Seven Sorcerers: Book Three of the Books of the Shaper

by John R. Fultz

  Still the annihilating bolts of light fell across the legions, killing entire squads of men at once. Only those who were deeply mingled with the ranks of the Manslayers were safe from the sorcerers’ killing lights. Tyro guessed that their power could not discriminate between ally and enemy when it fell, and the silver-robes must be under orders not to send their own Manslayers to ash. Tyro shouted this knowledge to all those about him, and drove deeper into the ranks of bloodied silver. Better to die at the end of a man’s blade than be reduced to nothingness by a sorcerer’s deathlight.

  Once again he caught sight of Undutu, who somehow had remained upon his horse. The Pearl King could fight. Tyro was impressed. He drove through the scarlet fray toward the Mumbazan, but found himself stayed by a forest of blade and shield. Up ahead the blond locks of D’zan were visible, slinging blood like rainwater. The black blade rose and fell, rose and fell. Then he saw no more of the Yaskathan, as the Manslayers closed on him from left, right, and behind.

  A column of deathlight flared beyond Tyro’s immediate foes. He saw the rearing steed of Undutu caught in the rush of white heat. Undutu’s dripping blade was raised high when the sorcery fell upon him. The Mumbazan had killed so many Manslayers that a wide ring of bodies lay about him, separating him from the fray as his steed tried to find level ground. Tyro realized too late that this bit of open space was what killed the Mumbazan. The withdrawal of Zyungians from any sector of the field was a signal that they needed a sorcerer’s aid. They had receded from Undutu and opened him to assault from above. His flesh curled into strips and wafted away. For a timeless moment his skeleton sat whole upon the raised saddle, proud as a living warrior, blade clutched in fleshless fingers of bone.

  Then the bones of man and horse fell together into spinning clouds of dust.

  Tyro’s blade stole an arm, then a head. He dipped beneath a spear meant to pierce his back, so that it skewered his armless foe instead. He whirled, hacking deep into the spearman’s armpit. The man fell, and Tyro finished him with a downward thrust beneath the visor. The blade sank through skull and helm into the muddy earth below.

  Undutu is gone. Like his proud and mighty fleet before him.

  There was no sign of the nine Mumbazan soldiers. Tyro hoped they were as good with a blade as their King. He fought his way toward D’zan now, Uurzians and Udurumites gathering about him. They needed to stay deep inside the Manslayers’ ranks to avoid the sorcery that killed Undutu. If Tyro could reach the Yaskathan King, the two might drive forward and reach Vireon’s shadow, where there was at least some defense against the throwers of deathlights.

  Three more Manslayers died beneath Tyro’s blade as he hewed his way toward D’zan. Along the way he saved the lives of two Uurzians and a man of Udurum who were overmatched by the invaders. The men about Tyro formed a wedge and drove toward the King of Yaskatha, whose battle cries rose above the fray now.

  All color drained out of the world, replaced by crimson. The ancient reek of death choked Tyro as his own blood flowed to mingle with that of his enemies.

  He drove his blade deep into the groin of a fallen foe and raised his eyes to see Talondra.

  She stood in a pocket of calm as the carnage raged about her. The splashing blood did not touch her; she was unstained and clean. Her sad blue eyes flashed at him through the red torrent. Her hands were on her swollen belly. He called her name, but his voice was lost amid the ringing of sword against shield.

  You will see them again when you enter the valley of death.

  She could not be here, not in the midst of this great chaos. None but Tyro could see her there, or she would have been sliced to ribbons in an instant. He raised a dripping hand toward her, his cheeks ripe with tears among the sweat and blood.

  My wife and my son.

  Talondra smiled at him, but it was a sad smile.

  Her eyes turned toward her pregnant belly.

  A blade sank between his shoulders, slowed only by the metal of his corslet. The pain awoke him from the spell of his vision. He swirled about and killed the man who had stabbed him. He was lucky the blade had not reached his heart. Yet the sight of Talondra had pierced it as surely as an arrow.

  Tyro took off another rushing Manslayer’s head, then turned back to find her gone.

  Only a vision. A mirage of battle.

  He fought on, ignoring the spike of pain between his shoulders. D’zan was not far away now. Men and Giants died in blazing fury all about him. None of it mattered. He must reach D’zan and they must reach Vireon.

