Devan Chronicles Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  Julia gaped at what she found. The west gate was gone—simply gone. Where it had stood the truncated remains of the gate towers leaned drunkenly away from each other as if a giant had walked through a space too small for him. Dust was still rising on the breeze, and stones continued to fall from what remained of the walls and towers. Julia held her breath as the gate towers swayed, but they settled into their new positions without falling. Across the courtyard she could see motionless forms—people obviously dead. Worse were the shrieks of the wounded. Julia looked down and realised what she had thought was a piece of the gate, was actually the broken remains of a person. Her world narrowed, and she viewed the scene through a misty tunnel.

  I can’t pass out, I can’t pass out...

  Julia viewed her actions as if watching someone else. She crouched and turned the man over. With relief that quickly turned to guilt, she realised she didn’t know him. He had been a young guardsman she thought, no older than she was. Would someone mourn for him, a sweetheart perhaps? Looking away and across the debris filled courtyard, she found a green robed form face down next to one in yellow.

  Oh no, please... This is not happening!

  Julia ran to her friend and knelt by his side. She hesitated to touch him, but she had to know the worst. She grabbed a fistful of his robe and struggled to turn him over.

  “AEiii!” Mathius screamed as he flopped onto his back.

  A piece of wood was sticking out of his side just above the waist. She had driven it further in as she turned him. Her gorge rose at the realisation, and she spewed over the rubble behind her.

  “How... how is Hal?” Mathius croaked trying to see.

  Coughing and trying to hold down the rest of her breakfast, Julia checked Mathius’ friend, but Haliden was staring into the next world—dead. Julia shook her head trying to find the words to tell Mathius, but they wouldn’t come. Mathius closed his eyes in grief she thought, but no, he had fallen unconscious. Julia looked around desperately for help. A lake of blood was forming under Mathius as she watched. Her hands fluttered uselessly around the wooden stake in his belly of their own accord.

  She didn’t know what to do!

  Guardsmen boiled out of the citadel and a few shouted orders started them checking for wounded. Captain Marcus was shouting and running toward her as if in a dream but she couldn’t tell what he was saying. There was a roaring noise in her ears and cold sweat ran down her spine. She was in shock. One moment he was across the courtyard from her, a blink of her eyes later and he was on his knees beside her without seeming to cross the space between. He listened to Mathius’ chest trying to find a heartbeat, nodded once in satisfaction, and barked orders at the top of his lungs. Help quickly arrived to carry Mathius into the citadel. Julia climbed to her feet bewildered in the midst of total disaster. Wherever she looked, bodies and pieces of bodies lay like dolls strewn across a room by an unruly child. Guardsmen were picking up injured men and carrying them inside; sometimes they would start to move a guardsman then drop the body to help someone who still needed them. Julia stared at the courtyard in shock and didn’t know where to turn. She didn’t know what she was looking for until she found him.

  Keverin!

  Throwing herself down by his side she found that he still lived. He was sitting propped against what was left of the stable wall in a pool of blood. His right leg was bleeding badly where a piece of wood had gashed his thigh. Julia knew some first aid, but she didn’t know anything about real medicine. Was there an artery there? She didn’t know the answer, but bleeding like this was serious. Pressing both hands against the wound to stifle the rhythmically spurting blood, she looked desperately around for Marcus.

  “Leave me,” Keverin mumbled, “The Hasians... coming.”

  Oh God please help me now!

  “You’ll be all right Kev. I’ll get help,” she panted in panic.

  “No! Listen to me... no time... coming,” Keverin said and slipped into unconsciousness.

  Snatching his dagger from its sheath, Julia quickly cut loose his sash. She pulled it free and tied it tightly around his leg above the wound. The bleeding slowed to a trickle as she ruthlessly twisted the dagger’s sheath in the knot of the sash. Julia spotted a man near the remains of the gate and called to him for help with his lord. The guardsman ran toward her—in a panic to help her she thought, but unaccountably he drew his sword.

