Set in Stone (76 page)

The cliff above the plateau exploded outward in an avalanche of water and stone. A giant wave thundered down toward Wolfram’s army.

Wolfram blinked, the only outward sign of his surprise at the unexpected catastrophe. Even as his soldiers gaped in amazement, he grasped the full implications of their situation and reacted with instincts honed through decades of cat-and-mouse conflicts along the border.

"Move!" Wolfram shouted, his words echoed a second later by Captain Ilse. Many of his forces had been looking at the cliff and the unexpected torrent already raining down its face when the mountain exploded. The terrifying sight of that wall of water barreling down upon them sped them on faster than Wolfram had ever seen them run.

Wolfram ran with his army along the edge of the plateau, across the path of the onrushing wave, toward higher ground. The terrifying sight of millions of gallons of water thundering toward him shattered any other thought but flight.

Rumblers tossed weapons aside and struggled to sprint, their superhuman strength meaningless against the raw power of nature unleashed. The Wingrunners caught up stragglers and used their amazing speed to haul them to safety.

Despite their incredible efforts, they weren’t going to make it. Fully a third of Wolfram’s forces would be cut off and swept away by the flood.

Kilian alone turned back toward the onrushing tide, a tiny, solitary figure facing the flood. He planted his feet and raised his hands in a pitiful gesture of defiance against the churning waters.

Barely thirty strides from Kilian, the frothing wall of water seemed to howl with anticipation as it plunged toward him. Kilian threw open his hands, and the front face of the wave glanced upward as if rebounding off an invisible barrier.

The spray-filled air at the leading edge of the flood billowed around him, obscuring him from view. Half a heartbeat later, the rough outline of a giant man rose out of the spray where Kilian had stood.

The giant solidified and braced his back against the flood, lifted arms wide, as if the raging waters were one immense load on its back.

The flood rolled back upon itself like an inverted cresting wave, rising higher and higher into the air until the black waters boiled half a hundred feet high, held at bay by the watery giant.

The stragglers of Wolfram’s army pounded across the water’s path and out of harm’s way. Some called questions, asking if anyone still saw Kilian standing at the feet of the giant.

Wolfram watched silently, awed by the spectacle of a threshold not crossed since the Tallan Wars. He doubted more than a couple other people in the valley understood what the ancient Kilian did there.

Then rippling fire flickered up through the giant's body, and it shuddered. Kilian appeared between its feet, retreating slowly, his salt-and-pepper hair plastered to his skull from the water-laden air, arms shaking from the strain.

Wolfram mouthed his encouragement, thunderstruck by the display of control. He had not imagined such a transition possible. Soldiers flanking him began to cheer and chant Kilian’s name. The sound reverberated back from the wall of water that continued to grow until it towered far above the puny human and his giant who strove to check its path.

Kilian continued his retreat, although each step appeared to tax him more. The watery giant began to shake, its arms to give way under the strain.

Kilian retreated past the manor house, and then took a single step to the right, toward the safety of higher ground.

Then he collapsed.

The watery giant imploded. The waters of the flood burst free of the invisible restraints and thundered onto the burned out shell of the manor house in an explosion of foam that catapulted stones and charred timbers hundreds of feet out over the long slope. The leading edge tore through the outbuildings around the manor and boiled down toward Kilian’s prone form.

Wolfram took a step toward Kilian, driven forward by the sight of the helpless hero about to be swept away, even though he knew there was nothing he could do to help.

A Wingrunner blurred past him, hips Fracked and legs pumping in a max-tapped sprint. He moved so fast he reached Kilian before Wolfram registered his passing.

As the enormous wave bore down upon them, the Wingrunner hoisted Kilian onto his shoulder and sprinted back toward safety, his movements slowed dramatically by the unconscious man’s weight. The water boiled behind him and a surge twenty feet deep rolled over the struggling man. For a terrible heartbeat, he was lost from view within the churning foam.

Then he reappeared, his blurring feet throwing a long stream of spray behind as he literally ran up and over the wave. Wolfram cheered, his voice drowned out by the thunderous crashing of the waters and the equally thunderous chorus of cheering from his army.

