The Godlost Land (37 page)

It seemed unlikely she thought as she scoured the nearby buildings, looking for the Circle wizard. He was quite probably mad, but she doubted he was suicidal. So the chances were that he was holed up in one of the upper terraces, preparing to defend himself to the end. Especially if he had any idea of the fate they had in store for him.

“Look!”

A soldier shouted from somewhere behind her, his voice filled with fear. She turned hurriedly to see him pointing to the sky. But when she followed the direction of his arm she realised he wasn't pointing at the sky at all. He was pointing to a spinning vortex of shimmering light in it, and she instantly knew what it was. A summoning. And Maynard was a powerful summoner. He was bringing something big through. Something deadly was being brought into the world.

“Dina!”

Erislee called for the wizard, hoping that she as their only other Circle wizard might have some answer to whatever he was doing. Some defence.

She couldn't see Dina but she soon felt her magic. A wind that came out of nowhere suddenly rushed down the hill and into the city, blasting them with cold air before twisting upwards at the last to smash into the shimmering vortex, spinning it around. Could it work? Wind against whatever was being summoned? Erislee didn't know. But if it didn't she had her longbow.

Other wizards were entering the fray too. She saw lightning and fire streaking into the vortex, trying to destroy it or whatever was in it being summoned. But they seemed to have little effect. Soon the outline of the creature started to appear and she understood why.

It was a vast outline. The creature was the size of a six horse wagon train, and that was when it was all curled up. But she recognised the outline and knew that when it unfurled it would become much larger again. A hundred feet long at least, all in long sinuous scales and impenetrable leather. A wingspan just as wide as the creature was long. A long, slender tail that could fly like the whip of a wagon master as it was flicked back and forth. And a neck just as long on which its huge snake like head balanced.

Actually it could more than balance. It could whip around at frightening speed and when the jaws snapped shut on its prey it would be cut in half and gulped down. Drakes didn't chew.

For the moment though the only part of it that was solid was the eye. The great red eye in its horse sized head that took them all in and no doubt worked out which of them would be the meatiest. Which of them it would eat first.

“Dragon!”

Someone shouted it out for some reason, though there was no point. They could all see the vast outline of the creature starting to become solid in the sky above them. And Erislee knew that whoever had shouted it was wrong anyway. It wasn't a dragon. It never could have been. Because the basic rule of summoning was that you could never summon something more powerful than yourself against its will. Demons could sometimes be called, but mostly it was only because they agreed to come. Dragons though would not agree. And no mere wizard could make them.

This wasn't a dragon. It was a drake. Almost as large, able to breath fire and eat people in mere gulps, but lacking intelligence. They were animals. Drakes were to dragons much as monkeys were to men. But that didn't make it any less dangerous. In fact it probably made it more so. A dragon might choose restraint knowing it was not in any danger. A drake never would.

Erislee drew her long bow, notched an arrow and waited. She had to wait because she knew that until the drake had fully come into this world, her arrows would pass straight through it.

“Look for the wizard!” shouted Dina suddenly. “He has to be near!”

Perhaps Dina had the right of it Erislee thought. Perhaps they should be searching for Maynard. And if they could stop him before the summoning was complete that would save a lot of lives. But there was one problem. It was almost impossible to take her eyes off the drake forming in the air above them.

“There!”

One of the soldiers shouted out and she looked to where he was pointing, hoping to spot the wizard. Instead she was only just in time to see the soldier loose an arrow at a target somewhere behind one of the buildings. She couldn't see the target. She didn't know if it was Maynard or not. But she did notice that the moment he loosed his arrow at whoever he could see the shimmering drake suddenly flickered. The spell had faltered as the caster lost his concentration.

That was her signal to act and she suddenly knew just what to do. This was a hunt and though she knew where her target had gone she could not see him. There was always one thing that had to be done when that happened. The quarry would have to be flushed out.

“Take him down!”

Immediately she gave the command half a dozen griffins swooped down from the sky to where the soldier was pointing. Soon after that she watched a screaming man burst from behind the building. It was an old man, bald on top and with a huge bush of unkempt white hair sprouting out from the sides of his head. It was Maynard.

He was quite fast for an old man she thought. Surprisingly fleet of foot. But then his legs were being propelled by fear. Most people were faster when that happened.

Erislee loosed her arrow at him, not troubled in the least by his running. She had long ago learned to bring down a moving target. Simply aim slightly ahead of him and loose in the hope that he would run into the arrow as it flew into him. The hardest thing about the shot was that she couldn't kill him. And that went against everything she knew. Hunting to wound. You never hunted to wound. It was always for the kill.

Still, she aimed low and a heartbeat later the wizard screamed in pain as her arrow found the meat of his thigh. Maynard fell to the ground and as he did, the outline of the drake suddenly began to fade. Maynard was unable to concentrate through the pain and so his casting was failing.

Another arrow found his shoulder and the wizard screamed as he lay in the grass. And it was then that Erislee realised the danger. If she didn't stop her soldiers soon they would kill him and if Dina was right the gods only knew what would happen then.

