The Raven Collection

by James Barclay

  Detached though he was from the danger surrounding him, Denser was dimly aware of the clamour of voices, of running footsteps and the urgency in Hirad’s every utterance. Dawnthief’s mana shape was as rich as it was difficult to control and, deep within his subconscious, Denser thanked the Master for not leaving out any detail or nuance from his long years of teaching.

  Never before had a spell fought to control him, use him to develop its potential and drain him as it sought more power. It wasn’t that the spell was sentient but that the shape his words, gestures and thoughts generated only really had one end: total consummation of the caster and, with him, Balaia.

  Only now did he realise the true nature of Septern’s most awful research. And the truth was that now the basic shape was created, he could simply surrender to a chain reaction that would lead to the destruction of everything. The stealing of light. The theft of dawn.

  And so he fought its every effort, cut out every flare of the complex shape, halted every counter-axial spin, every attempt to stop motion and every pull on his rigidly controlled mana reserve. Still it drained him and he was not ready to cast. In front of him, mana joined the catalysts, burning in a triangle that lifted them from the ground and fused them into the core of the spell. The power increased, tempting and probing.

  Yet the focus wasn’t there, the power too randomised. To cast now would take The Raven into oblivion along with the Wytch Lords. And though sense told him that was a price that should be paid, he was not prepared to give up. He wanted a channel for Dawnthief’s energy, and in theory he could make one. But with the sounds of fighting filtering into his mind, he was aware he had little time left in which to put his theory into practice.

  Hirad’s sword clattered into the undefended side of the Wytch Lord, Arumun. He knew its name, and those of the other five, because the clarion call of fear they had launched at his mind was empowered by the use of the six terrifying identifiers. When Denser had spoken the names, that was all they had seemed. Now, confronting the ancient evil, those names lodged deep in his gut and threatened to take the strength from his limbs.

  Arumun howled and fell back, wound gaping, dark fluid oozing. Hirad’s shout of triumph cut off abruptly. The wound healed in moments and Arumun straightened and was pushed upright by those behind him, shaking his head.

  ‘Gods,’ breathed Hirad. The Wytch Lord stepped forward and whipped out its hand with a speed that almost beat Hirad’s guard. He staggered under its weight.

  ‘We can’t fight them,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, we can,’ said The Unknown. ‘All we have to do is keep them back.’ He swung his blade through waist high, connecting with flesh and splintering bone. Belphamun collapsed to the floor. ‘They’re still weak. Let’s keep them that way.’

  ‘Shield up,’ said Ilkar.

  Hirad half froze and looked behind the three Wytch Lords who confronted them. The other three, Ystormun, Pamun and Weyamun, were casting.

  ‘Let’s take it to them, Raven!’ Standing half a pace behind and to the right of The Unknown Warrior, Hirad blocked another sweep of the hand from Arumun and buried his blade in the Wytch Lord’s chest. The wound was healing before he dragged his sword clear. He glanced along the line.

  Belphamun had risen quickly, The Unknown ducked a haymaking punch and chopped at its legs, cracking bone, causing it to stumble. Seizing his chance, he reversed his guard into its face and slashed halfway through its neck. This time, the fall was heavier, the cry of pain more hideous.

  ‘Shield up. Denser is covered,’ said Erienne.

  Giriamun swatted at Will, catching the frightened man on the top of his shoulder. He shouted briefly and crumpled. Thraun bellowed anger and hacked at the flailing arm, shattering the elbow. Giriamun simply came back with the other, fist connecting sharply with the top of Thraun’s skull. The young warrior spun and fell senseless.

  ‘Damn it,’ rasped The Unknown.

  ‘Come on, Denser,’ whispered Hirad.

  The Wytch Lords’ spells came sudden and violent, pulses of raw light, dark and malevolent, punching into the shields around Denser and the fighting Raven, flaring over their surfaces, fizzing and cracking. They held just long enough. Belphamun rose, his eyes clear evil.

  ‘Shield down,’ said Ilkar, gasping for breath.

  The Unknown and Hirad locked gazes for a heartbeat, the barbarian tired to the base of his being, muscles crying for respite, lungs heaving, heart slamming. He didn’t know how much more he had in him.

  ‘Do it,’ he said.

