The Chaos Crystal (24 page)

thanks to Jaxyn's magical intervention — but she doubted he was capable of making the jump without doing himself a serious injury.

Tides, who can think with that racket going on?
She returned her attention to the lines of felines, wondering when the pounding would stop. Arkady glanced at Chikita surreptitiously, hoping the noise was distracting the Crasii too. It wasn't. Chikita smiled at Arkady when their eyes met, as if she knew exactly what Arkady was planning.

'The battle will be joined soon, my lady,' the feline remarked, speaking up to be heard over the pounding.

'Won't that be fun,' Arkady replied with a scowl. The feline seemed amused, and not very overawed to be standing in the company of so many immortals, which Arkady thought a little odd. Still, she was alert and had her wits about her. Arkady would have to find a way to distract Chikita before she and her father jumped, or she risked being shredded by those claws, which made the prospect of a twisted ankle academic.

A signal from the king this time — after consulting Jaxyn. Another blast on the trumpets so loud her father jumped in fright, and the felines began to move. Arkady had thought listening to them pound their spears was ominous, but when they marched, every third beat was of their spear butts on the ice, ringing off the ranges. The podium didn't move — Jaxyn had decided this was close enough — but the sea of feline warriors moved forward at a ground-eating, relentless pace that would cover the remaining distance between their army and the Caelish shore in very little time.

Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-
bang
...

'What are those black lines on the ice?' her father asked her in a whisper.

Arkady stood on her toes, straining to see past the immortals. The lines her father spoke of were narrow marks scoring the ice just in front of the first rank of

felines. There seemed to be three of them — long parallel lines; the distance between them was hard to judge from here.

Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-bang
..
. Step-step-
bang
...

'Range markers, probably,' Jaxyn told him, glancing over his shoulder, just to make certain they knew he was aware of them, Arkady suspected. 'Perhaps Stellan fears his Caelish marksmen aren't bright enough to work out when we'll be in range.'

'Shouldn't our forces be carrying shields?' Lyna asked. 'If they hit us with a volley of arrows, we'll lose our entire front rank.'

Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-
bang
...

Jaxyn smiled, opening his arms to encompass their icy battlefield. 'So what? There's plenty more where they came from.' He looked back at Arkady and smiled even wider. 'Lovely day for a battle, don't you think, Arkady?'

She didn't answer him. There was nothing to say, in any case. Arkady fixed her attention on the city in the distance with its ice-locked wharves and its useless ships trapped against the shore.

Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-
bang
...

Tides, I wish that noise would stop.

Amused by her rigid manner, Jaxyn turned his attention back to the battle. The Caelish forces hadn't moved yet. They were waiting for something, Arkady thought, and she doubted it was the Glaeban army. They would be foolish beyond words to allow the invaders to reach the shore, but then, perhaps that was their intention.

Was their plan to thin the Glaeban forces as much as possible with arrows and spears and then take the fight to the town? Cycrane was a hilly city with narrow winding streets and very few open places for a

pitched battle to take place. Fighting in the streets would significantly reduce the advantage the Glaebans enjoyed because of their superior numbers.

Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-bang
...
Step-step-
bang
...

That would make it much harder for her to get away too, she realised. Arkady was counting on the battle coming to them. She was planning to grab her father and make a run for it in the confusion when the attention of Jaxyn, Diala and Lyna, and — more importantly — that wretched Crasii he'd set to watch over them, was fixed firmly elsewhere.

This time, it would be much harder for Jaxyn to find them. For one thing, he wouldn't have time. And for another, she had no friends in Caelum to hide her.

No friends he could randomly kill.

Arkady's grief for the kind and loyal Clyden Bell and her thoughts of escape were interrupted by a sudden whoosh as a wall of flame shot up in front of them. The felines' orderly march toward the city instantly transformed into a wild, screaming panic. Another two whooshes sounded, one after the other in rapid succession. Another two walls of flame shot up behind the front ranks, billowing black smoke as they burned, splitting the Glaeban forces and turning them from an organised army into four panicked squealing mobs separated by walls of fire. The felines' fear of the fire robbed them of any sense. The rhythmic
step-step-
bang
...
step-step-bang
...
step-step-bang
...
of their advance was gone, replaced with the panicked screams of thousands of trapped, frightened and injured Crasii. Her father gripped her arm in horror. The sound tore at Arkady's soul, making her feel ill.

Jaxyn's orders — even to those felines still within earshot — fell on deaf ears.

There was no time to wonder what had happened. The fires seemed to have leapt up out of the ice, but she didn't think it was magic that had caused the

sudden conflagration. Jaxyn was screaming orders at the felines and generals, not turning his attention to the Tide. She was sure that would be his first reaction if one of the Tide Lords on the Caelish side had decided to stop the Glaebans by using magic.

Arkady glanced around, realising this was her chance — her only chance. Already the first wall of flame was burning lower. Acrid black smoke roiled across the ice toward them, making her eyes water. Although she was only a few feet away from Jaxyn and the others, she couldn't hear what they were saying over the screams of the wounded Crasii. Chikita, her feline guard, was staring at the flames, transfixed by the sight of them.

'Papa! You must come with me!'

Her father looked at her blankly for a moment and then nodded when he realised what she meant. 'Are you sure?'

Arkady checked that everyone's attention was fixed on the chaos in front of them. 'Yes, I'm sure!' she hissed. 'Come on!' Without giving it another moment's thought, she ducked under the rope barrier circling the podium and jumped to the ice. She didn't twist an ankle; she slid and fell heavily on her behind. But she didn't have time to worry about it. Scrambling to her feet, Arkady turned to help her father down. He didn't try to jump, but clambered down awkwardly — and with heart-stopping slowness — to the ice.