  Time slowed as the man charged, he was in different armour than Kev’s people. Without knowing what she could do, Julia pulled at her magic and threw something at him.

  Craaaack! Lightning flew from Julia’s outstretched hand, and struck the man full in the chest. The Hasian was hurled away with a hole burned through him where his heart should be. Julia could see the man’s grimace of pain as he was blasted back. He seemed to fall forever.

  Time returned to normal—the man stopped rolling.

  God forgive me!

  Julia stared in horror at what she had done. She had killed him!

  “Rally! Rally to the gate!” Marcus cried into the stunned silence.

  Hasian soldiers had made their way inside during the confusion. Pandemonium erupted as the Devan guardsmen quickly rallied to Marcus who led them in a counter-attack. Battle cries and screams of the dying mixed into a roar, as the Devan’s desperately tried to force the enemy back out of the shattered gate. Julia looked from Keverin to the battle and back. Then scrambling to her feet, she ran.

  Climbing over the shattered stones, Julia found the door to the left-hand gate tower. Stones had fallen and blocked it. She tried to use a broken timber as a lever, but they were too heavy. She gritted her teeth and heaved with all her might. The blocks shifted, but the wood snapped and she fell back barking her shins painfully against the sharp stones.

  Damn it!

  Grasping her magic Julia fumbled with it trying to move enough stone to open the door. She didn’t know what to do! All she could think to do was force it under the stones. Nothing happened. The stones didn’t move, not even an inch. She tried again.

  Please! Moooove!

  They did a little, she was sure. Concentrating as hard as she could, Julia made a pushing gesture at the same time as she visualised the stones getting out of her way. Suddenly the resistance vanished, and the stones shot away from the door ploughing through the enemy. Bodies were hurled in all directions. Julia tried to shut out the screams. With tears welling in her eyes Julia scrambled over the last obstruction. Putting her shoulder to the door she heaved it open with a groan of protesting wood. Half falling, half running, she staggered into the tower.

  Sunlight speared the darkness through great cracks in the walls giving her enough light to see. A guardsman lay groaning pinned under the debris that must have rained down upon him. Stones and timber lay smashed everywhere.

  “Help... help... help...” the man was saying weakly.

  Julia tried to move the stones off him as she had done outside, but her magic failed her. Gritting her teeth she tried to lift a beam that lay crushing his leg but she wasn’t strong enough.

  “...help... hel...” the man gasped and died staring up at the sky.

  “I’m so sorry,” Julia whispered with tears spilling over her cheeks. She dashed them away and looked for a way up.

  The tower was broken, the top half utterly smashed. The roof was missing and the walls ended in jagged saw like teeth. The balcony was hanging precariously from its brackets half of which no longer had a wall to bolt to. Julia bit her lip and began climbing. The stairs lurched downward and she screamed in fright hugging the stones as if her life depended on it—it did. More timbers and stones fell, but the stairs did not fall altogether and after a moment, she continued up until she ran out of stairs. A wide section had fallen and now lay smashed to splinters down below. All that remained was the right hand joist still faithfully connecting her stairs to the next balcony. She edged onto the beam, but stepped back to kick off her shoes. She took a steadying breath and stepped onto the beam. She tried
to pretend this was just another performance, but the sight of the dead guardsman staring at her made it impossible.

  The halfway point came and went. The wood was split and covered in splinters. Julia had to fight her reluctance to put her feet down every step of the way. Finally she stepped onto the balcony and breathed easier. Looking up through the ragged remains of the tower’s circular walls, she could see that the top was much closer now. Climbing as quickly as she could she emerged into the light. Standing upon the broken steps, Julia watched Marcus fighting to hold the enemy out of the citadel. He had pushed the legionnaires back toward the shattered gate, but he hadn’t succeeded in pushing them out of it. Marcus would have to retreat very soon. A second group of soldiers was marching up the road to join the fight against him.