The Wingrunner, still carrying Kilian, flashed across the leading edge of the flood, but his momentum slowed and he started to sink. Even his amazing speed was unable to defy gravity for long. He kept running as the water carried him toward the lip of the plateau in a race to reach the edge of the flood before being thrown over the edge.

He wasn’t going to make it.

"General, get down!"

Wolfram dropped to the ground at Ilse’s shouted call and twisted to see what new danger she warned of. He turned just in time to see Erich and three other Rumblers throw her.

Tied securely around the waist by a long rope, Ilse flew over the flood toward the struggling Wingrunner, arms spread wide as if she were a great bird. She reached the end of the rope, anchored by Erich, and fell into the torrent directly on top of the Wingrunner and Kilian.

The roiling waters hurled the three of them over the lip of the plateau as Erich and the other Rumblers hauled mightily on the line. As the waters rumbled down the slope toward Carbrey’s advancing forces, Ilse and the Wingrunner surfaced, clinging to each other, with Kilian held between.

Three Wingrunners risked the unsteady footing and leaped into the edge of the flood to pull them to safety.

The group joined Wolfram and the rest of the army as they moved to higher ground. When Ilse dropped to the earth next to him, Wolfram crouched beside her and took her cold, dripping hand.

"Well done, Captain."

She was too tired to do more than smile.

On the slope below, Carbrey paused in his advance at the sound of the first thunderous explosion. He held up a hand and his well-trained soldiers stopped in a single stride, all eyes scanning the slope for sign of Wolfram’s next attack.

Carbrey frowned and flexed his fingers on the hilt of his sword. What else could the old devil throw at them? They'd already advanced to within a hundred yards of the plateau, and he was eager to unleash his Boulders in a bash-fight that would squash the Grandurians for good.

Instead of attacking, Wolfram’s army scurried toward the mountains like rabbits before a fox.

"Prepare," Carbrey shouted. He could not imagine what devilry Wolfram had concocted, but it looked like it might have back-fired on the old wolf.

Carbrey began to smile.

Then a torrent of water thirty feet high and three times as wide plunged over the lip of the plateau, directly toward his army.

"How?" Shona whispered nearby.

Carbrey forced his own shock aside. He could ask questions later. Refusing to acknowledge the primal fear that threatened to sap his strength, he shouted, "Run!" and turned to the right and sprinted across the path of the onrushing tide for the steep slopes and the salvation they offered.

The smartest of his soldiers followed immediately. The others were only a heartbeat behind. Carbrey sprinted for the slopes as the avalanche of water thundered down toward him, and for the first time in his life he wished he were a Strider instead of a Boulder.

The rushing waters caught the stragglers of his army and swept away scores of soldiers who could not outrun the flood, tumbling them down the slope and back into the trees. The first ranks of trees in the forest shattered, torn from their roots and swept along by the torrent.

Spray rained over Carbrey as he ran, and water lapped against his boots. He and the remainder of his army reached the slopes and clambered upward as the floodwaters covered the slope and poured into the Lower Wick.

Disbelief warred against frustrated anger as Carbrey stared at the devastation. His army was scattered, many lost, weapons and equipment destroyed. It would be hours before the waters subsided enough for him to attempt to slog up the muddy slope to confront Wolfram, but his position was fatally weakened by the unexpected disaster.

How could this have happened? How could the old wolf have done this to him?

Keith and Cinaed stood in the center of the main street and stared at the catastrophe consuming the plateau. They shared a look of shocked disbelief.

A frothing wall of water roared down the road from the plateau straight for the upper gate.

Cinaed screamed and Keith shouted, "Go!"

They started running, but after two steps, his leg buckled. Cinaed helped him up, but he'd never outrun the flood. The rows of heavily-packed wagons lining the street hemmed them in like walls.

Keith grabbed up each of his children and tossed them over the barricade and shouted for them to run.

His last view of them, through the spokes of a wagon, was of their tiny legs running wildly toward the shelter of buildings against the cliff.

"This can't be happening," Cinaed screamed. "We did everything right!"

Keith clutched Cinaed tight just as the raging flood blasted through the upper gate and swept them away.