by Steven Poore
The squad of shieldmen that had detailed itself to protect her was close enough to engage Jedrell’s construct now. Cassia seized the opportunity to escape further across the square, where she last remembered seeing Teon. Mist wreathed the buildings, rendering the streets that led from the square opaque. A few dim silhouettes were still visible, battling unseen foes.
Cassia whipped her blade in a low arc to cut off the tendrils that snaked out for her ankles. The mist was gathering strength, just as it had done at Karakhel.
“Teon!” she shouted. “Teon! Follow my voice! Fall back this way!”
She could not tell if he heard her. The hollow sound of stone impacting upon the wooden spars of the market stalls was already muffled, even though the shieldmen fought directly behind her. Other than that, and Rais’s own shouts, there was nothing to hear.
“Teon!” Cassia shouted again.
The mist billowed and she was forced to defend herself once more. The sword that Malessar had gifted her – the sword that once belonged to Pelicos – was proof against this enemy, but even so Cassia felt a stiffening resistance as she cut through the air. It was as if the mist was becoming more substantial with every minute.
Even the vague silhouettes of Teon and his scouts were no longer visible through the murk. It angered Cassia to have to admit that they were beyond rescue, but she knew if she chased after them any further she would be as dead as they surely were. She threw a last flurry of vicious strokes against her amorphous foe, cursing Jedrell with each one, and then beat a retreat back across the square. The mist built itself up, and followed her.
Flame-tipped arrows streaked past her, hissing as they burned holes through the mist. Clean air swirled and coiled where the arrows passed. Cassia seized the moment and broke for safety, past the shattered remnants of the market stalls and the shieldmen battling to dismantle the creature Jedrell had left there. Rais had gathered the other survivors of their party, and now they loosed arrows across the square from behind a barrier of torch-bearing shieldmen.
“Don’t waste them!” Cassia gasped as she slid under the upraised arm of one of the shieldmen.
“Credit me with some wit, at least.” The prince’s smile took the edge from his retort. He let another arrow kindle from the nearest torch, and then launched it up into the air. Cassia watched it arc away, parting the mists, until it thudded into the closed shutter of an upstairs window overlooking the square. The fog obscured most details, but she saw the flare of flickering light as the shutter – sucked dry of all essence, like the rest of the town – caught aflame.
Now she had time to see what Rais and the shieldmen had done while she made her futile attempt to rescue Teon. Flames bloomed inside many of the nearest shops, as well as on thatched roofs and inside the broken windows of the upper rooms. Half a dozen shieldmen moved between the houses, methodically setting them alight. Caenthell’s force coalesced around them, to trip them and to slow them, but the shieldmen simply pushed through until the tendrils burst and dissipated.
Each building that burned did so with a ferocity Cassia had never seen before. She could already taste woodsmoke in the air – and despite the fact that there was no natural breeze in the streets, the fires were spreading . . .
“We have to go,” she told Rais.
The prince paused to aim yet again, loosed his shaft, and then tossed the small bow back to the scout from whom he had borrowed it. “A shame. I was beginning to enjoy my role as the savage invader.”
Cassia glared at him and opened her mouth to berate him for his flippancy, but Rais stepped closer and lowered his voice, even as he waved the scouts back from the edge of the square. “I know. Teon is lost. And neither of us can change that. This evil sees us, Cassia. It knows if we are hurt, or if we are frustrated or angry. It will taunt us. I will not give it such satisfaction.”
She looked up into the steel anger hidden behind his eyes and her own temper subsided. A little, at least. “Then you are stronger than I am.”
“Of course. I am a prince,” Rais said. “Fall back! Back to the gate – and burn as you go!”
Cassia bit down hard on another retort and called out to her shieldmen to do the same. Unlike the scouts, they simply disengaged, as though they had lost interest in the fight. Bands of mist burst around them, the force that Caenthell brought to bear not enough to halt so much solid, unyielding stone.
