Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept (39 page)

She reminded herself to breathe. Then they reached the b
irthing chamber and Zora violently flared her wings, breathing a gout of frost into the room the moment she saw Zuhl. Abigail was crushed against the dragon’s back, her breath pushed from her lungs.

“Get off,”
Zora said, pausing just long enough for their feet to hit the ground before she launched into battle, springing forward like a cat, pouncing toward Zuhl. But Ixabrax hit her broadside and they went tumbling across the enormous domed room.

Abigail
landed hard on the chamber floor, still struggling to regain her breath, but she caught her balance quickly, drew an arrow and sent it at Zuhl. It bounced harmlessly off his shield. Magda sent a blue sphere at him. It flew straight and fast, hitting his shield and causing the bubble of protective force to flicker.

He eyed them with a humorless smile and raised his staff. A shard of ice, six feet long and a foot wide at the middle
, formed before him and streaked toward Magda. She threw a force-push at it, narrowly deflecting the attack, sending the shard into the wall behind her hard enough to shatter it into a thousand pieces.

The dragons broke from their catlike wrestling match,
and Ixabrax launched toward the apex of the dome. Zora turned her breath on Zuhl, spraying frost and cold so frigid that it could literally freeze a man solid where he stood.

Zuhl raised his staff, projecting a second shield
in a half shell toward the icy onslaught. A coating of ice built quickly on the shield, forming six inches within a few moments, dispelling the shield but leaving a dome made of ice twelve feet at the base and almost ten inches thick at the apex.

Ixabrax crashed into Zora again and they
whirled across the floor into the wall, a clawing, roaring mass of moving death.

Abigail did her best to ignore them as she took aim at Zuhl
, having carefully selected one of the shafts with blue feathers—a force-bomb arrow. Her aim was quick and true. The arrow leapt from her bow and covered the distance in a fraction of a heartbeat, hitting the ice dome surrounding Zuhl with enormous force, a bubble of magical energy exploding from the point of impact in a blink. The ice shattered and Zuhl was tossed twenty feet across the birthing chamber, coming to rest against a wall, still a bit dazed.

Magda sent five force
-shards at him, but he managed to raise a shield before the magical blades reached him. He shook his head, seeming to regain his bearings and power very quickly. He sprang to his feet, as if his body were on wires and he’d been pulled into place, brought a new shield up around himself with a few words and then began to cast another spell, holding his staff as he chanted.

***

Alexander raced past a guard post, startling the three men sitting in the little alcove off to the side of the corridor. Jataan kept pace with him. Anja stopped only long enough to quickly and violently deal with the three guards.

Up two more flights of stairs
, then down a corridor, Alexander ran onward, his mind fixated on the battle taking place in the birthing chamber, running with all of his strength to get there in time to make a difference.

He burst into the room, breathless and nearly at the end of his strength, his legs trembling and weak. Leaning on Luminessence
, he lit the room with his light, filling the chamber with magical brilliance that clarified his friends’ vision while blinding his enemies.

Zuhl
erected a wall of ice in front of himself, blocking Alexander’s light. Magda hit his shield from the side, draining it again.

Ixabrax tossed Zora across the room,
then pounced after her.

“Focus on the dragon!” Alexander shouted. “Hold him down!”

The five witches joined hands, four of them lending Dalia their magic. She formed an amber ball of energy and sent it at Ixabrax. It hit him on the side of the neck, spreading amber light across his scales, stunning him momentarily, giving Zora an opening. She sprang into him, clamping down on the collar around his neck, driving him to the ground and leveraging her weight to keep him pinned.

Abigail sent
a red-feathered arrow at Zuhl, hitting the wall of ice shielding him from Alexander’s light. It hit, exploding in a conflagration, orange and red and yellow fire expanding brilliantly, boiling the wall of ice into steam in moments. He screamed, shielding his eyes against Alexander’s light as he tried to escape the scalding steam.

Alexander dropped his light
, running as fast as his exhausted legs would carry him toward the contest of dragons.

The witches all turned on Zuhl, casting light
-lances and force-shards at him in unison. He took a force-shard in the shoulder before raising yet another shield and pouring his will into it to defend against the barrage. The moment the witches’ spells ran their course, Zuhl dropped his shield and pointed his staff at them, sending a cone of frost, quickly engulfing them in frigid air, swirling and crystallized. When the fog cleared a few moments later, all five were on the floor coated in frost.

