The Raven Collection
Chapter 43 : Understone's fateful morning broke dry, but heavy cloud was blowing over the Black

Understone's fateful morning broke dry, but heavy cloud was blowing over the Blackthorne Mountains towards them. At first light, Darrick's cavalry mounted up and began the move to the pa.s.s. In front of the slowly advancing column walked thirty Xeteskian mages, young and old, all wearing the insignia of the Lord of the Mount on red tunic and shoulder - a tower atop a crown, edged in gold, embroidered on black.

The sound of voices had stopped as the cavalry formed up behind the mages, The Raven at its rear. All that could be heard were the sounds of hoofbeats, the nervous whinnies of horses and the flap of five hundred cloaks in the breeze.

Darrick sat tall in his saddle, proud and determined. To be appointed the first general of a four-College force for over three hundred years was an honour he could never have conceived even two months before.

But now, in front of him, thirty Xeteskians awaited his command, and behind him, five hundred horse would charge into the pa.s.s at the drop of his sword. The cavalry were split on College lines, each centile having its own defensive mages to cast hard and spell s.h.i.+elds and provide the light to see them through the pa.s.s. The livery was mixed: green for Lystern, shades of deep blue for Dordover and Xetesk and yellow for Julatsa. Not ordered enough for the trained military mind but imposing for all that.

At the rear of the column lounged The Raven and their horses. Hirad, Ilkar, Erienne and The Unknown stood in loose formation around a still pale but more talkative Denser. Jandyr, Thraun and Will, whose grey hair now covered much of his head, spoke amongst themselves. Hirad allowed a half-smile across his face, seeing parallels with the early days of Richmond, Ras and Talan. They would take more part, of that he was sure, so long as they lived. And of that, he wasn't.

'What are they going to do, exactly?' asked Hirad. 'I mean, whatever it is, it's going to be impressive, right? There's thirty of them after all.'

Denser shrugged. 'It'll be something to watch.'

'Oh come on, Denser, you can do better than that,' said Ilkar. 'They've been researching for twenty years, you must know something. '

'Ah, Ilkar,' said Denser, moving closer to Erienne, 'there you go a.s.suming our research teams are as forthcoming as yours. Don't forget, in Xetesk, new spell construction and mastery leads to Master status.'

'But if you haven't heard any rumours, you can take your arm from my waist.' Erienne smiled. Denser's arm stayed where it was.

'I just don't want to spoil your surprise, and if I've heard right, it's going to be something like you've never seen.'

'Elucidate,' said The Unknown, who still said little and never strayed far from Denser's side.

Denser pushed out his bottom lip. 'Right. Well, all I'll say is that it's dimensional, it's incredibly difficult to control and, if my hunch is right, it'll be wet.'

'Wet,' said Hirad.

There was a contemplative quiet.

'Wet,' said Hirad again.

Denser smiled. 'Just watch.'

Darrick gave the instruction to cast. Twenty-one mages stepped forwards, forming three sides of a square. The lead mage gave the command to mana-form and at once, all their heads dropped but their hands reached out as if gripping something too heavy to hold. Closed-eyed, they leaned back against the invisible grip. There was a moment's calm. Denser grunted as the mana shape developed.

'This is powerful,' he said.

The mages started walking towards the pa.s.s. There was no movement from within.

'Hards.h.i.+eld up.' A trio of Julatsan mages raised their defence around the vulnerable Xeteskians.

Twenty yards from the black maw of the pa.s.s, the arrows began to fly, bouncing harmlessly from the core-strength Julatsan hard s.h.i.+eld. The mages stopped walking, still concentrating, still developing the mana shape.

Denser, who had attuned his eyes to the mana spectrum, marvelled at the shape of the spell. It mapped a pattern at once random but with a perverse sense of rhythm and symmetry. And it was huge, covering a s.p.a.ce in the air which totally obscured the pa.s.s, the path in front of the casting mages and the hills rising either side.

'I have never . . .' he breathed.

'It's incredible,' agreed Ilkar.

'Unstable,' said Erienne. 'I only hope they can hold it.'

'What does it look like?' asked Will.

It was a deep, pulsating blue, edges s.h.i.+fting and changing, mimicking the outline of the Blackthorne mountain peaks high above, then swarming to depict oceanic power. It was shot through with streaks of orange, which flowed ceaselessly through the whole, joining, spiralling, splitting. To a mage, it was beauty incarnate; to everyone else, an inconceivable mystery.

A rank of archers moved up quickly as the first Wesman appeared at the pa.s.s entrance, sword in hand. He disappeared just as quickly. Bows strung, arrows nocked, the archers waited for the inevitable charge.

Perhaps twenty Wesmen ran from the darkness, heavy furs bouncing on their bodies, braided hair flowing backwards, their shouts echoing along the path and their eyes wild beneath steep brows.

