The Children of the White Lions: Volume 02 - Prophecy (105 page)

The trio moved west, stopped at the tower’s edge, and watched as the Drept pack and Reed Men on horseback rushed from the south, past the tower, and into the flank of the oligurts. Nikalys and his white sword stood out, flashing bright as he dashed through the horde. She searched frantically for Jak and Zecus, but of the few black and white tabards she saw, none resembled her brother or the man who held her heart. She offered a short, silent prayer to Mu, the God of War, that he keep them safe.

She spotted a familiar, giant hill lynx loping beside the lead horses. Broedi pounced on oligurts as they ran, his teeth and claws shredding the enemy. The lynx’s viciousness was so unlike the quiet, stoic Broedi that it made her uneasy to watch.

Scanning the northern battlefield, she spotted dozens of miasmic, black masses plaguing the remaining demon captains. Lifting an arm to point, she asked, “What in the Nine Hells is that?”

Tobias stared below and answered, “Probably every flying insect within a few miles radius.” He paused before begrudgingly adding, “Wren has his uses.”

One of the twisted demons collapsed to a knee, too distracted by the insect swarm to see the contingent of Southern Arms rushing him from behind. The duchy soldiers overwhelmed the distracted demon captain, making relatively short work of him. Anticipating another burst of Strands, Kenders shut her eyes. She felt the explosion of silver this time, but was not blinded by the flash.

This group of the Sudashian army was in full retreat. She sighed and, with a sick feeling in her stomach, gazed westward to stare at Tandyr’s distant reinforcements.

“It’s not over, is it?”

Tobias muttered, “Not even close.”

As she studied the distant line on the horizon. Frowning, she asked, “Why haven’t they moved?”

Again, she caught a slight ripple of silver from the west. This time, however, she noted a flash of white and gold mixing with the Soul. The use of Strands by the duchy forces had decreased substantially, making whatever was to the west that much more noticeable.

Her gaze still focused westward, she said with a worried voice, “Khin…?”

“I sense it too.”

Kenders was quiet a moment. Something about the combination felt familiar.

“What is it?”

Rather than answer her, Khin turned to Tobias.

“Where is Wren?”

“North somewhere. Why?”

Guessing what the aicenai was thinking, Kenders pointed west.

“Because we need to know what that is.”

Tobias stared to the horizon.

“I sense…Air.”

“Will and Soul, too,” added Kenders.

A deep frown spread over Tobias’ lips.

“You’re right. We need Wren.”

Kenders looked north, to the tower on the other side of the collapsed wall. The three mages—two Shadow Manes and a Titan Tribe hillman—stood atop the tower and appeared to be resting. One of the black-and-white-clad mages was tall, barrel-chested, and had red hair. Pointing to the tower, she asked, “Can you open a port there? By Gamin?”

Glancing at the tower, Tobias said, “I can’t see the top. Would the southern stairs work?”

“Good enough.”

She felt and saw the black Strands of Void and white of Air pop around them and watched Tobias craft the Weave.

“What are your plans?” asked Khin quietly.

Looking over to the aicenai, Kenders shrugged.

“I don’t have one. Unless ‘move north until we find Wren’ counts.”

Khin tilted his head slightly.

“An honest answer, at least.”

A tear in the fabric of the world appeared a dozen paces away.

“Let’s go,” called Tobias, already moving toward the port. Khin was a step behind him.

Kenders looked over and waited until Sabine loosed her next arrow. The moment the shaft was flying, as Sabine was already reaching for the next, Kenders called out, “Sabine!”

Her friend turned to face her. Sabine’s gaze remained even and emotionless.

“What?”

Nodding to the port, Kenders said, “Come on, we’re going north.”

Without question or pause Sabine nodded and strode from the western wall. Turning, Kenders found both Khin and Tobias were gone, already through the port. Looking north to the tower, she spotted the pair climbing the stairs. Gamin and the other mages were turning to face them.

Before Kenders could take a step forward, there was an explosion of Strands to the west.

Bright, burning orange.

Stout, heavy brown.

Sizzling, buzzing yellow.

Gleaming, sparkling silver.

Vibrant, pulsating green.

