‘Well, well,’ said Bel, leaning forward on his saddle. ‘Thought we’d steal off and get in a couple of easy defeats, did we?’
Losara sighed. ‘What would be the point of that? Your army is the real problem, and after that, the Halls. Once those both fall, so will all else. Why would I attack some out-of-the-way city, or some empty fort of no strategic value?’
‘Was just wondering the same thing,’ scowled Bel, trying to retain his composure. ‘I assumed it was because you’re such a spiteful bastard.’
Losara smiled faintly. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘You really don’t seem to know me at all.’ He waved a hand, and behind him Tyrellan and the mander faded away.
Querrus gasped. ‘Illusions,’ he said. ‘Curse me, I should have spotted them!’
‘Don’t fault yourself overmuch,’ said Losara. ‘I am a very powerful mage, after all.’
Bel couldn’t believe what he was seeing – or, rather, what he wasn’t seeing. ‘A trick,’ he muttered, his heart suddenly feeling like a stone beneath the Stone.
‘Strange, don’t you think?’ said Losara. ‘That after all this, our armies do battle without us? Mine with the real mander, of course.’
Bel wheeled Taritha about and brought down the reins.
Upriver
As Bel rode off in an ever-increasing blur, Jaya scrambled from the tent to her feet. She headed over the grass to the main army, where Brahl’s tent stood tallest amongst the other officers’. As she approached, a guard at the entrance barred her way.
‘The gerent is sleeping, Miss Jaya.’
Jaya fixed him with an intent stare. ‘As sure as Arkus shits fireballs, he’s going to want to know about this.’
The guard looked uncertain, but ‘What is it?’ came a voice from inside. A second later the flap was pulled back to reveal a blearily blinking Brahl. ‘What goes on?’
‘Losara has made off with the mander as Bel feared he would,’ she said quickly. ‘Bel’s taken Querrus and chased after it, to try to stand in its way.’
Brahl frowned thoughtfully. ‘So there’s no lizard guarding the shadow?’ He stepped out of his tent, straightened to full height, and peered off for a moment at the shadows in the distance. The mander was nowhere to be seen.
‘Officers awake!’ he bellowed suddenly, making Jaya start. ‘Ready the troops!’
It was loud enough for troops nearby to hear for themselves, and activity spread right away. Soon officers were running about shouting orders, and Jaya was amazed at how quickly the army rippled to alertness. She hovered on the edge of the officers’ camp, watching as Brahl strode about shouting, wondering what she was expected to do with herself. Everyone except her knew precisely where they fitted in to the military machine.
‘The enemy approaches!’ came a shout, taken up and carried down the line.
‘What?’ snapped Brahl.
Jaya followed as he went to look. Across the field, in the dim light of early morning, the Fenvarrow horde was starting to march.
‘Well,’ announced Brahl, ‘if it’s a fight they want …’
He fell silent as something emerged around the eastern flank – something long and scarlet and cruel. Slowly he turned to Jaya.
‘I thought you said it was gone.’
Jaya stared perplexed at the shadowmander, as behind it Tyrellan appeared on a horse. He drew up alongside the troops, and several mages converged to protect him.
‘Querrus said it was,’ she murmured. ‘Bel took him and they went off after it.’
‘Some foul play,’ said Brahl, grimacing. He pointed his sword at the approaching creature. ‘I have heard the tales of that thing, but you’ve seen its work first-hand – tell me, is there any hope we can stand against it?’
Jaya remembered fleeing from Holdwith as the mander slew soldiers with complete disregard for the arrows and fireballs bouncing off it.
‘No,’ she said baldly.
‘Piss and blood and fire! Curse magic and all who wield it!’ He turned to one of his commanders. ‘Fall back. And,’ he pinched the bridge of his nose, ‘Jeddies must be evacuated. Have them bring whatever supplies they can carry without slowing them too much.’
The commander nodded, and disappeared.
‘What are we going to do?’ said Jaya.
‘Get away from that thing.’
There was a roar across the field, and the shadow army charged.
‘Retreat!’ blared Brahl. ‘Abandon the camp!’
As much as she had been impressed by how fast they’d risen to arms, Jaya was dismayed by how long it took the army to get moving. As the mander came within five hundred paces of the melting front line, her survival instincts kicked in, and she left Brahl to flee through the crowd.
‘Lightfists!’ she heard him call. ‘Cover our retreat!’
She was faster than most, unencumbered by armour, dodging and weaving around running soldiers. To her right she saw Syanti Saurians knocking others from their feet with their rippling tails. She steered away from them, into the heart of the army, pounding across someone’s bedroll and narrowly avoiding getting buffeted into a smoking fire pit. Ahead, the crowd streamed around an unmanned catapult – were those to be left? What choice did they have?
Somewhere behind, someone screamed – then another, and another. She knew she was hearing the sound of the mander’s first victims. A burning smell reached her nostrils. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw the tops of flames. A great plume issued up as fire consumed the catapult she had just passed.
‘Not yet, you fool!’ a lightfist shouted, backhanding another who looked fresh to robes. ‘After our people go by!’
So the lightfists were burning the camp, and there was nothing a shadow creature hated more than fire.
She jogged on until she could no longer overtake, and fell into a groove as part of the great sweaty press of moving flesh. A long time seemed to pass, and she could have sworn they’d come further when she saw the outskirts of Jeddies. People were fleeing from the town, being swept up into the army. The sounds of the enemy fell away, yet officers still called out continuously to maintain the pace. As the sun moved higher in the sky, she began to think of the waterskin she had left behind in her tent. Some way along the river past Jeddies they finally slowed, and officers set about trying to impose a semblance of order on the enormous, jumbled mass. Jaya slipped between them with no regard for the commands being given, making her way to the rear.
Smoke rose from where their camp had stood, but no great fire raged – shadow mages and their icy ways would have seen to that quickly enough. There was no doubt the shadow now held Jeddies, for its vast numbers surrounded the town as if they meant to swallow it, and were streaming into it from all sides. The shadowmander was briefly visible leaping over a wall, and there came the distant shriek of someone unlucky enough to have been left behind.
She spotted Brahl, and moved towards him.
‘There,’ Brahl was saying, as she sidled up next to his group of officers. ‘I saw blue hair, I am certain. The dreamer has returned. Hopefully that means Bel is not far behind.’
‘What is our plan, sir?’
‘Let them follow us, if they like. We will keep our distance, but only as much as we must. I want Bel to find us quickly when he returns. We can move more swiftly than before, now that we’re free of all our cumbersome earthly possessions.’ Jaya wasn’t sure if the expression on his face was a grin or a snarl.
And so it went, for the next couple of hours. The shadow advanced, but it had been delayed long enough by fire and the taking of Jeddies for the Kainordans to keep ahead. Lightfists remained vigilant to the possibility that Tyrellan might speed ahead of his troops bringing the mander with him, yet no such attempt was made. Jaya stayed close to Brahl, listening for any news. The gerent was on horseback now, but surrounded by soldiers on foot, so it was not difficult keeping up with him. He seemed to know she was shadowing him, but said nothing.