‘Upstart young Generals with air for brains are commonplace. Fortunately, we are not standing before one of them,’ said Blackthorne.
‘And nor are the pair of you uncaring, though the same cannot be said for certain of your brotherhood,’ replied Darrick, bowing slightly at the compliment paid him.
A look passed between the two Barons and Gresse’s eyes narrowed. ‘There will be actions taken when this is all over. But that is for another day. Now, General, let us tell you what we have been doing and we can plan the liberation of Blackthorne.’
‘Liberation?’ Darrick’s heart skipped a beat and he looked at Blackthorne, who raised his eyebrows. ‘Did they not drive straight for Gyernath and Korina?’
‘No,’ said Blackthorne. ‘They clearly wanted my town as a southern staging post rather than Gyernath which, for you, is lucky since you hoped to raise an army from there. Much of their force headed north to Understone but it didn’t get there.’
‘No more summaries,’ said Gresse. ‘We should sit and analyse this properly. We want to be at the gates of Blackthorne before nightfall. ’
Darrick felt energised, his whole body powered and healthy. This unexpected turn of fortune changed a great deal. Not only had Gyernath been able to repulse the Wesmen attack but it seemed that the north-south supply line was not in place and now would never be. For the first time since he rode through Understone Pass to help The Raven, Darrick firmly believed Balaia could be freed from the clutches of the Wesmen.
But his belief was tempered by a growing concern. Though they had, by his latest reckoning, around twenty days, time was nonetheless short and, as the brown stain ate the sky over Parve, the noon shade grew, marking the progress towards Balaia’s doom at the hands of an army of dragons. Again, The Raven had the task of saving the continent in their hands and again, Darrick had to try to support them, keeping Wesmen from their path. Now he had made landfall in the East, he had to contact them. Because, if anything befell them, only he and Styliann could pass on the knowledge of the threat to the Colleges. And he didn’t trust Styliann as far as he could throw him.
Sha-Kaan sat heavily in the Melde Hall feeling every one of his four hundred and more cycles. Elu-Kaan, the Great Kaan’s hope for a successor, lay on the verge of death in a melde-corridor, tended at last by his Dragonene, the old elven mage, Barras. He was doubtful whether the expert ministrations of the Julatsan or the healing flow of channelled interdimensional space would be enough but they had to try, despite Barras’ personally desperate siege situation.
At least Sha-Kaan was able to advise Barras from his own painful experience concerning the nature of Elu’s multiple wounds. The Great Kaan’s scales were covered in tiny scratches, his eyes smarted from the touch of claws and inside his mouth the ice of their bite dulled his fires. He chewed on bales of Flamegrass, reflecting that he had escaped lightly, the human’s spells critically weakening the sea of Arakhe who had attacked them. Elu-Kaan hadn’t been so fortunate, stumbling across the full fury of the Arakhe and suffering horrible wounds deep into his throat. It was these that Sha-Kaan feared and that he had exhorted Barras to heal if he could.
For himself, he needed rest. Ideally, that rest would have been in his own melde-corridor under the ministrations of Hirad Coldheart and The Raven but, much though it rankled, he accepted that was not possible. So he had to content himself with first the energy of the Melde Hall and then, when he tired of its noise, the calm and quiet of Wingspread.
He ached from constant toil. The wounds from his battle with the Naik above the southern plains were not healed and the muscles at the roots of his wings protested though the wide spans themselves were furled and stowed. He looked along the length of his body, noting with displeasure the fading hue of his golden scales. Once so bright they dazzled in the orb light, they were now a dim indicator of his age and health. They hadn’t begun to lift just yet and his wings maintained their full lubrication but it wouldn’t be long. And part of him even looked forward to the day when he no longer had the weight of the Kaan on his broad back. But there was so much that still had to be done and the fate of them all blew with the vagaries of the wind.
Sha-Kaan swallowed the last of his bale of Flamegrass, the alarm sounding in his mind before he had resettled on the warm quiet mud. He breathed out long and deep, smoke drifting from the corners of his mouth as his irritation fed through to the glands inside his gums. He had known deep inside of him that there would be no real rest but he could have expected at least a few beats. Snatching another bale of Flamegrass, he switched out of Wingspread, the call to the Brood forming on his lips.
The sight at the gateway shook Sha-Kaan to the core. Though the guard around the roiling brown mass was doubled, they seemed pitifully few against that which they had been detailed to oppose. And the Naik were coming in strength, and with allies. Out-fliers had pulsed warnings back through the net of Kaan minds, forcing the Brood-at-rest and the Brood-awake into concerted action, implementing the defensive plan drilled into them by Sha-Kaan.
But Sha-Kaan himself had to force away doubts that it would work. The gateway had grown far more quickly than he had feared in his worst moments and now was linked fast to the sky above Beshara, grabbing at its edges as it fed its voracious appetite. A thin line of cloud now bordered the gateway and Sha-Kaan knew that would develop, bringing obscured vision as yet another problem to the defenders.
In time, the gateway would collapse, its structural instability forcing it in on itself. But that would not happen until long after the Kaan and Balaia were destroyed; and the shockwaves it would send through the whole of interdimensional space would ripple tremors through every dimension, though none worse than through the ruins of Balaia itself.
Sha put the thoughts from his mind. For now, the Kaan simply had to survive the coming battle. From every point of the sky, his Brood came to the defence of their melde-dimension and themselves while from the north, a dark blotch signified the mass of the Naik and their enslaved allies.
As he reached the vicinity of the rip and felt its pull on his mind, strong like a wind sucking him towards it, the Great Kaan knew that what was to come had to be the last. If The Raven had not reached Beshara before the Naik attacked again, all would be lost.
He pulsed greetings and orders and the first Kaan flights set out to attack.
Julatsa’s stone-clad grain store sat in the middle of a cobbled square providing a natural fire break from the predominantly wooden buildings which surrounded it. History had demanded it be strong. Times of shortage in ages gone by had forced the peaceful folk of Julatsa into desperate measures and the blood of many a starving man with a dying family back home had soaked through the stones into the earth below. And though those times were long gone, the grain store stood as testament and reminder, as well as being a fully functional city building.
The Raven, with Denser overhead, Erienne now in his arms much as Ilkar had been over the Wesmen camp at Triverne Inlet, stood in the shadows of an alley that opened directly onto the square. They were parallel to the main street which led from the store, through the southern market and up to the College. Thraun had gone quiet but the hand-to-hand fighting was getting nearer and the level of noise from every quarter of Julatsa was rising. Hirad shifted grip on his sword. They were going to have to move fast and the Julatsans from the College would just have to be ready for them.
The grain store measured better than ninety feet on its short side, which faced them, and perhaps double that on its longer. The Wesmen had stationed half a dozen guards outside the main doors, which faced the alley, and watch-fires ringed the square in front of the four main access streets.
When the hoped-for opportunity presented itself, Hirad seized it eagerly. A spell landed close by, sending flames lashing up into the heavens. Wesmen from two of the watch-fires ran away to join the fighting that bordered the square to The Raven’s left and the guards at the door were nervous and distracted, clearly unsure what they should do.