“Muller and his wife?”
“I don’t think it is Dawnfield.”
“Then who?”
“I can’t say.”
“They know about you, then.”
“I suspect so.” As much as Anvil disliked making that admission, it served no useful purpose to deny the possibility when it could affect the outcome of their engagement. “It fits their style. A shielding spell would protect them from my powers without causing me injury.” He flexed his hand as if preparing for work. “But I may be able to mimic the effect. Use it to my own advantage.”
“Good.” Stonehammer spoke thoughtfully. “These mages intrigue me. I hope we take them alive.”
Anvil thought of Chime, gold and green. “I, too.”
“My eldest son has always wished to meet a mage. Perhaps you will bring Lady Chime to visit.”
That startled Anvil; it was the first time the general had indicated any interest in him outside of the military. It suggested Stonehammer had begun to see him as someone worth cultivating, a positive sign.
“It would be my honor,” Anvil said.
The general inclined his head.
A call came back from the front. Stonehammer urged his mount to a faster pace, and Anvil accompanied him up a long ridge that crossed their path. They reined in their horses at the top, looking out. On the other side, the ridge fell steeply away to a plateau; beyond the plateau, the mountains resumed their downward march. Far in the distance, well below the mountains, the gentler hills of Aronsdale hid in fog, visible only in glimpses of green and the fiery colors of autumn in the trees.
On the plateau, the Aronsdale army waited.
33
The Tallwalk Plateau
Bile rose in Chime’s throat as she stared up at the ridge where the Harsdown army appeared. Wave after wave of mounted warriors crested the long roll of land until they made a jagged line against the cold blue sky. Tendrils of fog curled around the legs of their mounts.
Chime and Iris sat stride their horses, surrounded by a traditional formation that protected mages during battle, seven mounted warriors in a heptagon. Both mages wore leather armor, with long daggers sheathed on their belts. They waited in the southwest corner of the plateau, across from the northern ridge where the Harsdown army loomed. To their left, rocks jutted out of a sheer cliff face, forming a partial, jagged cover. The plateau stretched for as long as a horse could run for several minutes, until it reached its eastern edge, which dropped down into the mountains. A shelf jutted up behind the mages, and beyond it the plateau also plunged down in a cliff.
Even half-hidden over the overhang of rocks, Chime felt exposed. Ideally mages stayed off the battlefield; however, they also had to be close enough for their spells to work. Up here, this was the best they could do.
All across the plateau, Aronsdale warriors had taken polygon formations, the Pentagons in five-sided figures and the Heptagons in seven-sided, according to how they had trained to fight. Archers waited behind them, quivers on their backs, bows ready. The Aronsdale men stood firm, staring at the Harsdown army on the ridge.
Chime shivered despite her heavy cloak and armor. She couldn’t sense Wareman, but she had no doubt he waited above. Did he know about Jarid? Although some histories described kings who were mages, little record existed of how they drew on their power during battle, or even if they did at all. Given the way Jarid condemned himself for his act of self-defense against Murk, she feared that if he used his gifts in combat, it would destroy him.
For interminable moments, the two armies considered each other. Just when Chime thought she would snap with tension, a rider separated from the Harsdown forces and came down the rugged slope, his mount stepping across the shelves of rock and through the tough grasses.
Jarid and Fieldson rode out to meet the envoy where the plateau met the slope. Iris watched her husband with a bleak gaze. The queen clenched the diamond orb she wore on a chain around her neck and a spell rose about her, one Chime saw as a translucent shimmer of rainbows. Chime focused through the emerald sphere she wore, extending a mood spell toward the Harsdown envoy. She couldn’t tell much, but she sensed no intent to deceive on his part.
After conferring with Jarid and Fieldson, the envoy wheeled his mount around and rode back up to his army. His horse climbed the stony ridge with an assurance that spoke bluntly of its superior training. Harsdown was known for rugged country; Aronsdale had only gentle hills, except here on its border. Fighting in this region gave Harsdown an advantage, but Aronsdale had to stop the invaders before they reached populated areas, which meant confronting them here.
