I need to help them. But I can't.
He looked over to the Duke's Elite and saw Mysa circling over the man's helmeted head. The healer's heart quickened and contradictory thoughts assailed him. He worried for the bird's safety, especially since the Krune around the Elite were trying to get a bead on her with their crossbows. But he was also desperate for her to dive and seize the urn from the Elite Guardsman's hands.
The crow weaved a pattern in the sky over the Elite, threatening to drop onto him before arcing away in an agonising tease. Chalos could just make out the crossbow bolts as they whizzed past her. The missiles slowly became visible the higher they got, until they seemed to hang in the air before twirling harmlessly down to earth.
Then, all of a sudden, and for no apparent reason, the Elite's horse reared and the man was deposited on the ground. Chalos hunched forward, squinting, desperate to see exactly what had happened. It hadn't been Mysa's doing, she was now swooping on the crossbowmen, clawing at their heads as they took aim at something on the ground.
The Elite was clambering up onto his feet now, but the urn was gone. Chalos watched with giddy delight as the Elite frantically looked left and right, scrutinising the earth for the artefact. Then, a few metres away to his right, a white outcrop of rock suddenly flared violet. The blast wave threw the crossbowmen off their feet and flayed the flesh from their bones, turning their Baldaw armour into brittle black flakes that drifted clear from their skeletons like dust motes from the surface of a slapped old book. The Duke's Elite, protected it seemed by some sort of superior armour or magical defence, remained standing for a few moments only to collapse when the wave of energy subsided, his body turned to ash and his armour clattering into a heap of loose pieces.
'Gods and bones!' the maimed Krune exclaimed, glancing over and frowning against the flash of unnatural light. 'What was that?'
Chalos saw Mysa circling high in the sky. She was cawing with jubilation.
'Sixt!' said Chalos, realisation dawning. 'It was Sixt!'
'What's a Sixt?'
Chalos rolled up his sleeves, flexed his fingers grinned at the Krune.
'It's your lucky day,' he said. 'Let go of the leg.'
Nine
A Small Victory
Chalos sprinted across the open ground, all pain in his shoulder and foot gone. Beside him, running on two perfectly healthy legs, was the Krune warrior. Snatching up a discarded sword and shield without breaking his stride, the Black Talon soldier gave a savage smirk.
'I feel better than ever, Rovann!' he laughed.
'Good,' said Chalos. 'Because your fellows need your help.'
It took only a few moments for Samine and the other Krune from the pit of wounded to catch them up. All had grabbed the nearest weapon to hand and wore expressions of vicious determination except Samine who had rolled her sleeves back and contorted her hands into claws.
'All right,' she called out as they closed in on the battle, the backs of the Tarukataru just metres away. 'Let's win this!'
It wasn't much of a speech but it had not needed to be. The freshly-healed Krune launched themselves into the mass of fighters, pulling fatigued comrades aside and planting themselves in their place. Chalos threw himself into the Tarukataru line, plunging his hands at every wound he saw, no matter how light. Fallen Krune blinked back into consciousness, grabbed their swords and leapt at the enemy. Even broken shadamar clambered to their hooves, shaking their manes in bafflement before a Black Talon grabbed their reins and jumped into the saddle with a blood-curdling cry.
Samine planted her feet wide and jabbed her hands into the air at an angle. The air before her tore open with a slamming sound that seemed to press the grass flat to the earth for miles around. Then a torrent of flame, blazing purple at its core, emerged from a space a few inches from her twisted fingers. She curved the line of flame over the Tarukataru and onto the heads of the Tarukaveri.
The impact of the healer, the Dread Spear and the refreshed Krune soldiers was immediate. The Tarukaveri buckled like an old bridge under a freak wave and their shape went, enabling the Tarukataru to pile forward with a gruesome cheer. At this moment, Jolm jinked away from Agryce, once again ducking her swing, and then pushed his sword through her throat where the helm met the body armour. The Tarukaveri lieutenant died without a sound.
Awareness of the duel's outcome filtered quickly through the ranks of the Tarukaveri. They began to throw down their weapons, their spirits crushed. Gauntleted hands were raised in surrender. A few were slain where they stood as overzealous Krune and Dauwarks continued to rampage into the fractured enemy line but after a few moments the Tarukataru lowered their swords and began rounding up the enemy, signalling that the battle was done.
