Densyr took them at a dead run on a circuitous route back towards the catacomb entrance. All around them the sounds of fighting echoed through the corridors, replacing the earlier bombardment. It was hard to hear. His guards and mages defended the Heart while he ran for his life, hoping they could delay the Garonin long enough for Dystran to complete his final task.
Diera was struggling under the weight of young Hirad. The lad wouldn't touch the floor to run or walk now. Densyr brought them to the junction of two corridors and stopped before making a right turn.
'Do you want me to take him?' he asked.
'You need your hands free to cast,' said Diera, blowing hard. 'Hirad darling, please, will you run if Jonas runs with you?'
'I can't, Mama. I'm frightened. Why aren't the wolves here?'
'They must be ahead somewhere, checking the way is clear for us. It's going to be all right. You'll see.'
Hirad clung to her neck. Diera raised her eyebrows at Densyr.
'I'll be all right. Just you look after Jonas. I don't like seeing him with that sword in his hands.'
Densyr glanced down at the blade they'd taken from one of Dystran's guards. It rested easily in Jonas's grip. He had hefted it like a veteran but Densyr knew he had only ever fenced with Sol. Real combat was horribly different. For his part, Densyr had part-cast an Ilkar's Defence. It was the best he could think of without risking his charges.
'Are you ready? We go right here, all the way down to the end of the corridor, then it's left, up a short incline, straight across the hub and up the stairs to the way out. It gets hard from here. Do what I say and we'll make it.'
'Ready,' said Jonas.
Diera nodded again and put her hands under Hirad's backside to lift him onto her chest.
'Put him on your back, Mother,' said Jonas. 'He'll be better protected that way.'
'Hirad?' asked Diera.
The boy shrugged and climbed up on Diera's back. She put her arms under his thighs.
'Thank you, Jonas.'
'Let's go,' said Densyr. 'Jonas up front with me. We'll shield your mother.'
Jonas kept pace with him. They hurried down the corridor, a long, narrow space that inclined very slightly along its length. As they approached the end, Densyr heard a sound from ahead and brought them to a sliding stop. Footsteps, heavy and deliberate.
'Be ready,' he said.
Jonas clutched his sword in both hands. The point tapped on the ground. Densyr could not suppress a smile.
'Sol used to wait until we could see them at least,' he said.
'It helps the nerves,' said Jonas.
'For us too.'
Round the corner came a figure, carrying another in his arms. Densyr sagged with relief and ran towards them.
'Suarav. Dear Gods above, man, how are you still alive?'
Suarav's face crumpled. Tears streaked down the dirt encasing his face. His shoulders shook. The head of the man in his arms fell outwards. Brynar. Behind him, Diera gasped.
'Hide your head, Hirad. Do it now.'
The whole of Brynar's left leg beneath the knee was gone. Ripped away by some huge force. Blood still dripped from the stump.
'Help him,' managed Suarav. 'He fought so well.'
'Put him down,' said Densyr. 'There's nothing anyone can do for him now.'
Suarav shook his head. 'Don't say that. So many of them out there. We held them. He deserves to live. He-'
Suarav's body juddered and blew sideways, slamming into the opposite wall of the corridor. White tears thudded into his body, ripping him and the dead Brynar into smoking pieces. Diera screamed. Densyr swore. More footsteps. Powerful and rhythmic. Two men at least, possibly three.
'I'm ready to cast. Jonas . . . Jonas, no!'
'Jonas!' shrieked Diera.
The boy had heard neither of them. He had run to the end of the corridor and was waiting just away from the turning, sword cocked back. Densyr could see his body heaving and the tremble in his legs. Densyr began moving towards him, his spell itching to be cast. It shouldn't feel like that.
A Garonin soldier appeared at the corridor entrance, stooping to squeeze his frame into the confined space. Jonas hesitated, looking up at the eight-foot-tall figure hunched under the low ceiling. But not for long. With a cry, he swung his sword round and up. The blade sheared through armour at the waist. The Garonin howled in agony and fell back.
Densyr made the end of the corridor and cast his Defence spell down it. Two more Garonin stood there. White tears played over the blue-washed barrier. Densyr could feel every impact through his arms. He clung on to the casting, finding it hard to concentrate.
'What's going on?' he asked himself.
By him, Jonas was staring at the blood on his sword. He was shivering.
'I killed someone,' he said, his voice tiny.
'And though I shouldn't say it, your father would have been proud of you. Just check your moves with me first next time, eh?'
The answer to Densyr's first question became obvious. The walls all around them and throughout the catacombs glowed deep blue and trembled. Densyr pushed hard at his casting, forcing the Garonin back along the corridor.
'Time to leave. And quickly.'
There was beauty in the way it all folded back, thought Dystran. A certain symmetry of which Septern himself would have been proud. The lines of the ward grid had gathered together when he had let go the entry point between Heart and casting. The place where he should have set his mind to keep the opposing forces at bay was now empty. There was more he could do, however, and do it he did.
