From Across the Clouded Range (95 page)

As the men crowded around them, Dasen
noticed that he was being pushed steadily toward the south.
Standing on his toes, he saw that the defenders had created an
outlet to the city, and a steady stream of men was pushing through
the bottleneck into the temporary haven. The first buildings of
Thoren were still in the distance, but he was not certain he wanted
to be there in any case. Dozens of creatures swarmed above the
buildings, knocking the tops off of towers, spitting balls of fire,
or snapping defenders off of the walls. On the ground, there were
explosions of fire, lightning, and stone as powers similar to the
ones he had tapped tore the metropolis apart. Fires burned
unchecked through almost every quarter. The city was a deathtrap
every bit as real as the one they were seeking to
escape.

Ripping his eyes from the horrific
spectacle, Dasen looked in the opposite direction and found the
last of the defenders little more than fifty paces behind them. At
the rate the line was closing on them, they did not need to worry
about what was happening in the city. The battle would consume them
long before they reached the first of the ramshackle
buildings.

A tug at his sleeve interrupted
Dasen’s inspection. He looked down and found Teth standing at his
shoulder. She looked like she would collapse at any moment. Her
clothes were black with mud. Blood, some of it her own, stained her
shirt and pants even through the mud, and the material was marked
by several long slashes some of which were held together by rough
bandages that were likewise marred with red. Dasen knew that he
looked at least as bad. Although he could not feel his pain through
the energy that infused him, he knew that his body was covered with
cuts, scrapes, and bruises, and if not for the mystic energy, he
would probably fall to the ground in exhaustion. He thought that
must be how Teth, unable to reach that energy, must feel, and his
heart, as much as possible, went out to her.

She was asking him a question, Dasen
realized. He fought the vortex in his mind to claim the words. “How
does it look out there?” she had asked.

“
Not good,” was the only
response he could manage.

Teth nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you
got us into this mess. How do you plan to get us out?”

He smiled and was preparing his own
barb about her ability to swim when the thunder of charging horses
drew his attention to the south. His eyes rose just in time to see
a blur of silver and brown smash into the line of defenders.
Sporting plate mail from their head to their horses, the knights
had somehow built the momentum for a charge. The defenders split
before them like silk touched to a razor. Their spears bounced
harmlessly off of armored plates as steel-shod hooves and swinging
blades thrashed them to the ground. They were helpless against the
onslaught, and it was only the river that finally arrested the
charge.

There as a collective roar of agony
from the defenders. They surged back from the knights in a crunch
that threw Teth into Dasen. He grabbed her arms to support her as
they fought to keep their feet. Teth soon reestablished her balance
as the crowd redistributed itself, but he continued to hold her
protectively against him.

“
What the hell just
happened?” Teth pulled away from him and rose to her toes in an
attempt to see above the men packed around them.

“
A unit of heavy cavalry
just cut us off from the main group. We're blocked from the city.”
It was said with as much emotion as Dasen could muster, which was
little. The rush of panic in the defenders had created a swell in
the energy he drew from the battle. He felt it surge through him,
scattering his thoughts and wiping away his emotions as it went. He
knew that very soon he would be dead, but he could not feel
anything about that.

“
Any ideas?” The question
wove its way through the stream of power. He barely managed to
piece it together.

Dasen rose to his toes. The knights
were pushing steady toward them from the front. They used long
swords, axes, and spiked clubs to mow down the defenders. The city
folk had no defense against them. Their weapons were worthless
against the heavy armor, and the invaders pushed through them like
threshers through a field. Along the main line to the west, the
bare-chested men had been replaced by the white-haired apparitions
from the road. Those men held tight formations with their tall
shields stacked into an impenetrable wall. Jutting through the
holes in the shields were long spears. Those spears wove back and
forth, in and out in a disciplined pattern that steadily pushed the
defenders back or claimed them on their steel points. Finally, he
looked behind them and saw the most horrifying vision of all. A
mass of creatures had found its way to the front and was chewing up
men as quickly as it could draw them in. North, south, east, west,
all sides were blocked. They were trapped in a great meat grinder.
The men on the south and west pushed the defenders into the
creatures, which gobbled them up and spit out only
pieces.

Dasen summarized his
findings to Teth. He tried to blunt the hopelessness of the
situation, but she just nodded. Her eyes were bleak. The sorrow of
her expression penetrated even through the torrent of power. When
she buried her head in his chest, the power almost failed. His
knees wobbled, and he wrapped his arms around her, but he wasn’t
sure whose legs were supporting them.
So
this is the end
, he thought as he held
Teth, smelled her metallic sweat for what may be the last time. He
sighed.
At least we’ll die
together.

A man ran past. Another brushed Teth.
A third nearly climbed over them in his rush. Dasen found himself
fighting his allies just to maintain his feet and keep Teth with
him. Men were flowing around them, rushing to the south and west,
but there was nowhere to go. Dasen watched them rush into the
knights and spears, held Teth protectively to keep her safe and
watched the inexplicable. The city folk threw themselves onto the
spears to the west to tie up the weapons so their fellows could
move between them and strike the wall of shields beyond. Crazed
defenders to the south pulled riders out of their saddles as they
died from the blows those riders delivered. They died in droves,
and some madman on a horse cheered them on.

Oban
, Dasen realized. He was sitting on the only horse remaining
among the defenders, literally flowing over the animal as if he
were melting – Dasen wondered how the tall, sleek animal could
support governor’s tremendous bulk. In his hand, Oban held a broad
sword. He swung the weapon over his head and yelled, powerful voice
rising over the roar of battle. “Push men! Do not allow the
creatures of chaos to take you! Prove to these men that you have
more honor than any they have ever seen. Push! Damn you! Push!” The
men around Governor Markovim responded to his calls. They rushed to
meet their deaths, threw themselves headlong into oblivion and were
welcomed gladly.

