As Ava swirled around him, flickering, Zimmer hacked in the air with his sword. Her mocking laughter taunted him, and he tried to stab her, even though he knew he could never kill a spirit. The green glow flared brighter.
With all his strength, he thrust his sword through the dead sorceress’s chest, but the killing thrust passed through her as if she were no more than smoke. Instead, he felt the hard impact of something solid crunch against the blade. He thrust harder, shoving the point all the way through leather and chain mail, and then a solid chest.
Shrieking, Ava swirled away to reveal to Zimmer that he had skewered First Commander Enoch through the heart. The old veteran had lurched up to him, hidden by the dead sorceress’s flickering form.
Impaled on the sword, Enoch coughed blood. His sword slipped out of his limp fingers and dropped with a clang to the ground. He touched the steel, blinking in wonder. “This is … death. At last.” His body fell as gravity pulled him off of Zimmer’s sword. “There you are, Camille … my love.”
Ava flickered away, furious. Enoch dropped onto his side with blood bubbling from the wound in his chest. The veteran stretched out a gauntlet, reaching for something that only he could see.
Though the furious battle continued around him, Zimmer stared. Time seemed to stop, and he gave his enemy a chance to die. Enoch gasped, “Alex and Aaron, my sons…” He smiled. “You no longer have to beg for me. The Keeper can have what he wants.”
He slumped back and died. Zimmer’s vision was uncertain, but he thought he saw faint forms rising from the ground, arms outstretched and pulling another dim outline down with them.
But even with the first commander dead, the invading army came forward, unstoppable.
CHAPTER 81
Even with as much harm as they had done to the Norukai fleet and the army of General Utros, Nicci could see that Tanimura was about to fall. She had not seen a battle so overwhelming since the armies of Emperor Jagang besieged the People’s Palace.
The surviving members of her militia withdrew from the Hagen Woods, leaving a bloodbath behind them, but as they crossed into the city, they encountered waves of constant fighting. Utros’s main force pushed toward the center of Tanimura, while other contingents spilled into every street, where they ransacked buildings and battled their way through makeshift barricades the defenders had erected. The fighting took place in houses, alleys, rooftops, and streets, and the city’s outnumbered defenders used that to their advantage.
In an open public square ahead, Nicci spotted the banners of General Linden and his D’Haran soldiers, and they were fighting in what looked like a last stand. She led her militia there to join them in the fight; she could see they needed her.
The Hidden People accompanied her, racing along in their gray robes. Many had fallen in the Hagen Woods, but they did not count their dead. Breathing hard, young Asha had a knife-edged smile. “We traveled across the continent for you, Nicci. We will fight for you now.”
The rest of the Hidden People were just as determined, carrying swords from the weapons stockpile they had stewarded in Orogang. For more than a thousand years, they had waited for General Utros to return, but their hero had cruelly turned against them. Now the deadly people, and the pride of ferocious sand panthers, might shift the balance here and save Linden and his troops.
Fighting their way through city streets, Nicci’s followers slew hundreds more as they drove like a wedge through the invaders, cutting off an entire group and killing them down to the last man.
Ahead, Linden’s regiments had taken up a defensive position in a square enclosed by high buildings. His D’Haran soldiers stood several ranks deep, with an outer line of shields as a barricade. Archers in the rear launched volleys of arrows into the enemy army, but the invaders crashed into them like waves against a rocky shore. Linden shouted ever-more-desperate commands, and a standard-bearer beside him raised a flag showing the colors of D’Hara and the stylized letter “R” for the House of Rahl.
The defensive line held firm until an unexpected part of the flank began to crumble. Under the constant barrage, the shield line buckled and dozens of enemy warriors raged through as if it were a hemorrhaging wound. They ran past the shield line, which then closed behind them and re-formed, stronger than before. Nicci smiled at the clever trick. Thirty enemy warriors, now trapped inside the line, were all cut down, one by one.
Amid the great ground battle, unexpected lightning drew a zigzag line in the air, and the energy struck an ancient subcommander and his adjutant at the front of the enemy charge. The blast shattered the victims into smoking pieces.
Looking for the source of the surprising attack, Nicci was amazed to see a wizard with long white hair dressed in a fine cape and vest. “Nathan!” He couldn’t hear her over the sounds of battle, but when she extended her fingers to the sky and brought them down, Nicci drew her own lightning bolt to incinerate three more soldiers next to the ones he himself had killed.
That got the wizard’s attention. Nathan waved, and beside him Bannon and the morazeth Lila also shouted, glad to see her.
Using a battering ram of wind to clear the way, Nicci led her surviving militia members to reinforce Linden’s troops, disrupting the ancient army and causing a panic. The prowling sand panthers tore at the enemy soldiers, but Mrra herself was reluctant to leave Nicci’s side, now that they were reunited at last.
Nicci fought her way close to General Linden and his beleaguered troops. She unleashed another bolt of branched lightning, which strafed the front lines of enemy fighters, and still more of them flooded into the city. Already exhausted, Nicci dug deep into her reserves of energy.
Knowing the stakes, she resorted to a darker form of destruction, pulling upon dangerous Subtractive Magic. She called upon that side of the gift only when it was absolutely necessary, for those were the skills she had learned when she was a Sister of the Dark. Now she served the D’Haran Empire, and she served Richard. Her heart was strong enough to handle it.
She opened herself, stretched out her gift in both the positive and negative directions to draw another bolt of lightning, but this time she joined it with an infinitely dark crack in the sky, like a mirror image entangled with the white bolt. The zigzagging blast killed more than a hundred in a single strike. The fury of her lightning stunned the front ranks of the enemy division, driving back their charge and giving Nicci’s militia the window they needed to surge forward and reinforce Linden’s troops.
“Thank you, Sorceress.” Linden looked ready to drop from exhaustion and blood loss. His shield was splintered, and his leather armor and chain mail were ragged from many blows.
Nathan strode up to her, grinning. “Dear spirits, I’m glad to see you! I know you rarely use Subtractive Magic, but that was sorely needed.” He watched the Hidden People join the defensive line and raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I see you found some friends.”
Bannon’s ginger hair was matted with blood and sweat, but his hazel eyes shone. “Now we can all fight together! The Norukai are mostly defeated, and Captain Jared took us to the docks so we could help here in the city.” Barely able to contain his own news, he blurted out, “At least King Grieve is dead.”
That got Nicci’s attention. “How did he die? Badly, I hope.”
“The boy killed him,” Lila answered with clear pride. “Cut off his head.”
Nicci rewarded the young swordsman with a gratified nod. “Well deserved.”
“We broke the backbone of the Norukai fleet out there on the water, and the Serrimundi navy arrived just in time to attack them from behind.” Nathan looked beyond the square to the sweeping harbor, where innumerable serpent ships were sunk or burning in the water. But the Norukai did not go quietly. The fighting continued to rage on the water, and many of the landed raiders still pillaged the streets.