Dystran imagined himself humming as he did his work. His mother used to hum when she was cooking so it seemed the right thing to be doing. Dystran did not want to let the small chance that the energies within the grid would dissipate come to fruition. So he directed the mana flow back along the grid lines, using his failing mind to force them into the shape of a rope with individual fibres spiralling together.
And when that was thick enough, for his own amusement he gave the shape of this focused mana an arrowhead. Feedback. The most terrifying force any casting mage would ever face. But at this moment, Dystran's last on this Earth, it was simply stupendous in its simplicity and its power.
The arrowhead slammed into the gentle pulsing hourglass of the Heart's mana. There really could be only one outcome. He hoped Densyr escaped it. That would somehow be just.
For Dystran the world turned a fiery blue and then to utter dark.
Densyr gathered every ounce of strength in his mind and pushed. The Garonin were shoved straight into the hub room and flattened against the wall to one side of the stairway. Surely there were many hundreds more enemy up the stairs but that was a chance they'd have to take.
Densyr held the spell a few moments more.
'Got to ask you to do something, Jonas,' he said.
'I know,' said Jonas. 'I'll take left.'
'Good lad. Don't think about it. Only consider what they have forced your father to do. Don't let them take any more of your family.'
Jonas nodded, a grim expression on his young face. The sight of it angered Densyr more than anything he had seen these past days. He gave the Ilkar's Defence another shove, batting the heads of the Garonin against the wall one more time.
'Dropping on three,' he said. 'One, two . . . three! Defence down.'
The two of them rushed the stunned Garonin. Densyr dragged a dagger from his boot sheath, reached up and rammed it into the neck of his target. Beside him, Jonas gave a wavering call and stabbed his man through the stomach. His blade ran straight through and screeched against the wall.
'And now it's time to run.'
Densyr ran for the stairs up to the ruined tower complex. He had not got two steps before he felt the air being sucked out of his lungs. A wind howled down the stairs, a mana gale that blasted through his mind. Behind him Sol's family couldn't feel it at all. He screamed and clamped his hands to the sides of his head, dropping to his knees and tumbling back.
He felt hands about him, trying to help him. All around them the blue in the walls had faded to a crisp white and frost bulged out, thick and grabbing. Ice fingers probed into millennia-old stone. The catacombs gave a death rattle. A complete silence fell.
'What's happening?' asked Diera.
'The Heart is about to stop beating,' said Densyr.
There were footsteps on the stairs. Densyr swore. Hirad screeched and clutched hard at Diera's neck. Four Garonin pounded into the hub room. Densyr wasn't ready. He had no spell prepared. His head was thumping as loud as the enemy boots. Jonas rushed in, yelling at them to leave his mother alone. A Garonin arm came round. The back of the soldier's hand clattered into Jonas's chest, sending him sprawling.
Diera and Hirad both shrieked Jonas's name. Garonin weapons trained on Densyr. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. From his left two shadows whipped by. He heard a Garonin shout. There was a howl and then the crunchy of fang on flesh and bone. A weapon was fired, dust and stone fell from the ceiling. Densyr dared to look.
Both wolves had attacked from a side passageway. Two Garonin were down. The other two trying to beat the wolves back. Jonas stormed past him and hacked his sword into an exposed back. Densyr, impelled to action, freed his dagger again. He paced forward. The one free Garonin reared back, a wolf snarling and snapping in his arms. The soldier roared with the effort.
Densyr jammed his dagger blade hard into the back of the Garonin's left thigh and kicked into the back of his knee. The Garonin pitched forward. The wolf spun in his grip. Claws and fangs lashed in. Before long, the enemy had ceased his struggle. Blood slicked across the hub room floor.
Densyr, breathing heavily, nodded his thanks at Jonas. He wiped his dagger on his trousers and sheathed it. A bass rumble rippled out from the centre of the catacombs. The hub room shook. Areas of the plaster ceiling fell in. The walls heaved. Fissures appeared within, shattering ice. The wind began to howl again but this time all could hear it.
'Run!' yelled Densyr.
He sprinted back to the stairs, trying to ignore the pounding in his head. Jonas was by his side, bloodied sword still held in one hand. They ran out into the devastation that had once been the tower complex. Nothing was left now but treacherous ruins. Ruins filled with Garonin. A hundred eyes turned on them as they fled the top of the stairs and were forced to stop by the piles of stone blocking their path. Fifty weapons were brought to bear. The wolves placed themselves in front of Hirad and Jonas, barking out warnings. Lips curled back from teeth and hackles rose.
'To me,' shouted Densyr. 'Huddle close.'
There was a growing whine in the air, replacing the silence. Densyr cast quickly and efficiently, trying not to think about the fact that it would be his last casting as a true mage of Xetesk. He had a choice to make. To deflect the Garonin weapons was one option. He chose a second. Densyr stared at the nearest Garonin as the soldier's hand rested on the trigger of his weapon.
