Sol relaxed just a little. The Raven took their positions. Angled chevron. Just like the old days. Well, almost. They advanced. In front of them the enemy, still widely spaced, checked their weapons, made small adjustments and brought them back to bear. Still Xeteskian spells dropped in their midst but now a white flaring told of their impotence.
‘Hit them hard, Raven,’ said Sol. ‘Let’s go.’
The Raven ran in. Every enemy weapon fired. The front rank spewed teardrops. Others launched projectiles that trailed smoke in lazy arcs. Multiple impacts shivered into Ilkar’s shield. Sol heard him grunt with the effort of maintaining it. But behind no such strength prevailed. Explosions ripped the Xeteskian guard apart. Volley after volley landed in their midst. And each detonation sent red-hot fragments of metal in all directions. Flesh was flayed from bones. Skulls imploded. Limbs shredded or torn from bodies entirely. Souls shrieked as they were cast into the void.
Sol heard a drumming sound. Metal shards were raining against the projectile shield. Erienne gasped, a terribly frail sound from her young mouth. The shield flared the intense brown of the One magic casting, the ancient original magic discipline reborn in her daughter, Lyanna, and that had passed to her on Lyanna’s death. The Raven halted. The fire on them intensified.
‘Ilkar?’ called Sol.
‘Holding. Just. Move on. Be quick.’
‘Pick your targets,’ said Sol. ‘Get inside those weapons. Fight dirty.’
‘Just the way I like it,’ said Hirad.
White light, metal, heat and fire washed over the shields which Ilkar and Erienne clung on to. The attention of the enemy was on them. Huge figures turned and moved in.
‘Keep it steady, Raven!’ called Hirad.
Sol could see the eye slit of his target’s helmet. The armour was beguiling. Cool light swam through the runes and symbols. But inside the helmet the eyes were shadowed and dark. The enemy brought his weapon to bear. He fired. White teardrops flattened against Ilkar’s shield. Sol grunted a smile. He stepped in close, grabbed the man’s shoulder and drove his blade up into his neck. The enemy reared back, blood spewing out. Sol’s blade was all but ripped from his hand.
Two more filled the gap. Hirad was next to him. The young body he inhabited was fast, the soul inside adding skill to speed. He ducked a flailing weapon and slipped his sword into the gap between leg and torso armour. His target collapsed forward, Hirad shovelling him sideways.
A figure flew into the fight on Hirad’s right. It was a moment before Sol realised it was Sirendor. Simultaneously, the squat power of Aeb barrelled forward to Sol’s left. He brought down an enemy, arms around his waist, his body slamming into the surprised man, toppling him backwards. The two turned over, Aeb’s fists smashing again and again up into his opponent’s face. The enemy managed to bring his weapon round. He fired from close range. Inside the shield Aeb had no protection. His body juddered, smoked and blew apart, raining gore across The Raven’s line.
A second man inside the shield turned his weapon on Ras. The Raven warrior jumped and sliced his blade at the enemy helmet. The dull clang reverberated inside the shield. The man did not flinch. He fired. Ras’s head disintegrated and his body flopped to the ground.
‘God’s drowning!’ spat Hirad.
He ducked a flailing blow and came up to block the return and hack down with his sword on the man’s arm. His strike bit but did not pierce the armour. Sol wiped blood from his face. The enemy had seen the way to victory. They came on.
‘Back up!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got to back up. We can’t let them inside the shield.’
The enemy ate up the ground. The Raven retreated. Every weapon appeared trained on them. Projectiles trailing smoke fell on them in their dozens.
‘Turn and run,’ ordered Sol. ‘Go, go, go.’
The decade of inactivity, the lack of familiarity with new bodies and simply being dead told. Sol spun round, the pain in his hip shooting agony into his lower back. He stumbled. Hirad reached out a hand to support him but the barbarian’s body was not the one his memories knew. Sol brought them both down, clattering straight into Ilkar, who pitched to the dirt.
‘Shield down, shield down!’
White teardrops tore into them. Ren lost her entire right leg, screaming as her soul was torn from her body. Darrick had charged at the enemy line, drawing fire all the way. His body jerked, smoked and was torn through with burning holes, falling unrecognisable to the ground. Denser paused to cast but Sirendor dragged him away.
‘No time, come on.’
Sol tried to get to his feet but his leg wouldn’t support him. He stumbled again. And then Erienne screamed. The cry of a little girl in agony. And in the midst of hearing Hirad shout for them all to run, Sol saw her staring at her arms while they blistered and burned, the flames reaching up to her head and engulfing her hair and face.
‘No, no!’ It was Denser, but Sirendor wouldn’t let him go. ‘Not again, please, not again.’
Sol began to crawl towards her. She was lying writhing on the scorched earth, beating at the flames which encased her. The others of The Raven downed were already gone. So brief a return, snuffed out so easily.
A foot came down on his back. He turned his body to grab at it and another pressed into his neck. Weapons pointed at his head and chest. He lay still. All he could see were the helmets of three of the enemy ringed by smoke and fire. He heard the screams of the few survivors as they were hunted down and obliterated. He fancied he could still hear Hirad but it had to be wishful thinking.
‘Sorry, Hirad. Why didn’t I listen?’ he whispered.
‘You.’ The voice belonged to one of the helmeted figures. The voice of a God. ‘You are the key.’
Sol frowned. A thundering, guttural roar told him the new machine had begun its work.
‘We will fight to the last man and woman. Your losses will be beyond contemplation.’
‘Not any more.’ Sol wasn’t sure, but he thought the man laughed. ‘Come.’
‘I-’
It wasn’t an invitation. A hand reached down to grip him and Balaia ceased to exist.
Chapter 14
Auum waited until the Calaian Sun had reached deep waters before shedding his tears. The greedy and the disbelievers had burned in their paper castles surrounded by their brief empires just as he had said they would. Clamouring and crying on the docksides as the last ships sailed.
He should not have been desolate for them but he was. Desolate for what they had become. More human than elf in their last moments. Hanging on to material things when the elven nation was reverting to that which it had been for long periods of its history. Back to the life of which the most ancient writings spoke. As nomads. Akin to the Arakhe, the demons, in more respects than they would care to admit.
And just like the Arakhe, the elves were chased from dimension to dimension, their enemy relentless in pursuit of the prize which each elf carried and each temple and city harboured in great density. Mana.
Auum had watched the glorious spires and proud houses of Ysundeneth consumed by flame. Scorched by the heat of mana fire. He had seen the clouds rise above the vydospheres and had known the hungry machines sucked in the very life of Calaius with each belching breath. He grieved for the city. And he grieved for every elf who died trying to keep the Garonin back for long enough that the fortunate few should escape.
But he grieved for the rainforest infinitely more. Not its temples. Though they were beautiful and ancient, they could be rebuilt and rededicated. But for all of Tual’s denizens, innocent victims of a war of millennia that simply brushed them aside. The rainforest was gone. His home for over three thousand years. The place where he had thought he might choose to step across to his rest when his work was finally done.
It might recover. Eventually. There was little more tenacious than the root and branch over which Beeth presided, after all. But would Tual’s denizens return? Those not immolated would have been pushed south into the desert lands or north and east into the sea. So many species would be gone forever. Just like the elves. Forced to adapt and move on, otherwise to perish.
