Gail Z. Martin - COTN 03 - Dark Haven (V1.0)(lit)

by Gail Z. Martin

  Gray shapes assembled before him on the Plains of Spirit. More than two hundred ghosts, clad in the armor of a bygone century, rose to his call.

  "Do you know what Curane has done?"

  "We know."

  "Will you fight him?"

  "Aye."

  The spirits stirred from their long rest and began to move like a gray storm up from their tomb. Tris felt their anger grow. Curane has betrayed us. He's brought blood magic against us. Disloyal. Disloyal. Remaining linked to the ghosts was dangerous. Tris did not need to be reminded of what had happened in the Ruune Vidaya. But the opportunity to guide their strike, see through their eyes, was too powerful to pass up, regardless of the danger. And so Tris let himself be carried along with the ghost horde, struggling to keep their growing desire for vengeance from overwhelming his ward-ings.

  These raiders needed no command to spare civilians. Their anger burned on account of those innocents trapped within Curane's walls, their own descendents. The ghost horde burst from the entrance to the necropolis, sending a dozen soldiers fleeing in terror. Inside the keep, Tris could hear the wailing of the ghost horde as it swept around soldiers, turning its anger on the terrified guards. Tris opened himself up to the raw power of his gift, hanging on to the control he had lacked in the Ruune Vidaya, refusing to allow the ghosts to control him. He saw their bloody vengeance as their spectral maws turned on the soldiers, spattering the narrow alleyways with blood. I can hang on to control, but what of sanity? Tris thought as the ghost horde sought its next targets, falling upon a regiment just rousing in the guard­house.

  Soterius's soldiers neared bow range. All at once, the men fired hundreds of flaming arrows toward the walls. A second line of archers sent more arrows streaking through the cold night air, and within the walled city, Tris could see firelight flare.

  All at once, a wall of darkness rose from Lochlanimar, black enough to obscure the stars. Tris felt it sweep toward him like a flood of ice cold water. The blood mages have gath­ered their wits enough to respond.

  Tris pulled back from among the ghost horde, even as he felt the blood magic slam against the spectral troops, stopping their advance. Streaking back along the Plains of Spirit, Tris fought his growing fatigue to refo-cus his power against the blood mages. Dimly, he was aware of Fallon and the Sisters doing the same. Just as they massed their power for another strike, Tris felt as if the universe turned inside out.

  All the magic in the world seemed to shatter. The Flow contorted around him, folding in on itself, wresting free of his grip. For a moment, he couldn't breathe, couldn't see. He doubted that his heart was beating. In the total dark­ness, he could hear the screams of the mages—his own and Curane's—as the Flow ripped free of its bonds. Wild magic coursed through him like fire running through his veins. The ground around him was shaking, and the soldiers cried out in fear. Tris tried once more to reach for his power and was thrown, knocked hard from his mount to land on his back as if pushed by a giant hand.

  Soldiers ran for him, pulling him to his feet. The pain in his head was blinding; he doubted he could stand without help. He searched the panicked crowd for Fallon and the mages. In the torchlight, he made out Fallon's silhouette, but nothing more. Struggling to remain con­scious, Tris reluctantly allowed the soldiers to help him to a seat. Around him, the soldiers on the construction detail scrambled into ranks to defend the camp.

  "Retreat!" Soterius's voice cut across the cold night, echoed a moment later by Palinn. "Your Majesty. We need to get you to safe-

  ty-"

  "There is no safety," Tris managed. It hurt to speak aloud. "Bring General Soterius and Sis­ter Fallon to me." He leaned back against a wooden post. A year ago, that would have killed me. I'm alive. I'm conscious. I think I'm sane. Damn it hurts.

  There was no magic, no magic at all. As if the world were dosed in wormroot, magic seemed pushed beyond his ability to sense it, let alone channel it. For a heartbeat, it seemed as if the universe held its breath. And then with the rush of a killer storm, a wave of magic engulfed him, crushing him beneath it. The Flow swept him away, overwhelming him with its power, and putting out the stars.

  Tris awoke in his own tent. It hurt to open his eyes. Here we go again. I thought I was past this. But that was no human mage. That was the Flow itself. Goddess, how do we handle that?