  A light flared above him, only for a moment. He expected the deadly heat to fall upon him now, but instead a shadow intervened. The Feathered Serpent glided above him, a mammoth viper that grabbed the sorcerer’s globe in its fangs and took the blast in its gullet. Khama swallowed the deathlight and vomited it back at the wizard who created it. Globe and sorcerer were reduced to cinders.

  “D’zan!” Tyro killed another man and found himself only yards away from his fellow monarch. “Undutu is dead!” he shouted. “We must make for Vireon!”

  D’zan nodded and raised his blade to counter a blow. His helm had been lost, like his crown, and he bled from a dozen wounds. Tyro marveled that the Southern King was still able to fight with such terrible rents in his flesh. Then he remembered the wound in his own back and cut down a man rushing at D’zan. A ring of Uurzians gathered about the two Kings. They stood deep amid the ranks of Manslayers.

  Tyro thought of Mendices. He hoped the Warlord had maintained his command position on the slope of the nearest hill, where he could dispatch orders and command troop movements free of immediate danger. Then he remembered the flying sorcerers. If Mendices and his cohort stood in open view, then they were a prime target for the deathlights. He could not see the hill now, so dense was the battle. There was no patch of ground left to stand on in the valley. They fought balanced on the bodies of dead men, or atop the hills formed by the carcasses of winged lizards.

  Suddenly night fell across the world, though it should have been hours away. It did not come as a creeping cloak of darkness, but all at once. Tyro’s stinging eyes sought the sun and found only a disk of darkness surrounded by a corona of brilliant flame. He looked away, nearly blinded, and endured a stab in the shoulder for his distraction. The Manslayers were not fazed by the loss of daylight, yet the Men of the Five Cities knew a sudden confusion.

  Tyro had seen eclipses before, but they had lasted only a handful of seconds. This was no natural event. It must be Zyung’s sorcery, stealing the light and forcing them to battle in the gloom. Now the only lights were the blasts of annihilation falling from the airborne sorcerers.

  Tyro’s legs were caught now in an iron grip. Clawed arms of solid darkness emerged from the blood-soaked ground, wrapping about his lower body, tearing at his skin. All about him men suffered the same fate. Devils of shadow poured from the cursed earth of the valley, tearing at throats, chests, and necks. A cold mouth latched over the wound in Tyro’s back, sucking out his blood like a great leech. The shadows clutched at his arms, digging fangs into them as well.

  Only D’zan was untouched by the swarm of shadows. The blade of his greatsword gleamed with a pale light now, and he slashed apart the shadows instead of living men. The Sun God’s blade tore through their substance where all other blades did nothing. D’zan carved a man free of shadows, only to see him subsumed again by a fresh cluster of the devils.

  Tyro cried out. D’zan turned to face him. The fangs of a dozen shadows sank deep into Tyro’s body. Their claws tore his armor away so they could dig into his flesh. D’zan swept his blade across the knot of darkness that overwhelmed Tyro, shredding some of the devils. Yet more of them sprouted from beneath the mangled bodies and pulled Tyro lower. Men howled and were torn to bits in every direction.

  Tyro’s broadsword fell free of his numb fingers. He lay naked and writhing now among a swarm of feasting shadows. Manslayers rushed at D’zan, who turned to defend himself. Tyro knew the bloodshadows fear
ed nothing but the sunlight and D’zan’s holy blade. It carried the Sun God’s sigil, and they could not touch D’zan while he wielded it. But how long would it be until the Manslayers killed D’zan, now that everyone who did not serve Zyung was being devoured by shadows?

  D’zan fought alone, surrounded by the blades of Zyung. This was the last thing Tyro saw as he drowned in a sea of ravening shadows.

  You will see them again when you enter the valley of death.

  The words rang in his dying head. Tyro knew that his brother would never forgive him, but he hoped Lyrilan would prove a wiser Emperor than himself.

  The last drops of blood left his body as his every bone splintered.

  I will see them again.

  Now.

  12

  Colossi

  Above the surging tides of metal and flesh a ring of sorcerers converged on the Feathered Serpent with light and flame. Khama’s flashing coils drank in their light and his eyes cast it back at them in flaring volleys. He grabbed them in his fanged jaws, cracking their crystalline spheres one by one, tearing their bodies to ribbons. The black stinger at the end of his tail flashed like a spear, piercing globes of light to impale chests and bellies. Still they came, shredding his hide with blazing whips of sorcery.

