Heryst swung by Arabelle and she could see the set of his face and the disappointment in his eyes.
'Been comfortable in here, hasn't it?' he said. There was a ripple of laughter. 'Funny, is it? In here where the demons can't pluck you like ripe fruit and you don't even have to admit what is happening outside. Any here think they are unfortunate? You have my permission to go and join those beyond these walls. You have become distanced, soft. Complacent. Weak.
'Perhaps I should send a few of you outside who haven't been, eh? Outside where there is nothing but fear and the certainty that one day they will come for you. Where you exist only to serve the invaders. Where every day you would gaze at the college and curse your misfortune while you wonder why we sit here and do nothing to help you. Where creatures like this wretch at my feet have your life or death literally in their hands.
'And you want me to show mercy? Damn you for your weakness. We cannot afford it. The day is coming when they will try and destroy us and I will do anything, anything to give us a chance.
'Never show these bastards mercy because believe me they will show us none.'
He took them all in again.
'We are the lucky ones. But with that fortune comes the responsibility for the survival of our entire dimension. We have worked hard to earn what little we have today but it is clear we have been too slow. Soon we will have to fight and any of you who shirk from what you must do I will feed to the demons myself. You heard him. They want the Hearts. So we have to defend with all we have to stop them and give those with the strength the time to beat them.
'I hope you are scared. You should be. The fate of Balaia rests with each one of us. Now harden your hearts. Because if you do not, we are already lost.'
Chapter 17.
There was little hint of what had befallen Balaia when the Calaian Sun sailed easily into coastal waters and headed slowly up the Bay of Gyernath. It had been a voyage free of troubled waters, but approaching the southern coast of their homeland, The Raven had gathered often to see it growing on the horizon and wonder what they would find there.
Now, with the sun climbing high into a clear sky and a cool breeze speeding them up the bay, they assembled on the deck once more.
'You know, I've assumed Blackthorne has survived but we have no hard evidence,' said The Unknown.
'We'll get some soon enough,' said Hirad.
Each of them was scouring the shoreline at a mile distance, searching for any sign of demons. They shouldn't find any. Everything they knew about the race told them that they would stay close to centres of population. Much as any predator likes to stay close to its prey.
'Jevin's information states that Blackthorne is still alive and kicking, ' said Darrick.
'Yes, but it's old news. A season and more since he's been this way.' The Unknown shook his head. 'It worries me. Gods burning, he's not a college, his mage strength will be minimal. It's a miracle he survived at all but it's a situation with only one outcome, surely.'
'That's why we're here, isn't it?' said Hirad. 'To make sure there's another option.'
'He will be useful to us if he is still alive. And not just because of the weapons he can provide us. Two years fighting demons on a knife-edge. There will be things he knows. Weak points,' said Rebraal.
'I'm not sure demons really have weak points, magic excepted,' said Denser.
'Everything has a weak point,' said Auum quietly. 'And I will find theirs.'
'Fair enough,' said Denser.
'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Erienne. 'I've dreamed about this so often and here it is, just as I remembered.'
'Apart from the occupation by demons,' said Hirad.
'I don't mean that,' said Erienne. 'Can't you see it and feel it?' She shook her head seeing Hirad's blank expression. 'You've no soul.'
'That'll help,' said Hirad. 'Won't give the demons much to aim at.'
'Gods, Hirad, you are an infuriating man.' Erienne tried hard to keep the smile from her face. 'This is our home. This is where we belong. Not on some island, no matter how warm it is and the memories it holds for us.' She looked at Denser. 'We can't let Balaia die. It's too beautiful and it's ours.'
'Home,' agreed Thraun. 'Where the pack runs.'
Hirad gazed across at the coastline. The gentle green rolling hills bordering the pebble-strewn shore. The dark mass of the Blackthorne Mountains rising up from the head of the bay. The call of seabirds. The smells of land and sea mixing in his nostrils.
'That's why I love you, Erienne,' he said. 'You make it real.'
Erienne kissed his cheek and scratched the back of his neck. 'Just as long as you're looking out for me, big man.'
'Do you mind?' asked Denser. 'You're making me seasick.'
