Grumbling, her belly knotting with fear, Madori grabbed a shovel and joined the others. They dug along the roadside. Whenever Madori glanced over her shoulder, the soldiers raised their crossbows, and Lari shook her head while smiling her sweet smile. Madori returned her eyes to her work. The ditch was soon a foot deep, several feet wide.
Madori took a deep breath, summoning her magic. She was hurt, weary, and famished, and she doubted she had enough magic to fight with. But she could muster a little trick she had learned in her classrooms, a way to speak to her classmates without the professors hearing. Though her head blazed with pain, she chose and claimed the air between her and Jitomi. She formed an invisible barrier to block sound waves, then spoke softly.
"Jitomi!"
Digging beside her, he glanced at her. She saw in his eyes that he recognized her magic; they had often communicated like this in Professor Atratus's class. He whispered, allowing his words to reach her ear but not cross the magical barrier toward the Radians.
"Madori, I don't like this. We're digging our own graves."
She wouldn't look at him as she spoke. "I think so too. We have to attack them. Do you have enough magic in you to thicken this barrier of air? To block their crossbow quarrels?"
He nodded, an almost imperceptible movement. "Yes. Joined with your magic, yes. We'll create the barrier, then bolt into the trees."
"No." Madori tossed a shovel of dirt across her shoulder. "If we run, they'll track us. They'll catch us. We fight them."
Jitomi glanced over his shoulder, then back at her. "There are ten of them. Too many."
"Only two are mages—Lari and her father. The other eight are dumb soldiers. There are twenty-five of us and—"
A whip cracked. A soldier shouted behind them. "Get back to shoveling! Faster!"
Madori grunted and shoveled faster. She risked a glance at Jitomi and spoke before her shield of air could deteriorate, letting her voice through to the enemy.
"Pass the word on," Madori said. "On my signal, we raise barriers of air. The magic will block the first round of crossbow quarrels. Before the enemy can load again, we bang them with shovels."
Jitomi nodded and turned toward the Elorian beside him, conveying the information. The ditch was two feet deep by the time Jitomi glanced back toward her. He spoke two words, each one cold and hard as a blade.
"We're ready."
Madori took a deep breath, tossed a shovelful of dirt over her head, and spun toward the soldiers on the road.
"Now!" she shouted.
She claimed the air. She thickened her barrier. At her side, her fellow Elorians spun with her, and the air thrummed and solidified, forming an opaque shield.
The Radians fired their crossbows.
The air rippled like a pond under hail, wobbling as the quarrels slammed into the force field. The bolts shattered. Shards of metal and wood flew. Several shards passed the barrier and hit Madori's body, cutting her skin but not sinking deeper. The shield of air vanished, and the Radians began to load more quarrels.
Madori and the Elorians charged at them, shovels swinging.
A flash of fear filled Lari's eyes, bringing a smile to Madori's lips; she couldn't wait to slam her shovel into that pretty face. Lord Serin, however, smiled too—a smile lush with cruelty, amusement, and a hint of admiration.
Forget about Lari, Madori told herself. She screamed and charged toward Serin. I go after the big fish.
She lunged toward the lord, shovel swinging, as he thrust his sword toward her.
* * * * *
The enemy covered the land, spreading into the horizon, a sea of steel surging forth.
Their catapults swung. Their trebuchets twanged. From the ranks of enemy troops, dozens of boulders hurtled through the air, bristly with metal spikes.
Torin stood upon the walls of his city, hundreds of soldiers stretching to his sides. Protector of Kingswall, he raised his sword and cried at the top of his lungs.
"Archers! Fire!"
Around him, a hundred archers loosed their arrows. Whistles filled the air. A hundred glinting shards flew upward, reached their zenith, then plunged down toward the enemy. Below upon the fields, shields rose. Arrows slammed into wood. Three men fell dead, maybe four. Jeers rose from the enemy troops.
With a rumbling like thunder, the enemy's boulders slammed into the city of Kingswall.
One stone crashed into the wall beneath Torin, cracking the stone. The battlements shook. Another boulder sailed over his head, and Torin looked over his shoulder to see a steeple snap, tilt, and slam down to drive into the street. Other boulders slammed into houses, crashing through tiled roofs.
