Bayan felt a tiny shudder pass down his spine. “One night a long time ago, you and I set aside our differences atop a rocky plateau in the moonlight. Since then, you have stood beside me through two vital battles for the future of the empire. What do you say, Kiwani? Shall we try our luck one last time?”
She propped up on an elbow and regarded him with a faint smile of superiority. Once, that smile had infuriated him. Now, he knew the woman behind it. Intimately. “Oh, come now, Bayan. You and I both know full well that it won’t be the last time. Not by any stretch. Now, if it’s not too much trouble, you may return my clothing to its rightful place.”
Bayan sat up and tossed a silk pillow at her. “You’re a Hexmagic Duelist. Make your own battle outfit.”
Kiwani’s eyes widened in anticipation. “Of course I shall. Excellent idea. Which you shall I accessorize with it?”
Bayan chucked another pillow at her. “I like the way I look.”
She gave the pillow a focused glare, and it parted, materializing around her bare torso as a tunic of heavy, embroidered wool. “Can you make another portal to the Academy?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I understand the concept. It’s just a matter of focus now.”
She shot him a quick smile. “No, darling, you misunderstand. I want to watch you so I can copy you. Can’t have you doing all the heavy lifting, now can I? Now hurry up and get dressed. Battle calls our names!”
Battlesong
“It’s starting. You’ve no time to waste. Where would you like to set up?”
Headmaster Langlaren’s words took Tala aback, and in the predawn light that filtered across the broad porch fronting the Hall of Seals, she looked at the First Singer.
Liselot pointed upward to the nearest cliff overlooking the campus. “There. My choir is already in place, but I’m afraid their power is much diminished by the Corona casters’ earlier attack on the Temple. We will not be nearly as much use as I had hoped, and we cannot affect the battle unless we are somewhere on the mountain. Our songwork is not strong enough to carry across the empire anymore.”
The First Singer pressed her lips together, and Tala felt a lump form in her own throat. So many of her friends were dead, and perhaps they were the lucky ones. Dawn was still some while off, yet Duelist Taban had spotted suspicious activity south of campus, near the Kemada coastline. The Corona casters were massing within sight of the campus mountain, preparing to leap through a portal and attack. If Headmaster—Warmaster—Langlaren was right, they would probably do so before dawn. Tala marveled that the old hexmage could be so patient and kind to the singers, considering the full choir had only just arrived and were still milling around behind Tala, standing on various stone teardrops in the large inlaid seal set within the stone floor. What if they had not arrived on campus in time?
“First Singer? Warmaster? If I may, I think I know how we can even the odds.”
Liselot turned back to her, her face formed of shadowed, desperate angles. “And how is that, Singer Tala?”
“Yesterday, Calder and I fought the Godsmaw.”
“How does one fight the sea?”
Tala shook her head. “No. The sint inside the sea. Calder and I named him after the Karkhedonian term: Godsmaw. He tried to drown Muggenhem and even the capital, but we stopped him.”
Liselot and Langlaren exchanged a dubious look.
Impatient, Tala put her hands on her hips. “It’s true. And the only reason we were able to defeat it is because we combined our magics: songwork and duelism. Calder was able to craft me a hex avatar formed of giant crystals. I sang into them, and they expanded my magic enough to trap the Godsmaw. If he can teach that hex avatar to your best students, they can cast the crystals for our singers, and we can use their additional power to hold back the Corona casters long enough for the other duelists to defeat them.”
“Did you say hex avatar?” Langlaren asked in a faint voice.
Tala let her eyes slide halfway shut in accusation. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know how powerful your students were becoming, Warmaster. The Hexmates’ so-called ‘secret’ knowledge is the only thing that gives us even a sliver of hope for survival.” She pointed southward. “Those Corona casters aren’t coming alone. They’re bringing steelwielders with them. The last they heard, our duelists were completely incapacitated by the mere presence of the metal. How convenient, don’t you think, that we kept this secret not only for ourselves but for our empire so that it never reached their ears? We have a vast advantage, if we can only manage to survive long enough to use it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll fetch Calder and Sivutma and have them integrate their best students with our choir.”
