Citadels of the Lost

by Tracy Hickman

  CHAPTER 15

  Battle Lines

  “GRADEK!” SOEN YELLED as he followed on the heels of the manticorian warrior. “Where is my staff?”

  “I have more important duties than finding your stick for you,” Gradek roared back as he stormed down the line of manticore warriors arrayed in a battle formation beyond the southern end of the encampment.

  Soen raged inside. He could think of a dozen ways to kill the manticorian War Master on the spot with or without his Matei staff and had certainly done so to others with less provocation. Killing Gradek meant disrupting the chain of command for these warriors at a critical time, and Soen just could not bring himself to make a bad situation worse simply for his own satisfaction.

  Not, he noted, that it would make much difference.

  Gradek continued yelling at the warriors arrayed in front of him. “Maintain the line! They’ll come at you quickly out of their magical gates. You’ve got to get to them before they can form up, then charge when you see your chance!”

  Soen shook his head. It was a classic manticorian battle structure that had been passed down from generation to generation for the last thousand years and bent in more recent times to address the specific challenges presented by the difference in elven warfare doctrines.

  It was also why the Legions of Rhonas had won every battle against the manticores in the last two hundred years.

  “Do you even have a clan, Gradek?” Soen suddenly demanded as he continued to follow on the manticore’s heels.

  “Have a clan?” Gradek turned suddenly, baring his fangs as his eyes narrowed on the elf. “I am a warrior of Clan Hravash, you insignificant long-head! Who were your parents?”

  Soen held both hands up, palms facing away from the manticore. “My apologies, War Master Gradek.”

  The manticore snarled and then turned once more to stalking the line of warriors.

  Soen quickly looked around. Night had fallen but he knew that would not stop the Legions any more than the antiquated battle traditions of the manticores. He could see that there were elements of the camp that had started to move—incredibly toward the cursed mists of the Shrouded Plain—but it was like watching a river break up at the end of winter; the wagons and pilgrims closer to the battle line had to wait until the bulk of the camp in front of them started moving before they could move themselves. The edges of the encampment were over a hundred yards from the battle line, but that distance would be nothing for the Legions to cross once they smelled the blood of unarmed prey. Nothing among the pilgrims was happening quickly enough.

  Then Soen saw what he was looking for—the battle standard of Clan Hravash. By tradition, such a standard flew in every battle the manticore clans fought and usually above the clan house that commanded the battle line. That it now flew above a handcart did not diminish its significance to the manticores.

  Soen ran across the open space toward the rear of the pilgrim company still waiting to move forward. He could see hundreds of faces glancing backward toward him, uncertain and afraid. It did not distract him from his purpose.

  He quickly closed with the battle standard and the cart next to it, sliding slightly on the prairie grass beneath his feet as he came to a stop. Gradek would not have trusted an item of honor to anyone else once he had given his word. Manticore battle traditions dictated that all his possessions be held in his home during battle and were considered sacrosanct in any conflict. But when a manticore no longer had a home, his possessions would be kept . . .

  Soen suddenly stopped tossing Gradek’s life possessions on the ground and smiled. His matei staff filled his hands with familiar warmth.

  A sudden shout and instantly the air filled with a roaring cacophony of sounds. The Legions were on the march toward the manticore battle line and were within a thousand yards. Many in the first line were Impress Warriors but elven warriors were backing them up. The Blade of the Northern Will was a Modalis Legion and preferred to use their own warriors in battle in combination with Impress Warriors of the Sixth Estate slaves.

  Soen quickly ran back toward where he could see Gradek once again yelling instructions at his warriors. The elf’s mind spun the words in his mind, conjuring the power building in his matei staff. He could only trust that the darkness would help him.

  Gradek had pulled out his signal horn, a small curving instrument with which the manticores issued their signals on the field of battle.

  The former Inquisitor stopped behind the manticore commander and felt the release of the energy from both his body and the staff; the rush of the power through him. It was a momentary ecstasy, and he felt the customary emotional and physical drain when it was done. He glanced once behind him and, satisfied, spoke loud enough for as many of the manticores grimly arrayed before him to hear.

  “Gradek! The encampment!” Soen shouted. “They’ve moved to the west!”

  Gradek spun around, the horn already raised. “Now what are you . . . ?”

  “They’ve shifted along the front of the fog,” Soen said, pointing with his staff and hoping that the manticorian warrior would not notice that he had retrieved his own staff from the bottom of Gradek’s cart.

  The manticore’s jaw dropped open.

  The entire camp had somehow shifted behind him.

  “Your battle lines,” Soen said, pointing once more toward the warriors. “You’ll be out of position! The clans will be undefended!”

  Gradek shouted at once. “Warriors of the clans! Rise up! Charge right! Protect the clans!”

  Gradek put the horn to his lips and sounded a series of thunderous blasts. Answering blasts resounded all down the battle line.

  The manticorians stood up in confusion. The signal was not the one they were expecting. They were trained warriors though, Soen realized, many of them were still very young. They, too, now could see that their wives, children, brothers, sisters—their clans—had all inexplicably moved from behind the protection of the carefully placed battle lines and were now so far to the west that they could not longer be protected.