  "Tris, can you hear me?" Soterius's voice was close beside him.

  Tris moved his right hand in reply. Even that effort took energy.

  "All our mages are down. So are theirs, but they must have recovered faster, because the blood magic charms are back in place. We didn't lose any men or vayasb moru. I don't know what you did inside there, and I don't want to. I could hear them screaming. What happened?"

  "Wish I could take credit for it, but I can't. The Flow snapped. Their mages recovered faster because when the Flow's out of balance, it favors blood magic."

  "Wonderful."

  "Did the attack succeed?" He managed to open his eyes and keep them open, despite the blinding reaction headache.

  "Better than we hoped. We sent two dozen vayasb moru in, and they made about ten kills each. Took out one whole guard unit, by the looks of it. They weren't affected by the dark sending, but whatever Fallon cooked up must have worked, because the vayasb moru said it had the place in an uproar. And I guess you got through to the ghosts. Even the vayasb moru didn't want to tangle with them. Can't tell how much damage the archers did, but the vayasb moru reported fires just on the other side of the walls. All told, we took out several hundred of their men, burned part of their town, and set them into a panic without any casualties of our own."

  "Not too bad."

  "That depends. Are you alive or dead?"

  "I'll have to let you know."

  TWO days later, Tris rode next to Soterius and Tarq as the Margolan army prepared to lay siege to the walled manor. Men with a heavy wheeled battering ram massed on the plains in front of the holding. The battering ram, beneath a shelter of wood and ham­mered tin, would survive anything but a direct hit. Down the line, Tris could see his other generals, Palinn, Senne and Rallan, readying their troops to attack. To rally his own troops and strike fear into the besieged, Tris ordered the war drums and pipers to play their loudest. The huge drums, large enough to require two men to hold them, boomed out a rapid beat as the pipers played a rousing tune.

  "I don't like this. They're just waiting for us to move." Tris's cloak whipped around him as the winter winds sliced across the land. He looked out over the army, just a fraction of the troops Bricen once commanded. Thousands of men stood ready in ranks for the attack. Archers had their bows in hand to give cover to the men who would storm the walls. Pike-men stood behind the archers, ready should Curane's forces attack. Well behind the lines, the mages stood on an elevated platform where they had a view of the entire plain. Tris could feel their protections, just as he could sense the distant tinge of blood magic as Curane's mages readied for the defense.

  "A siege is something like a dance," Tarq replied. "Scripted by necessity. We attack. They defend. Not much happens until we breech the walls. Then it gets ugly."

  "I'm expecting Curane to have all kinds of nasty surprises ready for us," Soterius said, never taking his eyes off the front lines.

  "I'll see you at battle's end. Goddess go with you," Tarq said, galloping toward his troops.

  "Ready?"

  "Do it."

  A roar rose up from the soldiers as the first wave of men swept forward, shoulder to shoul­der. Curane's walled holding was surrounded by a fetid moat. Its main gate was defended by a heavy portcullis backed by solid iron" doors. Even at a distance, Tris could see archers at the crenellations, waiting to fire. Heavily armored men pushed the battering ram toward the main gate. A hail of flaming arrows rose from the archers, only to be snuffed out and blown aside by a mighty gust of wind, a gift from the mages. With the wind at their backs, the sol­diers moved the heavy war machines more quickly. On both flanks, trebuch
ets launched heavy stones and iron balls into the walls and over the crenellations. The trebuchets forced Curane's forces to split their attention, giving the troops at the gate cover. Tris could feel the hum of magic as some of the projectiles stopped as if hitting an invisible wall, or were flung back toward his troops, only to meet a magical barrier of their own. He counted the snap of the trebuchets, and waited for the impact. One out of three of the huge boulders hit its mark, slamming against the fortifica­tions with a thunderous bang. A third of the boulders were repelled, crashing with a force that shook the ground beneath their feet, forc­ing soldiers to break ranks and flee. The rest were flung away harmlessly by one side or the other, sending the great stones to land where they did the least damage to men or masonry.

  Our mages are well matched. But it's more than that. The magic isn't working right for either side. If it were, we'd he hitting the target more often, and they'd be pounding us harder. The Flow is weakening. What if it fails alto­gether?

