‘For ice, water and mud!’ she called. ‘Let sunset eternal fall on Kainordas!’
Eyes rose to her, impassioned shouts came in answer, and Losara thought his mages took heart from the fervent pixie who accompanied them.
Sometime after midday they could see the border in the distance, brightly foreboding on the other side. There was no shadow out there to refuel the mages’ reserves as they spent it on speed, and although Losara did not want to burn their power away, he decided there would be time at nightfall to stop and replenish.
The brightness grew, and a thousand pairs of eyes stung as they hurtled into it, a dark swell breaking on sunny shores. As they moved out across the barren lands, they came across a single Kainordan patrol and engulfed it quickly. A spark of fire was the only resistance from a lightfist with the group, and it was quickly snuffed out.
Slower , Losara sent out to all. We do not wish to reach Holdwith before night.
The group slowed, conserving their power, until evening began to fall. When Holdwith appeared on the horizon they stopped altogether, and Losara ordered an hour of rest. He did not think the light mages would sense them from this distance, but even if they did, there was no time for further aid to reach them. In the meantime he had a preliminary job of his own.
I will return shortly , he sent to Roma, then turned to Lalenda.
‘Wait with the others,’ he said. ‘I have something to do.’
She looked worried by that, but he fell to shadow and circled her feet, then slid up her body to embrace her under her clothes so that she reddened and giggled. Then he was away, towards Holdwith.
As he drew close it seemed he was sensed, for a sentry barked alarm. He remembered, from the last time he’d come here to set a particular whelkling free, that inlaid into the walls of the fort were a series of ward stones like the ones surrounding the Halls. They were not a foolproof defence against shadow magic, but they stood in the way of a swift, decisive victory, providing a certain resistance that his mages would need to overcome. He slipped halfway up a wall and found the first, softly glowing amongst regular bricks of brown stone.
Congealing into reality from the torso up, floating upon a bottom half of shadow, he brought his hand forth and injected the ward with power, shattering it to pieces. Then he fell back to shadow and moved onwards. A fireball from above crashed against the wall where he had been but moments before.
Losara stopped at the next ward stone and again crumbled it with his touch. He sensed light power collecting as more mages gathered on the parapets above. There was a tugging as ethereal grips tried to seize him, but he broke through them easily.
‘It’s attacking the wards!’ came a shout from above. ‘Power to the wards!’
As he materialised at the next stone, it pulsed more brightly than the others, as somehow the light mages enhanced its power. Some interconnected defence system, old and potent, began to fire. It took extra effort to smash this one, and bolts of light crashed down around him.
He decided to press his luck and try for a fourth. He flew past a couple so the pattern of his destruction did not become predictable, and appeared once again. Shouts from the walls confirmed that the light mages had raced to the wrong place. As he sent his power into the ward, it seemed somehow slippery in his grip, despite being completely stationary. Then came a bright spark, and a backlash of light magic rippled from it into him. He toppled backwards, turning to shadow before any of his flesh touched the ground, and pooled, stunned, as bands of light shimmered through him. The feeling was sick-making, and he pulsed his own power through himself, dispelling the light but leaving behind a burning pain.
Cutting his losses, he retreated across the plains to his mages. At least he had broken the ward’s circle along the front they would attack – but had his manoeuvring done more harm than good, by alerting the enemy to the impending attack?
Time will tell.
A great glowing beacon rose in the sky, illuminating the land around the fort and reaching the edges of his force.
‘They know we’re here,’ he announced as he stepped into physicality. ‘But it changes nothing. We advance!’
Mages roared in unison, and together they sped towards the fort.
Stay well behind , Losara sent to Lalenda. Please, my love. Well behind.
I will watch your victory from the hill , she replied. Maybe while I drink a cup of tea.
He glanced about and saw the hill she was talking about, a league or so from the fort. Good, there she should be safe.
‘Deplete their numbers first!’ he called. ‘Some must fall before others may live!’
Roma had trained his mages well. As they came within range of the fort, they broke into groups of four, spacing themselves apart so as not to present too large a target. The groups channelled together to send out spells more powerful than one mage alone could muster, and great blue bolts went shooting towards the fort. Lights erupted along the walls as wards went up, hundreds of luminous blotches, and several bolts landed to blow chips from the parapets. Fireballs came sizzling back in reply, and light bolts, and balls of light that homed in on shadow – a spray of various and deadly brightnesses streaming towards them. Losara’s mages sent up shadow wards around themselves, swallowing up the fire and light. A few fell screaming, their bodies smoking.
‘Stay in your groups!’ Roma bellowed. ‘Send forth conjurings!’
All around, mages began mumbling as they summoned fell wraiths from nothing. Each wraith was under the control of an individual at the centre of each group, and flew up into the air to gust towards the enemy. Many were set alight before reaching their target, quickly burning to nothing, but a few made it through to dive along the walls, bringing screams as they froze lightfists alive with their touch.
Losara found Roma, his hands out and his eyes distant as he saw through his wraith creation. He gritted his teeth then blinked as his true sight returned. ‘Three down before it was destroyed,’ he muttered, then noticed Losara beside him.
‘Again?’ he asked.
‘Again,’ said Losara.
‘More shadow bolts!’ shouted Roma. ‘More conjurings!’
Crackling blue energy lit up another wave of wraiths, who dived and dodged the light spells coming the other way. Several massive shadow bolts blasted the walls and send red-robed bodies flying.
‘To me!’ came a distant shout echoing from within the fort. Losara recognised the voice of Methodrex, the High Overseer of Holdwith, whom he had ‘met’ in his pilgrimage dream. In those visions Methodrex had been instrumental in the downfall of Fenvarrow.
How different reality was turning out to be.
Methodrex strode along the walls as fast as his short legs could carry him. His white–gold robe seemed to have chosen this moment to become much too long, tangling itself around his calves as he went.
‘To me!’ he called, trying not to let his voice show how shaken he was. The ease and speed with which their ward stones had been destroyed, breaking what was once a powerful circle of defence, was mind-boggling. No one should have been able to smash such ancient magic as if stepping on snail shells. But times were changing, and he knew who it was that must have come, slipping through the night, to crack armour that had held for centuries.