The corner of Liselot’s mouth tugged up, and Warmaster Langlaren raised his eyebrows and tipped his head in a most pragmatic manner. Tala nodded, found an unoccupied section of porch, and began to sing.
As her portal notes targeted Calder’s position, Langlaren’s voice drifted to her from behind. “You’d better watch out, Liselot. That girl vibrates with leadership potential like a crystal surrounded by a dozen sopranoi.”
Liselot’s quiet response came a moment later: “You think I chose her by accident?”
Tala’s chest warmed at the First Singer’s words, and she had to hold in her smile lest it distort her portal.
The Second War of Steel
Bayan stepped through his black-ringed portal, holding Kiwani’s hand and wearing soft, warm clothing of leather and wool to guard against the early spring chill.
Kiwani squeezed his hand. “I like this new you. So much more creative.”
He shot her a brief grin. “You should see me with paper sculpture. The Corona was practically begging me to go on tour.”
Tarin dropped out of the sky before them, landing in a crouch. She stood. “The enemy is on the move. Taban says their camp by the seashore is emptying. Their portal should open around here any moment. Kipri and Instructor Takozen have shepherded the younger students and the Peace Villagers into the caverns. Where were you?”
Bayan shared a glance with Kiwani.
Tarin’s eyes widened. “And you thought the eve of battle was the best time for that, aye?”
Kiwani shoved her shoulder. “Like you should talk about inappropriate moments. I hear your man shakes his bare arse at poor, unsuspecting portal-singers.”
Tarin snorted. “Only the once.”
Bayan looked up from the flagstones where he and Kiwani had landed. The hex houses stair-stepped up the nearby hillside, and he felt a reminiscent pang as he spotted the building his hex used to occupy. “What’s the situation?”
Tarin created a wind disc and lifted them for an aerial view of the campus. “Calder taught the savant hexes how to cast his crystalline hex avatar. The thing’s bloody enormous, like a giant snowflake. The full choir is over there, below those cliffs, with two hexes of savants defending them. Other hexes are stationed at the roundabout, in all of the arenas, and on several of the nearby stone peaks. Some of the nonsavant students, especially the youngest, have been moved down to the stone labyrinths under the campus. Instructors are split between guarding them and taking up defensive positions.”
“Where is Langlaren?” Bayan asked.
Tarin pointed to the Hall of Seals as it came into view around the corner of the cliff. “He’s in there. Seems the Warmaster used his decades of peace to lay traps and magical preparations around campus in case of just such an invasion, and he can monitor and control them using the hexmagic seal that hangs on the wall.”
Bayan was reminded of a long-ago memory, when Headmaster Langlaren had made an image appear and move within the top seal of the three that graced the broad purple cloth on the wall of the main hall. “The privilege of the hexmage is to put whatever he wants on the seal.” Bayan felt a burst of respect for the old headmaster. “And our other hexmates?”
Tarin gestured to the sky around them. “They’re all up here with us. Circling, watching.”
Bayan frowned up a
t the lightening sky. “Has anyone had thoughts on us bonding as a hex for this fight?”
“Aye. But the consensus seems to be—”
“Less mobility isn’t a good trade for more power.”
Tarin’s smile flashed at him. “Aye. This campus and the surrounding landscape are far greater in scope than the Kheerzaal. We could still do it, but—”
Kiwani finished Tarin’s thought. “We don’t know the extent of our strength together, nor the strength they intend to bring against such a critical target. It’s a bad tactical position.”
“Well put.” Tarin gave Bayan a serious look. “Has something happened to Aleida? She isna herself by any stretch at all. Her magic’s fine, but…”
Kiwani answered in a sober voice. “You didn’t hear? Murchadh was killed in the Battle of Katacha. And then she brought him back.”
Tarin’s jaw sagged. “She bloody what, now? Since when can we bring back the dead?”
“Since now. And it wasn’t just putting his soul back into his body. She created the man entirely from her mind and forced him back into the world. Where were you that you didn’t hear about that?”