"Trebuchets, fire!" Torin shouted.
The contraptions of wood, metal, and rope twanged upon the city ramparts. Flaming barrels flew from the battlements of Kingswall, spinning and shrieking, to crash into the enemy below. Magerian troops fell, fire blazing across them.
"Archers!" Torin shouted and more arrows sailed.
Fire crackled in the field. Smoke rose. With a blast of smoke and flame, the buffalo cannon fired. The world seemed to shake. The cannon ball, large as a boulder, slammed into a turret only paces away from Torin. The tower crumbled. Bricks rained and archers fell. Dust filled the air. The blast nearly knocked Torin off the wall.
Mules grunted in the fields, clad in steel, tugging forth siege towers of wood and metal. Enemy archers stood upon them, firing onto the walls. Arrows flew around Torin, and one slammed into his shield. Another grazed his helmet. He fired his bow, hitting an enemy archer upon a siege engine. A trebuchet swung at his side, slamming its boulder into another engine, scattering wood and enemy soldiers.
One wooden tower reached the wall, and a plank slammed down. Magerian swordsmen rushed onto the battlements. Torin ran toward them, sword swinging, and locked blades with an enemy soldier. With a kick and thrust of his shield, he sent the man tumbling off the wall. More Magerians surged from the siege engine, and Torin snarled as he fought, slaying men, sending them crashing down. His comrades fought at his sides.
"Burn the siege engine!" Torin shouted over his shoulder. Men stood there with torches, lighting the wooden trebuchet projectiles. "Bring fire!"
Men rushed forth, holding torches and pots of oil. Cauldrons tilted over the battlements. Bubbling oil crackled over a siege engine. Torches fell, landed upon the wood, and the wooden tower burst into flames like a pyre. Torin stepped back and shielded his eyes from the heat. Those Magerian troops still in the engine screamed, engulfed in fire.
The tower collapsed but Torin found no rest. The buffalo cannon fired a second time, and another turret crumbled and fell off the wall. More catapult boulders sailed overhead. In the city, roofs shattered and houses crumbled. A domed temple crashed down, scattering bricks. Smoke, dust, and fire covered the city.
Through the screams of battle, shrieks of arrows, and roars of fire rose a deep chant. The voices boomed across the battlefield. Torin's heart sank.
"The mages," he muttered.
He stared between two merlons and a chill gripped him. The enemy troops parted below like a splitting sea. Down the path rode a hundred black horses, and upon them sat a hundred mages clad in black robes and hoods. At their lead rode the captain of Mageria's forces, the towering Gehena, his four arms raised like serpents about to strike. Swordsmen and archers chanted at the mages' sides, raising their swords and bows, cheering on their champions.
Torin turned back toward his men.
"Archers!" he shouted. "Aim at the mages! Slay the mages!"
He fired his own bow. His arrow sailed toward the mages, burst into flame in mid-air, and disintegrated. A hundred other arrows followed his, only to suffer the same fate.
The mages halted outside the city gates. At their lead, Gehena raised his head, his red eyes crackling like flames, staring straight at Torin. His four hands collected smoke and fire, forging them, coiling them into the shape of a great champion. Behind the captain, the lesser mages added th
eir own smoke to the creation. The creature took shape in the fields—a great buffalo, large as a ship, its horns formed of countless metal shards. The ghostly animal shrieked, an unearthly sound, and charged.
Arrows rained upon the creature, passing through its smoke. The astral horns, each like a battering ram, slammed into the city gates.
The walls shook.
The doors smashed.
The gates of Kingswall shattered.
The mages moved aside. Cheering for victory, the enemy troops surged into the city.
It is lost, Torin knew, looking down to see the enemy racing into the inner courtyard. The city has fallen. The city will be our graveyard.
The world became a dream—a nightmare of smoke, blood, wounds, steel, arrows, death. They fought in the streets. They fought in homes, upon roofs, in the ruins of shattered temples. More and more Ardishmen fell, and ever the Magerians stormed forth, filling the streets like poison seeping through arteries. Torin fought for a turn, maybe more, ever falling back as the enemy claimed street by street. With blood, fire, and shattering stones, the city of Kingswall crumbled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
FLIGHT
We're too slow.
