‘One wizard does not trouble us, dwarf.’
‘Then you are a fool, Samuel, to judge what you have not yet seen.’
Just then, the structure groaned and shuddered.
‘Come. We should be moving,’ Samuel suggested, but before he could start away another cluster of magic came flying in towards them. This time, the scent of the magic was familiar. ‘Balten!’
The second magician also landed atop their wooden structure, leaving Samuel and Doonan scrambling to hold on as it tore from its bracing and dropped several feet. They heard Balten swear and his boots also sounded along the roof, stomping away as he pursued the Paatin wizard.
‘Balten!’ Doonan cried aloud, but the man had already gone. He then turned his gaze to the exit they had been bound for, which was now at chest height, for the bridge had dropped by a fair amount. ‘Run, Magician!’ the dwarf called with alarm and began scampering for all he was worth. He reached the exit and leapt up, reaching the floor level with his two hands and dangling with his toes just shy of the floor.
Samuel was just behind and, grasping the little man by the waist, he shoved Doonan up and into the tower. He then clambered up beside him. Gathering his breath, he looked behind to see that the roof of the bridge was a wreck-smashed where the wizard had landed and pulverised in patches all the way along. Somehow, he did not relish meeting any man who could create such damage with his feet alone.
Beyond and below, the many levels of the citadel were speckled with fires and the shadows of men locked in deadly competition to win the fortress. The sounds of the battle carried up to him easily on the wind.
‘Come!’ Doonan called, already away along the carpeted hall. ‘We need to catch him.’
Samuel took a deep breath and started after the nimble,little man. Theyencountereda set of stairs and Samuel boundedup them in sets of three and four. He could feel Balten racing ahead of them, vaulting atop the rooftops and using his spells to run along the very walls. Furious spells spat out and the tower rocked with each booming explosion that struck against it. They came to a set of tight,spiralling stairs and Samuel raced up, pulling himself up by the hands as well as his feet, such was his hurry. Hecame toa trapdoor at the top,pushed it open and was out under the sky in one swift movement.
He found himselfuponone of the smaller towers that paralleled the main spire, still rising beside them like a great behemoth of slick stone. Balten was standing in front of him, breathing hard, with spheres of magic boiling from his hands. Ominously, Samuel realised he had come up facing the wrong way, for he could feel the magic of the Paatin arch-wizard behind him and he could almost feel theman’shot breath on the back of his neck. Slowly, he turned, to find a monstrous hulk of a man standing a few strides away. He waswrappedin shrouds of black cloth and a long,black cape was whipping behind him in the whistling wind. His features were indiscernible, for he was cloaked in shadow. All Samuel could tell was that he was a giant of a man, like one-and-a-half General Ruardins, and there seemed to be great slabs of armour jutting out from beneath his cloth. He was cowled in a hood, but his face was also hidden behind a veil of darkness and armour. Only his eyes could be seen, glinting in the darkness,and the magic that emanated from him had the same vile stink as the winged desert-men.
Doonan sprang up beside Samuel and, taking one look at the arch-wizard standing so near, he dived back down through the trapdoor like a rabbit back into its burrow.
‘Give the girl to me!’ Balten demanded, looking furious and ignoring Samuel altogether.
Samuel turned back to Om-rah, who drew one black-armoured hand out from beneath his cloak. Hanging from his fist was the limp form of the Koian god-woman. She was like a toy in his hands and he waved her around effortlessly. Her eyes were open, but she did not seem aware of what was happening to her-if she was, she showed no sign of it at all. At the same time, a hollow,echoing noise came stuttering out of Om-rah’s mask that could only have been some twisted form of laughter.
In one movement, the arch-wizard tossed the Koian woman aside and she disappeared over the edge of the tower, while he boundedbackwards, clearing the space between the two towers and clamping onto the smooth stone of the greater citadel like a limpet. Incredibly, there was barely a hint of magic in his movements; the man seemed to be using raw strength alone for such superhuman feats.
