instantly swallowed in the clamor.
“How far to the shore?” demanded the Delver of a nearby giant.
“Five hundred paces.”
“And the causeway?”
“The same distance to the side, Lord Blind One.”
Zystyl stiffened, hearing the insolence in this Crusader’s tone. Yet this was not the time for a confrontation.
“Make ready to attack. I will have this city ablaze before Lighten.”
R awknuckle plucked another arrow from his shoulder and bellowed in anger as he snapped the missile like a twig and tossed the pieces into the lake. The shower of arrows from the raft had pelted his company the whole grueling march back to the city. Every one of the giants was bleeding from dozens of wounds, and several had been blinded, or had collapsed from loss of blood.
The Crusader giants were pursuing them steadily, but seemed content to hold back a few dozen paces, just far enough to ensure that they didn’t fall into the scatter range of the massive volleys launched from the raft.
The elven archers had already made it back to the city, Rawknuckle was relieved to see. The surviving giants broke into a lumbering run, hurrying along the causeway toward the welcoming shelter of the two great towers erected on the island’s shore. Many elves had fallen, and their bodies remained on the causeway, but the gruesome obstacles didn’t slow the retreating giants.
And then the giant chieftain stumbled to a halt, staring down at the road in shock. A body lay before him, face down. It was one of many elves who had perished on this retreat, but this one was marked by a broken harp jutting upward from his pack. Slowly, reluctantly, Rawknuckle turned the body over.
It was Deltan Columbine. The archer and poet lay on the road, pierced by a dozen arrows. His blood formed a circle around him, a great pool of drained life that seemed too red, too rich, to have flowed from this lifeless form.
18
Fulcrum
Seven circles; balanced, poised, and centered.
Tilting pivot, center misaligns, and seven worlds fall.
From the Tablets of Inception
“Where’s Darann?” Karkald pushed his way through the rank of gnomes, shouting his question, roughly shoving several of the rotund warriors aside. Ignoring their howls of protest, he made his way to Fionn, grabbing the Irishman by his arm and pulling him roughly around. “Have you seen Darann?”
“Your wife?” Fionn scowled, and gestured to the raft gliding inexorably closer, the armored prow separated from the shore by a steadily narrowing gap of water. “Shouldn’t you be thinkin’ about them, right now?”
Karkald turned around in anguish, then looked down at the note in his hand.
I’m sorry-if I fail, you will not see me again. But if I succeed, our lives have hope of a new, bright future.
He had found the paper in their apartment, when he had gone there earlier in the day. She could not have been expecting him, would have left the message thinking that he wouldn’t discover it at least until after the imminent battle.
Now she was gone, but where? And she spoke of success or failure, but he didn’t even know what task she had undertaken. How could she influence the future, change the course of history? She was only one person-his wife, of course, but she was not even a warrior.
His eyes turned to the lake, which he could clearly see across the plaza. The raft was surging closer-in minutes the fight would reach the very shores of the city. He imagined the teeming ranks of Unmirrored and Crusaders, their twin captains of evil. Karkald had seen the Knight Templar in battle, knew his fearsome powers of command. Furthermore, he vividly remembered Zystyl, with terrifying memories of the two instances where he had come so close to capturing Darann.
And with that memory he understood what his wife was trying to do. By the Goddess, she had suggested the thing to him a few days before! Instead of listening, he had rebuked her, forbidden her to discuss it, only to have her ignore him.
Pretty much as he had ignored her, he realized. He stared at the raft, knew that Zystyl was there, that somehow Darann was going to try to reach him, attack him. Of course she would fail-the villainous Delver was too well protected, both by his allies and by the power of his own arcane senses. Her courage awed him, even as the futility and waste of her actions infuriated him.
Again he was aware of movement around him. Trumpets blared and signals dipped. Several elven companies filed out of side streets and courtyards, forming lines of spears across the routes from the waterfront. A small unit of giants, many of them bandaged and limping, took up arms at the very fringe of the Mercury Terrace, which looked to be in the center of the raft’s landing frontage. Great gaps in the line yawned to the right and left of the giants, extending along the shore toward the causeway, and opening across much of the terrace.
Around Karkald the gnomes whispered nervously, pulling together into a knot of bristling beards and wide- eyed stares. “We’ll be ready for ’em, you bet!” Nistel declared cheerfully, his voice cracking on the last word.
Then, even more amazing, the dwarf saw the command flag dip, knew immediately what Natac had ordered. Fionn and Nistel recognized the signal at the same time. The human uttered a whoop, while Blinker raised his voice to shout orders to his fellow warriors.
And the Gnome Regiment started forward.
N atac trotted across the Mercury Terrace, a hundred paces back from the lakeshore. He was making his way from unit to unit, checking readiness for the battle, knowing there was little time left. The raft surged closer with an almost animal eagerness, pushing ripples of water out of the way, forcing wavelets against the rocky shore. The front of the craft was a wooden wall high enough to conceal any Delvers behind it, as well as most of the Crusaders except for the giants. Some of those hulking warriors hurled boulders at the plaza, sending big stones clattering through the Nayvians who stood ready to meet the attack. But those companies bore the bombardment stoically, and even the skittish gnomes avoided panic when a rock tore through the tight ranks and scattered the diminutive warriors like tenpins. Druids tended those who were injured, while other gnomes hastened to fill the gap left in the line. A howling sound rose along the waterfront, and abruptly lake water surged against the raft, splashing and foaming, driven by a sudden and unnatural wind. Dozens of druids stood amid the defenders, and in unison they called upon their power to raise a small gale. The raft staggered to a halt as larger and larger waves churned against the blunt prow, rising in cascades of spray to wash over the troops huddled behind the walls.
At the same time black clouds roiled overhead, gathering in the center of the defensive position. Natac could see Cillia, mistress of druids, handmaiden to the Goddess Worldweaver herself, holding a wooden staff over her head and chanting sounds of deep magic. The dark mass of cloud churned and billowed upon her command, and suddenly tongues of orange fire blasted from the tenebrous belly of the stratus, gouging and crackling along the face of the raft.
Natac halted in his tracks, watching awestruck as lightning bolts exploded, one after the other, against the face of the raft. Each time the druid gestured with her staff another blast erupted from the cloud, smashing against the wall and tearing away great chunks of the wooden barrier, forcing the huge craft, by inches, away from the shore. Bolts of lethal energy sizzled into the packed troops, burning and searing, killing in great swaths. But still the raft pushed, rising and surging with that almost sentient eagerness to reach land. For a long interval the two forces battled, with countless attackers charred and blasted by lightning, great pieces of the raft exploding away or burning furiously. The warrior allowed himself to hope that magic alone might hold the enemy at bay.
But no human could sustain such an outpouring of strength, and finally Cillia lowered her arms, dropped the staff from numb fingers. She swayed weakly and was caught by a nearby giant before she fell to the ground.