  “Charge right!” Gradek bellowed, then sounded the signal again for the line to shift.

  “Charge right!” the line answered and they began to run across the line of march from the approaching elven Legions.

  Soen crouched down in the grass, his black eyes gazing with fixed intensity on the approaching line of the Legions. The magic he had conjured bent what little light there was from the stars above, making the image of the fleeing pilgrim company appear much farther to the west than its actual position. Shifting the battle lines to protect the false company was meant to draw the Legions away from the real refugees.

  “Take it,” Soen muttered toward the approaching Legions through his sharp, clenched teeth. “Take it!”

  The front lines of the Legions wavered for a moment, and then started marching toward their right.

  Soen smiled. He could not see the refugees behind him as his own spell prevented it, but he could see the image of them off to the west.

  They were starting to move at last toward the fog . . .

  . . . Still, not quickly enough.

  Gradek’s horn sounded again, this time with the signal every manticore warrior on the line expected. The manticores began their charge just as Soen arrived.

  The Legions were within fifty yards of their lines. The lion-men surged forward as a tide, tearing over the ground with their battle roars resounding, their blades cutting the air as they ran.

  Soen gritted his sharp teeth. He knew what was coming but he also knew that he could never have prevented it; never have convinced Gradek of the truth. He charged forward with them, struggling to keep up with the great lion-men in their onward rush.

  The manticores slammed into the front lines of the Legions, smashing the Impress Warriors and dealing death to them in horrific numbers. The Impress Warriors, who had no memory of ever losing a battle because their elven masters had erased any such memories from their minds, suddenly panicked, broke r
anks, and ran, trusting that the elven warriors behind them would cover their retreat.

  The elves were not there. Unnoticed by either the charging manticores intent on their prey or by their own Impress Warriors on the front line, the elven warriors had quietly retreated back through the gate folds another hundred yards. There they had not formed a line but were arrayed in Octia clusters around the folds as though prepared to retreat through them again.

  “Forward!” Gradek bellowed over the sounds of death. “Forward!”

  Encouraged by their success, the manticores continued their charge in pursuit of the remaining Impress Warriors, running them down and continuing their charge toward what looked to them like the disorganized line of elven warriors ahead of them.

  Soen kept glancing backward, dreading what was to follow and desperately trying to reach the still charging Gradek who remained yards ahead of him on the battle line.

  Forgotten were the Proxis, most of whom had died in the initial charge; they had come forward with the Impress Warrior line and had, as instructed, inscribed the gate fold sigils at the farthest point of advance.

  The gate folds flashed once more . . .

  And several Centurai of the elven army emerged from the gates that had suddenly opened behind the manticorian line. No manticore warrior stood between them and the fleeing refugees. The elves charged at once toward the unprotected wagons, intent on inflicting as much death as possible.

  Gradek heard the folds open behind him. He turned as Soen reached him, the manticore’s face filled with horror.

  More Centurai of the Legion were folding in all around them. The battle line was dissolving into chaos.

  “Run!” Soen yelled at Gradek. “Sound the retreat!”

  Gradek’s eyes remained fixed on the wagons. A massacre was but heartbeats away.

  “Gradek!” Soen screamed. “Charge to the north!”

  Gradek’s eyes suddenly focused. He pulled his horn to his lips and sounded the signal.

  The manticore line had collapsed into chaotic melees. Groups of manticores fought elven warriors in a mass of confusion. Manticore blood flowed thick across the ground as the elven warriors’ superior training was evident in their systematic and long-practiced slaughter. The sound of Gradek’s horn was still answered from up and down the battlefield with repeating sound though far fewer in number than had answered before. Within moments, every manticore on the field of battle attempted to disengage from the enemy and charge northward toward the unrelenting, menacing fog.

  The threatened pilgrim caravans suddenly vanished, the illusion dissipated. The confused elves, seeing their prey evaporate instantly before their eyes, were momentarily uncertain, but the Tribunes conducting the battle from the ridge three leagues to the south acted quickly. The elven Centurai quickly folded away, back to their original battle formations to regroup and determine what had gone wrong.

  Soen ran with Gradek toward where the illusory caravans had existed only moments before. The elven folds were collapsing around them. The screams of the wounded manticores and elves behind them echoed in their ears, as did the sounds of the pounding feet of the remaining elven Centurai who now were chasing after the retreating manticores.

  Soen ran into the fog and kept running, directly into its chill, smothering embrace.

  CHAPTER 16

  Silent as the Grave

  SOEN SLOWED HIS PACE when he was nearly a mile into the mists. The ground was flattening out and seemed to be descending slightly beneath his feet. Normally, this would have allowed him to quicken his pace, but nothing about his surroundings struck him as normal.

  Elves naturally have keen sight and hearing, abilities which had been honed fine by Soen in his role as an Inquisitor of the Iblisi, but his senses appeared to be failing him in this strange, blanketing mist. He could hear the sounds of those around him—usually muted but occasionally sharp and nearby—yet he could not discern their direction or precise distance. The elves also had a limited ability to see heat during the cool of night but this utterly failed him now. All he was left with was a strange, blue-green glow that was everywhere in the mists and increasing with each step. Soen wondered idly if the glow was always here or was created by the passage of living creatures through it. It was entirely speculation on his part, but the mental exercise helped keep him focused despite the haze all around him.