Alexander reached the dragons, drawing the Thinblade as he ran, dancing to avoid being hit by the
ir thrashing tails. He waved Jataan back, moving into position, timing their movements, listening to his magic with every scrap of his attention, waiting for the moment.

And then it came.

Zora adjusted her grip on Ixabrax’s collar, presenting a clear target. Alexander slipped forward and severed the slave collar. Ixabrax thrashed free of Zora, hitting Alexander and sending him flying across the floor, before launching toward Zuhl, breathing a gout of frost at him in midflight.

Zuhl’s shield took the frost. Before Ixabrax could reach him, Zuhl hit him with a force
-push powerful enough to send the dragon crashing into the wall.

Anja had worked her way around
behind Zuhl, her blade raised in both hands. She was within a few steps of throwing her broadsword when Zuhl opened a door in the world of time and substance and stepped through it, vanishing from the battlefield.

Ixabrax tipped his head ba
ck and roared, fury reverberating through the fortress island and into the ocean air beyond.

“I feel the same way!” Anja
said. “I was just a few steps away.”

Jataan w
ent to Lita, who lay curled on her side, shivering and shuddering along with her four sisters.

The battle mage
looked up plaintively at Alexander and said, “Can you help them?”

Alexander opened his Wizard’s Den and they carried the five witches inside, bundling them in blankets. Magda cast a few spells to warm them and they stoked the fire in the hear
th, putting on a kettle to boil.

While his friends tended to the witches,
Alexander sat down in his magic circle to find Zuhl. He was atop the plateau, his next spell just reaching fruition. Alexander watched as the wizard grew rapidly, his arms transforming into wings, his pale skin changing into blue scales and his nose growing into a long and powerful snout—Zuhl had just transformed into a blue dragon about half Zora’s size.

Cassandra saw him take off from the plateau, roaring
for his remaining drakini and priests to follow.

Drakini poured out of the fortress island
, and priests all across the plateau began to transform into small blue dragons. Within a minute, Zuhl was leading a significant force toward the coastal encampment, abandoning his men and the fortress island.

For a moment, Alexander thought Cassandra was going to go after him, but she didn’t,
instead turning her attention to the regiment on the plateau. The battle that followed was brutal and efficient. The enemy soldiers that remained had no magic.

Alexander
settled in for a fight.

S
eeing the entire battlefield, he appeared before a startled and frightened platoon leader with twenty men about to round the corner into a defensive position. Alexander stopped them and showed them a way around so they could attack the position from behind.

Then he b
acked out again to see the whole fortress island, every enemy, every friendly. His strategy seemed to form naturally, dictated more by the deployment of forces and the terrain than anything else. He appeared in front of another platoon leader, this one on the other side of the island, and told him where to move his platoon, where he would encounter a two-man post, where he should take up a position to make a larger attack later.

Out quickly and then back in, reappearing before the next platoon leader he needed to direct. He sent the man and his soldiers in a long route that would avoid a guard post
and bring them into position to attack a main choke point leading to the upper levels.

It wasn’t long before Alexander had his entire force enga
ged according to his direction, using his magic to keep his people perfectly aware of the enemy’s position, strength, and armaments before each engagement. He guided his people into attacks that caught enemy soldiers between two forces. His men systematically killed or pushed all of Zuhl’s men back and up onto the plateau. By late that evening, the only place that Alexander’s forces hadn’t taken was the top of the fortress island.

All o
f the paths to the plateau surface were barricaded, guarded, and generally over-defended. The Sky Knights had landed inside the fortress, taking over the unused landing bays and beginning a rotation of attack runs that focused on keeping death raining down from above into the enemy on an ongoing basis.

“We have plenty of rocks,” Bianca said. “No sense risking engagement when we can just kill them
from the air.”

“I could use a meal,” Ixabrax growled from his place against the wall of the giant landing bay. Zora looked up, seeming to wake from her nap at the mention of food. This bay was empty of wyverns. Alexander had chosen it because he wanted to include
the dragons in his plans.

“If you two want some of Zuhl’s barbarians for dinner, now would be a good time,” Alexander said. “As far as killing
all of them, I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble.”

