Senedai stopped walking. The answer to his question stared him full in the face. The Tower.
It alone stood undamaged by fire and force of Wesmen. Any mages left, those not running scared in the catacombs, and he had no doubt there were some, were plainly hoping the Wesmen fear of magic would keep them away from the hub of the College. Wrong. The College was broken, the Tower now just another building awaiting clearance.
Senedai smiled to himself. At least, that was the theory. The practice, as its unblemished stones testified, was very different. Every Wesman feared the power within a mage Tower but it was surely a power that had been lessened by the deaths of so many of its mages. He summoned half a dozen men to his side, dismissing their anxiety with a wave of his hand, so bolstering his own fragile confidence.
‘The College is ours,’ he said. ‘Any inside are scared and beaten. Follow me and we will secure the ultimate victory.’
Almost immediately on entering, the weight began to build. Senedai’s men could feel it too. An oppressive atmosphere that pushed on the shoulders and neck, constricted the throat and shot lead through the limbs. It only served to heighten their unease and Senedai fought not to stutter in his stride and convey his own thoughts.
The Wesman Lord feared having to search the entire Tower for his quarry but needn’t have. Once inside and moving around the central column, he could hear voices coming from below, murmuring and chanting.
He led his men down a short flight of stairs which hugged the outer wall. At the bottom of the stairs, a single door, outside of which stood a man whom Senedai recognised. The Wesman advanced, sword in hand.
‘Ah, the senile last line of defence,’ he said.
‘And one that kept your gutless, brainless hordes at bay for twelve days,’ said General Kard. ‘And I will personally see to it that you get no further.’ Kard’s sword was at ready but he made no move to attack.
‘This is a time for honourable surrender. The fight is over,’ said Senedai.
‘How little you know.’ Behind the closed door the voices rose in volume and pace, cut off sharply and were replaced by one; strong, confident, determined. Barras.
‘Get out of my way or I will cut you down,’ snarled Senedai.
‘So be it.’ Kard lunged forwards, his sword flashing in the lamp light. It was a quick strike but his age and exertion told against him and Senedai was able to block it aside and return a stab Kard moved smartly to avoid. To either side of Senedai, his men moved to attack, axes falling simultaneously. Kard’s sword diverted one but the other thudded into his shoulder, driving him to his knees.
Kard’s sword clattered to the floor and he fell back against the door, free hand clutching at his wound as the blood poured down his arm and chest. His eyes flickered and he gasped with pain. Senedai squatted in front of him.
‘You are a brave man, General Kard. But foolish. There was no need for you to die.’
Kard shook his head but was unable to raise it to face Senedai. ‘Wrong,’ he mumbled as his last breath rattled into his lungs. ‘There was every need.’
At a gesture, one of the warriors pulled Kard’s body to one side. Behind the door, the voice had ceased. The Tower shifted gently, dust drifting from timbers and stone.
‘The door,’ snapped Senedai. ‘Quickly.’
It was locked but an expertly placed boot had it shivering back on its hinges. Inside, six mages knelt in a circle in the centre of a room covered in books and parchments. Again the Tower moved, a more definite displacement this time. The sound of pottery breaking on stone was heard. The atmosphere of dread washed out into the corridor. Senedai stepped back a pace, his warriors more. The air was chokingly thick, deadening thought and muscle. Now the Tower shuddered, lamps fell from the walls and the sound of breaking glass echoed through the building. The Wesmen staggered; one fell, cracking his head against a wall; others exchanged anxious glances, tongues licking dry lips.
‘My Lord?’ The plea was drenched in fear.
‘I know,’ said Senedai through gritted teeth. He looked again into the room, straight into the eyes of Barras. The old elf smiled.
‘You can take our buildings and our lives but you can never take our Heart.’
‘You owe me your head, Barras.’
‘The deal has changed. Now I suggest you leave my Tower before it becomes your grave too.’ He raised his arms above his head and shouted words the Wesman Lord could not understand.
