The Realms of the Gods (25 page)

“An ugly-looking crew, aren't they?” Marielle, Imrah's lady, joined them, recurved bow in hand, as the immortals came on. A tiny woman, she had lively brown eyes and kept her dark hair cropped short and close. She wore a leather jerkin studded with metal rings over a kilted-up dress; there were archer's gloves on her hands. Unhooking a spyglass from her belt, she surveyed the winged attackers. “You know, these look like they're
running
from something.”

“They are,” King Jonathan replied. “While Her Majesty's main force attacked in the northwest, her second force hit the camp in the northeast.”

“What kind of force?” Marielle wanted to know.

“The badger god,” replied Onua.

“Stormwing friends,” piped Leaf. Jelly nodded.

Marielle raised her eyebrows. “If you say so, little ones,” she said wryly. “Strange friends that we get in wartime.”

Another darking stretched to put its eyeless head over Jonathan's shoulder—it was tucked into the king's belt purse. “Centaurs,” it squeaked to Marielle. “Forty-four.”

“Very true, Inkblot,” Jonathan told Ozorne's onetime spy, now his companion and connection to other darkings. “Don't forget Sir Raoul, the Knight Commander of the King's Own. He mustered a hundred-odd ogres, as well as the centaurs. Those who chose to live with our laws are fighting for them.”

The noblewoman laughed. “Do you know, sire, I think that if we live to tell our grandchildren about this war, they will accuse us of making it up.”

Daine traded places with Tkaa, putting him at the king's side and herself in front of a stone notch in the wall. Far below, she heard the grind of chains and wood: The portcullises on the north, east, and south gates were being raised, the drawbridges lowered. Imrah led mounted knights and men-at-arms from the north gate, to confront the soldiers who fled the queen's forces. Another company of mixed horsemen, foot soldiers, and archers was leaving by the east gate, Daine knew, and two Rider Groups were trotting their ponies out of the southern gate. If it worked, Ozorne's allies on land would be caught between the queen's relief force and Legann's defenders, just as his sea-going allies, the blockaders, would be pinched between the arriving ships and the harbor's defenders.

Where is Slaughter? Daine wondered. She'll have plenty of work today.

The noise level rose, fueled by the howls of winged immortals and the roar of enemy soldiers as they topped the rise between their camp and its outer defenses. Seeing the wooden towers that Wingstar had flamed blazing in front of them, some tried to turn back. Roots—belonging to trees long cut down to clear the battlefield—shot out of bare ground and twined around the ankles of the enemy. More runaways dodged the roots, only to meet Imrah and his knights. From the valley where the enemy had camped, magic fires erupted and died as Tortallan mages attacked those serving the invaders.

The king was pale and gleaming with perspiration. Marielle and Onua also began to sweat as fear—Stormwing war terror—billowed ahead of the oncoming immortals. No one moved. It affected Daine as it did the
others, but all of them had fought under the pressure of that fear before: The choice was fight or die.

“How many Stormwings did you say followed Ozorne?” Jonathan asked, his normally even voice strained.

“Two hundred and forty-eight, Your Majesty—if this is all of them coming at us now.” The archers on wall and tower swung their bows up, choosing targets from among the oncoming immortals. Daine's was a winged ape that flew with others of his kind, ahead of the Stormwings. He carried double-headed axes in feet that were as nimble as hands.

Taking a deep breath, the girl closed her eyes and thought of merlins, fast birds of prey, able to maneuver well in the air. The blanket dropped to the stone deck. Tkaa pulled its folds back, allowing her to take flight.

The air below filled with the snap of bowstrings and the whistle of arrows and bolts. Daine shot straight at the ax-bearing ape, striking him as the hurrok had struck her on the First Bridge, dragging her claws across his brow and scalp. He shrieked and grabbed for her as blood streamed into his eyes. Turning fast, she tore at his wings, ripping holes in them with talons and beak. He fell, dropping both axes as he tried to spin around in midair. When she saw a peaked tower roof loom up underneath, she released her prey. He struck the tower back first, and rolled limply into the city street below.

Swerving fast, she returned to the watchtower roof and the king. A hurrok was her next target; once more she went for eyes first, then wings. Blinded and crippled, the immortal careened into a Stormwing, dragging it down and into the curtain wall as the Stormwing's feathers cut it to pieces. Daine glided back to a place next to the king, watching for a new target.

