by Col Buchanan
Creed stared along the length of the parapet, taking in the measure of their position. Explosions bloomed along the line. He could hear shouting from the defenders in the distance, shouts which seemed to be passing along the wall and sweeping his way.
‘What is it?’ asked Halahan, turning to look.
Suddenly, all around them, men began to stagger as though they were drunk. Creed blinked in surprise, feeling the growing tremor of the wall shaking through his boots.
He caught Halahan before the man lost his footing. Others were gripping onto whatever they could. It was an earthquake, no mistaking it now. Shouts of panic filled the air as Creed made his way to the back of the parapet and leant out far between the smaller crenellations. From there he glanced along the rear face of the wall, seeing the torches and braziers along a single portion suddenly vanishing in a cloud of dust and a rumble of collapsing masonry, men disappearing down into it.
Part of the wall was collapsing, spilling backwards as it fell.
They’ve breached us!
His hands gripped the edges of the shuddering stonework to keep him upright. The shaking was growing even more extreme now, as though the quake was moving closer to his position. In that moment he spotted the Dreamer Shard not that far away in her feathered coat.
‘Dreamer!’ he shouted across to her. ‘Can’t you do something?’
But she already was. Her hands were rising into the air with her head thrust backwards, skin glowing where it was visible. A gust of wind swept out from her along the battlements, driving before it a hiss of dust and grit until it veered out over the crenellations and the killing ground beyond, picking up the ends of the soldiers’ hair and cloaks so that everything seemed pointed at the enemy.
*
Shard was feeling strong tonight, focused like a lens. So much so that when she shed her body and launched herself into the night, she felt a wind of dust following after her disembodied form.
Like a bird seeking prey she flew up over the battlements and the men fighting desperately along them. She raced out over the killing ground and the masses of enemy forces running across it, drawn towards the echo that had returned from her glyph searching out for Tabor Seech.
With the help of the sensee bark in her veins, her mind was clear enough tonight to master the potent juices of the worm. Confidence lent her speed. Racing onwards, Shard called up the three trees of glyphs she had been preparing for their confrontation. The glyph she wanted most of all was shaped like a shower of falling stones. It took all the will she could muster to ignite it, draining her of strength as it sprang into life. And then it was as though a great hand was raking up the stones and pebbles on the ground that she passed over, pulling them up into her wake – a trailing cloud of debris, clattering like a stony beach dragged through the air in a vast net.
There! Standing alone on the open top of a turret amongst the ruins of what remained of Kharnost’s Wall, the one most recently fallen – the tiny form of Tabor Seech in his swirling dark cloak.
Shard sensed the colossal effort he was expending on shaking the opposite wall with his will, and even then, she saw, he was targeting only a small section of it at a time. An impressive feat, regardless, and part of Shard wanted to know how he was doing it even as she dived downwards, intent on stopping him.
At the last moment Seech’s eyes snapped open, finally noticing the swirling cloud rushing towards him. Seech threw up a body shield just as her storm of stony hail fell upon him, slashing out of the night sky.
Tabor Seech reeled backwards with his face bloody, throwing up his arms to protect himself and strengthening his shield to ward them off. A flash of light pulsed off him, almost blinding her despite her protections; Seech seeking her out even in the heat of saving himself.
Shard launched everything she could at him.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
No Regrets
‘They’re here,’ said Ash, pressing forward for a better look.
Shod hooves clattered on the road behind as riders emerged out of the night. They slowed, milling around the rear of the warwagon while riders dismounted.
‘Can you see Aléas?’ Baracha asked by his side.
Even now, Ash kept the pistol pressed against Mokabi, and stood with him at the edge in clear view of all, the general gagged and his hands bound for good measure.
‘Yes. And the others.’
A soldier was yanking Nico from the saddle. Another pair shoved Cole against his protests.
In moments a call sounded from below, telling them that the prisoners were coming up.
Boots clamped on the steps, and the old farlander straightened when he saw Aléas staggering up into view, and then Nico, Cole, Juke – all of them, still alive and breathing. He grinned at their dazed expressions blinking across the decking, stunned by the sight of him standing there with a pistol jabbing into Mokabi’s neck.
‘You are well, all of you?’
‘Chirpy,’ Aléas answered, his own two eyes blackened. ‘Baracha!’ he exclaimed, taking in the big fellow at last and the rest of the Rōshun arrayed around the edges. ‘What are all of you doing here?’
‘Saving your skins, by the looks of it.’
All at once they crowded across the deck to surround Ash and Baracha, stepping over the dead Acolytes sprawled between them.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve seen the cat about?’ the longhunter enquired, taking in their delicate situation here with concern.
‘No. But if she is free I am glad of it.’
Bruised and battered, Nico was clearly shaken by his recent captivity, but his large eyes shone with a defiant spirit.
‘I’m losing count,’ said the young man. ‘Does this make us even?’
‘Almost. Just as soon as you are home.’
They clasped hands, and then Nico embraced him awkwardly while his father watched on, something unreadable in the man’s gaze.
Strange to feel Nico in the flesh like that. Too real almost, too much for his senses to take in; like the ragged bleeding wound in his side that only throbbed dully now.