“Speak for yourself, Human,” Ixabrax said, stretching his wings before launching out into the darkening sky. Zora followed a few moments later, shaking her wings out before taking flight.

“What are you suggesting?” Magda asked.

“We leave them here,” Alexander said with a shrug. “Why bother with a bunch of
thugs? Besides, they don’t have any ships.”

“This fortress could be a valuable position,” Bianca said.

“We’ll come back to it later,” Alexander said.

“We don’t really need it right now,” Abigail said. “And we already got everything we’re going to get here.”

“I was really hoping to get Zuhl,” Jack said.

“Yeah, but w
e got Ixabrax,” Abigail said, “and this time, he wants a war.”

The
y spent the night loading troops and shipping them out under cover of darkness to protect them from the enemy high above on the plateau. By dawn, all that remained were Sky Knights and witches … plus two well-fed dragons.

Th
e witches injured by Zuhl’s frost had recovered with warmth and bed rest. All but Lita were mounting up to fly with Abigail.

“Be careful, Abby
. I love you,” Alexander said, hugging his sister.

“You be careful
, too,” she said. “I love you, Alex.”

After g
oodbyes were said all around, they broke into units, all heading to their respective destinations.

Abigail and the witches launched
due north with both dragons, heading for the Isle of Zuhl and Whitehall to kill Zuhl.

Bianca and
her large flight of Sky Knights launched toward her fortress island to pick up supplies on their way to Fool’s Gap.

Alexander launched with Ratagan and Horst bound for the Reishi Keep
, accompanied by Jataan, Jack, Anja, Lita, and Chloe inside his Wizard’s Den.

Targa and Raisa were already
well on their way to Shoalhaven.

The
enemy soldiers holding the surface of the fortress island were left to their own devices … without food, fresh water, or a boat.

Chapter
31

Alexander pushed his clairvoyance while he flew with Ratagan, searching out the Reishi Isle, learning the terrain and landscape through close inspection alternating with high-level viewing. He returned fully to his physical location frequently, usually feeling a slight headache, but those faded quickly.

His
pain had just subsided, so he reasoned that it was time to try again. He searched the forest for anything of interest and saw a scouting team moving toward the Reishi Keep.

He pulled up, getting his bearings before moving in closer, watching the enemy soldiers move with deliberate stealth toward the outer wall. He returned to himself an
d judged the distance. The wyvern could probably make it in time … depending on the intentions of the scout soldiers.

He tapped Ratagan on the shoulder, motioning for him to land quickly
inside the wall of the Keep. The Sky Knight nodded and tipped into a rapid dive, heading straight for the first space large enough to accommodate his wyvern. The beast flared its wings, crushing the air from Alexander as it nearly crashed into the ground.

He
slipped off quickly, opening the door to his Wizard’s Den and going to his magic circle. Jataan took up position in the doorway even before Alexander sat down.

He cleared his mind and slipped free, floating over the Reishi Keep, feeling the ancient fortress like an extension of his will, another body with another entire
set of senses and capabilities.

He ranged out, finding the two s
oldiers perched on a low bluff that afforded them a good view of the Keep and the outer wall. They were just watching, most likely scouts but they could be part of a larger attack. Alexander searched the surrounding forest, but found no other soldiers.

Shifting his focus to the
Keep, he took a mental inventory of its defensive capabilities, finding a number of magical powers that would suit his needs. With a focused thought, he sent a dozen blasts of white-hot magical energy from the battlements at the two soldiers, ripping into them with terrifying accuracy and potency at such a long range.

Alexander opened his eyes and went
in search of Commander Perry, a slight twinge of guilt nagging at him for killing the two soldiers. The guilt slowly morphed into anger at the things evil people make good people do. He deliberately set those feelings aside. There would be more death before there would be peace.

He steeled himself to that fact and reaffirmed his commitment to victory for the Old Law, even if the cost was
hard to bear. All of the other alternatives were catastrophic for the Seven Isles. He had to win, and yet, the battle that would decide the future would likely be fought without him.

He told himself again that it was the only way.

“Lord Reishi,” Commander Perry said, saluting crisply. “I take it the magical fire from the Keep was your doing.”

Alexander
nodded. “I’ll need a tent for a few days, Commander, until the wizards arrive.”

“I’ll see to it at once
.”