Cam panted as he rode across the countryside, leading three thousand armored riders. His horse foamed at the mouth, the courser's eyes rolling, nostrils flaring, ears lying flat against its head. The other beasts were just as exhausted. Cam knew he was driving them too hard, yet how could he rest?
We're too damn slow.
His family was at Kingswall. Torin was at Kingswall. Hundreds of thousands of his people were at Kingswall.
The serpent heads there now. Serin.
Cam clenched his fist as he rode. He did not doubt Serin's actions now; the man had fooled them, drawn them to Hornsford with his army of straw, leaving Kingswall a fruit ripe for the picking. Cam had sent Nitomi and Qato ahead in their hot air balloon, entreating the dojai to rescue whoever they could. But Kingswall needed more than two Elorian spies; it needed an army. It needed Cam and his riders.
Idar damn it, too slow!
The landscape rose and fell around them, grassy hills to the north, the Sern River to the south. Miles behind, his ground troops were heading east too, but Cam would not wait. In his mind's eye, he could imagine the Magerian horde assaulting the city, toppling walls, storming the streets.
With three thousand riders, I can tear through the enemy, he thought, gazing upon his forces. Every man wore good steel and carried a blade and sword. We can still save our city. We can—
Chants rose ahead, interrupting his thoughts.
Cam stared toward the sound and his breath died.
"Idar help us," he whispered.
The enemy covered the landscape, twenty thousand troops or more bearing the Radian standards. Thousands among them rode upon horses. Scythed chariots rolled forth. Men beat drums and sang for victory, and horns—thousands of horns—shrieked like birds of prey.
Behind Cam, his men raised their own horns. The song rose in the wind, the song of Arden, a song for victory. Men aimed lances and took battle formations.
"We will slay them, my king!" cried a lord.
"For Arden!" cried a knight.
The two armies stormed across the countryside toward each other.
We're trapped, Cam thought, a shiver taking him. Of course. He howled in rage. He planned this too.
He leaned forward in his saddle and drew his sword, prepared for battle—but he knew this was not a battle he could win. This was not a battle on his terms.
He flushed me away from my walls. He trapped me between Hornsford and Kingswall. Now my city stands alone and I'm caught like a sheep between wolves.
The fear—for his family, his friends, his people—stormed through him like an icy torrent.
The enemy roared as they charged, covering the land, thousands of horses and chariots with spinning blades upon their wheels. Thousands of arrows flew. Cam swung his sword, and blood stained the fields of Arden.
* * * * *
Lari grinned and licked her lips as she fired her crossbow, aiming at the filthy mongrel. When her quarrel shattered against the shield of air, Lari stared for an instant, disbelief freezing her.
The mongrel shattered my quarrel.
Lari felt her smile vanish, replaced with a snarl. She screamed.
The damn mongrel thinks she can magic her way out of this.
Growling, Lari placed another quarrel in her crossbow and began to turn the crank, tugging the string back. Crossbows were such crude machines—too slow to load. Weapons for commoners. The Elorians were racing onto the road, swinging their shovels. Abandoning hope of loading the second quarrel fast enough, Lari cursed and tossed her crossbow at the nightcrawlers. The weapon slammed into an Elorian's forehead, cutting a deep groove, and Lari smiled and hissed through clenched teeth.
Good. First blood.
She raised her hands, prepared to fight the way a proper, highborn girl should fight—with magic, cruel and twisting and dark, a force to rip bones out of flesh. Madori would die slowly, Lari decided. A quick blast to the heart was too good for mongrels.
I will coil your bones, pull out your organs, and make you watch and beg me for death. She licked her lips and her nostrils flared, already smelling the mongrel blood.
She took a step toward Madori, gathering the magic in her hands, when the other maggot—the one called Jitomi—swung a shovel toward her head.
Lari sneered and swung her arms, tossing the ball of magic—the one intended for Madori—at the shovel instead. Inches away from her head, the shovel jerked backwards, tugging Jitomi two steps back.
Lightning flashed and slammed into a tree nearby. Lari grinned, raised her palms, and sucked the energy toward her, forming two glowing balls. She smiled crookedly at Jitomi, that piece of nightcrawler filth.
