From Across the Clouded Range (94 page)

Ruins flash before his eyes. He did
not know them, but he knew what they did. He surrendered to them,
and they surged through him. When the last of the symbols faded
from his mind like an ember as it is enclosed in ash, there was a
blinding flash. It was followed by a massive ball of fire that
raced from his outstretched hands and slammed into the creature.
The fire struck the creature with such force that it was lifted
from the ground, engulfed in flame, and deposited several paces
away. It did not move again as it was transformed into a towering
conflagration that reached to the sky.

#

“
What was that?” Ipid
asked in sudden excitement. He heard Eia gasp, calmed himself, and
slowly repeated, “Did you see that flash of fire? What was
that?”

“
I saw it.” Eia replied
patiently. “I felt it to. It was a Belan using the gift of
Hilaal.”

“
But, Arin said. . .
.”

“
Be still.” Eia did not
raise her voice, but her cold hands pressed his.

“
Arin said that the te-am’
eiruh would not participate in the battle.”

“
It was not one of our
order.” There was concern in Eia's voice. “It came from someone on
the field, from one of your people.”

“
That’s not possible.”
Ipid kept his emotions bound, remained calm. “No one in our lands
knows how to use your powers.”

“
That was my impression as
well. Unless . . . but surely not here.”

“
What is it?”

“
The Belab mentioned that
he had sensed the presence of another belab on this continent. I
know that is confusing, but belab is not a name, it is a title.
That is why we call him ‘the Belab.’ It is a title that denotes one
who does not need to learn to use our powers, one who can naturally
draw upon Hilaal’s gift and use the power with his mere thoughts.
It is an incredibly rare gift, one that occurs only every hundred
or more generations. The Belab is the only known man with such
power. If there is another on this continent, that would explain
why the Belab has been so troubled.”

“
Why would he be trouble?”
Ipid felt his hope rising. “Because this one is on our side,
because we might stand a chance in this fight.”

“
No!” Eia left no doubt.
“An untrained belab is extremely dangerous to both himself and
those around him. The power generated by the battle below would be
enough to turn your city to ash in the hands of a belab. Without
training, your young hero will not know how to control his powers
and could easily do horrible damage with little more than an errant
thought.”

“
Oh,” Ipid gulped. “What
will Belab do about it?”

“
This person, if he is
what I suspect, must be handled with great care.” Eia was reverent
in her appraisal. “I am certain that the Belab is looking for a way
to restrain him, to show him the need to be trained. The problem is
that if he confronts the boy now – and surely he is a boy or his
powers would have been revealed long ago – in the middle of a
battle such as this, with so much power at his disposal, there is
no way to predict what he will do. Countless lives could be lost;
the very balance of the world could be jeopardized. . .
.”

Ipid did not understand, but the
certainty in Eia’s words left him too stunned to ask anything
further.

They fell silent after that, but the
battle continued for what seemed like hours. Ipid looked to the
cloud-obscured blur of sun often but did not have a hand to measure
its progress. He looked back at the field where the city folk
fought. The strategy they had devised had worked better than he had
hoped. The stoche had given way to the Darthur and other units of
the invaders, and a fair number of men were still standing. Their
lines gave gradually, retreated under cover of the archers then
reformed. The narrow stack of men meant that only a fraction of the
invaders could strike the city folk at any one time. But they were
running out of room. Already the distance to the river had shrunk
to almost nothing, and the Darthur still brought units around from
their huge flanks to strike at the middle of the formation. It was
only a matter of time before those strikes divided the defenders
into isolated pockets that would be readily absorbed by the numbers
of the invaders.

Despite what Eia had said, Ipid was
encouraged to see occasional burst of magical fire on the field
below. Those burst appeared to be one of the few advantages
afforded to the defenders, and they had saved the city folk from
several near disasters. Yet every time a burst appeared, Eia
flinched as if she had been slapped and tightened her grip with
obvious worry.

Ipid was looking to the sun again when
he caught something happening on the field below. Several of the
Darthur broke from the battle and charged up the hill where he
watched. They came into view, and he recognized Arin followed by
the Darthur te-ashüte. When they reached the top of the hill, they
turned to the field, surveying their handiwork. Arin looked at the
other members of the Ashüt with a huge smile that mirrored those
around him, held his hand to the sun, measured off three hands, and
nodded toward Thorold. He pulled the horn from the side of his
horse and blew it for all he was worth.

It sounded to Ipid as if the horn had
been blown into his ear. His head rang and his ears ached, but he
was more relieved than he had ever been. That sound meant that the
battle was over. The horn was followed by others, and the invaders
fell back. The city folk let out a cry of victory as if they had
just routed their enemy. Ipid wanted to scream with them, but he
remembered his promise to Eia and held his emotions in
check.

His heart thumped
nonetheless as he looked back toward Arin. The young leader was
talking in a tight group with the te-ashüte. “We are agreed then,”
he concluded the conversation. The other men nodded and turned to
the field. In that field, the invaders were pulling back. The
defenders were cheering and moving toward the protection of the
city.
Surely, this is the
end
, Ipid thought. He glanced at Arin.
There was a grim smile on his face.
Something isn’t right
.

There was another blast from Thorold’s
great horn. Again it was echoed by a cacophony of others, and in a
wave, the invaders charged back into the battle. A cry of anguish
rose from the city folk in such decibels that it was audible from
the distant hill. Ipid looked back at Arin in disbelief. He could
feel Eia clasping his hands, nearly crushing them in her own; he
was losing control of his emotions.

