In front of him was a fragmented, but in places very dangerous, guerrilla force. He had already decided not to attempt to slow up the elves. His testing of the forward scouts had cost him too much and setting a large enough force in front of that enemy wasn't feasible in the time available. They were over two hours ahead of him and moving fast, still catchable by horse but his cavalry were by no means numerous enough to risk. He would take them on in Julatsa instead. In the meantime, his assassins and familiar-backed strike groups were tasked to kill identified leaders, The Raven if they could, and to steal back the elven texts if they got very lucky.
Elsewhere, his scout mages were slowly building him a map of the enemy close to him. Fragmented groups of Lysternan and Dordovan soldiers were scattered over a wide area. Many small groups of soldiers, often injured and clearly without direction, were heading back towards their home cities. These he would ignore.
Others, those with mages in their midst, were clearly receiving orders and either heading directly north in front of Chandyr or moving to intercept other groups and swell their numbers. These he wanted to keep fragmented, his outriders attempting to harry them, mage defenders attacking them and the threat of assassins exhausting them through the coming night. He fully intended to stop them, his scouts telling him of any meaningful moves being made. With the enemy already sapped in energy and morale, he didn't expect anything.
Not even from the two groups of horsemen who were his greatest concern. One, the remnants of Blackthorne's men and including the Baron himself, was making a nuisance of itself connecting the split enemy forces. The other, Izack's excellent cavalry, perhaps seventy or eighty, had broken off its initial attack but was patrolling the space ahead of Chandyr, denying his ground scouts and outriders the freedom they needed.
He was sure that Izack wouldn't attack him head-on and neither would Blackthorne or the elves. But he was equally sure that Izack would be able to slow his movements by judicious charge and withdrawal. His mages were experienced rider-casters and would be able to protect themselves against spell and familiar attack.
And everything Chandyr had learned of the elven warriors through his long days of observation on the city walls told him that these were natural-born hunters and frighteningly skilled with bow, sword and those deadly curved throwing blades. More, they were equally at home fighting night or day and he couldn't believe they wouldn't try to disrupt the Xeteskian march.
Interesting. He could send his cavalry out to tackle Izack but he wasn't convinced they would prevail despite their superior numbers. Izack was a star pupil of Darrick's. And succeed or fail, having no horse guard left his own flanks exposed for a greater or lesser time to attack from elves.
He could push on, marching into the night and resting only sporadically but his men would tire and they had a fight ahead of them, whatever his strike groups' successes against the disparate pockets of resistance. And moving at night, without the capacity for a fixed perimeter guard and internal fire ring, the elves would rip them to pieces at will.
Chandyr could detach more of his core fighting force to sweep north and push back Izack but again, the Lysternan commander was too clever to be sucked into a combat that would leave him open to attack from horse, mage or familiar.
What would Darrick do? Actually, it was obvious. He was doing most of it already and that pleased him. He would keep harrying the enemies he found, keep them and their comrades on their toes, with their nerves jangling and their bellies empty for want of the hunt. He could destroy much of what was left because he had them running scared. He would let the elves go. He couldn't stop them getting to Julatsa ahead of him and they were better off the field in any case.
But the critical thing Chandyr considered was this. He knew a good deal about what he chased but nothing about what lay in Julatsa. They had mages, they had soldiers, they had militia. Not many, he knew that, but some nonetheless. It was not going to be an easy fight and he would need every man and mage at his disposal to quell the populace and reach the college with enough strength to tear it down.
Yet even as he nodded to himself and let the finer points of his march strategy coalesce, Chandyr was sure he had missed something. Left out a factor that might turn the tide against him. It nagged at him but he couldn't pin it down. Was it as simple as he thought? Darrick had always lectured that the straightforward tactic should always be the first considered because it was less likely to fail in the face of the enemy.
And he'd picked the straightforward, hadn't he?
He remembered something else that the general had said to him personally after a lecture at Triverne Lake a few years back. It made him laugh suddenly and heads turned towards him. He waved that he was fine and the heads turned away.
What history has told us, Darrick had said that time, is that battle theory is best left on the table in the castle, three hundred miles from the fight. Because what you need most is a nose for that thing you forgot. And when you smell it, you'd better pray to the Gods you can communicate it before whatever it is comes at you from downwind and slits your throat.
Chandyr sniffed the air. Dusk was coming and it was going to rain again.
And now Pheone had lost contact with her deputation to the elven lines outside Xetesk. Just at the time she had thought them on the verge of being saved and feeling joy despite her grief and another mana-flow failure. The elves had recovered what they wanted from Xetesk and were preparing to come north.
