Fayonne looked at him. "The eagles?"
"No, the Fal'Borna. Your finding spell worked. This one works the same way, doesn't it?"
"Yes," Fayonne said. "If you mean the way it gets to them."
Jenoe didn't have a chance to answer. At that moment, several of the Waterstone captains shouted a warning. They were pointing in the direction of the sept. Dozens of the men behind them had broken ranks to flee.
Tirnya looked at the settlement, expecting to see Fal'Borna warriors on horseback, but at first she saw nothing.
"Gods save us all," she heard Enly mutter.
"What?" she said. "I don't see.."
But she did. Finally. And the sight of it turned her innards to water.
It looked like a breaker rolling toward the Aelean shore. But instead of the aqua waters of the Sea of Stars, this wave was made of fire. It was pale yellow, like the eyes of the angry young Fal'Borna Tirnya had spoken to in the last sept. That was why she'd had trouble seeing it at first. Now she could see nothing else. The wave grew as it approached the armies of Stelpana, until it towered over them.
Jenoe stared at the wave as if it were an army of wraiths, his eyes wide, his mouth agape. "Eldest!" he finally managed to say. "Can you do anything?"
"We can try" was all the eldest said.
She and the other Mettai were already bending to pick up dirt, their blades ready. They had spread themselves in a single broad row so that they stood in front of a good portion of the army.
The Mettai cut their hands, mixed the blood with the earth, and began to chant their spell. For once, Tirnya heard them distinctly. "Blood to earth," they said. "Life to power, power to thought…"
That was all. They stood utterly still, watching that rolling wave of flame. A strange silence settled over the plain. Everyone seemed to be waiting to see what that wave would do to them, and what the Mettai might be able to conjure to protect them.
"Eldest?" Tirnya's father said.
Fayonne raised her blade hand, as if to silence him, but she didn't say a word or take her eyes off the Fal'Borna's fire.
Tirnya could feel the heat of it on her face and hands. The air was growing hot enough to make it uncomfortable to inhale. She could hear the flame hissing, although as far as she could tell it had done nothing to burn the grass over which it passed.
Her father was watching the Mettai, clearly unnerved. She could tell that he wanted to say something-to demand to know what they were going to do, or to implore them to do whatever it was quickly. But she could see as well that he didn't dare. He was treading on unfamiliar ground, watching a battle of magic against magic. She had never seen him look more helpless.
And still the wave bore down on them, the heat striking at the Eandi armies like a war hammer. Tirnya thought that her clothes and hair and skin would burst into flame at any moment, and she felt certain that Fayonne and her people had waited too long.
But when at last the eldest called out "Now!," her voice sounded surprisingly calm.
"Earth to water!" the Mettai said in almost perfect unison.
At the same time, they hurled the dirt at that wall of flame, the small clods of mud looking pitiful against the Fal'Borna's fire. But instantly the mud turned to water; great torrents of water that appeared to surge toward that magical wave like Ravens Wash during the rains of the Planting. Tirnya didn't know how it was possible for the Mettai to conjure so much water from so little earth. But they did. And when that magical fire met the conjured flood of water, they produced an explosion of white steam that scalded Tirnya's face and knocked her, her father, and many of the captains standing with them ontc their backs. The Mettai were thrown back as well, and the steam rose into the air in a huge billowing cloud.
Tirnya could hear screams coming from the right and left, and she assumed that the Mettai had not been able to block entirely the Fal'Borna fire magic.
"Report!" Jenoe called, climbing to his feet. "I want to know numbers of wounded and dead!"
He turned to the eldest, who was being helped to her feet by her son. "The sleeping spell, Eldest! Please! Before they can attack us again!"
"We're lucky that wasn't shaping," Gries said, his face red from the heat of the fire and steam. "We'd all be dead."
Enly shook his head. "It wasn't luck. The shapers were still fighting off the eagles."
Tirnya looked toward the sept again, and saw that with the first group of eagles all dead or maimed, the second flock had begun to attack the Fal'Borna, and the white-hairs had resumed their magical assaults on the birds.
The Mettai were conjuring again, and as with the finding spell, when they threw this magic it turned to a fine glittering powder and streaked over the plain to the settlement, where it fell like a light snow on the sept. Immediately Tirnya saw the white-hairs go down, as if struck by unseen warriors. A cheer went up from the Eandi soldiers behind her.
Seeing their prey rendered helpless, the great eagles that still circled over the sept pounced, digging their talons into the prone bodies and tearing at them with their massive beaks.
"We should finish it," Jenoe said grimly. He turned to Tirnya and the other captains. "I want the children spared. But every adult is to be killed." Tirnya and Enly shared a look.
"Forgive me, Marshal," Gries said. "But am I to understand that you want us to slaughter the Fal'Borna while they sleep? The men and the women?" Jenoe drew himself up and took a breath. "That's right, Captain."
"But-"
Tirnya's father held up a hand to stop him. Several soldiers were approaching from both ends of the army.
"Report," Jenoe said.
A man in a Qalsyn uniform sketched a quick bow. "We los' one hundr'd an' twelve, sir."
"One hundred and twelve dead?" Stri said, incredulous.
The soldier nodded. "Anoth'r two hundr'd or so were burned an' need healin'."
Jenoe turned to a soldier wearing the colors of Fairlea. "What about your men?"
"Ninety-six dead, sir. More'n a hundr'd hurt."
"And yours?" Jenoe said to a soldier from Waterstone.
"We don' know yet, sir. A' least one hundr'd an' fifty dead. More than tha' probably. An' two hundr'd hurt."
Jenoe nodded. "I'm sorry for your losses, Marshal, Captain," he said to Hendrid and Gries, both of whom appeared shocked by what they had heard. "But to answer your question, Captain Ballidyne: Yes, I want them killed while they sleep. That was just one attack, and thanks to the Mettai we were spared the worst of it. And still we had hundreds of soldiers wounded or killed. We can't trifle with this enemy. They're at our mercy now, and I don't dare show them any." He gazed toward the sept as the eagles continued their bloody feast. "Please carry out my orders. Take archers with you and kill those eagles, too. I don't want to lose any more men today."
"Yes, Marshal," Enly said quietly.
The other captains led their men into the sept, but Tirnya hung back for a moment.
"Father?"
Jenoe didn't seem to have noticed that she was there. He started at the sound of her voice and frowned upon seeing her.
"You have orders to carry out, Tirnya. Please see to them."
He turned his back on her before she could say more. She wasn't used to hearing him speak to her so, but she couldn't bring herself to be angry with him. After a moment, she followed the others.
She walked quickly and soon had caught up with her men. Oliban and Dyn, two of her lead riders, were walking together. When they saw her they made room between them.
"Capt'n," Oliban said by way of greeting, his voice low.
Tirnya merely nodded. The men around them were so subdued one might have thought that they had lost this battle.
She heard the thrum of bows once more and looked up in time to see two eagles laboring to keep aloft, both with several arrows jutting from their breasts.