Edward nodded and a banner was raised: his archers fired. Now Brendan understood why the traditional distance markers had not been placed in the field, for every bowman knew exactly how far downhill that depression lay. A flight of shafts took riders out of their seats and sent horses down screaming as they attempted to come out of the depression. More horses stumbled and became enmeshed in the thrashing mess in the misleadingly shallow hollow in the ground.
As arrows pelted the riders, they broke as a group to the right, circling around the far end of the depression, and Brendan saw the men on the ground get ready. Kneeling beside the poles, they formed a hedgehog barrier that would prevent the horses from attacking the infantry.
Where was Edward’s cavalry? Brendan wondered, for he, like Oliver, obviously, expected the two cavalry forces to meet in the centre of the field, reinforced by the infantry. Instead, Oliver’s cavalry was moving to his right, Edward’s left, towards the very defensible rocky ridge to the north. Two hundred archers waited and unloosed on Oliver’s cavalry when they came into range.
Dozens of riders fell and Oliver’s cavalry was in shambles. Commands were relayed and the hedgehog poles were abandoned: there would be no continuing charge from the east.
Oliver’s cavalry fled back toward his line to regroup. Whatever use they were in the coming attack was blunted. Brendan looked and saw more than two hundred riders dead or wounded on the ground, with another hundred sporting wounds limping back to their own lines. And Edward’s forces had not suffered a single injury.
Prince Edward drew his sword. ‘On my command … advance!’
He rose up in his stirrups and swung his sword in an arc, and his infantry moved out in an orderly fashion. Edward and his guards hung back, and Brendan also rose up in his stirrups and looked around. ‘Where is our cavalry?’ he thought.
Pug meditated on what he had just encountered with one part of his consciousness. With another he reached out to Magnus, Miranda, and Nakor. Come see this.
Soon he felt their minds link to his and said aloud, ‘Can you see what I’m seeing?’ He attempted to share what he was seeing through the Orb of Ocaran as it hovered outside the boundary of the dome. He would control it and Magnus would attempt to place it inside the dome.
After another moment, he heard the three voices in his mind say they could. ‘Magnus, if you would be so kind?’
‘Not all of us have to see what is inside,’ Magnus said. ‘I’m better than any of you at transporting objects without physically carrying them myself. So, you three link to the orb, and I’ll send it inside. Once done, I’ll try to link with you and see what you do.’
‘But you have to know where you’re sending it,’ said Miranda.
‘I’ve seen the breaches in the dome. It’s perhaps five or six yards thick. So I’ll transport the device six feet above ground and ten yards in a straight line into the city.’
‘That’s fine if you don’t materialize it inside a wall,’ said Pug.
‘Or inside one of the Dread,’ added Nakor.
‘I would welcome a better approach,’ said Magnus. ‘Sugges-tions?’
Pug broke the mental link as they were all standing around him. He was silent, then said, ‘I have, I think, found a way to invert the dome, or a small section, which was what I was going to do – open a window for a second, then close it.’
‘Opening a breach is a better idea?’ Miranda almost shrieked, Pug hearing her voice echo what she thought.
Pug said, ‘If we are to close that rift inside, we’re going to have to either shut down that dome—’
‘A very bad idea,’ Nakor inserted.
‘Or use it to plug up the rift, driving everything inside it back.’
‘Which means at some point inverting the magic and shrinking everything inside,’ finished Magnus. ‘We know, but isn’t it better to learn once that we have a problem with doing that than twice?’
Pug sighed. ‘You’re probably right. I just hate not having some means of testing my theory. This will be the single most powerful spell anyone has undertaken; we’ll have hundreds of magic-users and priests linked in to the spell, and there’s no telling what the effect will be.’
Miranda put her hand on Pug’s arm. ‘Pug,’ she said softly. ‘I have all Miranda’s memories, including everything you muttered in your sleep.’
He blushed, causing Nakor to chuckle.
She continued, ‘I’ve heard you chatter over dinner about this and that, and what I’ve come to know is, if there is one being on this planet who’s capable of designing a … piece of magic … a spell that will save this world, you are that person.’