The archers on the walls shot as rapidly as they could, choosing ape, hurrok, and Stormwing targets with
deadly accuracy as they fought Stormwing terror. The king, examining battles on the land and in the air before him, continued to talk calmly into his spelled mirror, relaying what he saw to the queen. In his left hand, the Dominion Jewel glowed, violet light streaming from its many facets.

Jonathan quietly said, “Excuse me,” into his mirror, and put it on the stone. Raising the Jewel, he aimed it not at the oncoming Stormwings, but at three hurroks bearing riders to the lower wall and the archers there. The riders were human mages; they lashed the fighters on the curtain wall, burning two of them alive. White threads of fire drifted from the Jewel, falling gracefully onto the hurroks and their burdens.

Kitten cried an alarm: A quartet of Stormwings—two males, two females—had come in low, where no one had seen them, skimming the ground until they reached the base of the curtain wall. Now they sped up its length, ducking the web of fire that was tangling the mages and their mounts, zipping past the archers on the lower levels. Clutching round clay pots in their talons, they were intent on the watchtower and its occupants. Daine recognized the bombs: A spell word from a Stormwing and the pots would explode, showering everyone with liquid fire.

Inkblot jumped from the king's belt purse onto the notch of the wall in front of Jonathan, who did not see his danger. The mages were fighting him and the Jewel with all they had. Jelly, clinging to Kitten's back, leaped to join the king's darking.

Marielle and Tkaa ignored the blots as they leaned through the crenelated wall. The lady aimed; when her chosen target was only fifty feet away, she loosed. Her arrow took one in the eye; the immortal slammed into the stone with a dying shriek. Jelly and Inkblot dropped to cover the face of the leading Stormwing, blinding him.
He thrashed, dropping his bombs in his frantic attempt to scrape the darkings off. They abandoned their victim only when three of the archers on the lower wall had riddled him with arrows.

The two remaining Stormwings came on, deadly rage in their eyes. Tkaa opened his jaws. His throat gave out an ear-piercing song that was part shriek, with a counterpoint tune in it that sounded like an avalanche. The male Stormwing was half caught by the basilisk's song. His left side turned to stone; his right wing and claw thrashed. He dropped as archers scattered from the wall below. Moments later the occupants of the tower heard rock shatter on rock. His companion, the female, had come in to his rear and side; she escaped Tkaa's song. Before the half-stone male began to fall, Daine was arrowing down the side of the watchtower. Abruptly she changed shape to that of a larger, heavier golden eagle, and slammed into the female Stormwing's face. Steel teeth snapped; the girl-eagle got her claws out of the way just in time. Twisting, she slashed the immortal's throat, then jumped away. Cursing, the Stormwing hit the lower wall, silvery blood spraying everywhere, and from there tumbled end over end to the ground.

Daine circled, hunting for the darkings. She was relieved to find them rolling up the watchtower's side, clinging to it as easily as the sunlight did. For the moment the air around the watchtower was clear. Gliding in, Daine carefully picked the two inky creatures up in her claws and carried them back up to the king.

“Good work,” Leaf said from its position on Tkaa's shoulder. Jelly went to Kitten; Inkblot flowed out of Daine's talons, pouring itself into Jonathan's belt purse once more. The king grinned, and stroked the purse. Looking for the hurroks and their riders who had run afoul of Jonathan, Daine saw only a heap of white bones on the curtain wall below, and shuddered.

A boom from the north shivered the tower stones.
Mushrooming billows of arcane light climbed from behind enemy lines. One cloud was sparkling black, the other a deep ruby shade. Numair had found Inar Hadensra. Daine shifted from foot to foot, ruffling her feathers and praying as she watched tendrils of black fire wind through the red, and red through the black. Numair had tricked the Scanran into protecting their contest from the rest of the battle. Let Inar Hadensra think it was to keep someone from putting a spear through their backs; Daine knew it was to keep the magical battle from hurting anyone else.

Jonathan continued to speak to his queen and generals, passing on the numbers of the enemy and the directions of their movements. His companions defended him from every attack, physical and magical—Kitten and Tkaa easily handled the latter. Now that Numair had engaged the enemy's chief mage, and Thayet's wizards fought most of the rest, few human mages had the attention or strength to strike at those Tortallans who had no Gift, and thus no defense.