  The Unknown launched a crazed attack, first dropping to his haunches to hack at Belphamun’s legs, next springing up to chop at the exposed neck, the Wytch Lord following his movements too slowly. To his right, Hirad switched grip, slicing up and left and catching Arumun in the lower jaw, snapping its head back and forcing it off balance. He followed with a reverse sweep which crashed into the following Lord’s face. But the blow from Weyamun came from nowhere.

  Belphamun fell but Ystormun and Pamun closed on The Unknown. He swivelled and raised a guard, but as Hirad pitched to the mosaic, he saw the blows fall on the big man. And though he stayed on his feet, it wasn’t enough. The Wytch Lords would cast again.

  Hirad scrabbled for his sword and started to get up, pain from his shoulder spiking every movement, his vision clouded, aware he couldn’t leave The Unknown to fight them alone. He half rose but Weyamun punched him down again. The Unknown fell next to him, blood running from his face.

  ‘Get up, Unknown.’

  ‘I’m here.’

  The two friends sought purchase on each other, pain blossoming where the fall of Wytch Lord fists had bruised muscle and bone. Hirad’s body protested, exhaustion threatening to defeat the drive to stand, legs shaking, feet aching, sword arm on fire. From behind them, Ilkar launched FlameOrbs which struck the centre of the Lords, spilling fire and light, incinerating robes and charring new flesh, which sprouted again and again through the flame. They didn’t pause to damp it down.

  Hirad looked up. Six faces wreathed in smoke and firelight loomed over him. Triumphant, exultant, victorious.

  ‘We live,’ breathed Arumun.

  ‘Dawnthief.’

  The word shattered the moment’s pause.

  ‘Down! Down!’ yelled Ilkar. Hirad reflexively attempted to rise but The Unknown took his legs from under him and he fell back.

  ‘NO!’ yelled Arumun, the roar joined by his brothers.

  A column of pure dark coursed above his head, wide enough to encapsulate the Wytch Lords crowded in the space outside their burial chamber. It seared into them, punching them from their feet and blasting them into walls, tearing limbs from bodies and ripping flesh from bones which cracked under the extraordinary force. With high-pitched screams and squeals, Belphamun, Arumun and Giriamun were flung back into Pamun, Ystormun and Weyamun, the sextet hammered against the far wall of the burial chamber to hang like huge rag dolls, limbs flailing, heads rolling, eyes ablaze.

  A howl like wind driven through a gully grew in volume, hurting ears and setting teeth on edge. Above Hirad, the column of Dawnthief, black, sleek and pure night, whipped his hair across his face. With an effort, he rolled aside, taking a glance at Denser.

  The Dark Mage was on his knees, straight-backed, arms outstretched, Dawnthief emanating from the space between his hands. His whole body juddered violently, his arms vibrating, face taut and quivering, mouth wide, hair flying. His eyes were wide open but saw only the dark in front of him. And he was enclosed in a darkening mist which obscured him more with every passing moment. The mist roiled and swirled, feeding into the Dawnthief tract, adding to its energy. Erienne stood at his shoulder, not daring to touch him, the terror on her face matched by the awe in her eyes.

  ‘Move!’ shouted The Unknown. ‘The black is widening.’

  Hirad could barely hear him but caught the import of his gesture and yielded to the tug on his sleeve. The two men scrambled clear and turned to watch the destruction of the
Wytch Lords, and it was then that Hirad saw the prone forms of Thraun and Will. Both men were stirring.

  ‘Stay down!’ roared Hirad, flapping his arms in front of him. ‘Down!’ But they couldn’t hear him above the howl of the spell and the screams of the Wytch Lords who beat at their torment with splintered fists. Thraun picked his head from the floor and shook it, groggily unaware of the death scant inches away.

  ‘Oh, hell,’ muttered Hirad. He ran forward and dived under the widening diameter of Dawnthief.

  Denser’s body was consumed with beautiful power. He could feel it driving through his veins, swelling his muscles and sparking his sinews and tendons, forcing the breath from his lungs. But he had no need of breath. Dawnthief sustained him.

  In front of him, the Wytch Lords suffered under the tumult of his casting and he laughed at their pitiful attempts to break its bonds. Trapped like rodents under a monstrous thumb, they struggled, but Dawnthief held them as it always would, driving through their tattered bodies and beating the life out of their new flesh and bones.

