Still, her darts were like glass in the eye, and soon the troll was blind, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Jovian was still able to keep its focus, but it was swinging blind now, and that meant all of them were in danger.
Joya fell to the ground, narrowly escaping the blur of the cudgel as it passed overhead. As she stood, she saw one troll a group of soldiers were struggling with some distance away vanish from sight in a blur of black lightning.
“Astanel,” the orb barked. “Focus on the catapults first.”
Joya jumped back as the club swung past her again, and then resumed the tempest of lightning until, by some stroke of luck, one tendril of electricity hit the proper channel, and the troll fell dead.
If that’s the only way to kill them . . . she thought, but then she saw one felled without damaging the brain. There had to be other ways, right? It couldn’t just be the brain. But it was too tall for them to do any real damage to any other part of its body.
“One more catapult!” the orb said. Joya wished she could see the massive weapons vanish and the stir that created on the ground, but there was too much to focus on where she was.
Mag surveyed the last catapult. It was apparent that the dwarves didn’t care that at any moment this catapult would vanish too, and the trolls weren’t smart enough to see the danger. Despite several groups of their soldiers running into the blackened wall of wyrd closing the breach and vanishing, the trolls couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
Mag kept the shield around her steady, hardened like armor. It wouldn’t be enough to stop a melee attack, but it was enough protection to make the arrows the enemy launched at her bounce off uselessly.
She was also keeping Astanel shielded. It was too hard for the boy to use the alarist wyrd and keep his mind focused enough to fight the will of the wyrd. Mag couldn’t imagine him trying to split his concentration. But she had to use him. The truth was she hadn’t touched her alarist wyrd in so long it was difficult for her to call it up now. It was still there, tempting her when she drew on her wyrd, but the whisper of invitation to draw on it had grown less and less over the years. Mag was afraid she wouldn’t be able to muster enough force to do what they needed.
Astanel focused his mind; she saw the way his eyebrows knitted together. He held his hands up in front of his face, like he was holding a ball. Mag watched as the dark light of his alarist wyrd filled the space between his hands until Astanel thought it was strong enough and launched it. He really didn’t need to make the motion he did, tossing it away from his body like it was a ball. The wyrd knew where he wanted it to go, and it would go there once he released it.
The ball slipped over the wall and bobbed over the heads of the dwarves below. Like before, several dwarves swung at the orb, trying to fend it off with weapons, only to look around spooked and perplexed when their weapons vanished once they connected with the darklight orb.
Mag shook her head in disbelief.
Still, the darklight orb reached the catapult. Just before the lines were cut, hurling the equipped troll over the wall, the catapult and troll vanished in a small pulse of light. That was the last one. No more.
“Catapults are down!” Mag said, and her voice was amplified across the courtyard. She looked over to Astanel, to tell him to start focusing once more on the trolls below, but he was tiring, barely able to keep standing. She needed to get him away from the fight, but he was on the other side, the wider side. Archers and soldiers held chaos dwarves at bay on the ramparts behind him. They were keeping the enemy forces from him.
Mag turned her attention back to the courtyard. She surveyed the amount of people dead or dying, and panicked. There were too many trolls and dwarves still in the courtyard. She didn’t know what to do. It was bad enough that each troll took a party of at least two to take it down, but the groups of dwarves were relentless in their attack too.
There was nothing for it. She had the opportunity to attack from here, and she needed to take it. The trolls were too hard to take down from where she was, so Mag focused her wyrd on the dwarven forces closest to the wall. With a blast of lightning, she started taking them out.
Cianna noticed the allied soldiers were growing thinner as the enemy dispatched more and more. Without the threat of soldiers overwhelming them, the dwarves were able to turn their attention to the soldiers engaging trolls, cutting the allies down while their attention was rooted on the enormous beasts. The archers on the wall were fighting off dwarves that had made their way up there, and weren’t able to help the ground forces.
Cianna’s gaze flickered to the left where Mag was working her green lightning over groups of dwarves, thinning the herd, but she was just one wyrder. They needed more on the walls focusing on what was going on down here, but they couldn’t. Their hands were tied.
But there was a stirring in her, something rising to the surface, breaking her concentration. Cianna realized she wasn’t as big a help with the trolls, so she turned instead to the dwarves, something she could help with.
Cianna didn’t have any power over these creatures, since there was nothing dead about them, but she could injure the dwarves with her weapons.
She flipped her crossbow out of its sheath on her back, where she’d placed it when the fighting became more melee than ranged, and took aim. She fired a bolt through the eye of a dwarf that got too near for comfort, felling the enemy. This was easy, like shooting fish in a barrel compared to fighting the troll.
The ground shook beneath her as something large fell, and she knew it was the troll her cousins were battling.
And then her eyes spotted another troll, dead. And then another.
Cianna froze, realization dawning on her.
If I could just get to a place of safety. Her eyes scanned everywhere, but there was no place in the courtyard where she could keep eye contact with the battle and remain safe.
Then her eyes traveled up.
Cianna raced for the keep. A large group of soldiers stood before the doors, holding the line against any dwarves. A large ring of dead dwarves lay sprawled out before them.