Magnus nodded.
Nakor shrugged. ‘If we do nothing, everything dies. If we try and fail, everything dies. Might as well try, right?’
‘It’s not even a question,’ admitted Pug. ‘Very well. Link into the orb with me,’ he said to Nakor and Miranda, ‘then Magnus can send it into the dome.’
The Orb of Ocaran was one of several devices that Pug had discovered years ago in the abandoned lair of an artificer of magic devices by that name. Ocaran was legendary for making one-of-a-kind items: but this orb was particularly useful, so he had built several. However, it was the only working one Pug had seen. There were many types of far-seeing spells, scrying, and distant vision, but they all had limits: exhaustion on the part of the caster was foremost. The orb, on the other hand, needed only to be guided and, as it was a physical item, once its use was mastered, it was nearly effortless to operate.
They exchanged glances. Unspoken was the thought, Better sooner than later, so Pug, Miranda, and Nakor sat down, while Magnus walked as close to the boundary of the ruby dome as he could. He gauged his distances, then mentally asked, Ready?
When the answer came back affirmative, he sent the orb into the dome.
Tomas grunted with exertion as he attempted to remove Draken-Korin’s head, but the blow was deflected away. Both fighters were now labouring and despite their inhuman endurance and strength, soon one of them was bound to take a wound that would be beyond their ability to magically heal.
The dragons sang a melancholy song. It had no words, but carried a meaning no mortal could apprehend. Within the web of the song was repeated, over and over, ‘Tomas must die.’
He hit Draken-Korin so hard that the Lord of Tigers stumbled back a full ten yards, and Tomas used his mental powers to ask, Why must I die, daughter of Ryath?
From the great golden dragon who presided over this contest came the thought: Death is a gateway into something beyond. Tomas must pass beyond. At the proper time, Ashen-Shugar must be without constraint.
Tomas laughed as Draken-Korin poised to charge him. ‘You mock me?’ the Lord of Tigers shouted.
‘All of life is mockery,’ Tomas responded. ‘Come, old enemy, last of our kind, let us put an end to this.’
Draken-Korin charged and Tomas easily dodged the attack, inflicting a serious wound to the black-clad warrior. The Lord of Tigers screamed in pain and rage, spinning away to get out of Tomas’s reach.
Tomas closed his eyes.
Again he stood on rocks, with an inky-dark sea swirling on all sides. He had climbed out of that black tide over a century before and knew what it meant to be swept under and pulled down by it. It was an ending and beginning for him. He laughed in a triumphant voice and dived head-first into the water.
I am Tomas!
With a purpose that could only be seen as mad, Tomas sought out the heart of this blackness, the root nature of the Valheru with whom he had shared his existence for decades. Downward he swam.
Ashen-Shugar opened his eyes and felt a power, unlike any he had experienced in ages of life, flow through him. The dragons surrounding him sang a battle song of blood and victory and he turned to see Draken-Korin before him. The Lord of Tigers was battered and covered in blood, staggering as he readied himself for another attack.
Ashen-Shugar looked at his own blood-covered hands and arms. He saw the ren
ts in his tabard and felt the flame of wounds upon his body. He willed away the pain and healed the wounds and felt life well up within him.
The blood drained from Draken-Korin’s face as he screamed, ‘No!’ He launched himself at his old foe with a ferocity born of terror. Whatever reserves he had held back were now unleashed and he appeared for a moment a warrior reborn.
Ashen-Shugar held his ground, easily countering the blows and looking into the face of his oldest enemy with the certainty that the day was won. After a flurry of blows, Ashen-Shugar batted away Draken-Korin’s ebon blade and stepped forward, smashing him in the face with his white shield.
The Lord of Tigers arced backwards, landing hard on the ground. He groaned in pain and knew he had nothing left to offer. His sword fell from limp fingers and he released his hold on his black shield. With what little strength he had left, he struggled to get up and fell to his knees.
‘Why?’ he whispered.
