Diera crouched by her son. 'Hang on to Auum, darling. I'll be right behind you.'
'No, Mama. I want to stay with you.'
Diera kissed Hirad's cheek and wiped away a tear. 'It'll be all right. Fun. Auum is going to teach you how to fly.'
Hirad looked at her suspiciously. 'Really?'
'Really. Now go with him.'
Hirad let go of her. Diera stood. Auum inclined his head and took her hand.
'Trust me. Come, Hirad. Jump up on my back.'
He crouched and the little boy threw his arms around Auum's neck. The TaiGethen put his arms under Hirad's legs and held him piggyback-style. Diera breathed deeply. Miirt and Ghaal had returned over the terrifying gap.
'We'll all do this together,' said Auum.
He bounced Hirad on his back and walked back a few paces. Diera, with the Tai either side of her, let them take an arm each.
'Don't think about it,' said Ghaal. 'Just run as fast as you can. We'll do the rest.'
Diera's heart was pounding. 'I don't think I can do this.'
'Don't think at all,' repeated Ghaal. 'Do.'
Garonin were closing. Diera could see them only three streets away. She gathered her tattered courage.
'All right,' she said.
'Go,' said Auum.
They ran for the edge. Diera's scream built on her lips, and as she planted her foot and felt the TaiGethen pull on her arms, she let it have full voice. She cycled her legs in thin air and closed her eyes momentarily. An endless heartbeat later she felt another rooftop beneath her. She stumbled but the Tai did not let her fall. Diera opened her eyes and looked back and then into Hirad's beaming face. Auum crouched to let him down.
'Run to the far end. Join the ClawBound. Tai, we fight.'
And in no time the elves had jumped the gap again and were running back along the rooftops, straight at the Garonin.
The pain in Hirad's chest caused by the arrival of the vydosphere made his head swim. He and Sirendor were seated together, holding each other upright. The Unknown and Jonas were standing, arguing, and Ilkar, bless him, was still trying to find a safe way out of their prison despite the crushing weight he must surely be feeling.
'The door will trigger any ward near it,' said Sol. 'We cannot take that risk.'
'Then what do we do, Father? Sit and wait for Densyr to come back and kill us? I'm prepared to take the chance.'
'And we will if we must. But not yet. Let Ilkar do what he can first.'
Away to the east, they could see the Garonin machine hanging in the air. They had heard explosions and Ilkar had felt a massive flood of mana as the whole ward grid activated.
'Even if we do get out of here, there is nowhere to run,' said Jonas. 'There will be wards everywhere, won't there?'
'He's right, Unknown,' said Hirad, gasping for breath. 'Ilkar?'
'Wait,' said Ilkar. 'I'm just . . .'
Ilkar's face tautened visibly, like his skin was being stretched over too much bone. Where his hands were in contact with the ground, it seemed to shimmer slightly, obscuring his fingers.
'Ilkar?' The Unknown began moving towards him. 'Ilkar.'
'Gods . . . burning.'
Hirad struggled to his feet, bringing Sirendor with him. The pressure inside his body was growing steadily more intense. The pair of them began to move towards Ilkar.
'Talk to us, Ilks,' said Hirad.
'Help . . . me . . . trapped.'
'Trapped how?' asked The Unknown.
'Does it matter? We have to move him, don't we?' said Hirad. 'We have to break him away from there or his soul will be torn out.'
'And set off a ward or ten? Think, Hirad.'
'You know that's never been my strong point.'
Hirad pushed Sirendor away from him and began to run at Ilkar.
'Hirad, no!' shouted The Unknown.
'My advice would be to duck,' said Hirad.
He had planned to dive at Ilkar, to knock him carefully aside from his entrapment, but the pain in his chest flared throughout his body. He stumbled once, lost his footing completely and fell into the returned mage, barging him from his feet and taking them both into the wall of a building and then into a heap on the ground.
The ward Ilkar had been probing triggered. Flame seared across the street at an angle of forty-five degrees from the ground and on a line five yards wide. The blaze clipped the back of Hirad's boot and his entire foot was engulfed in mana fire. He dragged his foot clear, hooked the heel into a crack in the stonework of the building and pulled. Hard. Heat grew incredibly fast inside the boot. The leather smouldered and began to melt. He pulled harder, crying out as his toes started to cook.
Mana fire chewed through the laces and tongue. The boot released and he yanked his foot out, gasping as he did so. Still the flames rushed out of the ward. Their power magnified in the narrow street, reflecting from the walls opposite before channelling upwards into the dawn air. Hirad could hear Jonas crying and through the flame could see The Unknown covering him as best he could. Clothing and hair were smouldering and skin would be blistering.
The spell shut off.
Cold air rushed to fill the gap and it tasted so sweet. Slowly, they stirred, barely daring to move. Ilkar's body shivered beneath Hirad's and the barbarian rolled away to let him sit up and breathe. The elf in human skin nodded his thanks and winced at the sight of Hirad's foot.
'It doesn't feel so good.'
'I'll see what I can do.'
