Eva’s eye narrowed. “We have been told to wait for the hold’s leaders to finish deliberations.”
“Then I declare them finished. They shouldn’t have insisted I come here in charge of an army and expect me to do nothing. This world is heading into the pyre and we don’t have time to play their shitty little games. I have something you need to see. May I?”
I reached out to her mind and politely knocked to enter. She hesitated for a long moment before grudgingly acceding. We were not friends, exactly, nor ever lovers despite a brief flirtation, but we were something to each other. Whatever failings I had, we had been through unimaginable horror together and that kindled a queer sort of trust.
I showed her everything my grandmother had said, and all that the ogarim had showed me. She was not used to my magic dumping everything directly into her mind, it was overwhelming and agonising, but Eva endured. She refused to let pain rule her life.
I showed her what my grandmother in her rage had done to my face: her nails digging into my cheek, gouging flesh and muscle, ripping down across my neck towards my chest as she attempted to carve the name of her spirit into my very heart. I showed her everything.
When it became too much for her I broke the link. She slumped against the wall, head down and gasping for breath while struggling to regain her composure. When she looked up again I thought she might be grinning under the mask, a little of the old carefree battle-loving Eva in her eye. “Let’s give the bastards a bloody nose.”
While Clansfolk ran to check on Angharad, the Setharii army gathered and marched from Kil Noth to slow the enemy advance. A hundred plaid-clad local warriors, members of various warrior societies, came with us determined to discover the fate of Dun Bhailiol for themselves, and to return with tales of their bravery. Hiding inside these stone halls was too cowardly for their taste.
I walked at Eva’s side, by her leave learning her experience in battle directly from her own memory. I was using my Gift like never before, gathering skill and knowledge from others and making it my own. It was time for me to learn, to grow, and to fuck those invading bastards up beyond all recognition. Before it was too late for us all.
Chapter 16
We marched northwards through the twilight shade created by the valley’s high cliff walls, uphill through snow and ice, past pools of fresh meltwater and across narrow, humpbacked stone bridges arching over swollen streams. Despite treacherous footing, we made good progress by noon with the sun directly overhead offering us a vague hint of warmth. We set camp atop a flat section of a defensible steep rise that afforded a good view over the valley to act as our command centre.
Like most of the larger holds, the seat of Clan Bhailiol had been burrowed into a mountain for defence and would be considered all but impregnable by normal means. But the Skallgrim had not employed normal means. Eva had a crystal sightglass in her pack and we took turns staring out onto a distant hillside split in half, the hold inside reduced to a shattered ruin of fallen stone. A touch of magic to my eyes sharpened my vision as I examined its innards of tunnels and rooms exposed to daemon hordes that clambered over the burning rubble like an army of ants gnawing on human bones. The farmland stretching out along the valley below the hold had been churned to mud by Skallgrim feet and was choked with rubble and hide tents.
Many of the Clansfolk with us had worried about the fate of their distant kin, and on seeing the devastation they moaned in horror and gripped weapons tight, muttering oaths of bloody vengeance to their spirits. There was no love lost between the other holds and the folk of Bhailiol, but this was beyond anything they had ever experienced. It was expected for clans to raid each other for cattle and wealth and to draw swords avenging old blood feuds nobody even knew the original cause of anymore, but this lacked all honour. This was slaughter and wanton destruction. There was no glory to be found. The enemy did not desire food or wealth or even territory; they killed because they could. The mountainous Clanholds boasted little in the way of fertile croplands so such outrageous waste was an unfathomable crime to the mentality of its native populace.
Nareene was ecstatic to see the flaming death wrought upon the whole area and I thought the crazy fire-worshipper started touching herself when I turned my back on her. I had a word with Jovian to keep her well away from the incendiary supplies stowed in our baggage ponies. There was no telling what havoc she might unleash with all those powders and resins and whatnot if the idea got into her head.
I left my coterie and was joined by the other magi as we climbed a higher peak for a better view. Flocks of bone vultures circled plumes of black smoke billowing from the burning corpse of the holdfast. Far larger winged monstrosities flapped among them, scattering and snapping at the smaller daemons. The scaly beasts resembled the dragons of old Setharii legend, though fortunately for us they seemed far smaller than those great-fanged stone bones dug from the beaches of the Dragon Coast. Now that the hold had been destroyed and all resistance slaughtered, the thousands of Skallgrim who had been encamped on the valley below were busy tearing down tents and packing away their supplies. It was obvious Kil Noth was their next target.
All seven Arcanum magi stood in silence surveying the large army we pitiful few were somehow supposed stop from rampaging right through the Clanholds and out into the flat and fertile farmlands beyond. We had to hold until help arrived, but I personally doubted we could delay them for more than a few days unless Eva’s military knowledge could work miracles. I could only hope that Krandus and the rest of the Arcanum were even now levelling Ironport and would soon be speeding west to take this army in the rear.
Vincent wiped sweat from his brow as he gawped at the army. “How many had they said? Four to five thousand at most was it?”
Secca shivered and pulled her black and white hood lower over her face, as if to hide. “Five to seven more like.”
Eva and I exchanged glances. “The humans are not the greatest problem,” she said. “We can deal with their greater numbers for a time by bottling them up in the small passes, but those daemons are a tactical nightmare equivalent to having winged cavalry. Bryden, how many could you take care of?”
The aeromancer squinted at the sky above Dun Bhailiol, trying to count. He quickly discovered that to be futile. “Not nearly enough if they swarm us.”
“That’s not all we need to be worried about,” I added. “If I were the Scarrabus I would have infested some of those winged daemons. They will have eyes in the sky able to see everything we do and instantly communicate it to others of their kind on the ground.”
Eva cursed. “Superior information wins wars. Whatever traps and trickery we can employ would be rendered useless.”
Cormac stoked his red beard and nodded to Secca. “Mayhap our colleague could help with that particular problem.”
The illusionist winced. “I would have to bend light over a large area. I’m not sure I could keep that up for long, but I could try.”
Granville’s bushy brows lowered. “Try is not good enough. Test it, and soon. I would not wish to rely on it and have you fail. In any case, these are daemons – do any here know if these bone vultures hunt through sight alone, or do they also utilise sound or smell?” It was an unsettling detail I had overlooked.
Luckily we had Eva, who had studied fighting such things. “The bone vultures are much like our birds of prey, hunting mainly by acute eyesight. The larger flying lizards I have never seen before but I imagine they will take some killing.”