Among the wizards of Acedor, there was no boasting. There was fear. Fear and doubt. True, the seven of them faced only three, and behind them was the power of a demon. What nagged them with fear and doubt was recognizing one of the wizards on the side of Tarador.
It was the woman from the far land of Ching-Do, the wizard known as Madame Chu. The enemy knew of her, feared her, had tried to kill her over the years. Tried and failed.
“I can’t throw a fireball,” Olivia protested to Chu Wing. She had not yet mastered that skill, and Lord Salva had warned her against trying. The technique Olivia had developed allowed her to create a larger fireball in her hand, but she yet lacked control of it. Whenever she tried to throw it, as soon as it left her hand, it shrunk to a pinpoint of light and then snuffed out. Madame Chu thought the problem might be that because Olivia was using artificial means of growing the fireball, the magic was not properly contained. Although, when Chu tried ‘pulling’ a fireball using Olivia’s technique, she created a fireball larger and more intense than she usually did, and the power remained when she threw it. Chu had told Olivia that she simply needed to work on her concentration, with a small amount of magical fire, before she tried throwing anything powerful.
“You don’t have to throw anything,” Chu assured the young wizard. “Stand here, in view of the enemy, particularly whenever their wizards are watching, and just hold fire in your hand. We only need to make them keep their distance from us.” Madame Chu had already forced the enemy back by creating an especially large fireball, and hurling it into the ranks of the enemy. After that, they had pulled back the front rank. The crisped bodies of the dead provided a marker for the unwary.
“What if they charge us while you’re busy?” Olivia asked fearfully. She was not concerned for her own life; she was afraid of failing in her assigned task. Even though it was a task that should not have fallen to an apprentice wizard.
“You will be fine, Olivia,” Chu held a hand above her head, let flare a truly impressive fireball, then let it snap out of existence. Her strength was needed elsewhere.
“But what if-”
Chu stepped down behind the barrier, and crouched so the enemy would not see where she was going. “If the enemy charges now, all is lost anyway. Take care of yourself, and stay out of the army’s way.” Without a backward glance, she hurried a short way down the road to where a tent had been set up for her, shielding her from prying eyes. Sitting cross-legged on cushions, she closed her eyes, slowed her breathing and reached out for Paedris through the spirit world. “It is time.”
Paedris, accompanied by Cecil, was on top of a ridge slightly above and to the south of the Gates of the Mountains. When he felt Chu Wing reach out for him in the spirit world, he smiled to himself, and sent a wave of warmth back to her. Then, he spoke. “Lord Mwazo, it is time.”
Cecil shuddered, breathing deeply from the strain of the magic he had been wielding. “You may have my strength, what is left of it. Paedris, what of your own strength?” The other wizard had been feeding power to Cecil all day, and parts of the previous days.
“It will be enough,” Paedris’ face reflected the great strain he was under. “Whenever have we wielded great power, unless it is in great need?” A good part of a wizard’s training was to pull power from the spirit world while the wizard was very tired, even utterly exhausted. That was when mistakes were made, and power could become dangerous, even deadly, to the wizard him or herself. “Let us begin.”
Paedris closed his eyes, feeling the power from Madame Chu and Lord Mwazo; at first two streams of a warm, liquid-like caress, quickly growing to a blast of furnace-like fire. In the mountain valley below, the enemy wizards could not have missed such raw power being used, and they saw their danger.
Too late.
Paedris used the power of his fellow wizards, and added his own. With his mind, he reached down into the rock that lay under and supported the great weight of the Gates. Many years ago, when passing through the Gates, Paedris had sent out his senses deep underground, and found faults. Places where the rock foundation was weak, cracked, crumbling. Over the course of his many travels in Tarador, he had several occasions to ride through the Kaltzen pass, and each time, he had explored and tweaked the underground faults. Paedris had told General Magrane about the weakness of the Gates, and the general had thought it might someday be useful to collapse the Gates, to prevent an enemy from using the pass and gain entry to the heart of Tarador that way.