Chime spoke to Iris. “That messenger was nervous.”
The queen answered in a leaden voice. “They offer us our lives in return for our surrender.”
“Surrender?” Chime wanted to say No! But she knew how few options they had. “Would Jarid consider such?”
Iris watched her husband return with Fieldson to the Aronsdale army. “He refused.”
Although Chime was glad, she didn’t fool herself that it changed the desperation of their situation. “Harsdown fears a long battle.”
“With good reason.” Iris turned to Chime, her gaze stark. “We must help.”
Chime’s pulse surged. They had made their plans; the time had come to put them into action. As the stronger mage, Iris could better endure spells of harm, whereas Chime’s talent lay in strengthening moods. So Iris would fight Harsdown while Chime helped Aronsdale.
Holding her faceted sphere, Chime focused, striving to submerge into her concentration until she lost awareness of the soldiers above them. Power rose within her, funneled through the emerald in her hand.
Then the Harsdown army charged.
With many shouts, they thundered down the ridge on horses that seemed to fly across the rocky ground. The Aronsdale cavalry surged forward, maintaining their polygon shapes, their war cries echoing in the mountains. Chime’s spell rolled out to the closest polygon formation, a heptagon, filling it like a cup. She poured confidence into the spell, encouraging the fighters, helping to firm their wills, sharpening their sight and hearing. As a green mage, she could neither heal injuries nor improve a person’s physical condition, but she could make them feel stronger, and for many, that made all the difference.
When the first Harsdown warriors reached the plateau, their lines met the Aronsdale polygon formations like waves smashing against rocks. Swords clanged, vibrating in Chime’s ears as she deepened her magecraft. One by one, she filled the polygons of warriors with her spell. Harsdown made every effort to scatter the polygons, but each time they disrupted one, another formed, the new shapes holding together with uncanny accuracy as Chime strengthened them.
The Aronsdale archers strode past the polygons and fired a volley of arrows, their shots whirring through the air. They stepped back, drawing new arrows from quivers on their backs while the swordsmen in the polygons engaged the Harsdown warriors. Only Aronsdale fought in geometric patterns; the Harsdown men came on in wave after furious wave of humanity and horses.
Every time an Aronsdale warrior affected by her spells took an injury, Chime gasped, feeling a phantom sword slash her side, a blow strike to her leg, a ghost arrow bite into her arm. Each time, she sent a spell to ease the pain. She was dimly aware of Iris bedeviling Harsdown, disrupting their morale even as the queen shielded the Aronsdale combatants from similar spells sent by the dark mage.
To Chime, the battle was a chaos of fighters and horses surging across the plateau, many of the men silent with grim determination, others shouting with fury, some grunting with exertion, a few cries of pain. Men behind the Aronsdale polygons used catapults to rain rocks and small boulders over the advancing Harsdown forces while other Aronsdale soldiers engaged the Harsdown infantry.
A horse reared and threw its rider as an arrow stabbed its flank. The men protecting Iris and Chime moved closer, swords and shields ready. Chime could see Jarid nowhere. If Iris knew how her husband fa
red, she gave no sign. The queen’s gaze had become distant, as if she fought in a place even darker than the bedlam around them.
Gradually Chime made sense out of the battle. She could distinguish the Suncroft insignia burned into the leather armor of Jarid’s men. The Harsdown warriors had the cliffs of Escar emblazoned in white and black on their shields and they dyed their armor blue. Slowly but inexorably, Aronsdale was losing both ground and numbers to the blue. She clamped her hand tighter around her sphere and continued her spells.
Pain suddenly erupted in her side, not her own, but from an injury to someone else. She groaned as a pentagon-lieutenant went down, toppling off his horse, a youth who had brought her meals during the ride here and helped set up her tent. She flooded him with a spell of succor—and felt his life seeping away.
“Iris!” Chime’s cry rang out.
“Aye.” The queen sent a spell to the youth, helping clot the blood that pumped from his wounds, healing torn organs, easing shock. The boy dragged himself off the field and collapsed behind a boulder. His wound incapacitated him, but his life force strengthened. He would live.