As the Krune began moving apart, finding the space to crouch and mop the blood from their weapons and armour, inspect their wounds and corral groups of kneeling Tarukaveri, Chalos found himself alone, ankle-deep in churned up mud, grinning beatifically. The peace that had descended over the scene seemed oddly out of place, sitting uneasily upon the ruin the warriors had wrought upon each other. Bodies had been crushed into the ground by bootheels and there were piles of corpses – mostly Riln – dotted across the plain. But it was a peace nonetheless and juxtaposed sharply with the clamour of battle that had been almost deafening just a few moments earlier.
He heard Mysa cawing from above and he craned his head back, shielding his eyes from the pale sun. Though relief was flooding his mind, making him feel elated, his body was exhausted. After the torrent of energy that had poured through it, his soul felt hollowed out and raw as though it had been cored like an apple. He had no idea how many people he had healed but the hairs on his arms stood like fenceposts with the static charge of expended magical energy that clung to him like moss to a rock. He watched the bird circle, her way of celebrating their victory.
Then Mysa seemed to pause, hanging in the air, her curved beak pointing southward to the Dallian Woodland. A moment later she was coursing down to earth before she was inches from the healer's face, beating her wings frantically to halt her descent before hopping onto his outstretched wrist.
'Doom! Doom!' she rasped as she clambered sideways up his arm to rest on his shoulder. 'This was a reprieve, not a victory, Chalos! A mere reprieve!'
'What is it?' he asked, his heart sinking. He couldn't see beyond the ragged ranks of Krune that stood between him and a view of the enormous forest.
'The Duke!' said the bird. 'The Duke emerges!'
The Tarukataru had organised themselves in a wide line two ranks deep. At either end was what of the mounted, and arrayed before them were the Tarukaveri prisoners, slumped on their haunches with their hands behind their heads, stripped of weapons and dignity.
Jolm was mounted on a shadamar in the centre of the line, peering out through his towering demon-faced helm. Samine and Chalos, also mounted, were on his right hand with Dolga on his left. There was no sign of the Corporal. With a sadness that surprised him, Chalos assumed that the officer had died in the battle with Agryce's men.
Ahead, the Dallian Woodland was oozing soldiery. From between every tree came a graceful rider or a striding Black Talon. Pavarine also emerged, tended by sherdlings. Wagons, supply trains and caravans trundled out.
They must have known the good paths to take through the forest, Chalos realised. Damn the Duke, he kept it to himself, perhaps hoping that the tough crossing through that awful place would sap us of our will and endurance, and leave us ripe for slaughter – either by Agryce or the Riln.
He saw the Duke's mobile fortress, that hulking wagon with its wooden battlements, pennants and sentries, and had a brief flashback to the relative calm of the enormous camp near Hulker's Crag. Those memories seemed to belong to someone else now.
Memories from before I experienced front-line combat. Before terror and desperation. But also before Samine.
The Dread Spear's shadamar was pressed against his and her long-fingered hand was entwined in the he
aler's, squeezing tight. Her palm was clammy.
'We can't fight them,' she said. 'By which I mean, we can't win.'
'No,' muttered Dolga under his breath. 'But we can leave a dent on the treacherous bastard.'
Jolm, in the midst of them, said nothing.
It took some time for the Duke's force to fully emerge onto the plain. Eventually it lined up, dwarfing the Tarukataru in almost comical fashion. Chalos could almost sense the spirits of the Krune around him waning at the prospect of another fight against overwhelming odds. They had triumphed against the Riln and the Tarukaveri, thanks to Jolm's expertise as well as his stubborn refusal to lose, but there was no tactic and no show of confidence that could ensure anything but total defeat against the Duke's soldiers.
A horn blew and a rider crossed the space between the two forces. A Krune, dressed in the elegant armour of the Elites. He stopped a few paces from Jolm and saluted.
'Lieutenant Jolm!' he boomed. 'Greetings from Duke Elas! He is delighted to see you alive and regrets deeply the actions of the traitor Agryce.'
Jolm's armour creaked as he leaned his head to one side.
'Tell the Duke we are glad to see him,' he said, without a trace of sarcasm. 'We had thought ourselves abandoned.'