The surge was so strong that Kenders stumbled, startled by its intensity. She had never felt so many Strands concentrated into a single Weave. She spun around, searching for its source and found a swirling mass of fire, lightning, and rocks hurtling toward the city from the west. Her eyes went wide, her lips parted to draw in a gasp of air.

The ball was twice as wide as the city walls were tall.

“Bless the Gods…”

“Hells!” cursed Sabine. “What is that?”

Kenders did not answer immediately because she did not know. The immense Weave soared through the air, the elements within morphing, taking the shape of a man’s malformed torso and head. Only then did she realize at what she was staring.

“It’s a fibríaal.”

This creature was not unlike the one that had destroyed Yellow Mud, although this was made of Fire, Charge, and Stone and not Water. Her heart sank as she realized its trajectory. Her eyes flashed to where Tobias, Khin, Gamin, and the other mages stood on the next tower, gaping at the fibríaal. She doubted they could stop the attack. The Weave was much too large.

She sprinted toward the port and leapt through, hearing Sabine’s startled cry of, “Ken—” cut off as she passed into the inky blackness.

Her boot slapped down on the stone steps of the other tower and, without breaking stride, she bound up the stairs, reached the top, and spun to face west. From here, she had a much better look into the heart of the Weave. The ordering of the Strands appeared to be nothing more than a tangle of countless strings, like five balls of colored wool yarn all rolled into one.

Khin and Tobias were in the midst of working together on some sort of Water and Air Weave. Gamin was staring into the Weave’s center, perhaps trying to figure out how to unravel it. The other two mages, one Shadow Mane and one hillman—stood motionless, stunned into inaction.

As Gamin noticed her arrival, his eyes went wide.

“Get out of here! Now!”

She ignored his pleas and peered into fibríaal, searching for a weak spot. The half-ball, half-man globule of fire, stone, and lightning tumbled through the air, rushing ever closer. The Strands were spinning so quickly, she could not grab a hold of a single one.

A scream of utter frustration burst free from deep insider her, tearing at her throat.

They were not going to stop it.

She needed more time.

Now.

A myriad of colors exploded all around her. Thousands of black, silver, gold, green, white, yellow, orange, blue, and brown Strands popped into existence, fully formed in a perfectly complete, impossibly intricate pattern. It covered the sky, the city, the marshes. It covered the world.

A wave of pure, complete, bone-weary exhaustion rolled over her. Her legs buckled and she dropped to the tower’s stone floor, banging her knees hard and scraping her hands. She opened her eyes—unaware she had shut them—to find her vision blurry and unfocused. Unconsciousness was trying to claim her, but she fought back with everything she had. If she passed out now, everyone on the tower—and countless others nearby—would perish.

Her heart thudded in her chest as she sat there on all fours, wasting precious time she did not have. Try as she might, however, she could not push herself up. She was too tired.

“No…”

Reaching deep inside, she found a hidden reserve of resolve, drew upon it, and ordered, “Blast it. Get up!”

She managed to lift her head at least and peered west, expecting the fibríaal to be mere paces away, ready to crash into the tower and end it all for her. That was not the fate awaiting her, however.

The fibríaal hung in the sky, motionless, locked in a fixed position. For the briefest of moments, she thought Khin and Tobias had somehow succeeded in halting the incoming boulder, but then she noticed the flames on the fibríaal’s surface were not moving. Neither were the jagged bolts of lightning. The entire Weave was frozen in place.

“What in—”

She cut off, stunned by how loud her voice was. She blinked in surprise, realizing it only sounded loud because the world around her had gone totally, completely silent.

Her gaze shifted to the other mages on the tower. All five were as still as statues. Gamin had his arm outstretched, pointing at the incoming Weave, his mouth open, frozen in the midst of a scream. Tobias and Khin were staring at their combined, half-completed Weave. After somehow finding the strength to push herself from the ground, Kenders stumbled forward to the tower’s western edge.

It was as if she were looking upon a tapestry from Duke Rholeb’s dining hall. Nobody was moving. The entire battle below was halted, frozen in place. Arrows hung in the air, men’s swords and oligurts’ clubs locked in mid-blow. The group of Titan Tribe warriors was engaged with the second kur-surus pack, their great weapons petrified in mid-swing. She spotted Nikalys, standing behind an oligurt, the Blade of Horum inches from the beast’s neck.