By now every single one of her stone guards held at least one flaming brand, and as they marched behind the scouts they peeled off to break down doors and set fires in the buildings along Devrilinum’s main street. The remaining scouts ran ahead, wary now of the smaller alleys, lofting burning arrows onto the roofs as they retreated from the town.
A dull crack thudded through the air, followed by a rumbling that Cassia felt as much as heard. For one brief moment she thought the sky had cleared enough for her to see the roof of one of the temples beyond the market, before it collapsed into a rising pile of stonedust and debris – and then the fog rolled back in again.
Teon? Could he have managed to get so far and do so much damage to the town? Cassia dismissed the idea immediately. The war drums were back in her head, echoing in time to the sounds of destruction. The spirits of the North had sprung their trap with her in it; now they intended to make certain she did not escape. They would raze the town to the ground, with her still within its walls, before she could burn any more.
“Move faster!” she shouted. The scouts hardly needed to be told. The shieldmen, on the other hand . . .
Rais grabbed her arm and pulled her off-balance, just as a line of slate tiles plummeted, one after the other from an overhanging roof, to shatter upon the ground precisely where she had been an instant before.
“The town is falling to pieces on us!” the prince shouted.
This time her own instincts saved her and she pushed him aside as a pair of shutters burst open, one wooden frame spinning lethally through the air at head height.
“Not falling!” She tossed her last lit brand through the open window and scrambled back to her feet, choosing to risk hugging one side of the street rather than remain out in the open. Ahead, already obscured by the haziness of the mists rushing through the surrounding alleys to flank her, one of the scouts lay in a heap on the ground. The lintel that lay a few feet away looked as though it had been torn bodily from a nearby wall.
“Then what?” Rais asked.
Her reply was cut off by the collapse of another roof. Tiles hammered down onto the shoulders of one of her shieldmen, shards snapping out in all directions. The stone soldier staggered beneath the impacts, its arms outstretched for balance. When it regained its footing, Cassia saw the shieldman was chipped and damaged – unblemished stone was plainly visible where the surface had broken away.
They could be hurt, she thought, reminded again of the vandalised shrine and the single twitching hand that had been reanimated by her call. Not by fire, perhaps, and not directly by Caenthell’s mists, but there was nothing to stop the mists using the town itself as a weapon against them.
“Hurry!” she shouted to the shieldmen. But they were not built to run. They were thorough and methodical, not quick like Teon’s scouts. Even if they could endure so much more than any mortal body could, the High King would use everything at his disposal to render them into fragments before they could leave Devrilinum. And she did not have so many shieldmen that she could spare even one for his spite. “March at double pace!”
Light bloomed ahead of them. It took another few paces for Cassia to realise she was near the town’s gates once more – and that the small tavern on the corner already blazed like a beacon. Mist shrank away from the inferno, and the surviving scouts huddled as close to the building as they dared, shouting curses and foul taunts at their insubstantial foe. Cassia raced the last few yards, heedless of the splinters and shards of tiles that the town spat through the air at her. Something tugged at her hair; something else grazed her leg and threatened to unbalance he
r as she made it into the fire-warded space in front of the tavern. She counted heads quickly. Of the twenty men who had accompanied Teon, only a dozen remained on their feet, all of them trapped between anger and fear. The most aggressive of them swung wildly at the pans and stones that hurtled through the air towards them; others ducked away as Cassia had done.
For a moment she could not understand why they all waited here, rather than fleeing through the gates to the safety of open ground – and then she realised the gates themselves were shrouded in thick fog. Caenthell’s spirits had indeed flanked her party and cut off their escape. There was no way to tell how far beyond the gates the fog extended, but Cassia knew any attempt to battle through it would prove fatal.
Rais reached her side. Plaster dust flecked his hair, and his cheek bled where something had scratched his skin. “What now?” he shouted in her ear.
