The Raven Collection

by James Barclay

  He turned back and there they were. Floating gently down from the upper floors. He wasn’t sure how many. Ten at a quick count. He backed up under the stairwell. Suarav just in front of him, the others behind, all wanting to feel a wall at their backs. The demons were stark grey against the deeper background, shining slightly. They were all of one strain. Long faces containing huge oval eyes. Tiny mouths but rimmed with fangs. Distended skulls. Delicate feathery wings and long slender arms at the end of which spidery fingers writhed.

  ‘Keep calm,’ said Sharyr. ‘Keep your concentration.’ He had lost his ForceCone construct and was desperately trying to reform the shape. ‘Don’t show them fear. We can take them.’

  ‘You heard him,’ growled Suarav. ‘They’ve got to get past me first.’

  He stepped square in front of the mage team, indicating the conscript do the same. The man didn’t move but for the quaking of his body. A whimper escaped his mouth.

  ‘Stand aside, Captain,’ said Sharyr.

  ‘They will not take you before me.’

  ‘You’re standing in the line of our spells.’

  ‘Just tell me when to duck.’

  The demons watched the exchange intently. Sharyr, who hadn’t taken his eyes from them, felt as if he were being examined. Studied. He became aware that he could hear the whirring of their wings at the edge of his consciousness.

  ‘We don’t want to have to cast,’ he said.

  ‘The damage to the library would be considerable,’ replied one of the demons immediately, voice soft and seductive.

  The conscript muttered again.

  ‘Strength,’ snapped Suarav. ‘They don’t know what to do.’

  The demons spread slightly, moving to cut off any escape back towards the main doors. There was a gap to the back of the library. It had been left quite deliberately. No escape there.

  ‘They’re going to get us,’ said the conscript.

  ‘No they aren’t, not if we stick together,’ said Suarav. ‘Keep your blade out front.’

  ‘Won’t do any good. Just one touch.’

  Sharyr felt the soldier tense to run. They had little time. ‘Mages, what do you have? Speak quickly.’

  ‘Orbs.’

  ‘Orbs.’

  ‘Ice.’

  In concert, the demons opened their arms and glided in. ‘Your souls will replenish us.’

  ‘No!’ The young soldier broke left and ran, colliding with one of the archivists and sprinting away into the shadows.

  ‘Structure down.’

  ‘Reform!’ snapped Sharyr.

  ‘Get back here!’ roared Suarav.

  ‘Forget him and duck,’ said Sharyr. Suarav dropped to his haunches. ‘Orbs now.’

  It was a single focused FlameOrb and it struck the centre of the pack. The glare was painful, the effect brutal and instant. The tight globe of flame singed wings and burned coarse hair. It ate demon flesh. Smoke roiled. The scream was terrible. Sharyr followed it with his ForceCone. He directed it at the left side of the group. Unprepared, the demons were flicked away, twigs in the gale. He drove them up and back, flattening their bodies against the marble balustrade opposite. He wouldn’t kill them but it represented space and time.

  ‘Ice, right!’

  Hardly had he uttered the command than the spell washed out, sucking and tearing at demon bodies, driving freezing air through their mana protection. Gouging, flaying.

  ‘Now run, left. Find that idiot and get searching. We’ve still got a job to do. I’ll hold these here.’

  His men obeyed without question, scattering into the back of the library. ‘And be careful of what’s down there!’

  Sharyr took stock. He held four struggling demons in check. The others were dead or dying. The IceWind blast had covered shelves, texts and tables over a ten-yard area with a thick coating of frost. That wasn’t what worried him. It was the fire taking hold where the Orbed demon lay. And as the first scream of pure terror rang out from the back of the library, he turned to warn them that time was running out even faster than they had first thought.

  The four surviving mages flew in at a frightening pace. Left and right, spotter soldiers called out the locations of demons now turning their attentions to the Xeteskians in front of the tower complex. Focused Orbs scattered out in a wide arc. In the thinning mist, demons howled and the noise grew as more and more ignored their airborne quarry. And in the centre of the mage defence, deep blue ForceCones and IceWind kept open the slimmest corridor.

