“What is it?” she asked.
“The Voidwarden knows,” Vylas told her.
Leona turned to Jularra, apparently lost for words. After looking around at the whole scene of Morganon under siege, she turned back to Jularra.
“You’ve got to destroy it,” Leona finally said.
All three of them ducked as a boulder passed close overhead.
“How?” Jularra demanded as she stood back up.
“That pool,” Leona said. “That pool, and those past queens it has down there. It must have something to do with that!”
Another boulder sailed overhead. Vylas stepped away to shout back at the Ridgerazers.
“Focus everything on those catapults! The catapults!”
He turned back to Jularra.
“The Gift Gods said you’ve… mastered your understanding of magic, yes? If you’ll ever have a chance, it has to be now!”
“I can’t leave this battle!” she yelled.
“If you don’t, the Voidwarden is going to destroy us anyway!” Vylas shouted back.
“Jularra, he's right” Leona said urgently. “We’ll go with you. Melcayro and Abranni can handle the Ridgerazers. But you need to try.”
Torn between enemies, Jularra surveyed the valley.
The Ridgerazers—both the small group down at the northern turret, and the larger group close by—were doing a solid job of harassing the siege equipment operators, even when not destroying the actual catapults. A force of Jularra's infantry had finally engaged the Torgurians from the mountain tunnels, and the rest were holding off Latham's army to the south. For now, the battle appeared to be balanced, which allowed Jularra to at least consider the idea of leaving.
“If I don’t try something,” Jularra admitted, “the Voidwarden will defeat us anyway.”
Vylas nodded.
“All right,” Jularra conceded. “Melcayro!”
He ran over.
“The Voidwarden knows about the deception. We’re going to its mountain to try and stop it before it kills us all.”
Melcayro’s eyes widened. He swayed in disbelief.
“I need you and Abranni to stay, and continue coordinating the Ridgerazers,” she added, resting a hand on his shoulder.
Melcayro took a deep breath and nodded slowly.
“Watch out for anything new,” she told him gravely. “I’ll return as quickly as I can.”
If I can.
Nineteen
Jularra galloped around the side of the inner walls, Vylas and Leona riding just behind. The three of them careened toward the city's southern exit.
“Open the gate!” Jularra screamed as they approached.
A Bedrock scrambled to unlatch it just in time. As the door swung open, Jularra glanced back to see a boulder slam into one of the southern turrets. She forced down her crushing worry and turned back to focus on the horse’s gallop.
I can’t let it end like this.
They shot out through the gate, across the fields of Morganon Valley and over the hills before hitting the trailhead that would take them to the Vacant Grave. Jularra knew the ride would be hard, with aggressive switchbacks and a brutal final climb to the mountain entrance. Only the hope of their mission assuaged her misgivings.
As the trio tore through the woods, the sounds of the battle faded. If not for the urgent pounding of the horses' hooves, it might have been any other day. Harder they pushed the horses, standing in their stirrups, leaning low over their steeds' straining necks so that the animals had full movement to dig in and tear into the ground with each stride. This far from the besieged city, the deep blue sky was clear of smoke. It's a beautiful day, Jularra thought incongruously.
Further they rode, deeper into the mountains. Morganon was gone, or at least the sound of its trouble was.
The three riders flew past a blur of black; a lightning-struck tree, perhaps. Jularra thought little of it.
Then they passed another one. And another.
What was that?
Another patch of darkness.
This time, Jularra turned as they raced by it.
That smile, she thought. That fucking smile.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the Voidwarden's sadistic voice sounded inside her head. “Are you coming to see me?”
It gave a slimy, sliding giggle.
“While I wait,” it continued, “perhaps I’ll pay Morganon another visit!”
“Leave them alone!” Jularra shrieked.
Vylas, riding just ahead of Jularra, looked back over his shoulder. At her side, Leona looked at her as well.
“The Voidwarden,” Jularra hollered over the horses. “It’s in my head.”
“Don’t give it your energy,” Leona shouted back. “We’ll deal with it soon enough.”
“It says it's going back to Morganon.”
Leona had no reply of reassurance. Nor did Vylas, who turned back around. All three focused on the trail ahead. It had started to grow steeper, and narrower.
***
The war in the valley saw both sides fully committed. The expertise of the Acorilinians was helping to even the odds against the enemy’s superior numbers, but there was little progress being made. Battlefield victories were pyrrhic. The Acorilinian infantry held their ground, but weren’t able to advance to the siege equipment or push Latham’s armies back. And for every catapult the Ridgerazers managed to knock out, a different catapult’s boulder found its way to the city’s walls.
New catapults, too, were creeping out from the mountain tunnels to replace those that were destroyed. The defense of Morganon could not sustain many more direct impacts from the siege equipment, and it would not be long before the attackers broke through to take advantage of the gaps in the wall.
While hope and skill helped keep Acorilinian morale elevated, a steady rumble in the ground began to erode the fighters’ focus.
The land started to shake. Distractingly at first, then violently. Shouts of alarm sounded from across the battlefield as the tremors rippled out towards the surrounding mountains. As the geological activity moved away from the valley, so too did its sounds fade.
A few seconds later, the sound erupted once again from the surrounding mountains.
Exploding out from the five tallest peaks were what resembled four massive fingers and a thumb, only instead of skin, the fingers were made of night. With dreadful implacability, this city-sized hand began to draw up and close as if the creature it belonged to was slowly gripping the valley in the confines of its palm.
The light of the land was suffocated by the