Everything had finally seemed to be coming together. She had been giving the good news to every mage in the college when another Communion had come through. She had recognised the signature and accepted it immediately. In less than two hours, the whole situation had changed. Xetesk was coming, the elves were running ahead of them, the allied defence was smashed and no one knew who would get to Julatsa first.
The Communion had ended abruptly and she had not been able to raise it again though every mage had lent their strength to the signal. They were lost, they had to be.
So now she stood, as she had so often in the past days, gazing down into the pit containing the Heart, her thoughts chasing around her head, settling nowhere.
'You know why it's fading, don't you?' said a voice near her.
She turned. It was Geren, a mage she had distrusted when he had appeared, a dishevelled, stinking wreck, from the Balan Mountains something like a year ago but who now represented much of the will to survive that they still retained. He was a young and energetic man. Not a great mage but willing.
'No I don't, why?' she asked, biting back on her frustration.
Geren scraped some lank black hair from his face, pushed it back behind his ears and scratched his nose.
'It's because we are so few.'
'What?'
'Think about it,' said Geren. 'This shadow appeared and deepened at the same time the Elfsorrow was killing the elves. Think how many mages died, lapsed or not, during the plague. It weakened the whole order. And every day since they arrived here, the survivors have been whittled away. More and more Julatsan mages dying. Remember how it deepened more after the first mana-flow failure? I reckon that's because of the elven mages who died in the Xeteskian barrage that followed it.'
'I don't understand what you're saying,' said Pheone.
'I'm saying it isn't a one-way flow. I'm saying I think that every Julatsan mage alive feeds power back into the Heart, keeps the flow a circle, if you see what I mean. Doesn't matter how far they are away, they still do it. And now we're so few in number, we can't feed in enough power and so the Heart is fading. Don't forget, now the Heart is buried the normal cycle of mana beneath it is gone so it can't self-sustain.'
Pheone frowned. She looked hard at Geren, trying to see doubt in his eyes but there was none at all. Could he be right?
'It makes sense, doesn't it?' he asked. 'Have you checked the shadow on the Heart today? I bet, if you do, it'll be deeper. Not much but you'll see it. More mages died today. Julatsans. Why don't you check?'
Pheone shook her head. It didn't seem worth it. She could sense the sickness without tuning in to the spectrum to see the dull yellow, like thick dust on paint, that covered the mana flow.
'Have you told this to anyone else?'
'No,' said Geren. He smiled but it was a regretful gesture. 'It hardly makes any difference does it?'
'Why not? I mean, if this is the answer . . .'
'Then all we know is that with every mage that dies, we get weaker, only it's worse because the Heart weakens with us. We knew most of that already and the conclusion is still the same. The fewer of us that attempt the raise, the less likely it is to succeed. Let's hope your elves make it without losing anyone else or we'll be left with nothing but a shadow Heart in a few days, won't we?'
Pheone gazed at him and he returned her stare apologetically.
'Was there anything else you came to tell me?'
'Yes. The city council is here, like you asked. What are you going to tell them?'
Pheone began to walk to the new lecture theatre. It stood in the ruins of the six the Wesmen had pulled down and was a less impressive structure than any of its predecessors. 'Hear for yourself, why don't you?'
He shrugged and followed her in.
The audience in the lecture theatre was sparse. Thirty rows of stepped benches climbed up to the back of the medium-sized auditorium, all looking down on a brightly-lit stage containing a single long table, a huge raised blackboard and a podium. The lantern light was augmented by LightGlobes and the last of the afternoon sun, which shone through huge angled windows set in the roof.
Pheone walked straight to the podium, nodding at the five temporary college elders at the table supporting her. Geren walked across to sit with what looked like every other mage in the college, ranged along a few benches to the left. She counted about fifty. Pathetic, really. Perhaps one per cent of the number the college should have and could comfortably support. Geren's theory was looking solid.
To the right sat the city council of Julatsa. All decent people, she had to admit. Businessmen, the commander of the city guard, such as it was, local nobility and the city mayor.
'Thank you all for coming,' she said, her voice carrying easily to the empty benches at the back of the theatre, augmented by engineered acoustics and amplification spells. 'I just wish I was here to bring you good news.'
A ripple went round the sparse auditorium.
'The siege of Xetesk has collapsed. At dawn this morning Xeteskian forces using a powerful magic we are still trying to understand, swept through the Lystern and Dordovan defences north and east. Our information is incomplete at best but we have to assume that at present, there is nothing standing in their way. We know that the elves, who were not taking part in the siege this morning, have escaped almost unscathed and will arrive before the enemy, but not long before.'
She paused, listening to the depths of the silence, every eye upon her.