Samuel gasped as the girl fell, but Balten had already gone after her, diving head first and trailing furious magic behind him. Samuel was still standing dumbfounded when Balten came leaping up back onto the tower top with the girl cradled in his arms.
‘For goodness sake, Samuel!’ he said, shoving the girl towards him and looking highly annoyed. ‘Must I do everything? Get her to safety.’
And with that,he took off, springing across the tower top and vaulting the gap to the main tower, where he gripped on tightly with a Wall-walking spell. Om-rah had already clambered up and around the edge of the tower out of view, and so Balten stood upright, like a hair jutting out of the wall, and began after him, running sideways along the stones.
Samuel looked at the woman in his arms. She was looking back at him blankly and Samuel wondered if she was in some kind of shock.
‘Well,’ she said in her crackling voice, surprising him. ‘What are you looking at? Get me to safety, Magician.’
Samuel let go of her and she wobbled as she took her own weight. ‘I think I liked it better when you didn’t talk to me,’ he told her. ‘Come. Let’s go.’
He led her through the trapdoor and back down the spiralling stairs. He would have to forget General Mar and the others for now and get the Koian woman to safety. He only hoped theotherscould hold out for some time longer.
Doonan was nowhere to be seen, and so Samuel began descending the tower, pulling the woman behind him. It took some time to find another route that did not use the half-demolished bridge, but they soon did, stepping out of the tower and into a smaller storage yard squeezed between the tower and the mountainside.
Samuel paused a moment, trying to decide which way to go, when he felt a tug of magic at his senses. It was Grand Master Tudor, not far off, and so he began away again in that direction,dragging the Koian woman limply behind. Panting and puffing, Doonan caught up to them on his pudgy.little legs.
‘Where are you going now?’ he asked, eyeing the Koian woman suspiciously.
‘Grand Master Tudor is this way,’ Samuel replied, still moving.Hedelvedback into the buildings of the citadel, following his senses towards the magic of the old Grand Master.
After crossing only a few more rooms, the old man’s presence seemed almost abovethem. They passed through one broken and body-strewn room and the old man seemed just on the other side of a closed and bolted door. Samuel burst from the chamber with Doonan at his side, dragging the Koian god-woman by the hand.
‘He’s there!’ the little man squeaked, for Grand Master Tudor was amongst a group of armed men, with Captain Ravenshood, defending the great courtyard from the Paatin, who were spilling in from the opposite side, snarling and bearing their swords. The Grand Master’s magic had waned and was nearly at its end and he leaned on his staff heavily, directing the battle more than anything.
‘Samuel!’ he called wearily. ‘How relieved I am to see you. Quickly! Help us plug this nest of accursed Paatin.’
Samuel dropped the woman’s hand and took a step forward, then realised what he would have to do. Only with the Argum Stone on his finger could he tap the ether and gather magic for his bidding, but in this small room, the outcome could be disastrous.
‘What are you waiting for, Magician?’ Doonan cried from beside him, looking up with concern.
The Paatin were now filling the courtyard like sand spilling through a crack and the Turians began losing ground as they began to fall before the superior numbers of the savage caped desert-men.
‘Stand back,’ he told the two beside him and he took another step and drew the ring from his pocket, holding it before him with his other hand
readied to receive it. ‘I’m ready,’ he said softly, only to reassure himself.
He was about to put the ring on his finger when something sharp struck him. A stabbing pain crippled him in the back of the leg and Samuel tumbled over.The ring!Itwas all he could think as he lost grip on the thing and it fell from his grasp. Before he could struggle to his feet or determine what had felled him, a weight leapt upon his chest and another pain ripped between his ribs. Doonan was there, sitting upon him, grinning savagely and holding up his bloodied dagger.
The pain was blinding and Samuel could not help but scream aloud. It took him a few moments before he could gather his sense enough to subdue the feeling, cutting off all sensation that assaulted his mind, using his magician’s discipline. He blinked his eyes and tried to refocus his watery vision.
‘Why?’ he asked of the dwarf who satonhim. His lips felt numb and he almost felt as if he was floating behind his own face; such was the effect of subduing his senses to such a degree.