  Magic tingled in his mind, and Tns recog­nized the taint of blood power. His mages worked in shifts, attempting to maintain their protections as long as possible. Tris command­ed a battalion of archers, adding his magic to their protection as they moved forward behind the siege machines. A fierce wind arose from nowhere, raising a blinding wall of snow. Tris stretched out with his mage sense. He heard the thud of the defender's trebuchets, and let instinct guide his magic to deflect a boulder that hit the ground to the side of his battalion. The wind died just as suddenly as it came.

  Tris could feel the battle in the currents of magic around him, and he could also feel the Flow's dangerous fluctuations, surging and waning. Twice, his own power flared. As quickly as the magic rose, it fell to nothing.

  The battering ram was nearly at the gates. Made from a huge tree trunk, the battering ram was reinforced with iron and had a heavy iron tip. It was suspended from an armored frame that allowed it to swing forward and back, adding momentum to its sizeable force. Unseen overhead, the currents of magic strug­gled against each other. Tris lent what power he could spare, keeping his attention focused on his archers as they pressed forward. A flam­ing arrow sizzled toward him, and Tris barely had time to snuff out its flame and cast it aside. It was impossible for either set of mages to keep a full defensive shield over such a large army, and Tris could tell by their success that Curane's mages were stretched just as thin.

  A cry rose up from the soldiers as the batter­ing ram reached its strike position. Tris felt the magic shift, as his mages sent their protection over the soldiers at the wall. From behind the crenellations, Curane's fighters poured down cauldrons of boiling water and oil. It flowed harmlessly over the protective tin covering of the battering ram. Soldiers scrambled out of the way, shielded from the worst of the attack by Tris's magic.

  Now.

  Tris heard the word in his mind, although he was certain it did not come from his own mages. As the battering ram pounded iron on iron against the heavy portcullis, Tris heard the scrape of metal and saw gates open along the base of the massive stone walls. At the same time, a wave of blood magic surged around them, and the stinking waters of the moat began to boil.

  Ashtenerath poured from the gates at the base of the walls. Eyes wild with rage, swing­ing their war axes and heavy broadswords with the ferocity of madness, the ashtenerath surged forward.

  "Go!"

  The archers dropped back and two lines of fighters surged past them armed with war axes. In daylight, the vayash moru could not help repel the ashtenerath. But, warned by Tabok, Tris had expected the attack. The foot soldiers swung their axes with deadly accuracy, or hurled them through the air with solid aim. Quickly, the archers reloaded with flaming arrows. Tris lobbed fireball after fireball toward the ashteneratb, incinerating them as they charged.

  "By the Whore'—what is that?" The moat was sloshing and splashing, send­ing its cold, foul water spraying. From the depths of the black waters, corpses began to lurch up on the banks. Eyeless, bloated bodies jerked forward, like marionettes with an unskilled master. The corpses moved slower than the ashtenerath, without the driving rage.

  Soldiers scrambled to get out of their way, trapped between the corpses and the ashten-erath.

  "Hold your ground!" Tris shouted, rallying his men. He stretched out along the Plains of Spirit. Not bodies with souls forced back into dead flesh. Just puppets, to terrify.

  Already, the soldiers nearest the gate had gathered their wits and were striking down the lurching corpses. The smell carried on the cold winter air, rotted meat and filthy river sludge. The corpses, sodden from their watery resting place, fell apart with the force of a sword strike, collapsing in stinking heaps as the sol­diers held their positions. Through it all, the steady thump of the battering ram shook the battlements.

  Tris felt the magic rising, and threw all of his power to shield his men. Images formed in his mind, dimmed by his shielding but not com­pletely pushed from view. He saw his army, decimated. Bodies littered the plain, food for the scavengers and carrion birds that plucked their sightless eyes and ate from their corpses. In the sending, he saw the survivors ridden down and murdered, some by fire, others by the sword, the rest twisting from nooses. The sending grew stronger, and Tris saw Curane's forces and the Trevath army sweep across Margolan to take Shekerishet by force. He saw soldiers storm the castle and search its rooms for Kiara, saw torchlight glint from the knife as

  it rose above her, plunging into her swollen belly, killing her and the child she carried.