'Ladies and gentlemen, we know why the Xeteskians are coming here. They are coming to destroy this college and its Heart before we have a chance to raise it. Indeed, they may be too strong even if we do. As Julatsan mages, we have to stay here, we literally have nowhere to go and nothing to gain by standing aside. Everything we have striven for is here. As is our future as mages.
'But you, mister Mayor, honoured council members, are not under any direct threat and neither are the people of the city.' She paused again. This wasn't coming out quite right. 'What I am saying is this. You are innocents in this conflict. Xetesk doesn't desire destruction of the city like the Wesmen did. The people of Julatsa have a choice and they must make it quickly.
'Those who are tired of war and suffering should leave now. Join those who already find the city claustrophobic and those who do not want to face hunger in the name of a future here any more. No blame could possibly be attached to any that leave after the sacrifices all have made in the name of the college and city of Julatsa since the end of the Wesmen occupation.
'Those that choose to stay, and I pray it is the mass of the able bodied and willing, I urge to lend their strength to us because if Xetesk beats us and throws down our college, the freedom you have enjoyed so long will be gone. That is all. I welcome questions.'
The silence hung like a thick cloying fog before a hand was raised among the twenty council members.
'Master Tesack, please speak.'
'If we pledge our strength to you, can we win?'
Pheone spread her arms wide. 'I do not know. I believe so, as I must, but there is no certainty that any strength of arms we can muster will be enough. We do not know how many men Xetesk is bringing, nor the strength or state of the remaining allied force that might or might not arrive before them.
'We might laugh or we might be swept away. But I could not live with myself if I did not tell you the risks we are facing as a city and college. There will be a battle fought in our streets, in our parks and squares. Xetesk will struggle to the last man to reach the college and people who get in their way will be killed.
'What you must ask yourselves and the people of this city is, after everything else that has befallen us, can you stand with us again or must you try to find another place to build your lives? The choice is that simple.'
Another hand was raised. It was Geren. Pheone nodded for him to speak.
'I have not always been the perfect loyal mage,' he said. 'So you might choose to ignore my words. I have not always lived here to lend my support to the cause. But I could not leave now, whether I was a mage or not. The Heart of the college is also the heart of the city. If it dies, the city dies with it. And the wider implications of the loss of a college for the whole of the country do not bear thinking about. Any able to defend are honour-bound to do so.'
'For me the choice is simple,' said the city guard commander, standing. 'I am the appointed defender of this city, part of which is the college. I have forty full-time officers and experienced soldiers and I have perhaps a hundred volunteer constables. We will not leave. We will stand and fight side by side with our mages to defend our city.'
'Thank you, Commander Vale,' said Pheone, smiling. A smattering of applause ran around the gathered mages.
The Mayor rose to his feet. He was a tall man, his gaze imposing and his shining bald pate instantly recognisable.
'Pheone, you speak openly and, I assume, honestly. As have all who have spoken thus far. Yet I do not know how I should react. With gratitude that you have forewarned us and given us a chance to save ourselves? With anger that you might think we would consider deserting a college that has sustained us so long? Or with cynicism because you have left us with no real choice but to bear arms in defence of our city - and that, because living with a magic college in our midst invites trouble?'
Pheone's jaw dropped. There was a rumbling of voices from the table and the assembled mages. She waved them to quiet. 'Should you not just be glad that we have given you maximum warning and genuine choice? We have been ready to speak to you since this morning. I just don't want to see innocents die. Would you have preferred your first knowledge of Xetesk's arrival to have been as soldiers marched past your house?'
The Mayor raised his hands. 'Pheone, please, don't overreact. I am merely expressing the range of emotion that the people will express. The history of Julatsa is well-known to all here. And I concede that much of what we have here is credit to the college.'
'Good of you to say so,' muttered Lempaar, the old elven elder.
'Indeed,' said the Mayor, smiling. 'The glory and the destruction. It is the way of cities. Korina grew because of its docks, those required to service them and those using them for profit. But wheels turn full circle. Surely the pattern of trade is such that the docks now serve the people, should they ever be rebuilt. And perhaps it is so with the college of Julatsa. The world moves on. And my city is saying to me, how long can we support this college? This elite gathering that in the last decade has brought us so little but cost us so much?'
Pheone could not quite believe what she was hearing. The Mayor had begun with a confused message. Now his opinion was becoming unfortunately clear.
'Mister Mayor, we don't have the time to debate theories and attitudes. We need to know what it is the people of Julatsa intend and what you will recommend. We have to make plans quickly.'
The Mayor's expression hardened. 'Then I will not delay you. Clearly the complex feelings of the city are of no real concern to you.'
