Shadowstorm (31 page)

“We will know soon enough,” Forrin said.

“Picked up our trail after we burned his estate,” Norsim said.

Reht shook his head in disbelief. “Forty men hunting eighty and standing to face a thousand? It must be Abelar Corrinthal, from all I’ve heard.”

“Come to get you, boy,” Vors said, and smacked the Corrinthal boy in the side of the head.

The boy exclaimed in pain but made no response.

The horsemen atop the rise turned as one and rode out of sight.

“Not standing, after all,” Forrin said, satisfied.

“There goes your father,” Vors said to the Corrinthal boy. “Running away. He doesn’t want you, boy.”

Elden’s eyes focused a bit. He looked up at the empty rise. “Papa?”

Vors laughed, showing his stained teeth. Reht’s stare cut the war priest’s mirth short and the glare each cast at the other told Forrin that something had passed between them.

“Sound the halt,” Forrin said to one of the trumpeters near him. “Bring them back.”

Forrin would not waste time chasing forty men. He wanted to get to Saerb and do what he had come to do. He had Corrinthal’s boy, as the overmistress had instructed. If Corrinthal mustered an army to rescue his son, Forrin and his men would welcome it. Meanwhile, Saerb would burn.

“Are you sending the boy back to Ordulin?” Reht asked.

Forrin nodded. “Eventually.”

Reht eyed Vors, then Forrin. “I will watch after him until then.”

“No,” Forrin answered. “You are going to lead the attack on Saerb.”

Ordinarily, Forrin would have had Lorgan lead the assault,

but Lorgan was holding with his force to the south of Saerb, with orders to clean up anyone trying to flee. Strangely, Forrin had received no word from Lorgan recently.

“I will watch him, then,” Vors said, and smiled maliciously at the boy.

Reht opened his mouth as if to protest, then appeared to think better of it.

“Keep him alive unless I say otherwise,” Forrin said to Vors.

The war priest nodded. “Alive, yes.”

“You’ll answer for his treatment,” Reht said.

“Answer to whom?” Vors said with a sneer. The war priest grabbed the boy roughly by the arm and pulled him from Norsim’s horse and onto his own. The boy cried out and tears fell from his dull eyes.

“I want Papa.”

“Shut your mouth,” Vors said.

The boy whimpered and did exactly that.

“Commander,” Reht said. “I would ask—”

Forrin cut Reht off. “The boy is no longer your concern. We hit Saerb tomorrow. You lead the assault. Burn it and kill anyone left in the city.”

Vors licked his lips and chuckled at Reht. Reht’s face remained expressionless.

“The men may balk,” Reht said.

Forrin knew. “Tell them it is vengeance for Yhaunn.”

Reht nodded.

Forrin said, “I do not care if there is an army. I do not care if they fight or surrender. Save anything of value and kill or burn the rest. The overmistress wants an example made. Make it.”

Vors howled at the sky and Elden Corrinthal sobbed, his small body shaking, his hands buried in the horse’s mane.

Reht glared at Vors a final time, saluted Forrin, and rode away.

30 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storm

Rivalen and Brennus drew Tamlin into the darkness and transported him to the top of the walls. Dawn lightened the eastern horizon, casting the sky in red and orange. Tamlin looked out onto Saerloon’s massed forces. They looked even more imposing in the growing light. Hundreds of standards flapped in the breeze, Thousands of spear points glinted in the sun. The Saerloonians stood arranged in a thick line, twenty rank; deep, a rectangle of flesh and steel.

Onthul paced among the men. “Here we go now lads. Here we go.”

The two armies regarded one another in eerie quiet. The wind stirred the drought-dried grass. To Tamlin’s right, the waters of the Elzimmer glittered in the rising sun.

A small group of twelve men and women emerged

from the Saerloonian lines. They bore blades at their sides and wore no armor, not even helms.

“Spellcasters,” Tamlin said.

Rivalen and Brennus nodded.

The Saerloonian wizards formed themselves into a large circle. All of them moved through a variety of complex gestures and incantations. Their spell chants carried over the plains. Tamlin could not make out the words.

“Protective spells,” Brennus said. “And divinations.”

Two of the wizards, both older and paunchier, stepped within the circle and intoned spells of their own. Their voices sounded the complex couplets of powerful spells. Energy gathered.

“A summoning,” Brennus said.