  ‘Let’s be moving back slowly!’

  Chandyr’s voice towered over the slowly rising panic. They had to get this just right or they’d lose more mages saving Dordovans than if they’d all stayed inside and let their erstwhile enemies die. Dystran eyed the sky again. Vuldaroq was at their head, the other three now in close attendance. They had abandoned any thoughts of evading the mass of demons closing around them and were flying headlong and head-first straight at the doors of the complex. The timing was going to be tight.

  ‘FlameWall preparation now,’ he barked to the mage at his side.

  Both men formulated the rigid, single-sided structure into which was built the mechanism that caused the flames to decay slowly. It was a static spell. They could cast and forget. Right now that was more than merely a blessing.

  From his left, Dystran heard a sudden surge in shouting. Demons were attacking hard on the flank, threatening to overwhelm the flimsy mage defence.

  Chandyr’s voice sounded softly in his ear. ‘It has to be now, my Lord.’

  Dystran nodded his understanding. ‘Ready,’ he said.

  ‘Last spells and retreat!’ shouted Chandyr. ‘Don’t look back, get inside the ColdRooms. I want men ready if any of those bastards follow our friends in. Go!’

  Heartbeats later, a volley of spells clattered into the mass of demons still a hundred yards distant but closing hard. To the left, the distance was not so great. Mist burned away, screams filled the sky and cold washed out over the college, IceWind finding its targets and flaying the skin from its victims. But there were so very many of them. They choked the sky and now the ground in front of the college. All the spells had done was buy them a few moments.

  ‘Run!’ Chandyr led the charge back to the doors, stopping by Dystran who had backed right to the edge of the ColdRoom.

  Soldiers and mages rushed past. Demons closed in from left, right and above. The corridor down which the Dordovans flew narrowed, the quartet dropping to line astern to keep the demons crucial feet from them. The last mage didn’t want to look back. A huge winged creature was slashing at his feet, missing them by hairs alone.

  ‘Wait just a moment,’ said Dystran, feeling the anxiety of the mage next to him. Vuldaroq was fifty yards away. ‘Right, let’s give them something to aim at.’

  The two mages cast, FlameWalls, parallel, forty feet high and a hundred long sprang up either side of the doors. Demons coming in from the flanks were forced to stop, those above veered away. Vuldaroq charged headlong.

  ‘Oh Gods,’ muttered Dystran and stumbled back inside the complex, dragging Chandyr and the other mage with him. ‘We’re going to have to break their fall. Get in front of the tower pillar. This is going to hurt.’

  He’d only got a few yards inside and turned before Vuldaroq flew into the doorway. The ColdRoom snapped off the flow of mana. His ShadowWings disappeared and he plunged the dozen or so feet to the ground and rolled out of control towards the uncompromising stone of Dystran’s tower. Fortunately for him, he hit Dystran first and the two men sprawled to a stop.

  Immediately after him, the surviving three flashed in, dropped and bounced, mages rushing to their aid. Behind them, those demons too enraged to pull away followed them in. Three of them, one huge, the size of a wagon, two smaller, man-size, and all three keening in pain inside the ColdRoom that stripped them of the mana that gave them life.

  The battle was brief but loud. Swords flashed in the torchlight. Chandyr shouted for concentration and caut
ion. The demons flew raggedly, dropping quickly as their strength ebbed but determined to take any with them that they could. Right in Dystran’s eyeline, one of his men moved too slowly. His blade missed the claw that dragged at him and he was helpless, his soul snagged and taken. He crumpled.

  Chandyr’s blade thudded into the back of the same creature, others joining him. They drove it to the ground, hacking and slashing. One blow took its head from its body and the whole of it shuddered and lay still.

  Silence but for heavy breathing and quiet reassuring voices. The other two demons had fled through the open complex doors which were shut on the decaying FlameWalls. Dystran looked about him at the white-faced men sitting or leaning against walls. Many had their heads in their hands. He could see tears, though whether through relief or terror he couldn’t say. The close friends of the man who had died surrounded him. There was the sound of a blade dropping from a tired grip.