The Tower rocked violently, coving crashed down, timbers splintered, ceilings cracked and shifted, floors subsided. In front of Senedai’s wide eyes, the chamber in which Barras and his mages knelt began to sink. Wood groaned and squealed against nails, stone and brick shattered like thunder. Everything vibrated.
‘Leave, Senedai. Leave my College.’ The door whipped shut, thrust by an unseen hand. It thudded into the frame, crackling across its panels. Senedai turned to his terrified warriors.
‘What are you waiting for? Go! Move!’ As if to hurry them on their way, a tortured groan of timber, brace and stone tore from the sinking room. The warriors turned and ran, Senedai hard on their heels, while the walls rattled around them, the dust filled the air and, one by one, the lamps and braziers guttered and fell, the darkness spreading up the stairs behind them.
They burst back into the sunlit courtyard to join a circle of Wesmen staring up open-mouthed at the shuddering Tower. Tears ran up and down its length. Networks of cracks were scattered around it like carelessly woven spider’s webs and, here and there, holes had been gouged in the stonework, the debris littering the courtyard.
It was a sight that brought fear but ultimately cheers as the Tower of Julatsa collapsed in a tumult of tumbling stone, billowing dust and shattering glass. But, as the dust blew away and the echoes died to silence, Senedai turned and walked away back to his command post, knowing that what he had witnessed was far from the end of Julatsan magic.
The march had been swift and proud, Darrick’s cavalry at its head, Blackthorne and Gresse flanking the young General. Having despatched three thousand back to Gyernath to help rebuild and defend the damaged port, Darrick organised his force, numbering just shy of eight thousand, into centiles each under a Captain. He built eight regiments from those centiles and each marched behind a mounted commander.
The mood was determined and confident yet light for all that. Each part of the army had won important victories; the port defence had held Gyernath, Blackthorne and Gresse had stopped a force four times their size from reaching Understone and Darrick had aided in the sacking of Parve, destroyed a Wesmen supply line and had either burned or taken every craft he had found.
But now the defence and harrying was over. Now the Eastern Balaians were on the attack and the talk was of liberation, not survival. It had taken them two hours to march from the beach to the rises surrounding Blackthorne’s town and castle. They had expected to see the Wesmen barricaded in the town, their standards flying on the battered walls and from the castle battlements. They had expected to feel the fear pulsing from the helpless enemy and they had expected to march victorious.
What they saw, though, took the songs from their hearts. Blackthorne had been destroyed. A pall of ash from fires long dead still hung in the sheltered dip in which the town had stood. And beneath the dark cloud, barely one stone rested on any other. Blackened wreckage was strewn over a massive area. Here and there, timbers stood proud from the earth, scorched yet defiant, but of the walls there was nothing. Of the streets, the houses, the inns and businesses, nothing. And of the castle, Blackthorne’s ancestral home, nothing. Just scattered stone in slab and fragment. It was a sight of devastation that literally took the breath away.
Gresse rode to Blackthorne’s shoulder and dismounted to stand beside his friend who stood pale and silent, a tear from his left eye drawing a track through the dust on his cheek. This was not a time for words, it was a time to stand with your friend. To lend all the strength that you had.
And as the army crested the rise, the silence spread. Gasped expletives echoed hollowly and, here and there, Blackthorne’s men fell to their knees, the will drained from their bodies, their dreams of a return home snuffed out. Blackthorne was gone.
The Baron stared down unmoving at the ruins of his town. Gresse saw the thoughts chase themselves across his face, on which anger flourished and spread. Behind them, the army waited, those native to Blackthorne stunned, those of Gyernath respectful of their anguish.
Eventually, Blackthorne turned to address all that could hear him.
‘I’ll be brief,’ his voice echoed out over the massed ranks. ‘Down there, you see my town. Torn apart by Wesmen. And among you are those who can see only ruins where their houses once stood. I am one of them. That is why we must pursue the Wesmen and that is why they must be stopped and driven from our lands forever. Yes, I want revenge but more, I want none of the rest of you to feel the way I feel now.
‘Now let’s get moving. General, if you please.’