Dawnthief

by James Barclay

  And, with water still pouring from cracks in the rock above the entrance, the cavalry charged into Understone Pass.

  As it happened, Gresse and Blackthorne chose to watch the start of the Second Wesmen War from a low hill three hundred yards from the beach where the landings would take place.

  The horns had been sounded and beacon fires lit as dawn broke to reveal the Wesmen already in the bay, attempting to steal a march under cover of darkness. It was a move anticipated by Blackthorne, and his beach force had been at readiness three hours before first light.

  The stern Baron surveyed the dense fleet of craft, ranging from rowing boats taking only a dozen, to merchantmen with a capacity running into the hundreds. It was a strange and deeply disturbing sight, compounded by the silence broken only by orders to sail and row and the noise of oars and timbers through calm waters.

  Rain had swept through the bay as night fell, backed by a vicious wind, no doubt hampering the Wesmen's start, and Blackthorne considered them to be behind schedule. He was certain they had planned to land at first light, not still be over three hours distant.

  In front of them, forty mages stood, thirty to cause mayhem among the boats, and ten to maintain shields over their colleagues and the centile of swordsmen charged with routing the first wave of boats to hit the shore. Finally, invisible and anchored to the sand, three dozen explosive wards, ready to be activated in retreat, each one capable of killing a dozen men.

  Blackthorne announced himself satisfied.

  “This should give them something to think about.”

  The boats drew closer, prows packed with Wesmen, silent, watching. Gresse didn't know what he expected but it wasn't this silence. The loudest noise in his ears was the flapping of his own cloak in the breeze.

  “There must be four hundred boats out there.”

  “Not for long,” said Blackthorne. “Not for long.”

  Sails trimmed, oars stroking through the water, the Wesmen fleet approached the shores of eastern Balaia. The calm was eerie but a storm was about to be unleashed over the flat waters of the Bay of Gyernath.

  With the fleet four hundred yards from land, the offence mages split into three spell groups with overlapping defensive support, and moved out on to the sand dunes overlooking the shore.

  At the same time, the centile of swordsmen, most carrying torches, moved up and gathered around the beacon fires. Shouts of warning echoed around the bay, bouncing off the sheer walls of the mountains. Oars dug more deeply, sails were pared tighter, the fleet increased its speed.

  The senior mage spoke. “You have your targets. Don't wait around if you lose your spell. Don't wait around when you have completed casting. I need you all back in the castle, fit, well and rested in twelve hours. Cast at will.”

  Gresse could hear the hum of voices on the breeze as the mages built mana shapes and linked spells. The process lasted little more than two minutes, and then the fire came down.

  In an area covering three hundred yards each side, drops of fire coalesced from clear air and fell like lead among the boats. A thick, driving rain of fire, spatting in the water, smoking into wood, scorching canvas and setting hair and fur ablaze. While the drops flared harmlessly against the magical shields surrounding the larger vessels evidently carrying Shamen, there was instant panic among the smaller craft.

  Hundreds of small fires leapt from every exposed plank. Sails smouldered and burned, hands and skulls lit up, fear spread and discipline disappeared. In the midst of the throng, one Captain made an emergency tack to take the direct route out of the HotRain, ploughing across a smaller rowing boat. Rudders went left and right as tillermen ducked and dodged the hail of fire, sending craft in all directions, spilling warriors from port, starboard, prow and stern. The sea boiled, alive with floundering survivors, the wash of oars plunged frantically into water and the myriad fires that snuffed out as they hit, leaving spirals of smoke in their wake.

  Over it all, the howls of pain, the screams of the dying, the crackling of fire and the splintering of wood. And through the carnage came the back of the fleet, unable to change course or slow sufficiently, such was the press of boats all around. On and on they came, into the HotRain, scything over abandoned burning craft and running down Wesmen in the water by the score.

  The HotRain shut off as quickly as it had started, but relief was momentary. A thick pall of smoke covered a wide area of the bay and fleet, and emerging from it, and undamaged, came many of the larger ships, their occupants roaring with rage and lust for blood.

