‘Go ahead,’ said Bel with a wave. ‘Water the plants.’
Gertrum nodded and turned back to the urn. She put her hand in the water and a hissing began. The water bubbled and boiled, and vapour rose rapidly from its surface. Gertrum waggled the fingers of her other hand, magically collecting the vapour into a ball. After a couple of minutes, she had created a dense little cloud.
‘Well,’ said Jaya, ‘I’d been wondering why there wasn’t a watering can.’
Bel watched with interest as the girl walked around the courtyard with the cloud. She would wave it into position above a plant, then mumble something and rain fell.
‘That’s nothing,’ said Jaya. ‘Back in Athika, our family sometimes paid for the services of a weather mage. Dry plains out there, sometimes too dry for the crops we planted. I’ve seen a mage gather moisture from a cloudless sky and make it storm …if only for a moment.’
Bel’s gaze turned slowly from Gertrum’s little smudge of vapour to the grey mass of the Cloud that loomed above them. Suddenly he leaped to his feet. ‘You there!’ he exclaimed, so forcefully it made Gertrum jump. He strode over and took her by the arm. ‘This spell you’re casting – what is it?’
‘Um …er …’ She glanced at his hand but did not pull free. ‘It’s just a rain spell my lord. Most mages can do them – it’s just basic magic.’
‘And it affects the whole cloud on which it is cast?’
‘Um …well, yes, lord.’
His hand shot up to the sky, finger pointing at the billowing darkness. ‘Could it be cast on a cloud like that?’
‘I …I don’t know,’ the girl stammered. Jaya stood and gently prised Bel’s unthinking grip from her arm. ‘Maybe. If you were close to the heart of it.’
‘The heart of it,’ repeated Bel, as the cry of the whelkling boomed off the walls.
Thirty-six
The Storm
Suddenly Losara was himself in the dream, watching Battu striding back and forth and shouting orders at the troops.
Let him , he thought. He was certain that he was meant to eventually supplant Battu as Shadowdreamer, but the gods had not specified a time frame, and there was no point making trouble with Battu before a battle. They needed all the strength they could muster.
He dissolved into shadow and travelled swiftly to the border to look upon the growing army of his other. It was an impressive force, many tens of thousands strong, and each race was fierce and determined. He wondered if the great power he felt inside himself – as yet not truly tested – would be able to hold them all back. Certainly thousands would fall to him, but would it be enough? He didn’t like to discover himself thinking this way – loss of life on such a scale brought him no joy.
Meanwhile, the Fenvarrow army was growing larger by the day, but the gods had been right – the population had never grown back to its full force under the Caretaker. They had a greater diversity of soldiers, that was true, with Arabodedas, Vortharg, Goblin, Graka and Pixie. The Mireform too had kept their word, and though only eight had met Losara’s summons, the arrival of such mighty allies had boosted morale considerably. It was interesting that the Mireforms answered only to him, refusing even to speak with Battu – a fact that Battu glowered over but pointedly failed to mention.
Somehow it all felt wrong. It was happening too fast. It didn’t feel as if he was treading the right path.
Suddenly he was wrenched free of himself as the dream swirled again and thrust into his other, into Bel …and it was as before, when he had seen through Bel’s eyes in Drel Forest …
The whelkling grunted as it dropped from the top of the cobblestoned tower and Bel knew he accounted for most of the weight. Fahren, behind him, was as light as thread and sinew, but Bel was broad and wore steel bands on his legs and arms, along with sword, boot knives, steel skirt and chest piece. Fahren had promised that he could give the whelkling a helping boost and, as they plummeted downwards Bel prayed he would be swift to do so. A moment later he felt an upsurge of warm air and the whelkling suddenly gained height. It began flapping heavily, bearing them up towards the Cloud. He dared to glance downwards, saw those on the ground watching, saw the worry on Jaya’s face as she faded into a pinprick far below.
The whelkling climbed until the Cloud was but paces from their heads. Beneath them sprawled Fenvarrow, dark and unwelcoming. The temperature was dropping rapidly too, and Bel shivered.
‘Look!’ he shouted over the rushing wind.
Some few leagues back from the border, a vast army of shadow creatures camped upon the Stone Fields. There were raised stone paths along which moved war engines and wagons. One, carrying an entire load of dark ice, glowed eerily.
‘You are certain they won’t see us?’
‘No, our invisibility spell is cast.’
‘Good!’
‘Let us just hope that Battu and Losara are both down there seeing to their minions, far from Skygrip.’
Bel felt as if he’d dived into cold water. They were high above and well inside enemy lands, with no turning back. His blood began to tingle.
For hours they flew, passing thousands of shadow creatures below. The glowing lights of the five goblin cities lit up the horizon for a time, blazing against them as they passed over. Bel couldn’t help but feel exposed, despite Fahren’s assurances. Soon the cities fell behind and Skygrip loomed on the horizon. Bel had seen pictures, but he was still awed by the towering fortress of twisted rock and the great spikes of its sceptre head.
‘This is total madness,’ came Fahren’s voice in his ear. ‘Good luck to the both of us!’
The whelkling began a slow decline, which seemed to Bel to stretch an age. Skygrip was so massive that he kept thinking it was closer than it was. They circled about the sceptre head, then angled towards a cave mouth that opened in its side. The whelkling gave its booming cry as they swooped.
A patrol of six Graka appeared around the tower, moving to intercept the whelkling. Angry shouting erupted as they spotted the intruders on its back. Fahren sent crackling bolts of energy at them, and three fell screaming. Two wheeled towards Bel, and he felt a zing through him as he instantly plotted the necessary movements of his sword and saw them transpire a second later. The two Graka shrieked, each missing a wing, and began spiralling like leaves towards the ground. The one remaining Graka turned and dived, managing to dodge Fahren’s bolts. The whelkling flew on obliviously, its course unaltered.
‘They’ll know we’re here!’ Fahren yelled.
‘Let them come!’ screamed Bel.
The cave mouth swallowed them suddenly and they landed in darkness with a heavy thud. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust, aided when Fahren conjured a glowing ball of light to see by. They were in a large cavern populated by stalls of whelklings and cages of birds. Several Grey Goblins stood frozen in surprise, and gasped as Fahren’s light found them. Bel slid from the whelkling and moved forward with a slash and a stab, cutting them down without resistance.
‘Come when I call you,’ whispered Fahren in the whelkling’s floppy ear and pressed his fingers to the side of its head.
‘There,’ said Bel, pointing to a staircase heading upwards. Together they ran towards it.
Skygrip was a maze, but Bel was sure they would find a way to the roof if they kept going up. At the top of the stairs they ran along a tunnel, and heard the sound of running feet echoing behind them. They turned into a wide corridor with a mural of the Dark Gods cut into the wall and came face to face with a goblin patrol. ‘There!’ barked the leader, and without another sound the goblins charged.
Bel rushed to meet them, feeling as if he overtook even himself, and clattered against their knives as a blur. The goblins were faster and more conniving than any hugger, and the path his sword had to travel to keep him alive was tighter and stricter than before. He swished at one hissing face that ducked, but others that rose against him met with steel. The fury overtook him and he laughed as he rent limbs asunder and spattered the walls with black blood. He spun as the last goblin fell and saw that others had caught up from behind. Fahren was backing towards him, one hand holding the glowing sphere that blinded the goblins and made them curse, while his other pumped back and forth sending fireballs that burst messily against whatever they hit and ran like liquid. Bel heard himself yell as he charged past, crunching over sticky charred remains to hack at any who still stood. From somewhere lower down in the castle came wails of rage and the sound of many, many feet.