The new Regent of Tarador knew of the weakness underlying the Gates also, but she had a very different idea about how to use that knowledge.
Let the enemy pass through the Gates first.
The host of Acedor, having passed through the Gates and now standing in the valley, awaiting orders to charge and force their way through the pass, all jerked as one as they felt the ground rumble under their feet. In terror, they saw the solid rock cliffs of the Gates ripple. And then, as they began throwing aside their weapons and running in terror, the faces of the twin cliffs began to slump, toppling down and over to the north. The air filled with screams and billowing dust and flying shards of rock as the enormous columns of rock gave way, collapsing to fill in where the Gates had been, and creating a landslide wall of rock rushing across the floor of the valley. Paedris had chosen well, the underground faults he split open began in the valley and ran west under the Gates. As the fault grew wider and wider, the west half of the valley floor gave way in one sudden catastrophic fall, land falling away twenty feet or more. Great cracks opened in the valley, swallowing men, orcs and horses, before the land shifted again and the cracks closed on those unfortunates.
“Paedris!” Mwazo shouted in alarm, as the ground beneath them also shifted.
Lord Salva’s eyes snapped open, but for a moment his awareness was still in the spirit world. Shaking himself back to the real, he grasped Mwazo’s arm to steady the both of them. “Have no fear, my friend. We are up here because the rock under this place is solid.” The ground beneath the lurched.
“Perhaps not as solid as you supposed?”
“It is solid as I expected, Cecil,” Paedris pushed himself to his knees. “The problem is, I may have used somewhat too much power. The spirits were more than eager to help.”
“Somewhat?” Cecil’s eyes grew wide as he contemplated the chaos in the valley below. Most of the valley was now wreathed in dust, as were the Gates. Or, where the magnificent Gates used to be, for the once-impressive cliffs had collapsed entirely to fill in any gap. In the valley, with the ground still shaking, those enemy still alive were stumbling, crawling, rolling on the ground and trying to get to the east, but in that direction lay archers of the Royal Army of Tarador. The choice was either deadly arrows to the east, or being crushed to death by falling rock to the west. Most of the enemy soldiers, without guidance from their wizards or orders from their leaders, chose to risk the arrows, holding their hands up in fearful surrender.
“What have I done?” Ariana gasped in horror from her viewpoint above the valley.
General Magrane had no such regrets. “You have given us a victory, Your Highness. And now, if you will excuse me, I must go down to the road, to see to the enemy’s surrender. Or to finish them.” Magrane had a preference, which he did not express aloud in the presence of the crown princess. She had seen enough ugliness for one day. Let the enemy surrender, if they would. If they could, given the demon they served.
If not, then enemy would soon discover the Royal Army of Tarador was not so weak in the Kaltzen pass as their leaders had thought, for Magrane had thousands of soldiers hidden just down the road. Soldiers who even then were polishing the edges of their already razor-sharp swords. Soldiers seeking revenge.
Soldiers eager to kill the servants of the demon who sought to slaughter or enslave them and their families.
Grand General Magrane very much preferred the enemy not to surrender.
Ariana walked slowly through the line of large tents of the hurriedly set
up Royal Army field hospital, which held cots full of wounded soldiers. She briefly greeted the doctors first, mindful they were extremely busy, then walked through each tent. With soldiers who were awake, she knelt beside them, inquired about their injuries and simply listened. It took her many hours to go through every tent, then she had to visit one particular wounded soldier; a person she had been putting off visiting.
Kyre Falco.
When she came into the section of the tent which held Kyre, she saw that a haggard-looking Lord Salva had just finished checking on the heir to Burwyck. The wizard acknowledged the princess with a nod, and walked to her slowly, wiping his hands on a clean towel.