‘Another test for you, Magician,’ was all the horrid little man would say as he wiped his knife clean on Samuel’s cloak. ‘Survive this, and you will be ready. Die and you were never right in the first place. All I can say is,I hope it’s the latter. You really are a pain.’
‘Balten?’ he asked, groggily, oblivious to the fighting still going on all around him.
But Doonan only laughed. ‘There are some things that even he is not aware of, Magician. My orders come from Cang. Perhaps you will live to take the matter up with him, someday. Then again-perhaps not.’
The Koian woman stood stiffly near the doorway, holding her hands clasped to her chest. She did not look so much afraid, as somehow revolted at the sight of Samuel’s blood.
‘Oh, I doubt she has the sense to help you, Magician, but she is welcome to try,’ the dwarf said. ‘I’ve never seen such a sorry excuse for a human being. I would stab her, too, but she looks hardly worth the effort.’
Doonan then got off him and trotted out of view, leaving Samuel writhing in his own blood upon the slippery floor. The clanging of steel and shouts echoed in his ears and it was not until he heard his name being called that he arched his head and looked upside down towards the battle. Grand Master Tudor was shouting his name desperately and trying to fight his way through the Paatin to reach him,swinging his staff wildly and imbuing it with mage-fire that sent Paatin warriors flying like flicked crumbs from a breakfast plate. But the old man’s magic was already thin and the Paatin were thick about him like flies to a bloody sore.
Samuel managed to roll over onto his chest, but that was about as much effort as he could muster. His lifeblood was spilling from him much too fast and he felt he would not survive much longer. Without his magic, there was no way to heal himself. There, just out of reach, his salvation lay in a slender silver ring. He clawed his hand out towards it, but no matter how much he strained, his fingers only trembled on the stones, barely a nail’s length short.
‘Master-’ Samuel heard himself mutter, for he was trying to call someone, but he could not quite remember whom. Boots jostled about him and several times he felt himself being kicked roughly and stomped upon. Whether it was purposeful or just that the Turians and Paatin were heedless of his presence, Samuel was not in the mind to consider. He could only lie with his chin on the stones and look blankly at the figures struggling all around him as they became dark and fuzzy shadows of themselves.
Time seemed to act strangely from that point on. There was a flash of darkness and a flash of light and, in what seemed like only seconds later, Samuel opened his eyes to find himself standing upright in the middle of the courtyard. Some time must have actually passed, for the courtyard was now empty. The entire scene had changed dramatically, save for the god-woman still standing mute by the doorway. There was no sign of the battle and all was quiet, bar the distant shouts of battle from elsewhere in the citadel. Even the bodies of the battle had been cleared away as if everyone had cleaned up and moved on, ignoring him in his place on the floor.
The Argum Stone was on his finger after all, arcing silver fire and his wounds were all healed. Wearing the ring did have a way of disorienting him, so Samuel pulled it off and cast it back into its place in his pocket, wondering what could possibly have occurred. His mind was still tingling and confused from the infusion of power. All he could think was that he must have somehow reached the ring and healed himself.
‘What happened?’ he asked the Koian woman, but she only looked back at him blankly.
‘They are gone,’ was all she croaked.
Samuel scratched his head. ‘Then we must find them.’ He scanned the room once more, now eyeing the swords and shields and abandoned armour scattered across the floor. A length of wood was lying in the corner of the room, poking out from a pile of cloth, and he was about to have a look when Doonan came tiptoeing into the courtyard towards him, peering around the edge of the doorway.
When the little man saw Samuel and the woman, he squeaked with fear. ‘Argh!’ he cried and turned on the spot, darting away.
‘Why you little monster!’ Samuel swore and started after the dwarf, grabbing the god-woman’s hand as he passed and dragging her along with him.
‘A demon! A monster!’ came the cries of Doonan from ahead, but the sounds abruptly stopped with a screech.
Samuel only had to round the next corner to see what had happened. A cluster of Paatin waswaiting there and one already had his boot on Doonan’s corpse,trying to pull his sword out of the little man’s chest with some difficulty.
