3 When Darkness Falls.8 (80 page)

The spell had run its course. The golden doors, sealed by magick for the duration of the Working, opened at a touch. Clouds of incense rolled out into the hall. The Mages who had performed the Working stood — or sat, or lay — upon the marble floor, dazed. Volpiril had eyes for none of them.

In the center of the pattern, the Great Sword of the City still clutched in his outflung hand, lay Cilarnen.

His son. The jewel, the crowning pride of House Volpiril.

No Mage lived forever. What any man built, he built for the future, for his sons. All that Lord Volpiril had done, he had done for two things: for Armethalieh, and so that Cilarnen might rise to greater heights than he himself would ever reach.

He had seen all that snatched away when Lycaelon — Light curse and blast his name! — had told him that Cilarnen was a traitor. Had gloated over him, as though Lycaelon's two mongrel whelps had not both been Banished as Wildmages. Volpiril had cared about nothing after that.

When Cilarnen had returned, he had not cared that the boy had obviously been driven to the verge of madness by his unjust Banishment. Madness itself stalked the land, in the form of Demons. Destroy them, and there would be time to repair every harm the world had done to Volpiril's only heir. His Gift was intact, and he was still loyal to the City. Nothing else mattered, save surviving the day. To that end, Volpiril would conspire with Elves and even Wildmages, to save Armethalieh and his son.

But now…

He was so still.

He knelt beside Cilarnen. Stiffly. Old bones. Mageborn did not marry early, and Cilarnen was his youngest child. The only one who truly mattered.

Then the boy's lips parted in a sigh, and Volpiril knew that he still lived. He straightened.

"Send for the Healers!"

A few hours before sunset, the City opened her gates to their wounded.

During a lull in the fighting the City Militia rode out.

The battle ebbed and flowed like the tide of a great ocean. Not every unit was engaged at once. The line stretched for miles; the thousands of Elves, Centaurs, and Men of the Allied Army slowly being winnowed by the onslaught of the Enemy. At least the forces in the field against them could be killed, and Kellen's troops killed them. But each death came at a high price.

The Allies gained ground, forcing the line forward, into the forest. Yet they dared not advance as far as the Demons might allow them to. Their purpose was to protect Armethalieh, not to follow the retreating Demon army. And so Kellen held his forces back, kept them on the killing ground hour after hour, as monsters for which he had no name threw themselves against his lines.

The Militia who rode out through the Lesser Gate were only a few hundred men. Toy soldiers in toy armor, on horses that looked like scrubs next to the Elvenbred beasts. But their captain, Amrun, had brought fresh news from the City.

The Wards were back in place, and the High Council was working closely with Cilarnen, Jermayan, and Idalia. Amrun knew nothing more, save that Lord Volpiril had ordered them to aid the army — and he had brought a message from Idalia.

Somehow, she had convinced the High Council to open the City to the Allied Army's wounded.

When had Lord Volpiril been returned to the Council?

Kellen didn't care. All that mattered was that he could shelter the injured in a place where the Enemy couldn't reach them. What the City would make of the influx of Centaurs, Elves, and Mountainborn he neither knew nor — at the moment — cared.

But Vestakia could not join them. The Wards would permit it, but the people within…

He sent word to the Healers, sent what was left of Belepherial's command to escort them and the wagons into the City.

Sent Amrun and his men to fight beside the Mountainborn. Safer than putting them where they would be distracted by fighting beside people no one born in the City had ever expected to see in the flesh. But they would see enough on the battlefield to distract them, perhaps fatally.

Kellen knew he was sending them to die, and tried to shut the thought from his mind.

There was a break in the line. He rode toward it.

* * * * *

IF Armethalieh had not sent High Mages, they would all be dead now.

Scattered pockets of Magelight and Coldfire — two names for what must be an identical spell — illuminated portions of the army, and turned the roiling black pall that hung above the battlefield to a deep indigo. Fortunately, the Elves' night vision was good.

Not that anybody could see much of anything in the smoke.

And Kellen needed no sight to see at all.

Firareth had exhausted the last of even his great resources at sundown; Kellen was riding Valdien now. The Elven destrier seemed to know Kellen's need was great; Jermayan's mount had accepted him unquestioningly.

There was a flash of light as a column of fire arced down from the heavens, followed by the red-gold flare of Fire. Kellen smiled grimly.

The Allied Army was — impossibly — holding its own upon the field, and — because of that — the Demons
Themselves
had come at last to the battlefield, only to find that
They
had waited too long.

The Allies were ready for
Them.

High Magick and Wild Magic — together — could slay Demons. And every single one of the Mages Armethalieh had sent was acceptable to the unicorns.

There were, in fact, more unicorns on the field now than when the battle had started. Kellen didn't know where the rest of them had come from, but he was glad they were here. They protected the High Mages far better than anything else could; the Demons dared not approach them.

Some of the High Mages were even mounted by now, taking the places of fallen Unicorn Knights.

Another flash — more lightning. A spell the Wildmages could not cast, but — apparently — a simple spell of the High Magick. He saw, with eyes that saw everything, the Demon pinned to earth by the column of white fire. Saw the swarm of dwerro move up to protect their fallen lord, trying to buy
It
time to Heal
Itself.
Saw the Elven cavalry slam forward, clashing with the misshapen creatures on their hideous mounts, trying to force them back so that the Wildmages behind them could make the final kill. Both sides slipped and slid in the slurry of mud and blood beneath their animals' hooves.

