Etchings of Power (Aegis of the Gods) (61 page)

Irmina stood in the Bastion’s s main envoy room. Like the others, the room’s white alabaster, feldspar and steel blocks formed a dome. No lamps hung along the walls, and neither the Dagodin guarding the room nor Herald Bodo bore lightstones, yet the room was as bright all the same. She waited to the side for the Herald who still read the message map.

Somewhere above her, Ryne was meeting with Knight Commander Varick and his Knight Generals. The man had pushed the dartans hard, not stopping to rest or talk.

“You seem impatient,” Herald Bodo intoned. Whenever the man spoke, he sounded as if on the verge of some important proclamation.

“I don’t know if it’s impatience as much as it is worry.” Her thoughts still hovered around the discovery of the shadelings, the wraithwoods, the breach of the Vallum and the powerful man Ryne had fought.

“Rest assured the High Shin isn’t ignoring you. Your message has more severe implications than the last.” Lights flashed across the map in an ordered sequence, and he frowned.

“Then why so long for Jerem’s reply?”

Herald Bodo stroked his forked beard. “According to the message I just received, there have been similar occurrences in Granadia.”

Irmina gave him an incredulous stare. “What? When?”

“In close proximity to several northern towns in Sendeth and Barson. Right now, the Tribunal is still discussing the best course of action.” His attention remained on his maps.

Irmina’s eyes grew wide. “In Sendeth? Which town?” A chill crept along her spine.

The Herald strode across the map from the Ostanian side into Granadia. After a moment studying it, he pointed at a location to the extreme north of Sendeth’s capital, Randane. “Eldanhill, in the Whitewater Falls region, if I am not mistaken.” He paused for a moment and raised his gaze to her. “And I am never mistaken.”

The chill became ice, freezing her in place with her mouth slack.

“Are you familiar with this town?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s my home.”

Through window lsits at the top of the Bastion, a cool wind brushed Ryne’s face. Dappled shadows covered the land below, yet he could shoot an arrow straight to where Sakari waited if he chose. Clear skies stretched for miles, the stars a twinkling carpet. A good night for a battle. Ryne wished Knight Commander Varick could have addressed his findings right away, but what lay before them on the war map was of immediate concern.

Six shadebanes marched on four major Ostanian towns held by the Granadian armies. At possibly five thousand shadelings and Amuni’s Children for each bane, it made for an imposing force. Still, the numbers fell short of what he knew would’ve been needed to take the Alzari clanholds. Where was the rest of the army?

“Here and here,” Knight Commander Varick said, pointing to two spots to the east as he walked across the map, his feet passing through its life-like replicas.

The Herald’s eyes tightened, but he said nothing. Varick had already dismissed the man’s colleague who’d voiced his displeasure at the Knight Commander setting foot on the maps. The two locations Varick pointed out, close to two towns, Bastair and Cendos, were the only ones without a scout’s markings.

“We need to know what’s happening there before the High Ashishin arrive,” Varick said.

The three Knight Generals, Strom, Clovis, and Refald nodded, their armor reflecting colors from the lightstones decorating the war map.

“I can take my force here,” said Clovis in his white armor, inlaid with gold. The hill he pointed out was west of Cendos and closest to the Vallum, near a town named Sandar.

“And I’ll go here,” Strom said. He pointed a few miles south of Clovis’s position. “I can help Clovis, then we can head north to defend Dastan together.”

Clovis nodded, brow puckered in thought. “Yes, yes. With your faster dartans, you will easily catch my heavy armored cohorts. It looks like your light cavalry may prove useful after all.”

Strom grunted and cast a sidelong glance at Clovis. “A dartan’s shell is more than enough protection.”

Clovis opened his mouth just as lights from the scout locations marked on the field blinked. Herald Jensen stepped forward, his robes with its sashes that reached his waist swirling about him. After a moment studying the lights, the bald man nodded to Varick. Each man knew what that meant and stepped off the war map.

Herald Jensen waved his hand over the three scout locations near Sandar and Dastan. Light and shade spilled up into the man. A small slit Materialized in the air and widened to about the size of a palm. Individual blades of grass and bleached white sand showed beyond the tear. A small, folded paper slipped through the hole, and then the breach twisted back into a slit and snapped shut. Ryne arched an eyebrow. A basic Materialization like the one Herald Jensen just Forged was almost as impressive as the one Jerem used to bring him to the Vallum. The Herald passed the paper to Varick.

The Knight Commander unfolded the paper and studied it. “Hmm, the scouts confirm the bane locations at those two towns” As he spoke, Jensen waved a hand and new enemy markers appeared around Sandar and Dastan. Your plan is even more feasible now, Clovis and Strom.”

The two Knight Generals nodded and smiled, clapping each other’s shoulder.

“Refald.” Varick eyed the scar-faced man in heavy crimson armor. “You keep the Dagodin infantry ready and waiting. When we give you the locations, the High Ashishin will Materialize your legion in to close the traps. My legion will take Bastair and Cendos, and then we finish whatever dregs are left. What do you think, Master Waldron?”

“Seems as fine a plan as any,” Ryne said. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t work.” He ignored the grimaces and narrowed eyes from Clovis and Strom.

Varick nodded. “Well then, that’s it until the High Ashishin arrive. You three go prepare. Master Waldron, with me.”

The Knight Generals struck fist to hearts and stalked off.

After they left, Varick strode to the window slits overlooking the landscape below. Miles in the distance, twinkling lights marked a few towns or cities.

