The sky lit up in a green-black flash. Through the dreamstone, I felt a cluster of minds wink out.
‘South-east teams, report!’ Rain called.
‘Avenor’s down!’ It was a new voice, sounding frightened. ‘It’s—’ I felt another pulse of magic and the voice cut off.
‘It’s Vihaela,’ I said into the comm.
‘South-east teams, get eyes,’ Landis said.
‘I see her!’ Chimaera called. ‘She’s running north!’
‘Do not pursue,’ Landis ordered. ‘All teams, continue your advance.’
Ilmarin came running out of the same doorway the poison mage had used. He skidded to a stop as he saw me, then did a double-take at the bodies at my feet. Two soldiers came out behind him.
‘Air clear?’ I asked.
Ilmarin pulled his eyes away from the bodies. ‘. . . Nearly.’
‘Finish your sweep, then bring up the men,’ I told him. Ilmarin nodded and disappeared back into the building.
The shouts and gunfire were receding, leaving an eerie silence. I looked ahead, searching the futures in which I ran north. I hadn’t yet been able to see through to Richard’s inner defences. For a moment everything looked clear . . . no, that made no sense. I widened my search, checking the futures in which I cut east and west. This was a false future, I was sure of it. I just needed to find a gap.
Something flickered to the west. Richard’s optasia was good, very good, but he was having to cover a wide area in a short time. As I focused on that tangle of futures they blurred, becoming a placid screen, but I caught a glimpse of myself falling, a hand cut from my body—
—and gone. But I’d seen enough.
‘Eyes on Vihaela,’ Chimaera said urgently. ‘We can catch her.’
‘Do not pursue!’ I ordered. ‘There are monofilaments ahead. She’s luring you into a trap!’
I felt the futures ripple and our advance slowed. Magespun monofilaments are nothing like the kind that get sold for fishing line. They’re razor-sharp and so thin as to be almost invisible, and they can cut through flesh as though it were butter.
‘Change formation,’ Landis ordered. ‘Mages to the front. As soon as the gas is cleared, steady advance. Focus your magesight and look for faint signatures of metal or matter magic. Destroy the filaments on sight.’
I moved up, staying behind cover. One of Rain’s teams appeared behind me and I signalled them forward. Our forces were advancing on both sides, and I could sense flickers of magic as mages cut and burned away the filaments blocking their path.
More gunfire sounded from the front lines, along with the flash and roar of battle magic. Richard’s forces were still trying to withdraw, but they were running out of castle and their movements were starting to look jerky, reacting to our attacks instead of following a plan of their own. Richard’s adepts were used to Council forces that advanced slowly and cautiously, pausing at setbacks. This kind of aggression was new to them.
Darkness bloomed to the north-west, an inky cloud that sucked in light. ‘Shroud spells!’ a mage called. ‘Can’t see anything!’
‘It’s Tenebrous,’ I said over the channel. ‘Don’t advance into it: you’ll take too much fire. Wrap around his eastern flank instead. West perimeter, advance and cut in from the north. Tenebrous is only covering their south-east corner. We’ll trap him in a pocket.’
The battle raged just out of my line of sight. Men and women fought and died from bullets or fireblasts or stabbing blades. Someone was wounded and screaming, the sound almost lost in the gunfire.
I could sense something through the fateweaver, a key point in the flow of battle. A room in one of the buildings up ahead . . . orders, decisions. It was close. I could reach it in less than a minute, kill the people inside . . .
. . . no, I’d made that mistake once already. I was a commander now, not an assassin. ‘Verus to Landis,’ I said. I sent him a mental image of the building through the dreamstone, focusing on the room at one corner. ‘Suspected enemy command post.’
‘Thunder, Aegis,’ Landis ordered immediately. ‘Artillery strike. I’ll paint the target.’
‘Roger that,’ a new voice said. ‘Moving up.’
The fighting had stalled in the south-west; Tenebrous’s shroud was still holding the Council forces back. Our reserves were moving in from the west to cut in behind him.
‘Aegis in position,’ a voice said. I could feel spells building.
‘Fire,’ Landis ordered.
Battle magic flared, force and lightning. The ground trembled beneath my feet and I heard the rumble of falling masonry, then the air flashed white as lightning struck out of a clear sky, not once but again and again. Thunder crashed, hideously loud.
The echoes died away. I watched the battle. At first there was no change, then I started to sense a shift, movements becoming undirected. ‘Verus to all units,’ I said. ‘Envelop the shroud.’
Through the fateweaver I sensed mages and soldiers moving in behind Tenebrous’s position. I could see the exact moment at which the adepts there realised they were being trapped. A ripple of panic swept through their forces, and their resistance weakened. The shroud contracted.
‘Advance on the shroud,’ Rain ordered. ‘Tenebrous is the priority target.’
I was already looking elsewhere, searching for Vihaela. This was when she’d strike. I couldn’t sense her in the futures, but through the fateweaver I could feel where our forces were vulnerable. Not to the east . . . the centre . . .
There! No time to talk. Through the dreamstone, I sent information flashing into Landis’s mind.
The green-black of Vihaela’s death magic flashed in the centre of our lines in an area we’d thought clear. Landis’s magic mirrored it, fire leaping out to intercept. There was a crack; shouts echoed and two soldiers fell, but none were killed.
‘Eyes on!’ a Keeper shouted. ‘She’s running!’
‘Pursue but do not engage,’ Landis ordered.
There was battle magic and gunfire everywhere. Information poured in, more than I could process. Tenebrous’s pocket crumbling as Rain directed his men; Ilmarin and Landis leading attacks from the south; reinforcements from the west pressing in. All across the lines, Richard’s adepts were wavering and falling back.
To my west, the shroud vanished, its magic fading. ‘Tenebrous is gone!’ Rain said. ‘Wounded and fled.’
‘Lost Vihaela!’ someone shouted. ‘Trying to— Wait—’
There was a scream, abruptly silenced. ‘Move in on Vihaela,’ Landis said, his voice hard. ‘Do not let her out of sight.’
That last death had given me Vihaela’s position. I broke into a run.
I reached Vihaela less than a minute later. She was in an L-shaped courtyard, backed up against a building that looked like a mausoleum; six-foot tombs in the courtyard provided cover. Landis’s men were on the south side and up on the building to the west, firing down. Vihaela was fighting with a small group of adepts supporting her.
A fireball from the south flew towards Vihaela’s position; she blew it up in mid-air, then blocked a hydroblast from the west. An adept popped up to throw some kind of glowing red bead and a Council marksman shot him. Vihaela sent a black line scything across the courtyard and the marksman’s head came off his body in a spout of blood; the remaining Council soldiers hit the deck and the mages ducked out of sight.
All of a sudden everything was quiet. Smoke and the scent of blood hung in the air. I’d reached the corner on the short side of the L; if I took another step, I’d be in plain view. The mages and soldiers ahead of me stayed down, catching their breath.