Ilkar knew that was the fear that drove Will’s anxiety. It was one that should drive them all.
And for his part, Ilkar himself was scared of what they would find in Julatsa. He would know if the College fell and the Heart was destroyed as would every Julatsan mage - those that lived through the experience. He was aware his city might well be in ruins. He knew the Wesmen were an occupying force. He knew the Council would not give up the College until every last one of them had perished in its defence.
But if The Raven couldn’t get into the Library, if they couldn’t find what they had to find, then the Wesmen, in the moment of their triumph, would have condemned most Balaians to death at the hands of dragons. Ilkar would derive no pleasure from telling them so.
He sighed deep in his chest and watched the shore unfold its detail before him, praying dry land would kindle some hope in his heart but knowing it probably would not. The destiny of Balaia was not in good hands.
Keeping far upstream from the Wesmen staging post, The Raven landed in a small cove bounded on both sides by crags and steep slopes. Above them towered the dark mass of the Blackthorne Mountains, cascading precipitously towards the Inlet, while immediately in front of them, the land angled sharply away from the rocky cove towards Triverne Lake, whose waters flowed into the sea not far from them as the mouth of the River Tri.
Splashing through the shallows, The Raven set foot back on dry land to an audible sigh of pleasure from Ilkar. He looked up at the climb into the lightening sky with what Hirad took to be pleasure.
While The Unknown made fast the boat and Denser furled the sail under his instruction, Will and Thraun scrambled away up the slope of grass-covered thinly soiled rock and crumbling clay. Will, clutching Thraun’s clothes in his bag more in hope than expectation, hung on to a fistful of fur and thick hide low on the wolf’s back, to help him on up.
‘Why are you bothering to learn all that?’ asked Ilkar, the words tumbling from his mouth before he could stop them.
Denser stopped and straightened. ‘What?’
‘If you care so little for the future, why bother to learn to sail?’ Ilkar had no option but to carry on. Denser’s eyes narrowed.
‘Well maybe I’m trying to establish some normality. Maybe I’m making a bloody effort. Is there something wrong with that?’
Ilkar smiled, trying to defuse the situation he’d created, aware that the eyes of The Raven were on him.
‘It just struck me as a little incongruous, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.’
Denser strode towards him. ‘Yes I will worry about it. Your ignorance of how I feel doesn’t give you the right to make sneering little comments like that. What are you trying to say?’
‘I’m trying to say that you are totally unpredictable and it’s causing us all a problem. Furling that sail you are totally normal, just like the Denser we know so well. But in the next heartbeat you could close up and disappear inside yourself. We don’t know where we stand.’
‘Is that right?’ Denser’s face was reddening. ‘And you think I know, do you? My head’s a complete bloody mess and I’m trying hard to make sense of what I have left. What I want is a little patience, not clever comment, from people like you!’ He stabbed a finger into Ilkar’s chest. The Julatsan pushed it away and pointed at Erienne.
‘And she’s not enough, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Ilkar, that’s enough. Just leave it,’ said Erienne.
But Denser moved in until their noses all but touched. ‘Don’t you dare to question the way I feel about Erienne. You don’t understand. ’ He pushed Ilkar firmly backwards along the shingle. ‘Keep away from me, Julatsan, until you have something good to say.’ He stalked over to the rise and began a solitary, angry climb, Erienne behind him.
‘Good work, Ilkar,’ said Hirad, shaking his head. He climbed up slowly behind the mages, noting the clear sky and the light forging towards them from the east. They would need to find cover soon. Fortunately, the River Tri’s course was lush and wooded and far enough from likely Wesmen occupation to make quick travel possible. They would still have to be careful, though, aliens in their own land.
What taxed Hirad’s mind, apart from Ilkar’s surprising outburst and Denser’s altogether predictable one, was where they would find horses. Without rides, journey time to Julatsa would be trebled or worse and give them no fast escape option. He dug in his heels and climbed faster.