“Those two dislike you. I almost expected you to react.”

Ryne shrugged. “Demand discipline, but first show mastery of self. Men tend to dislike what they can’t understand. They’re new enough to this to feel the way they do. Like the others, they’ll come to understand me. If they live long enough.”

Varick smiled. “Sometimes I wonder if you weren’t born to lead, old friend.”

“I wish I knew what I was born for,” Ryne said staring out into the darkness.

Varick stepped up next to him, the cool wind ruffling the white-streaked he had left. “This feels like a bad one, Ryne. The word you brought made it no better. And the Tribunal hasn’t responded to my report yet. You would’ve thought they’d have the High Ashishin here already.” Varick’s eyes hardened. “I’ve received word there were other shadeling attacks in Granadia itself. I have an ill feeling about all this. That’s why I’m sending you to Bastair where the banes are closest together.”

An hour later, near a rocky crag of the Dead Hills, Ryne hugged the slanted ground in the shadows of an incline. Sakari crawled next to him. Ryne had avoided Irmina following him by Shimmering down from the Bastion.
Thank the gods.

The stench of burnt flesh drifted on the cool night air. Screams rose from the town below as swirling winds whipped at Ryne’s cloak.
O, Ilumni, please bring them a quick death
. Even as he prayed, Ryne knew no one listened. The god of light offered no mercy this night.

Children’s cries and babies’ frantic bawling reached Ryne where he crept along the slope. Undetected, he eased up onto the peak of the crag and looked down.

Bastair was in shambles. Greasy smoke and ash billowed into the sky from fires illuminating broken buildings with their ruddy glow. Huge sandstone blocks littered the ground where homes once stood. Piled rubble marked other foundations as if those structures had been ground to sand in a gigantic hand and poured from it. Many houses left standing lacked roofs or walls. Wide, gaping holes big enough to swallow a building marred the ground in several places. In the town square, a gigantic oak tree burned.

Corpses littered the cobbled streets, some dressed in shredded, scarlet uniforms and others in the tattered trousers and tunics of townsfolk. Bodies clothed in black armor lay close to those in red.

Rank upon rank of black armored Amuni’s Children wielding long, sooty-looking spears herded disheveled survivors into the town square. Once there, the soldiers ripped babies from the arms of wailing mothers. They separated crying children from adults.

Ryne clenched his fists against the urge to charge down into the square.

Men and women surged toward the soldiers who carried the young off to one side. Spearmen intercepted them, dark lances stabbing legs and arms of those who protested as Amuni’s followers restored order within a few minutes.

A few hundred Amuni cultists formed ranks between the adults and children. In unison, they ground their spear butts at their feet. The flames roaring from the oak tree illuminated the spears, which stretched several feet above the soldiers’ heads. Ryne narrowed his eyes at the smoke rising from the wavering black blades.

Several soldiers stepped forward, placed long horns to their mouths, and blew. One, long, shrill note keened.

Among the shadows in the square, darkwraiths appeared by the hundreds as if from nowhere, long cloaks flying in wispy swirls with the strong wind, black blades hanging from scabbards at their hips. Smoky darkness wrapped their entire countenance like waves of black heat.

Screeching howls echoed from within the dark forest surrounding Bastair. From the tree line loped several wolf-like forms, green eyes glowing. Ryne counted forty wraithwolves in all, running like men on two muscular legs. Black hair covered their bodies, and they sprang with long, leaping bounds that could outpace a horse’s gallop. With each leap, they dropped to all fours, and their arms helped propel them into the air. After they landed, they sprinted on two legs again. In minutes, they reached the town square and the captives.

The beasts stalked among the adults, sniffing at each. People cowered away or tried to run but Amuni’s Children quelled such attempts. When the wraithwolves found what they sought, they dragged that person kicking and screaming to the center of the square, a few feet from the massive, burning oak tree. After they completed the separations, the wraithwolves raised their noses to the air and began a rhythmic, keening wail.

A distortion appeared in the air in front the burning oak as if Ryne saw it through a cloudy glass. The blurred area swirled and turned black before eventually splitting into a thin, horizontal slit.

As the slit widened, one long, obsidian leg stepped out, and then several arms and legs followed in quick succession.

Ryne sucked in a breath, his bloodlust immediately roaring to the forefront of his mind as his power surged within him. The voices began their bickering, but this time they were of one thought. Destroy. Ryne sought the calm center of himself, picturing the pond within the Entosis, and forced the lust and the voices down.

A slender body, rippling with sinew, slithered out from the portal. The daemon stood over eight feet tall on four misshapen legs. Four disproportionate, claw-tipped appendages stuck out chest high. Its slender body glowed with its blackness, and two small wings hummed on its back. A flowing mass of fleshy locks adorned its head, hanging down past those wings. Many-faceted, lidless eyes glowed, and dripping mandibles squirmed in its grotesque face. The shadestalker's locks flicked up and across the eyes as if shading them.

The cultists and the shadelings bowed low before the daemon. Screams and cries rose from the captives, and several of them fainted.

The shadestalker’s locks dropped away from its face, and its head swiveled around to the townsfolk near the tree. They cowered away from the daemon. A few attempted to flee, but the wraithwolves quickly caught them.

“I can distract while you take care of the stalker,” Sakari whispered.

Succumbing to the voices screaming once more in his head and the pull of his lust, Ryne agreed. “Yes.” He pointed toward the forest. “You take them there. I’ll be able to strike and get out before they react.”