'That is not-'
'I understand,' he said. 'The college comes above all considerations. '
'I am talking reality, not theory. Xetesk is coming.'
But the Mayor was enjoying himself. He looked to his council who, Commander Vale excepted, nodded their support.
'This city is so much more than its college. This city is its people. And those people are tired of being targets in conflict, tired of suffering for the good of the college, and tired of being hated for things beyond their control.
'All across our country, people are starting to put their lives back together. After the magic-inspired storms we all suffered, crops are growing again. In the baronial lands, towns and villages are being rebuilt, farms are working. Perhaps you have been disconnected from life outside of the college lands but I have not. No one wants this war. In fact there is no war outside the mage lands, barring what we might call normal baronial disputes. Even Arlen, practically destroyed by Xeteskian forces, has been ceded back to its few survivors.
'Why should we Julatsans suffer one more day of conflict? Why should innocent people in any college city do so? I understand who is coming here. I understand what they want. I also understand that I cannot stop them. But I will not stand by while they destroy what little we have left. Our esteemed city guard's commander is out on a limb, siding with you.' He didn't look across as he spoke, focusing solely on Pheone. 'I will not have fighting in the streets of this city. If he wants to stand with you, he can do it on your walls. If Xetesk has come to tear down the college, I will not ask my people to stand in its way.'
Pheone nodded. 'Am I to understand,' she said into the void, 'that you are going to chaperone an invasion force to its target? Is that right?'
The Mayor shrugged. 'I won't stand in its way. Indeed, I will be trying to organise matters such that it makes its way through my city peaceably. There will be no battle on these streets, in the parks or squares. The message I will send to the people of Julatsa is simple. They will have nothing to fear from the Xeteskians. If they wish to leave for the time being, they can. If they wish to fight with you, they must join you here.'
'Gutless coward,' snarled Geren.
'Geren, stop,' snapped Pheone. 'Insults get us nowhere.'
'You had better hope Xetesk prevails, hadn't you?' Geren said ignoring her.
'Are you threatening me, boy?'
'I am theorising,' said Geren nastily. 'About what might happen to the balance of power in this city if my college repels the invasion. And repel it, we will.'
'I hope you do,' said the Mayor, though his voice was cold. 'I hope still to count you as friends. But I must look after my people. They are not to be sacrificed on the altar of magic.'
'Friends?' said Geren. 'Friends stand together. You are no friend of this college.'
'I do not like your tone,' said the Mayor.
'You aren't supposed to.'
Pheone just watched and listened as the clamour grew, unwilling and unable to stop it. Commander Vale stood and walked out, brushing aside the council members who sought to stop him. He shook hands with her and the elders before striding purposefully from the lecture theatre.
But what could he really do? The Mayor was popular and his views shared widely. If he had his way, ordinary Julatsans would not lift a finger to help them and her thoughts of the enemy being hounded on every street corner went up in smoke. Dammit but this man would practically escort Dystran to the gates of the college. Pheone bit back the tears of anger and frustration but felt, as a physical pain, another nail being hammered into the coffin of Julatsan magic.
Chapter 33.
Night was falling over the mage lands north of Xetesk. Auum had found the run a release after the cramped passageways of Xetesk's catacombs, and they had made good progress. He and Rebraal had organised their forces into scouts, flank and rear defence, and hunter-gatherer parties, while the mages were defended by Al-Arynaar swordsmen supported by TaiGethen.
ClawBound did as they always did. They took no orders but knew instinctively where to be, what to watch and when to report. The loss of two of the dozen pairs, along with three TaiGethen in the earlier attack, had hurt them deeply; and the ClawBound calls that echoed across the miles of charmless damaged countryside were laced with mourning. The information they carried, though, was important and welcome. The Xeteskian forces had stopped and set up camp. Fires were lit, tents were pitched and horses picketed. This was not a brief halt.
But there was an undercurrent of anxiety in the communication. Not every enemy was in the camp and some were sensed and not seen. There was danger everywhere, some of which would melt out of the night to strike. They could not lower their guard for a moment.
Auum had continued the run for another hour before his forward scouts reported a perfect site for a camp. Flat ground along the banks of a river was bordered on the other side by steep crags and with narrowed access front and rear. While he was only too aware that Xetesk could attack from the sky, the assassins, he had been told, would be on foot. They would find their task harder tonight; he would see to that.
Offering a prayer of thanks to Yniss for their fortune, he led his people in. One by one, his hunting parties returned and, though the meat was not plentiful, an abandoned farm had yielded some root vegetables among the weeds and they would have broth before the fires were doused.