Tarin’s eyes flicked downward toward the center of campus for a moment and returned to Kiwani’s face. “Emperor Jaap sent Taban and me to retrieve a certain weapon to aid in the defense of the campus. We’ve been guarding him until just recently.”
A faint alarm flickered in Bayan’s mind. “Him? What kind of weapon is this? And if you’re not guarding him, who is?”
Tarin held up a hand, forestalling further outbursts. “Dakila and his men are guarding him.”
Surprise reared Bayan’s head back. “Dakila? He’s here?”
“He leads the best caravan security team in the empire, or so he tells me.”
“And the weapon?”
Tarin sighed then spoke in a flat tone. “It’s witten Oost. We had no choice. But don’t worry. He’s still potioneered. If, and only if, we need him in battle, Dakila knows to dig out the steel fragment in his back. Otherwise, he’s going to stay right where he is: his old office.”
For a moment, Bayan felt as if a Corona caster had stolen all his air again. Has the emperor completely gone mad? Unreasoning rage threatened to consume him, but then Kiwani squeezed his hand tightly, and he reined in his fury. No, the emperor is just desperate. Ignaas is a powerful but tame duelist, and Jaap doesn’t trust us Hexmates. He breathed out the last of his anger and blinked.
The eastern horizon had begun to pale and pinken. The air was no warmer, but the approach of day gave Bayan a burst of confidence. Battling Ignaas in the dark had not been his idea of enjoyment.
A sudden, orange glow from below drew Bayan’s attention. Tarin halted the wind disc and gasped. Bayan dropped to one knee and leaned onto a hand, gazing through the transparent magic that held him aloft. Almost directly below him, the Earth arena appeared to be a boiling pot of liquid fire.
A portal, tilted down onto its face, had opened wide above the arena’s rim, and a river of glowing lava, nearly as far across as the arena itself, poured from the heart of an active volcano. The smoking, liquid stone pooled across the pebbled floor, consuming everything in its path. It rose, bench by bench, until it overflowed the rim, scoring the arena walls and setting the grass afire. Aghast, Bayan cast Lifeseeker. “How many duelists were stationed in the Earth arena?”
Tarin’s voice was faint. “Two hexes, one of savants, under Instructor Ithrakis. How many survived?”
Bayan stood, clenching fists at his sides, clinging to the power his rage brought him. “None.”
***
Calder could barely hear himself think over the First Singer’s screeching. Several small choirs clustered below the wind disc he shared with her. They shouted and heaved their songwork through portals that opened within the crystal hex avatars. Calder caught them eyeing the sky every few moments, however, and he didn’t blame them. After the volcano had killed everyone in the Earth arena, every single one of the campus defenders knew they could be next, even if they were hiding in a cleft in the jagged hills south of the cold houses near campus, as Calder and the singers were.
In the dark distance to the north, explosions, roars, and the clash of steel echoed with sinister sounds. Calder had set a dozen hexlings of various constructions around him and Liselot. They would trigger an alarm at the slightest change in their environment. Still, Calder couldn’t help glancing up just as often as the singers he protected.
An enormous crash filled the sky off to the right as the Corona casters managed to destroy a crystalline hex avatar near the girls’ barracks. Tammo had been the last student to grasp the complex spell Calder had just taught to the hexes, and that barracks had been Tammo’s battle station. The sound of faint screams shot Calder’s heart into his throat. Tammo had forgotten to dissipate the deadly shards of the broken avatar as they fell. One more reason he’ll never make savant. Calder snuffed the fractured spell creation before its deadly shards could hurt the poor idiot or anyone in his hex.
Liselot acknowledged his quick thinking with a thump on his shoulder, but the First Singer’s eyes never stopped flicking between her choirs and potential targets for their portals. She belted out another order, and one of the choirs altered its song. In the distance, Calder spotted a filmy column of bone-chilling air growing from one of the giant crystal snowflakes. It snaked several tendrils through the air, snatching airborne Corona casters and freezing their potions.
