“You have learned, Lyras…but you have not learned enough.”
Kharl thought. The white wizard could sense his presence in general terms, but not with any great accuracy, or fireballs likely would have been sent his way. Kharl eased forward, trying to figure out which man was which of those under the dome. There were three, and one lay on the stone floor, still alive, but dazed. That had to be Ghrant. But which of the other two was which?
“You said…there were no black mages in Austra.”
The surprisingly high voice came from the taller figure-Ilteron.
“It matters not. Black cannot stand against white, not in war.”
Could Kharl just harden the air around Ilteron’s face and head? If he made it tight enough, it ought to suffocate the lord, and it wouldn’t take as much strength.
Remembering Hagen’s words about speed, he twisted the order-and-chaos hooks together.
Ilteron staggered, his hands clawing at his face.
Kharl needed more strength. He could feel that the staff he held had strength, order, within it. Abruptly, the words of The Basis of Order made sense, and he wondered why he had not understood before. He…he had been the one to put that order there, as a tool. Perhaps Jenevra had as well, but the order in the staff was limited to what a staff could do.
He concentrated…not so much on breaking the staff, or even casting it aside, as reuniting the order that was his in the staff with that within himself.
A flow of darkness surged through him.
Crack…Without even his willing it, the staff had broken, and the iron bands that had bound it were no longer black iron, but gray.
The lower fragment hit the stones by his feet with a dull thunk, and without thinking Kharl dropped the useless other half.
“There!” Hssst!
A massive firebolt flared toward Kharl before he could try to harden the air around the wizard. Still trying to hold the hardened air tight around the dying Ilteron, Kharl flung up weaker, barely hardened air shields.
The firebolt flared around and past him, again burning his skin. But the worst of the fire flared into the rebel armsmen, and more than a half score flamed like torches. Kharl smiled coldly and stepped to the side, releasing the air shields.
“You missed!” he exclaimed.
Hsstt! Another firebolt slammed toward Kharl, and again he raised the deflecting shields.
More rebel armsmen flamed and died.
Kharl darted farther to his right. “You don’t aim very well!”
With the third splash of flame, there was a cry, “Back! They’ll flame us all!”
Kharl moved again. “Over here!”
Hssst! While the firebolt followed his voice, none of the armsmen were about to get close enough to attack, not when the odds were that they’d get burned to cinders.
Kharl could feel his breathing getting labored and his knees becoming weak.
Hssst!
Behind and around him, the armsmen backed away and began to run, slowly at first, then more quickly.
Kharl eased sideways and forward. Weak as he felt, he had to harden the air around the white wizard-and quickly.
“Your invisibility won’t save you. You can’t hide forever.”
The carpenter reached out and hardened the air around the wizard, but just around his head and neck.
Hssst! The firebolt flared directly at Kharl, perhaps because the wizard could follow the order-link.
Kharl threw up his hardened air shields, then sat down. His legs were rubbery.
Hssst! Another firebolt flared around him, the heat even greater.
Then a third and a fourth bolt followed, and Kharl huddled behind his shields.
The fifth bolt was weaker, and the sixth died before reaching Kharl.
The carpenter released his own air shields, and just sat on the stone, shivering and holding the shields around Ilteron and the white wizard until both were dead. His face burned, and his entire body throbbed by the time he let go of the force holding the hardened air around the two.
But the job was far from done.
After releasing the sight shield, Kharl glanced around warily. There was no one alive within the circular stone wall, but charred bodies lay everywhere, and the stench of burned flesh roiled his guts.
He was surprised that more enemy armsmen were not returning to attack, and yet it made sense. He doubted if any of the armsmen had ever seen a battle between mages, and after a few score of the rebels had been incinerated, the rest hadn’t wanted to remain close. Slowly, he crawled the last twenty cubits to the stone pavilion, partly because he didn’t want armsmen beyond the wall to see him, and partly because he wasn’t sure his legs had yet regained enough strength to hold him.
When he reached the pavilion, he looked around. The white wizard was a slight figure, smaller even than Ghrant. Ilteron had been even taller and broader than Kharl. The slightly built Ghrant was alive. How alive was another question.
The carpenter-mage reached out and grabbed the lord’s leather harness, then began to drag the smaller man across the stones and around the fallen bodies toward the gap in the stone wall-and not the one where the pond was-nearest the side of the hill with the berry bushes. At the edge of the wall, keeping himself low, Kharl glanced around.
Armsmen and lancers were beginning to edge back up the hillside.
“…real quiet up there…”
“…you want to go, you go…”
“…anything take out a white wizard…don’t want to be the one to get in its way…”
Kharl just hoped that would keep them away for a moment.
He girded himself and cast the light shield. He needed to get at least a few hundred cubits downhill before releasing it. He made over a hundred cubits before he did. Thankfully, there was no one nearby when he could see again.
Then he continued, once more, to drag the unconscious lord down the hill. He had to stop every few cubits, and then rest, before dragging Ghrant farther.
Halfway down the hill, Kharl found a mount tied to a tree. Whose it was didn’t matter.
He barely had the strength to lever the unconscious lord over the narrow space in front of the saddle, then untie and mount the horse himself. With the horse’s first steps, Kharl struggled to hang on to the lord with one hand and the saddle and the reins with the other as he tried not to lurch from side to side.
The ride back to the port, with his selective use of the sight shield, felt as though it must have taken glasses. At times, he knew armsmen were near, and he somehow shielded the two of them and the horse, then rode on, slowly. At other times, even without the sight shield, he could not see, but he kept riding.
The sun was low in the western sky even before he reached the harbor avenue. To Kharl, it had all been a blur after leaving the stone pavilion.
Then he was on the pier and riding toward the Seastag. The lines were singled up, and smoke was pouring from the stacks, but…the gangway was down-if with four armsman at its foot.
They had sabres at the ready.
“It’s Kharl! He’s got Lord Ghrant!”
The armsmen still did not move.
Kharl staggered off the mount, and before he could say anything, blackness rushed over him.
LXXXVII
When Kharl tried to wake up, he could not, and white chaos swirled around him, then blackness, followed by fiery redness, shot with ugly whiteness. Arrows of pain pierced his body, one after the other, endlessly. He felt as though he walked through fire, then through the coldest of winters, and yet, somewhere in the darkness that clouded his thoughts, he knew he had walked not a step.