Ashen-Shugar stared down at him.
‘Why was I brought back, just to die once more?’
‘Does it matter?’ replied Ashen-Shugar.
With a powerful sweep of his sword, Ashen-Shugar sundered the Lord of Tigers’ head from his shoulders, and watched as blood fountained high into the midday sunlight.
As one, the dragons tilted back their heads and cried out in a song of sorrow and triumph.
Ashen-Shugar, Ruler of the Eagle’s Reaches, turned and looked at the ring of dragons as if seeing them for the first time. ‘What has happened?’ he demanded.
Rylan leaped down with one beat of her massive wings to confront the white-and-gold-clad warrior. ‘You have been lost in a dream, master. You have been awakened by your most ancient enemy, and your power is needed.’
‘To what cause must my powers be lent?’
‘An invader, your most powerful foe, has invaded your world.’
Ashen-Shugar had not participated in the Chaos Wars against the emerging gods. He had watched from afar, so he had no gauge to measure the gods by, save their ability to reduce his brethren to sobbing, frightened children. In his vanity, he thought himself above them, so their experience bore no relation to his own self-estimation. But once in his existence he had faced an enemy so powerful and unrelenting that the Dragon Host had been forced to flee in disarray. Softly he said, ‘The Dread have come?’
‘Indeed,’ said the golden dragon. ‘We have assembled to contest the invasion, every lesser dragon on this world, but your power and command are needed.’
‘Of course,’ said Ashen-Shugar. He gestured with one hand and Rylan lowered her head, allowing him to mount her. ‘Take me to the Dread. We shall rid this world of their taint.’
With a single snap of her wings, Rylan, daughter of Ryath, took to the sky, and the entirety of dragonkind on Midkemia took flight behind her.
Brendan saw the mêlée below as if it were a moving thing, an ocean’s surface of churning steel and blood, brave banners, and rearing horses, and with it came a noise of screaming, crying, shouting, and the clash of metal. But it had a rhythm, a surge, ebb, and flow, and without knowing how he knew, he knew he was witnessing a battle approaching stalemate.
Then, suddenly, from the north Prince Edward’s cavalry came flying. Now Brendan knew why he had let Oliver’s cavalry charge be answered by terrain, arrows and hedgehog poles. He had sent his own cavalry on a fast ride around the granite ridge serving as the northern redoubt, and now was hitting Oliver hard on his right flank.
There was a balance in the air, a sense that somehow this was going to break one way or the other, and within an hour, perhaps within minutes, the battle would be won or lost.
Then Brendan saw movement to the south-east. It took a moment to understand what he was seeing. The Keshian mercenaries must have been infiltrated through the woods, and been thrown wholesale at the knoll to the south-east. Rather than attempt to ride around it with cavalry, Oliver had stormed it with infantry, and now that infantry was streaming down off that knoll, directly at the Prince of Krondor’s position, with only Brendan, a few minor nobles, and twenty mounted palace guardsman to defend the prince.
‘’Ware the field!’ Brendan shouted as loudly as he could. ‘’Ware the field!’ He pointed with his sword.
The Krondorian palace guards rode up behind him, forming a line, lowering lances and drawing their swords. Their captain shouted, ‘On my command, charge … Charge!’ and the twenty riders with Brendan at their side rushed into the mass of oncoming mercenaries.
Pug asked, ‘Is everyone seeing this?’
Miranda and Nakor both said, ‘Yes,’ then Nakor said, ‘but I can barely believe my senses.’
‘The orb is safely there?’ asked Magnus.
‘Yes,’ said his father. ‘See if you can locate it. Try linking with my mind if you must.’
Magnus sat next to his father and closed his eyes. Piercing the dome to link with the orb was difficult, so he linked with his father’s mind and instantly was inside the dome, amid chaos.
‘What are those … things?’ he heard Miranda say through his father’s perceptions.
