Auum turned from the sight. The second Garonin had risen. His weapon thudded butt first into the back of Ghaal’s head while the Tai was fighting another on the balcony. Auum moved to strike, but Sol was ahead of him, thrashing his blade through the Garonin’s lower back.
The Garonin spun round, weapon limp in his hands. His gaze fixed on Septern and he raised a hand to point.
‘You,’ he said, and tried to bring his weapon to bear.
Dystran rose, stretched to place a hand up to the soldier’s eye slits and let mana flame gout from his palm.
‘You will not touch him.’
The Garonin screamed, clutched briefly at Dystran’s hand and fell, his helmet ablaze with mana fire.
‘Sirendor. Fires. Get them out. Thraun. Thraun!’
The shapechanger looked up at Sol, his eyes rimmed with tears.
‘So much pain,’ he said.
‘Hang on, Thraun. See to your wolves. See to the ClawBound. Auum, back to your watch. I’ll check Ghaal.’
The intensity of Garonin fire on the tower increased as if a message had been relayed. The structure shook as raw energy spewed into it from all sides. Slate and stone blistered, broke and fell. Huge chunks of intricately carved work teetered and fell from the highest floors, tumbling down to the ground hundreds of feet below.
On the ceiling above, the paint was darkening.
‘They’re coming through the roof,’ said Sol. ‘Densyr, we need your Defence up there if you can do it. Thraun, Sirendor. The doorway. You have to hold it.’
‘I hear you,’ said Densyr. ‘Tell me when.’
‘Now. Right now.’
Densyr moved the Ilkar’s Defence spell upwards. Thraun and the two wolves rushed straight through the door. Xeteskian guards came from the left up the stairs. The Garonin fell back before the onslaught.
Sol limped over to Ghaal. The TaiGethen was moving but groggy. Sol dared a look through the balcony doorway. For now the lines were empty but the Garonin in the floors above were free to take the tower apart piece by piece.
‘What the hell are they after?’ asked Sol, swaying back in as more stone tumbled from the roof. ‘The Heart is nowhere near here.’
‘But Septern is,’ said Dystran. ‘And we need to bind the walls to stop the tower falling. They want him because of where he is and what he’s doing.’
A thunderous crash rattled the tower to its foundations. Light flooded in from above. Densyr gasped and dropped to his knees. The upper floors of the tower concertinaed, dumping hundreds of tons of stone, furnishings and timbers onto the Defence.
‘Tilt it!’ yelled Dystran.
Densyr moved his right hand. The Defence moved up a fraction on that side. Enough to dislodge a mountain of ruined stone. Garonin swarmed around the outside, trampling on the Defence, dodging debris as it slipped and slid. They fired incessantly at the spell, each tear splashing white and blue as it impacted.
‘Whatever Septern’s doing, I suggest he does it quickly,’ said Sol.
Up above, they could see the Garonin machine. It was massive, bulging under the pressure of mana stored within its bell. The clouds above it were swirling but slowly, as if something was interrupting the sucking in of fuel to the detonation area.
In his chair Septern sighed, long and feeble.
‘Twocanbeone,’ he said.
Binding spells were strengthening the walls and the damage was being limited for now. Brynar ran with Suarav and Chandyr, away from the tower complex. With them a dozen guards and six mages, all under a spell shield. Up in the machine weapons fired down. More powerful versions of those held in the hand, they tore great rents in buildings, ground and exposed walls. Anyone caught in their fire simply ceased to exist.
But on the ground the tide was going against the enemy. Fifteen groups of shielded mages and soldiers moved in and out of combat areas as the Garonin landed. The focus of the assault was the base of the tower complex, as the enemy sought access to the catacombs and hence the Heart of Xetesk.
High up above, Densyr’s tower was taking a dreadful pounding. Slabs of stone were falling to the ground, dealing as much damage to enemy as to ally. Suarav wondered what it was they wanted from up there.
‘Hold,’ said Suarav. ‘Use the angles. Garonin on the deck.’
Mages crouched and prepared. Surrounding them, guards watched outwards. Time slowed. A section of wall a hundred yards to the left burst in. Chandyr cursed.
‘There next,’ said Suarav.
‘Ready,’ said Brynar.
‘Cast at will,’ said Suarav.
Twenty Garonin were walking through the gap in the wall. Their weapons sprayed death in a wide arc around them.
‘Wait,’ said Suarav. ‘New target. Our left.’
‘Got them,’ said Brynar. ‘Cleansing Flame. Cast.’
Multiple columns of super-heated mana flame roared down from the sky. Each one sought a single target. Armour flared white, twenty suits trying to ward off the power of Xetesk’s most powerful individual offensive spell. They had no chance. The deluge of fire reached inside their bodies and destroyed them in an instant. No screams, no flailing limbs. The Garonin were driven into the ground. One moment walking, the next burning and still.
‘Back towards the tower complex,’ said Suarav. ‘Good work, Brynar.’
The group moved quickly. Across in front of them, a stretcher party of civilians wearing blue armbands ran to deal with wounded on the walls. Others in yellow, green and orange bands brought up replacement weapons, got water to any who had the chance to drink but mainly tried to patch up the wounded and clear away the dead.
Xetesk had learned from the mistakes of Julatsa and Lystern. Suarav was pleased. A long way to go yet but so far they held. Frontal defence was not the way. Fight them hand to hand. Spread your force. Keep moving and keep alive. And invest mana in your walls to stop the enemy flooding over you like a spring tide.
‘General, look!’
Brynar was pointing up at Densyr’s tower. A mass of Garonin fire was trained on it. As Suarav watched, he saw the pinnacle and upper floors buckle and fall. His breath caught in his throat. The weight of falling stone accelerated the collapse of the floors below. The pinnacle itself tumbled almost gracefully down on a cloud of debris, smashing into the dome of the tower complex and breaking through it.
He began to run but knew he was already too late. Nothing could save those within. And as quickly as he had started, he slid to a stop. The collapse halted right above Densyr’s dining chamber. A spell flared deep blue beneath the piles of rubble, broken furniture and flapping clothing and drapes. Suarav breathed again.
‘He’s good, our Lord of the Mount,’ said Chandyr.
But Suarav was not smiling yet. He saw the spell and the rubble begin to shift.
‘Clear the complex approach. Move, move. Shields above you now!’
He was running again, waving his arms and yelling over and over for people to get out of the way. Timber and stone fell in a torrent. Where it didn’t beat straight through the roof of the dome, it bounced and rolled, thundering onto the courtyard and steps in front of the complex doors.
Suarav saw men crushed, others diving and rolling away. He saw mages trying to get shields in place and he saw, from above, more Garonin dropping to the broken roof of the tower.
‘Brynar, see to the wounded. Take three guards with you and get blue team to help. The rest of you, Chandyr, Densyr needs us.’
Suarav felt every one of his fifty-nine years. The breath was pained in his chest and his lungs felt clogged with dust. He lengthened his stride. The violent heaving of the courtyard under his feet took him completely by surprise and sent him sprawling on his face.
For a moment he thought he’d imagined it, but when he got himself back to his feet, he saw cracks in the courtyard cobbles and people everywhere brushing themselves down. A curious quiet fell across the whole college. The Garonin weapons had fallen silent and all that could be heard was the wheezing of the machine and the cracks of lightning in the detonation cloud.