This time the training and expertise of the Calvan commanders could not prevent a panic. Horrified by the bared power of the wizard, the surviving Calvans swung back wildly in full retreat.
But Ardaz wasn’t finished.
“This business must be ended here and now,” he explained to Sylvia, almost in apology for his next action. He raised his arms again and called out in a voice godlike in power, “Ungden, Usurper! Too long have you imprisoned the peoples of this land with your unlawful rule! By the fires of the sun above, I purge Aielle this day of your evil stain!” He aimed his deadly staff again and a second flame barrier sprang up, directly behind Ungden and his guard, boxing in the entire Calvan host.
On command from Ardaz, a tear of sorrow in his eye, the killing walls began to converge.
Trapped Calvan riders spun wildly and banged into one another, some falling from their mounts only to be trampled into the dust. Crazed horses, blind to the urgings of their masters, rushed for the western ledge, the only escape route, and plummeted hundreds of feet to Blackemara.
Relentless, merciless, the fire walls closed in.
Though horrified, Sylvia and the other archers watched the grisly spectacle, believing it to be their responsibility to bear witness to the momentous tragedy of this day, and they realized that Ardaz, nearly broken by the slaughter he had invoked, would soon need their support.
In the rank of elven horsemen, outside the fire wall, Del and the others could not see what was happening to the Calvans. But the screams and wails of their dying foes told them all they needed to know.
“The antics of a buffoon,” Del echoed somberly to Ryell.
“I apologize,” Ryell replied, his words reflecting both awe for the mage and pity for the tortured Calvans within the fires. “There is perhaps more to Ardaz than I have believed.”
“Call him not Ardaz,” Arien said. “Call him by his true name.” He extended his hand toward the bent figure, now leaning heavily on his staff. “Behold Glendower. Woe be to those who invoke the wrath of the Silver Mage!”
Calvans died by the score in the panic, some caught by the wizard fires, others trampled, and still more leaping to the swamp. Then there came a barely audible buzzing sound, and as suddenly as it had started, the riot ended. Barren of all emotion it seemed, almost zombielike, the remainder of the Calvan army moved back into battle groups.
Still the walls converged.
But not a man screamed.
And not a horse reared or snorted in terror.
Only the crackling of the rolling fires consuming grass and flesh disturbed the eerie stillness.
Ardaz understood and was afraid.
A swirling cloud of red smoke floated out from the Calvan line, growing more tangible as it moved. Soon it resembled a rider and horse, and then it was; a red-cloaked man, cowl pulled low to hide his face, atop a gaunt, yellow-eyed black stallion that snorted smoky flames through its flared nostrils and pawed the ground as if it hated the living grass below it.
“Istaahl?” Sylvia asked Ardaz, but the distracted wizard did not reply.
The red-cloaked rider reached his bony arm toward the west, clenching and unclenching his fist as if gathering up the air from the distant expanses. Then he swung his arm at the cliff, as if throwing something, and a great gust of wind smote Ardaz, extinguishing the flame atop his oaken staff.
And the fire walls were gone.
“The wizard of Caer Tuatha?” Ryell cried when he saw the red-cloaked mage.
“It cannot be,” Arien replied, surprised. “Istaahl gathers his power from the sea. This mage is too far inland.”
“The master is come,” hissed an evil voice from under the red cowl.
Ardaz’s face went bloodless.
The red-robed wizard pulled back his hood, revealing his pallid, hairless head, and the many-faceted black sapphire that was his mark.
Ardaz groaned audibly, though he had already guessed that Thalasi had come.
“May the Colonnae be with us!” Arien gasped, for he, too, recognized the mark of the Black Warlock. “Angfagdul, the utter blackness, is come again!”
Chapter 24
Jericho
TUCKED AWAY INTO a small corner of his subconscious, in a place reserved for childish, supposedly irrational, fears, Del retained an image that very much resembled Morgan Thalasi, an image of evil incarnate, a demon embodied in human form. Thalasi’s withered body appeared broken and sickly beyond anything that could be alive, yet the life force within the Black Warlock exuded an aura frighteningly, paralyzingly, evil, and a strength sufficient to hold two armies at bay.
On the ledge, Ardaz spun about and waved his arms wildly, desperately summoning all of his strength. The air about him crackled as his power mounted; standing next to him, Sylvia’s hair tingled and was drawn toward the wizard by the growing charge. When he knew that he had reached his limits and could contain no more of the energy, the wizard uttered a rune of evocation and stamped his staff on the rock, releasing a blue bolt of lightning. Its flash blinded all who witnessed it for several seconds; the corresponding rumble of thunder rolled throughout the mountains for miles around.
But Thalasi had prepared himself against such obvious attacks. A protective globe of defensive energy encircling him dispersed the bolt into a shower of many-colored, harmless sparks before it ever reached its mark.
Thalasi curled a thin lip over his rotted teeth in a smile that seemed more a grimace, and drew out a thin, iron-shod rod. Pointing it at the ledge, he demonstrated his mastery, controlling elemental powers that Ardaz could only beg for assistance. Uttering only two simple runes, he returned Ardaz’s attack tenfold with a mighty white bolt.
The Silver Mage had worked frantically to construct his own defensive barrier when he saw Thalasi draw the rod, but he was overmatched. The violence of the white bolt shook the whole mountain, sending cracks deep into the stone from the ledge all the way down to the field, and the archers were thrown from their feet. The brunt of its malice focused on Ardaz, ripping through his defenses, charring and splintering his fine oaken staff and hurling him hard against the rock face at the rear of the ledge. He lay crumpled against the stone, patches of his clothing blackened and still smoking, his newly grown hair singed, and the fingers on the hand that had been holding his staff burned and blistered.
Sylvia regained her footing and rushed to his side. Blood streamed from the wizards’s lips as he mouthed the name of the Black Warlock. And then he fell silent.
Half in anger, half in desperate fear, the archers began firing at Thalasi. He laughed at them and turned his attention elsewhere, ignoring them, for their attempt proved pitifully inept against his shielding and the arrows were reduced to windblown ashes when they hit the defensive globe.
Arien called for his troops to gather their courage with him and charge, determined that their end would be unyielding to terror.
But this, too, proved futile.
Grinning broadly, Thalasi faced the elven line and began twirling the wand like a baton. Compelled by his dominating will, the Illuman horses responded in kind, turning circles of their own, oblivious to the commands of their riders. Ungden, and then his troops following his lead, broke out into taunting laughter at the sight of the helpless elves struggling vainly to control their mounts. And all of the horses were dancing.
All except one.
The white mare snorted in fury and steeled her eyes against the onslaught of Thalasi’s wicked attack. Summoning every ounce of willpower within her, she cleansed her mind of Thalasi’s insinuation and began slowly to walk toward the bringer of perversion, bearing on her a confused and terrified DelGiudice.