In that instant, when Iris dropped her guard, the dark mage attacked. His power hit Chime like ice and she reeled under the blow. Her spells wavered, losing focus.
I protect! Chime called on her power, raising a spell into a blaze around her. She threw heat at the dark mage and his attack faltered. She reeled with the backlash of her own heat spell, a fever burning her cheeks, but she never retreated.
Then she saw him. Protected by warriors, Wareman sat astride a white charger on the ridge. His power slid over her, oily and possessive. Hardening her resolve, she hurled a spell of loathing at him. His power receded—and came back with more force, angry. With deliberate intent, he let her feel him attack Aronsdale. She clenched her teeth as the suffering of the warriors hit her like a blow. She flooded them with spells of support, struggling to maintain her strength in the face of so much violence. Bone-tired but resolute, she continued, wrestling down her dismay. She refused to let the dark mage cow her.
Then she saw Jarid.
Tall on his horse, surrounded on all sides, he fought like a man possessed. For all that he had less ability with a sword than many other warriors, they fell on every side beneath his blade. He fought with spells, yes, not to harm but to know. With split-second speed, he gauged the moves of his opponents, responding to their intent almost before they knew what they planned themselves. Light blazed around him, terrifying, as if he were a celestial avenger descended to earth.
But even the king’s incredible power couldn’t turn the battle. Relentless and implacable, Harsdown eroded their forces.
Then the dark mage rode down the ridge.
Fear slammed through Chime. She picked up nothing from him, no response to her spells. He plunged deep into the fighting on the plateau, yet no one touched him. A sphere of protection surrounded him, as if he had mimicked Iris’s shield, but twisting the spell to his own purposes, causing pain to anyone who penetrated its borders.
Then Chime realized where he was headed. She drew her dagger from her belt and spoke in a low, hard voice. “Keep away from me.”
One of her guards turned. “Lady, what is it?”
She jerked her hand at Wareman. “He comes here.”
Iris paled. “Then we will stop him.”
Chime wasn’t so certain. The battle was taking a toll greater than she could have imagined, draining her until she could barely summon her gifts. Iris had more strength, but she was flagging now as well. All the time, Wareman forged toward them. Their guards readied their swords and shields, forming a bulwark, while Chime and Iris backed up their horses. They could only go toward the open plateau on their right; behind them, the plateau plunged down in a cliff, and to their left another cliff rose up into the mountains.
An Aronsdale man broke through to Wareman, brandishing his sword. The dark mage fought him, parrying his blows with cold efficiency until he forced the man back out of his protective sphere. Chime poured her remaining strength into anger spells against Wareman. He made no attempt to counter her; instead he turned on her protectors, hitting them with infirmity and pain. He was so close, she could see a large ball hanging from his belt by a chain, its indigo metal reflecting sunlight. The saints had truly deserted them if this monster was an indigo sphere-mage.
Wareman suddenly surged forward, reaching the guards who shielded Iris and Chime. He engaged them with determination, barely seeming winded, let alone worn out by combat. Chime wouldn’t have believed one man could take on seven, but even as that thought came to her, one of the Heptagons went down. Other Harsdown warriors closed in, and soon Wareman was no longer fighting alone.
Chime edged Silvermist onto the battlefield, one hand on the reins and the other clenching her dagger. Swords rang all around her. Somehow she and Iris had become separated. Leaning over her horse, she set off along the edge of the plateau, her heart beating hard.
A Harsdown man swerved toward Chime, his sword raised above her head. Her spells were ragged now, but she had become hyper-sensitized to the battle. His emotional reaction to her was so strong that for one instant she caught an image of herself in his mind. Her long yellow hair was flying about her body, disarrayed, wild, glowing in the fog. Her eyes were huge and fierce and her cloak billowed out behind her, its hood loose in the wind. She raised her dagger, its blade glittering in the misty sunlight. The warrior froze in midswing, staring at her, his mouth open—and Chime shouted at her horse, spurring it past him.