The archers fired. The shouting stopped. The survivors turned and fled.

'Deploy,' said the lead Xeteskian immediately afterwards.

It began with a horizontal line of red light suspended above, and ten yards in front of, the entrance to the pa.s.s. A heartbeat later, it was joined by three more, forming a perfect square some fifty feet each side, hanging in the air. The lines fizzed and crackled but held rock steady. Behind the square, the mages swayed backwards, arms outstretched, hands gripping mid-air. The angle was crazy; they should all have fallen but the mana shape held them.

'Connect and open,' ordered the lead mage. There was a buzzing in the air and the lines of the square revolved through a dazzling spectrum of colour. Two mages were hurled from the square to lie motionless in the dirt and mud, smoke rising from clothes, skin and hair. Next, a moment's silence so deep it hurt the ears. And finally, the awesome sound of water obliterated the peace.

And a beat after the sound came the sight. With the power of the deep, froth flying, came a force of water the size of the square. It howled out of dimensional s.p.a.ce, striking the ground well inside the pa.s.s. Out and out it came, ocean from a clouded sky, screaming into the darkness and surely das.h.i.+ng to fragments everything in its path.

Behind, the mages fought to maintain the square as it bucked and twisted in the air, buckling and strengthening as the deluge hammered out into Balaian s.p.a.ce. The water lashed against rock, tore vegetation from its roots and smashed the very earth from its bed of ages, spray flying backwards, streams running in every direction from the mouth of the pa.s.s. Echoing from the walls of rock inside, a pounding sound rose to join that of the rush from the mouth in the sky. The tumbling of loose stone, the crack of timbers snapped like twigs, and faint, so faint it may have been a trick on the ears, the screams of men could all be heard. The power was extraordinary.

Ilkar swore softly. 'They've tapped an ocean,' he said quietly. 'They've tapped a b.l.o.o.d.y ocean.' Had he shouted, no one would have heard him as the roar battered at the ears and the sight simply blotted out the capacity for anything else.

The mages held it for what seemed an age, the exertion visible, the effort tangible. The gate was kept open for over two minutes until, as suddenly as it had begun, the stream was shut off.

Another silence that tore at the ears was followed by the rising hubbub of excited voices. The exhausted mages didn't even have the energy to congratulate each other before collapsing to the floor, every mote of mana stamina gone.

Applause rippled the air but was silenced by a shout from Darrick.

'Clear the path!'

There was a ripple through the cavalry line as reins were drawn tighter. The metallic sounds of bits and bridles tautening added to the stamp of hoofs and the running of feet as Julatsan and Xetestaan mages came to the aid of their exhausted colleagues, hurrying them off the path and up a gentle slope. The bodies of the two for whom the spell had simply been too much were carried away.

Darrick raised his sword. The Raven mounted up. Five hundred blades swept from scabbards, ringing the air.

's.h.i.+eld and light!' The teams of mages cast quickly and without error, and 's.h.i.+eld-up' confirmations travelled the column, followed by two dozen LightGlobes.

'Advance!'

Darrick dropped his sword, kicked his heels into the flanks of his horse. Hoofs threw up mud, thrumming on the poor surface of the trail. The shouts of the centile commanders mixed with the clamour of horse, metal and hoof, and the cavalry column moved on, gathering pace.

And, with water still pouring from cracks in the rock above the entrance, the cavalry charged into Understone Pa.s.s.

As it happened, Gresse and Blackthorne chose to watch the start of the Second Wesmen War from a low hill three hundred yards from the beach where the landings would take place.

The horns had been sounded and beacon fires lit as dawn broke to reveal the Wesmen already in the bay, attempting to steal a march under cover of darkness. It was a move antic.i.p.ated by Blackthorne, and his beach force had been at readiness three hours before first light.

The stern Baron surveyed the dense fleet of craft, ranging from rowing boats taking only a dozen, to merchantmen with a capacity running into the hundreds. It was a strange and deeply disturbing sight, compounded by the silence broken only by orders to sail and row and the noise of oars and timbers through calm waters.

Rain had swept through the bay as night fell, backed by a vicious wind, no doubt hampering the Wesmen's start, and Blackthorne considered them to be behind schedule. He was certain they had planned to land at first light, not still be over three hours distant.

In front of them, forty mages stood, thirty to cause mayhem among the boats, and ten to maintain s.h.i.+elds over their colleagues and the centile of swordsmen charged with routing the first wave of boats to hit the sh.o.r.e. Finally, invisible and anch.o.r.ed to the sand, three dozen explosive wards, ready to be activated in retreat, each one capable of killing a dozen men.

Blackthorne announced himself satisfied.

'This should give them something to think about.'

The boats drew closer, prows packed with Wesmen, silent, watching. Gresse didn't know what he expected but it wasn't this silence. The loudest noise in his ears was the flapping of his own cloak in the breeze.