  Julia bit her lip in fear. What would the sorcerers do to her when they won—would they help her to get home? And what about Mathius, and Jessica, and... and Keverin? Julia shook away her confusion over Keverin. She needed to block the hole in the wall somehow. A ward... she needed a ward like the one Renard had made. She had watched Renard maintaining the defence dozens of times, but Mathius would not let her try to make a ward. Instead, he had taught her about fire and the theory behind wards. Mathius had insisted that more than that was beyond a novice. Theories weren’t enough to make a ward and she needed one desperately.

  Julia calmed herself as best she could and tried to remember Renard’s ward matrix. She invoked her mage-sight as Mathius had taught her, and tried to summon up the pattern she remembered seeing covering the west wall and gate towers. The wall was gone now, and the towers were no longer straight and tall. In her memory, she saw Renard working upon his creation. He turned toward her and smiled. Tears fell as she realised that he was probably dead now. She dashed her tears angrily away and focused her thoughts upon the thrumming power flowing through her. It was eager to be used. Renard’s pattern was bright in her memory as she spun out threads of magic in the form of a ward matrix, but it felt wrong. The moment she was finished Julia knew it would fail.

  It did.

  A blue light flashed into being and spread across the gap in the wall like a curtain, but it quickly faded and was gone. Julia tried again, but this time even the light failed to appear and she didn’t know why! The patterns looked exactly right both times, but they didn’t work! It didn’t make sense! She thought to try again, but something caught her eye in the courtyard below.

  She was too late.

  A second group of soldiers had joined the battle. Marcus was badly outnumbered now, but if he allowed his men to step back the Hasians would push more men into the space. Julia cursed and raged at her inability to help. She could see yet more soldiers on the road, a continuous stream of them coming to join the fight. There must have been close to two thousand legionnaires inside the courtyard, and three times that many on the road.

  “Oh please, what should I do?” Julia panted in panic. “Someone help me!”

  Julia knew what she had to do. It was the only thing that she could do, but it was wrong! It was evil! Shutting out the voice of her conscience, she threw lightning down into the packed mass of legionnaires.

  Craaaack!

  The smell of ozone was strong on the breeze, as people and chunks of stone flew through the air. Opening her eyes, Julia looked down into the courtyard and lost the rest of her breakfast over the side of her tower. She must have killed hundreds. She wasn’t just a killer, she was a mass murderer! Marcus took advantage of the blast and pushed the Hasians back, but he didn’t have the numbers to force them completely out of the courtyard. He was fighting hard and screaming orders at the top of his voice, but although his men tried valiantly to comply, they were over-matched. Praying for forgiveness that she knew she would never receive, Julia drew upon her magic and killed again.

  Craaaack!

  Sobbing as if her heart were broken, Julia rained lightning down on the poor men. She saw some of them trying to run. They couldn’t escape her. She killed, and killed again. Julia spun to hurl another bolt when she heard a noise behind her. At the last moment she stopped herself—it was Brian leading some others with bows. Her hand was glowing and tingling with the need to let the blast go, she turned and let it fly over the pass. Lightning stabbed down and grounded with roar.

  Brian gestured to right and left. The bowman quickly arranged themselves behind broken pieces of stone and methodically started shooting down into the courtyard.

  Julia pulled her attention away from her guardsmen. She needed to stop any more Hasian soldiers reaching the breached defences. The Hasians were fighting in disciplined ranks. She wished she could stop that, but they were too close to Athione’s defenders. If she struck at them she would kill her own side. Clenching her fists together, she threw them outward at a different target.

  Craaaack! Craaaack!

  Streaks of lightning arced across the early morning sky and slammed repeatedly into the road in front of the advancing men. A crater three yards across was blasted into it, but the road remained passable. This time Julia concentrated on hitting the road closer to the slope. With luck she would cause a landslide to bury the road and slow the enemy. She drew hard upon her magic wincing at the noise it caused in her head. She had never drawn this much before. Brian and the others continued their butchery unaware of it—it was all in her head.

  CraAAAAacK!

