Fury rained upon the field: fire and lightning, monsters undead and magically created. The Luskar matched that fury; they were fighting for their very lives, for their families. There could be no retreat, no withdrawal, and to a man and woman they knew it.
So they fought, and fired their arrows at the wizards on the balconies, and though they died ten-to-one, perhaps more, it seemed that their advance could not be halted.
But then it was, with the snap of a magical staff.
Someone tugged hard at his arm, and Deudermont gasped his first breath in far too long a time as another hand scraped the dirt away from his face.
Through bleary eyes, he saw his rescuers, a woman brushing his face, a strong man yanking at his one extended arm, and with such force that Deudermont feared he would pull his shoulder right out of its socket.
His thoughts went to Brambleberry, who had fallen beside him, and he took heart to see so many clawing at the ground, so much commotion to rescue the Waterdhavian lord. Though he was still fully immersed in the soil, other than that one extended arm, Deudermont somehow managed to nod, and even smile at the woman cleaning off his face.
Then she was gone—a wave of multicolored energy rolled out like a ripple on a pond, crossing over Deudermont with the sound of a cyclone.
The sleeve burned from his extended arm, his face flushed with stinging warmth. It seemed to go on for many, many heartbeats, then came the sound of crashing, like trees falling. Deudermont felt the ground rumble three or four times—too close together for him to accurately take a count.
His arm fell limp to the ground. As he regained his sensibilities, Deudermont saw the boots of the man who had been tugging at his arm. The captain couldn’t turn his head enough to follow up the legs, but he knew the man was dead.
He knew that the field was dead.
Too still.
And too quiet, so suddenly, as if all the world had ended.
Robillard kept his forces tight and organized as they made their way north along Cutlass Island. He was fairly certain that they’d meet no resistance until they got within the Hosttower’s compound, but he wanted the first response from his force to be coordinated and devastating. He assured those around him that they would clear every window, every balcony, every doorway on the North Spire with their first barrage.
Behind Robillard came Valindra, her arms tightly bound behind her back, flanked by Maimun and Arabeth.
“The archmage arcane falls this day,” Robillard remarked quietly, so that only those close to him could hear.
“Arklem Greeth is more than ready for you,” Valindra retorted.
Arabeth reacted with a suddenness that shocked the others, spinning a left hook into the face of their moon elf captive. Valindra’s head jolted back and came forward, blood showing below her thin, pretty nose.
“You will pay for—” Valindra warned, or started to, until Arabeth hit her again, just as viciously.
Robillard and Maimun looked to each other incredulously, but then both just grinned at Arabeth’s initiative. They could clearly see the years of enmity between the two overwizards, and separately reasoned that the taller and more classically beautiful Valindra had often been a thorn in Arabeth’s side.
Each man made a mental note to not anger the Lady Raurym.
Valindra seemed to get the message as well, for she said no more.
Robillard led them up a tumble of boulders to get a view over the wall. The fighting was thick and vicious all around the five-spired tower. The ship’s wizard quickly formulated an approach to best come onto the field, and was about to relay it to his charges when the staff broke.
The world seemed to fall apart.
Maimun saved Robillard that day, the young pirate reacting with amazing agility to pull the older wizard down behind the rocks beside him. Similarly, Arabeth rescued Valindra, albeit inadvertently, for as she, too, dived back, she brushed the captive enough to send her tumbling down as well.
The wave of energy rolled over them. Rocks went flying and several of Robillard’s force fell hard, more than one mortally wounded. They were on the outer edge of the blast and so it passed quickly. Robillard, Maimun, and Arabeth all scrambled to their feet quickly enough to peer over and witness the fall of the Hosttower itself. The largest, central pillar, Greeth’s own, was gone, as if it had either been blown to dust or had simply vanished—and it truth, it was a bit of both. The four armlike spires, the once graceful limbs, tumbled down, crashing in burning heaps and billowing clouds of angry gray dust.
The warriors on the field, man and monster alike, had fallen in neat rows, like cut timber, and though groans and cries told Robillard and the others that some had survived, none of the three believed for a heartbeat that number to be large.
“By the gods, Greeth, what have you done?” Robillard asked into the empty and suddenly still morning air.
Arabeth gave a sudden cry of dismay and fell back, and neither Maimun nor Robillard considered her quickly enough to stop her as she leaped down at the face-down and battered Valindra and drove a dagger deep into the captured wizard’s back.
“No!” Robillard cried at her when he realized her action. “We need…” He stopped and grimaced as Arabeth retracted the blade and struck again, and again, and Valindra’s screams became muffled with blood.
Maimun finally got to Arabeth and pulled her back; Robillard called for a priest.
He waved back the first of the clerics that came forward, though, knowing that it was too late, and that others would need his healing prayers.
“What have you done?” Robillard asked Arabeth, who sobbed, but looked at the devastated field, not at her gruesome handiwork.
“It was better than she deserved,” Arabeth replied.
Glancing over his shoulder at the utter devastation of the Hosttower of the Arcane, and the men and women who had gone against it, Robillard found it hard to disagree.
CHAPTER 17
CONSEQUENCE
T he irony of pulling a battered, but very much alive Deudermont from the ground was not lost on Maimun, who considered how many others—they were all around him on the devastated field—would soon be put into the ground, and because of the decisions of that very same captain.
“Don’t kick a man who’s lying flat, I’ve been told,” Maimun muttered, and Robillard and Arabeth turned to regard him, as well as the half-conscious Deudermont. “But you’re an idiot, good captain.”
“Watch your tongue, young one,” Robillard warned.
“Better to remain silent than speak the truth and offend the powerful, yes Robillard?” Maimun replied with a sour and knowing grin.
“Remind me why Sea Sprite didn’t sink Thrice Lucky on the many occasions we’ve seen you at sea,” the wizard threatened. “I seem to forget.”
“My charm, no doubt.”
“Enough, you two,” Arabeth scolded, her voice trembling with every syllable. “Look around you! Is this travesty all about you? About your petty rivalry? About placing blame?”
“How can it not be about who’s to blame?” Maimun started to argue, but Arabeth cut him short with a vicious scowl.
“It’s about those scattered on this field, nothing more,” she said, her voice even. “Alive and dead…in the Hosttower and without.”