“The battering rams, at last,” said Rivalen, and Tamlin wondered at his meaning.

“Can we do nothing?” Tamlin asked.

“Not at this iange,” Brennus answered. “Best to wait and learn what comes.”

The spells reached a crescendo and ceased. The Saerloonian drummers beat a slow, steady beat, then …

The earth rumbled, groaned. Outside the circle of wizards, ahead of the foremost lines of the army, the soil rippled, churned. Towering forms lurched from the rock and dirt in an explosion of grass and soil.

“Earth elementals,” Rivalen said.

The Saerloonian army cheered and raised spears toward the sky as the huge creatures rose fully upright.

Composed mostly of soil and rock, with odd bits of sod and roots sticking from their forms, the elementals stood five or six times the height of a man. They stood on legs as thick as tree trunks, with arms the width of a man’s waist. Misshapen heads perched atop uneven shoulders half as broad as their height. Their bellows sounded like a landslide.

“Dark and empty,” Tamlin breathed. There were seven of them. Their heads were level with the top of Selgaunt’s walls. He

could well imagine what the creatures’ powerful arms and rocky : fists could do to the city’s fortifications. And he had no illusions about what they could do to a man who stood in their way.

The two summoners within the circle of wizards gestured at ;i Selgaunt. All seven elementals turned to face the city.

A nervous murmur ran through the city’s defenders. Many of the militiamen rose and looked as though they might flee. The professional soldiers in the ranks ordered them down. Tamlin understood their fear. He tried to control his breathing. |

“Trebuchet and crossbows as they come, lads,” shouted ‘ Onthul, and he shook the trebuchet spotters to steel them. He stalked along the walls, nodding. “If they can walk, they can be knocked down. Steady, now. Steady.”

“Ordinary crossbows are useless against such creatures,” Brennus said softly.

His homunculi squeaked and darted into the safety of his cloak.

“What do we do?” Tamlin asked Rivalen.

Rivalen kept his eyes on the field. “The magic that holds them on our plane can be ended with a counterspell. It is not certain, but it can work. But they must be closer.”

“They will be closer soon enough,” Brennus said.

Tamlin shouted out so that his war wizards and the Sharran priests could hear him. “Counterspells on the elementals as they near. The magic will unbind them.”

“May unbind them,” Rivalen corrected.

Brennus pointed at the field. Despite daybreak, shadows swirled around his outstretched arm. “More to come, still.”

The summoners moved through another series of spells and when they finished, a dozen towers of flame sprang into being amidst the earth elementals. The flames weaved and darted with obvious purpose.

“Fire elementals,” Rivalen said.

Brennus said, “Merelith intends to tear down the walls and burn the city.”

Tamlin said nothing, merely stared, heart pounding.

The fire elementals’ tops reached only to the earth elementals’ waists. Their forms ignited and consumed the grass near them, leaving nothing but charred earth. Black smoke and storms of glowing embers spun into the sky from each creature.

Tamlin had prepared the city for the possibility of flaming projectiles. Scores of men and women stood ready in various quarters of the city, armed with buckets, barrels of water, and shovels for hurling dirt. But he had not expected flaming creatures that could burn with purpose and intelligence.

“Onthul,” Tamlin shouted to his captain. “Alert the bucketmen.”

Onthul nodded, grabbed a messenger by the shoulder, issued him a series of curt orders, and sent him off.

One of the wizards forming the circle broke ranks and stepped near the fire elementals. He wore a red robe and his proximity to the fiery creatures appeared to do him no harm. The wizard moved through the gestures of a spell and when he finished, he and two of the elementals vanished.

The Selgauntans murmured, looked nervous questions at one another.

“Where did they go?” Tamlin asked. He was in water too deep, and he knew it.

A few moments later, the conjurer reappeared alone amidst the remaining elementals. He began to cast a spell.

A shout from the walls drew Tamlin’s attention.

“Look! There!”

Men pointed back into the city. Tamlin turned to see the Hulorn’s palace beginning to burn. One of the elementals that had vanished with the red-robed wizard moved methodically along its roof, leaving a trail of flame in its wake. Elsewhere, smoke rose from within the Noble District.

“He is teleporting the elementals into the city,” Rivalen said.

Tamlin cursed. He knew weapons did little against fire elementals.

