A wave of incredulous fury followed in their wake. By the time soldier or mage had reacted, the elves were past him. Swords waved ineffectually and belatedly overhead. Fists punched empty space. Fingers grabbed at nothing.
Auum bounced left and right as he ran. His eyes searched four moves ahead, his mind trusting his feet to land without error. The TaiGethen passed across the heads of their enemies like the last mist blown from the surface of the ocean. Felt and gone.
‘Cover on landing. Left turn. Orsan’s Yard for muster,’ said Grafyrre, his voice carrying across the soaring line of elven warriors.
Auum saw the back of the human lines. It was loose there and they could see what was coming at them. Auum growled a warning, his panther voice focusing the eye of every TaiGethen. He selected his landing point, straightened his body and slammed down hard with both feet on the head of his last mark.
The mage collapsed beneath him. Auum dropped, rolled and rose in one movement. The TaiGethen moved forward, a single unit. Auum drew his second blade. He jammed his left into the gut of a hapless soldier and spun past his falling body. He whipped his right blade into the neck of the man next to him, dragged his left clear and buried it to the hilt in the chest of the man behind. Takaar hurdled a body, Marack in his heel prints, and took the next man two-footed on the point of the jaw. Marack ran past him and tore the throat from a fifth with the ends of her fingers. Auum came to her left, blocked a wild slash and chopped into the hamstrings of a sixth.
Clear space but the mages would be turning and clear of the bulk of the army.
‘Go, go,’ said Auum, pressing a hand into Takaar’s back.
They headed for the left turn to take them into Keeper’s Row. Grafyrre and Merrat were ahead of them, the bulk of the TaiGethen around them. Ten yards to the turn, the first way off the Path of Yniss from the mouth of the temple piazza.
‘Casters ready!’ called a voice. ‘Move!’
Takaar pulled Auum and Marack along, practically threw them around the corner. A freezing wind howled past the opening. Auum felt his hair crisp with frost. His blade gleamed with ice. The TaiGethen were already pounding away to the south, heading into the warren of the Grans.
Auum and Marack followed in Takaar’s wake just in front of the rear cells. Abruptly, Takaar stumbled. He reached out a hand, which Auum was able to grasp.
‘Takaar?’ he asked.
Takaar carried on running but he’d slowed dramatically.
‘Something’s growing,’ said Takaar. ‘Something ugly and evil. Like Gyal building to a storm of wrath but beneath my feet. In the energy lines. In the magic. I don’t think we have much time.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘If Ystormun really wants to commit genocide on the lesser threads of elves he isn’t going to do it with the sword,’ said Takaar.
Auum remembered the mages flying fast overhead. He shuddered.
They ran into Orsan’s Yard and faced fifty and more blades and axes. The two groups faced each other for a moment before Merrat broke and ran forward, dragging Pelyn into a fierce embrace.
‘Yniss bless you and the axes of the Apposans. We need you now.’
‘Couldn’t quite bring myself to follow Katyett’s last order,’ said Pelyn. She frowned. ‘Where is she?’
No one needed to speak the words. The first line of a lament to the fallen was whispered by every TaiGethen. Pelyn closed her eyes and tears escaped down her cheeks. Takaar, the nausea rising within him as the magic built in intensity, walked forward still using Auum for support.
‘There will be time for grief, Pelyn,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you had planned to do here. Quickly. Time is short.’
Pelyn’s stare was quick and angry but she could see there was no arrogance in his face. Only the pain of what was growing underfoot.
‘There are more Apposans here. Others that will want to get out. We came to help them.’
Takaar nodded and there was smiling among the TaiGethen.
‘You have chosen a path more vital than you know. And your Apposan axes will be the difference between life and death for hundreds, maybe thousands.’ Takaar paused and breathed deeply. ‘There will be fire and there will be panic. I will explain, but we must use these to our advantage. Grafyrre, we need to split to reach all the most vulnerable threads at once.’
Grafyrre’s nod was curt and his eyes held the passion of the wronged. He turned to the elves and began to talk. Garan knelt beside the body of the elf and turned her burned, wrecked face to the rain. He rubbed at his stubble and sucked in his bottom lip.
‘We got one then,’ said Keller, landing behind him and dismissing the spell at his back.
‘No,’ said Garan. ‘We barely even nicked one of them. This one they brought with them. It’s got Ystormun’s sick signature all over it. She must have been important.’
Garan stood and turned back. Soldiers were filling the space around him.
‘No one touches this elf,’ he said. ‘No one moves her; no one pisses on her body; no one takes anything from her. Do I make myself clear? Good. Pass the word. I will be checking back.’
‘What’s that all about?’ asked Keller.
‘Just a hunch,’ said Garan. ‘Tell you later.’
Keller shrugged. ‘Whatever you say. Do you think they can do it? What Ystormun says they want to do?’
‘I think that if the TaiGethen really put their minds to it, they could do pretty much anything they want. Their problem is there aren’t enough of them.’
Garan turned to head to Shorth. The blackened walls and the smoking ruins of temples surrounding them saddened him. The elves had destroyed enough of it themselves. They hardly needed the help of men.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Keller. ‘Action’s this way.’
Garan didn’t bother turning to look at Keller. ‘I don’t think so. I’m a soldier. I’m not a murderer of unarmed civilians. I will have no part in the massacre. Why would I want to watch the helpless be slaughtered?’
‘It didn’t seem to worry you in the Park of Tual.’
‘They were agitators, problems to be dealt with. What we have left now are those desiring only peace. Why would I want them dead?’
‘Because they’re only elves and this is the moment when we assure victory and compliance.’
Now Garan turned and he was surprised at the contempt that he felt for Keller. Mixed with pity that his sight was so short.
‘I thought more of you. But you’re just a lackey to the mage lords. You know what should be worrying you is where this power of his comes from and why it’s so different from yours. One day you’ll need to be sure you’re standing on the right side of the conflict.’
‘What conflict?’
Garan chuckled. ‘Don’t take the piss. You’re not that naive. You know the tension in Triverne. You know there’s a struggle coming. The six are on one side. Every other mage in the circle is on the other. Has it really never occurred to you why Ystormun wants control here so quickly? Look at the resources. Look at the power they represent. One day, and it may not be for a hundred years, Balaian will fight Balaian for this place.’
‘And what will you do in the meantime?’ Keller’s face dripped his scepticism. ‘Keep your head down or resign your commission?’
‘I doubt Ystormun accepts resignations with any grace, do you? No, Keller, I expect when I detail my men to shovel the ashes of the innocents away from the carcasses of their homes, I’ll be thinking of heading into the forest and taking my chances with the TaiGethen. What about you?’
The earth rumbled underfoot. Flames spat hundreds of feet into the sky. There was a concerted groan and a thundering crash of timbers. Detonations echoed away into the clearing sky.
‘It begins,’ said Keller.
‘It certainly does.’
Chapter 41
The TaiGethen need no shield behind which to cower, only the blessing of Yniss. The TaiGethen ran. Apposans were with each of the three groups Grafyrre had detailed to seek and release, if they could, Gyalan, Ixii and Cefan prisoners. They did not know how they could achieve what Takaar desired but they did know they had to try. It was what the TaiGethen existed to do.