‘Infernal savages!’ cried Balten, coming from the other way along the passage, and he cut the desert-men down with a storm of twisting sparks.
He looked at Doonan for a moment, as if genuinely concerned, but it was fleeting, and he turned to Samuel. ‘This way.’
‘Have you seen the Grand Master?’ Samuel asked him. ‘He must have come this way.’
Balten considered his answer momentarily. ‘No, but the citadel is lost.’
‘He tried to kill me,’ Samuel said, pointing to the dead midget.
Balten looked truly puzzled. ‘I don’t know why. That was not part of my instructions.’
‘Then it’s something I will need to bring up with yourMaster when I meet him. Now, I must get back to General Mar. Can you lead her out of here safely? It’s too dangerous here.’
‘If that is what you wish, Samuel,’ Balten replied, and he winced, showing weakness for the first time that Samuel had known the man. There was a tear in his coat and a dark stain around it. ‘As you can see, I am injured-Om-rah escaped, but I managed to give him a few wounds of his own to go and lick. Unfortunately, his blood has poisoned me, but it’s nothing I cannot withstand. I have enough strength left to take her to safety, but I will need to rest before I am much use.’
‘Very well.’ Samuel then turned to the god-woman. ‘Go with Balten, back to the others.’ He turned again to Balten. ‘I seem to have accrued more than my fair share of debt with you.’
‘Be that as it may, I do what I must.’
With that, Balten left, granting the girlintow no more gentleness than had Samuel. Her eyes,still devoid of any expression,trailed upon Samuel as she was dragged away.
Samuelhastenedoff again. It seemed as if this night would never end, and he had traversed up and down the height of the citadel more times than he cared to recall. It was worrying that he could not sense the old Grand Master anywhere nearby, but it was easy for one man, even one as powerful as old Tudor, to become lost amongst the energies of so many others. As he clambered along, he felt two other familiar magicians nearby and he began calling out for them.
‘Eric!’ he called and,for once,it was convenient to have two friends with the one name.
The two of them came rushing in toward him. They both were drenched with sweat and covered in blood. Goodfellow had black soot smeared across his face and his eyeglasses were chipped in one corner.
‘Samuel!’ Goodfellow exclaimed. ‘The cita
del is swarming with Paatin and the general is trapped within the main tower. His trumpets still call out for help, but there is no one left to go to his aid. We thought you would have been there by now.’
‘I ran into some trouble. I’m off to find him now.’
‘What about the Grand Master?’ Eric asked.
‘I saw him,’ Samuel said, ‘but I passed out. I have no idea where he’s gone now.’
‘We came this way looking for him,’ Eric continued. ‘We felt his power rise and then vanish. I hope he has not been overcome.’
‘I hope not,’ Samuel said.
‘But how will we get to the general. The tower is now filled with the Paatin.’
‘Balten seemed to have a decent method,’ Samuel said. ‘The inside of the tower may be taken, but the outside walls are free.’
‘Good idea!’ Eric said,with boyish enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go.’
They made for the closest courtyard and the three of them looked up at the towering chunk of polished stone above them.
‘We still need to make our way across the rooftops. We can climb the smaller towers and then get across to the main structure.’
Eric agreed. ‘Wall-walking spells will do fine. I felt a Paatin wizard earlier, but he seems to have gone.’
‘Yes,’ said Samuel. ‘That was Om-rah. Balten said he has been wounded and has withdrawn, so we should not be accosted if we move quickly.’
‘I was going to try Gallivan’s Leaping spell to speed things along a bit.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Samuel said. ‘Eric, can you manage that?’ he asked, turning to Goodfellow.
‘I think so,’ the sandy-haired magician said. ‘If one of you goes first, I will do my best to follow.’
Eric nodded and prepared himself, summoning his power. Then, exhaling slowly, he formed the spell and gave a great jump as he did so, springing up onto the nearest rooftop and landing with a crash and a clatter. The spell was wellformed and Samuel was again impressed with his friend’s talent.
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