"Toss down your shovel and fight like a mage," she said. "Or are nightcrawlers so weak with magic, you fight like gravediggers?"
Around them, the others were battling—Elorian students dueling soldiers, shovels clanging against swords. Jitomi tugged back his hood and stared at her with blue, monstrous eyes the size of limes. His white hair fell across his brow, and his skin gleamed when lightning struck again. The dragon tattoo coiling across his face seemed to stare too. Never breaking his gaze, he tossed his shovel aside and raised his hands, collecting metallic particles from the air.
Lari leaned forward, tossing her balls of lightning.
He reacted at once, lobbing his projectiles toward her. The balls of lightning crashed and shattered. A thousand bright shards hovered in the air for an instant, then pattered down.
Sneering, Lari chose his boot. She claimed the leather. She tugged and he fell. Quickly she chose the air around a rock, levitated it above the Elorian, and tossed it down toward his face.
Jitomi rolled aside, and the rock thumped into the mud. A blast of that mud showered upward, flying toward Lari, blinding her and filling her mouth.
She held one hand forward, shoving a field of air, and wiped the mud off her face to see him crash backward.
"Better." She spat out mud, smiled, and wriggled her fingers, collecting strands of smoke. "Now we're having fun."
She tossed the smoky ropes at him, the same magic she had used on Madori back at Teel. The murky tentacles spun around him. Lari tugged her arm back, tightening the grip, and Jitomi gasped. She shoved her palm forward, blasting out power and knocking him onto his back. She chose a branch above, claimed the wood, and cracked it. The bough slammed down onto Jitomi, pinning him to the ground.
Lari grinned and chose his foot—not just his boot this time but the flesh within. He lay, blinking, struggling to rise, still wrapped in the magical ropes.
Her grin so wide it hurt her cheeks, Lari tugged his foot, and he screamed. She spun him in the mud, dragging him toward the ditch until he teetered on the edge.
He tried to resist. He summoned a ball of mud, air, and wooden chips; Lari
dodged the projectile easily. She stepped forward, pouted mockingly, and placed her foot against Jitomi's neck, smearing the dragon tattoo with mud.
"You dug your own grave, worm," she said sweetly. "Now fall into it."
She kicked, shoving him into the ditch. He fell into the grave and lay, groggy and bleeding. Lari stood above and laughed. She lifted a shovel and began tossing mud into the ditch, covering the Elorian, burying him alive.
"Die in the mud like the worm that you are." She laughed. "Your mongrel friend will join you soon."
She tossed in another shovelful of mud, lightning flashed, and she saw them emerge from the forest across the ditch.
Two figures, a boy and girl, blades in their hands.
Lari sneered.
"Tam and Neekeya." She spat. "The two traitors. So you've come to die too."
The two stepped to the opposite edge of the ditch. Tam raised his eyebrows.
"Hullo, Lari!" he said. "It's always strange meeting a student outside of your school, isn't it?"
Neekeya nodded at his side. "It is! And you know the best part?" She raised her sword with the crocodile-claw pommel. "At the university there are rules. But here . . ." The swamp dweller smiled toothily. "Here I do believe we can kill the girl."
The two lunged over the ditch, flying toward her.
Lari growled and tossed air their way.
Their own magic blasted forth, tearing through her defenses, and they landed before her. Lari leaped back, narrowly dodging Neekeya's blade. Tam swung his dagger and Lari screamed; the blade tore across her cheek, and her blood splattered.
"That," the boy said, "is for what you did to Madori's cheek."
Lari screamed and tossed dark tendrils toward him. Neekeya sliced the magic with her blade, then thrust the sword. The tip nicked Lari's other cheek, splashing more blood.
"And that," said Neekeya, "is for Madori's second cheek." She lunged forward, swinging her blade. "The next cut will be for me."
Lari screamed and stumbled backward. She had never cast so much magic before, and when she tried to claim Neekeya's sword, to heat the steel until the barbarian dropped it, she could not. The material slipped from her mind. She tossed a stone, but the projectile bounced uselessly off Neekeya's scale armor.
Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) Page 23