The scent of home was everywhere, bleeding from the very ground on which Thraun trod. The colours of the forest and of his packbrothers filled his head as he bounded away from the water’s edge, taking care that man-packbrother should not slip from him by moving too fast.
Cresting the rise, he put his snout high into the air and sniffed. Untainted by the saltwater smells from below, the scents of the land and its inhabitants unfolded like a map before him. He turned to man-packbrother, aware he was making sounds. Man-packbrother knelt in front of him and held his face in his two hands. He growled, amusement and mild irritation mixing in his mind.
Man-packbrother spoke a word to him. He was aware it was a word without comprehension of language. It tolled in his head but the doors didn’t open. Instead, a confusion of thought plundered his consciousness.
He was standing on his hind legs and there was no hair covering his face. His howl had gone and he could run upright without falling. But there was no joy in his senses, no feeling of the pack around him. He felt clumsy if strong, awkward in his understanding of the land and prey and threat around him. The memories were dim but he knew they were memories. They hurt him inside, dragged at his body and punished his being. He knew there was a way to make the hurt stop but he fought that way.
The hurt scared him, he reacted.
Thraun barked once and recoiled from Will’s grasp, crouching low, yellow eyes fixed on him, fangs bared. He growled, deep, low and menacing. Will stood up in shock and backed away a pace, hands outstretched.
‘Thraun, it’s all right. Calm. Calm.’ He backed away further.
Hirad had reached the top of the slope in time to see the end of the exchange and Thraun’s sudden move backward, taking him perilously close to tumbling over the edge back to the cove. Hirad held his breath. The wolf was tensed to spring, its eyes on Will’s face. But to his eternal credit, Will remained what he urged Thraun to be. Calm. And Thraun eventually relaxed his crouch, shook his head, stood up and trotted away towards a stand of trees.
‘What happened?’ asked Hirad. Will’s face was sheet white in the pre-dawn light. He shrugged. ‘I mean, what did you do?’
‘N-nothing,’ said Will, with a hint of the stammer that had plagued him for days following his terrifying encounter with Denser’s familiar in Dordover. ‘Just tried to bring him back to himself with the word.’
‘What word?’
‘Remember,’ said Will, massaging his temples with thumb and index finger and looking after the retreating form of the wolf. ‘It’s the word he tells himself before he changes. It’s supposed to trigger his memories. It’s not working.’ Will sounded desperate. Hirad placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘He’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘He’s probably gone to change now, hasn’t he?’
Will turned his face to Hirad, a rueful half smile on his lips and tears in his eyes. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘So what’s different this time?’ asked Hirad. ‘He’s never reacted like this before, has he?’
‘No. He hates the wolf’s form. His worst nightmare is being stuck inside it forever and losing his ability to change back. But in the years I’ve known him, he’s never tasted the blood of so many victims either. I just wonder whether he’s in some kind of frenzy that won’t go away and it’s blocking his human side from reasserting itself.’
‘What can we do?’
Will sighed. ‘I don’t know. There’s no spell that can bring him back. His condition isn’t magical. We’ll have to wait and I’ll have to keep on trying to get through t
o him.’
‘A risky path.’
‘The only path.’ Will looked at Hirad. ‘I can’t lose him, Hirad. It would be like being dead anyway so I may as well die trying as sit and wait to die alone.’
Hirad nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘I know.’
Chapter 16
With Ilkar, Denser, Erienne and The Unknown reaching the flatter land above the cove, The Raven made headway to the Tri River valley, Thraun shadowing their progress. The landscape in front of them was beautiful, even in the half-light of early dawn, with much still wreathed in heavy shadow.
North and east, the land swept away in gentle rises, its bracken swaying and rustling, isolated groups of trees and low bush surrounding rocky pools, crags mottling the greens and browns with their stark slate grey.
South and east, in the direction of their immediate travel, the scene was altogether different. At the top of a shallow rise, the land fell away sharply into the valley of the River Tri where it flattened briefly to form great green meadows of thick grass. The river’s banks gave root to thick-trunked oaks and willows, and wild hawthorn tangled the river’s edge while, here and there, pebbled shallows rising to flat rock, covered in times of flood, gave sight of the quarter-mile width of the gentle flow.