'There must be four hundred boats out there.'

'Not for long,' said Blackthorne. 'Not for long.'

Sails trimmed, oars stroking through the water, the Wesmen fleet approached the sh.o.r.es of eastern Balaia. The calm was eerie but a storm was about to be unleashed over the flat waters of the Bay of Gyernath.

With the fleet four hundred yards from land, the offence mages split into three spell groups with overlapping defensive support, and moved out on to the sand dunes overlooking the sh.o.r.e.

At the same time, the centile of swordsmen, most carrying torches, moved up and gathered around the beacon fires. Shouts of warning echoed around the bay, bouncing off the sheer walls of the mountains. Oars dug more deeply, sails were pared tighter, the fleet increased its speed.

The senior mage spoke. 'You have your targets. Don't wait around if you lose your spell. Don't wait around when you have completed casting. I need you all back in the castle, fit, well and rested in twelve hours. Cast at will.'

Gresse could hear the hum of voices on the breeze as the mages built mana shapes and linked spells. The process lasted little more than two minutes, and then the fire came down.

In an area covering three hundred yards each side, drops of fire coalesced from clear air and fell like lead among the boats. A thick, driving rain of fire, spatting in the water, smoking into wood, scorching canvas and setting hair and fur ablaze. While the drops flared harmlessly against the magical s.h.i.+elds surrounding the larger vessels evidently carrying Shamen, there was instant panic among the smaller craft.

Hundreds of small fires leapt from every exposed plank. Sails smouldered and burned, hands and skulls lit up, fear spread and discipline disappeared. In the midst of the throng, one Captain made an emergency tack to take the direct route out of the HotRain, ploughing across a smaller rowing boat. Rudders went left and right as tillermen ducked and dodged the hail of fire, sending craft in all directions, spilling warriors from port, starboard, prow and stern. The sea boiled, alive with floundering survivors, the wash of oars plunged frantically into water and the myriad fires that snuffed out as they hit, leaving spirals of smoke in their wake.

Over it all, the howls of pain, the screams of the dying, the crackling of fire and the splintering of wood. And through the carnage came the back of the fleet, unable to change course or slow sufficiently, such was the press of boats all around. On and on they came, into the HotRain, scything over abandoned burning craft and running down Wesmen in the water by the score.

The HotRain shut off as quickly as it had started, but relief was momentary. A thick pall of smoke covered a wide area of the bay and fleet, and emerging from it, and undamaged, came many of the larger s.h.i.+ps, their occupants roaring with rage and l.u.s.t for blood.

Now, FlameOrbs lit the sky. Combining the mana of three or more mages at a time and creating great depth and intensity, dozens of yellow and orange orbs, each the size of a man, arced across the sky to fall like rock weights on the spell-defended s.h.i.+ps. Some bounced, others did not, and Gresse saw one crack a s.h.i.+eld and splatter on the deck, reducing the three-hundred-man transport to a burning sh.e.l.l in an instant.

Gresse turned away. Through all his years of combat, combining magic with muscle, he had never seen carnage on such a scale. The calls of the dying, drowning and ablaze would haunt his every living day. Yes, he'd seen s.h.i.+elds crack and magic engulf its victims before. But he had never seen an enemy so unprepared for the quant.i.ty or quality of magic thrown at it. And here were only forty mages. At the castle, there were double that number.

Blackthorne watched the events with dispa.s.sionate satisfaction.

'Don't forget they have come to kill us, take our lands and drive our memory from Balaia for ever,' he said. 'If their Shamen are not strong enough, it is not for us to weep.'

'Why did you not simply devastate them on the water?' asked Gresse.

'I had no idea we would be this successful,' admitted Blackthorne. He chewed his lip. 'And I couldn't leave my town undefended. What if they chase us all the way to Blackthorne now?'

Still the Wesmen came on, and still Blackthorne's men weren't finished. The sea was ablaze on a half-mile stretch but the undamaged and handicapped sailed through the human and wooden wreckage. Scores, hundreds of boats came on, the first beaching against the s.h.i.+ngle only to be met by the swords and fire of Blackthorne's warriors.

A dozen craft hit the beach, disgorging Wesmen into the surf and on to the sand. They came roaring into eastern Balaia, axes and blades flailing. Blackthorne's men just cut them down, given huge advantage by the rise in the ground, ranks of archers on the dunes above the sea and the confidence of seeing their enemies in the water, burning and in disarray.

True to the Baron's orders, the first boats were turned, burning, into the paths of the next. But hundreds more approached on a mile stretch. Spent, the mages ran for their horses and, with the Wesmen press of numbers threatening to overwhelm the small force of swordsmen, Blackthorne ordered full retreat.