‘So this business of getting out of here,’ Cole reminded him tersely. ‘Your hostage there. We walk out with him?’
General Mokabi bristled, chomping at his gag to be released.
‘Not a chance,’ answered Baracha. ‘We do that and we lead them straight back to the escape tunnel they’re using for the raid. A lot of Specials are still going to be needing it.’
Heads turned to Ash.
‘So what do we do?’
‘What we always do,’ he told them. ‘We make a way out.’
*
‘Safe passage!’ Ash hollered down to the imperial forces below them. ‘Safe passage for my people, and I will not shoot your general.’
‘Do as he says,’ called Mokabi, buying himself time. ‘Let them through, and no tricks!’
And under his breath he added, ‘You will pay for this, all of you!’
Stuffing the gag back into the general’s mouth, Ash spotted Baracha staring at him without expression. It was the look he always bore whenever competition arose between the two of them. Whenever he believed Ash to be trying to outdo him.
‘I have a better idea,’ rumbled the Alhazii. ‘We get this wagon going. Break out with it.’
But Ash shook his head. ‘Safer my way. Now go. All of you. When you make it back to the tunnel safely, send up two flares to let me know. Then I will make my escape.’
Grumbles from the Rōshun, who made no effort to move.
‘Go!’ Baracha shouted at them suddenly, surprising Ash as much as the others. ‘I’ll stay here too, make sure he makes it out of this. Wait for us as long as you can at the tunnel.’
The Alhazii’s words sounded false to Ash’s ears. They were enough though to get the Rōshun moving towards the stairs.
Yet still Nico and Aléas stood there unmoving. It took Cole to forcefully push the pair towards the stairs.
‘We’re coming down,’ shout
ed one of the Rōshun as they descended the steps with their weapons at the ready, and each one glanced back before disappearing from sight.
‘See you soon?’ ventured Aléas, looking between Ash and Baracha.
‘Aye, lad,’ replied the Alhazii.
‘Soon,’ said Ash.
No shouts or gunfire from below yet. It seemed the Mannians might let them pass after all.
‘The charts!’ Cole shouted back in a panic. ‘Where are they?’
Sweet Mercy, Ash had almost forgotten about them, too busy again thinking of his apprentice.
‘I buried them,’ he told the longhunter. ‘Head along the road that runs west from here to the coast. There is an old stone marker not far along it. The charts are buried under some rocks.’
‘Good luck to you, farlander.’
Ash nodded, feeling faint now, almost spent.
‘Nico,’ he called out, taking a step forwards, and the young man stopped at the head of the steps, resisting the shove of his father.
Nico cast him a smile.
‘No regrets!’ his apprentice shouted back, just as they’d heard Meer shout as he’d fallen.
Ash lifted a hand in farewell, his blood surging, his own mouth stretching tight. It was hardly how he had imagined their final parting, but it would do. The boy was alive and soon to be home again; one single broken shard of the world restored to its rightful place.
‘I would have been honoured to call you my son,’ he called out to the young man, and realized how much it was true. There was so much to impart just then. So much he had learned in this life over sixty years and more – the whole map of his soul. ‘Follow your heart, Nico,’ he shouted across to him. ‘Do it all for the passion!’
Even as Nico was pushed downwards by his father, he called out to Ash.
‘Make sure you follow after us when you can!’ Nico shot him a final fateful glance. And then he was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
A Fighting Retreat
When the earth tremors finally stopped, abruptly, beneath their feet, Creed surged to the front of the parapet to find the enemy gathering for another charge, and saw how a single breach had dissected Singer’s Wall in the middle of its span, where dust still settled over thousands of toppled stone blocks. He hurried to the rear of the walkway to see the same thing. Down there on the ground behind the wall, some of their reserves of Khosian chartassa, heavy phalanxes, were moving in to stand before the hole and its ramp of rubble, the foremost ranks levelling their great spears in anticipation of the enemy now pouring through.
At least the damned wall had stopped shaking.
Creed wiped a hand across his brow and glanced with gratitude towards the Dreamer. But the woman remained locked in her own ongoing battle. Moments earlier, she had flung herself aside just as a block of masonry had hurtled from the sky, scattering men in all directions as it bounced clean off the walkway.
Now, with a sweep of her hand, the Dreamer flung her own block of stone in a high arc above the killing ground, up there where sky-ships were circling fiercely, aiming the block at someone on the far ruin of Kharnost’s Wall. Soldiers watched her with open mouths.
‘She must be going for the enemy Dreamer,’ Creed said in wonder. Halahan was turning to look when a blast of heat and light struck them from the side, and every man on the wall turned to see a section of the battlements going up in a fountain of fire and debris.
Holy kush, that’s big!
‘Have they mined us?’ Halahan called over the noise of it.
‘No!’ Creed shouted back, leaning out over the side, his gaze filled with the brightness of the flames. ‘The base of the wall’s still standing.’
‘Well something just took a big chunk out of the wall. Looks like it hit the rear of it.’
