‘How did they find us?’ he asked.
‘Someone has betrayed us. Someone powerful.’ Anger and surprise edged its tone. ‘You must leave for Triverne Lake. Evanson will guide you.’
‘I’m not running,’ said Hirad stiffly.
The Familiar ignored him. ‘I will distract them while you get away.’
‘Why don’t we just stay and take them out?’
The Familiar regarded him blankly. ‘You do not understand. They are too powerful for you. And for me. They will kill me.’
Hirad started, and frowned.
‘Good luck, Raven man. Look after my master.’ The Familiar flew from the open window, high into the night sky.
The Unknown juddered violently and his soul scorched along the DemonChain into his body. Laryon smiled but was totally unprepared for the backlash. He hadn’t seen the possibility at all. The returning soul negated the DemonChain’s fastening to The Unknown’s being and the result was violent severance.
With howls of triumph, the Chain whipped away from The Unknown’s body, slashing in a wide arc at the two mages. Laryon was caught on the side of the head and slammed against a wall, groaning as he slumped, a trickle of blood running from his mouth.
Younger and quicker, Denser ducked the Chain, feeling the mana slice above his head and the unmistakable sensation of a draught through his hair as the demons began to gain corporeal form.
Dragging his concentration to himself, he fought to close the end of the mana channel but knew, as he watched the head of the Chain tearing at the very fabric of the mana, that it was futile.
And, with the Chain coiling like a snake for its next strike, Denser felt something he had never truly felt before. Fear. Fear because he hadn’t the power to stop the DemonChain forming a corporeal state, and fear because he couldn’t stop it killing him. But mainly fear because he didn’t know how, and the gap in his knowledge was going to be fatal.
The Chain writhed, Denser’s mana channel was torn apart and the sound of their hate assaulted his ears. They promised him death. They promised him torment for eternity and they laughed at his weakness.
The Chain lunged at him, missing him by a whisker as he hurled himself to one side, landing heavily near the still form of Laryon. The mage was still alive. Denser shook him hard.
‘Help me,’ he said. Laryon groaned. ‘Help me!’ shouted Denser. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Chain whipping into a frenzy of speed and sound by The Unknown’s head. The warrior lay, breathing slowly, oblivious to the horror above him.
Laryon said something. It was a mumble Denser didn’t catch.
‘What?’
‘Lymimra,’ said Laryon.
‘I don’t understand.’
Laryon’s eyes opened and he looked past Denser before grabbing the mage’s head in both hands and pulling his ear close. ‘Light-Mirror, ’ he whispered before clutching Denser’s head hard to his chest. Above Denser, the DemonChain ploughed into Laryon’s face, his cry of pain cut off abruptly, his grip dropping.
Denser looked behind him. The DemonChain writhed, still attached through the floor of the chamber, its laughter echoing off the walls, its triumph all but complete. Scrabbling to his feet, Denser paused briefly to look at Laryon. He shuddered. Though the Master was unmarked, his eyes were open in death, and through them Denser could see into his soul. Only it wasn’t there.
He turned back to the DemonChain and formed the mana shape for the LightMirror. It was a simple rectangular structure and he had it in seconds. The Chain began to coil again, winding in on itself like paper in a whirlwind. Then it was still, poised, but the noise of its fury hammered ceaselessly on Denser’s ears.
As it moved to strike, he cast. A thin, horizontal beam of light about eight feet wide cut the candlelit room in front of Denser at floor level. The Chain flashed forwards and Denser brought his hands up sharply in front of him. The LightMirror deployed like a blind moving up a window to let in the sun.
A brilliant light flooded the room, gathering the pinpoints from the candles and casting them back a hundredfold brighter. The DemonChain shrieked in terror and tried to swing away, but its blue mana light was victim to the mirror.
Denser shielded his eyes as the light was stripped from the howling demons being dragged ever closer. The light speared into the mirror with increasing intensity and speed, the mana creatures howling as their life-force was ripped away, and then they were gone, leaving silence, the echo of violence and a gentle blue in the mana spectrum.