  Now, FlameOrbs lit the sky. Combining the mana of three or more mages at a time and creating great depth and intensity, dozens of yellow and orange orbs, each the size of a man, arced across the sky to fall like rock weights on the spell-defended ships. Some bounced, others did not, and Gresse saw one crack a shield and splatter on the deck, reducing the three-hundred-man transport to a burning shell in an instant.

  Gresse turned away. Through all his years of combat, combining magic with muscle, he had never seen carnage on such a scale. The calls of the dying, drowning and ablaze would haunt his every living day. Yes, he'd seen shields crack and magic engulf its victims before. But he had never seen an enemy so unprepared for the quantity or quality of magic thrown at it. And here were only forty mages. At the castle, there were double that number.

  Blackthorne watched the events with dispassionate satisfaction.

  “Don't forget they have come to kill us, take our lands and drive our memory from Balaia for ever,” he said. “If their Shamen are not strong enough, it is not for us to weep.”

  “Why did you not simply devastate them on the water?” asked Gresse.

  “I had no idea we would be this successful,” admitted Blackthorne. He chewed his lip. “And I couldn't leave my town undefended. What if they chase us all the way to Blackthorne now?”

  Still the Wesmen came on, and still Blackthorne's men weren't finished. The sea was ablaze on a half-mile stretch but the undamaged and handicapped sailed through the human and wooden wreckage. Scores, hundreds of boats came on, the first beaching against the shingle only to be met by the swords and fire of Blackthorne's warriors.

  A dozen craft hit the beach, disgorging Wesmen into the surf and on to the sand. They came roaring into eastern Balaia, axes and blades flailing. Blackthorne's men just cut them down, given huge advantage by the rise in the ground, ranks of archers on the dunes above the sea and the confidence of seeing their enemies in the water, burning and in disarray.

  True to the Baron's orders, the first boats were turned, burning, into the paths of the next. But hundreds more approached on a mile stretch. Spent, the mages ran for their horses and, with the Wesmen press of numbers threatening to overwhelm the small force of swordsmen, Blackthorne ordered full retreat.

  With hardly a scratch, Blackthorne's men had won the first skirmish of the war. And those Wesmen who did give chase died in a deluge of magical fire, the sand traps exploding, sending sheets of orange, yellow and blue flame lashing across the sand, igniting everything in their compass. Great gouts of sand shot into the air to sprinkle back down, a rainfall of grit on the dead and wounded.

  The survivors, and there were many thousands, began to construct a beach-head. Turning in his saddle to watch, Blackthorne smiled.

  “No one takes my castle,” he said to himself. “No one.”

  Gresse caught his words though he had his doubts. A victory it was, but gazing over the shoreline as the smoke cleared and boat after boat reached the shore, he realised their estimate of numbers was way too low. And the Shamen would not be as unprepared another time.

  The moment of truth would be at the walls of Blackthorne Castle.

  Understone Pass was the result of a monstrous effort to widen a natural fissure that ran on a dogleg through the Blackthorne Mountains. Ten times as many lives as years were lost in its creation at the behest of a group of Barons who were the forerunners of the Korina Trade Alliance. The result was a secure passage th
rough Balaia's almost impassable mountain range.

  Through the carved gateway, the roof of the pass closed in sharply to a height just above that of a covered wagon and didn't begin to open out for over three hundred yards. Always two wagons wide, the pass let out into incredible natural chambers and across chasms the bottom of which were littered with the bones of the unfortunate and the murdered. Elsewhere, the rock roof closed in, and always the sounds of rushing water stole quiet from any journey. A gallop through the pass would take something a little over four hours.

  As he entered the pass, Darrick rode in awe of the devastation caused by the Xeteskian dimensional connection. LightGlobes chased the shadows away from the cavalry as they rode past the remnants of the Wesmen's fortified posts. There was precious little left to evidence that a defence had been built along the first part of the pass.

  Here and there, wood clung to clefts in the rock wall, tumbles of stone were washed against the sides of the pass and planks and ripped timbers had been speared into crevices by the force of the water. But of the Wesmen, there was no trace.