  The solid bar of lightning grounded leaving Julia blinking the after-image away. A massive crater had erased the old one in the road. It extended across the roadbed and up the cliff face as well. The Hasians were bunching up to cross the obstruction, but they were still crossing albeit slowly. The rock was too strong to break away easily. Julia could hit it again, but she doubted the result would be any different than the last time. Peering into the courtyard, she found that Marcus and his men were being attacked by perhaps fifteen hundred men. He couldn’t hold out much longer.

  I can’t, not again. Please don’t make me!

  Concentrating on her ward, Julia tried to close the gap in their shattered wall. At first it seemed to work, but as soon as she released it, the ward shimmered and collapsed. Julia raged at herself. She didn’t know enough magic to save her friends. She should have practised more, she should have insisted upon helping Renard, she should have forced him to teach her warding!

  Thock! Thock! Thock!

  Arrows cascaded onto the tower. Julia ducked behind the wall, and one of her men dove atop her in an attempt to shield her with his armoured body.

  Thunk!

  “Arghhh!” The guardsman slumped falling back down the stairs and out of sight. Julia didn’t even know his name, but he had died to protect her.

  None of the arrows hit Julia or Brian, but another of the guardsmen was hit in the arm. He scooted down the steps out of the fight. Brian tried to reply with his bow, but more arrows cascaded down. It was obvious the Hasians had figured out where the lightning was coming from. They were determined to keep her head down.

  “Stay down you fool, they have us pinned!” Julia hissed angrily when Brian tried to rise and caused another rain of arrows.

  Brian ducked down and snarled a reply. “I can see that you stupid... my lady. They’re up to something. If they keep our heads down, I can’t stop ’em.”

  Julia shut her eyes and covered her ears to stop the screams. Without looking she sent lightning down in front of the gate.

  Craaaack!

  “AEiii!” Screamed the dying Hasians as some were burned and others crushed by flying stone.

  Peeking over the top of the tower through a curtain of tears Julia tried to see what was happening, but she had to duck back as more arrows flew. Shaking her head in disbelief, she turned to ask Brian if he had any ideas.

  “Brian—”

  Thunk!

  “Ow!” Julia cried in surprise. “Oh dear...” Julia said staring at the arrowhead protruding from her chest. Numbness spread down her right arm, as she half sat half fell behind the broken wall for
protection.

  Brian stared at the arrow in horror. He quickly crossed the distance between them and cut away Julia’s beautiful dress to expose the arrow. It had hit her in the back and pushed right through. The arrowhead was clearly visible standing out of her body just below the point where her breast and right shoulder joined. Strangely, and to Julia’s relief, it didn’t seem to hurt at all.

  Brian bit his lip in concern. “I’m sorry, but if I pull this out it will bleed something awful. I think it’s best if I leave it for the mages—or any way, until later.”

  Julia nodded weakly. Most of the mages were dead. She had seen someone carrying an unconscious Renard into the fortress and Mathius was badly hurt.

  Later... later would be better.

  The pain was starting to catch up with Julia’s shocked brain now. Her nerves had started jangling in alarm. If she was really lucky she would pass out and not feel the sword that killed her.

  “Brian, I think... think I’m going to pass out...”

  “No you don’t! Keep talking to me,” her worried friend said desperately.

  “What about?” Julia said fuzzily.

  “Anything.”

  Julia’s world dimmed as she slipped sideways—and shrieked! The arrow had grated on the stones of the wall. Brian quickly supported her until she could sit up. Oh Christ it hurts, she thought panting in time with the throbbing agony, but at least the pain had woken her up a little.

  “Brian help me up, I need to see the road again,” Julia gasped at the stabbing agony in her chest.

  “But... all right,” Brian said reluctantly.

  Brian helped Julia to stand and held her so that her eyes were just above the edge of the broken tower. She scanned the road for any weaknesses, but as before she could see none. She despaired, but then she realised her error. She had attacked the road twice in the same spot achieving nothing, but much closer to the fortress the road ran over a shelf of rock. Below the shelf she could see the burned remains of a town. Quickly, before her doubts could interfere with her magic, Julia hit that section with everything she had in her.