by Paul Collins
The Wardragon stood in a flurry and threw back its robe, revealing itself fastened onto the Preceptor’s torso. The eyes glittered strangely. >>> STRIKE ME<<<
‘Pardon, m’lord?’
>STRIKE ME NOW. USE YOUR MOST POWERFUL MAGIC<<<
‘Surely you jest?’
>DO IT, OR I SLAY YOU WHERE YOU STAND<<<
Fa’red bristled. ‘You forget to whom you are speaking, m’lord.’
>AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA TO WHOM YOU ARE SPEAKING. ATTACK ME, OR FORFEIT YOUR LIFE<<<
Fa’red was no fool. This wasn’t a test. It was a demonstration. Fine. He would play along. Protecting himself, he summoned vast energies and hurled them at the mailshirt. A dazzling green light enveloped the Preceptor’s body, blinding Fa’red. As the maelstrom of energies faded, the mage half-hoped to see a pile of ash wearing a mailshirt. He was disappointed, but not terribly surprised, to see the Wardragon still standing. He was however a little disturbed to see that the Wardragon had not sustained so much as a scorch mark.
‘Your power is legendary, m’lord,’ Fa’red began.
The Wardragon raised an arm in a casual gesture. Fa’red felt himself lifted off the ground and pinned to the wall of the tent by an enormous force. His throat constricted till he could barely breathe. He was choking to death, and not a word of any spell had been uttered by the Wardragon. There was just that odd gesture.
The Wardragon came close to Fa’red, the face itself devoid of expression, though the eyes held a strange, hypnotic glitter.
>YOUR POWERS ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO MINE, ARCHMAGE. I KNOW YOU WILL BIDE YOUR TIME UNTIL YOU CAN MOVE AGAINST ME. TREACHERY IS A PART OF YOUR SOUL<<<
At least I have a soul, thought Fa’red.
The Wardragon flicked a single finger. The force that bound Fa’red collapsed, and he dropped to the ground, gasping for breath. Ras helped him to his feet.
The brush with the raw power of the mailshirt left Fa’red in an ugly mood. But the mage was not deterred. Indeed, the Wardragon had done him a favour, revealing the true measure of his power.
But there were things the mailshirt did not know. It did not know, for instance, that there existed a force on Q’zar that could unmake the very fabric of the dragonlinks which made up the mailshirt.
Very probably, Fa’red was the only person in the universe who did.
>LET US NOW CONSIDER OUR STRATEGY<<<
Fa’red bowed for the third time, taking great care to hide any hint of mockery.
There was nothing to be seen by the old hermit, just a shimmer in the desert. He was basically a retired adventurer, but one who also played the part of a wandering monk for the more isolated communities around the Garrical Mountains. He had never been ordained, but he carried the part well, and it helped atone for his sins.
From his position aboard a laden wagon, Hawtarnas squinted. He pulled rein and the mule lurched to a halt. Deserts always shimmer, the hermit thought. What’s different this time? Although he had written The Book of Wars some five hundred years before, he almost failed to sense the danger sweeping toward him.
His eyes were slits amid wrinkles in a brown weather-beaten face. Great tufted eyebrows drooped hairs and gave some scant shade from the glaring sun. The thought crossed his mind that this place had once been at the bottom of a lake. He had found shells embedded in the rocks and outrageous bones of long-dead creatures that had shapes like nothing alive. Now there was just time and the desert, and the strange shimmer that made him think of all that bygone water. Maybe a great shoal of ghostly fish was coming back from the past. He thought of the bigger bones that he had chanced upon, and pondered on things long vanished from this world.
The shimmer persisted. Dust was swirling up now, as if an army of feet stirred it. Some of it became mean little dust devils. Hawtarnas swore. The devils blinded him for a moment, and filled his eyes and ears and nostrils with fine sand.
The old man coughed now. At the sound, part of the shimmer seemed to detach itself from the rest but he lost sight of it against the fierce glare of the sun-baked earth. His mule, sensing danger, reared, and it was perhaps this movement that woke the hermit to his own bleak future. He fumbled for a weapon deep within his robes. Recently made, he hoped it would work.