  Darrick increased his pace as the pass opened out both above and on either side, only to slow as the true results of the spell became awesomely obvious. Here, Darrick knew, was the main focus of the Wesmen's defence. Built into the walls were crossbow and catapult positions, archer galleries and oil runs. Deep into the rock, living quarters for anywhere between four and seven thousand men were dug, and the warren of rooms and passageways spread up either side of the pass for at least half a mile.

  But the silence punctuated by running water told its own terrible story and of the accuracy of the Xeteskian calculations. The size of the dimensional rip had been larger than that of the first zone of the pass. The ocean, already travelling at incredible speed, had been forced through the smaller pass opening, gathering in pressure and velocity before exploding into the chamber occupied by so many completely unprepared Wesmen.

  Nothing besides evacuation would have sufficed. The water would have blasted on and on, crashing through every passage, every room, every position, and simply scouring all signs of the Wesmen and the trappings of their lives from Understone Pass.

  Water still ran from some of the upper positions and passages that Darrick could see, and as he moved further up the tight cavern, he could hear behind him the gasps of his men as they too took in their first sight of the sodden former defence of the Wesmen. It sparkled in the light of the Globes, pools of water casting dancing shadows over the walls and the roof as it rose gently into the darkness ahead.

  “They had nowhere to run,” whispered Darrick, surprised at the tinge of sorrow he felt for the men who had had no chance of survival. No chance at all.

  “Shall we search the barracks, sir?” asked one of his lieutenants.

  Darrick shook his head. “I don't think you want to see what might be left in there.” He looked about him as he trotted forward, scratching his head. “How far did the ocean travel?”

  “The Xeteskians estimate it would not drain away for perhaps a third the length of the pass, until we reach the first deeps,” said an aide.

  “I wonder how far this sort of research should be allowed to go,” said Darrick.

  It was a sentiment being echoed by Ilkar as The Raven took their first sight of the obliteration of the Wesmen under the light of Erienne's Globe. “We just don't know enough about the effects on the relative dimensions of channelling resources from one to another,” he said.

  “It's all a question of how often such a spell is used,” replied Denser. “Today we have seen an amount of water that neither dimension will notice.”

  “But it has created an imbalance, however small, don't deny that,” said Ilkar.

  “Yes, but a grain of sand moved from one side of the scale to another will make no difference.”

  “Except that one day, one grain will tip the scale if the movement is all one way,” countered Ilkar. “What then?”

  “The shame,” said The Unknown, “is that such a spell is only considered for its offensive capabilities. Think what it could do opened under a freshwater lake and over a land with no rain.”

  The debate trailed away to silence, and soon the clatter of hoofs and the sounds of the water far below were dominant once more.

  There was twilight in the outside world before the four-College cavalry found the first and only pitiful resistance, right at the far end of the pass. It was clear that the word of the Xeteskian water spell had reached the western end and the fear of a repeat had caused complete panic. Everywhere, abandoned guardposts told their own story, and the Wesmen, with no natural magic of their own, had fled.

  The cavalry had not seen its first body for more than an hour, just before the first deeps where surely so much death had, mercifully, been washed. Because what they did see was mangled remains jammed into clefts, whole bodies, single limbs, shattered skulls and blood puddling with the standing water. The power the Xeteskians had unleashed on the pass disgusted Darrick.

  And now, six hours later, he was confronted by perhaps twenty Wesmen atop the stockade that blocked the cavalry's path into Wesmen-held territory. All had bows or crossbows and their torchfires burned bright and proud. Darrick halted the cavalry column well within range, but confident that the hard shields still in operation would hold firm.

  One of the Wesmen stepped forward on to a parapet and shouted down at them.

  “Your spells will not hold us. Behind me are forces that will sweep you from Balaia, and the Lords of the Wastes will walk proud once more. Our magic will be too strong for you. Go back and prepare your graves.”

  “Move aside or die,” said Darrick, simply, struggling a little at the scale of death that he had ordered so recently.

  “We are protected, you cannot harm us.”