Someone grabbed at her arm, then lost his hold. She twisted around—and found herself staring into the gray eyes of the dark mage. His horse was running alongside hers, too close, kept from bolting only by a calming spell from Wareman. He grabbed at Chime, catching her around the waist. Shouting the Aronsdale battle cry, she thrust at him with her dagger. She aimed for the crack where his chain mail and armor met his helmet at his neck. He jerked to the side and her knife sliced his skin in a shallow cut.
Then he yanked her off Silvermist. Striking at him with both her fist and her dagger, she almost fell between her mount and his. Their horses kept running as he threw her stomach down onto his mount. Chime rammed her elbow at his crotch and he swore violently, though his armor protected him. The battle wheeled past while she stabbed, kicked, and struck with her fist.
He had lost the mage ball chained to his belt. She grabbed at the heavy chain that now swung free, but then she started to slide off the horse, which had outdistanced Silvermist and was pounding along the edge of the plateau. She lost her grip on the dagger and it fell to the ground, vanishing in the melee around them.
In an instant of clarity, Chime knew she would be crushed beneath the hooves of the horses if she fell. Wareman hauled her back up. He spurred his horse into an even faster pace and fled with his captured mage.
34
Bell Chase
Muller led his men up the Slate Incline, holding back his impatience. He forced himself to hold in Windstrider, his horse, so the charger didn’t stumble on the sheets of rock that formed the long, shallow slope they were climbing. Arkandy rode at his side, his face drawn with lines that hadn’t been there a few days ago.
Shouts beat against Muller’s ears, coming from up ahead. He motioned at a ridge that rose to their left, then curved around and crossed their path. “They must be beyond there.”
“Damn Tallwalks,” Arkandy muttered. He urged his horse faster over the broken ground, surging ahead of Muller.
“Hai, slow down!” Muller called. “We will do them no good if we cripple our horses.”
“Hell, Mull.” But Arkandy reined in his mount.
Muller turned to his unit, which was spread out now along the incline. “Ho!” He pointed toward the ridge. “Up there.”
A shout went back among the men. The terrain began to smooth out, letting them increase their pace, more and more, until they were pounding up the long incline. Muller and Arkandy reined in to
a halt at the top, their horses stepping restlessly, the Hexagons gathering around them. On the other side, the ridge plunged down in a rocky slope, navigable for a steady horse, but dangerous.
Aronsdale and Harsdown had arrived before them.
A battle roiled across the plateau below the ridge where Muller gathered with his men. Swords flashed in the mist. Surrounded by men and bodies, Jarid fought like a wild spirit, a saint of chaos, his body glowing with light. On the far edge of the plateau, Iris was edging her mare around the battle, guarded by Aronsdale warriors.
With a shout, Muller sent Windstrider down the hill. Battle cries rose around him as his men surged to aid their countrymen. They came on hard, hurtling into combat, full of vigor and anger.
So the Hexagon Unit fought their first battle, the first of their lives for most of the men—and so they turned the tide of combat for Aronsdale, from desperation to survival.
Muller found Jarid standing by his horse near the cliff that rose up from the westward edge of the plateau. The king held the reins of his mount, his chest heaving as he gulped in air. Muller jumped down next to him, the two of them surrounded by men tending to horses. Far in the middle of the plateau, Fieldson was directing the clean up of a battle Aronsdale had just barely won, with the aid of the Hexagons. Muller had expected Varqelle’s army to be much larger than what he had found here. It disquieted him to see so few Harsdown warriors. Where were the rest, the infantry, the archers, the rest of the cavalry?
Jarid exhaled. “You are a welcome sight, cousin.”
Muller tried to grin, but it felt forced. “It looked like you might appreciate some help.”
“Aye.” Jarid glanced across the plateau. Following his gaze, Muller saw Iris kneeling by a prone man. When Jarid saw her, safe and well, his brow smoothed.
Even knowing a mage queen might ride with the army, it shook Muller to discover she had fought in battle. He thanked the saints Chime was safe at Suncroft. In using his twisted spells to shield himself from the dark mage, he had cut himself off from her, too. Although he didn’t expect to sense her from this far away, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss. He wouldn’t relax until he held her again.