I heard footsteps behind me and glanced back to see Landis. He was advancing towards me, more men at his back. ‘Vihaela!’ I shouted around the corner.
‘Hi, Verus,’ Vihaela called back. ‘Come to join the party?’
A low voice spoke into my ear. ‘This is Ilmarin. We’re on the east roof.’
‘Hold,’ Landis said quietly as he walked up next to me. ‘Wait for my signal.’
‘Vihaela, listen closely,’ I shouted. ‘I’d love to see you dead, but right now, Drakh’s a priority and you’re not. Surrender and I’ll guarantee your life. Refuse and we do this the painful way.’
‘I think I like the sound of the painful way,’ Vihaela called back.
‘This isn’t your fight,’ I shouted. ‘You’re going to die for Drakh?’
‘I’m not dying for anyone,’ Vihaela called. She didn’t sound afraid; I actually had the feeling she was smiling. ‘None of you are good enough to take me. But you’re welcome to try.’
I felt Vihaela start to channel a spell. ‘Kill her,’ I told Landis and his men.
Landis strode past me into the open.
The courtyard lit up, red-green-black. Spells stabbed from the rooftops, flashed across the open space. The stones of the castle splintered and burned. I caught a glimpse of the security men, ducked down with their heads low. The sound was a steady roar, mixed with the crack of discharging energy.
The adepts died in seconds. Vihaela didn’t. She was duelling Landis and the mages behind him and the ones on the rooftops all at once, using the blocky tombs to mask line of sight, popping in and out of vision and firing deathbolts as she did. She was so fast and deadly that even splitting her attention as she was, the mages she targeted were forced back. There were six mages on her, but she was moving so that no more than two ever had line of sight at once. And there was something more, something fuzzy about her signature on magesight. I snatched a glance around the corner, catching a blurred glimpse of her form—
A mist cloak. It had been a long time, but I recognised it instantly. That was how she’d been able to strike unseen.
Fire exploded off Vihaela’s shield; a counterattack nearly killed the mage to Landis’s left and Landis had to step in to block as Vihaela disappeared again. The fight was so fast I could barely follow it. Landis was throwing fireballs and pinpoint bursts of heat, the other mages were using water blasts and blades of force and air. Death was raining on the tombs, but Vihaela was slipping through, everything just barely glancing away. Both sides were going all out.
A bolt from Vihaela carved away the corner of the wall I was hiding behind; I felt the tingle as death magic missed me by a foot. A column of bricks fell with a groan towards Landis’s men. Two jumped back; Landis ran forward, a few stray bricks vaporising against his shield.
The fire on Vihaela slackened for a moment and she took the opening, sprinting away.
I saw the futures in a flash. Vihaela was trying to get back into the mausoleum. If she could make it inside with the mist cloak, we’d never catch her. Landis’s view of her was blocked for two more seconds. The only one who could reach her was Ilmarin, on the east roof. But if he did he’d be exposed.
I hesitated for half a second, then sent an impulse through the dreamstone.
Ilmarin reacted instantly, springing up out of cover and throwing out a wall of hardened air. Vihaela hit it, bouncing off, but as she did she twisted like a snake and green-black death flickered from her hand. Ilmarin jerked and fell.
The impact and the attack had put Vihaela off-balance. For just a second, Landis on the ground and Tobias on the roof had a clear shot.
I threw all my energy into the fateweaver, forcing one future through.
Water and fire slammed into Vihaela’s shield and the angles lined up in just such a way for the attacks to bring the maximum energy to bear. Tobias’s spell glanced off. Landis’s struck the same spot a tenth of a second later, and the weakened section of shield collapsed. Fire speared through shield and flesh, and Vihaela fell.
‘Target down!’ Tobias called.
‘Ilmarin’s down!’ I called at the same time. ‘Get someone to that roof!’
‘All units, overwatch,’ Landis ordered. ‘Hold position.’
All of a sudden everything was quiet. After the shouts and the crash of spells, the courtyard was eerily silent. Landis strode forward, his shield flaring bright, and crouched down next to Vihaela. There was a pause.
‘Cease fire,’ Landis ordered. ‘Move up.’
I was already advancing, scrambling over the rubble and walking across the courtyard, craning my neck to look upwards. There was a soldier up on the east rooftop where Ilmarin had fallen, but as I looked into the futures I saw what he was going to say. I felt something wither inside me; pain stabbed from my arm.
Vihaela was lying where she had fallen, eyes closed but teeth bared as if she’d struggled to the last. Most of her torso was charred, and the stench of burnt flesh was in the air. I forced myself to look into the futures where I pulled open the body.
‘Focused beam through the upper abdominal cavity,’ Landis told me. ‘Superheats the bodily fluids and organs and sends a shockwave up into the brain. A quick death. Better than she’d have given us.’ He looked down at Vihaela a moment longer, then turned away.
I could feel a stiffness in my upper chest, and without looking knew that the fateweaver had spread. I’d been using it heavily, and the fighting wasn’t over yet.
Up on the rooftop, the soldier finished checking Ilmarin’s body and began to report in. I turned away.
16
By the time I reached the front lines, the battle was all but over. Richard’s remaining forces had been driven back to a long, low structure up against the northern wall that might once have been a set of kitchens. Rain and Landis’s forces were surrounding it to the east, south and south-west; to the north was the castle wall and the sea. There was nowhere left to run. The fighting had fallen silent as both sides hunkered down and checked their weapons, ready for the final push.
Landis and I walked up to Rain, who was talking to Slate and Trask. We were barely a hundred feet from Richard’s position. ‘Numbers?’ Landis asked Rain.
‘Slate counts eighty-five hostiles remaining,’ Rain said, nodding to the death mage.
‘Might be eighty-three by now,’ Slate said. He ignored me, talking directly to Landis. ‘They got a lot of wounded.’
‘Verus?’ Landis asked.
I studied the futures, looking for any sign of Richard’s tampering. Nothing jumped out at me. ‘They haven’t got many mages left,’ I said. ‘But they’re dug in for a fight and those buildings have basements.’ I glanced at Landis. ‘Best way to attack something like that?’
‘A dug-in force with no hope of escape?’ Landis said. ‘I’m afraid if they really are that determined to fight to the death, then our best option is to simply level the place.’
Landis was talking about an artillery bombardment. I’d seen it a few times during the war. Any defenders at the windows would be killed or driven back, then water and earth and force mages would demolish the building, bringing it down on the heads of everyone inside. It was a last-resort option used when the Council didn’t consider anyone or anything in the area worth retrieving.
Rain and Landis were looking at me. If I gave the order, this would end the battle. We’d take very few casualties, possibly none at all. As for Richard’s force, virtually all of them would die. They and everything they carried would either be crushed under tons of falling rubble, or entombed in the basements until their air ran out. The few remaining mages might escape, but the adepts wouldn’t.