Whereas before, when among the wounded soldiers, she had been outwardly cheery and trying to project confidence, now she appeared to have shrunk. Her shoulders were stooped, arms hugged tightly across her chest, her face downcast. “How,” she let out a long breath. “How is he?”
Her inner conflict had not escaped the attention of the court wizard. “He will recover fully,” Paedris assured the Regent. “More quickly if I had the strength,” he added with great weariness, “I did what I could for him. He needs rest, which, since he is a generally healthy young man, he will not allow himself.” Paedris looked at the crown princess, trying to judge her emotions. Her face was a mask, unreadable. “Your Highness, his injury was grave, he could have died. I do not know whether it pleases you that I saved his life?”
“No. I meant to say, no, it does not displease me. Or, I don’t know,” she sighed. “I am to marry the heir to Burwyck, and Kyre’s younger brother is worse.” She looked up at Paedris, and they had been alone, she would have appreciated a reassuring hug. “Talen Falco, from what little I know, is a bully, and every inch his father. Kyre,” she shook her head. “I thought I knew him. Now, I’m not sure. With the Falcos, you can never tell what is real, and what is a careful show for my benefit.”
Paedris was about to remark that was true of most royalty, but he held his tongue. “His Grace wishes to speak with you, Your Highness.”
Ariana blushed. “Please, call me Ariana. You are only person who will.”
Paedris straightened. “Perhaps when you are serving me tea and sweet biscuits. Here,” he gestured around the tent, “you command Tarador, Your Highness. I would prefer that Kyre rest, but I know that if I don’t let him speak with you, he won’t be able to rest. Please be brief. And then, Your Highness, you and I must speak privately.”
Ariana made a short, stiff bow. “Yes, Lord Salva,” she said without a trace of a smile; her focus was on the figure grimacing as he pushed himself upright in bed.
As the crown princess approached, Kyre struggled to swing his legs off the bed onto the floor. “No, stop!” Ariana hurried forward, waving her hands in genuine concern. “Lord Salva told me you were gravely injured. You need to rest.”
“I am not so injured that I can’t stand in the presence of my future queen,” Kyre said in a voice much weaker than he would have wished, and tried to push himself up.
“Stop! That is a command from your Regent,” Ariana ordered automatically, not knowing what else to say. To her surprise, it worked. Kyre sunk back to sit on the bed.
“Your Highness, it is you who were gravely injured, by my thoughts and things I said about you, to myself,” Kyre couldn’t look at her as he spoke. “I should have trusted you.”
“Oh. Kyre,” then she remembered that this conversation should be kept formal. “Your Grace, I am sorry. The deception was necessary.”
“I understand that now.” He looked away, thinking of the soldiers who had died or been injured, not to stop the enemy, but to maintain a deception. A deception that he now knew was indeed absolutely necessary. General Magrane and his Royal Army had counterattacked the enemy along the River Fasse in Anschulz, and the royal force simply lacked the strength to have stopped a second invasion. A much larger second invasion. The only reason the enemy had not pushed their way across the Turmalane mountains into the heart of Tarador, was because the enemy had been lured into a trap. Those soldiers of Tarador who died to maintain the deception had sold their lives dearly, for their sacrifice had drawn the enemy to their defeat.
That might be of cold comfort to the dead.
Ariana kept talking, feeling she needed to justify her actions. “Duchess Rochambeau knew the truth, but her army commander did not.”
Kyre did not react openly. “Did my father know?”
“Yes,” the crown princess looked away. “He was sworn to secrecy; he could not have told you, though I expect he wished to?”
Kyre laughed bitterly. “I am not in good favor with my father at the moment.” Would the duke of Burwyck have preferred his eldest son to have died in glorious battle, so that Talen could become the heir? Kyre was certain the thought had crossed his father’s mind. “Your Highness, I said some very harsh things about you, to myself, when I thought you had abandoned Demarche out of spite. I judged you unfairly.”
