“No dragons?” scowled Otrick, glaring up at the taller wizard like a terrier about to take on a mastiff.
“No dragons,” the Archmage confirmed in a tone that brooked no argument.
Livak slid in beside me as we all watched, unashamedly avid as the two mages bent their heads over the water, Otrick’s grizzled and tousled, Shiv’s black and neatly braided for a change, in the manner I’d seen on several of the mercenaries.
The sky above the tiny ships began to darken; clouds swept in from the ocean in swirls of white, then gray, then forbidding black. Piling high on top of one another, lightning began to flash within the dark towers of vapor, an odd thing to see without the sound of thunder following. Where the waters had been placid and blue, green swirls of current now began tugging at the anchor ropes, the ships shifting and bucking, white teeth of breaking foam nipping at them, harrying them. The tiny figures on the decks were moving busily now, reefing sail and wrestling with flailing ropes. We saw them flinch from something, a hard rain of hail punishing them with icy blows, dimpling the waters all around but not quelling the gathering waves now ripping the vessels from their grip on the sea floor, driving them inexorably into the savage embrace of the rocky shoreline.
I felt Livak shift her footing beside me.
“Move aside, trollop.” Viltred’s harsh words startled me and as I looked up, three things happened inside the space of half a breath.
Livak drew a dagger from her belt and lunged at the old mage, only to be sent headlong backward with a stunning flash of red fire from Kalion. Viltred ignored them both to fasten his skinny hands around Otrick’s equally scrawny neck, his rushing charge sending table, bowl and water flying. The Relshazri wizard was not big, but he was big enough, Otrick’s robust personality residing as it did in a small if wiry frame. Viltred had him down in an instant, leaning all his weight into crushing the Cloud-Master’s throat.
I looked for Livak, to see her wringing her scorched hands, expression dazed.
“Are you all right?”
“His eyes, Rysh, his eyes!”
At her scarcely coherent words, I moved to grab a handful of Viltred’s hair, wrenching his head back to show me sockets filled with featureless black.
“Elietimm magic!” I yelled, barely getting it out before a shattering pain numbed my hands, next smashing upwards into my head and dropping me to my knees. A flash of amber light snapped audibly through the air and I looked up through tears of agony to see Viltred wrestling in toils of enchantment woven by Planir, the backlash flinging me aside.
“Tonin, do something!” the Archmage shouted angrily, cursing under his breath as Viltred struggled in his bonds, blue flames crackling down the golden beams to set Planir’s sleeves alight. The Archmage grimaced in pain but his concentration did not waver.
The mentor spilled his parchments on the dewy grass, tossing them aside until Parrail snatched one from the litter and the pair of them began a faltering incantation. Livak reached for me and I helped her to her feet, scarcely more steady myself. I noticed distantly that Shiv and Naldeth were tending to the fallen Otrick while Kalion was weaving a circle of unearthly, crimson flame around the Archmage and Viltred, still frantically struggling against the confines of the wizardry. A cry that sent birds fleeing their roosts all around ripped through the morning mists and Viltred suddenly collapsed, all the magic vanishing to leave a smell of burning and a riot of startled questions shouted on all sides.
Planir ran to gather the fallen Viltred in his arms. The killing anger in his face contrasted with his gentle hands as he searched for pulse or breath. Mentor Tonin rummaged frantically in a pocket, but when he found his little vial saw there was no longer a need for his medicaments.
“Did we do it? Did we restore him before his heart gave out?” the scholar wondered fruitlessly, more to himself than to anyone else.
Planir just shook his head, eyes steely with an awesome wrath.
“Ware the invaders!” Temar’s voice sounded inside my head so loudly I could not believe the rest of the encampment hadn’t heard it too. Startled, I sprang to my feet, abandoning questions over Viltred’s fate.
“Ware Elietimm,” I bellowed, a bare breath before black-liveried shapes leaped out of the empty air, swords naked and hungry, pale steel soon running with the blood of startled victims. The mercenaries, caught on the back foot, ran to meet this unexpected challenge but took a moment to realize that the invading Elietimm were sweeping past anyone with a blade to cut down scholars and wizards with indiscriminate butchery.
I ran to Planir, Livak at my side, mercenaries led by Minare dashing toward us, all of us desperate to protect the wizards gathered in a tense circle around the Archmage. Tonin tried frantically to run to one of his pupils, a young woman, harebell eyes glazed and lifeless as they stared blindly at the brightening sky, the pallor of death shrouding her young face, but two mercenaries tripped him with merciless force and dragged him bodily with them.
“Get behind me, you imbecile,” Minare cursed the weeping mentor, thrusting him into Parrail’s startled arms. “She’s dead meat and you need to save yourselves!”
Minare’s lads formed themselves into an angry ring of steel around the mages, blades outward, hacking down the invaders, who were throwing themselves forward again and again, taking blows from behind without heeding them as they spent their lives in a single-minded attempt at killing the wizards.
I parried a scything stroke to my knees and swept my own blade upwards to take the man’s hand off at the wrist. Our eyes met in that instant and I saw only madness and hatred in that ice-blue, white-rimmed gaze. His life bleeding out from the wound, the Ice Islander still ripped a dagger from his belt and lunged past me, reaching over my shoulder in a suicidal bid to stab at Shiv. As I wrestled with him, feet slipping on the bloody ground, Livak slid a careful hand inside this foul embrace to stab him once in the vitals. The Elietimm stiffened in my arms, head jerked backward as foam bubbled from his bloodless lips. I flung his corpse from me, dead before it hit the ground.
A great gout of flame reached for the distant sun and I saw Kalion ignite the ground all around him, a knot of panicked scholars clinging to the tails of his jerkin as the fires greedily licked at their boots. The handful of Elietimm who escaped immolation circled the inferno, seeking any flaw only to die at the hands of Lessay and his warriors coming up behind them, eager to channel their own fury and chagrin into killing those who had taken them so badly by surprise.
In what could only have been a matter of moments, Arest’s harsh voice was echoing around the encampment, the stone now betrayed as such an inadequate defense, as little use to us as it had been to Den Rannion. “Any enemy still alive? No? Make sure!”
“My lads, get your arses on to the walls!” Outrage thickened Minare’s yell.
Lessay’s shout came hard on the heels of Arest’s. “Find your pairs, check who’s wounded and count the dead!”
Voices harsh with the accents of Lescar came from all directions in turn, other mercenaries hurrying to fetch water, bandages and salve as calls came from the wounded. I hugged Livak close once she had sheathed her daggers and we looked around for Halice and Shiv. They were together, Shiv pale as Halice ripped away a bloody sleeve in one brisk movement.
“I have tunics I’ve put fewer stitches in than you, wizard,” she remarked with rough sympathy as she washed the gore from a ragged slice above his wrist. “Whoever taught you to use a blade left a nasty hole in your defenses; I’m going to have to give you a few lessons!”
“Leave that! Shiv, here, with me!” Planir caught the dented silver bowl from the ground as he strode toward us, the rim now an irregular ellipse. The Archmage swept a hand over and across it, the last remnants of the morning mist sucked down to coalesce into a feeble puddle in the mud-smeared base.