With the ballista ready, Elicarno loosed another shot. The great arrow struck the center of the post, burying half its length through the elm trunk.
“Rapid, commence!”
The catapult’s arms threshed, hurling a second dart into the target. With a concerted shout, the loaders cocked the weapon again, and another missile was launched. More followed. In short order, Elicarno had deluged his target with forty darts. At times as many as a dozen missiles were in the air at the same time.
The whack of the catapult and the thrum of flying projectiles made a horrible menacing noise.
When Elicarno finally called a halt, no part of his target remained visible. The bronze heads of forty missiles had reduced the wooden post to a scattering of splinters.
Ackal IV rose from his seat, and Valaran braced him. Together, they inspected the targets, starting with Elicarno’s. Valdid, the imperial bodyguards, Tol, Egrin, and the Dom-shu sisters trailed behind.
When the emperor came to Mandes’s charred target, the sorcerer was standing proudly beside it. Ackal IV extended a pale, spotted hand to touch the still-smoking wood.
The silence lengthened, and the tension built. At last the emperor shattered the calm with two words.
“Elicarno wins.”
The engineer’s apprentices let out a wild shout of victory, and the courtiers began to talk excitedly about what they’d seen. Above the din a plaintive cry soared.
“Why, Majesty?”
Mandes hurried after Ackal IV, who was returning to the shade of the pavilion.
“Sire, I struck first, and I destroyed my target before this-this-person managed his first hit!”
The emperor halted and regarded him with unsympathetic eyes. “Your target is not destroyed. Some of it remains. Strike again. Call down the lightning and remove the last vestige of your target.”
Nonplussed, Mandes stammered, “As…as Your Majesty commands. We should remove to a safe distance, then I shall resume my invocation-”
Ackal IV looked beyond him to where Elicarno stood with his apprentices. “Master Engineer, destroy the wizard’s target! Immediately!”
Without hesitation, Elicarno commanded his helpers to swing the ballista around. They aimed down the loading tray and let fly a fresh dart. Ten more followed, pulverizing the stump while Mandes was still gathering himself to begin his lightning spell.
The emperor and his party were only five paces from the target. The loud whir and thump of missiles drove Mandes, Valdid, and assorted courtiers and servants to the ground in terror. Ackal IV remained steadfastly on his feet, with Valaran holding his hand.
A few paces further away, Tol also kept his feet. He was proud of Valaran for standing in the face of Elicarno’s missiles, but prouder still of his imperial patron. Prince Amaltar had never been the bravest of men, but he had apparently reached a limit with Mandes.
Echoes of the bombardment finally died away. Those on the ground picked themselves up.
Ackal IV said, “My forces must be ever ready to strike and must strike hard. No enemy will wait for his foe to make ready, and no battle is ended until the enemy has been completely destroyed. Do you see? Magic is a powerful art, Mandes, but on the battlefield, it must give way to machines-and the men who command them.”
Elicarno’s apprentices shouted and clapped each other on the back. Several seized their master and hoisted him onto their shoulders. The whole group paraded around the ballista, chanting, “Elicarno! Elicarno!”
The sorcerer stood up, his gloves and the front of his golden robe smeared with mud. His defeat, and the emperor’s implacable logic, left him speechless.
“Go from my sight,” Ackal said. “You are no longer our councilor.”
As Mandes stood frozen in shock, Tol whirled and hurried to the pavilion. Justice had been delayed far too long. Mandes no longer enjoyed the protection of his imperial patron. Tol would retrieve his saber and kill the evil sorcerer at last.
“Don’t!” said a breathless voice behind him.
He turned, fury gathering on his face. Valaran was running toward him, moving easily in her huntsman’s togs.
“Don’t,” she repeated.
“I’ll have his head!”
“Fool! Disgraced or no, he is not to be trifled with!”
He said nothing else, just turned away with a savage scowl and resumed his race to the tent. Long-legged Valaran passed him and planted herself squarely in his way.
“Stand aside, Val!”
She took a long stride forward, placing them nose to nose, and looked him squarely in the eye. “I love you, Tol,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I will not watch you die.”
He was so thunderstruck he forgot his thirst for vengeance. Surrounded as they were by servants, court functionaries, soldiers, and friends, her confession meant all the more to him, for the courage it had taken to make it.
Mandes had recovered from the shock of losing his royal patron and was hurrying to his griffin coach. Ackal had turned his back on the fleeing sorcerer, a last gesture of dismissal.
“Arrest him,” he told his guards then walked away, back toward the pavilion.
The guards tried to obey, but Mandes flung two silver vials on the ground in front of them. There was a silent flash, and every man fell to his knees, blinded. Mandes reached the door of his coach.
“Hear my prophecy, Emperor of Ergoth!” he shouted. “What you have will be divided among those closest to you! You will perish in poverty and shame!”
“You insult the throne of Ergoth!” Valdid said, “Tolan-druth, seize him!
Tol had been working his way up behind the sorcerer, taking advantage of his distraction. However, the chamberlain’s cry alerted Mandes, and Tol abandoned stealth to rush the sorcerer.
Elicarno and his apprentices stormed in as well. Mandes flung up his hands, and a blast of wind drove them back. Two of the brawny young men crashed into Tol, knocking him flat.
While his foes were thus hampered, Mandes ducked inside the coach and slammed the door. The griffins reared on leonine legs and uttered strange cries, sounding neither feline nor avian. They galloped away, wings working hard. In only a few bounds, they were airborne.
Elicarno tried to elevate the ballista to send a dart at Mandes, but the machine could not follow such a swiftly moving target. Meanwhile, Tol was hurrying to the emperor and Valaran, worried Mandes might try to avenge himself on his former protector.
His fear proved well founded. In the coach’s wake a whirlwind arose, flinging men and horses aside like dead leaves. The imperial pavilion was yanked from its moorings and took wing, soaring into the sky like a great bird. Tent stakes and lines swept over Ackal IV and Valaran. Tol pushed the emperor out of harm’s way, then grabbed Valaran and pulled her to him, turning his broad back to the flailing lines. Tent poles whacked him between the shoulders. Falling, he twisted to keep Valaran out of the mud. They landed hard, and her weight drove the breath from his chest.
“Let me go,” Valaran hissed, struggling in his arms. “People will see!”
By the time Kiya and Egrin had pulled them to their feet, Mandes was rapidly receding into the northern sky. His impromptu tornado had swept the sky clean of clouds, and sunlight flooded the muddy field.
“Thank you for saving my consort, Tolandruth,” Ackal IV said, coming up to them. Valaran returned to her husband, surreptitiously lending him her strength.
Mandes was gone, but no one standing in the Field of Corij doubted that the danger he represented was still very real.
Chapter 15
There was no time to celebrate Mandes’s exile. Word had begun to circulate through the city that Enkian Tumult and his army were coming. With the usual entourage, the Warden of the Seascapes would have been in Daltigoth far sooner, but maneuvering five hordes (and associated camp followers and hangers-on) through the provinces northwest of the city was a laborious undertaking. The terrain was cut by numerous small streams, larger rivers, and irrigation canals.