Denser refocused to normal light and saw The Unknown sitting upright.
They left the lights burning in the farmhouse. Hirad didn’t like it but it made sense. Triverne Lake was the only place of sanctuary for both The Raven and, more importantly perhaps, the two catalysts he held. With strong presence from all four Colleges, there should be no threat. And yet he was uneasy. He needed Ilkar. Ilkar would know what to say to smooth the passage of their arrival. Without him and his knowledge, Hirad felt exposed.
As they spurred their horses northward into the gathering gloom of evening, a confused but compliant Evanson leading the way, Hirad scanned the sky for the Familiar. He couldn’t see it, knew he wouldn’t, and felt a passing regret. It was not something you could ever like, but respect was something else. Unlike Ilkar, he couldn’t see the Familiar as inherently evil, and its assertion that it would die causing a diversion represented a sacrifice he couldn’t ignore.
Presumably Denser knew it too, and the knowledge that the mage was genuine in his determination to see Dawnthief used to save Balaia and not to further Xetesk made Hirad feel guilty he’d ever doubted him. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and made up the ground to Evanson, wondering what their reception at the lake would be.
They hadn’t sensed him and he grinned. They were riding over open ground, still an hour from the farmhouse and keeping away from any trails. Twelve of them in cells of three, one mage and two Protectors, close formed against attack from the ground but completely exposed to anything from the air. High up in the darkening sky, he circled, pulsing his warning cry through the mana to his master as he selected the target that would produce the most mayhem.
There he was, and the sight sent a warm thrill of fear through his body. Nyer, the Xetesk Master. The man with whom his master had communed for so long. A traitor. And about to die.
He flew higher, a silent death about to unleash itself on an oblivious victim, and circled still unnoticed behind his target.
He dived, suppressing the urge to scream his laughter and gurgle his delight. Eyes fixed on the back of Nyer’s head, wings swept back, he tore through the air. At the last, he extended wings to brake his descent, swung his taloned feet in front of him and buried them in the Master’s unprotected neck.
Nyer grunted and pitched off his horse to tumble and sprawl in the dirt. The Protectors shouted warnings but were way too late. Even as they halted, wheeled and closed, the Familiar arched its back and slammed its fists into Nyer’s head, crushing his skull.
Now it laughed and turned for its next quarry. With a beat of its wings it took to the air and shot past a bewildered Protector, who swung his sword hopelessly wide.
Chittering in exultation, the Familiar arced back into the sky, scanning below as the enemy halted and the three remaining mages prepared spells to bring him down. But he knew he would be safe. His master had answered his call and was already on his way. A warmth stole over his heart, which beat faster with new energy, and he turned a lazy somersault.
The spell caught his left leg and seared along his tail.
Pain.
Flashing over the ground, ShadowWings shaped for raw speed, Denser wailed as the jolt from his Familiar’s wound thundered in his head. He clung to his concentration, held the wings together, kept flying, tears rolling down his cheeks, vision a blur.
He looked over his left shoulder. The Unknown was close behind him and Denser still had the energy to admire the way he had accepted the use
of the ShadowWings. The ability to hold mana placed in his body was a given ability of Protectors and he no longer was one. The trouble would surely start when he had time to think and remember.
‘What’s wrong?’ called The Unknown.
‘They’ve hit him, the bastards. They’ve hurt him.’ Denser took a deep breath and pushed his wings beyond the safe limits of their speed. Behind him, without knowing exactly how, The Unknown did the same.
The Familiar was weakening. Pain forced tears from his eyes and his circling became ever more desperate as the fire ate along his tail and leg. His master was coming but he could not home in on the direction, and the dark shroud that threatened to steal his consciousness drove cogent thought from his head. He circled on, dimly aware that beneath him, a mage prepared another spell. He wept now, knowing death was upon him.
‘Master,’ he breathed. ‘Come for me. Avenge me.’
The spell caught him in the throat. The Familiar crumpled and plummeted to earth.