“You were supposed to, silly,” Ariana’s smile was genuine. “If I couldn’t deceive you, how could our enemy have been deceived?” She lowered her voice. “The, wizards,” she whispered, “helped to maintain the deception. You were not alone, Your Grace. The wizards assured me they used their utmost power to convince the enemy that we had abandoned Demarche, and that the Kaltzen pass was only lightly defended,” she repeated the words General Magrane had used when explaining his final plan to her. Chancellor Kallron was constantly reminding her that she needing to speak like an adult if she wanted people to take her seriously as Regent. “I am sorry about the people we lost, I do regret that.”
“Don’t, Princess,” Kyre said groggily, his eyelids fluttering. The effort of staying awake was becoming too much for him. His head nodded onto his chest, then he jerked awake, embarrassed. “I saw what happened when the enemy crossed the river. If we had tried to stop them west of the mountains, it would have taken your entire army, and we would have had nothing left now.”
“That is what General Magrane told me.”
“It was his idea to trap the enemy behind the Gates?”
“Yes, he and Lord Salva have been talking about the possibility of doing something like that for years. It was my idea to make the enemy think I was punishing Duchess Rochambeau because she snubbed me in the Council vote,” Ariana added with pride. “To lure the enemy in past the Gates.”
“I’ll bet Aunt Sally wasn’t happy about that,” Kyre giggled, half asleep. The Duchess of Demarche was distantly related to him, as most of Tarador’s royalty were related in some way or another. Salvanna Rochambeau was not Kyre’s favorite aunt, but she was the most powerful. “She hates you.”
“I know.”
“No. She really, really hates you,” Kyre giggled again. Whatever Paedris had done to him in the healing process, it had made Kyre free with his words. Very much unlike the careful training her had received since he was a baby; to use every word as a weapon to get what he wanted. “She must super hate you right now. My father doesn’t hate you,” Kyre’s head nodded again, “I think he kind of admires you. He probably wishes you were his her instead of me right now. He just,” he lost his train of thought, “what was I saying? He sees that you are in his way. He will kill you someday, you know that?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Ariana replied quietly, knowing Kyre was slipping away into sleep. She hoped when he awakened, he would not remember the conversation.
Kyre reached up to hold her hand, but missed twice, his hand kept flopping onto the bed. Ariana took pity on him, holding his hand lightly, while glancing around to check if anyone was watching. People in the hospital tent were either asleep, or too busy to notice or care what the princess was doing.
“Don’t you worry,” Kyre said so quietly that Ariana had to bend down to hear. “I’ll pro- protect you.” His hand went limp, his head lolled to the side, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Ariana patted his hand, and placed it gently on the bed. The young man who she
would be forced to marry, the young man who was the heir to a family that had been bitter enemies of the Trehaymes for centuries, was drooling on the pillow. Ariana stifled a laugh. Laying there like that, a matted lock of blond hair curled like an ‘S’ on his forehead, his hands twitching in sleep, he looked almost- Cute, she had to admit.
Then she frowned, and stood upright. A sleeping bear might look cute also, until it awakened and decided to kill you. Kyre was a Falco, and he would always be a Falco. Despite his words, she reminded herself that Kyre would, in the end, fulfill his familial obligations. His words meant nothing; a person like Kyre never said anything unless his words gained an advantage for him. And for the Falcos.
Ariana wiped her hands on a towel, wiped them clean of the sweat Kyre’s hand had left on hers. The Falcos and the Trehaymes were enemies and always would be. Someday, Kyre himself might kill her. If she hadn’t killed him first.
A tiny part of her, the part that was still a girl rather than the cold-hearted leader of her nation, took one last look at Kyre’s sleeping form, and wished things could be different.
“Lord Salva?” Ariana asked later, much later, when she had finished walking through every tent in the field hospital.
“Your Highness,” Paedris wearily began to push himself up from the folding chair.
Transcendent (Ascendant Book 2) Page 37