A swing of his axe pushed back a worg that was trying to get to Ashara. She touched his shield and it flared with blue light. His axe split the skull of a worg trying to come in under his guard. As he drew the axe back, she touched it as well, and the blade burst into flame. He almost dropped it in his surprise, but he caught it in time to swing it down into the shoulder of another worg. Even as the blade cut, the fire seared the hair and flesh around the wound, making the beast yelp in pain.
“That’s all I have,” she said. “Stay alive long enough to make it useful.”
“Thank you.” Another swing of his axe made sure that the worg trying to follow Ashara wouldn’t move again.
An enormous burst of fire blossomed in the canyon ahead of him, and Cart’s position suddenly seemed less desperate. Tesh and another soldier stood beside him-he’d made it back to the others.
“Remember your top priority,” Cart said. “Keep Haldren alive.” Please, he thought-or we’re all dead.
Some of the worgs in the rear of the advancing pack raised a howl, and the canyon seemed to shake with it as more worgs joined the chorus and it reverberated off the walls. The creatures in front surged forward, all teeth and claws.
Steel and stone, Cart thought. He met the worgs’ ferocity with his own.
Another blossom of fire drowned out the howl for an instant, and yelps of pain came in its wake. Cart fell into an almost mechanical rhythm, slicing and hewing, lifting his shield to block attacks or throw worgs back. No worg would get past him, and before long he was covering the other soldiers as their energy began to flag.
This is what I was made for, he thought. Tireless, unceasing battle. But in what cause?
Despite his efforts, the worgs were pushing them back, closer and closer to the barrier formed by their companions’ bodies. He saw Tesh beside him becoming more agitated, and he hoped none of the others would turn and see the grisly spectacle.
Haldren’s magic was thinning the rear of the pack, but the worgs in front-either unaware of or unconcerned with the fate of their fellows-fought with undiminished ferocity. Another howl rose in the back of the worg band, and grew to fill the canyon again. Tesh stepped back in fear, and then the line broke-the soldier on Cart’s right turned and ran in panic. The worgs made no effort to stop him.
“Stop!” Cart cried. “Hold your position!” He turned far enough to keep the soldier, Avi, in at least the edge of his vision without leaving himself open to the worgs.
Avi yelled when he saw the mutilated corpses, but he didn’t check his headlong flight. He tried to jump over the bodies-and stopped in the air, suspended inside the magical barrier that only Haldren could see. His shout of horror changed into an agonized scream and he writhed in agony. The last Cart saw before he had to turn his full attention back to the worgs was a cloud of blood spreading out from Avi’s twitching body, staining the invisible barrier red.
Kovin and the other soldier saw it too, and it nearly broke them. It was their first indication that they were trapped, with death on both sides, and Cart recognized the terror in their eyes.
“Forward!” Cart yelled. “Push them back!”
He stepped forward against the front line of worgs, trusting the others to follow him, and the worgs fell back the smallest amount. Haldren shifted tactics, blasting individual worgs in the front with smaller blasts of fire, helping to clear the line for the soldiers to advance. The ground was slick with blood, and they had to step over or around the hulking bodies of dead worgs, but they succeeded in pushing the line back, away from the deadly barrier. The forward press seemed to be having the desired effect-bolstering the last three soldiers’ courage and hope.
A chorus of barks and yips began somewhere in the middle of the worg pack, and the worgs in front fell back still farther. Cart scanned the canyon, then gave a shout of triumph. The two remaining squads under Haldren’s command perched atop the canyon walls on either side of the worg pack, showering arrows down into the throng. The other soldiers saw their salvation and joined Cart’s shout.
The canyon walls were too steep in that spot for the worgs to climb, so the archers above could loose their arrows without fear. Many worgs took three or four arrows before falling, but fall they did, adding to the number of the dead as Cart led the soldiers on the canyon floor in a renewed assault.
Soon it was over-the worgs broke ranks and fled back down the canyon, scattering into the hills. Cart ordered all three squads to regroup rather than give chase. Ashara tended to the wounded-Cart was surprised to see the number of breaks and tears in his own body-while Haldren turned his attention to the barrier again.
Ashara used wands to tend her living patients, manipulating the magic stored within the wands to flow into their bodies and knot up their wounds, refresh their spirits, and erase their fatigue. For Cart, though, she ran her bare hands over his wounds, unleashing the magic contained in his own body to help it repair itself. It was, Cart felt suddenly, strangely intimate.
“That was incredible,” she said, working her magic on his shoulder. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.”
“It’s what I was made for.”
“It’s more than that. Not every warforged is capable of what you just did. You’ve devoted yourself to it, mastered the axe and shield, trained your senses and reflexes. You’ve chosen to become the best warrior you can be.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You’re a person, just as capable of choosing your path in life as any of us. Other warforged have chosen to excel in magic or artifice. I met a warforged painter in Lathleer once-very skilled, and getting better. House Cannith might have made you to be a soldier, but that doesn’t have to be your purpose in living. You can do what you want-you can be what you want to be.”
“Maybe I want to be a soldier.”
“A soldier?” she said, getting to her feet. “You’re a hero.”
She walked off to treat another of the wounded.
Haldren broke through the barrier and summoned Cart, who helped him pile the bodies together and start a pyre. Once the fire was blazing, Cart gathered the others together to pay their last respects to their allies, then hurried them onward.
After three more bends in the canyon, they found themselves at its head. The worgs’ labyrinth of bones spread out before them, and from the canyon floor Cart could see its focus. It seemed at first like a pool of deep blue water set vertically into the sheer cliff at the canyon’s head. Only after staring at it for a moment did he realize it wasn’t water, but crystal-a glimpse of a larger formation buried in the rock, from what Haldren had said. He couldn’t see any worgs-it seemed they had put everything they had into that last assault.
“The canyon is ours,” Haldren declared.
INTERLUDE
Kelas leaned close to the glass globe on his desk, straining to hear the voice coming from it.
“In all, we lost eleven of our twenty soldiers, and the wizard from Arcanix.” The small voice from the globe was Haldren’s. Kelas frowned-those were heavy losses. “But the worgs are routed. We still hear them howling, especially now that the sun is down, but there aren’t as many. We can hold the canyon until you arrive.”
“Good,” Kelas said. “I’ll try to get there before the wolves get reinforcements.”
“Thank you.”
Haldren expressing gratitude. Was his pride really so broken? Best to buoy it somewhat, he reasoned.
“Thank you, Haldren. The Dragon Forge couldn’t happen without you.”
He didn’t wait for Haldren’s reply, but waved a hand over the orb and saw its light fade.
It seemed that everything was in place. Time for him to make his report.
Resting his fingertips on the globe again, he closed his eyes in concentration. Nara ir’Galanatyr-he thought her name, then concentrated on fixing her face in his mind. He saw her severe face, dark eyes, and short hair. He concentrated on her most likely location, her villa outside Wyr, on the Eldeen border. For good measure, he framed his thoughts with the details of her identity: the former head of the Royal Eyes of Aundair, abruptly removed from her position at the end of the Last War. Few people knew why, but Kelas was one of them. Simply by working for her, Kelas would have been committing treason, even if it hadn’t been treason they planned.