It was as they gathered the surviving hawks together at the harbor that one of the Krotes suggested how to defeat the temple defenders.
The hawks that could be saved were left with piles of the village dead to eat. Their strength would take days or weeks to return, but the Krotes saw no purpose in killing them yet. Those few that were beyond saving were hauled slowly through the streets to the temple.
Arrows flew. The hawks grumbled and cried out as they were holed a dozen times, two dozen, but being shoved from behind they finally heaved themselves against the walls of the temple, covering the firing holes, dying, far too heavy to be shifted from within.
Stomach gases swelled as they gasped their final breaths. Their hides stretched so thin that they became translucent, ready to burst and let loose the appalling smell that always accompanied a hawk’s slow decay. The Krotes withdrew, made flaming arrows and fired them at their dead mounts’ bodies from a safe distance.
Most of the small fires went out immediately. Others held on pitifully, and a few spread, crackling their way across the dead creatures’ fatty hides. It did not take long for the first hawk to burst, gushing dancing blue flames across the street. A second explosion followed, a third, and the flames became voracious.
The fire quickly took hold of the temple. Flaming gases from the dead hawks vented through the small windows and set the insides alight. The creatures’ fat melted and flowed. There were screams from the temple, but only a few, and they did not last for long.
The building burned on into dusk. The Krotes tried to extinguish the flames, afraid that the smoke would be seen from a distance, but they were forced back by the heat. The fires had ignited the hawks’ fatty flesh, and the stench of burnt meat permeated the air across the whole of Conbarma.
That made the warriors hungry. They found wine cellars and good, fresh seafood in some of the homes, and that night they spent a few hours celebrating their first victory on the shores of Noreela.
Lenora sat and celebrated with them, but all the while a part of her mind was farther south, imagining the village of Robenna as she had last seen it. And as she looked around at the Conbarma dead, smelled their insides, watched the hungry hawks crunching them into pulp, she sensed a shade sitting within her. It said nothing, but it was comfortable. It recognized her.
She knew then that she would see Robenna again. And this time, it would be on her terms.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, five specks appeared in the sky out to sea. Lenora ordered a dozen Krotes aloft, while she and the remaining warriors took up defensive positions. The specks grew slowly, their course unerring, finally resolving into hawks. The scouts moved out to intercept them, but at the last minute the Krotes’ mounts veered away, spinning seaward, their riders shouting in dismay, shock and fear. All twelve managed to rein in the frantic hawks and hobble back toward shore, but by then the five new hawks were hovering above the harbor, two of them slowly setting down, tentacles reaching out to make their landing as gentle and graceful as possible.
Lenora could not bring herself to walk along the harbor wall to meet them. Her warriors knelt and rested their foreheads on the ground, muttering words of greeting and reverence.
And the Mages were on Noreela for the first time in three centuries.
“Lieutenant!” the tall one called. “I have need of you!”
Lenora swallowed, smoothed her leather tunic and stepped out onto the harbor wall. She had been in the Mages’ presence many times before but never like this, never in combat.
“Mistress,” she said, approaching the tall, old woman. She called herself Angel, but few people felt comfortable using that name. It was too personal. “Mistress, what an unexpected pleasure.”
“Indeed,” Angel said, stretching her bony arms. She looked around at the harbor and the battle-scarred town. “They’ve done the place up since I was here last,” she said quietly. “A few new buildings. Quieter. They must have known we were coming.” She looked at Lenora then, her old eyes filled with a knowledge and power that Lenora could not meet for more than a second or two. “What news, Lieutenant?”
“We hold Conbarma, and it’s ready to receive the ships.” She paused, glanced across at S’Hivez where the old Mage sat slumped forward on his mount. He looked like a mummified corpse, something they would pull out of the glacier on Dana’Man.
“You’re talking to me, not him!” Angel said.
“Sorry, Mistress.”
Angel stared at her, then smiled. “You of all people need not apologize to me, Lenora. We’ve been through so many years together-a few good, a few hundred bad-and now it’s our time again. Do you feel that?” She drew close, her breath musty and filled with secrets of rage and time. “Can you really sense that, Lenora?”
“Yes,” Lenora whispered. And she could. All her memories of the Cataclysmic War and their terrible flight north, refreshed over the past few days, had been instantly wiped away by their first decisive victory. They were back on Noreela… and sometime soon, she would go home again. That would be her own personal reward, and not even the Mages need know of that.
“I want you to fly with me, Lieutenant.”
Lenora frowned, confused. Angel walked past her and headed along the harbor wall for land, true land, her hand already reaching out to touch the bones of Noreela laid bare for ages. She followed, glancing back at S’Hivez sitting astride his hawk. He showed no inclination to dismount.
“Don’t worry about him,” Angel said. “He knows we’re leaving soon, and he’s not one for symbolism. I’m the one who wants to touch this place again.”
Lenora followed her mistress, maintaining a respectful distance. They passed one of her men, pressing himself so close to the ground that it seemed he was trying his best to merge with the rock.
“Here we are,” Angel said, her voice soft and filled with a timeless grief. “Here we are.”
The Mage stepped forward into the first dusty street of Conbarma. She stood there for some time, looking down at her feet then up at the buildings before her, left and right at the shops and taverns that fronted the harbor, back down at her feet. Then she sank slowly to her knees, and from where Lenora watched she was nothing more than a sad old woman, her friends and family dead, kneeling in the dust and wishing to be taken back into it. She picked up a handful of sand and brought it to her face, inhaling, letting some slip between her fingers and drift away on the breeze.
Then Angel suddenly stood, spun around and strode back to Lenora. Any resemblance with that sad old woman had vanished. Here she was, the Mage, Angel, the woman whom in Lenora’s eyes had always ruled, the one with power and passion enough to keep going whatever the setbacks. She had built a community far to the north where breath froze on your lips in winter and your piss turned to ice as it left your body. Built an army, always certain that her time would come again. And S’Hivez, though he had withered and faded, had gladly watched Angel take control. Lovers once, now they were more like a monstrous mother and son.
“How many times have you dreamed of this, Lenora?” she asked.
“Hundreds, Mistress.”
“Is it anything as good as you imagined?”
Lenora smiled. “Better.”
“Good. That’s because this is a place to live, whereas Dana’Man was a place to die. Do you feel alive? Does the blood on your hands make you feel alive?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Come with me. The source of magic is far to the south. My shades have seen it, and it’s weak and ill protected, and now it has a name. We’ll fly there and take it for ourselves. There may even be Red Monks for us to fight! I’ll trust my army to land here and do what it was built for.”