“Issger, Rheys,” Tamlin shouted to two of his war wizards. “Put down those elementals.”

The mages nodded, cast spells of flight, and launched through the air toward the palace.

“The fire elementals are a distraction,” Brennus said.

“A good one,” Tamlin snapped in irritation. “I cannot let the city burn.”

A rumble from the field turned his attention back to the Saerloonian lines. All seven earth elementals lurched into motion and lumbered toward the walls. Their steps shook the earth and the sound of their approach was the rumble of an earthquake. Their motion flattened the grass, crushed trees, and left huge indentations in their wake. They started ponderously but gathered speed quickly, charging at the walls with such force that Tamlin could not believe the walls could withstand the impact.

A small inn, long abandoned, stood in their path and they crushed it underfoot, leaving little more than splintered timbers. Saerloonian drums beat time with their approach.

“Trebuchets, ready!” Onthul shouted, and the barrels of alchemical fire were loaded into the trebuchet slings. One of the spotters raised his hand, waiting until just the right moment to give the command to fire.

The walls vibrated under the approaching onslaught. The elementals closed the distance, raining dirt from their forms.

“Steady!” Onthul ordered, and crouched behind a battlement. “Steady!”

Halfway between the Saerloonian lines and Selgaunt’s walls, before the spotter gave the order to fire, the earth elementals melted into the ground and merged with the soil. They left no trace of their presence.

Tamlin knew earth elementals could move through soil and rock the way men move through air.

Curses ran through the men. Selgauntans leaned over the walls to look down. Seeing nothing, they eyed one another with panic.

“Where are they?!” shouted some.

“They will come up under the walls!” said another.

“Hold your ground, men of Selgaunt,” Onthul shouted. He stood and walked the walls, blade in hand. “Hold your ground.”

Sergeants echoed his words and killed the rising panic. The men held their posts. Long, tense moments passed but the earth elementals did not reappear. The drumbeats from the Saerloonian army ceased.

“What in the Hells?” Tamlin asked.

Brennus intoned the words to a spell and gazed down on the earth before the walls as if he could see through it. “They are there,” he said to Rivalen and Tamlin. “They are waiting.”

“For what?” Tamlin asked.

“Our nerve is being tested,” Brennus said.

Tamlin feared he would fail the test. He could hardly breathe.

Saerloonian drums began to beat anew, slowly at first, but gathering tempo.

The red-robed wizard incanted another spell and vanished from the field along with two more fire elementals. Eyes turned back to the city to see where the elementals would appear. A young soldier near Tamlin pointed up into the sky, toward the bay.

“There! Gods preserve us!”

Gasps and oaths sounded from all along the wall. Tamlin looked into the sky expecting to see fire elementals, but what he saw was much worse.

A huge green form bore down on the city from out of the sky. Even from his distance Tamlin could see the creature was enormous. Vermillion scales glittered in the sunlight. Huge, leathery wings stretched from its sinuous reptilian form. Terror went before the creature in a palpable wave. It roared and Tamlin’s breath left him entirely.

“Merelith has a dragon,” Brennus observed.

His homunculi cursed.

Cale, Riven, and Magadon awoke, ate in silence, and checked their gear.

“I think every arrow in this quiver is enchanted,” Magadon said, examining the arrows he had taken from the elf woman in Kesson’s spire. “I have never seen such craftsmanship. Look at these.”

He held one up for Cale and Riven to see. To Cale, it looked like any other arrow.

Riven chuckled. “It’s an arrow, Mags, not a woman. Don’t get so attached to it you won’t let it fly.”

Magadon stuffed the missile back into the quiver. “You need not worry about that.”

Cale figured they were as ready as they could be. “Link us, Mags. And see through my eyes.”

Magadon, the circles under his eyes as dark as the shadowy air, nodded. A burst of orange light haloed his head and a faint hum sounded. Cale felt the tickle under his scalp, behind his eyes.

Done, Magadon projected.

“We play it as a feint and finish,” Cale said.

Riven nodded. “Like old times.”

Cale donned his mask and cast a series of spells in rapid succession. He warded himself, Riven, and Magadon against the dragon’s life-stealing breath. He enchanted his armor, increased his strength and .speed, and finally summoned unadulterated power directly from Mask. When the spell’s energy filled him, the shadows around him deepened. He grew to twice his normal size, gained the strength of a giant. Riven watched him throughout.