“Did you see how that thing crushed him?” Trey asked. “It took seconds. If more of those Monks find us here they won’t last long! We’ll be safe, we’ll be saved.”
“And what of A’Meer?” Kosar asked, hating the petulance in his voice but sick at the unfairness of it all. Had she sacrificed herself needlessly? “Is this magic so cruel? Does it kill its protectors that easily?”
“She did what she thought was best,” Hope said.
“Look!” Trey was pointing up at the ridge between the valley and the forest, where several figures had appeared. The Red Monks stood staring down into the valley, the breeze flapping their cloaks around them, and more were joining them all the time. Some were wounded, but most were not.
“She held them off for a while, at least,” Trey said.
“Damn it!”
“Kosar, she held them off. If that first one had come through any earlier maybe it would have reached us before we got here. We could be dead now, and it would have got to Rafe before the magic had a chance to start anything. Now… look around! She gave Rafe time. And it’s working for all of us.”
“We have no idea what’s happening here,” Kosar said. But he did not take his eyes from the Monks still appearing across the ridgeline above them. His sword throbbed in his hand and his heart beat fast, the need for action and revenge rich in his veins. There were so many of them here now, maybe thirty or more, that the idea of A’Meer still being alive somewhere in the forest was foolish in the extreme.
“So what do we do?” Trey said. “Do we just stay here, let them come?”
“What else can we do?” Kosar said.
Hope’s grin was still there, that mad grin. “Let them come and try to take the boy. They’ll see what it is they’re fighting. They’ll know the true power of what they hate.” She touched Rafe’s arm, muttered a few words beneath her breath and waved her other hand over the ground beside her. The smile slipped for a few seconds as whatever she was attempting seemed to fail. But then she looked up again and caught Kosar’s eye. “There’s plenty of time.”
Something rose out of a patch of ferns across the valley, lifting its head from the greenery like a huge snake looking for danger or prey. But this thing had no eyes, no ears, no mouth that Kosar could make out. It was dull black like polished stone. It rose to the height of a man and stayed there, solid, not swaying or shifting in the breeze. The Monks were watching too, some of them pointing, some of them waving their swords at this manifestation of all they hated. A’Meer had been cured and the flooded River San crossed, but here and now the magic was touching and changing the land, establishing itself in the arcane corpses of these old dead machines, moving out of wherever it had been hiding.
And here, facing it in this fledgling state, was the greatest force that existed to ensure its nonreturn. The Red Monks began to howl and screech, voices twisted into something monstrous. They waved their swords and cried out their defiance, anger and hate.
The thing across the valley did not move but was joined by other shifting shapes, several more columns rising around it and shimmering in the fading daylight. The surfaces of these new things seemed to flicker, moving like oil on water, colorless but constantly shifting and confounding to the eye.
“What are they?” Trey asked.
“More machines,” Hope said. “Rafe is raising us an army.”
“It’s not him,” Kosar said again. “He’s just a conduit. And is it only happening here, for us? And if that’s the case, what about when the magic is established back in the land?” He looked down at Rafe’s hands where they were still clenched into the ground beneath him. No sparks now, but the power beneath his skin was apparent, the channeling of magic through flesh and bone. “What happens to us then? To Rafe?”
“Why hate it after all that’s happened?” Hope asked, her amazement real enough.
Rafe opened his eyes.
Hope gasped and fell back. Kosar caught his breath. Rafe looked directly at Kosar, his smile tight and tired. “It is me,” he said. “It’s happening here so that I can protect us, but that’s all. Nothing else. Just… protection.” He looked at Hope. “So there’s no point trying anything like that again, witch.” And then his eyes closed, the smile faded and his skin turned pale and began to glisten with fresh sweat.
“He’s not that boy anymore!” Hope hissed, her eyes wide and scared.
“He hasn’t been just that boy for days,” Kosar said. “How can he be?” He knelt next to Rafe and felt his forehead. “He’s burning up again. Something’s going to happen.”
“Those Monks are coming!” Trey said.
Kosar stood and moved forward, putting himself between the Monks and Rafe. “They won’t stop,” he said. “While there’s one of them left that can crawl across a field of blades to get to Rafe, they won’t stop.” He looked back at Hope and Trey, glanced at Trey’s disc-sword, hefted his own weapon. “Don’t believe that this will be easy.”
Suddenly spooked, the two horses turned and darted away between the machines, heading for the other side of the valley. They took the saddles, bags and blankets with them. Kosar took one step in pursuit and then stopped, realizing instantly that it was hopeless.
As the sun touched the ridge to the west, and cool shadows rose, forty Red Monks screamed down into the valley. And for the first time in three centuries, magic entered into battle.
THE FIRST MONKto die was snatched down into the foliage, pulled quickly out of sight, arms flying up and sword spinning through the air. Its scream was long and loud, but none of its companions spared a glance as they rushed by.
They poured down from the ridge like blood rolling down a darkening face. The sun still lit the slope and picked them out in glorious color, illuminating also the things that rose to block their path. Weed-encrusted, heather-drowned metal constructs rusted almost to nothing, stone things eroded by time, seemed to turn over lazily, trapping a Monk beneath, crushing down and down until its sword protruded from the loam, hand still clasped around the handle. Some Monks fought what they encountered, and the sound of metal on metal, and metal on stone reverberated through the valley.
Most of the things that rose did so slowly, the creaking and crackling of their first movement for three centuries a counterpoint to the Monks’ enraged screeching. The machines appeared tired as they lifted themselves from the ground that had supported them for so long. One seemed to yawn, a great metal carapace opening on a rust-riddled back to reveal thousands of sharp edges. The sun caught the metal teeth, and its touch seemed to be a balm to the recovering machine. Some of the teeth began to shine, as if restored to polished metal; the jaws opened wider, their squeal dying, lubricated by the fading light. And then it fell, gravity guiding its languid way around a rampaging Monk, the giant shell closing, grinding and finally opening to disgorge two twitching halves. It rose again, faster this time, and more teeth shone in magical renewal.
The forty Monks soon found themselves embroiled in battle on the dividing line between light and dark. They drove forward-fighting, dying, learning very quickly that to dodge was much safer than to engage-crossing the line into night and leaving the sunlight behind. Their cloaks darkened immediately, the color of blood grown suddenly old. Their hoods remained raised. As each Monk entered into battle it let out a fierce, jubiliant scream, crying rebellion at the sky, slashing its sword against the machine rising to attack, and in their cries all possible outcomes still existed. There was no resigned defeat here, no brave last stand. Only defiance and bitter determination.
Kosar and the others gathered close, shielding Alishia and Rafe in case any Monks broke through. They watched the incredible scenes before them, frustrated at the failing light because it stole away so much detail. But as light faded and night closed in, two things became apparent: the machines were growing in strength; and they were changing.