Hirad heard footsteps. He turned in time to be hauled from the ground by his lapels. The Unknown's face pushed in to his.
'I told you to think, you idiot! You could have killed us all.'
'I had to save him, Unknown. I had to try.'
'You had to wait, you bastard. Look at us now. As if being here wasn't enough, we all look like we fell asleep in the sun for five days. Look at my son.' The Unknown spun him so he could see. 'Look at him.'
'I'm sorry,' said Hirad. 'I didn't-'
'No, you never damn well do, do you?'
Sol thrust Hirad away, winding him against a wall. He put down his foot to steady himself and the pain tore a cry from his lips.
'Burned, is it?' asked Sol.
'It's a little tender,' said Hirad.
'Good. It'll remind you what an idiot you are.'
'I saved him, didn't I?' Hirad spread his arms. 'What were you going to do? Stand there and watch the life getting sucked out of him? Because that's what it looked like was happening. At least I did something.'
The Unknown bunched a fist, thought for a moment and then let it drop.
'You just don't get it, do you? Dead for ten years and you still have no more sense than when you fell. Septern's grid is interlinked in ways that even he probably barely understands. You could have set off five, ten, twenty more wards, all in this small space. What then, eh? Who was going to head west and kill himself to save the living and the dead then?
'Sorry, Ilkar, but if you had died before we came up with a plan, that was just going to be tough.'
Ilkar nodded. 'Yeah. Yeah, I understand.'
Hirad felt heat in his face but it was from inside him. 'Right. I see. So you're ungrateful too, are you?'
'No, Hirad. I just see the bigger picture.'
'I'll tell you the big fucking picture,' said Hirad, voice rising in volume all the time. 'We're trapped in this dusty little street, Xetesk at one end and the Garonin at the other. And neither you nor the Unknown has the first clue how to get out, do you? What happened to you anyway?'
Hirad's last thought took all the anger from him.
'I thought you'd never ask.'
'I got sidetracked.' Hirad rubbed his hands across his face and tried to ignore the burning throb in his foot. He gave the Unknown a light punch on the shoulder. 'Sorry, big man.'
The Unknown nodded. 'I know. And as usual you were luckier than a fox born in a chicken run.'
'Sorry, Jonas.'
'It's all right, Hirad. Do I really look all red and blotchy?'
The Raven quartet all nodded simultaneously.
'Look what's happened to my clothes. Mama's going to kill me.'
The Unknown ruffled his hair. 'I think she'll forgive you just this once. So, Ilkar, is it the usual news or do you have something good to tell us for a change?'
'Good, I think. Look, the whole ward grid has gone active. Septern has done some very clever things with how mana is channelled between groups of wards. Some of the energy from an exploding trap goes to activate other so-far-dormant groups, that sort of thing. Don't say it, Hirad. If you can't understand me, assume I'm talking to someone else, all right?'
'If you insist.'
'I do. The point I'm getting to is this. The whole system is clearly linked all the way back to Xetesk and draws its mana direct from the Heart, because that way no mage has to expend mana stamina. All very clever so far. But the Garonin have found a way to tap into it. They are drawing off huge amounts of mana, direct from the Heart. Septern's whole grid is like one big feed pipe to them. Hirad was right: I was literally having the life sucked out of me. Every mote of mana I possessed, dragged out kicking and screaming all the way.'
The Unknown laughed but there was little satisfaction in it. 'Poor Densyr. He refuses to listen to what is coming. How unprepared he is.'
'So the good news is, the Garonin can drag off mana as fast as they want in the short term and so don't need to attack the college directly,' said Sirendor. 'But there's an obvious problem, isn't there?'
'Top marks,' said Ilkar. 'At any moment Septern and Densyr might close down the grid.'
'And that is bad for us how?' asked Hirad.
'Well, they have two choices. Either shut down the grid nice and gently, rendering every ward inert. Or send a massive pulse through it and set the lot of them off.'
'Ah.'
'And from the Garonin point of view, someone will have shut off their flow of mana. What do you think they'll do about that?'
'Ah.'
'We have got to get out of here,' said The Unknown. 'Ilkar, where are the wards around us?'
'There are nine that I can divine, spread relatively evenly.'
'Anything in front of that door, for instance?'
'I'm afraid so,' said Ilkar. 'I don't know what exactly, but it'll either be very hot, very cold or make the walls fall on us.'
'We're going to have to take a chance,' said The Unknown.
'Oh, all right if it's you, eh?'
'Shut up, Hirad. Ilkar, do you have it in you to put up an Ilkar's Defence?'
'A what?'
'Or maybe an Ilkar's Heal My Foot spell?'
'Hirad.' The Unknown glared at him. 'You'll have to wait. Ruminate on why you got burned or something. Sorry, Ilkar, that's the new name for a ForceCone.'
'Very flattering, I'm sure. Look, I know where you're going with this. Are you sure? I can't guarantee the Cone will stand up to much.'
'I can't think of a better idea. Can you?' Ilkar shook his head. 'Then let's get started.'
Chapter 26.