Heart of Black Ice (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles Book 4)

by Terry Goodkind

  The soldiers cheered, raised their swords, and prepared to attack.

  The ground beneath them broke open and began to boil with movement. The sand and rocks of the canyon floor suddenly softened, and the soldiers stumbled backward, their boots slipping on the ground. The surface wasn’t just unstable; it spewed forth innumerable scuttling creatures, an infestation of buried scorpions, each the size of a man’s hand. The storm of stinging arachnids rushed out with sharp legs, hooked stingers, and snipping claws.

  The soldiers let out a roar, colliding with one another, swatting, stomping, and slashing to get rid of the deadly bugs. The scorpions stung repeatedly and crawled all over them as they fell.

  Undeterred by the distraction, Ruva continued to tear down the camouflage curtain until it vanished to reveal an entirely different sheer cliff with an offset opening, a crack wide enough for a flow of soldiers to enter. “There!”

  As the swarming scorpions continued to pour out of the ground, Utros raised his sword and yelled, “That’s the way in! Charge past the scorpions. Your boots and armor will protect you.”

  Though frightened and disorganized, the first terrified soldiers rushed ahead. Belying the general’s promise, more than a hundred men already lay dead on the canyon floor, poisoned by scorpion venom.

  “Ride!” Utros kicked his horse forward, with Ruva galloping beside him.

  Needing no excuse to run, the vanguard charged to the canyon opening. After the camouflage fell away, the general looked up to see figures high on the cliff, several of them in wizard’s robes. Utros spotted the ambush as the invading army pressed into the bottleneck, running from the scorpions.

  The surviving wizards of Ildakar began their counterattack.

  *

  Just inside the canyon, the D’Haran soldiers stood ready to make their last stand, only a hundred against a hundred thousand. The odds were breathtaking, and impossible. Nathan stood beside General Zimmer, Olgya, Perri, and five Sisters of the Light. Stationed on the outer wall were Oron and Leo for the initial defense, in addition to all the traps they had established.

  Using her expertise, Olgya had woven her camouflage spell, an impenetrable illusion that caused confusion and delay, but Nathan had never expected the disguise to fool the enemy army for long. Nevertheless, that challenge distracted the vanguard enough for the scorpion trap to be effective.

  Their plan would depend on numerous smaller victories instead of a single decisive blow, and the defenders had countless small and innovative attacks. General Utros could not possibly stop them all. Still, a handful of defenders against such an overwhelming horde . . .

  Inside the main canyon from behind the towering walls, they heard the initial attack begin as Leo and Oron summoned their scorpions. Nathan turned to Zimmer as if they were having a dinner conversation. “I can’t say how many times I’ve gone to battle against impossible odds, sure that I was going to die.” He gave a rueful smile. “Yet here I am, still alive and still fighting.”

  “One of these days, Wizard, your fears are sure to come true,” Zimmer said.

  “I might be a thousand years old, but I still have a few things to do in my life.” Nathan adjusted his blue cape, resplendent in his ruffled shirt and new vest. He also wore the ornate sword, just in case more traditional fighting might be required.

  Oliver and Peretta fell back into the canyon, dodging the sharp spikes that had been placed as a primitive but effective line of defense against charging soldiers. “Here they come!”

  Nathan smiled at the clever maliciousness. He had no doubt that the sorceress Ruva could strip away Olgya’s camouflage curtain; in fact, they counted on it, because once the illusion faded, the army would plunge headlong, harried by all the scorpions—and they wouldn’t expect a second camouflage field that hid the spiked spears.

  The first enemy soldiers began to pour through the bottleneck into the Cliffwall canyon, but before they got far, the men stumbled into deep, hidden trenches. A thin layer of sand suspended by a levitation field covered the pits, looking like solid ground, but as soon as the soldiers stepped on the illusion, the sand and rocks collapsed. They fell screaming, impaled on buried spikes. The first hundred died without knowing what was happening, and such a nasty surprise demoralized the next ranks fleeing from the poisonous arachnids. They couldn’t retreat or go forward.