  ‘Well done, everyone,’ said Chandyr. ‘Well done.’

  Dystran turned his attention to the man lying in his arms. Vuldaroq. The last time he had seen Dordover’s Arch Mage, he had been belligerent, obese and arrogant. The man he looked at now was a shadow. Gaunt and pale, the skin of his face and neck hanging loose as it must do over his entire body. Dystran felt the shake in Vuldaroq’s muscles and saw the tears squeezing from his tight-shut eyes. He drew breath in ragged gasps. Blood ran from cuts on his face and hands, and already skin was discolouring where he had struck the ground hard.

  Dystran knew he should hate the man but two years changed so much. The war had been over ever since the demons first appeared and the Wesmen had left the city. Since then, the scant communication between the colleges had been like finding long-lost friends. There had been no time for recrimination.

  The Lord of the Mount of Xetesk sat up and dragged Vuldaroq to a seated position. The Dordovan was spent. He surely could not have flown for much longer. A quick glance told him that the others were in no better condition.

  ‘Get me hot drink, food and blankets. I want beds made for these men to rest on,’ said Dystran. ‘We’ve saved them from the demons. Let’s not lose them to exhaustion.’

  Vuldaroq’s eyes flickered open. They were red and brimmed with tears.

  ‘Thank you,’ he croaked, voice dry and cracked.

  ‘That was quite some entrance,’ said Dystran. ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘Dordover is gone,’ said Vuldaroq, voice suddenly loud in the silence that fell in the dome as he spoke. ‘We’re all that is left.’

  Dystran felt cold. The second great college of Balaia. Reduced to four mages.

  ‘How?’

  ‘We were never strong enough and they grew stronger every day. It was sudden in the last few days. Like they’d gained power from somewhere.’ He coughed. It wracked his entire body and he shivered.

  ‘Later,’ said Dystran. ‘Food and rest now. You’re safe here for the time being.’

  But the words Vuldaroq had spoken backed up everything Dystran feared. He searched for Chandyr. The commander met his gaze levelly from across the dome.

  ‘I need some good news,’ said Dystran. ‘Where’s my library team?’

  ‘They aren’t back yet,’ said Chandyr. ‘Patience, my Lord.’

  ‘It’s happening now,’ said Dystran. ‘We don’t have time for patience.’

  The shadows of demons flitted in and out of Sharyr’s peripheral vision. The whir of their wings was the only sound they made. He had to keep out of his mind the thought of their spindly fingers reaching for his soul while he searched feverishly among the shelves for anything that might give them a clue to the demons’ tactics.

  Smoke was filling the library from the fire that was fast consuming the accumulated knowledge of Xetesk. Whatever he and his team collected now could well be all that was ever salvaged.

  Sharyr knew the demons had lost him temporarily after he’d pushed them through a skylight and dropped the ForceCone. But they hadn’t lost Suarav. What a spirit the man had. He could hear the captain’s taunts and shouts, trying to draw the soul stealers away from the two surviving archivists looking for Dystran’s prayed-for panacea.

  The conscript was gone. The sound of the man’s cut-off scream would live with him forever. He smiled grimly at the thought that forever for him could be a very short time indeed.

  Sharyr grabbed a demonology scroll and with a surge of excitement having seen the author’s name, stuffed it into his cloak. Behind him, new flame flared high into the library and sent a billow of choking smoke across the lower hall. The shadow of a grasping demon was cast huge against a wall. He heard one of his archivists call a warning.

  ‘Time’s up!’ roared Suarav. There was the sound of a sword thudding dully. A demon yelped and screeched. ‘Meeting point, now!’

  Sharyr turned right, heading back towards the seat of the fire. Back towards the library doors. He heard the whir and saw a demon round the corner and float gently towards him along the aisle. He backed away.

  ‘No escape,’ said the demon, advancing with hands outstretched. ‘We seek what you seek.’

  ‘It’ll burn before you set eyes on it,’ said Sharyr. He backed off further and felt a chill, heard the whirring again, this time behind him. He was trapped.