Calder grinned. That one was my idea.
Further across campus, a crystalline ring, identifiable only by the dull red glow that reflected from its surfaces, suddenly vanished. Calder was infuriated to discover that the Corona casters had managed to take control of the physical existence of the crystalline avatar and turn it into a whirling ring of doom inside the Shock arena. Various spells blasted into the air from the arena, and Calder felt his jaw unclench as the duelist students stationed there destroyed that crystal snowflake too. Unfortunately, that left yet another choir hobbled.
“How are they doing this?” Liselot demanded. “How can they possibly wield so much power? They pull the strings of duelism and songwork like twin puppets!”
Belatedly, Calder realized she was speaking directly to him. “I’ve no bloody idea, First Singer—”
A vast portal opened horizontally overhead, and Calder had no time to draw breath before an avalanche of silty sand slopped down, wiping him and Liselot from the wind disc. The choirs!
Liselot tumbled beneath the dark gray onslaught, her mouth wide in a note of rage that blew the flood of descending sand back with a shock wave. Calder took heart from the woman’s determination and appropriated some sand for a new disc of stone, even as the force of the deluge shoved him groundward. He spiraled down and around, using Lifeseeker as a guide, and managed to grab Liselot’s arm a heartbeat before they crashed to the grass.
This sand tastes of the northern sea. Why couldna they have portaled to the Teresseren instead? Calder recalled his shifting trick with the Gyre water, gritted his teeth, and willed the Water and Earth into Wind.
A blast of pleasantly warm air shoved its way into his throat, and he gagged and coughed. His hastily erected shield of air blocked its flow, and he helped a gasping Liselot to her feet. Calder extended his shield across the choirs, and around them, choir members coughed and hacked and helped each other up.
Liselot cursed under her breath, and Calder glanced up. Somehow, his spell had changed not only the falling wet sand, but all the wet sand still to come, into air, and that meant—
“Close that portal!” Liselot screamed. As the distant low-tide ocean on the far side of the portal fell toward her, she forced a series of powerful notes from her raw throat and was matched and supported by dozens of voices around her. As the seawater plummeted over the edge of the portal and was buffeted into a fine spray by the still-falling air, Calder shifted its element into Wind as well. Then fish and crustaceans toppled. He winced as their scales and she
lls cracked against his air shield. He focused on one bright yellow fish and added a touch of anima to his shifting magic. A moment later, a bright yellow bird veered away on the strong wind. Despite his imminent danger, Calder couldn’t help grinning.
The portal shrank rapidly then closed, cutting off the wind and sea, and Calder’s shoulders slumped in relief. The sudden silence echoed in his ears.
Liselot’s fingers clamped over his wrist. “It’s too dangerous for us to remain here. We’re the last singers in the empire. Crystal hex avatars or no, if we die, all may be lost.”
Calder glanced downward. “Let’s move you to the lower caverns. If you can maintain a portal high in the sky, you can still direct choir attacks.”
Liselot opened her mouth to bark orders, but a sudden shear of wind stole her voice. Its vacuum was so powerful it began to pull Calder off his feet. Singers began to flail upward, vanishing through a portal that led to darkness. He anchored his feet in a quick Earth spell and looked around for Tala. To his horror, she struggled fruitlessly in midair near the portal’s gaping threshold.
***
“What in the bloody carcasses of the si—I mean, you can do what with the third seal, Warmaster?” Taban stood beside Langlaren in the main chamber of the Hall of Seals and gaped at the three large, round metal discs on the wall. They were decorations; they hadn’t done a thing in all the time he’d seen them.
“The first two seals are static. That’s why you get to wear them as tattoos.” Langlaren tapped the back of Taban’s hand. “The third seal, though, is a dynamic symbol. Just as a hexmage can alter or create anything elemental within the realm of his imagination, he can do the same to this plain disc. Having learned that from my hexmage examination, I implemented it when I became Headmaster—and ostensible Warmaster—as my defensive tactics center. With it, I can control the hexlings I have scattered across campus.”
Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) Page 26