To the west and south of The Raven, the black enormity of Balaia’s dominant mountain range scaled to the heavens, mesa, peak and slide punctuating its descent into rambling foothills and finally the fertile lowlands of the East. Close to, its power was staggering and Hirad wondered whether Baron Blackthorne, whose family took their name from the range, ever felt as he did now. Small in the presence of extraordinary might. While the mountains stood, Balaia lived. But if dragons flew through the rip in numbers large enough to overwhelm the Brood Kaan, the Blackthornes would be laid waste, shattered. He couldn’t let that happen.
Close to, it was clear that the vegetation either side of the Tri, while excellent cover, was poor walking country. With Thraun on not necessarily unwitting point duty, The Raven drove as far inland as they dared, with the light of day flying across the sky to meet them. Eventually, tired and in the open, they worked towards the water’s edge, finding enough of a clearing to set up Will’s stove, which The Unknown still carried, yet remaining hidden from both the south bank and their immediate north. Thraun had disappeared but none doubted he knew exactly where they were.
‘It’s good to be back this side of the Blackthornes,’ said Hirad, relaxing against a tree, rubbing his back on it and feeling the bark dig into the stiff muscles of his back through his leather armour. He loosened the jerkin straps and breathed deeply. The Unknown said nothing, merely stared into the woods surrounding them. Denser shook his head and Will said:
‘It isn’t worth the price we seem to have paid.’
It wasn’t exactly the reaction Hirad had envisaged. He sniffed and looked across at Ilkar whose glum face carried no surprise at the muted, if not depressed, expressions surrounding the stove.
‘Perhaps we should sleep on it a while,’ ventured Hirad.
‘We need Thraun,’ said The Unknown. ‘We need his tracking and his sense. If this area is patrolled, and I expect it us, we could hit big trouble without warning.’
‘Can’t you track?’ asked Erienne.
‘Not really,’ said The Unknown. ‘And certainly not as unerringly as Thraun.’
‘What did you do before we joined you?’ asked Will, his eyes never still, scouring the undergrowth for his friend.
‘Nothing quite like this,’ said Hirad. ‘Generally, we rode into castles or on to battlefields in broad daylight, fought all day, collected our money and that was that. Avoiding being seen wasn’t an advantage.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to be careful, won’t we?’ said Denser, his voice flat.
‘We don’t have time to be careful,’ said Ilkar sharply. ‘If the Library in Julatsa is destroyed before we get there—’
‘I know, I know,’ said Denser. ‘You don’t have to keep lecturing about it.’
‘Why not? You don’t seem to have any sense of urgency.’
‘I’m just saying there’s no point in getting ourselves killed because we’re in too much of a hurry. That would be just as bad.’
‘Voices down,’ snapped The Unknown, his voice quiet and powerful. Their progress had been slower than he’d hoped, Denser’s attitude affecting them all. That had to change before they fought again. Focus was everything and, right now, The Raven lacked it. ‘If you’ve all finished stating the bloody obvious, we’ve got to find the best solution.’ He turned his head to Will. ‘Will, how well does Thraun understand you?’
The wiry man shrugged. ‘It’s hard to say. He recognises my voice, that’s certain, but how much he actually understands is anybody’s guess. Words like “no” and “stop” and “run”, I think he does but I couldn’t hope to persuade him to track for us, for instance. Particularly now. This is the wildest he’s ever been and he’s not even been changed that long.’
‘Well, we have to get him to change back,’ said Ilkar.
‘You can’t. I’m not even sure that I can now. He’s not listening.’ Will bit his lip.
‘In that case, we have to assume he’s gone. Sorry Will, but you know what I mean.’ The Unknown unbuckled his chest plate. ‘Is there going to be a time when he’ll attack us?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Will. ‘I want to believe that he’ll recognise me however long he’s changed for. But he said himself that, ultimately, he’ll just become a wild animal.’