  ‘No escape,’ repeated the demon. It came on, fingers rippling.

  Right was wall, left, bookcases. Sharyr’s mind was made up. The rest went by in a blur.

  ‘You will not have me,’ he whispered.

  He could not cast, there was no time. Flames crackled menacingly in the centre of the library. Smoke irritated his eyes. The demons closed lazily. Sharyr had only one chance at what he intended to do. He threw himself shoulder-first into the freestanding bookcases that were the left-hand border of the aisle. It was a long, solid structure with more shelves racked beyond it. About ten feet high and heavy with books. Mercifully, it was not bolted to the floor.

  Sharyr felt it move and he started to climb, scrambling up the shelves, arms and legs scrabbling for purchase. His momentum carried him up while the bookcase tipped away from him. With his feet on the top shelf, the bookcase passed the point of no return. The thundering sound of books falling mixed with that of his breathing, his heartbeat, Suarav’s shouts and the flames. The shelving creaked. He stood, riding the case. It gathered momentum and cannoned into the one across the next aisle.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he muttered. There were six aisles before the wide gap of the centre aisle of the library.

  He began to move again, running at an angle across the cases, jumping to the next, almost stumbling. He could feel the quickening movement beneath his feet. He kept himself going, his paces light. The clattering of the cases and the slipping of books reached a crescendo. Suarav was barking orders. He could see the heads of his friends bobbing as they sprinted down the centre aisle, demons in pursuit. He daren’t guess how close his own pursuers were.

  Sharyr took one last leap, caught the falling edge of a case and tumbled hard to the ground. He turned a diving forward roll, feeling a sharp crack in his collar-bone. He sprawled and cried out, clutching at his clothing, desperate to keep the texts with him.

  A strong hand gripped him under his good arm and hauled.

  ‘By all the Gods burning, that was quite a performance,’ growled Suarav. ‘Now go, run hard left at the main doors as we’d planned. You know the way in.’

  Sharyr could feel the heat of the fire on his face. It was eating up at the walls. The pain in his right shoulder was terrible, nauseating.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll keep them back.’ Suarav leaned in. ‘Don’t argue with me, boy. We always knew this could happen.’

  Sharyr nodded, turned and ran; the last thing he heard behind him was Suarav daring them to try and pass him.

  Chapter 14

  The Unknown made them all wait. The longboat was ready to take him and The Raven to join the others already aboard the Calaian Sun but he wasn’t ready yet. There was
never enough time for goodbye. Particularly when he had no desire to leave.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ he said, walking arm in arm with Diera through the woods to the left of the path that led to the landing beach. Jonas trotted along next to them, oblivious to the mood for the moment, lost in a nonsense game of his own devising.

  ‘It’s the price we have to pay because of who you are,’ said Diera, her words carrying no conviction.

  A stiff warm breeze swayed the narrow trunks surrounding them. A few dead leaves fell.

  ‘We’ve paid enough,’ he said.

  ‘Apparently not.’

  The Unknown stopped and faced her, looking into her lovely face, the fear in her eyes clear behind her forced smile.

  ‘One word and I’ll stay,’ he said.

  ‘What, and wonder how they are coping without you? We’ve been through this, Sol. There isn’t a choice.’ She looked down at Jonas who had stopped his play to stare at them, a frown across his innocence. ‘There never is.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Every word was clumsy. None of it helped. He was trapped between his desire and his calling. Gods, he’d shunned the soldier’s life to avoid exactly that. At least now he knew why. It hurt.

  ‘What for?’ She placed her hands on his chest, smoothed his shirt to either side. ‘I heard Sha-Kaan. I do trust him. This is the only way.’

  He was unsure who she was trying to convince.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Or you’ll miss the tide and we’ll have to go through all this again.’

  He crushed her to him and felt her strength give and the sobs coming. Jonas clung onto his mother’s leg, his expression collapsed into anxiety.

  ‘Mummy?’

  The Unknown swept him up and the three embraced long and hard.

  ‘You’re not coming back, are you?’ said Diera, voice thick and half muffled by his chest. ‘Not this time.’