  The enormous shape of a manticore shadowed the fog before him. Soen slowed even more, his Matei staff held at the ready. The former Inquisitor gritted his sharp teeth in preparation for battle.

  The shadow emerged before him in the aqua-green glow.

  It was a pillar of stone.

  Soen let out his breath and ruefully shook his head.

  “Looking for me?” came a voice sounding clearly in his right ear.

  Soen spun into a defensive stance, his staff clearing the space around him, leveled to launch a deadly array of powerful magic.

  A figure was retreating from him slowly into the glowing mists. Soen narrowed his lids over his featureless black eyes and frowned. It was about the size of an elf or human and moved like it could have been either. He made a mental effort to relax his grip on the staff and began pacing the figure through the fog, trying to get a better look at it as he moved across flat ground covered in anemic, yellowed grass. He tried to close with it gradually. While he felt he was getting closer, his prey somehow continued to elude him.

  There was a building emerging from the mists ahead of them toward which the figure was walking. It was a tall, circular structure set atop a round foundation of shallow steps. Fluted columns supported a domed roof overhead. It was a typical structure of the old kingdoms, Soen realized; the frivolous sort of a building they used to call a “folly.” It was ornamental, lovely in its architecture, and completely out of place. There was something about it that was both purposeful and useless all at once.

  The figure stopped halfway up the steps and turned, pulling back the hood covering her head and obscuring her face.

  “Ch’drei!” Soen breathed in a mixture of apprehension and admiration.

  “How nice of you to remember me,” the ancient female elf said, smiling back at him in the glowing mists. “You’ve been looking for me behind you since you left me your message on the throne of the Dje’kaarin and now you have found me at last.”

  “More accurately, you have found me,” Soen answered though his lowered Matei staff never wavered. “But why come yourself? Killing was never a pleasure to you when it was done by your own hand. You always preferred to enjoy it as a spectator. Why bother to come yourself?”

  “Come inside, Soen,” Ch’drei smiled, her cadaverous face pulled back in a ghoulish grin. “Everything will be made right. Everything will be explained.”

  Soen raised his narrow, pointed chin slightly. “I think I would like to get this explanation right here, thank you all the same.”

  “Nonsense, my boy,” the Keeper said with a sharp-toothed grin. “Come on up here and see for yourself. The answers are all right inside.”

  “I’d rather find my own answers,” Soen replied. The wispy hairs at the back of his elongated head were twitching. Something was wrong here.

  “You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist,” Ch’drei said, her smile falling slightly. “Don’t be foolish, boy.”

  Ch’drei turned away to step inside the folly.

  Soen released the charge in his Matei staff. A white bolt shot from the end, encapsulating Ch’drei and suspending her in time. The Inquisitor did not want to harm the Keeper; he needed her alive if he was ever to get back into the graces of his Order. She was the most powerful member of the Iblisi, and Soen knew better than to equate her age with weakness. It had cost him dearly in the drain of the remaining charge in his staff but he knew he had only once chance. That Ch’drei had turned her back on him at all, making his attack possible, was an unusually rare mistake for her, and Soen had not hesitated to take advantage of it. He rushed up the steps of the
folly toward the glowing spheroid of temporal stasis, stopping short of the top stairs.

  The mystical globe surrounded with silent lightning was empty.

  “Impossible!” Soen uttered.

  “Come in, Soen,” called the voice from within the folly.

  Soen peered between the pillars. There was nothing but darkness within.

  “I’m waiting for you.”

  Soen turned and ran with all his speed down the stairs and across the plain through the glowing mists. Many shadows appeared in front of him, and he remembered that he had directed the entire column of refugee pilgrims into the mists. Perhaps he had found them gathering together and trying to make their way as a group. In any event, they would provide cover for him against the pursuit of Ch’drei or any Iblisi whom she’d, no doubt, brought with her. He barreled in among the figures, rushing by their shadows in the fog.

  They were not moving.

  Soen quickly stopped, examining them more closely.

  They were stone carvings—statues—all arrayed on the plain facing in the same direction. It was an army rendered out of rock. Some held swords with the short, broad blades of the Impress Warriors. Many were human though the majority were either manticores or chimerians. More striking still, Soen realized that they were all different, carved in the shape of individuals. In fact, some of their faces looked quite familiar.

  Soen blinked.

  He was staring into the face of a statue that was an uncanny likeness of the human he had met only the day before on the Panaris Road. The figure’s arms were outstretched, and his face was upturned in a strange, rapturous grin. Soen struggled for a moment to recall his name. Braun, he thought.

  He moved quickly past the figures, heading in the direction they were facing, subconsciously following their silent intention. There was the chimerian Vendis, his face turned away, unlike any of those around him, his four hands held up before him as if to ward something off. As he broke through the front ranks of the stone army, Soen saw statues of a manticore and a dwarf standing in front of the motionless ranks behind them facing across a river.