Fresh immortals raced onto the battle-torn ground between their camp in the northeast and Legann. Many bore torn nooses of vines and brambles: They had been forced to rip themselves free of clinging plants roused by the Dominion Jewel. On their heels came centaurs, ogres, and knights, all in Tortallan colors, fighting under Tortallan battle flags. When the enemy immortals turned south, to freedom, the ones who escaped the roots that snatched at them from the ground ran into companies of Tortallan soldiers, two Rider Groups, and a small detachment of centaurs who had settled east of Legann.

Behind the Tortallans rose a wall of brambles ten feet high. Anyone who tried to escape the battlefields and camps around the city would run into it. The Dominion Jewel, it seemed, could deliver what King Jonathan had promised.

Metallic shrieks drew the girl's attention. High above
the Stormwings, hurroks, and winged apes, Barzha was locked in deadly battle with another Stormwing—a queen. “Jachull,” Tkaa remarked, eyes fixed on the crowned immortals. “Queen of the Mortal Fear nation.” Daine nodded; so this was the dead-voiced female she'd heard in her dream, the one who had said it wasn't important if some of her own kind died.

Crimson fires edged with gold tangled around the pair like an ill-made knot. For the most part they clawed at each other. The strange queen was adept at quick swipes of her wing feathers; soon Barzha was laddered with shallow cuts and covered in blood. Her enemy bore wounds as well—belly cuts that bled heavily.

Below the queens, Hebakh and Rikash fended off any Stormwings who tried to interfere. Seeing they were outnumbered, Daine called for the People. Sparrows darted into the fray, dashing around Stormwings, pecking and speeding away. Fighting them, or trying to, the immortals smashed into one another, slicing their own allies to pieces. They retreated from Barzha's guards, while the rest of her allies came to help the two males.

A net of scarlet fires wrapped itself around Jachull, its ends lodged under Barzha's skin; Jachull would have to kill the Stone Tree queen to escape. With a snarl, Jachull turned and sped at Barzha, talons forward, set to impale. At the last second Rikash's queen detached the webs of her magic and shot upward, Jachull passing under her by inches.

Barzha fell as Jachull fought to halt and turn; when Jachull stabilized, Barzha was behind her, chopping down with the edges of her right wing. Jachull spun hard to meet an attack she expected from her rear or from above. Instead she jammed her throat and chest into the razor of Barzha's wing. Barzha seized Jachull's face in one talon, dug in her claws, then let her enemy fall. Jachull's allies, who had watched the duel at a distance from Barzha's defenders, wailed.

“Daine?” Jonathan asked quietly. “Would you see how the Yamanis are faring?”

She nodded and took off, changing her shape to that of a gull to fly more easily over the ocean. She kept a wary eye out for winged immortals who might try to kill her. As far as she could tell, they were busy enough, caught between city forces and Thayet's army. Everywhere Daine saw the flash of magic: Stormwing crimson edged with gold; brown and gold from centaurs who were also mages; and varicolored fires that served human wizards. The winged apes laid down a blanket of thick and clinging fog, the only magic they possessed, but it did little to hide them. Too many winged creatures and too many other mages took part in the fight; the fog would billow, then shred and blow away.

Soaring over the harbor, she saw that the enemy's ships were in poor condition. Many of the largest vessels had burned to the waterline, seared by dragonfire; nearly all of those left bore scorch marks. Five Yamani ships, half of the fleet that had brought Thayet to Legann, kept all but the smallest vessels from making a getaway. Like dogs herding sheep, they were driving those ships still able to maneuver toward the harbor, where they could surrender to Legann's defenders or be crushed against the breakwater.

Two miles past the blockade Daine found Diamondflame, Wingstar, and the other five Yamani warships. The ten-ship relief force from the Copper Isles, the one she had seen in a Divine Realms vision, was trapped in a circle formed by dragons and Yamanis. Two enemy ships were burning fast. Three more were disabled, their masts broken off. Skins of liquid fire flew through the air, hurled by catapults from vessels on both sides. Any that came too near the dragons swerved, burst, and showered their contents on the enemy's ships. Daine was no admiral, but the outcome of this contest was easy to read.