‘Except much harder to kill,’ said Denser.
‘Much,’ agreed Will. ‘But it won’t come to that. Wolves aren’t killers. They hunt for food and we aren’t first choice.’
As if he’d known they were talking about him, Thraun padded into the camp, his sudden appearance at Will’s shoulder causing Erienne to start. Will himself turned and draped an arm across the huge wolf’s neck and pulled his head close.
‘Glad you could be here,’ he said. Thraun nuzzled his cheek then lay down facing the stove, snout twitching at the smells of wood, coffee and hot metal.
‘Like I say,’ said Will. ‘Ultimately, he’ll do what he wants and if any of you think you can stop him, well . . .’ There was a dry chuckle around the stove.
‘All right,’ said The Unknown, his face blank. He hadn’t joined the brief mirth. ‘At walking pace, we are six days from Julatsa. We need to liberate horses quickly but we can’t risk running into a large Wesmen force. Are there any local farms or villages the Wesmen may not have found?’
‘No,’ said Ilkar. ‘The nearest settlements that might just have escaped are Lord Jaden’s to the north but that’s two days extra over hostile country in the wrong direction. Our only chance without fighting or stealing is Triverne Lake, as Styliann said.’
‘Surely the Lake will be taken,’ said Hirad.
‘I wouldn’t be quite so sure,’ said Ilkar. ‘It’s the seat of ancient magic and a place of the most base evil if you’re a Wesman. There’s a standing guard of two hundred protecting the Shard at all times. They might still be there. And don’t forget, Triverne isn’t the most direct route to Julatsa from where the Wesmen landed a little north of here.’
‘Communion?’ suggested Erienne. Denser shrugged.
‘If I must. I need to rest first, though.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Erienne. ‘I am capable.’
‘Whatever,’ said the Xeteskian.
‘Fine.’ The Unknown stretched his legs out in front of him, trying to push his own problems from his mind while clutching at the threads that held them all together. ‘I’m sceptical, I must say, but if we can find out through Communion, that’s fine. Otherwise, I’m not sure the detour is worth the risk. We also need to contact the mage outside of Julatsa, assuming she’s still there - get ourselves the latest position. But first, Denser’s right, we should rest. I’ll watch and so, no doubt, will Thraun. We’ll push on after midday.’
D
awn in Julatsa on the eleventh day of the siege of the College brought the first open conflict within its walls. Two hundred and fifty innocent Julatsans had just perished. Those first to die were rotting in the Shroud. Barras could feel the tension. It had been in the air since the first confrontation but now it had real menace to it as the Council stepped away from the gatehouse, saddened, disgusted and scared. This time there had been no show of strength or solidarity, no songs and no bravado. Just weeping, screaming and angry accusation before the agony.
The city’s people issued from the buildings all around the courtyard as the Council walked slowly to the Tower, heads bowed, each lost in their own thoughts. Kard had been alert, as always, and his shouted commands to his men ensured a significant protective guard for the Council by the time the mob had surrounded them.
‘Oh dear,’ muttered Kerela in Barras’ ear. The old elf Negotiator looked quickly about him. The clamour hurt his ears, the fury of the Julatsans edging towards the precipice of violence. Weapons were brandished, fists shaken and everywhere red faces spat anger and belligerence.
Kard’s shout for calm went unheard by all but those immediately around him and ignored by even them. With the mob beginning to press, despite a fragmentation of its edges caused by more soldiers pulling people away, the greying General turned a worried face to Barras.
‘Your turn, I think,’ he mouthed.
Barras nodded and leaned into Kerela. ‘Time for VoiceHail,’ he said.
‘Just a single word,’ she advised. ‘I’ll pass on your intention.’
‘Thank you.’ Barras drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes, bringing the geography of the College to his mind. The mana shape was little more than a line, tracing and connecting every building. The Tower, the Long Rooms, the walls, Mana Bowl, lecture theatres, classrooms and billets. All were linked by the shape, all became receptors, conduits and amplifiers of Barras’ voice. He opened his eyes and nodded.
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