Nothing could prepare Denser for it. Like having needles pushed into his eyes and his brain crushed by rock, the Familiar’s last agonised whisper and the snuffing of its life shattered his mana stamina and took his consciousness. The ShadowWings vanished and he fell from the sky.
The Unknown saw it coming, saw Denser’s head snap back and his hands claw at his face as if he was trying to tear his skull apart. He saw the wings flicker, flash bright against the dark sky, then blink out. Already slowing and diving as Denser began to fall, he shot past him once, banked, turned and caught him on the next pass, maybe fifteen feet from the ground.
With the Dark Mage limp in his arms, he hovered, gaining height slowly. Looking down on his face, pale even in the gloom and taut with pain through his consciousness, The Unknown felt protective towards him. He frowned, knowing that he had felt hatred before, but it seemed long ago. Other memories were filtering slowly through the morass of his recently ordered mind, but he quashed them, keeping his attention on the ShadowWings.
He felt anger too. Anger at whoever had damaged Denser. Anger at Xetesk for taking him as a Protector and stealing his death. But desire for revenge was put aside. Right now he had to reunite The Raven. He flew for Triverne Lake.
Selyn appraised her route to the pyramid, her professional dispassion flawed by a shiver down her spine as she gauged her final, troubled half-mile. It wasn’t that she was concerned over her chances of making it alive. No. There was something more. An atmosphere hanging around Parve of power, energy, fear and anticipation. It was as though the very stones of the rebuilt City of the Wytch Lords sensed the coming of something.
Xetesk had been quietly aware of the Wesmen threat for months. Latterly, the news of the Wytch Lords’ escape had scared them into overt as well as covert action. Now she was here to answer the final question. And the question was no longer ‘if’; it was ‘when’.
The building she had been resting on for the past hour was completely encircled by streets. Three chimney stacks ran its length. She kept very close to the centre stack, body still, head moving slowly to gauge her position.
Behind her, the Torn Wastes stretched away into the night, their noise muted inside the City boundaries. To her right, more low buildings, none lit, gave way to ruins after about a hundred yards, but it was left and ahead that held her attention.
One street across was the eastern of four main thoroughfares to Parve’s central square and the pyramid which dominated it. The road ran straight and wide for around seven hundred yards before opening out on to the square. If her information was right, a tunnel, sealed and heavy with wards, led into the pyramid itself. And surrounding it, statues depicting scenes from the war. But it had been a long time since a Xeteskian had been to Parve’s ruins and the Gods only knew what might have changed. She had to know whether the tunnel was open. If it was, time would be short.
The City was quiet. She could pick out shapes moving in the streets ahead but there was nothing like the bustle even of Xetesk at dusk, let alone Korina or Gyernath. It should be easy to reach the pyramid tunnel but something inside her begged caution. She stayed and watched.
Three hours later, with night at its deepest, she was rewarded for her innate sense of danger. At the periphery of her vision there was movement in the square, where she expected the tunnel entrance to be. Dark shapes shifted against the firelit square, and although she couldn’t make out too much from this distance, it appeared the whole square rippled. Surely a trick of the poor light.
The dark shapes split into four groups and began to leave the square in the direction of the Torn Wastes. They were riders, and enough of them clattered along the eastern path for Selyn to know who they were. Shamen.
One link, at least, was proven. The Wytch Lords were directly controlling the Wesmen through the Shamen, and they would have strong magic. When they had left the City, she moved.
Dropping to the ground on the opposite side to the main street, she hugged the silent shadows, moving carefully but quickly towards the central square. Parve was built on a strict grid, interconnecting blocks making navigation very easy for the stranger. But it also made concealment difficult, and Selyn checked closely for openings, alleyways and deep shadow as she passed, logging anything promising for her escape.
Away from the main streets, the City was dark and deserted but strangely secure. No patrols echoed on the tight new pavings and cobbles, no shadows flitted between doorways or waited for the unwary traveller or lost drunk. It was an atmosphere quite without . . . atmosphere. Then it struck her, and she stopped to take the air more closely.
It wasn’t the quiet that caused her pause. There was something else, something that hung over the City like a blanket. Parve was dormant, slumbering. But waiting to awaken.