Cassia could only shake her head. The drums laughed at her. Devrilinum would not burn fast enough to drive the mists back. The tavern burned at her back, just as Malessar’s fire had done at Karakhel. She imagined she could see the wraiths of Karakhel alongside the scouts, battling and disappearing into a final death. If only there was some way to summon them up once more – or some way to summon any kind of help . . .
There was something, she thought. As Rais cursed in pain and threw a broken tile back into the swirling gloom, Cassia looked up into the sky. It was impossible to say where the fog ended and the clouds began.
Craw, she thought. Craw – now would be a very good time.
Mist shifted and coalesced overhead – and reached down to pluck one of the scouts from the ground. He screamed, kicking fruitlessly, a mouse caught in the claws of a kestrel, and then he was gone, no more than a fleeting shadow within the fog. His fellows could not have saved him even if they’d had time to react.
“How can any man fight this?” Rais cried out. “Cassia . . . !”
He threw himself to the ground to evade the phantoms that descended upon him. Cassia swung desperately at them, severing them as fast as she could, yet each tendril she countered split into several more. Another scout was abducted, dragged up by one ankle, and a third was thrown bodily across the street to collide with one of the few doors that still stood closed; his impact shattered the fragile, withered timbers and he disappeared in the darkened interior.
“Leave us be, damn you!” Cassia swung again and again, standing over the fallen prince to protect him.
The sky blazed suddenly, an arc of fire far brighter than any flame she had set in Devrilinum. Cassia felt its heat, and she felt the rhythm of the war drums falter for a moment. The attacking mists lost their intensity and she beat them back with heavy, deliberate strokes.
Mist curled wildly as a second jet of fire poured out low across the sky. Flames bloomed from the town’s obscured roofline and the mists recoiled again.
Cassia reached down without looking and seized Rais’s shoulder. She hauled him onto his knees, watching for another attack all the while. If she had learned one thing, it was that the awakened spirits of Caenthell were relentless. Rais scrambled away with her, staring in shock at the waves of flame that burst across the sky.
“Now what in all the gods . . . ?”
“Craw,” Cassia said with grim satisfaction.
Rais’s eyes narrowed, but he did not protest any further. He retrieved his sword and looked to the gates. “We’re still hemmed in.”
“Not for much longer,” Cassia said. She thought the mists were already thinning as the High King redeployed his phantoms against the dragon. The attacks against Teon’s surviving men had already ceased. It was a matter of timing, as much as anything else. “Have we got any more torches?”
The prince shook his head. “Your shieldmen used them all up.” He cast about the ground and picked up one of the withered wooden shafts that lay there, his brow furrowed as he hefted it. “This may last long enough. I hope.”
He turned to rally the few remaining scouts, his voice gaining that note of command once more. Cassia stepped away from the burning tavern, watching as more fires sprouted in the middle of Devrilinum. Fire spat through the air like water from the fountains of Jianir’s gardens, and everything it touched burned immediately. The mists were in turmoil, swirling and spiralling, making everything twice as nightmarish as it already appeared.
Ahead of her in the middle of the street, one particular cloud solidified into a definable shape. A human shape. She tightened her grip on the hilt of her weapon.
“Now you think to face me?” she muttered under her breath.
The figure mirrored her movements, holding its own weapon in a guard stance, and shifting its weight – or its lack of weight – exactly when she did. She concentrated on its upper body, and believed she could see the vague beginnings of a face.
“It’s another trap,” Rais said behind her. “Don’t let it draw you in!”
Cassia nodded. “Of course it is.”
More fire. The heat was becoming uncomfortable, and not only for her – the mists were burning away. Caenthell was losing its grip on Devrilinum with every breath.
She raised her voice. “Now you know me. This is not your world. Leave it.”
If mist could ever be said to be disdainful, or amused, then it was at this moment. The sorcerous figure seemed to shrug, and then it simply lost all cohesion and vanished.
A deep-throated roar carried through the streets from the middle of the own, the flames of the dragon flaring so bright the rooftops were in silhouette. Cassia flinched and shielded her eyes: she might almost have stood in full Galliarcan daylight.