They nodded to Cianna and parted, letting her into the white and black entrance hall. Cianna slipped and slid on her way to the right-hand staircase. Still she was able to keep her footing and jogged up the stairs, sheathing her weapons as she went. Her heart raced in her ears, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Even still she channeled her necromancy, feeling the dead wyrd throb through her veins.
On the second landing she turned right into the mahogany and red hall, aiming for Angelica and Jovian’s suite.
She burst through the door, expecting to scare Grace and Rosalee, but they weren’t in the suite — no one was. Cianna darted toward the window, grimacing as snow sloughed off her boots and onto the carpet.
She opened the window and looked out. Below she could see the courtyard somewhat to the right, but she was still able to see the trolls.
As she studied them, wyrd rose like bile rose in her throat, and the smell of rotting meat came to her. She knew the feel of her necromancy by now. The power called to her, pulled her forth, yearned toward the dead. Cianna knew the feeling well; she often fought it aside, but now that she was considering using it, the necromancy called more strongly to her, as if answering her.
Cianna didn’t think she could animate all of the trolls and the dwarves, but she could do her best. She called to the necromancy, and felt the spirits all around her answer, turn their heads to her, bow before her in supplication. She was the necromancer, and they knew there was no use in resisting.
Cianna cast her arms out, her weapons clattering on her back, and felt the wyrd of the dead souls around her settle over the courtyard like a blanket. Then, as if the souls were water and the dead bodies sponges, the souls were absorbed by the bodies.
She felt the necromantic wyrd take hold in the bodies, felt each dead enemy kindle like an ember, and then she pulled at them.
At first nothing happened. Cianna wondered with
a sinking heart if she had done something wrong, or if maybe these beasts were immune to necromancy. But then each body began to shudder, jerk, and then lumber to standing.
A shout tore out of Joya’s mouth when she saw the first dead troll stand once again. She turned her focus to the closest group of dwarves, also shambling to a stand. They teetered, swayed, and almost fell over, but stayed erect.
There was something different about these dwarves. A different feel to them that she couldn’t place right away, but the more she felt, the more she realized these bodies were still dead. And what was more, there was a familiar feel to the wyrd within them.
Her eyes flickered up, following the trace of wyrd tied to the dead dwarves. In the window of the second story stood Cianna, her eyes closed, her arms outspread.
“Ah!” Joya yelled, happily. She formed wyrd into her hand, spoke into the little pink ball, and then shot it toward Mag. Moments later the green orb floating above the courtyard rumbled out orders.
“Leave the reanimated trolls alone, they are helping us.”
And with that, the undead forces attacked.
Before long, Jovian didn’t have to worry about drawing the attention of the trolls any longer. Cianna had sent her undead horde in two groups: the dead trolls she sent after the still living trolls, and the reanimated dwarves she sent after the enemy dwarves. Mag’s green orb had ordered some of the free soldiers to start getting the injured men to the infirmary while the archers and the wyrders wrapped things up.
With no fighting left to focus on, Jovian and Angelica started gathering wounded soldiers, helping them stand and get into the entrance hall. They struggled with their load through the stacks of bucketed snow along the black and white tiled hall. Harder still was that the soldiers were often too injured to be of much help, so they eased them along the hall, stepping slowly so as not to slip on muddy snow others had tracked in before them.
Once down the stone stairs, Grace and Rosalee were waiting for them, ushering the infirm and their handlers down aisles with empty cots where they could relieve their burdens. Jovian wasn’t surprised to see that some of the soldiers on cots were being covered with sheets, a nurse shaking her head sadly at the soldiers’ passing.
There were three healers on duty, and each of them were rushing as much as they could, weaving wyrd into the sick, mending injuries with a lick of power, a placement of bandage, or a wash of herbs. Often once the healer knew what needed to be done, they would pass the load off onto a nurse to administer whatever they could. The healers would then go along until they found a person that absolutely needed their wyrd, and then they would get to work. Jovian saw one healer scribbling something on a piece of parchment and tagging it to the foot of the cot, no doubt instructions for one of the numerous nurses. When this happened, the healer would administer a short burst of wyrd, and the patient would drift into painless slumber.
By the time the soldiers were cleared out of the courtyard, the battle had ended, and other soldiers were being instructed on the best way to remove the trolls and dwarves from the courtyard. Jovian wasn’t surprised to see the dwarves dragged up the stairs and chucked over the edge of the ramparts.
“Good!” Mag instructed from the center of the bloody courtyard. “That will stop them from getting close again. Try to keep the bodies as close to the base of the wall as possible, they need to be in range for the wyrders to ignite them.”
She walked over to another group struggling with a troll.
“Wyrders, we need your aid over here.” Mag snapped her fingers and drew the attention of several worn-out wyrders. “I know we’re tired, but those of you that still have strength need to get to work on the trolls. Lift them up with your wyrd, carry them over the wall, and then dump them. Ignite them with your wyrd, burn them all to ash so their bodies can’t be used as a ramp. Let those bastards beyond the parapet see what happens to traitors.”