  And Denser hadn’t played the endgame yet. Hadn’t chosen where he would send the enemy. Hadn’t decided whether or not to let Dawnthief end the world. It would be so easy. In front of him, his arms barely contained the forces of Septern’s spell as it fought to free itself from his control. All he had to do was let his arms open and circle and the blackness would encompass them all.

  Dawnthief battled him to do just that, but deep inside the recesses of his mind, something stood firm. The knowledge that at last he had found a true place to exist beyond the grasp of Xetesk. A place where he had true respect, was loved and looked after. One where he was free to choose his own destiny. The Raven.

  It was time to open the gate to oblivion. To tear the dimensions aside and deposit the diminishing remnants of the Wytch Lords to be consumed in the vortex beyond. But he wanted it to be spectacular, to leave no one in any doubt that the Wytch Lords had been destroyed. He needed to make their last journey through Balaian space as public as it could be in this forsaken city. He smiled and canted his head upwards. He knew just the place.

  The roaring of Dawnthief and the wind of living mana howled in Hirad’s ears. He lay half on and half off Thraun, pushing the shapechanger’s head to the ground. Still dazed by the fist of a Wytch Lord, Thraun struggled against survival, threatening to buck Hirad into the black until Will, seeing the danger as he came to, placed a hand on Thraun’s face and calmed him with a long, probing look.

  Hirad stared back at Denser, who was wincing as Dawnthief dragged at his body, ripples of tension flowing across his face, the mist building and deepening around him. Abruptly, Denser’s expression changed, relaxed and cleared. The Dark Mage smiled, mouthed a further incantation and began moving his arms slowly inwards and upwards.

  The Dawnthief column retracted, dragging the Wytch Lords with it. Their struggles were weak now, their bodies tangled in an awful parody of humanoid form, heads twisted on necks, legs and arms at impossible angles to bodies, backs broken. Only the light in their eyes remained to remind Hirad of the souls within.

  A mist like that enveloping Denser swam from the end of the column, causing fitful resistance as it netted the Wytch Lords, reducing their spasmodic jerkings to a syrup-like slowness. It hemmed them in, trussing their bodies in a globe of flowing night. In a few moments, they were lost to sight but for a feeble probing at the opaque mesh that imprisoned them. Their howls, now of anguish and fear, were louder than Dawnthief itself.

  Denser drew the column and its cargo towards him, angling it upwards until he stood directly beneath it and under the apex of the pyramid. The net shivered, and then, with a sharp jab upwards, Denser released the column, which screamed towards the apex, driving the opaque orb directly at the stone above.

  ‘Gods in the ground,’ breathed Hirad. ‘Run! Run!’ He began to sprint from beneath the apex, The Unknown right behind him, Thraun and Will close by. But neither Ilkar nor Erienne moved. Before Hirad could open his mouth to shift them, Dawnthief obliterated the cap of the Wytch Lords’ tomb.

  Great slabs of stone blasted skywards carrying with them the dust of ages, material accompaniment to the howl of Dawnthief tearing through the sky. Light shone through the gaping rent in the tomb, pooling around Denser, his arms pointing to the heavens, his eyes wide, a maniacal smile on his face.

  But while Dawnthief and its cargo tore through the fabric of the Balaian dimension and into the interdimensional space beyond, the stone did not. Spiralling back to the ground, huge chunks thumped into the pyramid. The ragged edges of the hole Denser had created, already weak, collapsed inwards, showering down on The Raven.

  Hirad could see the end and knew he could do nothing. The Dawnthief column shut off, and Denser, still gazing into the light, pirouetted slowly and collapsed. Hirad turned away, unable to watch the rock hit home.

  ‘HardShield up,’ said Ilkar and Erienne together. ‘Nobody move.’

  For Denser, it was the completion of a life’s dream. The casting of Dawnthief and all its multi-layered complexities had been every bit as thrilling as he’d dared hope. At one with mana, truly a part of its random life, he had struggled with temptation, overcome energies the power of which he could not have conceived, and triumphed. But more, he’d opened a gate to oblivion and deposited the broken bodies of the Wytch Lords there, souls destroyed by the hunger of Septern’s spell as he’d withdrawn from its influence. And now he had nothing left to give. The residue of Dawnthief clung to his mind and encased his body, caressing him, offering him peace, promising him rest. What more could Balaia’s saviour desire? Was it not what he truly craved? Denser closed his eyes and gave himself up to its glories.

