Men guarded both entrances and more were gathered on the lawns around fires and cook pots. Mages and swordsmen. There was no way to get to Shorth without a fight and the plan had changed from one of stealth to one of speed. If they could defeat the guard before the alarm was raised, they might get in and out without too much trouble.
Forty-five TaiGethen split left and right. They crept up to the walls of the temples, hidden by shadows, invisible to their enemies. Jaqrui pouches were unclipped. Swords were drawn from scabbards. Limbs were flexed and joints rotated. Prayers were spoken and new camouflage applied.
‘Quick and low,’ whispered Katyett. ‘Don’t give the mages a target. Marack, don’t hesitate here. You know what you have to do.’
The rasping sound of a cicada came from across the road. The left-hand side was ready. Katyett chirruped an acknowledging call. She waited a few moments. There was no new sound from the humans. Katyett made the hoot of a spider monkey and TaiGethen flowed into the temple piazza.
Ahead of them, swordsmen straightened in surprise, spread out and shouted warnings. Twenty-five jaqruis whispered away. The lethal blades flashed across the short space. Metal carved into leather, flesh and sparked off blade. Men screamed.
One ducked, not fast enough, the jaqrui lodging in his forehead. Three more were killed outright, blades striking face and neck. Crescents struck sparks from the walls, sheared off metal armour, slammed into midriff, chest and arm.
Auum powered ahead. He leapt, Marack and Takaar in his wake, twisting as he cleared the fractured human line. He hacked down with his blade, cleaving into the neck of a hapless enemy warrior. Auum landed, spun and ran, hearing the TaiGethen overwhelming the defenders behind him while he led the charge to the lawns, their fires and their mages.
Men were running towards him, away from him, across him. Orders were called. He could see mages gathering behind their defenders, dropping their heads to begin casting. Auum upped his speed. Takaar went past him like he was walking. His speed was ridiculous, unearthly. He was heading for the mages. He hurdled a fire and was lost to sight.
Auum moved up to support, tearing around the left side of the blaze. Takaar leapt, spun in the air and delivered a vicious kick to the side of a mage’s head. The man crumpled. Takaar landed. His fists blurred. A second one went down, his face slashed and his chest punctured.
Auum slid into the legs of a mage who had raised his head to cast. Auum bounced up, kicking down hard at the same man’s face, cracking his fist into a second enemy’s jaw and lashing his blade through his unprotected gut. Warriors ran around a fire to his right.
‘Bows,’ said Auum.
There were more mages too. The cells to the left had them in their sights. More swordsmen were running across the lawns from defensive points around the piazza. Marack touched Auum on the shoulder.
‘The temple.’
Auum followed her. Behind them, the bulk of the TaiGethen force was on the lawns, running to engage man and mage. More jaqruis flew. Ahead of Auum, a crescent blade sheared through a bow, and sliced in under the chin of the archer. From the flanks, more TaiGethen surged in.
To the left, a mage cast. Three TaiGethen were hurled from their feet, slamming hard into the walls of Orra across the lawns. The mage moved his hands. Not fast enough. A TaiGethen blade swept down and up, taking one hand and reversing into his chest.
Auum followed Marack and Takaar towards Shorth. The doors were deep in shadow, almost certainly shut and barred. Guards stood there, ready but nervous. Marack had no intention of going that way. Others would take them. She jumped down into the sunken gardens and swarmed up the vines that encased side and rear walls, almost eclipsing the stone of the body and arms in places.
Auum had always wanted to be able to look down upon it. To see the sculpted head lying face up, the top of its skull home to the temple doors. And to trace each arm down to its hand where they were carved as gripping the earth. The temple ended at the base of the torso. The original design was for it to have legs and feet too but there simply had not been room on the piazza.
A curious quirk of the design was that there were few windows in Shorth. The grand doors let in light which was reflected about the walls by mirrors and white walls, but otherwise the builders had stayed as true to an elven body as they could. And so apart from a few light wells letting down onto contemplation chambers, the only windows were those adorning the fingernails at the ends of the hands, and of course the eyes.
Auum turned to look down onto the lawns and away into the city. The fight was almost done but magic had been cast. Auum frowned and felt a shiver through him.
‘They are waiting for us to attack the doors,’ said Marack.
Auum knelt and put his face and hands to the glass of the left eye. Warriors were scattered through the vast hall of the body of Shorth. He could see priests too. Moving about the business of the temple. An anomaly of normality. He wondered who they would help and who they would hinder given the opportunity.
‘Ready?’ asked Marack.
‘It’s a long way,’ said Takaar.
‘Like jumping from the centre rungs of the bore,’ said Auum. ‘But a blessed landing awaits.’
‘Where’s Katyett?’ asked Takaar.
‘Sweeping up. With us soon,’ said Auum.
The Tai of Marack, Auum and Takaar, took a pace back, jumped and fell feet first through the eyes of Shorth.
Katyett saw them go and knew she was behind schedule. She raced around the last fire. A group of three mages stood there, defended by the same number of warriors. Merrat and Grafyrre came to her shoulder. From the left, Dravyn’s Tai closed. From the right, Acclan’s cell. Katyett threw a jaqrui. It bounced from an invisible shield in front of the warriors. She saw one of the mages wince at the impact.
The warriors had no idea which way to face. One of them turned round and shouted at the mages.
‘Break!’ shouted Katyett. ‘Watch for the hands.’
The three cells scattered. Katyett ploughed straight on towards the swordsmen. She grabbed her second blade. In front of her, the warriors crouched. Behind them, a mage raised his head and laid out his hands, palms up.
‘Clear!’ yelled Katyett.
She veered right. The mage’s casting howled across the piazza. A myriad flechettes of ice flayed into Dravyn’s Tai. Shards needle-sharp and razor-edged slicing through clothing, ripping into skin and slitting face, eyes, neck and cheeks. Dravyn cried out, threw his arms about his face and stumbled on. The ice ripped the flesh from his hands, exposing bone faster than a shoal of piranhas. He pitched onto his face.
His cell brothers tumbled to the ground near his ruined body, blood draining from hundred upon hundred cuts. Flesh hung in strips. Gaping wounds opened where larger shards had carved through their meagre defences.
Acclan’s revenge was swift. His cell stormed into the rear of the group. His swords came down left and right, taking the head from the casting mage. The decapitated body slumped forward. The cell took one mage each. In front, the warriors scrambled to their feet, shoving the body of the headless mage aside.
The first looked up. Katyett’s boot smashed his nose across his face. She hinged it back and slapped it in again, time after time into his head and neck, driving him to the ground. She fell on him, her blades piercing throat and heart. Merrat dragged her off the body. Grafyrre and Acclan finished the other two.
‘It’s over,’ said Merrat. ‘It’s done.’
Katyett ran to Dravyn, knelt beside him. He was still breathing.
‘He needs help,’ she called.
She turned him over and knew he was way beyond such need. Katyett’s shoulders slumped. Dravyn was barely recognisable. Most of the skin was gone from his face. His eyes were bloody pools and his lips cut to ribbons. His throat pulsed blood and his cheekbones showed through the flesh torn away.
‘Rest, my brother,’ she said. ‘Help is coming.’