'All right,' said The Unknown. 'Nauseating it may be, correct it also is. We've been on board ship almost seven days. We've been through our drills, we've sharpened ourselves up as much as we can. The Gods know we aren't what we were ten or even two years ago but we're still more than a match for anyone we meet. Here is where it starts. We've come to get our country back and we don't know exactly what we will face, how strong they are and whether or not we can win. But we know who we are. Whatever we face, we have to believe, all right? Sorry, Hirad, I feel I've stolen your lines.'
Hirad chuckled. 'Delivery needs work but apart from that, not bad. So, how close are we going in?'
'Near as Jevin can get. They can't take the crew but they can bother us. Best we aren't in longboats for longer than necessary,' said Darrick. 'We've got extra mage support but we're hoping not to have to cast until we're very close for the run into the town.'
'Gods burning, but it would help if he knew we were coming,' said Hirad.
'He can,' said Thraun.
'How? We've established we're not sending a mage in the air. It's too risky.'
'They will be looking only for men, Hirad,' said Thraun. 'Not a lone wolf.'
Ferouc flew lazily around the object of his orders feeling, as ever, peripheral to the organisation and deeply hurt by his exclusion. Below him, fires burned and humans moved in defiance of their rule. Free for a moment beneath their protection.
It confused him how they resisted still. He had done so much to weaken their resolve. Taking their food-production areas; enslaving or draining those that supported the population centre; probing ceaselessly at the barrier; keeping up a cacophony of noise during their resting hours; sacrificing slaves in front of them.
It hurt them but did not break them. Ferouc would admit privately to a certain frustration but he took solace in the knowledge that he was not alone. In every large gathering of humans barring the fallen college of Dordover, resistance remained, based around the barriers their mages could cast.
They were all that his cohorts feared. A casting that stripped the strength from their bodies and left them gasping and vulnerable should they breach it. And always, their warriors waited, cold metal sharpened to kill.
Ferouc had watched the humans around their dwelling for a long time now. He knew how they moved, where they went, why they performed any action and who it was they looked to for courage.
Their strength was based in the settlement's largest structure, over which their arrogant flags still flew. They also controlled a ring around it that accounted for perhaps a third of the area. The rest of the settlement, and the souls that dwelt there, belonged to Ferouc.
He had used these as he must, to drain the morale of his quarry and keep that of his cohorts high, bodies satiated. He had to work to weaken his enemies a little more every day even if he couldn't beat them yet. What irritated him most was that all the effects had been at best short-term. And the reason was clear enough.
One human was the difference. Tall, dark-haired and bearded. Eyes like crystal. His aura burned more brightly than any mage within. Blackthorne. He led with empathy linked to iron discipline and control. The latter Ferouc could respect and understand. The former was completely alien to him. Nevertheless, it gave them belief.
Ferouc flapped his wings lazily and fell into a glide above the settlement. The free below him paid him no heed. That had irked him but he understood it better now. Besides, he knew something Blackthorne didn't. Long-lived as their resistance had been, their time was finite. Their thrall and eventual destruction was an inevitability.
It had made him wonder why they didn't just wait. Use the souls they had and enjoy their new world. But he had been made to understand and it was why he had not been moved from this place. There had always been a contingency for dangerous resistance in the colleges. And that had been put into place. A no-risk approach to wearing them down. In the outlying settlements, the capital city, the major ports and regional capitals, there was no such allowance. The masters wanted these places under control before the final battle. There was just the chance that their strength would not be sufficient if they could not move forces from the regions to the college centres when they wanted to.
And one thing they could not afford was for there to be damage done to them in places that should be theirs by right. They had a dominant position now but when the time came that position would be at risk if they had not exerted the control they needed over all but the three remaining colleges.
The demon canted a wing and soared upwards on a cool current of air. He breathed deeply, enjoying the sensation through his body. So much like home now. As it should be. He barely remembered the taste when he had first arrived, though he could recall the feelings of repulsion he had been forced to overcome.
A new scent caught in his receptors. Powerful. Desirable. He recognised it instantly as they all would. One of the true prizes in this dimension. Every thought he had harboured about his expulsion to the provincial settlement was washed away on a tide of pleasure and anticipation.
He soared higher, searching, calling to his cohorts. He felt an unconfined joy, his receptors ablaze with this most precious of auras. It was them. It was The Raven.
'Are you sure you want to do this?' asked Hirad the moment they hit the beach.