'The Woodland proved a difficult traversal,' the messenger replied. 'Nevertheless, we are here now. Please, ride with me. The Duke wishes to hear your report.'
'Very well,' Jolm said. 'I will bring Captain Dolga, of the Gilt Plates.'
'Excellent,' the messenger said, turning to the hulking Dauwark. 'Captain, the lone furrow ploughed by your warriors does you much honour. Let it be known that the Gilt Plates led the King's army into the Riln Plains.'
Dolga's eyes narrowed and he nodded slowly.
Chalos watched as Jolm and Dolga followed the messenger back to the Duke's force, the Dauwark loping forward in bear-like fashion beside the lieutenant's shadamar.
'What's going on?' he breathed.
'Looks like we're not going to die today after all,' Samine said, leaning close to his ear. The heat of her breath thrilled the healer and he almost didn't catch what she said. 'I think were going to join back up with the Duke.'
'After all that's happened?' Chalos couldn't believe it.
'Think about it,' Samine said, always more astute when it came to warfare and the strange politics that surrounded it. 'The Duke sent Agryce and her Tarukaveri to slay the Tarukataru and she failed. Now, he can elect to slaughter Jolm and his men now, but where will that leave him? Both his lieutenants will be dead, and he'll have lost twice as many Black Talon as he had planned. No, Chalos. He's adapting to the terrain, so to speak.'
'So he's just going to pretend he had nothing to do with it? And what about Dolga, and the way the Duke sent the Gilt Plates out here alone to die?'
'Dolga can't fight the Duke alone,' Samine shrugged. 'He's got no choice but the play the Duke's game. He won't like it, but it's the only way he and his men get to live.'
'Count your blessings,' said Mysa, who was sitting on the healer's shoulder. 'You might yet see the Ruin.'
Grunting non-committally, Chalos turned to Samine.
'Still no sign of Sixt?',
'No,' she sighed. 'Thank you for asking. I can't believe he's gone. I keep expecting him to scurry up to me, flicking his tongue and cracking his jokes.'
'He cracked jokes?'
Samine smiled whimsically.
'All the time. Bad jokes, but nevertheless...'
'He was brave, in the end,' Chalos said. 'If he hadn't smashed that urn, we'd all be dead.'
The Dread Spear looked down at the empty saddlebag hanging from her shadamar and placed her free hand on it, stroking the fabric.
'I know,' she said softly. 'I was lying in a ditch half-dead and he was crossing the battlefield to save the day. My brave Accomplice.' She shook her head as if to clear it and sniffed sharply, burying her grief. 'So, what was that urn, anyway?'
'Mysa says it was something very old,' Chalos replied with a barely concealed shudder. 'It contained a tiny portal to another world. When opened, it drained magic, feeding it so something on the other side. As Sixt smashed it against that rock, it exploded, hurling out a mass of leeched energy.' He shook his head in awe. 'You should have seen what it did to the Elite who had been holding it. He just... vanished.'
'Like Sixt.'
'Yes,' Chalos said regretfully. 'Like Sixt.'
'I'll see him again,' Samine said boldly. 'Accomplices are tough, especially against their master's magery. And most of what was in that urn was mine.' She took her hand away from the saddle-bag and placed it on the reins of her mount. 'What do you think was on the other side of the portal? What was using the urn to feed?'
Chalos remembered Mysa's hushed words... A Xlun Aeon-cleaver. One of the foulest things in existence. Even the Guardians had been afraid of them.
'I don't know,' he lied. 'Let's hope we never find out.'
The next few hours were full of falsehood and strangeness. Jolm returned full of good humour and told his men to set up camp with the Duke. Dazed by this turn of events but grateful at the prospect of rest, the Tarukataru Black Talon gruffly acquiesced, making their way cautiously towards the Duke's line. Chalos noticed that Dolga and the Gilt Plates had extricated themselves from their Tarukaveri comrades, with whom they had stood so firmly against the Riln and Tarukaveri, and were now setting up camp on the edge of the main force. A bridge has been burned between Dolga and Jolm, he knew. This pained him. Did violence not foster camaraderie between allies? Clearly he still had a lot to learn about war.
