sensing the flow of his ki. It was pulsing erratically, but slowly it stilled then returned to its normal channels after a couple of minutes. His breathing came more easily, then he opened his eyes, their earlier glow replaced with confusion.
“Taren, I’m sorry. The Balance was being disrupted by your magic use.” I feared you would lose control and become a slave to the magic. She didn’t say the latter, for his confusion was swiftly replaced by a look of hurt then a flash of anger.
“You… Why, Mira?” He glared at her as she knelt beside him. “I never thought… I trusted you.” He shook his head, his anger palpable.
Guilt swelled in her heart, but she knew she had made the right choice by protecting the Balance and in turn protecting Taren from becoming something anathema to his good nature. She suspected his anger covered his sense of shame, but his rebuke still stung.
She reached out a hand to help him up, but he pushed her arm aside. Instead, he rolled over and got to his feet unsteadily.
“Taren, that was magnificent!” Sianna was walking toward them, apparently unaware of what had just occurred. Her face was flushed with exuberance, but her smile faltered when she sensed the tension between Taren and Mira. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said curtly. He shot Mira a hurt look then stalked away.
His anger didn’t carry him far—his body succumbed to his overuse of magic after a few steps. He staggered, and one foot slipped out from under him. He pitched sideways, in danger of a spill down the hillside.
But Mira was there as ever to catch him when he fell. His
eyes were already closed, and his skin felt slightly feverish. She pulled him back to a safer spot and rested him gently on the ground.
Sianna hovered nearby, concerned.
“He should be fine,” Mira said. “I think he simply overextended himself with his magic use, which has happened before. He’ll likely sleep the rest of the day and should be fine come the morrow.”
Sianna looked relieved. “We all owe him our thanks—you as well, Mira. Thank you. I’m heartened that he has you looking after him.”
Mira returned her smile before the queen was called away by one of her advisors. She studied Taren’s face as he lay there. He looked peaceful now, but she hoped her actions hadn’t driven a wedge into their friendship.
She focused on the Weave and was reassured to see it had returned to normal. I did what needed to be done… so why does it not feel right? Taren’s hurt look and angry words were emblazoned large in her mind. She sighed. The Weave is truly a harsh mistress.
Chapter 27
Ferret walked among the dead on the battlefield, remembering what seemed a lifetime before when she was robbing such corpses. So much had changed since then—she’d never have believed it had she not lived it. She felt curiously adrift in her life, walking amongst mighty mages and great heroes, kings and queens, elves and dwarves. The entire experience was nearly too much to believe.
This time, no ghouls would be drawn to the corpses. Military work details were industriously sorting and disposing of the bodies. Men, elves, and dwarves all worked side by side to tend their dead. The Nebaran corpses, which made up the vast majority, were heaped upon giant pyres and set aflame—those not already burned to a crisp, at any rate. The crispy ones were simply tossed into the great chasms in the ground. Greasy black smoke pillars rose into the sky from burning corpses. Ferret was glad for a change she couldn’t smell the stench of burned flesh and voided bowels, which was surely thick in the air. Crows and vultures took the opportunity to gorge themselves before their meals were disposed of.
Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3) Page 23