Auum's Tai, Rebraal and from the ship's company two elven mages, Vituul and Eilaan, had run to the first rise to scout the immediate terrain beyond the temporary wooden dock to which they had tied. The Raven had grouped around Thraun.
'It gives us a better chance,' said Thraun, unbuttoning his shirt and handing it to Hirad.
The barbarian stuffed it into a pack along with his boots. Thraun's weapons were already strapped to The Unknown's back.
'I know. But I can't let you go without reminding you what happened last time.'
Thraun met his gaze levelly, remembered pain flaring in his eyes.
'I will never forget why Will died. This is different. This is for speed, not stealth. You know that.'
'You're sure?'
Thraun gripped Hirad's shoulders. 'I'll be fine. Just bring my stuff and be there to call me back.' He stripped off his breeches and handed them over. 'Now get going and don't look back.'
'Come on, Hirad,' said The Unknown. 'Let's get on with it.'
Hirad nodded and The Raven formed up into a combat line adapted for the shapechanger's absence. The elves were to provide forward protection and warning, the Protectors remained on board ship, their souls being saved for the battles to come. Erienne and Denser were to prepare nothing unless they were attacked. It was two hours on foot to Blackthorne. A long time in a country occupied by demons.
It was a land Hirad had travelled so often but a land he hardly recognised now. The grass still grew in its multiple hues of green and yellow. The budding new trees swayed in the breeze and wild flowers decked the gently rolling land in glorious colours. But under his feet and to his senses it was alien. For a moment he couldn't place why, but slowly he began to understand.
None of the ambience of life was present. Where he had heard gulls on the open water, here the birds were silent. Only the breeze ruffled the undergrowth, while rodents kept themselves hidden. The distant echo of bleating or lowing was absent. And it was chill. Not right for the time of year and somehow malevolent. It was as if the seasons had become confused and let the vegetation burst into spring verdancy while the wildlife struggled to awaken from hibernation.
The answer came to him then and it fired his determination afresh. Balaia's soul was failing.
The Raven kept up a fast walk behind the all-seeing shield of the elves jogging ahead. Concealment was pointless, it wouldn't necessarily get them there safe since the demons didn't work just by sight. Speed just might.
Ahead of them, the land rolled up a slow incline bereft of anything but gorse, coarse shrub and loose shale. Blackthorne lay on the extremities of a flood plain that ran south to the southern ocean, dry itself because beneath the soil the foundation rock was porous, drawing water far underground. The town would be hidden until the last mile of travel but, even so, distant smoke smudged the otherwise perfect sky. The tiny circling black dots had to be demons.
Hirad shuddered. Behind him, something moved quickly through the undergrowth. Not breaking his stride, Hirad looked round. The dark, lithe shape of Thraun approached, loping easily in the bracken. His face was alert, his muzzle light-striped and long, he sampled the air, tongue hanging between powerful jaws.
The wolf paced by Hirad, looking up into his eyes.
'I'll be there for you, Thraun,' he said. 'Just be careful.'
Satisfied, Thraun ran away into the brush.
Thraun could taste the dying of the land. It pervaded his every sense, growing stronger with every pace that he left The Raven behind. The rotting assaulted his nose, the crushing of life he could feel on his tongue and see through his eyes. The prey wasn't there. No spoor, no trail. Gone into hiding or disappeared for ever.
Thraun ran on, sampling what was left. The vegetation, unburdened by demon conquest, was alive and growing strong. Towards Blackthorne, the scent of wood smoke and human was on the air. It was gentle compared with the sick odour of the demons. They were the life after decay, the feeling after death and the dark that shattered the pack.
It was passed down through the generations. The fear. Thraun tried to shut it from his mind. He padded swiftly across the land, his wolven senses alert, that part of his brain that retained his humanity driving him towards his goal. His memories would dim quickly but the image of the human he needed was clear in his mind. Tall, strong. A leader with the scent of courage on him. Thraun would not mistake him.
At the periphery of his hearing, Thraun caught calls high in the morning sky. He hunkered down beneath a stand of gorse and scanned above. Demons. Flying west towards The Raven. He growled. They had smelled prey. Thraun felt an urge to protect The Raven, the pack. But his mind still retained the reason why he now lay so close to the human dwellings and it spurred him on more strongly.
He broke cover at a dead run, howling at the sky.
