Wizardborn (63 page)

“You'd burn a village?” Gaborn asked.

“I don't want to—I have a sister who lives there. But that's where the reavers are heading, if I have my guess.”

Another lord spoke. “He's right. The hills rise up on either side, and Shrewsvale is in the midst of the pass. There'd be no better place to stop the reavers.”

Gaborn had heard that there was a good inn at the top of the pass.

He jutted his chin at Langley. “Take a thousand lancers on slow mounts, along with the frowth, and follow the reavers.
Cut down any that fall behind, but don't engage the main force. Be sure to note the position of any that might be the Waymaker.

“I'll take the thousand fastest men to Shrewsvale.”

   52   

If we must die, at least let us die in splendor.

—
A Prayer of Indhopal

The slow dawn rose above Kartish, painting a pink haze above the gray and blasted lands. Raj Ahten prepared for his attack on the reaver fortress. No birds sang. No cattle walked the fields. Not even a lonely wind sighed.

Shadows puddled in the hollows, while sunlight gilded the hilltops. Overhead, a single flameweaver rode the spy balloon, along with two common troops. The graak-shaped balloon hovered in the still air like a seagull.

Raj Ahten stood on a ridge, glaring down. Below him, the reaver fortress was a monstrosity. A vile brown haze circled the place, swirling in a vast circle as if it were a slow tornado. Through wisps of fog he could see hundreds of thousands of dead men lying on the battlefield. Pusnabish had led his men to war, but the fell mage's curses were so strong that no commoner could survive that swirling mist. Men and mounts with as many as three endowments of stamina stepped into the nebula and could only stagger a dozen yards before collapsing.

Worse than that, Raj Ahten's sorcerers warned him that the mist was bound to its course. Even a driving wind at sunset had not diminished it. Instead, the haze circled maddeningly, as if it occupied its own space and time.

Raj Ahten would not be able to send commoners into this fray. They would only avail if the reavers sought to escape.

At Carris, Raj Ahten had seen glue mums erect a single black tower that leaned at an odd angle. The tower had twisted around like a narwhale's horn.

Here, the reavers had constructed nine such spires in a circle, each leaning out. It reminded Raj Ahten of a glistening black crown of thorns.

Within that circle was a nest, or fortress, concocted of strands of blue-white mucilage laid out in a bizarre and complex pattern. Smaller black spikes and spires shot out of the fortress like the spines of a sea urchin, and everywhere were diminutive holes—similar to kill holes and archery slots in a human castle.

Raj Ahten could see no exterior guards. Yet through the kill holes he spotted an eerie sheen the color of life, a color that only his eyes could see.

Reavers hid inside their fortress in vast numbers.

Around the fortress, steep trenches would prevent a charger from drawing near. The trenches looked to be twenty feet deep or more. Even a Runelord in armor would be hard-pressed to climb their sides.

Beyond the fortress itself, amid the piles of tailings from the mine, was a reaver city. The entrances to burrows reared up by the thousands.

This is folly, Raj Ahten told himself. At Carris his knights had fought to hold the walls of a sturdy castle with only one entrance. It had proven to be nearly impossible. Here he would have to attack the reavers in their own fortress, a stronghold of unknown design.

Strange-looking reavers clung to the top of each black spire. He had not seen such reavers at Carris. They were a new subspecies, never described in the old bestiaries.

The bony plates of their heads jutted back at a peculiar angle, making their muzzles exceptionally long. Each of these reavers had thirty-six philia. Their forearms also seemed to be longer than those on a blade-bearer. Their hides were a tannish-gray. They stood atop their spires, and their heads swiveled.

Though Raj Ahten crouched on a ridge nearly two miles
away, the reavers swung toward him and waved their philia questioningly.

A common reaver would not have spotted him.

Even reavers have their far-seers, he realized. This breed must be rare indeed, if only these few keep guard here.

He took it as a sign. Truly, the legendary Lord of the Underworld had surfaced. Now Raj Ahten would battle the monster.

He studied the reaver's fortress in mingled wonder and confusion. No castle had ever survived Raj Ahten's attack.

A fortress is merely a shell for the cornered enemy to hide in, he reminded himself.

Raj Ahten squinted, checking the strange building for signs of weakness. He could see none, but he was not dissuaded. He had shattered fortresses with his Voice alone, and though it had proven ineffective when he tried it with the reavers' construct at Carris, he felt certain that he would find some weakness in the reavers' defenses.

Pusnabish had served him well in preparing for this battle. For the past two days, he'd kept his troops busy. Force horses had brought ballistas from every fortress within two hundred miles, raiding the defenses of the richest castles in all of Indhopal.

Pusnabish had sent to Aven and retrieved the volatile powders that Raj Ahten's flameweavers had been experimenting with.

He'd gathered ten thousand elephants, including fourteen war elephants that had endowments of brawn, metabolism, and stamina.

