The reality was that, unless some form of organisation grew from the chaos that ran the length of the Blackthorne Mountains, the Wesmen could still reach Korina, despite the loss of their magic. The Colleges would have to step in further. Take control. And while that was unpalatable, it was preferable to the alternative.
But the Colleges were distant and the problems of Blackthorne would hardly register. He could expect little help from the north but one thing he could do was attempt a Communion with Xetesk. Communication was an advantage the peoples of the East would have to exploit if they were to win.
Baron Blackthorne yawned. It was time to check on Gresse, and to sleep. Tomorrow, there were decisions to be made. He had to discover the wider picture. Understone, Gyernath, the scattered coastal and inland villages. He had to know where any help was coming from to drive the Wesmen back across the Bay of Gyernath. And he had to find a way to take back his town, his castle. His bed. Suppressing sudden anger, Blackthorne turned his back on the night and walked under the overhang.
The Wesmen kept on coming. Thousands of them pouring towards the borders of Julatsa, scrambling over the bodies of their fallen kinsmen and heaving themselves against the stuttering College Guard. From his Tower, Barras gazed down on the confusion, saw the spells ripping into the invading army and saw them roll relentlessly on.
It was mid-afternoon and the only respite in the fighting had been at the moment the Wesmen’s magic deserted them. That moment, Barras’ heart had surged because he knew The Raven had destroyed the Wytch Lords. He had cried in relief and joy then; and he could have cried in frustration now.
Because far from shattering the Wesmen, the setback merely seemed to inflame their anger. They had attacked again with a greater fury than before, their swords, axes and warrior passion driving them on and on.
At first it had been slaughter, the College Guard able to hold as waves of spells devastated the Wesmen lines. Thousands had died under the might of the Julatsan barrage, defenceless against the FlameOrbs, IceWind, EarthHammer, DeathHail, HotRain and BoneSplinter.
But the mana stamina of a mage is finite without rest and the Wesmen knew it. And the Julatsans had already spent so much on shielding men and buildings on the Shamen attack fronts. The Wesmen knew that too.
Now, with the spell barrage reduced to a tactical trickle, the Wesmen were moving with awesome confidence, crashing into the ranks of the College Guard and the reservists, unafraid now of what the next mana strike might bring.
To Barras’ left, the General of the Julatsan forces bit his lip and cursed.
‘How many are there?’ he demanded of no one, his tone thick and exasperated. There had to be well over ten thousand.
‘Too many,’ replied Barras.
‘I am well aware of that,’ snapped the General. ‘And if that is meant to be a slur on—’
‘Calm yourself, my dear Kard. It is a slur on no one, merely a statement of fact. How long can we hold them?’
‘Three hours, maybe less,’ said Kard gruffly. ‘Without walls, I can’t promise any more. How did the Communion go?’
‘Dordover despatched three thousand men yesterday at our request. They should be here by nightfall.’
‘Then you may as well tell them to turn back,’ said General Kard, his voice bitter, his face suddenly aged. ‘Julatsa will have fallen by then.’
‘They’ll never take the College,’ said Barras. Kard raised his eyebrows.
‘Who’s going to stop them?
Barras opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. Kard was a soldier and couldn’t hope to understand.
That the College might be taken was unthinkable. More than that, it was abhorrent, an eventuality that brought bile to the Elder elven mage’s throat. And there was a way of stopping the Wesmen taking their prize.
But as he turned his face back to the battle at the edge of the city and saw his people suffer under the blades of the invaders, Barras prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Because what he had in his mind, he wouldn’t wish on anyone. Not even Wesmen at the gates of his beloved College.
Chapter 2
The scene in Parve’s central square was one of terrified bewilderment. At the first cry of the dragon, all noise had ceased for an instant as every head, of man and beast, turned towards the rip.
Untethered horses had turned and bolted while others threw their riders or bucked and strained at rails and posts, their throats choking out cries born of base instinct and the innate knowledge of prey under threat.
But for men and elves, blind terror gave way to a kind of fatal interest as the dragon, first a relatively indistinct shape, descended. There was a definite satisfaction in the sounds of the cries and barks with which it greeted Balaian sunshine. It twisted, rolled and wheeled, wings beating the air arrhythmically, playing in the skies of its discovery.
And as it moved closer to the ground, its form became clearer, its size dreadfully apparent. Ilkar took it all in with an analytical eye, ignoring the shaking of his body, the pounding of his heart; the urge to run, fall, fight, hide, anything.
The dragon was not as big as Sha-Kaan, the beast they had met through Taranspike Castle’s dimension portal. Neither had it the same colouring or head shape, though its basic form was all but identical. The long, slender neck arched and straightened, its head searching the ground, its tail flowing behind the bulk of its body.
But where Sha-Kaan had been well in excess of one hundred and twenty feet in length, this one measured no more than seventy. And where Sha-Kaan’s skin and scale had glistened gold in torchlight, this one was coloured a dark rust-brown, its flat, wedge-shaped head at odds with Sha-Kaan’s tall skull and muzzle.
The deep and penetrating stillness that had fallen on the central square evaporated as the slack-jawed watchers realised with an awful numbing slowness that the dragon was flying downwards fast. A frenzy erupted. Darrick’s normally ordered cavalry scattered into the streets, horses and riders colliding, barging and weaving as they wheeled in chaos, seeking the nearest escape from the immediate danger.
Darrick, his voice hoarse, yelled for order and calm, two things he was never going to achieve. Behind him, The Raven and Styliann scrambled to their feet, fatigue forgotten.
‘Inside, inside!’ shouted Ilkar, racing for the pyramid tunnel but pulling up short, The Unknown all but clattering into his back. He turned. ‘Where’s Hirad?’
The Unknown spun and shouted after the barbarian, who had covered several hundred yards and showed no sign of slowing, but the tumult in the square stole his words.
‘I’ll get him,’ said the big man.
‘No,’ said Ilkar, an eye on the dragon swooping towards the city. The Unknown gripped his arm.
‘I’ll get him,’ he repeated. ‘You understand.’ Ilkar nodded and The Unknown ran after Hirad who had just turned a corner and was out of sight.
From the entrance to the tunnel, Ilkar saw his friend hunch instinctively as the dragon passed by, not twenty feet above the highest flat-roofed building, its bulk that of fifty horses. He saw its head twisting, looking down on the fleeing men, elves and animals, heard its bark and felt fear deep in the pit of his stomach and a clap of pain in his receptive ears, their protective inner membranes closing instinctively.
The dragon rose, banked incredibly gracefully, and turned, diving lower, mouth agape, white fangs clearly visible against the black of its maw. Ilkar shuddered, watching it move, then paled as the sun cast a great shadow of the dragon over the running figure of The Unknown Warrior.