“Also, we’re going to need space for several legions
.”

“W
e haven’t yet cleared the Keep sufficiently to hold such numbers.”

“H
ave the men moving into the Keep clear as they go.”

“As you wish
, Lord Reishi.”

Alexander opened his Wizard’s Den and went to his magic circle. Moments after sitting down, he was floating over a cluster of large armored men, all surrounding Peti and Abel.
The King of Ithilian was well, but still entirely under the witch’s spell. As Alexander watched, Peti killed a man, draining his blood into a large tub.

Alexander floated up
into the air and was sickened by what he saw. A giant sigil had been dug into the ground, soaked in the blood of Zuhl’s soldiers. Peti had already killed thousands. He could only imagine her intent.

He
shifted his point of awareness and appeared before Sofia, focusing on his objectives rather than the circumstances.

“I’ve just looked in on Abel. He’s alive and well but still charmed.”

Sofia pursed her lips, taking a moment to process Alexander’s sudden arrival on her balcony and his report about her husband.

She nodded slowly but resolutely, then asked,
“How can I help you, Alexander?”

“I need
your Gate legion.”

“Where?”

“The Reishi Isle.”

“This is important, isn’t it?”
she asked.

“V
ery much so,” he said.

“You can have this legion, but only if Evelyn and I command it.”

“Done,” Alexander said. “I’ll open the Gate tomorrow morning. Bring everyone you can.”

“Unfortunately, most of the wizards are in the city
and Torin has already taken a legion north,” Sofia said, “but I still have Mage Jalal acting as my court wizard. He’s remarkably resourceful for a man who looks so frail. Aside from that, I have only soldiers.”

“That’s what I need,” Alexander said. “I’ll see
you tomorrow.”

A few moments later, he was floating
above a huge fleet of warships crowded into the strait between Andalia and Tyr.

He moved in, focusing his vision on the flagship, an enormous
vessel almost half the size of one of Zuhl’s battleships. He slipped below decks and found Isabel sitting at a table, staring ahead like she was in a contest of wills, darkness swirling in her beautiful colors. Alexander appeared in the chair across from her.

She blinked, smiling in spite of the weariness in her eyes.

“I see you,” she whispered.

“I see you too,”
he said. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m losing, Alexander,” she said, matter-of-factly. “She’s winning.” She tapped the side of her head.

“You have to hold on, Isabel.”

“I have … I have held on. I’m holding on right now.”

Her condition and her plight tore at his heart. He wanted to reach out and save her from her torment, but he was helpless to act, so he changed the subject.

“How many men does Phane have?”

“Three legions, a hundred wraithkin, and a dozen Acuna,” she said, speaking too quickly. “Plus Tyr and his hundred ships.”

“I love you
, Isabel,” Alexander said. “Hold on to the light. When the time is right, bring it forth.”

“I love you, Alexander,” she said, very deliberately and very sincerely as he faded out of sight, pushing a flood of feelings aside and focusing on the task at hand.

He found Lacy, locked alone in a cabin not far from Isabel’s. She was wearing a slave collar. Otherwise she looked well enough given her circumstances.

He
faded into the firmament and thought of Abigail. He found her riding a wyvern over the ocean, coasting through the chill air, wrapped in warm riding furs. She was still some distance from the Isle of Zuhl, flying in formation with almost three dozen wyverns.

Next he
found Conner. He was south of the Iron Oak Forest with two and a half legions of cavalry, including almost two legions of Rangers. They were moving with all possible speed toward Fool’s Gap, but they were still days away. The rest of the army, infantry and archers, were consolidating at the south edge of the Iron Oak, picking up stragglers and preparing to move south.

Finally, he thought of Anatoly and
found him inside a fortified tower built atop a giant boulder at the west end of Fool’s Gap, right were he’d constructed his first defensive line—a trench backed up with a wooden-spiked berm and topped with four lines of soldiers armed with shields and pikes. More soldiers waited in reserve at the base of the berm, ready to fill in gaps or to counterattack should the line fail.

Behind them stood row after row of archers, all with several quivers of arrows each. Two hundred heavy cavalry waited in reserve behind them.

Given his terrain, a hundred feet of dirt bordered on two sides by two-hundred-foot stone walls, his forces were deployed well. If anything, his reserve force, more than three-quarters of a legion camped on the far side of the gap, was becoming restless.