  The rest of Zyung’s silver-robes hovered above the battleground like sunbursts, dropping columns of stellar heat to disintegrate Men and Giants. Khama broke free of his assailants several times to allay the slaughter as best he could. Yet always a cadre of silver-robes converged to smother him again, pummeling him with bolts of brilliant agony. Most of his feathers were burned away, and his scaly skin was charred and blistered. It hung in tatters like the torn banners of the desperate Kings below.

  The death of Undutu had nearly felled Khama as well. The young lion died instantly, caught in a blast of sorcery from above. Khama’s foes were too thick in that moment, or he might have saved his King. Later he managed to spare Tyro from a similar fate, obliterating the Sword King’s would-be slayer with a reflected torrent of power. Tyro and D’zan fought their way toward the heart of a Manslayer legion. Khama lost sight of both Kings as the silver-robes swarmed him yet again, lacerating his flesh with their cruel magic. Their sorcery had no finesse or creativity; they were trained only to be destroyers, murderers, bringers of death.

  Vireon tore them from the sky, crushing sorcerers like beetles in his fists. More than once the Giant-King saved Khama from a blast that might have been the end of him. Vireon stood tall as a mountain above the bay, his feet planted among the wreckage of dreadnoughts he had stomped to twigs. Piles of pulped Manslayers lay about him like a range of red hills, even as more of Zyung’s legions streamed across the heaps of dead to join the fray.

  The Giants fought in the shadow of their titanic King, yet even they were helpless against the flashing bolts that incinerated flesh, bone, and metal in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of Udvorg had already been slain by the silver-robes, but the bulk of them remained, smashing Manslayers into heaps of pulped flesh and steel. When the sorcerers had eliminated Khama, they would turn all their efforts to burning away the rest of the Giants.

  The Giant-King’s flesh was blackened from the same searing spells that tore at Khama’s body. Yet Vireon’s great mass was infused with a dense sorcery that these petty wizards could not truly harm. Where the Vodson’s skin had gleamed bright as polished bronze, it was now soiled with blood and ashes. Yet Vireon himself did not bleed, or cry out in pain. He had broken a dozen dreadnoughts, crushed at least forty sorcerers, and trodden ten thousand Manslayers beneath his boots before Zyung’s eclipse stole the sun.

  The gloom of early night fell across the valley and the world beyond it. The only lights were those of sorcerers locked in combat with Khama, or flitting between Vireon’s mighty fingers, or raining devastation upon the ranks of Men and Giants.

  The valley filled with a flood of deeper darkness, and the howls of dying men grew louder. A second horde, one of blood-hungry shadows, invaded the battleground. They pulled men down and drank their lives, ripping flesh and shattering bone as they feasted.

  Bloodshadows! Remnants of Ianthe’s sorcery!

  Khama had not expected this danger in the middle of the day. Yet Zyung had outsmarted him by ridding the sky of sunlight. The God-King had awakened these nocturnal beasts by offering them a red feast with the blessing of a false night. His Manslayers must be protected by charms engraved into their armor. This was his true reason for choosing the ruins of Shar Dni. The blood-shadows were an extra weapon in his arsenal.

  Blots of darkness flowed up the legs of Giants, pulling them down among the dying Men. Neither sword nor spear could touch the bloodshadows. Only Khama had the power to end this attack against which there was no defense but sorcery. The battle would be lost right here and now if he did not dispel the swarming shadows. Every second a hundred more men died beneath masses of writhing darkness. One tiny light persisted in the false midnight of the battleground: D’zan with his bright sword, somehow slicing shadows to bits. Again the Feathered Serpent wondered at the Yaskathan King’s powers. D’zan was no sorcerer, but he surely carried sorcery in his body, and in his blade.

  Khama whirled in a spherical pattern, releasing the energies at the core of his being. He ignored the hail of biting, burning bolts his enemies cast again and again through his spinning body. In seconds his light had grown bright as the sun, as it had done above the Jade Isles. The silver-robes recognized his power and glided away from him. They had seen Damodar and several dreadnoughts reduced to nothingness when his sunburst erupted over the Golden Sea.

