“And you will need my help to accomplish it.” Thora lifted her delicate wrists to show the heavy bindings there. “I swore I would do what was necessary to help my city. I meant it.”
Nathan heard muttering around the chamber. He looked in alarm at Elsa, who had gone pale. Lani said, “But we have to wait for my Renn to come back.”
“We will wait until it is truly the last resort,” Quentin replied, sounding reasonable, just like Damon. “But for the good of Ildakar, we have to consider our options. Rather than let this city fall into enemy hands, we know what we have to do. Unless someone can think of another way to defeat General Utros?”
“I don’t like this,” Nathan muttered. “Dear spirits, I don’t like this at all.” Maybe when Nicci returned from Tanimura through the sliph, she would bring hopeful news, and they could have a different discussion.
“There is no reason we can’t prepare,” Damon suggested in a smooth voice. “We will spread the word throughout the city, start the people thinking about who is willing to become heroes to save our city by shedding their blood.”
Oron stood. “That is enough discussion for now. We all need food and rest. We are not thinking straight anymore.”
Lani said in a hard voice, “Thora can’t be allowed to remain free, no matter what she promises. Take her back to her cell.”
“At least for now,” Olgya said.
Uneasy about the duma’s considerations, Nathan went back to visit the Ixax warriors. This time, he carried a disturbing book he had discovered in Andre’s library, an old diary. In the destruction of the villa, the shelves had collapsed and the volumes were scattered, but Nathan had read the journal with widening eyes.
He understood far more about these towering invincible warriors and everything they had sacrificed to become the Ixax.
As he walked into the chamber where the colossal figures stood, Nathan placed a calm smile on his face. He knew the two giants were watching him, and he wanted to keep them at ease. They focused on him each time he came to converse with them. For many days he had told the silent figures stories, regaling them with legends, even exaggerating some of his own exploits. The armored warriors knew Nathan Rahl as a person now, and he hoped the Ixax also remembered who they had been as humans.
Andre’s diary emphasized the fact with even more poignancy than anything Nathan had told them before. He held up the old journal with its brittle, brown pages. “I know who you are now. This is a diary written centuries ago in the hand of Fleshmancer Andre himself. It is from when the army of General Utros first laid siege to Ildakar, when the wizards were desperate for any means to save the city. Do you remember?”
He sat on a broken pillar of marble and flipped the discolored pages, skimming the scrawled handwriting. “Let me read you some of what he wrote. ‘I fear our city will fall. All of Ildakar is in panic. The wizards seek a way to fight back against this enormous horde. Our walls are strong, and our magic is strong, but the army of General Utros is like a swarm of locusts. Even if all our people go out and fight to the death, it will not be enough. We need stronger warriors, and I can create them.’”
Nathan smiled up at the armored giants. He tapped the words with his fingertip. “You were afraid too, weren’t you? You knew you had to protect your families, and when the desperate call went out, three of you agreed to give up your lives and your loved ones for the sake of Ildakar.” Though neither of the Ixax moved at all, he imagined that they nodded.
Nathan turned the pages, summarizing the words. “Andre says he chose you from more than a dozen volunteers to become the mighty Ixax. Do you remember your names? Do they sound familiar?” He looked up. “Jonathan, Rald, and Denn. You were young men, talented fighters. Andre says that you were the pick of your commanders, that you all excelled in personal combat.”
Nathan didn’t know which one of the three he had killed, which two remained, but he was sure all three volunteers had known each other well. “Jonathan had a wife named Maria and a daughter who was sick. As part of the agreement, the wizards agreed to heal the little girl once he volunteered to become an Ixax.” He looked down at the pages, at the descriptions. “Rald had a sweetheart, but he broke off his relationship because he believed this was a greater duty.” Nathan felt a lump in his throat. “And Denn came from a large family with four brothers and three sisters. He was the youngest, a recruit for the army of Ildakar. His family was so proud of him.”
He looked down again at the pages of Andre’s diary. The fleshmancer had viewed Rald, Jonathan, and Denn as mere specimens, test subjects, not as tragic human beings. He had ignored their bravery and everything they were giving up. Nathan decided not to read that part of the diary aloud to them.
The fleshmancer described the transformative magic he had used, how he unleashed energy to make the young men’s bones grow like trees, their muscles swell and expand, their bodies becoming giants through a combination of fleshmancy and metallurgy. Andre had reinforced their bones with bronze, added armor to their flesh in order to turn the warriors into something more than human. But Nathan knew they were still human inside.
“You agreed to fight for Ildakar,” he said. “But you never got your chance. Andre was an unkind, heartless man. I know that, as do you. He tormented you needlessly.” He brushed his pale hair away from his cheek and closed the book. He knew what was written there, but he didn’t want to read any more of the fleshmancer’s petulant complaints against the old duma for not letting him unleash his monstrous warriors.
“Your reasons were pure,” Nathan reminded the giants. “I know that your hearts remember. Even though your families, your sweethearts, your children are long gone, Ildakar still needs you. If the time comes, I hope you remember the real reason that you gave up so much. There are good people here, just as you were good people.”
Nathan waited in silence for a long moment, then stood. “I will come back, I promise. I’ll tell you more stories.”
CHAPTER 53
As the cold dawn washed over the mountains, Verna shaded her eyes. Because of the ancient army camped beneath the glaciers, she no longer saw the beauty of Kol Adair. She now knew that the enemy soldiers weren’t quite human, and they were on the move from Ildakar, thousands of them. The army had no visible tents, fires, or supplies, just a powerful force moving through the mountains. The prelate could only imagine how much destruction they would cause as they crossed the Old World.
“It is not natural,” General Zimmer said. His face was ruddy, and beads of perspiration stood out on his brow. “The D’Haran army is sworn to fight the enemies of Lord Rahl, and there’s no doubt it is an invasion force.”
“But where are they going?” Verna asked. “Who is their commander?”
“They have gone away from Ildakar,” Renn said. “Maybe that is a good thing, from a certain point of view?”
“There is nothing good about this.” Captain Trevor shook his head. “What can we do to stop them? We are only a handful against thousands.”
Amber continued to stare, her face flushed. “What if they find Cliffwall?”
As the early-morning light spilled over the crags, the enemy army began to stir. Verna said quietly, “We need to hurry, General, whatever we do. Right now, they are vulnerable. They don’t suspect we have seen them.”
“Why should they care about a few dozen people anyway?” Renn asked. “We are insignificant.”
“We’re not insignificant,” Verna said, “and neither are you, Renn. You are a wizard of Ildakar. I am a Sister of the Light. Even young Amber knows some basic magic, as do these Cliffwall scholars.” She gestured to the wide-eyed scholars and memmers who had accompanied them from the canyon archive. “They wanted to learn how to use magic. Now the time has come, and we can’t wait.”