Marching up the switchback
approach road were a thousand soldiers, beating war drums. An hour’s walk to the west, the rest of the enemy force was encamped, almost ten legions. They looked as though they weren’t planning on staying where they were for long.

Alexander appeared beside Anatoly, startling Oliver.

“Good timing,” Anatoly said. “Is it as bad as it looks?”

“This is a probing attack,” Alexander said
, motioning to the thousand men approaching. “The main force is an hour away and they look like they might move against you all at once.”

“About what I thought,” he said, rubbing the stubble on his chin.
“Any help coming?”

“A flight of Sky Knights should arrive sometime today, probably later this afternoon. Conner
and his cavalry will get here in a few days. Torin will land his troops in a few days as well.”

“So we hold,” Anatoly said, nodding to himself like he was stating the obvious, turning to
Commander Blake. “Ready the archers. Five-arrow volley.”

“Yes
sir,” Blake said, stepping out onto the tower’s balcony and instructing a flagman to send the signal. Blake turned and nodded to Anatoly once the archer commander had received it.

The probing regiment raised shields, approaching under a turtle shell of steel plates. While they were all armed differently, all of these men carried some form of large shield. The entire thousand men moved as one, inching closer to Anatoly’s line. They passed into the kill zone. Anatoly waited. The leading edge passed out of the kill zone, too close to Anatoly’s line to be safe targets for the archers.

He nodded to Blake. The commander ordered the flagman to send the signal for the archers to fire five volleys in rapid succession.

Moments later, a hail of arrows rained down on the shields, some penetrating and drawing blood,
most breaking against steel. The four lines of men atop the berm shifted formation the moment the arrows began to strike, pulling out slingshots and throwing lead bullets into the leading edge of the attackers, tossing three volleys before returning to their defensive formation.

The combination of attacks was effective, wounding nearly half of the probing force. Anatoly signaled Blake for volley number two. Two separate forces of archers lining the cliffs above on each
side of the gap loosed three arrows each … their range better for their altitude, they killed many soldiers in the back ranks.

The probing force fell back
further, two-thirds of its number dead or wounded.

“So now they took our measure,” Anatoly said.

A drumbeat went up from the probing force, a call to arms. Alexander looked at the main force, sighing to himself.

“Here they come,” he said.

“All of them?” Captain Iker asked.

“
No, looks like about one legion,” Alexander said.

“Put out the word,” Anatoly said. “Signal Corina.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Alexander said, vanishing and finding Corina with her flight well back of the main battle line, all armored and waiting. Dozens of wagons and even a few giant saddlebags filled with rocks were staged around the mountaintop wyvern camp.

He appeared in front of her and smiled
without a word, creating a perfect image of the battlefield as it was in this moment. He moved his focus to the main enemy force, picking out the group in the center that seemed to be the command element, moving in closer to show the nature of the guard force around them.

“Anatoly tells me you can do some pretty good damage with these rock carts,” he said. “Target these people here.”

Corina nodded agreement. “We can launch on your command, but what about the advancing legion? Shouldn’t we hit them instead?”

“
No, hit their leadership hard,” Alexander said. “Strategy and position are all that Anatoly has going for him. They can’t get position, and strategy only comes from good leadership. Take that away from them, and Anatoly might be able to hold the gap.”

She nodded,
calling out to her Sky Knights to make ready. They started mounting up and taking to wing, spiraling higher and higher in preparation for their attack runs.

Alexander returned to Anatoly.

“Corina will hit their commanders,” he said.

Anatoly nodded, looking up as the first squad coasted overhead. Alexander sent his sight to them, floating along beside them, watching their approach from right over
their shoulders. The wing leader pointed out the formation at the center of the enemy army, checking to see the signal from each of his Knights before tipping into a dive, each wyvern pulling in behind two leading wyverns, forming two columns on an attack run.

The
lead Sky Knight pulled a heavy lanyard. One by one, the boxes inside the cart dangling below his wyvern popped open, spilling dozens of rocks into the sky. The next Sky Knight loosed his payload a moment later. A steady stream of stones rained down, showering the tightly clustered horde of soldiers with devastating results, killing men by the hundreds. After all the rocks had been deployed, the Knights turned back toward the wyvern camp to refill their carts.