Two deaths for one stroke.
He punched the air and roared. Other voices joined his, Kainordans inspired by the blue-haired man, thickening to a declaration of strength. He pulled his sword free and ploughed on, next through a cluster of Mire Pixies lifting up on their wings, all but dandelions to his switch.
Didn’t you tell them not to fight me, Losara? he thought. Did you not think to protect yourself that way? One way or another, he was glad for the abundance of partners willing to dance his favourite steps.
Bel .
The voice, soft and feminine, only distracted him for a moment. He turned aside the axe of an Arabodedas, step here, weight there , and pushed the man backwards off his feet.
Fahren needs you, Bel.
He grew angry at the interruption, a wrong note inserted into his harmony. A Black Goblin leaped at him and he drove his fist upwards – there was an axe-head held there, from somewhere – to punch the metal into the goblin’s guts. He heard the grass crunch under his feet, its tiny veins bursting.
Go away , he willed her.
Black Goblins were all around him now, and he looked up to see one on horseback, a cruel and jagged blade in his grip.
‘Leave him!’ called the goblin. ‘We do not bother with that one! To me!’ He steered the horse into a group of Bel’s countrymen, and the others followed. Tyrellan. Bel tried to go after him, desiring to make the First Slave a personal prize, but already there were others in the way. The paths he could take split into fractals, and he forgot about pursuit.
Fireballs rained down around him, setting enemies ablaze and punching holes in the pattern of the fight. He spun, furious with whoever had robbed him, and there sat Elessa astride her horse, her white dress smattered with red drops.
He tried to form words, and they came with difficulty, thick in his mouth. ‘Be gone! I need no help!’
‘But we need yours.’ She flicked her fingers, and he lifted from his feet in her invisible grip. Threads of the pattern broke, waving from him freely. As she rode away, he bobbed along in the air behind her, screaming bloody rage at this indignity, at being torn from the place where he truly belonged.
‘May you live forever in that fetid carcass,’ he howled, ‘with only the maggots in your eyes for company!’
He flung his sword at her, and she grunted as it lodged firmly in her back …but she did not bother to turn as the bouncing of the horse began to work the blade loose. She swerved to avoid a brace of goblins and Bel managed to land a kick on one of their necks as he flew past, and was rewarded with a crack.
It wasn’t enough.
‘Let me go!’ he screamed.
•
A shadow mage flashed past Tyrellan’s knee, and quick as a cat he reached down from his horse to snatch her by the hair. Her momentum almost ripped him from the saddle, but he tightened his legs and held fast, feeling some of her hair come loose in his grip. She jolted to a stop with a cry, her legs almost shooting out from under her, and twisted around ready to attack …but froze as she stared into Tyrellan’s impassive face.
‘None of that,’ he said, and released her.
‘No, First Slave,’ she said, rubbing her head painfully. ‘I did not know it was you.’
Tyrellan reached for a dagger and flung it without looking at a Varenkai who came at them.
‘Where is the dreamer?’ he demanded.
She pointed. ‘He bade us leave him, to inflict damage elsewhere while their lightfists are distracted with attacking him.’
What foolish heroism is this ? thought Tyrellan.
‘You,’ he said, jabbing her chest with a claw, ‘send out a message to all of our mages – on the authority of the First Slave, get back to the dreamer! Do it before my eyes find you again, or I’ll run you through and find another.’
He glanced around – the fighting was thick here, but over where the mage had indicated, there seemed to be a clearer patch.
‘You lot with me!’ he ordered the goblins around him, who were fending off various attacks. Then he turned back to the mage.
‘It’s done?’
‘Yes, master.’
‘Then obey.’
She nodded and sped away. Tyrellan kicked his horse after her, his goblins helping to cut a path. To his left and right, the two armies had well and truly intermixed, but ahead, where they’d first clashed, it was a different scene. The Throne stood with hundreds of lightfists, Battu as well – may his bones roast while he lives – together with overseers, healers and even some mercantile mages. It seemed that Fahren had brought casters of any quality to stand with him.
Stupidity , Tyrellan thought, taking in the different robes, to advertise one’s particular skill in bold colour.
The area before Fahren was inhabited only by corpses, and a brilliantly glowing orb resting on the ground, some five paces across. Each and every one of his mages was channelling their own stream of light into it, a fearsome web coursing through the air. Tyrellan squinted at it, trying to see through the flashing surface …what did they seek to contain so fervently? And with the thought came the answer. Who else?
His hands began to shake. They had the Shadowdreamer trapped! A fear rose in him the likes of which he had never known, threatening to freeze him in place, if not for the rage that melted it instantly away. He reared his horse and screamed, ‘Shadow mages, to me!
•
We are here , came Elessa’s voice, and Fahren’s gaze shifted in the direction of her sending. A moment later she appeared through a group of Arabodedas, flinging them aside with her power and riding out into the clear space. Behind her Bel floated in the air, his face a mask of rage. So, he had not been plucked easily from the battle.
Look Bel , sent Fahren, we have Losara trapped!
How dare you interfere , mage , replied Bel . I can drown this field in blood – I don’t need the help of your odious magic. Release me!
Fahren was stunned by the response. He had seen Bel wrathful before, but what he felt from him now went even beyond the day when they’d told Bel his father had been banished. How lost he must be in the fervour …
Elessa pulled up, bringing Bel around the horse to set him on his feet – and yet she had to restrain him still, for he struggled to tear off immediately.
‘Thieves!’ he shouted. ‘I have waited so long for this moment I was born for, and now you snatch it from me?’
‘Bel,’ said Fahren quietly, finding his own anger stirring, ‘ this moment was hard fought for, long planned for, by you and me both. See?’ He pointed off at the sphere. ‘Losara is there – you can draw him in then fight anew, your soul complete!’
Bel stared for a moment at the sphere, but his eyes narrowed and he twisted once more in Elessa’s grip. ‘To blazes with you!’ he howled. ‘Let me go!’
Fahren could not believe what he was hearing. Where was the Bel he knew? Who was this wild-eyed hateful man, greedy for nothing but death, uncaring of the sacrifices others had made to shape this moment?
‘Drunk,’ observed Battu. ‘You know, you do not need his permission to fling him into the orb.’
Elessa lifted the ranting Bel slightly off the ground, and sent Fahren a querying look. In the back of his mind, Fahren became aware of numerous shadow mages converging on the area. He felt sick. It wasn’t meant to be like this.