the remains of the gatehouse rock on its foundations and tumble outwards, ripping holes the size of carts in the walls to either side. Orbs flew in again and again, melting the thin metal, popping lines of rivets and blasting stone to fragments.
Abruptly, the focus changed; the humans had seen something. The walls to the west of the gate were targeted hard. Other spells arced over the same section of the walls to land squarely in the Gyalan ghetto. Houses blew apart, timbers flew high into the air, spinning through clouds of splinters, clay and mud. The walls burst inwards, ice boulders crashing through them and flame orbs consuming the wood, between them creating a gash thirty feet wide.
Through the gap, Auum could see the humans begin their charge on two fronts.
‘Ulysan, with me.’
The TaiGethen pair ran behind the barrier of the first circle. Castings were dropping all around them, rattling the ground beneath their feet, sending clouds of dust billowing along the tight streets and filling their noses with the smell of burning and the foul stink of magic.
‘Take the next right,’ said Auum.
An ice boulder drove into the building directly in front of them. Auum pushed Ulysan left and dived to the right as timbers exploded from the sides of the building. The boulder tore straight through, front to back, and cannoned into the building across the ring. The whole structure collapsed, sloughing into the road, covering everything for twenty yards around with thick freezing dust.
Auum wiped the blood away from a cut on his cheek and rubbed his hand on his trousers.
‘Ulysan?’
Auum worked his way through the clogging dust. He saw a pile of debris shift and Ulysan emerged from it. Auum helped push away the wood and muck and dragged his friend back to his feet.
‘All right?’
‘You saved my life,’ said Ulysan.
‘You’ll get plenty of chances to repay me, I’m sure. Let’s get west.’
Auum raced down the next street and back towards the walls. He veered left, away from the main road. Castings were still falling but there were fewer now as the advance gathered momentum. He could see archers on the ramparts, firing down on the enemy. While he watched, two elves were hurled back, shafts jutting from chest and eye. The rest dispersed back to the second fire points.
They ran back into the Gyalan ghetto. Full of low houses, straight but narrow streets and a ceremonial fire pit at its heart. Auum heard elven voices. The ghetto had been flattened in a wide area stretching halfway to the western walls. Flames climbed high into the air and grey smoke pillared up into the sky. Turning a corner, he saw Acclan and Kepller kneeling to either side of a body.
Auum sprinted up, Ulysan in his footsteps. Acclan looked up, tears making tracks in the dirt of his face. Dysaart was dead. He’d been Acclan’s second for three hundred years. A hero among the TaiGethen.
‘He didn’t even have the chance to fight,’ said Acclan. ‘Ice hit him in the back of the head. There is no honour in that.’
‘Not for men, but there is for elves.’ Auum reached out hands to the two survivors and brought them to their feet. ‘We have all lost those we love. The enemy have breached the walls behind you. They attack us on two fronts now. Fight for him.’
The four of them moved off, Kepller limping heavily, favouring his right foot. Auum saw blood staining his left calf.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘I can fight.’
Three corners later he had to make good on his words. The ghetto was levelled beyond the breach. Spells flashed through it, creating space into which men were pushing. Archers breasted the broken timbers prepared to shoot. Auum kept his Tais just out of sight. Enemy soldiers boiled into the streets of Katura here and through the gates.
‘Drop back to the next corner; I’ll draw them on to you. We’ve got to take out those mages.’
Killith kicked the Sharp again. And again. The slave had long since stopped moving and had never once cried out. She’d stared at him just the once and even had the temerity to spit blood from her ruined mouth onto his boot, but that was all he’d got from her.
‘Feeling better?’ Pindock asked from his seat on a fallen log.
His ridiculously lavish personal security team was scattered among the trees just in case a spider got a bit aggressive.
Killith thought for a moment.
‘No,’ he said, giving the body another kick just to see it judder. ‘At least, not yet. I’ve had all night to think about it followed by a good breakfast of slimy tuber soup, and my plan is to drink Loreb’s stash of wines and spirits and then kick every Sharp I lay eyes on to death as my part in the war effort. Once I’ve done that, I’ll figure out how to kill that fucking upstart Jeral.’
‘Good luck with that. He’s under Lockesh’s wing now, isn’t he?’
In the distance the sound of thousands running, fighting and dying and the detonations of spells carried through the forest. Closer to, they could hear bored soldiers pacing and what was presumably a heavy stumble over something hidden in the leaf litter, not an uncommon event in this ridiculous place.
‘Poison does not respect the influence of mage lords.’ Killith looked down at his boots. They were smeared with blood and dirt. He sat down, dragged them off and threw them at an aide. ‘Clean them. Good to have a shine when you’re taking revenge, I find.’
The aide stooped to pick up the boots, muttered a curse and dropped them again.
‘Are you-’ began Killith.
The aide wasn’t looking at him; he was staring beyond him and a stain was spreading across his groin. Killith turned. Pindock was already whimpering and trying to scramble away though he must have known there was no escape. Somewhere nearby, a soldier was yelling for help.
‘Stand with me, Pindock. At least pretend you are a man.’
Killith had never feared death, but then he’d never faced it all that closely before. And now the certainty of his was upon him, he felt relief at not having to face the questions of his masters back in Balaia. His one regret was that he didn’t have his boots on.
So Killith faced them without flinching in his threadbare stockings and with his sword in his hand because he would not want to be found empty-handed. The elves had emerged with such poise that he even felt guilty for standing there. This was their forest, their land.
Killith watched them close in on him and the three men who had chosen to stand with him. Eight of the painted and tattooed elves, with their panthers in close attendance, stood in his arc of vision, and more were moving to encircle the larger encampment if the cries he heard were any guide.
Killith brought his sword to the ready, held in two hands and across his body. A panther leapt on him the next instant, its jaws clamping onto his shoulder and bearing him down into the leaf litter. The air was punched from his body and his sword sprang from his hands. He reached out for it and laid a hand on its hilt. It comforted him.
From where he lay, Killith saw the ClawBound running forward. Pindock screamed and begged for mercy. His wailing carried on and on, his life extended to voice the sum of his agony.
Killith fought to rise but a figure dropped onto his chest. The elf stared at him as if he were a museum exhibit, curious but unmoved by what he saw. He said nothing but brought his hands to Killith’s face and slashed both his cheeks with his sharpened fingernails. Killith jerked and cried out, unable to stop himself.
The elf pushed his chin back, driving his head into the mud. The next fingernail sliced his forehead open. Killith shouted out for him to stop, that this was not what he deserved: to be a message, left like all the others, breathing but too hideous to look upon.
Only then did the elf pause to shake his head.
‘Then you are fortunate,’ he said in elvish plain enough for Killith to grasp,‘that you will not be breathing when they find you.’
Chapter 36