'I'd duck if I were you,' he said.
The Heart of Xetesk exploded. The speed of the shock wave was incredible. The ground rippled underfoot, upsetting every Garonin, pitching them from their feet. It was followed by a series of detonations from deep within the catacombs. Densyr's Orsyn's Cocoon covered the four of them above and below, a seamless bubble of mana that he would cling on to for as long as his mind would let him.
From the centre of the catacombs the ground heaved in expanding concentric circles. Cracks were torn and blue fire lashed out, sending shards of stonework out in lethal clouds. Garonin, struggling to their feet, were cut to shreds in their tens and dozens. The ripple detonations thundered beneath Densyr and his charges. They were cast up eight or ten feet and dumped back down.
The ground collapsed beneath them and they fell further. All around them Garonin soldiers died. The air was full of whistling missiles. Great slabs of catacomb wall spiralled high, crashing down on the undefended. Bodies were smeared beneath falls of rock that would have crushed dragons. The ripples fled ever outwards, blue light gleaming under the surface. The wolves leapt out and bolted, howling as they went.
Densyr could just see the remaining college walls to the north judder and fall. Below, in the catacombs, nought would be left but dust. Stones and debris rattled on the skin of the cocoon. Densyr could feel his link to the Heart fade and die. An intense sadness swept into his body and the shield was gone. There was still mana here. He could feel it, taste it. But the flow he knew, the security that had always been there . . . nothing was left. Not a trickle. Mage rendered man.
'I wonder if this really was always inevitable,' he said.
'Probably,' said Diera.
She hugged Hirad close to her. The little boy was cut and crying but otherwise unharmed. Physically at least. Jonas coughed and sat up, using his sword as a prop to help him stand.
'Is it over?' he asked.
'Well, that depends whether the Garonin find us of no more use or whether they feel annihilation is fitting revenge. Either way, we should probably get out of this hole. I dread to think what it's like below us. As treacherous as shifting sands, I should think.'
'Densyr,' said Diera, feeling able to use his new name at last 'Denser, I think,' said Denser. 'That little ego trip didn't last, did it?'
'Denser, then. Sol would have been proud of you. Thank you.'
'Don't thank me. Not yet,' said Denser. 'Not until he comes for you. Come on. We need to find somewhere safer to hide.'
The doorway was open. The light that encased Sol was blinding. All any of them had to do was turn and walk towards it and they would be gone. And the Garonin would be right behind them. The pull, the temptation, was enormous. But to give in would be a betrayal of everything for which Sol had sacrificed his life.
And so Ilkar turned back, the howls of the Garonin loud in his ears, and watched them charge across the open space. There had to be two thousand of them in ranks forty yards wide. They would reach The Raven and TaiGethen in moments. They would roll over them as if they were wheat in a field and they would plunder a new set of dimensions.
Even so, Hirad, who stood a few paces in front of him, did not flinch or turn to run. And he held The Raven with him, daring any of them to weaken. Erienne was casting beside him and how he wished he could do the same, but something was still missing. It hardly mattered now, he supposed.
'Pick your targets, Raven,' said Hirad as Garonin weapons came to bear. 'Ilkar, Erienne, we need shields now. Let's keep them back as long as we can.'
Which would be a few heartbeats at best. Ilkar searched within himself for the ability to make something from this place bereft of mana. For Erienne, the task was plainly a simple one.
'Shield up,' she said.
The Garonin halted twenty yards from them. Ilkar watched them move into an arc, surrounding The Raven completely. He felt powerless, useless. With Erienne shielding them, he was the one who could actually deal damage but he had no idea how. Thraun stood stock still to Darrick's left, lips drawn back from his teeth. He snarled. Darrick, like Hirad beside him, faced the enemy with no hint of fear. But to Hirad's right Sirendor was twitchy, unsure. The TaiGethen flowed left and right along the thin Raven line, seeming far more than the five they numbered.
'Are you ready for this, Erienne?' asked Hirad.
'We're about to find out,' she replied.
'You can hold on,' said Sol, his voice around them all, comforting and strong. 'Trust me. Help is near.'
The Garonin opened fire.
White bloomed across Erienne's shield. A thundering and crackling noise built up, reaching a screaming crescendo. Ilkar couldn't see beyond the front edge of the shield, such was the density of fire. Erienne was driven to her knees. She stretched out her arms and a guttural sound escaped her throat. She gasped. Ilkar blinked. She was being pushed slowly back across the floor, and the shield would be coming with her.
'Pace back, Raven,' called Hirad into the booming noise. 'We won't see them until they step inside. Ilkar, is there nothing you can do?'
Ilkar felt the question like a slap in the face.
'There's no mana here,' he said.
'There's nothing here. No swords, no armour. Nothing,' said Hirad. 'This isn't about reality. It is about belief. You believe you see me, don't you?'
'Yes but . . .'