Then something dark slashed out at him from the shimmer. He saw the blade as though it were a mirage. His thundercast spat and his attacker fell from the wagon. Others swarmed forward, but the mule, desperate to flee, was already galloping across the desert, its cargo careering behind it. The hermit hung on for dear life.
At any other time D’loom would have basked in the sunshine of an autumn day, but nobody in the city felt like basking. Though the blue waters of the harbour sparkled, and the white canvas sails of the ships blazed in the sun, the town was enveloped in a haze of drifting smoke, and fear.
The fumes rose from the forges of smithies, the smouldering embers of the nightly watch fires on the walls, and all those baking, brewing and roasting to preserve meat and grains against the prospect of a long siege. There was no breeze to blow it all away, and it gave the city an ominous look, as if it wore a dark hat pulled down over its head, like an assassin ready to strike.
This was the feeling the rider felt as he galloped for the outer battlements of the city, the low and cheaply made wall that encircled only the cottages, warehouses and workshops. Already those on the wall had sighted him, and several archers had nocked arrows ready to shoot him from the saddle, but as he drew closer he resolved into an ordinary horseman, not some monster that could try a direct assault on the main gate with a good prospect of success.
With a hundred yards to go a challenge was shouted, and he reined in at once. He shouted back the password. Immediately the defenders on the wall relaxed, and the bolts in the small door within the main gate were rattled open. The rider dismounted and led in his horse, while the archers looked into the distance in case they had to provide covering fire against pursuers; but none arrived before the door was again secured.
The scout remounted and galloped through the streets, till he came to the palace. Here he was identified and admitted, though an escort of wary guards stayed with him till he was well inside. A captain met with him, waved the guards away, and took him up several flights of stairs to a chamber in the main tower. The young captain was about the same age as the rider, though he looked as if he were living a much rougher life. The weight of command was especially onerous in these dark days.
‘The other scouts?’ asked the captain. His voice was tired and emotionless, his face lacking any expectation of good news.
‘Dead, or worse,’ said the rider, shuddering a little.
‘We heard the enemy was amassing on the Zaria Peninsula.’
‘They were.’
‘Were?’
‘They’re not there anymore.’
The captain knuckled his bloodshot eyes, trying to concentrate on the scout’s words, to make sense of them. He had been too long without sleep, and the smog over the city was making him drowsy.
‘So where are they?’
The scout walked over to the window and pointed.
‘There.’
The captain hurried over and blinked at the shimmer on the horizon.
‘Impossible!’ he exclaimed. ‘No army could travel so fast.’
The scout said nothing for a moment. ‘Yesterday they were on the peninsula, now they are here. I have changed horses eight times on the way here, yet they have never been far behind me. How they travel, I do not know.’
The captain shaded his eyes and peered out through the window. In spite of his fatigue, he felt energy flooding into his body with the prospect of a battle within sight. He shouted for a lackey, and the man was standing beside him within moments.
‘Have the alarm bell rung, now!’ he ordered. ‘Then have my horse made ready, I need to go to the outer walls.’
The lackey scurried away, fear bright in his eyes.
‘They’ll be here very soon,’ said the
scout, following the man’s exit with his gaze.
‘You should get some rest,’ said the captain.
‘Should and can are so very different,’ replied the scout.
The captain squeezed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, trying to ward off an approaching headache. He thought to seek out Daretor, but knew the alarm bells would tell the War Commander all he needed to know.
‘Rest as well as you can, then. When that horde arrives there will be little scope for it.’
A bell pealed stridently, drowning out the scout’s reply.
As the combined forces of the Wardragon and Fa’red bore down on the city, someone shook Daretor where he knelt in grief on the floor of the guildhall chamber.
‘My lord! My lord! Something is wrong!’
Daretor sprang to his feet, almost knocking over Zimak. The pyre blazed fiercely, but though the flames had engulfed Jelindel’s body, and the heavy logs surrounding it glowed red, the body itself did not burn.
Only now did Daretor realise that all of the priests had fled. ‘What does it mean?’ demanded Daretor.
‘Don’t ask me, I’m only an undertaker,’ fretted the man who had spoken to him.