Her eyes went wide as it struck her what had happened.

“I…I did this…”

“Of course you did,” said the unfamiliar voice of a woman. Her words echoed with a strange, thudding power. “Now, quickly, please. You do not have much time.”

Whirling around, Kenders found a remarkable, resplendent woman standing atop the tower. While it was still early morning, the stranger appeared as if she stood in a pool of brilliance, the midday sun shining down upon her. A long, flowing dress hung from her shoulders, covered with dazzling bright colors, all swirling together in an intricately complex pattern that would make all dyemasters envious. Her skin was the color of stained oak, her ring-curled hair a few shades lighter and hanging just past her shoulders.

The woman held Kenders’ gaze a moment before looking past her, at the fibríaal.

“What you have done will not last. Do not tarry.”

Kenders stared in silence, unable to form a coherent response. She had never conceived of such a being as what stood before her.

With an impatient shake of her head, the woman glared back to Kenders.

“Please hurry. Dally much longer, and the path you must take will be closed forever.”

Deep, complete confusion prompted an almost involuntary response.

“Path? What path?”

“Go,” ordered the woman. She lifted an arm and pointed to Gamin. “Look, your Weave is failing already.”

Looking over to Gamin, Kenders found him unchanged from before.

“What do you—?”

She cut off as she realized he was moving now. It might be at the pace of a snail climbing uphill, but he was moving nonetheless. She turned to stare at the fibríaal and found the jagged bolts of lightning were moving now, slowly crawling over its surface.

Staring into the center of the Weave, she found that she could easily discern its pattern now that it was not tumbling through the sky.

The corners of her mouth turned up a fraction.

“There.”

She picked a knot where all five types of Strands looped together and ripped it apart. The Weave began to unravel on its own, but she helped the process along, pulling one Strand from another, quickly turning the Weave into a disorganized clump of magical strings.

As the fibríaal Weave fell apart, so did her own, apparently. The movements of those around her began to accelerate. The sounds of battle began to assault her ears once again, although the clamor was unusually deep. The cries of those fighting were long and drawn out. The entire experience was both surreal and unpleasant.

Suddenly, the fibríaal exploded, bursting outward in a shower of sparks, stones, and fire. A great, chest-thumping boom shook the Marshlands.

Reacting even before she had time to panic, Kenders willed a giant Weave of Air into existence to protect the hundreds of duchy soldiers exposed to the blast. As the first shards began to crash to the ground, she extended the protection to cover any kur-surus she could see, willing to risk saving the enemy if she could guard the Drept.

Her vision went blurry. Sweet, black unconsciousness beckoned to her. Like before, she fought it, refusing to pass out. Her legs buckled, though, and she began to fall backwards to the tower’s top. Yet before she smacked into the stone, someone caught her from behind.

“Don’t worry,” mumbled Gamin. “I have you.”

Kenders would have thanked him, but she was exhausted. Letting him help hold her upright, she turned a weary eye to the scene below.

The explosion had brought the battle to a standstill, with its participants either staring up at the rocks and fire raining down upon them or running from the storm. She had managed to protect most of the duchy forces, but not all. A ball of burning stone landed in the midst of a group of Reed Men, killing at least a half-dozen of them. When another boulder crushed two Shadow Mane soldiers, Kenders shut her eyes, unable to watch good people die. The screams carried on, however. She wanted to craft a Weave to block them out, but was too tired.

As the last few rocks tumbled to the earth, the sounds of fighting resumed. Kenders opened her eyes and was greeted by a field littered with debris, dead bodies, and smoke. It looked like what she imagined the Nine Hells to be.

“How did you do that?”

She dropped her gaze to her right and found Tobias staring up at her, his eyes wide and brimming with curiosity.

“I…wished…” She trailed off and took a deep breath, trying to summon a little more strength. “I wished I had more time and I…I don’t know what I did.”

Moving to stand beside Tobias, Khin peered at her and said, “You halted the world’s passage.”

Kenders stared into the aicenai’s ice-blue eyes for a moment. As preposterous as it sounded, it seemed she had. Nodding slowly, she said, “It was an accident.”