'Rebraal must have spaced the ColdRooms,' said Erienne. 'Created mana-rich areas.'
'Fascinating,' said Denser. 'If you consider that mana is channelled over the outsides of the shells, it'll create areas of real density if the spacing is right.'
Hirad looked across at him. 'We really must talk about it some more. I'd so love to learn.'
'You are such a heathen, Coldheart,' said Denser. 'It's a very clever idea. Nothing you'd ever dream up.'
'Risky, isn't it?' said Darrick.
'Only if they hang around once they've cast,' said Erienne.
Hirad watched the fighting inside the shell and couldn't help but smile. From this distance it was impossible to identify facial features but it hardly mattered. A demon attack went in. A swarm of tiny demons Auum identified as strike-strain, and that Hirad recognised only too well, were backed by the man-size reavers.
The strike-strain were there to cause confusion where they could and they plunged straight for the wagon drivers. And there they met the defence. The elves, deliberate, graceful and always on the offensive. And their human companions, those that had survived this far, frenzied, panicked and forever on the back foot. That was why Rebraal needed The Raven. To give the humans focus and belief.
'How many wagons set out?' he asked.
'Fifteen,' said Auum.
'Dear Gods burning,' said Hirad.
The end of the train was in sight. Eight wagons remained.
'They'll be here in less than half an hour,' said Denser.
'Know that for a fact, do you?' said Hirad.
'Educated guess.'
'Hardly matters. We need to get in there and get involved. We've done enough hanging around. We've-'
'Hirad, are you all right?' Erienne's hand was on his neck.
'I-'
The full force of the rage hit him then. He knew he was falling but he was helpless to save himself. His body was suffused with the strength of Sha-Kaan's fury and he had no option but to let it wash him away.
'Sha-Kaan,' he managed. 'I can't-'
The Great Kaan was close to losing control. The frustrations and anger thudded around Hirad's skull, rendering him helpless. He was dimly aware of his friends speaking to him, touching him, but he had no way of responding. He gathered the vestiges of his consciousness to him and did the only thing he could.
'Sha-Kaan, stop. You're killing me.'
Abruptly, the hammering of emotion within him ceased but did not allow him to return to consciousness.
'Skies take them, they are destroying all our hopes.' Sha-Kaan's words flooded his senses. Hirad felt his despair and impotence.
'Who?' he asked into the void.
Sha-Kaan sighed, a sonorous exhalation laced with sorrow. 'It would take so long to explain. Since you're unexpectedly at rest, I will grant you this. See through my eyes. Feel what I feel.'
Hirad experienced an acute sensation of falling. He felt the ground disappear and a sense of vastness take its place. Cold air channelled across his body and every nerve and fibre was suffused with ancient pain and longing.
He heard the beat of wings, felt their resistance against the air, their driving power. His nostrils caught the harsh scents of wood and oil, the smell of wrecked, burned flesh. He could taste something acrid and sour in his mouth. His mind reeled under the weight of emotion pressing from every direction. And finally, he opened his eyes and drank in the skies of Beshara.
What he saw chilled his bones. Beneath him, as Sha-Kaan's head swept around to give him the panorama, the sky was a mixture of flashing scales, blinding yellow flame and dark smoke, torn by the winds of the upper skies. The battering roar of mouths disgorging fire swept up to him on a tide of fury so intense it shuddered him.
Hirad couldn't begin to count the dragons intent on destruction below. He recalled the sight he had seen in these same skies at the time of the Noonshade rip but it was a mere skirmish compared to this.
'Almost a thousand dragons chase a petty squabble and damage us all such that we may never recover,' toned Sha-Kaan. 'And outside our dimension, the Arakhe will be sensing it all. Fire this intense and the temptation of dragons to switch out of the battle and move into inter-dimensional space to escape could open the door to them.'
The noise from below was truly extraordinary. A flight of Skoor, twenty strong and glittering sand-yellow, curved in a tight arc and drove through the left flank of their enemies where they pressured fellow Skoor. Massed in a roughly spherical formation, they tore into their targets. Flame scoured every point of the compass around them. Forward, the lead dragons collided with those in their path.
