The Free Towns Alliance army howled and charged. A spear flashed through the snow to thud into the Eldest’s shoulder. Their Gifted flung their power at it, fire and earth burning and rending its flesh. It ignored them all to lift a huge hairy hand in farewell.
The stones shuddered around us as the Shroud began to warp at its original builder’s command. It was created from ogarim lives and magic and it recognised its own, and it did not require the brute force of Abrax-Masud and the Scarrabus queen to hold it open.
I will transport you as close as I am able. I wish you success. “There is still great honour in the ogarim,” I said formally.
Its third eye looked up at the sky. Should broken ones survive, free and thriving, and ever travel to other realms, speak well of us to those you meet. My kind still walk those realms, in the quiet places. <Peace> <Hope>
The Free Towns Alliance swarmed the stone circle and fell upon the last of the guardians. Weak as it now was, it could still have killed them all with ease, but instead it chose to die, a soft relieved exhalation of all life and magic.
The icy hilltop near Kil Noth faded to swirling grey. We were transported to a different stone circle on a sun-drenched hilltop somewhere else. Three exhausted magi and a Free Towns Alliance solider. He must’ve dived through the portal with us.
Yet he stood his ground.
Brave fool. Eva ripped his shield away, snapping his arm like a twig in the process. She disarmed and dropped him with one punch. He flopped down like a sack of shite, his skull cracked like an egg.
“Where are we?” she asked, using his tabard to wipe brains and blood off her fist.
We were near a coastal town surrounded by orchards, the masts of several small ships swaying in the bay. I recognised a tavern with outside seating laid out in a yard shaded by apple trees. “Port Hellisen.” We were on the southwest coast of Kaladon.
Bryden whistled. “Imagine if we learned to use these portal stones.” Eva began walking towards town. “We must reach Setharis before Abrax-Masud.”
Bryden and I limped after her, bags of broken bone and bloody cloth. “They are two days march from our home,” I said. “We are three by ship at best. We are still too far away.” I’d learned a few things in my ten years of exile from Setharis, and knew details of most of the common travelling and trade routes.
She looked at Bryden.
He paled and wrapped his arms around himself. “You expect me to control the wind and fill the sails all the way to Setharis? That would kill me.”
“Probably,” she replied, then resumed her descent.
I followed, and after a moment’s hesitation so did the aeromancer, nervously chewing on his lip.
We drew stares as we entered the wide straight streets of Port Hellisen with its ivy-wreathed picturesque stone buildings. It was a quiet rural town with a peaceful and industrious population tending orchards that produced the sweetest cider in all the land. They were not used to seeing bleeding people in armour on their streets clutching weapons. A portly big-busted woman hurried over to Bryden and proffered a damp cloth. Ah yes, he was the only one of us that wore Arcanum robes, torn and filthy as they were.
“M’lord magus,” she gasped, eyes wide at the state of him. “How can we be of assistance? Have you been set upon by brigands?” Though filthy, Arcanum robes came in handy.
“We need a ship to take us to Setharis immediately,” I said. Hand held over her heart in shock, the woman eyed Eva and me askance. “Well… we could ready a suitable ship by tomorrow if necessary. We only have one with the whole crew in town and half of those are drunk already.”
“You will ready that one now,” Eva demanded. “We leave immediately.”
“They haven’t finished unloading the trade goods,” she snapped, drawing other townsfolk towards us, curious to find out what all the noise was about. “She’s heavy and sitting low in the water. This is winter and the winds are picking up – we will not risk travel unless the weather is more favourable.”
“You are done now,” Eva stated. “Toss your trade goods overboard and ready to set sail immediately or I will burn this town to the ground.”
I tried the truth. “The Free Towns Alliance has allied with the Skallgrim and they are marching on Setharis as we speak. If we don’t leave now then all is lost.”
The woman goggled at me, then her pig-headedness drained away to be replaced with furious determination. “Dyrk! Ashton! Get your crap off that ship. Somebody haul those scurvy sailors out of the tavern. I won’t be having no heathens dirtying up my streets with filthy swords and foul language. Port Hellisen are proud Setharii and we will do our bit!”
In an hour the ship was raising anchor with a full crew and three bone-tired passengers. I was slumped on the deck, too tired even for seasickness. Eva was talking with Bryden. He railed against it for a time, then grew quiet and morose as he accepted what we all knew had to be.
The sails swelled, catching a rising wind that pushed us east towards Setharis. Bryden stood looking out towards home, already under strain. I prayed he would last long enough to get us close before his Gift gave out. I didn’t expect any of us would survive this.
We had a few days to get our affairs in order, and to use quill and ink to say goodbye to those who mattered. I started writing a letter to Layla, then decided that I may as well also write a few more to various people. I had a surprising amount to say. Bryden scrawled a letter to his family and gave it to Eva for safe keeping. Eva didn’t bother. Everybody she really cared about was either here or already dead.
She was far more interested in learning all about me, all the mistakes I had made, the suffering, and also the joyful moments too. On learning that I had fled into exile for ten years to keep my friends safe, she wanted to know all about my time spent with Charra, Lynas and their daughter Layla. Her own upbringing was worse than mine in many ways: more privileged but devoid of love and appreciation. She let me into her mind to experience her parents’ manipulation. I returned the favour and our minds entwined, exploring our pasts. It felt good to open up to her and leave myself bare of all pretence and sarcastic quips. I didn’t trust easily, but with Eva everything was different. She was the third person in my entire life I trusted with everything I had.
It was far from the worst way to spend your last few days alive.
Chapter 34
Our ship crashed through choppy waves. Its taut sail was tearing at the seams, the second to be driven to destruction by Bryden’s fearsome winds. The aeromancer was drenched in sweat and teetering on the edge of losing all control, of giving in to the Worm of Magic and allowing the magic to roar through his Gift without restraint. He was perilously close to becoming a monster. I had almost succumbed to that fate before, and I knew how urgent the need was, how tempting it was to give in. Somehow Bryden found the will to hold on, dancing with the fate of the world borne on his young shoulders. He would see us home in time even if it meant we had to kill him afterwards.
Salty foam sprayed across my face. I fought down my seasickness as I longed for Old Town’s high walls to come into view. I prayed we were in time.
Eva’s magic-enhanced eyesight noted a pair of storm-battered carracks anchored in Westford Docks – the first two ships to brave the treacherous winter crossing of the Cyrulean Sea to bring Setharis’ legions back from our colonies in the Thousand Kingdoms far to the south. The sight of reinforcements was welcome, but it wasn’t enough. Militia archers lined Setharis’ outer walls. The few magi who had not marched north with Krandus, and those that had just returned from the war overseas, stood with them.