And then the earth closed above them, and the Glories and the locus all were gone, and Gaborn stood among the dead reaver Dedicates with Iome.
Averan faced the Great Seals that the One True Master had formed, and peered through the shadows toward the roof. She pointed her staff and imagined the runes of stone-breaking that would cause the ceiling to collapse.
The ground buckled and swayed beneath her. Pebbles and soot dribbled down.
And as if in her ear, she heard Binnesman’s voice. “The Earth is in pain. Heal it. End the Earth’s suffering.”
An image came to mind from her dreams. Runes appeared, two vast wheels to join with those that lay before her.
Averan gazed at three great runes, each patterned after the Seals of Creation that had governed the One True World. The runes themselves were not evil. They were tools. And Averan, if she dared, could bend them to her purpose. She could heal the Earth, remake it in the image of the One True World that had been mankind’s first home.
Do I dare? she wondered, trembling.
The ground heaved as another quake shook, causing the room to sway.
Averan stretched forth her staff and stared into the rocky floor, tried to recall from her dreams the great Rune of Life.
She began to shape the stone.
There was a ridge like a hook, where eagles had soared. As she imagined it, the ridge slowly rose from the ground. There were three knobby hills where rabbits had run, and the hills buckled up from the rock. Here was a valley where she had seen elephants sprout from the soil, waving their trunks to the sky, and a rift appeared.
Averan raised and lowered the stone in each place, using her gifts to conform it to her will.
Erin Connal sat upon her horse, frozen in astonishment. King Anders glared at her maliciously. But in an instant his expression changed to one of alarm.
“No!” he cried, whirling to peer at the battlefield.
A pale light shone above it, as if the moon suddenly peeked out from a cloud.
An unreasonable hope suddenly filled Erin.
She took no time to wonder what caused Anders such dismay, or to wonder at the light. She spurred her horse forward, throwing down her lance, for she was too close to use it in battle. She pulled out her half sword, and fell upon Anders before he had time to react.
She plunged the blade into his side, angled it up into his chest. She watched his skeletal face.
“Mother,” he cried, peering toward the battlefield. Then he turned slowly to look at Erin.
What she saw in his eyes terrified her, for there was no dismay, no fear—only cunning.
King Anders gripped the hilt of her sword with his right hand, so that she could cut no deeper, and then grabbed her shoulder with his left hand.
He fell forward, so that for half a minute he leaned into her, his mouth to her ear.
She thought he would speak, and then he would die, but instead he only uttered a strangled laugh.
Cries of dismay rose all around as men witnessed Erin’s attack. Celinor shouted, “Grab her! Hold her!”
Lords instantly surrounded her. Erin spurred her horse, tried to bolt away, but she was boxed in.
Celinor flung himself from his horse, crying, “Father! Father!” while Anders slumped in Erin’s arms and fell to the ground, clutching the blade that still lodged in his gut.
Rough hands seized Erin, dragging her to the ground beside him. Three stout warriors threw themselves atop her. A fat man with a red beard began shouting, “A rope! A rope! Let’s hang the bitch!”
Weakly, King Anders raised a hand to Celinor’s face. “No!” he cried. “Save the poor mad creature. She carries your child, a—a queen who will rule the world. Cage her. Promise.... to cage her—until the child comes.”
Anders’s head dropped to the side a little, and he peered at Erin in pain. A physic rushed into the knot and began pushing Celinor aside, preparing to bandage the wound.
Celinor whirled and glared at Erin, a snarl of rage marring his face. “Tie her!”
The earth was shaking. Erin felt it beneath her, shuddering as if it would break.
A far-seer cried. “Ships! Ships on the lake! The warlords of Internook are bringing longboats upriver.”
The men that held Erin finished tying her arms behind her back. They climbed off her, and stood on the hill peering down at the city. One man jerked the rope, pulling Erin to her feet, while the physic applied a healing balm to the king’s wound.
Erin pulled against her knots, trying to break free, but her captors had tied her in some cunning manner so that the more she struggled, the more tightly her bonds cut into her wrists.
To the east, roaring arose in the wilderness, the battle cries of frowth giants. It was their feet that caused the ground to rumble.
“Giants, thousands of them!” someone shouted. “They’re coming out of the hills.” Erin peered toward the source of the noise, but could see nothing for a moment. Then they rushed over the brow of a hill, huge staves in hand, fur glowing red as it reflected the light of distant fires. They trotted toward the reaver hordes, taking twenty feet to a stride.
Above Carris, Raj Ahten’s spy balloon had been floating like a graak on silent wings. Suddenly, beneath the balloon, light flashed, and there was a tremendous explosion. A great mushroom cloud of fire and smoke blossomed above the battlefield, filling the scene with light.
The ball of fire rose directly above the Seal of Desolation, where the reavers’ fell mage had been working. Some reavers seemed stunned, but Erin could see the monstrous fell mage along with dozens of other mages standing fast among the flames.
The reavers’ far-seers hissed and looked skyward, and Erin could see the lines of communication race through the crowd as each reaver in turn recognized the threat from above, and then raised its hind end and hissed warning scents to its neighbors.
The fell mage whirled and aimed her staff skyward, sending a dark bolt to blast into the air. It ripped through the fabric of the balloon, and the balloon plummeted into the reaver horde.
Reavers lunged to rip the wizards apart.
An instant later, the flameweavers died. Three creatures of fire rose up, man-shaped elementals of white-hot fury, each sixty feet tall.
They surged into the reavers, touching one and then another, so that they boiled and burst into flames.
One elemental raised its hand. With a thought, it sent its power quivering through Carris.
Torches suddenly flared, escaping their bounds. Fires already raging through merchant hovels exploded with new intensity. Fire raced like lightning along beams and up poles.
The city erupted into a blaze, and as it did, the cries of tens of thousands of city folk joined the roar of the inferno.
Pillars of smoke mushroomed upward, glowing as red as coals. Indeed, even the attacking reavers balked, and began backing from the elementals, which had now begun to dissolve, losing their human form as they became simple beasts of malevolent flame.
Erin stared in wonder. The fiery elementals waded through the horde like warlords among a pack of dogs. The flameweavers sent lines of fire racing into the midst of the reavers, and infernos sprang up in the hills.
To the south and west, warhorns suddenly blared, the deep-voiced ram’s horns used by the lords of Indhopal.
Raj Ahten’s men charged into the fray.
Lowicker’s daughter shouted commands to her troops, downhill just below. Her own silver warhorns trumpeted a high note, as if to answer Raj Ahten’s call. Her knights on their chargers leapt the Barren’s Wall and raced toward the reavers like a gale. Lowicker’s archers and footmen roared their battle cries and raced to catch up.
“Sound the charge!” Anders called weakly to his son. His trumpeter sounded the warhorn, and Anders’s lords leapt on their horses.
Many would have urged their mounts into battle instantly, eager to obey what might well be their lord’s dying wish. But Celinor knelt, holding his father up to witness the contest, while a pair of lords stood guard over him.