She quickened her pace, hurrying across a wide, large-cobbled street and into the shadows two blocks from the square and pyramid. She pulled up sharply in a let-in doorway, stilled her breathing and slowed her heart rate. She had been seen and followed. She had heard nothing, seen nothing, but that inner sense told her all she needed to know.
The man came slowly and carefully around the corner, his footfalls barely registering. Selyn’s body ceased all movement, waiting to pounce or run. From her position, hidden in shadow, she could see him edging along the opposite wall and her heart sank. It was a Shaman, and if his senses were tuned, he would be able to find her. She took short breaths and activated her wrist bolts, a leather trigger running up each palm and ending in a loop which slipped over the middle finger. Now, a sharp snap back of either wrist would be enough.
The Shaman moved on up the wall, his hand brushing the layered stone, passing out of her field of vision. Quiet reigned in the street. Selyn waited on, poised. Five minutes. Ten. As her hearing attuned, she became aware of the noise of people and fire from the direction of the square, the distant clump of a hoof on stone, a door closing. Fifteen.
And then he was in front of her, the stench of his furs heavy in her nose, his dark face and cold eyes close to hers, his arm reaching out.
‘Did you think I could not smell you, Xeteskian?’ His accent was thick, the words uncomfortable in his throat.
Selyn said nothing. Batting his arm aside with her right, she rammed her left wrist into the Shaman’s eye socket and snapped back. The bolt thudded home. He died instantly, dropping like a sack to the floor.
‘Damn it,’ she breathed. She rolled him over and retrieved the bolt, wiping it clean on his furs. Struggling with his bulk, she hauled him into the shadows of the doorway. What had he been doing so far behind the others and on foot? Now time was at a premium. It wouldn’t be long before a Shaman was missed.
She reached the square less than five minutes later and fought to remain calm at what greeted her eyes. The square itself was more than a quarter of a mile each side, paved with white stone and with a glittering quartz-inlaid pathway leading to the pyramid from the east. The tomb of the Wytch Lords reached at least two hundred feet into the night sky,
smooth but for the stairway that led to the six beacon fires at its peak. It was a breathtaking structure and one fitting to house the greatest enemy Balaia had ever faced.
And surely they were set to face it again. Because while Selyn’s subconscious registered the stunning architecture, her mind struggled to come to terms with the sea of acolytes who kneeled before the open entrance to the tunnel, silent and unmoving.
The space before the pyramid was a carpet of dark-cowled followers who simply stared into the lantern-flanked blackness. They were waiting. Just waiting. The atmosphere lay heavy on her like a weight between her shoulderblades, the air thick and crackling with anticipation. But overwhelming it all was a feeling of onrushing evil she could all but taste. Above the pyramid, clouds gathered, circling in black impenetrability, adding humidity to the menace. Selyn shuddered. The only sound she could hear above her own thumping heart was the breathing of the acolytes, slow and deliberate, as if it too were an integral part of the ceremony that was surely close.
She didn’t need to see any more. Re-awakening was mere days, perhaps only hours away. She returned to her rooftop and called her communion with Styliann.
‘Fascinating,’ said Styliann, walking a complete circle around The Unknown. ‘A Protector unmasked.’
The Unknown and Denser stood in the Marquee, now shorn of its trappings of conference. The tables and chairs had gone, packed for transit with the delegations planning to leave for the relative safety of their own cities - there would be no more meetings at the lake until the war was over. In their place was a rough trestle, backless benches and a fire on which boiled a pot of water.
Behind them, sitting at the trestle and just arrived, were Ilkar and Erienne. The Julatsan had been unable to contain his delight at seeing The Unknown and his admiration for Denser. Barras had quietened him, but he still wore a broad smile and the sandwiches at his elbow were untouched. Erienne had immediately run to Denser to comfort him, to try to erase some of his pain, but he hardly registered her presence. The College Elders all stood near by, impressed in spite of themselves at the feat for which Laryon had paid with his life.
The Raven Collection Page 39