That night, after dining on rich slivers of pavarine and hearty chunks of grey bread, Chalos and Samine rutted breathlessly in their tent, glad of the privacy. The healer was surprised by the Dread Spear's passion as she climbed onto him and kissed him so hard that the back of his skull was pushed into the ground. When they were both spent, she fell asleep beside him, and although he was exhausted the healer slunk out of the tent and sat looking up at the stars with Mysa nestling in the crook of his neck. After a couple of hours he retreated back inside the tent and sleep claimed him like a black glove closing around his mind.
The dream he had that night would stay with him. He was in a vast garden, but the flowers were crystalline and pulsed with waves of multicoloured light. The sky glowed pink, blue, purple and emerald green. Chalos saw himself standing there, staring back at himself, eyes burning.
When he awoke he felt numb. He ran a hand through his lank black hair and felt nothing. He bit his lip and there was no pain. Rushing out of the tent he grabbed his canteen – refilled along with everyone else's from the Duke's own supplies – and threw the water over his face. The feeling came back to his flesh and he gasped with relief.
The madness. It's the madness. All that healing... I'm losing myself to that other world. The world of magic...
Samine peeped out of the tent, naked from the waist up.
'What's up?'
'Nothing,' Chalos stammered. 'I'm fine.' He turned and offered her a weak smile. 'I think I just had a bad dream.'
'Well, you've been through a lot,' she said, disappearing back into the tent.
An hour after dawn the army was on the move. Jolm's Black Talon rode with the Tarukaveri, arrogantly placing themselves at the head of the pack, the other tribe's warriors grudgingly acknowledging his superiority. After a few hours a dust cloud appeared up in the western mountains. The army of the Ten Plains King was on the move too, it seemed.
'Maybe they killed the Wielder,' Samine said, nodding towards the billowing dust on the forbidding ridge.
'Maybe,' Chalos replied, not believing it for a moment.
That urn would have been useful to you up there, wouldn't it, your Majesty? He thought with grim satisfaction. But you had to test it on us first, didn't you? Down here, at a safe distance. And now you've lost the one weapon that would have nullified the Wielder's power completely.
He was beginning to understand how the
Ten Plains King had remained so powerful for so long and how he had managed to carve out an empire that covered most of the known world. The fiend was utterly pitiless, ruthless and self-obsessed. Like any monarch, one might say – history was hardly full of Kings and Queens who troubled themselves over the plight of their subjects – but the difference was that the Ten Plains King was more than a mere mortal.
The thought that he might live forever, ruling with an iron fist, disregarding the needs and pains of any other being made Chalos shudder.
I'm on the wrong side, he realised, miserably.
The army now found itself on an incline, the entire plain rising steadily up towards a hazy horizon line where grey strands of cloud drifted lazily across a lustreless sun. The Ruin lay in the valley beyond and would be visible within hours but Chalos was too tired to be excited at the prospect. He began to nod off in the saddle. Mysa was already asleep on his shoulder, one wing across her dipped beak. Now that the Duke's retinue was with them, a Scryer was mapping the terrain ahead, leaving the bird surplus to the force's requirements.
The strange creature was riding with the vanguard on a subdued, spindly shadamar with odd white markings on its hide, his body was draped in what appeared to be a soaking wet crimson shroud that stuck to his bony flesh like a second skin. His head was always drooping and his listless hands clung limply to the reins of his mount. Four of the Duke's elites flanked him at all times and by the distance they kept it was clear that they did not like him.
His name was Siune, and he was Rovann, like most Scryers. But he was a denizen of Rachta, a craggy and mysterious island where few dared venture and little was known of the oddly diminished souls who lived there. Siune wore the bizarre robes of his oblique culture's priesthood and was as skilled as any of the King's Scryers, though his attitude lacked a certain refinement.
It was likely he was already mad, of course. Scryers spent more time ploughing through the world of magic than any other users of magery, powering their sensorium beyond their bodies for days at a time, and so were always on the verge of slipping into complete solipsism and eventual insanity. Even on good days they could be found talking to themselves relentlessly or lying slumped somewhere like a sack of sundries, staring into space and drooling. They all went mad in the end, becoming useless to the war effort. Siune was definitely close to the point when any practical application of his powers would become impossible. But for now, he was a valuable asset to the Duke.
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