  Zyung had stolen the true sun, so Khama took its place.

  He spun faster and faster, losing all sight and sound, retaining only a core of formless awareness. His golden light flooded the valley, but he did not see it. Neither did he see the bloodshadows curdling and disappearing in the glow of his cleansing light, or the thousands of lives he saved from their clutches. Yet he sensed the dark spirits burning away like torched parchments. He burned and spun until the last of the bloodshadows was gone.

  Then his coiled body slowed, warped, and fell.

  His inner fires were spent. He plummeted into the corpse-choked valley, striking the ground like a felled tree. The many agonies that he had kept at bay now washed over him. His great eyes closed. About him Men and Giants cheered and picked up their blades, charging once more into the Manslayers whose numbers dwarfed their own. Khama lay among the piles of dead as the battle coursed around him.

  A number of silver-robes descended to stand upon the mounds of corpses. Khama could not raise his head or open his eyes, but he sensed them closing in on him. If they killed him, his spirit would return to his hidden sanctum in distant Mumbaza, although manifesting a new body might take days, weeks, months, or even years.

  Yet he knew they would not kill him now. They would capture him for Zyung’s pleasure, keeping him trapped in this powerless, broken body that was little more than a tube of shredded flesh. Soon Zyung would tear Khama’s spirit from this ruined shell and trap it inside some sturdier prison. Or, Zyung might choose to devour Khama’s essence, granting him oblivion at last. This was how the Old Breed, who could not truly die, warred upon their own kind.

  The silver-robes wrapped him in chains of congealed light, searing his flesh further. Like spiders spinning webs of flame, they encased his helpless form. Perhaps this had been the true reason for summoning the shadow horde. Zyung knew Khama would spend the reserves of his power to drive out the bloodshadows. And Khama had done so, sacrificing himself so that Vireon’s legions were free to fight on.

  A fair trade.

  Consciousness faded as the silver-robes carried him above the swirling red chaos.

  The shadows devoured Chygara and Alisk alive while Dahrima watched, unable to help either of them. Neither her blade nor her fingers could find purchase in the non-solid flesh of the devils. She waved the Sky God’s amulet among the clawing shadows, but it did not driv
e them away. It had not saved mad Pyrus either, when he had taken it from his own neck and shoved it into her hand. The stone’s protection extended only to the one who grasped it or wore it.

  Dahrima tried forcing it into the Windcaller’s hand as Pyrus had done to her. She would gladly sacrifice herself to save her dearest spearsister. But the devils pulled Chygara’s hand into shadow and Dahrima could not find it. The snapping of Uduri bones rang louder than the clangor of steel and bronze. Many of the Udvorg, also, died screaming in the grip of shadows. Dahrima could do nothing but watch Giants and Men die together, while the Manslayers laughed and brandished their blades in triumph.

  She looked toward the mountainous Vireon. His steaming, blackened fists clutched at the sorcerers who assaulted him. The greatsword in his scabbard had grown large enough to slice a city in half, yet he had not drawn it. If not for the ever-present threat of the sorcerers he might take that massive blade and sweep it across the legions of Manslayers still charging up the beach. Yet even Vireon could not rid the valley of the bloodshadows that stole the life from his legions with such terrible speed.

  Only the amulet kept Dahrima from death in that moment. She contemplated casting it aside and giving in to the hungry shadows. Her eyes caught a gleam of sunfire in the unnatural darkness. The King of Yaskatha moved alone through the shadows, slicing them apart with his gleaming greatsword. A pale fire ran along the edges of the iron blade as he saved soldier after soldier from death. In the heat of panic, Dahrima considered taking the enchanted weapon away from the Yaskathan and using it to aid her sisters.

  Yet she never had to make that terrible decision. A new sun erupted into life above the valley. Dahrima stared into the glare with a bloodstained hand shielding her eyes. The after-image of the Feathered Serpent swam at the heart of the blazing orb. Its light fell across the valley and made the shadows howl. In a blinding instant every one of the formless devils was obliterated. Men and Giants rose up bleeding and grasping for their swords. Yet far too many would never rise again. Dahrima did not recognize the faces of Chygara and Alisk when she saw what a ruin the blood-shadows had made of their bodies.