‘We probably ought to get her down,’ Zimak pointed out, though the blistering heat made nonsense of his suggestion.
As they stood staring, something happened. At first the fire’s glow seemed to intensify, but a white light seeped from the burial cloth in which Jelindel was swaddled. Soon it surrounded the body like a glowing fog. Shapes appeared amid the flames.
‘The spirit globes!’ Daretor shouted.
Zimak stopped Daretor from rushing into the inferno. Daretor shrugged him off, and stood transfixed.
More than a dozen of the globes had appeared, each with a mirror-like surface that reflected back the flames around it. The globes encircled Jelindel’s body, moving faster and faster until they were a blur of motion. The body moved, drawing a collective gasp from those watching. Some muttered prayers of propitiation; others swooned and fell. Several turned and fled.
Suddenly, the white burial cloth flashed into ash and blew away like dust. Jelindel sat up, then stood. Naked, she stretched out her arms. The spirit globes slowed in their frenzied circling, and seemed to caress her. Then they gathered close about her, lifted her out of the flames and gently deposited her on the floor of the chamber.
‘Your cloak!’ Daretor demanded, holding out his hand to Zimak.
Daretor stepped forward and wrapped Jelindel in the cloak, and threw his arms about her. ‘I knew! I knew this couldn’t be right!’
Jelindel blinked, as if waking. She looked at Daretor, her eyes shining. ‘You brought me back, you summoned them,’ she said, as the bolder priests returned and crowded around.
‘I thought I’d failed.’
‘But what happened?’ demanded Zimak as Jelindel embraced him in turn.
‘I went to the place of the dead,’ she said. ‘Then I came back.’
‘Just like that?’ laughed Zimak.
‘No, not just like that.’
‘Is Lord Daretor here?’ called a loud, authoritative voice.
There was a sudden hush, as might happen when someone farts particularly loudly during some important temple ceremony. Daretor did not hear the query, but he did hear the city’s bells tolling their warning.
‘The enemy is here,’ Daretor said. It was then that he noticed the messenger. ‘You! How close are they?’
‘A half hour away, no more.’
Daretor turned to the undertakers. ‘You took off her clothes before wrapping her in the death robes. Return them. Now! You, messenger, get three horses here within the minute.’
‘But –’
‘Confiscate them, steal them, beg them, cut them from the harnesses of the hearse, I don’t care. Just do it!’
‘Is there any food?’ Jelindel asked. ‘Nothing like death to build a good appetite.’
‘I’ll – I’ll fetch a venison haunch from the wake hall,’ said a pale-faced undertaker. ‘And maybe wild greens …’ He hurried off in a daze.
‘Can you tell us anything of what happened?’ asked Daretor as they walked away from the blazing pyre.
‘I can tell you that the poison was a deadly one. Without the help of the spirit globes I would have truly died.’
‘They cured you of it?’
Jelindel frowned. ‘They slowed time, and that gave my body a chance to recover from it. Like all mages, I have permanent magical protection against poison. But part of this one’s deadliness was that it acted so quickly. There was no time to mount a defence.’
‘But where exactly did you go?’ Zimak asked.
Jelindel seemed nervous, even afraid. ‘Somewhere else, somewhere different. But I brought something back with me.’
Zimak looked around. ‘Not something dead?’
‘No. Something else,’ she said. ‘At least, I think I did. I’m not sure.’
They were outside now, Jelindel having quickly dressed. The messenger ran up with three horses in tow. Jelindel, Daretor and Zimak mounted and rode for the main battle station from where the defence of the city would be orchestrated.
‘I don’t mean to press you, Jelli, but have you found something that will help us?’ Daretor asked.
‘I don’t know. I need time to think about it.’
‘We don’t have time,’ said Zimak.
Daretor gripped Jelindel’s hand. ‘Do what you must, my beloved. If the spirit globes can buy you time, then Zimak and I can do no less.’
As Jelindel tucked into a fist-sized slab of venison, they spurred their mounts on and sped through the city.