The body of a troll beside Jovian seemed to come to life, and Jovian jumped back, stumbling in his weariness, his hand on the hilt of his sword. When he realized the troll was still dead, and only being carried on a current of air wyrd, he felt silly. He watched the dead weight of the troll slump in the grips of the air wyrd as it was carried over the wall.
“Jovian,” Mag said. “Would you be so kind to get Astanel to his room on the third floor?”
The boy was being led to Jovian by Mag, who was half carrying him, his arm slung across her shoulder. “He’s done a great job today, but with all of his working, I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept for a week!”
Jovian accepted the transfer of Astanel, grunting under the weight of the tall boy. He led the weary youth along the bloody path, which was growing slick with all of the traffic. If traversing the courtyard was hard, getting Astanel to his room was harder. The stairs seemed to be a horrible burden for the youth, and Jovian had to put a burst of his wyrd into Astanel to strengthen his legs.
Finally he was lowering the tired sorcerer on to his bed in his small room. Before Jovian could get Astanel out of his boots, the boy was falling fast asleep.
The moon was full and pregnant with power, lying low on the horizon and casting its silvery light across the wavering sea of flowers. Grace stood at the edge of the field of flowers and breathed in the intoxicating scent of nature at its prime, the tilled earth, the flowers in the heat of bloom. She knew this place. Deep inside the recesses of her mind, this place called to her soul, told her to come, and showed her the way.
She was younger here, childlike, though she still wore the mantle of an old lady. Her bare feet stepped across the ground, and a wind stirred her silvery hair about her shoulders. Across the field, at the base of a large oak with wizened branches arching out across the meadow, a light bloomed. As if calling her, the light grew brighter, and the moonlight joined in, sketching a glowing river over the whispering petals of the flowers.
Grace took a tentative step forward, her feet pausing at the edge of the field, worried that her bare feet would attract the attention of snakes or other creatures she couldn’t see here.
Fear not, Moonchild; you will find no banes here, she heard a motherly voice in her head. Grace smiled. The name Moonchild seemed familiar to her, like the true name of her soul. She answered the call, and Grace stepped out into the cool, churned earth of the field of flowers. She followed the light. Closing her eyes, she continued her journey, her feet knowing their way instinctively across this field, as if she had lived here her entire life.
The smell of the flowers drifted to her on a slight breeze, intoxicating her senses. Birds chattered overhead, and in the distance, the buzzing of bees as they pollinated among the field. It was as if a wind carried her, or the memory of a wind. She trod the silvery stream of light through the flowers, the way parting before her so that Grace’s feet didn’t harm the flora, the earth squishing between her toes.
Soon she knew she had found her way, and Grace stopped, finally opening her eyes. The tree was even more massive up close than it had been at a distance. Its size only accounted for half of its presence, but its power spoke more than any vision of it could. Grace felt the roots hum beneath her feet, and the wind as it gusted about her sang with wyrd.
From behind its colossal trunk the light glowed, like a dream, soft and powerful, yet loving and knowing. As the light rounded the corner, it melted away into the tall form of a pregnant woman. Her hair was long and black, dappled with glittering points of stars. When she turned her eyes on Grace, the woman knew at once who she faced. The newcomer’s eyes were like the depths of space, black with swirling nimbuses of color and nebulae of bursting light.
“Star-eyed,” Grace fell to her knees. “Goddess.” She supplicated herself with the sign of the five-pointed star.
Goddess smiled, and motioned for Grace to stand.
“Moonchild, it’s been too long,” she whispered. In the name Grace felt an ancient memory stir, one of life among these fields, of living among the branches of her oak. This was her oa
k. This was the root of her knowledge and her power. She was connected to this oak as surely as it was connected to the field.
Grace looked up at her Goddess, tears standing in her eyes. The Goddess stood with one hand poised at the top of her belly, the other holding onto the bottom of her pregnant girth. In her stomach Grace knew she carried all of Saracin.
“There is trouble,” Goddess said, blinking her eyes. When she opened her eyes, the scene within changed. A hazy miasma drifted across the orbs of her eyes. When it cleared Grace could see constellations form. “Arael, Iblis, the Beast, is on the rise.”
The flowers shuddered at the name, and a chill raced across Grace’s spine. “We know, Star-eyed.”
“It will take all the strength the Great Realms have to face this threat, and his legion.”
Grace bowed her head once more.
“Stand, please,” the Goddess smiled.
Grace stood, clasping her hands before her to keep from reaching out and touching the radiant, glowing being before her.
“What shall we do?” Grace asked.
“That depends on you.”
“Me?” Grace asked.
Goddess nodded. “You have a large part to play in this. You must protect my name in the Realms.”
“But how?” Grace asked.
“The holy city will be the first place they attack.”
“Lytoria,” Grace said.
Goddess nodded. “It holds my power in the realms, my votaries, my training, my Silver Law. If the fallen strike there, they shake the belief in me. If the holy seat falls, so too will my power crumble. The realms will fall into chaos.”
“But how are we to fight them?” Grace asked. “I have no power now. It took all Joya could muster to kill the fallen she faced. Cianna struggled as well. How are mere humans to survive against them?”
On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Page 19