It was a devastating tactic and one being mimicked across the fight. Dragons bellowed and squealed, their wings, bellies and backs scorched and bubbling. Smoke trails criss-crossed. Fangs ripped into necks. Dragons by the dozen fell from the sky. Yet still the Skoor were losing the battle. Outnumbered five to one, their moves couldn't hope to counter the enemy strength for ever. But their pride kept them fighting. The attrition rate was awful.
'On a day when we should have been working to secure all our futures, one brood has been rendered extinct and others will be so depleted they cannot hope to survive.'
Hirad felt the ocean-deep grief as if it were his own.
'In our pride we used to think it was other species so blind that they would fight each other over nothing though their mutual extinction was the only sure result. And yet we are worse. Our failure could extinguish so many lives because we have chosen to touch them without offering them the choice to refuse us.
'Tell me you are close to Xetesk.'
'Less than a day, Great Kaan. But there's one hell of a fight coming to get in there. The demons aren't exactly going to usher us in, are they?'
Sha-Kaan paused. Below, the centre of the fight exploded in appalling flame, engulfing fifty, a hundred even. 'When is the fight?'
'It's already begun. Julatsans and the Al-Arynaar are under attack as they approach Xetesk. We're joining them and we'll all enter the city early tomorrow morning.'
'I will bring the Kaan to you.'
'No,' said Hirad. 'We shouldn't declare our hand and announce all our allies. Save your strength, save as many as you can and be ready when I call.'
Sha-Kaan rumbled. 'You could fail at the gates.'
'We won't fail,' said Hirad. 'We're-'
'Don't,' said Sha-Kaan. 'Don't say it.' Embryonic humour flared, gone in a wing beat. 'Time to go, Hirad Coldheart. I must pick through the ashes and rebuild what I can.'
'Good luck.'
'Skies keep you, my friend.'
Hirad opened his eyes, pain already a fading pulse in his head. Above him, a ring of anxious faces. Thraun's cracked a smile.
'Sha-Kaan?' he said and held out a hand.
Hirad grasped it and pulled himself up.
'Yes,' he nodded. 'More trouble, I'm afraid. Look, we need to get a move on when we get into Xetesk. I'll tell you on the way but it seems to me that every day we delay, fewer dragons will be alive to shield us.'
The cacophony surrounding the wagon train was so complete Rebraal could barely make himself heard. The demon attacks were incessant now and since the disastrous loss of two ColdRoom mage teams the previous night, the pressure on the Al-Arynaar warriors was acute. The humans were panicked now, losing their heads and then their souls when their discipline failed. Five of the eight wagons had elven drivers now and so few humans actually remained that Rebraal contemplated placing them all in wagons. Through his irritation at their failings, though, he couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer doggedness that they showed. And every time their numbers fell, they still found time to joke. The Al-Arynaar couldn't understand laughter in such dire circumstance but Rebraal had seen it all before with The Raven.
Right now, though, he was more concerned with the horses. All of them were tired and the accumulated stress was evident in trembling limbs and eyes that spoke of their confusion. His elves still spoke soothing words to them but eventually that would not be enough.
Above him, the demons were massing again. He didn't have much time. Rebraal ran down the line of surviving wagons. His limp was becoming more pronounced. The cloth tight around his thigh could do only so much. The claws of the cursyrd had raked deep during the last attack and of course he hadn't been able to rest and so the blood still flowed. The wound felt frozen, his muscle damaged, but he could not afford to stop. Not until Auum and The Raven reached them.
But where were they?
The wagon train was passing to the south-east of Triverne Lake now. Before long, they could expect concerted attack from the Xetesk cursyrd, adding to the legions that had dogged them from Julatsa.
Two days of constant noise, repeated attacks and movement broken only to change horses was taking quick toll. They were all tired: the mages in the wagons with paper-thin concentration; the warriors running beside them with muscles burning and fatigued; attack mages with barely time to cast the simplest spell in the mana holes before the cursyrd were upon them.
In every face he passed, human or elven, he saw exhaustion growing. In humans, he saw belief wavering. He shouted encouragement, clenched his fists and demanded strength. He invoked Yniss and Tual. He muttered under his breath for Shorth to be ready to accept them all.