With hardly a scratch, Blackthorne's men had won the first skirmish of the war. And those Wesmen who did give chase died in a deluge of magical fire, the sand traps exploding, sending sheets of orange, yellow and blue flame las.h.i.+ng across the sand, igniting everything in their compa.s.s. Great gouts of sand shot into the air to sprinkle back down, a rainfall of grit on the dead and wounded.

The survivors, and there were many thousands, began to construct a beach-head. Turning in his saddle to watch, Blackthorne smiled.

'No one takes my castle,' he said to himself. 'No one.'

Gresse caught his words though he had his doubts. A victory it was, but gazing over the sh.o.r.eline as the smoke cleared and boat after boat reached the sh.o.r.e, he realised their estimate of numbers was way too low. And the Shamen would not be as unprepared another time.

The moment of truth would be at the walls of Blackthorne Castle.

Understone Pa.s.s was the result of a monstrous effort to widen a natural fissure that ran on a dog-leg through the Blackthorne Mountains. Ten times as many lives as years were lost in its creation at the behest of a group of Barons who were the forerunners of the Korina Trade Alliance. The result was a secure pa.s.sage through Balaia's almost impa.s.sable mountain range.

Through the carved gateway, the roof of the pa.s.s closed in sharply to a height just above that of a covered wagon and didn't begin to open out for over three hundred yards. Always two wagons wide, the pa.s.s let out into incredible natural chambers and across chasms the bottom of which were littered with the bones of the unfortunate and the murdered. Elsewhere, the rock roof closed in, and always the sounds of rus.h.i.+ng water stole quiet from any journey. A gallop through the pa.s.s would take something a little over four hours.

As he entered the pa.s.s, Darrick rode in awe of the devastation caused by the Xeteskian dimensional connection. LightGlobes chased the shadows away from the cavalry as they rode past the remnants of the Wesmen's fortified posts. There was precious little left to evidence that a defence had been built along the first part of the pa.s.s.

Here and there, wood clung to clefts in the rock wall, tumbles of stone were washed against the sides of the pa.s.s and planks and ripped timbers had been speared into crevices by the force of the water. But of the Wesmen, there was no trace.

Darrick increased his pace as the pa.s.s opened out both above and on either side, only to slow as the true results of the spell became awesomely obvious. Here, Darrick knew, was the main focus of the Wesmen's defence. Built into the walls were crossbow and catapult positions, archer galleries and oil runs. Deep into the rock, living quarters for anywhere between four and seven thousand men were dug, and the warren of rooms and pa.s.sageways spread up either side of the pa.s.s for at least half a mile.

But the silence punctuated by running water told its own terrible story and of the accuracy of the Xeteskian calculations. The size of the dimensional rip had been larger than that of the first zone of the pa.s.s. The ocean, already travelling at incredible speed, had been forced through the smaller pa.s.s opening, gathering in pressure and velocity before exploding into the chamber occupied by so many completely unprepared Wesmen.

Nothing besides evacuation would have sufficed. The water would have blasted on and on, cras.h.i.+ng through every pa.s.sage, every room, every position, and simply scouring all signs of the Wesmen and the trappings of their lives from Understone Pa.s.s.

Water still ran from some of the upper positions and pa.s.sages that Darrick could see, and as he moved further up the tight cavern, he could hear behind him the gasps of his men as they too took in their first sight of the sodden former defence of the Wesmen. It sparkled in the light of the Globes, pools of water casting dancing shadows over the walls and the roof as it rose gently into the darkness ahead.

'They had nowhere to run,' whispered Darrick, surprised at the tinge of sorrow he felt for the men who had had no chance of survival. No chance at all.

'Shall we search the barracks, sir?' asked one of his lieutenants.

Darrick shook his head. 'I don't think you want to see what might be left in there.' He looked about him as he trotted forwards, scratching his head. 'How far did the ocean travel?'

'The Xeteskians estimate it would not drain away for perhaps a third the length of the pa.s.s, until we reach the first deeps,' said an aide.

'I wonder how far this sort of research should be allowed to go,' said Darrick.

It was a sentiment being echoed by Ilkar as The Raven took their first sight of the obliteration of the Wesmen under the light of Erienne's Globe. 'We just don't know enough about the effects on the relative dimensions of channelling resources from one to another, ' he said.

'It's all a question of how often such a spell is used,' replied Denser. 'Today we have seen an amount of water that neither dimension will notice.'

'But it has created an imbalance, however small, don't deny that,' said Ilkar.

'Yes, but a grain of sand moved from one side of the scale to another will make no difference.'

'Except that one day, one grain will tip the scale if the movement is all one way,' countered Ilkar. 'What then?'

'The shame,' said The Unknown, 'is that such a spell is only considered for its offensive capabilities. Think what it could do opened under a freshwater lake and over a land with no rain.'