  But behind them, the invaders kept pushing ahead, running from scorpions, piling on by the thousands. Even when the soldiers saw the exposed trenches and spikes, they couldn’t get out of the way, and more were forced forward and impaled.

  Sheer numbers did what caution could not. Body after body fell upon the spikes, skewered on top of the hundreds of soldiers who had died before them. Within minutes the trenches were filled to the brim with victims, many still squirming and groaning. The next ranks of soldiers trampled them, packing down the countless bodies, to push into the canyon.

  Outside the bottleneck, from the cliffs above, D’Haran ambushers hurled rocks down upon the soldiers below or fired a stream of arrows. It was a bloodbath. Leo, Oron, and two Sisters of the Light used their gift to call forth lightning and wind that slashed at the invaders. Though he was the former owner of yaxen slaughterhouses, Leo was skilled in winter weather magic. From his perch high up on the cliffs, he created sheets of sleet and ice, slapping down the ranks that had survived the scorpions and the spikes.

  In a frenzy after she had dissolved the camouflage field, Ruva lashed out at the wizards above, retaliating with everything she had. Leo balanced on a high outcropping near the top of the wall, and the sorceress blasted the rock beneath his feet. The outcropping crumpled. Gaping in astonishment, Leo tumbled down with a cascade of rock to the base of the canyon. Even as he plummeted, his wizard’s robes flapping around him, Leo released wild bursts of magic. He smashed the opposite cliff and brought rocks down on the gathered soldiers, before he himself was buried in the avalanche. The raging winter winds and snow faded away.

  Olgya summoned wisps of fog that built into a snarl of misty curtains that muffled visibility. The soldiers stumbled, running into one another, and the smoke screen tangled about, blinding many. Shapes appeared in the fog, ominous silhouettes, and the invaders attacked, striking down imaginary enemies, killing many of their own. The fog was only a distraction, though, and the army moved forward, blindly attacking.

  Lord Oron and the Sisters continued their ambush from the outside of the bottleneck, but there was no stopping General Utros. The invaders marched over the corpses of thousands from the front lines. Wearing his horned helmet and his gold mask, the general looked like a demon as he urged them on.

  Inside the canyon on the other side of the headwall, Zimmer rallied the line of defenders. “Prepare yourselves! We have to hold this opening.”

  Nathan summoned his gift to fight against the oncoming stampede of swords and men.

  Outside the bottleneck, Ruva called up more magic and hurled explosive force that made the rock shudder. Twisted lightning cracked fissures in the cliff, flaking boulders away. With a resounding blow, the sorceress shattered the headwall and brought down a curtain of rock. When the roar quieted and the dust settled, she had tripled the size of the opening.

  Ignoring the enormous number of casualties, thousands of howling soldiers surged into the hidden canyon with only Nathan and a handful of defenders poised to stand against them.

  CHAPTER 49

  Alone inside the evacuated main alcove, Prelate Verna watched the battle at the bottleneck mouth of the canyon where Nathan, General Zimmer, and their determined force stood ready to hold off the invading army. Verna admired their confidence, and Nathan often proved stronger than she ever imagined. He had escaped from the Palace of the Prophets after a thousand years, and he had removed his own iron collar, the Rada’Han, which should never have been possible. Since that time, he had done great works, achieved amazing success.

  As she mused about her days long ago at the palace, Verna also thought of Warr
en, the studious and warmhearted scholar who had captured her heart. She had loved him so much. She tried not to think of how he’d been killed fighting the armies of the Imperial Order. That loss had nearly destroyed her.

  Once she and Warren had finally found each other, Verna wanted a lifetime with him, but their time as real lovers was tragically cut short. It was so unfair. She chose to savor the precious memories of what they actually had, rather than grieve for the time they didn’t. Even though years had passed, she still missed him. How different her life would have been, if only . . .

  As the wind whistled along the cliffside, she stepped to the edge of the alcove and looked down to the stream running through the canyon, saw some scattered white sheep grazing aimlessly with no shepherds to tend them. Other cliff dwellings were empty, and she hoped the evacuated people would all be safe. If by some miracle Nathan and the defenders managed to hold the opening and drive away the invading army, perhaps the people could return.