In the sky above, the Starry Hunt's forces mirrored the actions of the troops on the ground below. A thousand times, since the Demons
Themselves
had taken to the field, the Allied forces would have been annihilated in a heartbeat, save for the ghostly star-crowned cavalry that rode above them, hunting down the Demons' spells as if they were living foes.

Kellen's sword was slicked with blood, his surcoat and armor was sodden with it, but Kellen's own true battle was yet to come. At the rear of the Dark Army stood the Demon General, waiting. It was
He
whom Kellen had to destroy.

But it was not yet time.

They were fighting in the forest itself now.

Each lightning strike — each Fire spell — rekindled the trees around them, though they were hardly more than columns of charcoal now. But even charcoal could burn.

And so, despite all other calls upon their energy, the Wildmages continued to duel with the Demons over the weather, forcing it to rain, and rain hard. Steam and smoke boiled up out of the trees and the ground, veiling the whole landscape in a choking fog. If Kellen had not been able to see with his battle-sight, to give orders constantly and clearly, the Allied Army would have been lost in confusion long ago.

The City Wards might be in place, but the walls of Armethalieh were only stone, and stone could be destroyed… if it could be reached.

They
didn't need the City if
They
could perform
Their
Great Sacrifice.

But
They
would certainly want to destroy anyone who could possibly stop
Them.

The hours passed.

The battle continued.

* * * * *

ZYPERIS had expected a quick and definitive victory to lay at his Queen and mother's pet fumed and gilded feet. But it did not happen.

Every attack he made was countered. The beautiful children his glorious Mama had bred and nurtured were slaughtered, brushed aside, as if they were not terrifying. The Deathwings fell from the sky in flames.

True, the ground ran red with blood. Coldwarg tore unicorns limb from limb. Frost Giants battered Elven Knights to death with their iron clubs. Shadewalkers ripped Centaurs apart as if they were gutting rabbits.

But it was not enough. Never enough.

They could not reach the City.

Time passed. The hateful glowing orb by which the Lightborn reckoned time moved across the sky. The mortals died by the thousands, but the creatures Prince Zyperis commanded died, too. And he was no closer to entering the City than he had been when he had begun. Somehow, no matter what he did, no matter what orders he gave, the troops of the hated Lightborn were there before him, spending their foolish lives recklessly to keep him from his rightful prize.

Then — suddenly — he felt a sudden upwelling of the High Magick and knew that he had miscalculated. Disastrously.

The City was Sealed against him once more.

Properly sealed, in a way it had not been since Queen Savilla's Mage-man had begun his tampering. No breath of Dark Magic could cross its walls now to touch the minds inside.

And as the human city was sealed, so he, too, had sealed his fate.

But… there was yet one thing he might do to redeem himself in the eyes of his mother, his love, his glorious Crown of Pain. He understood, now, why the Lightborn enemy had reacted as if it were the fingers of one fist. Why, even though individually they were so weak and powerless, they were such a formidable enemy.

A Knight-Mage was their commander.

Zyperis had not yet been born in the time of the Last War, but his mother had spoken to him of Knight-Mages, and he knew that this one had resisted her at the Black Cairn. Better that she had killed Kellen Tavadon then, instead of trying to make him her pawn.

If Zyperis killed him now, his mother would forgive him everything. With Kellen dead, he would destroy the army, obliterate the city, leave nothing behind but a wasteland in celebration of Queen Savilla's glorious victory.

And so he had waited for a lull in the fighting, and gone to summon his own personal guard to join him upon the battlefield. The preliminary sacrifices at the Place of Power were nearly done; his Mama would not miss them. It was only a few dozen of the Endarkened — and Lesser Endarkened at that — out of the hundreds gathered there. The Lightborn would be defenseless against their strength and magic.

But they weren't.

They, too, died.

He called the rest of them back. He must save them, now, for the moment when he took the battlefield himself.

And destroyed Kellen Tavadon.

Personally.

* * * * *

EVERY chamber within the Council House that could be used for the casting of spells was occupied by Mages.

Now, at last, Armethalieh had entered the fight.

Rain lashed and battered the City itself, a storm such as had not been seen within the City walls since the first stones were laid.

The Apprentices watched the battle from the walls, and brought back word of the battle's progress, though they barely understood what they saw. When they had reported that the forest was burning, Idalia had demanded that the Mages remove the weather-shields from the valley, and bring rain to quench the fires. The Council had had to go to the walls themselves and gaze out at the carnage below before they would agree, but after they had seen it, they made no more trouble.

As far as the eye could see — for mile upon mile — there was nothing but fire and burnt and dismembered bodies. The forest was in flames, all the way to the horizon.

The Mage College had become a hospital for the army's wounded. The students had all been sent to their homes, the Mages who normally occupied its grounds had been called away to Workings. Binding spells wreathed the Mages own defenses, so they would not attack the Allies, and the tents and wagons of the Healers now filled every open space.

There were few wounded.

* * * * *

NO bells rang in Armethalieh tonight. The City of a Thousand Bells lay mute beneath the fury of the magic-and-magick-called storm. But the High Mages did not need the City's bells to reckon time.

It was nearly midnight. Their spell would be timed to match that of the Demon Queen. They had spent precious hours as the day drew on preparing and adapting it from the old records in Lord Lalkmair's archives, and then rehearsing it, because they could afford no mistakes. It would work precisely as the Wild Magic had promised Idalia that it would.

In the Council Chamber, Idalia prepared to begin.

She wore nothing but a light gray Mage-robe, her hair loose and unbraided down her back, and of all the things that had happened in the City today — dragons, Elves, Wildmages, spells, an entire Demon army right outside their walls — it was this that had stunned the Mages of Armethalieh nearly to the point of frothing catatonia.