The te-am’ eiruh suddenly appeared on
the hill next to Arin. The young leader nodded toward Ipid – he
must be watching through Belab's eyes. The view turned to the
te-am' eiruh, a few hundred in all, as they began chanting. At that
same moment, the horizon behind the hill exploded with the black
shapes of winged creatures. The things, hundreds of them in every
size and shape, rose in a black sheet and swooped toward the
city.

That was all that Ipid or Eia could
take. She released his hands and clasped her head, gasping for
breath.

“
He swore to me!” Ipid
yelled. “He swore. By the Order. By the cursed bloody Order, he
swore. That bastard. That order-cursed bastard.” Ipid raged at Arin
then turned on himself. “And I believed him. Like a child, I
believed him. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I am a fool . . . a fool for
the ages. An order-cursed idiot.” His head was spinning with fury
the likes of which he had not known since Counselor Torpy had told
him the terrible news twelve years gone.

“
And you!” He turned on
Eia. “You and Belab! You had me convinced that this test was for
real, that it mattered. And it was all a trick. By the Holy Order,
it was a trick!”

“
Please, calm yourself,”
Eia gasped. “Trust me. We had nothing to do with this. I have never
seen its like. Would I have allowed you to see this if I had known,
if I wanted to deceive you?”

Ipid took a deep breath but his fury
would not subside. He pounded his fist into the ground until it
hurt then used his head until he finally left it there. “That
bastard!” he repeated through his sobs. Never again, he promised
himself. From now on, he knew better than to trust that monster.
From now on, he told himself, this was war.

Chapter 40

Dasen pulled back the string of his
bow and released. A heartbeat later, the arrow slammed into the
shoulder of the stout swordsman who was sprinting toward him. The
man fell to the ground with the impact but soon rose and continued
his charge.

Unfortunately, Dasen had not hit his
sword arm, and the warrior still held the broad cleaver of a weapon
in his thick-fingered grip. He was well shorter than the average
man but broad with heavy-set shoulders and chest. He did not wear a
shirt, and his body rippled with taught muscles. The only
protection he carried was a thick wooden shield almost as tall as
himself and a steel helmet that covered his face in a veil of
rings.

Dasen reached to the quiver of arrows
above his shoulder for another shaft. Panic washed over him. His
hand patted the quiver, unwilling to believe that there was nothing
there. Realizing that more arrows were not going to magically
appear, he ran. He knew that he wouldn’t last a second against the
charging invader or the dozens of others behind him, so he ran. He
ran until he was behind a stoic line of city folk who were
preparing to receive the charge of the shirtless
invaders.

The short men hit the defenders just
as Dasen snatched a new quiver from the body of a fallen invader.
The city folk were hopelessly outnumbered, and the invaders made
quick work of them, hacking through them like a pack of butchers
moving through a flock of chickens. Dasen pulled the bow, took a
deep breath, and fired an arrow into the melee before him. The
arrow found its mark, sinking nearly to the fletching in the chest
of a shirtless man.

Dasen smiled, pleased and surprised
with his sudden ability. Throughout the day, he had shot as never
before. He rarely missed and the arrows flew with a power that he
knew he should never have been capable of generating. But he also
knew that it was not him that was doing it. It was the power. After
that first use of the magical power, he had been more in tune with
the energy around him, and it continued to fill him. It scattered
his thoughts and made it hard to concentrate, but it also gave him
an incredible sense of calm and purpose. It blocked his emotions,
his pain, and fatigue; it made him feel invincible, superhuman.
Several times over the course of the battle, he had also used that
power in a more profound way. He had no idea how he did it, but it
always happened when the battle was most desperate, when there was
no other hope. The power would fill him, and he would unleash a
ball of fire that would swing the tide in the defenders favor, if
only for a moment.

After he destroyed that first
creature, Teth and the other defenders had looked at him like they
might turn their spears on him, but the appearance of the huge
mounted warriors following the creatures had silenced any
questions. And now, hours later, he was almost renowned for his
abilities.

The one thing he knew for certain
about his new ability was that it was generated by the battle
around him. Fear, pain, hatred were its source. The more pitched
the battle, the more desperate the defenders, the more bloodthirsty
the invaders, the more of the power he felt flowing through
him.

It was the power of the
Lawbreakers from
The Book of
Valatarian
. It was evil, and deep down, he
knew it. He knew that he should deny it, but if he had, he, Teth,
and many of those around him would be dead. The power was the
defenders’ only hope, their only weapon. Put in that context, any
weapon was evil, was a travesty against order. His power was no
different than the arrow he had just launched or the swords that
the short man it hit was carrying. The elements of evil in a battle
such as this were beyond comprehension. His power was one small
drop in an ocean of devastation.

The shirtless invaders cut down the
last of the defenders and looked for their next set of victims.
Dasen launched one more arrow, hit a shield, and ran. He wove
through the scattered lines of the defenders, leaving the short men
to fall upon another group of ragged men and boys. As he snaked
through the thickening clumps, he looked back for Teth and found
her running behind him. Despite anarchy all around them, they were
a constant. They had never been more than a few feet apart, no
matter what they faced, or where they ran.

Dasen looked out over what was left of
the defenders and saw that the men were forming into a tighter and
tighter stack along the river. After the horns had blown a few
minutes before – it seemed like days ago – the defenders lines had
shattered. When the invaders reengaged, the battle had turned to
chaos. Now clumps of defenders struggled to reform their lines as
they fell back to the city, but they were almost out of
room.

They ran until they were twenty paces
behind the reforming line, but the river was only ten paces behind
them, and it was not much more inviting an escape. The Orm River
was wide and fast flowing. Dasen thought that he could probably
swim it if he were well rested, but in his current state – even
powered by the energy of the battle – he knew he would not make it
halfway across, and that was if Teth could swim a
stroke.