  Darrick smiled thinly and turned to the contingent of Xeteskian mages. “I don't have time for chatter,” he said, holding up three fingers. “HellFire?” The mages nodded and began to cast. Darrick addressed himself to the Wesmen once more. “Pray to whatever Gods you worship,” he said and turned his horse away.

  “HellFire,” spoke the trio of Xeteskians.

  The Wesmen and the stockade below them were shattered and the cavalry rode out into the open air less than half an hour later, once a mage under a CloakedWalk had reported that the trail outside the pass was empty.

  “I think it would be fair to say that we caught them completely cold,” said Darrick. The cavalry general and The Raven were sharing a farewell drink in the lee of the western pass entrance.

  “I'm sorry you had a wasted journey,” said Hirad, smiling. “We could have taken the stockade ourselves.”

  Darrick laughed. “I don't doubt it.” He passed around the spirit bottle once more, and each of them replenished their mugs.

  “So what's your next move?” asked Thraun.

  “We need to keep the pass open for a couple of days until we can fortify at this end. Our best method of holding back the Wesmen will clearly be to stop them retaking it.”

  “Not easy,” said Jandyr.

  “No,” agreed Darrick. “But we'll have another five thousand foot here in a few days, and if we can get a good rest tonight, I suspect our mages will be able to do most of the work.” He drank. “But you. You are the ones with the task ahead of you. It'll be difficult.”

  “Yes,” agreed Hirad. “We could do with another blade. Perhaps you should reconsider my invitation to join The Raven?”

  “I think I'll stick to cavalry for now.”

  Hirad looked into the sky. It was early afternoon and the cloud that was sweeping toward Understone had cleared this side of the pass, leaving broken blue sky and a gentle breeze. Further west, though, it was darker.

  “See anything our way, Ilkar?” he asked, following the elf's gaze.

  “Nothing but hills and trees and good wholesome countryside. And it'll continue to look good so long as it's not swarming with Wesmen.”

  “We'd best be on o
ur way and find a sensible place to get our heads down,” said The Unknown. “Staying here too long could be bad for the health.”

  “Staying here would be fine,” corrected Darrick. “Leaving to go west later today or in the morning, I suspect, would not.”

  “Either way…” The Unknown got to his feet, waiting for Denser to rise before moving to his horse. “Thraun, are you confident of the route?”

  Thraun nodded, swinging into his saddle. “I've studied the maps long enough.”

  Hirad shook Darrick's hand. “Keep the pass open, will you? We might be needing it in a hurry.”

  “Just keep yourself alive. I haven't finished sparring with you yet.”

  “Four, two, isn't it?”

  “Four, three. Good luck.”

  The Raven rode away and were lost to sight.

  The castle town of Blackthorne, its fishing fleet beached and hidden, lay in a shallow valley in the lee of the mountains where the rock joined the sea. Its tactical importance had not been lost on those who built it, controlling as it did trails to Understone northward and Gyernath in the southeast.

  Blackthorne was of the opinion that the Wesmen's principal aim in taking his town was to use it to stage raids on Darrick at the pass, and to a lesser extent, to attack the southeastern port. He had no doubt that control of the pass was paramount to the Wesmen because it gave them the access they required to mount a meaningful offensive on the College cities, key to the domination of eastern Balaia.

  The beach attack party reached the castle well before midmorning on a cloudy, cool and breezy day, leaving scouts to monitor Wesmen movement inland. The sky was dark to the west, and with the prevailing wind bringing that darkness toward them, rain was surely coming. Organising defence of the castle was a relatively simple task. With most of the nonfighting population of the town already halfway to the more heavily defended Gyernath, or heading for Korina, Blackthorne had chosen a two-stage defence.

  The outer walls of the town were sturdy and well maintained but not designed to withstand prolonged assault from the kind of numbers the Wesmen would bring to bear. Blackthorne had stationed three-quarters of his archers and a further fifty offensive mages, both with defensive cover, on the walls. When the first Wesmen breached the walls, they were to retreat. Blackthorne considered that there would be a mound of corpses four deep outside his town before they conceded it to the enemy.