“Hold your arrows!” Erislee yelled the order out as loudly as she could and then when she saw a couple more arrows fly through the air and luckily miss the wizard she yelled it again. The soldiers stopped quickly though doubtless they didn't understand why. Still, they knew that the wizard was down and that the threat of his drake had ended. The visage in the air above them was rapidly becoming fainter and fainter. But though the threat had been overcome, he still had to die.

“Hold him and bring the cage!”

Harl's demon trap had been rushed out to them on the back of a fast wagon in only a matter of days. They'd known they would need it before they took the city. And in fact its arrival at Cut Valley Holding had been one of the signals they'd waited on before the barrage had begun.

It took a few minutes for the soldiers to bring the cage. It was on the back of a wagon on one of the lower terraces and the horses didn't like dragging it up hill. But that gave her time to climb down from her position on the stairs and walk over to where the wizard lay, surrounded by soldiers with their weapons pointed at him. Dina was already there by the time she made it to him.

Erislee's first thought when she saw Maynard up close was to wonder at how pathetic he seemed. This was supposed to be a Circle wizard! One of the most powerful of them all. He had helped destroy the five kingdoms. The number of people who had died because of him was beyond counting. And yet what she saw in front of her was a badly dressed old man, mumbling incoherently to himself and crying. It had to be a jest of some sort. A very cruel jest.

“Dina, are you sure?”

Erislee had to ask. No one would have believed that this pathetic creature was a Circle wizard. Or even a threat of any sort. But Dina nodded and Erislee accepted it.

“The tea!”

Dina gave the order and suddenly there were soldiers in front of them with mugs of the brew in their hands. There was plenty around since they were prepared to face any number of wizards. Two of them immediately lifted the old wizard up and tilted his head back while he screamed in pain. A third poured the tea down his throat and forced him to swallow it by pinching his nose shut. It was cruel, but it was probably the least cruel thing they were going to do to him.

It was time to end this. Erislee knew it. Whatever else happened she didn't want this to linger. Because the longer they tarried the more shame she would feel for what they were about to do. Especially when the wizard spluttered, blinked and a small orange cat suddenly appeared in his arms. It took the tea a few moments to work. But if this was his last ever summoning it struck her as a truly strange one. Truly sad. In the last minutes of his life he had summoned a cat to pet. To hold on to and bring him comfort. She had no words that could adequately describe how pathetic that was. Or how horrible it was that she would have to kill someone so pathetic.

“Bring him.”

Erislee gestured to the soldiers and they quickly hoisted the old man and his cat up and carried them over the wagon. And then while she watched they chained him into the demon trap. First the collar as they had been told. Then the fastenings around his wrists and ankles. By that time she knew he was helpless. He surely knew it too. But more than that he was just a frightened old man sobbing quietly and mumbling to himself and clinging to a cat for comfort. And she suddenly knew she had to take the cat from him.

He objected of course when she did, trying to cling desperately to the cat and cried when she pulled it away from him. Cried like a frightened child. She didn't want to take the animal away from him but she had to do it. There was no way she was going to send an innocent animal to where he was going. So she pulled the cat from his arms and set it free, watching it run down the terrace.

After that the soldiers pushed him inside the cage and slammed the door shut, and she knew he could do them no more harm. Ever. But when she looked into his eyes all she could see in him was fear and confusion. He was too old and senile to be dangerous. Too weak. But she also knew what had to be done. Even so she turned to Dina one last time, hoping for some sign that this didn't have to be. But she saw the truth in Dina's grim face. In the whiteness of her cheeks. It had to be. And if it had to be done it was best that it be done quickly.

“Artemis let this man be gone from the world.”

The prayer was short at least. Artemis was not one for lots of words and complicated rituals. She was not the trickster god Prometheus. But it still seemed to take all her breath to get the words out.

Moments later there was a glow inside the cage and then it was empty. And for that she was grateful. It was a mercy that she did not have to see what the demons would do to Maynard. But even that mercy was tempered.

A few heartbeats later, just as she was turning to the others thinking that this was all finally over, there was a scream. A terrible scream of anguish and suffering such as she had never known before. And she knew that the demons had found Maynard, wherever he was. They had torn the helpless old man apart. Shredding both his flesh and his life. Devouring it all. Senile old men should never have to scream like that. No one should. And the sound chilled her to the bone as she knew she was responsible for it. She had just sent a helpless old man to a horrific death.

In the end the only mercy there was, was that it ended quickly.

Worse though was the understanding that she would have to do this ten more times. She prayed that those next ten when their time came would at least be able to fight. To show some defiance. To at least be something other than pathetic and frightened. But she feared they wouldn't be. She feared that she would be putting more pathetic people like the senile old wizard into the cage.

“Onwards! To the next terrace!”

Erislee gave the order and hoped for someone to fight back. For some arrows to come her way, or a chimera to rush them. Something – anything – to take her mind off what she had just done. This was a war after all, and surely there should be some fighting?

But instead of a battle to ease her troubled conscience, all she had was a small orange cat standing on a nearby roof staring at her. A cat who looked at her as though she had committed some unforgivable crime. It was probably right.