A mile from Blackthorne and the elves saw the demons' circling pattern change and come at them. Initially thirty, cascading from the heights and flying low to the ground. Rebraal barked out a warning.
'Time to put all those theories to the test,' said Hirad. 'You up for this, Erienne?'
'I guess we'll find out, won't we?' she replied, tension edging her voice.
'We'll protect you,' said Hirad. 'Just relax, you know you can do it.'
'Easy for you to say,' she replied through a half-smile.
'Remember we have to keep moving forwards,' said The Unknown. 'We can't afford to get bogged down here, not when we're so close.'
The elves moved back into the pre-arranged fighting line. Auum and Duele flanked The Raven's left, Evunn and Rebraal right. They had dispensed with their classic uneven chevron formation this time. The line that approached the enemy was a shallow concave curve with The Unknown at its focal point. Behind the curve, the four mages ranged, elves flanking their Raven colleagues.
Erienne could barely control her heart rate. They were relying on her like never before. Without her, only mages could kill. It wouldn't be enough. The demons were coming in low and fast. She could hear the beat of wings and their harsh calls.
Fighting to concentrate on the move, she unstoppered the power of the One and felt it surge through her body and into her mind. The sensation was terrifying. In two years of Cleress's tutelage she had learned to control the well of power that surged around her body, but barely. And even now, the level of control her mind could exert when she released the energy to cast was minimal in the scale of One magic understanding.
Her sense of that which she contained was highly tuned. She understood very well the consequences of her failure to fully control it. What had been done could not be undone. The One was within her. She had no choice but to accept it.
She still considered the entity an enemy to be suppressed lest it should overwhelm her. Cleress had done little to disabuse her of that notion. Merely saying she would learn over time to work with what she had, not fight it for control.
But time had run out. And now the dam that Erienne had built in her mind to contain the power in her body was breached. She couldn't afford to fail.
The One flooded her senses, dimming her sight and hearing. The Unknown said something about being encircled but she didn't catch it before the full majesty of Balaia's energies was laid out before her. She staggered and almost fell, her feet and legs numb, but she was held up.
She saw the raw strong energy of the bedrock pulsing through the ground; the fluxing, capricious trails of the air thickened by wind and sun; the wisps from coarse grass; the complex auras of The Raven and elves around her; and everywhere, the scattered motes that were mana. Searching the sky, she found the demons. They resolved from a cloud of muddled elements into individual powerful forms. Lattices of life with none of the gentle modulation of man or elf, and meshed firm by hard mana.
It was just as Cleress had described and the theory of the spell, like any One casting, was simplicity itself. In the myriad streams of energy she could sense about her, natural linkages were everywhere, binding the elements together. She could see the arrays that gathered mana to the demons in the natural shield that made them invulnerable to anything but magic. All she had to do was disrupt the process and scatter the mana back to its natural random state.
Erienne paused for a beat, feeling the swell of the One through her body. She drew it to her, holding it tight inside while she built the construct. In her mind's eye, it formed. As with her Dordovan magic, she drew mana strands into the order she required, a fine-meshed net of pulsing deep brown magical energy. That was the easy part. Now she had to feed in exactly the right amount of One power to let the spell live. Cleress's words came back to her then and she fancied she could feel the presence of the ancient Al-Drechar in her mind once more though distance surely precluded that now as the frail elf's powers weakened.
You cannot calculate this. It is not a mana casting, just a mana construct. Mana alone will not power it, the One makes it live. You must believe, you must trust and you must feel. Be one with it, let it take you as far as you can. Always up to the point of no return but never further. Your mind will tell you. Trust your mind. Always trust your mind.
With the words running round her head, Erienne allowed the One power into the construct and held it there while it grew, clinging on with her mind. And all the time, the entity was whispering in her ear that she should feed in more, that to let go would be to win. This was her demon and she could not allow it free rein.
She could see the lines of elemental force all around her bend and reach towards her. The One sucked it in voraciously, using her body as a conduit while she kept iron control of her mind to stop from being washed away. The construct pulsed bright under the power flowing through her. A moan escaped her lips. The mesh glowed and then burst into a fine mist, every minuscule droplet still bound to every other.
She released the spell and it flooded out from her, covering everything around her, floating into the sky and across the ground, behind and in front. It washed past The Raven and it engulfed the demons moving to attack. She saw its result and knew they would not even know what had happened until the first blow was struck.