Over five hundred had left Julatsa, man and elf. They had lost over a hundred and the survivors needed fresh hope. The Raven would provide it. The Raven never joined the losing side.
He reached the head of the column. Elves drove the leading pair of wagons now. Tired horses flagged but he was loath to stop. He glanced up for the thousandth time. The sky was darkening with cursyrd, their voices clamoured ever louder.
'Ready!' he called.
The word was passed down the line. Elves rode wagons, clustered by their sides, defended mages running close to mana holes. All felt their hearts quicken.
'Dila'heth!'
The lead elven mage answered him. She was out of sight on the other side of the wagon. He jogged round to her where she talked with Pheone. The Julatsan leader was still strong, hanging onto the threads of human courage.
'Gyal's tears, Rebraal, you should be resting.'
Rebraal grinned fiercely. 'You know I can't.'
'Where are they?' asked Dila. She like him was shouting to make herself heard above the din of the cursyrd above.
'Close,' he said. 'They have to be.' He caught Pheone's eye. 'They'll be here.'
She smiled. 'I'm sure.'
'Where's your position?' asked Dila.
'I'll be with the second pair of wagons. Keep the horses straight. Try that move outside the shell if you get the chance. Anything to disrupt them.'
She nodded. 'They are so many. And think of the hundreds we have already killed.'
'No, don't think that way. Think only that Xetesk will be in sight before dark and that we will be inside before noon tomorrow. They'll be expecting us.'
'I hope so.'
'Yniss watches over us.'
'He needs to do more than that.'
'I hear you, Dila. Run strong.'
He turned to Pheone. 'Get on the wagon.'
'No,' she replied. 'I need to be seen.'
'You need to live,' said Rebraal. 'There are greater fights to come. Please. I don't want to have to put you on there myself.'
Pheone bit her lip but nodded. 'I guess you're right.'
Rebraal inclined his head and jogged away back towards the second pair of wagons. He could barely see the horses for the elven escort. The human drivers though, he could, and they were terrified, eyes up not ahead. He breasted through the flanking guards, shouting his confidence and hearing it reflected back. He leapt onto the kicking board of the left-hand cart.
'We go forwards, not upwards,' he said, his hand on the shoulder of the driver.
'Yeah, but death comes from upwards not forwards,' growled the middle-aged man, Brynn. He had a face latticed by the cuts of the strike-strain, a bandaged head and a belligerent belief in his right to survive. Rebraal liked him. He was Hirad, ten years hence.
'Let me watch the sky, Brynn. Just keep these animals in a straight line.'
'They know better than to deviate with me behind them,' said Brynn, face softening by a degree. 'Ride with me this time, eh? See what it's like from up here.'
'I intend to,' said Rebraal.
And the sky fell in.
Strike-strain poured into the back of the line, reavers to the front. It was a tactic they had worked before, attempting to drive the train at different speeds front and back, creating a chaotic middle ground.
'Keep your form!' called Rebraal into the din, his words carried up and down the line. 'Hold your pace! Hold your pace!'
Like the locusts that plagued the southern dry plains of Calaius, the strike-strain flooded the rear wagons. For a few moments, Rebraal watched the clamouring cloud descend. Blades flickered in the sudden half-light. An IceWind howled a tear in the enemy and the wagons were obscured from view.
But Rebraal had problems of his own. A large number of reavers, well into three figures, was rushing at the front wagons from both flanks, from ahead and, inevitably, from above. Taunting and laughing, they dove into the ColdRoom shell whose effects clearly lessened by the day.
'Keep those horses forward. Blinkers tight!'
The lead wave swooped over the front wagons and drove on headlong.
'Yniss preserve us,' muttered Rebraal.
His sword in his right hand, his left squeezed Brynn's shoulder and they were engulfed.
'Brace!' he yelled.
The cursyrd struck the wagon, more of them than he could quickly count. He placed his body in front of Brynn, turning his back to the impact and feeling claws rake his armour and teeth graze the top of his head.
'Still here,' said Brynn.
In front of them, the horses bucked and Brynn struggled to control them, demanding calm. Al-Arynaar carved the air around them, beating back the reavers intent on ripping out their eyes and throats.