Enthralled by the spectacle, Dasen was
slow to notice Teth yelling at his side. He turned just in time to
track the arrow as she released it. It flew only a few paces into
the very image of the Maelstrom writhing up behind them. Creatures
were flowing through the lagging defenders like a wave sweeping
across the beach. And they were next.

Teth released another arrow. Dasen
fired his own, cutting down one of the black-furred creatures he
had fought in the forest. It fell back dead, but that did not save
the man it had been prepared to bite. Ten creatures descended upon
him in a blur. Dasen diverted his eyes and fired another pointless
arrow into the black storm.

“
Nice shot!” Teth
exclaimed. “Why didn’t you shoot like that when we were in the
forest?” Teth feathered a creature of her own, felling a large
creature with a long neck and huge snapping jaws like a
crocodile.

“
It’s this power. I don’t
know . . . .” Dasen broke off when he realized that Teth did not
want an answer.

“
You know every arrow on
this field won’t stop them.” Teth seemed calmer, more confident, as
if staring death in the eye was what she needed all along. “Do you
think you can manage another of those fireballs?”

Dasen looked at the horde before them.
The largest fireball he had managed all day would not make a dent
in it. He said as much to Teth. She nodded and launched another
arrow.

In a few short seconds, the end was
upon them. Teeth, swords, hooks, and claws were all that Dasen
could see. Everywhere he looked, they were arcing toward him. His
ears were filled with a thousand curses, threats, and promises,
echoing from the wave in a maddening ramble that made his insides
shake. Beside him, Teth dropped her bow and pulled the knife from
her belt. Her other hand found his and squeezed. “Goodbye, Dasen,”
she whispered.

“
No!” was all he managed
as a reply.

The mysterious power had built to a
staggering climax, and Dasen opened himself to it completely. The
creatures he faced pulsed with the power as if their very existence
generated it. Like chaos incarnate, they spawned disorder with
their very being, crushed natural law with their every act, and
each of those acts added to the power. Another surge issued from
the defenders behind him as they died in their suicidal charge. The
city, under the assault of magic and flying creatures, pulsed with
power as it burned. Chaos dominated every corner of the
battlefield, created an influx of power the likes of which had not
been seen in generations, and with the recklessness of one who does
not know any better, Dasen drew in every ounce of it.

The power flooded him, surged through
him until he thought his sanity would collapse under the force of
its thought-annihilating anarchy. He held that power, a hurricane
in his mind, for a heartbeat; it felt like years. In that
heartbeat, he could see every detail of the creatures that were
preparing to claim him. He could see the blackness inside them, the
cruel intent, the desire to destroy, cause pain, and create fear.
He hated them, he realized, hated the creatures above all else,
wanted nothing more than for them to be destroyed, for their
scourge to be erased from the world. He forged that wish born of
fear, pain, and hate, crafted it with his rage until it was the
perfect lens for the maelstrom flowing through him.

The heartbeat passed, and in the next,
he released his terrible wish upon the world. Runes flashed through
his mind. They were different than the ones he had seen before, but
he could not say how. Rather than fade from his mind’s eye, they
burned their place there permanently, building one on top of
another, each brighter than the first, to create a meaningless
jumble. When the last of those runes formed and burned above the
others, the power surge from him in a single convulsive spasm. The
earth shook with the release of that power, groaned at the
destruction that had been unleashed upon it, but the act was
irrevocable.

The power formed an invisible wall
stretching twenty paces to either side of its originator. That wall
stood for an unbearable instant then raced through the creatures.
Its power was to break the law that held matter together in solid
form, and everything it touched shattered into particles too small
to be called dust. Grass, earth, bodies, weapons, armor, anything
contained in that swath was instantly, irretrievably
annihilated.

Dasen watched in horror as the thing
he had created did exactly what he had designed it to do. At his
bidding, living creatures burst into non-existence, and devastation
became a physical force. He had created something more terrible
than anything those creatures could envision in their most horrible
dreams. He was the monster now, the priest of chaos, the devil
incarnate brought to life to destroy the Order. He wanted to
die.

When the wall reached the end of the
creatures, some fifty paces from its origin, it stopped. Dasen
could feel it shake, wavering for lack of purpose. It had completed
its task but still held vast amounts of energy, and that energy had
to be released. Without an outlet for its destruction it wobbled,
lost its form, and collapsed upon itself. The result was a
tremendous concussive explosion that sent Dasen flying backward
even from that distance. The soundless blast deposited him on the
sand around the banks of the river, knocked him senseless, and left
him searching for the direction up.

#

Dasen spent several seconds recovering
his breath and his equilibrium. His mind was shattered. He felt
like his head was full of wool. He could not seem to hold his
thoughts or link together the few that did remain. He could no
longer feel his arms and legs, but he was distantly aware that they
were bringing him to his feet. He tried to scan the area around
him, but his eyes would not focus and his mind could not hold the
distorted information they did manage to gather. He began pulling
himself up.

Something hit him hard in the mouth,
and he crumpled to the ground.

He spit blood into the sand that was
pressed between his fingers and felt his mind and body return to
him. He wished that they had not. The power that had been
sustaining him was gone, and the fatigue that it had held at bay
fell on him as a single crushing weight. He fought that weight to
bring himself to his knees. Pain ebbed from every corner of his
body. He did not know if he could stand, so he did not try. He
flopped back onto his seat and looked toward the source of the blow
expecting to see his death.