  "Stand firm! Don't break ranks!" Tris heard Soterius and Tarq shouting around him. Tris clung to the pommel of his saddle, reeling from the assault on his mind as he struggled to absorb the brunt of the dark sending.

  With a shout of anger, Tris marshaled all his power and sent a blast of magic back toward the source. Around him, he heard men crying out in terror and pain as the sending showed them their greatest fears come true. Although the other mages could not join him on the Plains of Spirit, Tris could sense their magic joining with his, a concentrated blast toward the void where the darkness was deepest.

  The magic struck its target. Tris felt the blast of power burn as it reached the origin of the dark sending. Just as quickly, all magic disap­peared, and then blinked back into place with a recoil as if he'd taken a sword-strike to the helm. Tris struggled for control against the staggering reaction headache. The magic rose and fell like a storm-tossed sea. The power inside his mind buckled and folded in on itself. He was falling, and the world opened its maw to swallow him whole. He landed with a thud on the ground. Bones snapped.

  Tris struggled to his feet, rallying his power. Dimly, he could feel Fallon and the other mages around him. With all his remaining energy, Tris and the other mages sent a

  firestorm against Lochlanimar, hitting the wall to the right of the portcullis. The magic exploded on impact, breaking down the crenel-lations and collapsing part of the wall.

  Let go. Let go now! He could feel the energy drain growing. A few seconds more and it would reach his life thread. Tris flung himself free of the magic and fell to his knees. Too damn close.

  "I gave him a potion to ease the pain. It's wearing off."

  It was Esme's voice, but it sounded as if she were a league away. Tris tried to open his eyes and thought better of it. His head felt as if he'd been kicked by an iron-shod war horse. No, worse than that. If I'd been kicked I'd be dead, and not feel the pain.

  "Will he be all right?" Soterius sounded wor­ried.

  "The fall from the horse didn't help any­thing," Esme replied. "He broke a collarbone and a rib when he landed. The way the men and the horses were out there, he's lucky he wasn't trampled. None of the other mages are in better shape. Whatever the rest of us felt, they must have taken it double."

  "Dark sending." Tris could barely make his lips move.

  Soterius stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Glad you're back with us. We were worried."

  "How bad?"
r />   "Not as bad as it could have been, consider­ing. The battering ram's still in place, but that gate isn't coming down soon. My bet is they've reinforced it with rock behind the wood and the portcullis.

  "We only lost about a hundred men. Most of our soldiers are volunteers who joined up after we unseated Jared. They're not career soldiers. They've never seen full battle. Still, they held their ground, even with the magic and the ashtenerath. The preparations helped. They knew what the ashtenerath were and how to fight them—and that it was a mercy to end their suffering. That's a lot more than my fighters knew the first time we met up with those damned things!"

  "What did you see... when the sending came?"

  Soterius's voice was not quite steady. "The men, dead, wounded, and captured. A field of corpses. Shekerishet in flames."

  "Like a vision, or a real thing?"

  "It was distant. As if I were seeing into a scrying bowl—hazy, not quite solid."

  "Then we did our job."

  "What does he mean by that?" Soterius demanded of Esme.

  "I only know of dark sendings from what the healer-mages have told me. In a full sending, I'm told that it's impossible to tell what's sent from what's real. Tris and the other mages took the brunt of the sending. What we saw, however bad it was, is nothing compared to what it could have been, what they saw."

  "Sweet Mother and Childe," Soterius whis­pered. "What I saw was bad enough to keep me from sleeping. Goddess help the mages, if they saw even worse."

  "Regroup," Tris murmured. Even the candle­light was blinding.

  Soterius looked spent and worn; Tris wondered how many hours had passed and how long he had been drugged. "We will. I'll give the troops credit—they didn't bolt for home. Once they get over the fright, I think this may work in our favor. No one wants another king like Jared. Curane's shown them exactly what kind of regent he would be. I think our soldiers will dig in their heels. This may not be the most seasoned army, but they've already lost a lot to Jared. This is per­sonal. There isn't much distance between fear and anger. And from what I saw out there, our folks are covering that distance pretty quickly."