As soon as he was standing, she grabbed his arm and turned to run. Her sudden movement caused him to fall heavily. Arkady hurried to help him up, which proved to be a struggle on the icy surface, but finally he regained his balance. However, he looked ashen and panic-stricken.

'Going somewhere, my lady?'

Arkady turned from her father to find Chikita on the ice behind her. The Crasii hadn't been
that
transfixed by the fires apparently.

'I
...
er
...'
Arkady began, with the sinking realisation that there was no hope now of getting a third chance at escape.

The feline stepped toward them, pulling a knife from her belt. The noise around them was horrendous; the air filled with screams and smoke and death and the stench of burning fur.

'Lord Jaxyn will not be pleased if you harm us!' Arkady shouted, wondering if she could bluff their way out of this.

Chikita stepped closer, near enough to grab Arkady by the arm. She pulled her close, making Arkady lean forward. 'He'll be a lot less pleased if he thinks I let you escape,' the feline said into her ear. 'I can give you a few minutes' head start, my lady. After that, you're on your own.'

The little warrior pressed the knife into her hand and stepped back, adding in a louder voice, 'Tilly sends her love, by the way.'

Tides,
Arkady realised.
Chikita is a Scard. And
working for the Cabal.

Arkady didn't need to be told twice. She turned to grab her father's arm, but he shook her off. 'You'll get further without me.'

'No!' Arkady said. 'I'm not leaving you behind! He'll kill you!'

'I'd already be dead but for you, Arkady,' he said, his eyes misting with tears. 'I don't fear death.'

'My lady, you have to go!' Chikita urged behind her.

'Go!' Bary insisted. 'I'll cover for you.'

'I can't leave you again, Papa! Not when I can save you!'

'You can't save me, Arkady,' he said, hugging her briefly. 'Now go. For once, let me save you.'

Although she was filled with doubts, this was not the time or the place to voice them. Her father seemed determined and he was right — she would travel much farther and faster without him.

But how could she leave him? How could she stay?

'Go!' he ordered. 'For once in your life, girl, do something I've told you to do without arguing about it.'

Arkady wished she had more time to think about this. More time to feel something other than gratitude. Mouthing the words
thank you
to the feline and her father, she pocketed the knife and then turned and headed into the chaos. She had only moments before Chikita would have to raise the alarm and inform her immortal masters that Arkady and her father had tried to escape, or risk being found out as a spy herself.

So Arkady ran, not back toward Glaeba, but forward, through the smoke and the writhing burned bodies and the panicked felines. Taking a diagonal track across the ice, heading in what she hoped was a northerly direction, she deliberately forced herself not to think of what she'd left behind. She couldn't afford to head for the city. Even though Stellan was there and she could count on his protection, there was still a good chance Jaxyn would carry the day. Only the front ranks of his vast army had been affected by those walls of fire. There were still plenty more warriors in reserve, and once he got them under control, the battle would be well and truly on.

Slipping and sliding on the ice, she fought her way through the chaos, ignoring the burned Crasii's cries for help, and her guilt at leaving her father behind. She crossed the black lines scoured into the ice, which she realised, from the smell, must have been filled with tar or oil, until finally she stumbled onto the snow- covered shore and found herself clear of the battlefield.

Without stopping to look back, Arkady hardened her heart and turned north, heading inland, away from the city, away from the battle, away from her father and away from the screams of the burned and dying Crasii who'd been sacrificed this morning on the altar of immortal ambition.

CHAPTER 24

Warlock — like most canines — had no time for feline Crasii and, in the general course of events, cared little about their fate, one way or another. A day watching the felines caught in the fires on the ice had forced him to reassess his stance. Seeing them magically forced to climb to their feet to resume fighting, some of them bloodied and in agony, others with their fur burned away so badly there was nothing but raw flesh and muscle left behind, changed his opinion.

Once the fires were set, Elyssa had ordered the canine workers back to pack up their camp, and with Warlock at her heels to run errands for her, she had stepped out on to the ice to watch the battle. It was not long after they'd taken to the ice that Warlock discovered the immortals were resurrecting the felines.

The Glaeban felines were the first to resume the fight. They'd borne the full brunt of the oil fires, after all. To see them staggering to their feet, regardless of the injuries they'd sustained, was enough to make Warlock's flesh crawl. But it infuriated Elyssa. As soon as it became apparent Jaxyn was behind the magical resurrections, she began to swear savagely.

'My lady?' Warlock had inquired, wondering what had set her off.

'That cheating bastard is reviving the felines we killed with the oil fires.'

'Is that how they're coming back to life, my lady?'

'Why do you think feline Crasii believe they have nine lives, Cecil?' the immortal asked as she studied

the battlefield through a thin brass telescope. 'I don't know where they got the number nine, though, because how many times you can bring a fighter back varies from feline to feline, and has more than a little to do with the severity of the injury that killed them and if their vital organs are still intact.'

'And Lord Jaxyn is using the Tide to revive his warriors?' Warlock was astounded, wondering why he had never seen such a thing before. Of course, he knew of the feline belief in their own infallibility — that the Tide Lords had endowed them with nine lives because they were a cut above all other Crasii — but it was something he'd always put down to ordinary everyday, insufferable feline arrogance. He supposed that until now, it
bad
been just that. But with the Tide on the rise, the Tide Lords could work their magic on the felines in a way that hadn't been possible for over a thousand years.