Tonight, he discovered the Mage asleep next to Forral, as she had been these last few nights. Though he knew that Aurian had, for the time being, managed to reconcile her feelings between the old love and the new, he had his doubts about this interloper who’d stolen Anvar’s body. Seeing them together, Chiamh suddenly found himself aflame with jealousy. Appalled by the intensity of his feelings, he fled back toward his body with a soundless cry of dismay.—The Windeye’s thoughts were in such a turmoil that he took a wrong turning somewhere, and his consciousness emerged not in his chamber, as he had expected, but in the main cavern. What he saw there drove all thoughts of the Mage right out of his mind. The night watchmen lay scattered; dead. Strange soldiers, all alike in black livery and with eyes like cold steel, were pouring into the cavern. Chiamh was about to sound the alarm when he realized that he was out of his body, and had no voice. As fast as he could he turned, and fled back the way he had come.
Zanna was awakened from a sound sleep by a fearful commotion in the corridor.—She heard shouts and screams, and one of the ship’s bells was ringing wildly.—Tarnal leapt out of bed. “Get the boys,” he cried. “We’ve been invaded.”
Zanna had never dressed so fast in her life. She threw on her rough seaman’s clothing and boots, and dashed to the children’s rooms. They were already awake and snuggled in a single bed with Wolf, peeping out from behind a barricade of bedclothes with huge, frightened eyes.
“Ma, what’s happening?” Valand demanded. Martek, now that a source of comfort had arrived, began to wail.
Zanna didn’t believe in hiding the realities of life from her offspring—they were Nightrunners, after all. “Bad soldiers are attacking us,” she said tersely. “Get up quickly and get dressed—we have to leave right now.”
Valand obeyed her without another word, and Zanna ran help her younger son.—Martek was still sniveling as she forced him into his clothes. Zanna knelt down beside him and cupped his damp face in her hand. “Martek, you stop that.—You don’t want to frighten Wolf, do you? We have to get to the ships now, all right? Then we’ll be safe.”
The child bit his lip and nodded.
“Good lad,” Zanna told him. Picking him up, she gestured for Valand to go ahead of her.
Tarnal was standing by the door, sword in hand. “I can hear them righting in the distance, but it seems clear outside our door. We’d better go while we can.”
Zanna nodded. “Valand,” she said, “you take hold of the edge of my cloak. Hold on to it tight now—and whatever happens, don’t let go.”
They raced together along the corridor, their footsteps ringing on the stone floor. When they reached the main cavern the sight of the carnage stopped Zanna in her tracks. Small groups of smugglers, many in their nightclothes, were fighting desperately against well-armed professional soldiers. With a thrill of horror, Zanna recognized the black uniforms of Pendral’s troops.—They seemed to be everywhere. The beach was littered with the bodies of men, women, and even small children; the white sands were dyed crimson with their blood. Even as Zanna stood, transfixed with horror, more soldiers were pouring in through the narrow tunnel of the landward entrance.
“Come on!” Tarnal shook Zanna out of her trance. “We’ve got to get to the boats!” Wielding his sword like a man possessed, he plunged into the seething mass of combatants.
The three Xandim had been given chambers toward the rear of the Nightrunner complex. Their rooms were the only chambers in a short, dead-end corridor that branched off the main tunnel, and by the time the sounds of fighting reached them, it was too late.
Iscalda had hung up the blue gown that Zanna had given her, and was brushing her long, flaxen hair when she first heard the clamor outside. Almost at the same time, there came a hammering on her door. She opened it to find the Windeye, disheveled and half-dressed. “Arm yourself,” he gasped. “We’re being attacked!”
Before she had time to reply, he was gone, and banging on Schiannath’s door.—Iscalda dragged on shirt and breeches and picked up the new sword that she had obtained through the kindness of the Nightrunners. When she left her room, she saw that her brother, armed and dressed, was also coming out of his chamber—and that a large group of soldiers was rounding the corner at the junction of the corridor. A flash of fear shot through Iscalda as she realized that the Xandim were cornered and outnumbered.
Then suddenly the soldiers were backing away, howling curses and crying out in fear. Chiamh followed them, his silver eyes narrowed with concentration, pursuing them with the vision of a hideous monstrosity that was worse than the worst of Iscalda’s nightmares. “Go,” he shouted. “I’ll hold them off”
The moment the junction was clear, Schiannath and Iscalda fled past the Windeye, toward the main cavern. Iscalda glanced back over her shoulder to see Chiamh following; scrambling backward to keep facing the enemy and somehow maintaining his apparition without faltering. As they reached the more populous areas, they began to find bodies sprawled in the corridors—some of them soldiers, it was true, but far more of them members of the Nightrunner community. Another group of soldiers appeared from a junction ahead of them, and Iscalda and Schiannath went into action side by side, swords flashing as they carved a path through the enemy ranks for themselves and the Windeye.—Everything went well until the Xandim reached the open spaces of the big cavern, with a group of frightened smugglers, mostly elderly, that they had collected on their way. To their horror the beach was filled with a mass of struggling figures, and the fight was moving this way and that across the entrance to their passage. Iscalda and Schiannath waited for a break in the melee and brought the others through the entrance safely, but Chiamh, still preoccupied with maintaining his phantasm, was just a moment too late. As he emerged, the fight swept back in his direction and a duelling soldier, on the defensive, backed straight into him. The Windeye’s concentration broke—only for an instant, but it was enough. The soldier who had been following the Xandim all through the tunnels at a respectful distance saw the apparition waver. “It’s not real.”
Iscalda turned as she heard the cry—but she was too late save him. Even as she watched in horror, the soldiers shed forward in a solid mass, and she saw Chiamh go down, pierced by half a dozen swords. Even though she knew in her heart that it was hopeless, she would have gone back for him, had Schiannath not grabbed her arm and hauled her onward. “Come on, Iscalda! You can do nothing for him now!” Then the warrior was forced to turn her full attention back to her own survival, for they still had a fight in front of them before they could reach the boats. Her last sight of the Windeye was a shapeless, crumpled form like a blood-soaked pile of rags; a discarded piece of refuse that had been kicked out of the way, against the cavern wall.
24
The Phantasm
As Zanna pushed her way forward in Tarnal’s wake, she felt a tug—then her son was no longer holding on to her cloak. “Valand!” she whirled to see the child smashed down into the ground by a warrior’s gauntleted fist and kicked repeatedly and viciously where he lay. As the man pulled back his foot for another blow, a snarling grey shape erupted out of nowhere, leaping up and tearing at the warrior’s throat. Man and wolf staggered backward and fell, vanishing into the fray.
Zanna ran back to where her son lay, white and unmoving, but could not lift him without putting Martek down. Tarnal could not help her. He stood over his family to defend them—but his sword was needed. The crowd thinned for a moment, to show Emmie and Yanis with Vannor, Parric and Dulsina. Vannor and the Cavalry-master were fighting valiantly, back to back; Vannor defending himself admirably with one hand. “Dad,” Zanna shrieked. “Help us, please!”