They both looked to the sky, back in the direction of the city. A crackle of fire lit up the clouds and then a chorus of others followed it like a display of fireworks, the sky defences further back on the Shield firing at something up there.
Creed furrowed his brows and spotted a ship dropping towards their position, a fast skud with its thruster tubes blazing on full, its empty silk loft rippling behind it. The diving ship drew some rounds from the ground and the next wall behind them, green tracers streaking through the night and zipping over or under or into it.
‘Suicide ships,’ cursed Halahan with snarl. ‘We used them back in Nathal against the Fourth Army.’
Creed was speechless, caught up entirely in the moment.
The small ship was tilting as it fell, spilling debris from its deck. He swore he glimpsed a man floating down on what looked to be a parachute, drifting out towards the sea. As the skud fell closer he saw that it was going to strike a section of the wall not far to the east.
Again the wall shook beneath their feet.
This time the explosion was so close it made them shield their faces with their arms.
Already, where the first skyship had struck, Mannians were rushing through the sudden gap in the wall under cover of dust and smoke. From the Khosian side a horn sounded out, urgently calling for reinforcements. More rang from the Mannians’ side, triumphant and piercing.
‘To arms!’ a sergeant was shouting over and over, shoving the men around them from their shock. The Mannians were renewing their assault on the battlements with all their fury.
Ashen-faced, General Creed looked about for one of his signallers.
‘Tumus!’ Creed called with a wave of his arm to the young woman huddled down with her horn and flags. ‘Send out the call,’ he bellowed through his cupped hands. ‘Full counter-attack now, damn it! Full counter-attack now!’
The woman had to wet her lips first before she could get a sound from the horn, and then she blew a long single note with her cheeks bulging, and waved a flag striped yellow and black at their rear positions. Distant horns called out in reply from their deepest reserves. Another mass of infantry chartassa rose up from the foot of the next wall behind them, began marching across the field towards the phalanxes already there.
Just pray they’re not too late, Creed thought to himself grimly, watching the enemy fighters pouring through the breaches like a flood.
*
Shard was struggling to breathe now.
The Dreamer had snapped back into her body just as Seech had hurled the first block of stone at her, the man retaliating with a fury that had momentarily knocked her off stride. He had missed, though only just, with a stone that might have crashed right through her personal shield had it taken her by surprise.
Now she could hardly breathe because Seech was sucking the air out of the space immediately around her body like a great squeezing fist, and it was all she could do to maintain an open funnel that drew in enough air for her lungs, a long and winding vortex revealed by the drifting smoke of the battlements.
But Seech was fast, as fast as she was even now on the worm juice. He was attacking her vortex of air as she fought to keep it open, their conflict made visible by the smoke compressing and stretching at the mouth of the spout.
With a gasp of effort, Shard mentally picked up another lump of masonry and tossed it high over the parapet at where she knew him to be. She was aware that she did not have the strength left to throw many more of them; wondered even if such brute tactics were worth their expenditure. But it had become a kind of challenge between the two Dreamers, flinging rocks back and forth like this. A game of dare and distraction while they tried to snare each other with cleverer, more subtle tricks of the mind.
Right now, gasping for air as though Seech was physically gripping her throat, part of Shard’s mind was watching her ex-lover through the eyes of a circling pica bird that was vaguely consenting to her prompting, using it as a forward scout. Through its lensed sight she watched Tabor jumping aside from the boulder she had just cast at him, and this time he didn’t allow it to crash off his body shield as before, but instead danced out of the way amongst the debris she had already thrown at him. H
is shield was finally weakening like her own, more and more of his effort going into his grip on her.
Almost casually the man launched a block in reply. She hopped to one side, trailing her winding pipe of air with her. Saw Seech’s stone crash against the flagging.
No sense assuming he wasn’t watching her closely too in some way. Shard waited until she was engulfed in a passing cloud of smoke then sent a boulder out hard and fast towards her opponent. A second stone, much larger, she heaved up with a heft of her mind, and with her remaining strength fired it in a steep arc upwards into the sky until she lost sight of it.
Heat roared against her face. A fireburst, one of Seech’s old favourites. Not a problem with her body shield still active, or so she thought, until she realized that Seech was maintaining its existence in the air, so that the flames were wrapping her entirely, and even feeding down into her tube of air.
Fear of agonizing death flooded Shard with her reserves of strength, her second wind. She forced the flames back from the tube so that she could breathe again, the air scorching her lungs nonetheless. Drenched in sweat, she pushed against Seech’s will, forcing him to focus his own ever more on their struggle. With what fraction of concentration she had left over, Shard used her bird’s eye view to watch Tabor on the far tower, skipping aside from her missile.
Through the bird’s sight, Shard judged the path of the heavy block still up there, tumbling now on the apex of its arc. She nudged it a little to correct for Seech’s change in position.
Seech! she shouted in her mind in the fiery heart of the inferno.
Shard! he shouted back.
I just gave our child a name, she told him.
What? What child?
She choked down her bitter retort, galled by his ignorance.
Tippetay. It’s what I named him. A Contrarè name.
He would hate that. Seech had always held a low opinion of all things Contrarè. What was he pondering, in the silence now hanging between them?