Rais tugged her arm. “Now!” he shouted.
It seemed that light and heat had cleared the way. The gates stood virtually unobscured as the mists were either driven away or gathered into battle against the dragon.
Cassia had no opportunity to hesitate. Rais pulled her towards open ground, where their terrified horses waited. The scouts Teon had left to guard them hauled on the tethers to quell them, but at least two had already broken free and now galloped riderless back along the March. It did not matter, a small corner of Cassia’s mind remarked dispassionately, since their small raiding force had suffered such casualties, there were more than enough mounts for them all.
All but the shieldmen, she corrected herself. Surely even the strongest warhorse would have collapsed, broken-backed, under the weight of one of those warriors.
Her over-active imagination seized upon the thought. If only Malessar had designed his shieldmen as cavalry . . . how much earlier might she have reached this high ground? How much of the North would have been defended against Caenthell? How many lives would have been saved?
She was halfway back to the legion’s temporary camp before she managed to shake herself from the depths of those thoughts. Rais watched her with undisguised concern, while the survivors of Teon’s squad rode with their heads lowered and their shoulders set, their expressions grim with shock and loss. It was the first time they had seen the true face of the enemy. Now they knew, as did the rest of the legion, what they had set themselves against. What evil threatened every man and beast on the living earth.
She coached her horse aside and slowed so that she could safely look back at the town. The horizon was still entirely fogged, and Devrilinum seemed to stand on the border between the real world and a vast plane of nothing, wreathed in swirls of dense cloud. The sky above the rooftops bloomed with light, like a dozen temporary suns hidden behind the morning fog. Even as she watched a great serpentine shape tail flicked along one edge of the cloud. Her skin prickled.
“Balls of the bloody dragon,” Rais muttered.
And Devrilinum burned, a beacon of intent and omen.
21
Keskor will be the same,” Hetch said. “That’s if there is even one building left standing.”
Cassia had not needed the reminder of what still lay directly ahead. She ignored his comment and concentrated on the map Havinal had pinned across
the low camp table.
A rough copy of another copy – she guessed the original, if it had belonged to the Factor himself, was now lost – it purported to show the course of the Emperor’s March from below Devrilinum to beyond the northernmost towns of the Empire. One side of the map was almost entirely without detail: the heights to the north and west of the March, of course, where Caenthell had lain hidden for centuries. Instead of towers and intricately-tiled roofs painted to mark towns and forts, the anonymous artist had instead drawn grasses and rocks amidst the jagged lines of the mountains. Hidden amongst these, small carrion creatures peered out through the eye sockets of broken skulls and gnawed upon bones. The inference was clear enough, though it was less than helpful for Cassia’s purposes.
The drums echoed through the back of her mind, taunting her and calling her onwards. Come and find us. Come and join us. Come and rule us.
Come and fear us.
She shook her head to deny them and dislodge them from her mind. She did fear them, but she would not let Caenthell see that fear. She would not let anybody see her fear.
“Then Keskor will burn too,” Rais said. The prince relaxed on one of the small folding chairs that the camp’s officers possessed, and Cassia envied the ease with which he affected such comfort. “Burn these spirits back into the earth. We know the tactic works.”
“I hope you only pretend to be such a soil-worshipping fool,” Tarves Almoul said.
Rais glowered at the old insult to one of the Galliarcan gods. “I did not think I asked for Peleanna’s wind to blow inside this tent.”
On the other side of the table Havinal looked up and met Cassia’s gaze. The aging quartermaster appeared more weary than disgusted.
“Enough bickering,” he said, and there was sufficient weight in his voice to still the others. “This High King of the North knows we are marching against him. He left Devrilinum to warn us off. If we continue up the March he will attack us again and again. But if we remain here then he will gather his strength and come upon us like an avalanche, just as he did when he first came out of the mountains. Is this correct?”