More than that, Pusnabish had recognized that fire might be the key to driving out the reavers.

Kartish was not known for its many trees, but figs and citrus grew along the creek beds. The blight had devastated the orchards. So his men had scavenged every dead tree for thirty miles and piled them north of the reavers' fortress. The hot sun had dried them over the past two days.

So it was that from the moment Raj Ahten arrived at the Palace of Canaries, his men were ready for war.

Now Raj Ahten blew the winding horn of a ram, and his men prepared the attack.

A mile behind him, two hundred thousand men began dragging twenty-five thousand pieces of artillery in place. With them marched a million well-armed common troops as escorts.

Beyond that, two million more men and ten thousand elephants began to drag dead trees toward the fortress.

Raj Ahten held to the ridge, and four thousand Invincibles—every lord in Southern Indhopal—rode up to join him.

They were a glorious band, wearing the riches of Indhopal. For this battle, they abandoned the heavy splint mail and scale mail that men wore in northern climes. Instead, they donned armor in the styles of the ancients—tight-woven silk a dozen layers thick. It was both lighter and stronger than lacquered leather, and it would still breathe in the heat.

So the lords of Indhopal rode to war in bright silk long-coats dyed crimson and gold. Their turbans were pinned with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds as large as hens' eggs. Their horses and war elephants were caparisoned as if for a parade. They bore bright lances, richly carved and decorated with gold foil, and their scabbards glittered with gems and silver.

Never in all the history of Indhopal had such an army gathered. Raj Ahten rode proudly at their head, dressed in armor of shining white silk, as befitted his station.

The ground rumbled from the feet of Raj Ahten's troops, while clouds of dust rose over the plains, thrown up from dragging logs and artillery.

The reavers did not stir.

For an hour the commoners approached the swirling mists, and began laying down their logs. Raj Ahten watched the fortress, saw reavers frantically scurrying about near the kill holes. But they did not flee, did not seek to attack. He'd expected some form of resistance, but the reavers did not so much as hurl a stone against his men.

As he considered, the reason seemed obvious. The swirling nebula of vapors extended for nearly a quarter of a mile outside the fortress. The reavers couldn't see his army.

So their horde elected to wait.

Hills of logs began to rise. The flameweavers supervised the commoners and their elephants. They set the logs in two piles, one to the east of the reaver fortress, one to the west.

Raj Ahten had expected the sorcerers to pile the dead trees in simple mounds, but there were copious logs, and the flameweavers ordered each pile to be arranged in a vast rune nearly a quarter of a mile across. To the east was the Rune of Fire. To the west was the Rune of Night.

Tens of thousands of workmen still toiled among the logs when the flameweavers reached up into the heavens. Night fell from horizon to horizon as they drew fire swirling from the sky and sent it sizzling through the logs.

The screams of burning men filled the air, and they began the lurid dance of the dying.

Raj Ahten took it stoically. He did not like to watch his people die, but Rahjim had assured him that a sacrifice was necessary. “A few thousand men will die. But it is better that a few thousand men are lost, than all of us.”

The smell of singed hair and cooking fat filled the plains. Now Rahjim and Az stood in the runes, glowing in flame.

Raj Ahten had seldom sacrificed to the greater Powers. But he felt desperate. Despite the fact that he'd taken endowments of stamina last night, the numbness in his left arm was spreading.

Raj Ahten's sorcerers, clothed in fire, began to dance among the flames, twisting and writhing until they almost seemed to become flames themselves. Heat from the burning runes smote Raj Ahten on the hillside even half a mile away. Logs screamed in protest and sent up a cloud of smoke.

Atop the spires of the fortress, one of the reavers' far-seers collapsed, while the others began to back from the heat.

Pusnabish held his hand before his face, and called, “O Great One, the fire is too hot. Even men with many endowments will not be able to charge the fortress.”

“Perhaps the reavers will do us a favor and bake in an oven of their own design,” a second lord chimed in.

Raj Ahten's heart hammered. He felt the heat, but did not fear it. The coldness in his left hand eased a little. It felt more alive.

Az had promised him again and again that fire would heal him, but only if he let it burn away his humanity.

Raj Ahten's pulse quickened.

For several moments the inferno grew more murderous. Flames danced hundreds of feet in the air, and billowed up in clouds.

“There is a great rune carved in the ground at the center of that fortress,” Raj Ahten shouted to his nobles. “I will grant a chest full of rubies to the first man who buries his warhammer in it.” He blew his horn again, preparing his men for attack.

His lords shouted their war cries.

Above the reaver fortress, the commoners in the graak began dumping bags of volatile powders into the air. The powders fell in dirty streaks—curtains of red, gray, yellow. The heat was so intense that the men themselves succumbed. One man tumbled over, unable to throw the bag. For a moment, one of the silk wings of the graak began to smolder, but the flameweaver Chespot quickly drew the heat to himself, kept hurling out the powders.