The War Council met on the battlements of the outer wall. Rumours of Jelindel coming back from the dead and even eating something from her own death-feast had spread about the city. Few knew what it meant, but all took renewed hope from it. Someone truly remarkable was on their side, and that was all that mattered.
Jelindel herself displayed confidence wherever she went, aware that confidence won as many wars as did feats of arms, but she was not herself fooled by her bravado. She had not told Daretor and Zimak, but what she had learnt in the place of the dead terrified her.
The War Council conferred with the trio. D’loom was already practically under siege. Although the Wardragon’s army had not yet reached the walls, it had cut off most of the city’s land approaches, and a fleet of ships with blood-red sails – courtesy of Fa’red, it appeared – had blockaded the harbour.
‘Anything in the sky?’ Jelindel asked.
‘Nothing, unless you count the stench of fear,’ said the captain, who had ordered the alarm rung. There were a few tired laughs.
‘A fleet of airships will come,’ Jelindel said. ‘The army, the ships in the harbour, they are simply to ensure that no one escapes.’
She quickly outlined what they might expect, especially from the air. The assembled commanders did not like the sound of the Farvenu, but Jelindel assured them that the Wardragon had only a finite number of the devil creatures at his command. The metal birds and their thundercasts were another matter. There seemed little defence against them.
‘If this Wardragon has enough of these craft, then we are lost,’ a commander said. ‘We should surrender. Surely they will spare the women and children –’
‘Then you believe in old wives’ tales,’ said Lukor, the palace captain. Like the others here, Jelindel knew the commander had never seen a thundercast in action; worse, he had not seen what she recently had.
‘Let him be,’ said Jelindel. ‘Let all here speak their minds freely. As for the vessels of the air, they are not invincible. I have destroyed many of them.’
‘What do we do?’ asked Lukor. He glanced at the horizon that was now a smudge of brown dust moving at an extraordinarily fast rate.
‘Your men can defend the walls,’ said Daretor. ‘Everyone must stand by their assigned station and defend it – to the end, if need be.’
&nbs
p; ‘Let us all go to those stations,’ added Jelindel, trying to keep the despair out of her voice. How unfair it would be if she infected these fine men and women with her own grave doubts, with her terrible dilemma. ‘The battle we fight today will chart the future course of Q’zar. The enemy has put everything into this attack. Defeat what they have here, and they will have nothing left. Whether this world is to be ruled by magic and honour, or by greed and cold science, all shall be decided before the sun sets. Go quickly now, and whatever the enemy throws at us, do not quail.’
The War Council broke up, leaving Jelindel, Daretor and Zimak alone on the rampart.
‘So, it comes to this,’ said Daretor quietly.
‘It comes to this,’ Jelindel agreed. She swallowed. She wanted to tell Daretor what she had seen, she wanted to tell him about the knife’s edge.
But something, fear perhaps, kept her silent.
‘Gah, it comes to what?’ asked Zimak. ‘Death? We’ve faced that many times.’ An image of Ethella in her lonely solitude flashed into his brain. ‘Besides, there is something I will need your help with after all this, Jelindel. A personal matter.’
Daretor snorted, though good-naturedly. ‘Then it must involve a woman.’
Zimak looked hurt. ‘Not just any woman. This is the woman I intend to wed.’ He almost gulped. Had he really said that? He could have bitten his own tongue out.
Daretor, and even Jelindel, stared at him. ‘Are you sickening with something?’ asked Daretor, genuinely concerned.
‘Oh, go soak your head in a wine barrel,’ Zimak said gruffly.
The first assault very nearly shattered the confidence of the city’s defenders. A great horde darkened the plains around D’loom like a carpet of army ants on the move. It flung itself at the city walls but was met by a deluge of arrows and throwing spears, and barrels of burning pitch. Scaling ladders were thrown up, and promptly knocked or cut down again. In other places, the attackers reached the battlements, but the elite of the city’s swordsmen were there waiting, armoured more heavily than those who had had to climb the walls under fire. The mages of the city were also at work, countering the magic of the attackers where it was brought to bear, and hurling blistering spells upon the heads of the enemy. After roughly an hour of fighting, the attacking army retired to just outside of the range of arrows, and the weaker spells of junior adepts.