  She recalled that she, Renn, and a small group of people had succeeded in triggering the massive avalanches below Kol Adair, wiping out ten thousand of the ancient soldiers in a single sweep. Nathan, all the powerfully gifted men and women from Ildakar, her Sisters of the Light, as well as the trained scholars and D’Haran soldiers could do no less! Maybe they would succeed after all.

  But Verna was too pragmatic to believe that, despite Nathan’s confidence, they could hold the wall permanently against the army’s assault. She knew what had to happen, and she was ready.

  The deserted canyon was so empty and silent that Verna felt herself lulled into a brief moment of security. Swallows flitted about, tending their mud nests in small pockets in the rock, chirping and singing. She allowed herself a smile and relished the calm, but knew it wouldn’t last.

  From outside the canyon she heard the roar and shouts, the clang of weapons as General Utros slammed into the first line of defenses and traps. The D’Haran troops formed a solid barrier just inside the bottleneck. Nathan and his gifted companions spread out facing the wall. Even this far away, high up on the cliff face, Verna could feel the tension in the air.

  When the first lines of enemy soldiers broke through the bottleneck, the magic was truly unleashed, on both sides. Shock waves rumbled through the narrow canyon opening, and the rock shuddered and splintered, sloughing down from both sides. The first ranks of invaders flowed through the gap like a pack of wolves.

  Shading her eyes, Verna watched Nathan summon balls of wizard’s fire, which he hurled into the oncoming enemy. The angry flames mowed down countless ancient warriors. Thorn and Lyesse raced about like stinging wasps, stabbing, ducking away, stabbing someone else.

  The eight Sisters of the Light raised walls of air and bowled the soldiers back, impaling them on the swords of their own comrades. The gifted Cliffwall scholars, trained in only a few spells, broke more rock shards from the cliffs above and sent them raining down. Olgya summoned thick tendrils of mist, a shapeless mass of fog that blinded the soldiers as they charged forward, and she followed through with targeted lightning, wiping out dozens of the enemy. Perri transformed patches of the ground into quicksand, miring the first line of invaders.

  But for every ten they killed, a hundred more broke through. The invaders were like an ocean wave that battered against the shore. The D’Haran soldiers met them with furious resistance. Zimmer bellowed commands and dove into the fray, not afraid to risk himself.

  Isolated in the alcove high above, with all the silent archive buildings behind her, Verna clenched her fist and despaired at what she saw. The forces of General Utros kept coming, an endless stream through the blasted bottleneck, hundreds at a time. Even if most of the first wave died, they would eventually flood the canyon and overwhelm all resistance through sheer force of numbers.

  She had known this would happen. She had warned Nathan, yet they still insisted on this last stand. It was good not to give up hope, but it was also good not to be foolish.

  She knew it would be her turn soon. She listened to the echoing sounds of battle down below, the shouts of command, screams of pain, explosions and rockfall, the clash of blades. With a pang, she wished Warren could be here to help her. The two of them could have made a grand accounting of themselves.

  Verna had memorized the Weeping Stone spell. Standing in front of the imposing structures crowded in the alcove, she looked at the ruin of the melted prophecy building. Now she meant to do the same to the entire cliffside and engulf the enemy army with a tidal wave of stone. But Nathan and the surviving defenders had to retreat to safety in time, as did she.

  She got ready to do what needed to be done. With her gift she could trace the pattern of the spell-form laid down across the cliffside and in the tunnels, an intricate cat’s cradle of connected webs, fields built upon collapsing fields, all waiting for her to tug on the first line of magic that would unravel the whole thing and set in motion a chain reaction to destroy the dangerous knowledge stored in the archive.

  “You will never have this place, Utros,” Verna vowed to herself. Once she triggered the spell, she would climb to safety at the top of the mesa above, using ladders and footholds installed for that purpose, and from there she would make her way to the rendezvous point. The others would also fall back to the highlands, where they would regroup.