The interior of the dome was illuminated by a faint red light, sunlight filtered through the magical energy field surrounding the city. Within the boundaries of the dome there was a roiling cloud of black. Occasionally a piece of the cloud would break off and form a roughly humanoid shape, something upright with broad shoulders and bright red eyes, but eventually it would fall back into the mass.
‘We remain unnoticed,’ said Nakor.
‘So far,’ said Pug.
Magnus said, ‘Laromendis and his brother said the heart of the city was where this rift was formed.’
Pug moved the orb, watching to see if it called attention from the mass of black smoke. They moved without incident a few yards, then he picked up speed and hurried to the centre of the city. He had no problem identifying the point of entrance.
‘Gods!’ said Miranda.
‘It’s the void!’ said Nakor.
In the centre of the city a blackness occupied an area roughly the size of a building. Nothing could be seen within it, but from the edges the black smoke emerged, curling and surging outward.
‘This is what is devouring the centre of the Fifth Circle,’ said Nakor.
‘Watch the edges,’ said Miranda.
Through the vision they got from the orb, they could see the edges of the void expanding at the crawl of a snail, mere inches an hour, yet it was still expanding. ‘At this rate this city will be gone in a year,’ said Pug.
‘Sooner,’ said Nakor. ‘I think the rate of expansion is accelerating. Look at those tiles in the wall.’
The void was consuming a wall, decorated with small tiles roughly an inch across. Pug did not need the void to cross one to observe, ‘I think you’re correct.’
‘What is this void?’ asked Magnus. ‘Is it a manifestation of the Dread? Is it the Dread itself?’
Pug said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to learn anything useful by simply wandering around among all this … smoke, for lack of a better term. It’s clearly a manifestation of what’s in that pit.’ He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘We weren’t going to get this orb back, anyway,’ and moved it into the void.
Suddenly they were without bearing, engulfed by a world of neutral grey. ‘We are in the void,’ said Pug. ‘I have been here before.’
He had willingly accompanied Macros into the void to shut down the Tsurani rift and end the war, and it had taken magic and the aid of his old teacher Kulgan to pull him back out. Another time he had ridden through it on the back of a dragon with Tomas, looking for Macros the Black.
Nakor said, ‘I know what Macros meant about this not being an empty place. It is brimming with … stuff. There is great magic here, Pug.’
Miranda said, ‘Perhaps this is where magic comes from, and we somehow tap into it.’
‘There,’ said Magnus. ‘There’s something there.’
Without direction it was
difficult to know where ‘there’ was, but within seconds the other three saw what Magnus had referred to: a speck. They focused on it and Pug said, ‘It’s hard to know if we are close to a tiny thing or very far from a massive thing.’
‘Move us closer and we’ll see,’ said Miranda.
‘With only one point of reference, this may be difficult,’ said Pug. But he turned his focus on the spot and willed the orb to move toward it.
Suddenly a stream of energy sped around them, and Nakor cried out, ‘It’s … stuff!’ All they got was a tantalizing glimpse as it sped past. Every time any of them attempted to concentrate on a single mote, it was gone.
Pug said, ‘I think I’m beginning to understand why the Dread have such a problem understanding time. If we attempted to intercept even one tiny part of this stream of particles, strands of energy? – whatever this may be, we would be flailing blindly.’
Magnus said, ‘But in flailing you could do a great deal of damage.’
Miranda said, ‘A nice enough metaphor, true, but let’s see what it is that is doing all the flailing.’
‘Are we getting smaller?’ asked Nakor. ‘Before we couldn’t see the strands of stuff, but now they look large enough to reach out and touch.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s perspective.’
They saw the speck in the distance expand and with the movement of particles showing them the way, it felt as if they were moving toward the dark spot. It grew and they felt as if they were accelerating toward it, even though they were outside the dome on the ground.
Abruptly, everything changed. The spot expanded almost explosively to look like a massive pit and in the centre of that pit rested a being.
Either it was gigantic, or they had become tiny. The being was roughly humanoid in shape, with flames bathing it from head to toe, but no light or heat was generated. Waves of energy were being created constantly, and the profound sense that swept over the four magic-users was one of rage and sorrow.