  Mosaic splintered and crumbled under the weight of stone crashing down from above. Shards of rock flew and ricocheted. Hirad flung himself to the ground, covering his head, only to roll over and sit up immediately. The HardShields covering them all repulsed chip and boulder alike. He looked on as a slat fully five feet long and two thick tumbled end over end through the air, impacting the shield directly above the unmoving body of Denser. It slid over the invisible surface to the mosaic with a heavy thud. Elsewhere, stones the size of fists and skulls rained down, the noise of multiple collisions drumming hard on the ears and rattling the floor underfoot. And all was washed by a dust-filled light, shining through the blasted pyramid apex.

  The tumbling of rock and the cracking of tile and slab subsided. Hirad climbed wearily to his feet, frowning as he caught sight of Erienne’s face. The Dordovan had tears streaming down her face, her body quivering, clearly struggling to maintain control of her spell as she stood a few paces from Denser, her eyes fixed on the Dark Mage. The fall stopped, a quiet ringing replacing the boom and thump.

  ‘It’s over,’ said Hirad.

  Across the battle, the mood changed. From a hundred fingers, the black fire shut off abruptly, magical shields dropped and the Shamen’s faces of victory turned to uncertainty and then fear.

  Blackthorne saw it happen. Knew the change in the air meant The Raven had won, and yelled his delight. His men surged, the Baron himself galloping through leaderless Wesmen lines to his fallen friend. He slid from his horse, slashed his blade across the neck of an attacker and knelt down. Gresse, blood covering his head, was still breathing. Blackthorne called a man over and the two of them carried the unconscious Baron from the battlefield, the cries of the east ringing loud in their ears.

  Behind them, the Wesmen were broken. Without the Wytch Lord magic, the Shamen were helpless, and without the Shamen, the warriors had no focus. Individually ferocious they might be, but the tide had turned and Blackthorne’s men were alive once more.

  Blackthorne opened his mouth and roared in jubilation. Today was going to be wonderful.

  ‘Shield down,’ whispered Ilkar into the silence.

  ‘Shield down.’ Erienne’s voice broke and she ran to Denser, dropping to her knees and picking up his head to cradle it, burying her face in his
shoulder, rocking back and forth, crying and murmuring soft words.

  ‘What is it?’ Hirad started forwards.

  Erienne’s tear-stained face turned to him. ‘He’s dead,’ she wailed. ‘He’s not breathing.’

  ‘No.’ Hirad slid down beside her. ‘Ilkar, come on, do something.’

  ‘There’s not a spell for everything, Hirad,’ said Ilkar, racing to join them. ‘He has no wounds. There’s nothing to heal.’

  Hirad gazed up and down Denser’s body. There was not a mark on him, though his lips were blue.

  ‘Right. Lay him down, Erienne. Unknown, get over here and angle his head. Clear his throat.’

  ‘Got it.’

  Hirad focused on Denser’s face. ‘Don’t even think about it, Denser,’ he said, and started thumping the mage’s chest above his heart with the base of his fists. ‘Don’t you dare die. Come on.’

  Erienne stroked Denser’s hair. ‘Please, Denser,’ she sobbed. ‘I have your child within me. Don’t leave me alone.’

  Hirad paused. ‘You’ve got what? Gods in the sky.’ He pushed harder. ‘Did you hear that, Denser? You’ve got responsibility now, damn you. Breathe! Breathe!’ Hirad slapped his face to either side, hard. The Unknown massaged his neck and worked his jaw.

  ‘Breathe!’

  Denser’s mouth opened, his lungs seized air, his body heaved and he sat bolt upright, knocking Hirad aside. His hands clutched his chest and his throat gulped air. Erienne burst into fresh tears. Denser turned to her but fell back, and she cushioned his head from the fall. She ruffled his hair.

  ‘I thought you’d died, you bastard. I thought you’d died,’ she said, a tear falling on to his cheek.

  Denser smiled and shook his head. ‘I tried my best, though,’ he said. ‘My chest hurts.’

  ‘Well, we had to do something,’ said Hirad.