  Greasy black smoke mixed with a camouflage fog, rising from below after Nathan immolated more attackers with another round of wizard’s fire. Ranks of the ancient army still hammered through the blasted bottleneck. Verna spotted the distinctive horned helmet of General Utros and the pale sorceress riding beside him as they emerged through the thick tendrils of mist. They let thousands of shock troops surge ahead of them, and the renewed surge broke the defensive lines, pushed the gifted fighters and the D’Haran troops back.

  “It is time for you to go, Nathan,” Verna whispered, as if she could communicate with him by mere thought. “Go! Now!”

  Reaching the same conclusion, Zimmer raised his sword and called the retreat. Fortunately, he was a wise tactical commander and had planned for the inevitable. She heard his shout ring out as clearly as a sword strike. “Fall back to the far end of the canyon!”

  The D’Haran soldiers fought for a few more moments, wanting to kill a last enemy warrior or two. The two morazeth each tried to increase their score of victims. But a dozen of the Cliffwall defenders had already fallen, and they couldn’t afford more losses.

  Giving them a chance to fall back, Nathan spread out a raging wall of wizard’s fire, smearing his spell into an incandescent swath that incinerated the advancing enemy line. But as soon as the magical flames dissipated, the next wave rushed in, trampling the bodies of their fallen comrades.

  Once the starving invaders saw the green valley enclosed by high rock walls, the orchards, the sheep, and the lush gardens, they raged forward, suddenly desperate in a different way. Nathan, General Zimmer, and the remaining defenders retreated in a straight line to the rear of the canyon and the steep trails up to the highlands. With nothing to stop them now, the enemy army flowed forward and spread out like an angry swarm of bees.

  From her vantage, Verna watched the armed horde advance into the protected canyon. She knew that their last defenses had fallen, and even the faintest chance of victory was gone. It was time for her to do what she had known all along. She drew a deep breath to calm herself, let it out slowly, inhaled another. She imagined Warren’s warm presence with her, giving her strength.

  The prelate pressed her palm against the stone alcove wall. Though she had shown no hesitation in front of Nathan, she was indeed intimidated by the Weeping Stone spell. Thousands of years ago, the world’s most powerful wizards had created it, experts much wiser and more adept than any prelate of the Sisters of the Light.

  That spell now would be her final solution. Her gift allowed her to sense the prismatic grains of sorcerer’s sand at the proper key points. She could feel the webs she had constructed throughout the archive, every anc
hor poised in the most delicate of balances. She didn’t dare trigger the magic too soon, because she needed Nathan and the others to get away, and once the spell began to work, she would scramble up above the alcove and climb to safety.

  She watched the defenders race along the canyon below, running for their lives. They spread out and darted into side canyons or ran up steep fissures, making their way to higher ground. They had all drilled exhaustively beforehand and knew exactly what to do. Some of the ancient soldiers pursued them, but the bulk of the attacking force swelled beneath the towering, inaccessible archive—their main goal. Like a conquering hero, General Utros rode on his black stallion through his own soldiers and turned his horned helmet to look up at the great alcove high up on the cliff.

  Even from such a distance, Verna met his gaze, she was sure of it. “I will not let you have this place.” She closed her eyes, touched her gift, tugged on the connected webs and lines of force that ran through the cliffs. “I weep for the stone to weep.” Tears glistened in her eyes for all the knowledge that was about to be lost.

  She ignited the sorcerer’s sand, connected the nodes in her web, which sent streaks of fire through the rock and across the open air, which connected the points in the elaborate spell-form that she and Nathan had designed. Once she launched the spell, the power surged, bounced, ricocheted like a released spring. She smiled: the spell would complete its work now, no matter what happened.

  When the hard stone of the alcove wall softened and turned to clay against her fingertips, she knew it was time to leave. Lines of transformation shot through the cliff, disassembling the mineral structure. Rumbling sounds came from deeper inside the mesa as tunnels collapsed and filled, but the main reshaping of stone happened here on the outer wall.