He looked uncertain. “What sort of thing?”
“Have you ever seen Cobalt’s billiard balls?”
“Indeed.” He smiled dryly. “In his youth, I often had to take them away when his mother wanted him to study.”
“I should like one of those to hold.”
“We have none here.”
“Oh.” She let her disappointment show.
“I might find you some seeds.”
“They would trickle through my fingers.”
He thought for a moment. “The balls for the catapults are the right size.”
She gave him her most angelic smile. “Would it be all right if I had one to hold?”
He seemed to melt in front of her. “Aye, I could manage that.” He stood up. “It won’t take long.”
“Thank you,” Mel murmured.
After he left, she let her chin sag forward to her chest. She intended to stay awake until he returned. Her head felt so heavy, though. Her eyes closed…
“Princess Melody?” Someone’s knees popped. “Wake up.”
Mel cracked open her eyes to find Matthew crouched beside her. Princess Melody, indeed. He showed her a metal ball, blue-gray with an iridescent sheen. Then he reached back and slid the ball into her hands. “There you be.”
She smiled beatifically. “You are a lovely man.”
He blushed. “Are you hungry?”
“Not now. I’d like to sleep some more.”
“I’ll be right outside, then.” He stood up. “Call for me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
As soon as Matthew left, Mel concentrated on the ball. She didn’t try any high-level colors. Her abilities had only begun to heal, and with such a powerful shape, she wasn’t certain she could control blue and green spells. So she thought of red. She had too little precision to risk a spell with the ropes; she might hurt her wrists. Instead, she chose a point across the tent. It was still a risk, but if she didn’t try, people could die who didn’t have to, all because Cobalt had tied her to a pole. She concentrated on the cloth. Focus…
The point glowed red. She built the spell—a spell of heat—
Flames erupted out of the point.
“Matthew!” Mel shouted. “Fire!”
He swept aside the flap and strode into the tent, which was already burning. He knelt behind her, and the ropes snapped as he cut them with his knife. As soon as her arms fell free, he jumped up and hauled her to her feet. An entire side of the tent was in flames.
Matthew pushed her toward the entrance. “Run!”
She grabbed his arm. “Not without you.”
“This is Cobalt’s tent! I have to—”
“No you don’t!” She dragged him forward.
They broke into a run as flames caught the peaked roof. Just as they burst out of the tent into an overcast day, a man heaved a bucket of water on the fire. A line of people was forming, made up of the men and women who tended camp while the soldiers were in combat. It stretched to a creek about a hundred paces away. Mel and Matthew joined them and helped pass buckets up the line. Cobalt’s shirt flapped around Mel’s knees and she had to roll up the sleeves to her elbows. She moved forward each time the first person in line ran back to the creek with an empty bucket. The people all worked together with a practiced efficiency that told Mel a great deal about how well Cobalt trained his army, not only the warriors, but everyone.
The fire was out in a matter of minutes. Mel stood with Matthew in front of the remains, breathing in gulps, her hair straggling around her and ashes on her arms. The flames had burned one side of the tent and about half the roof. She blanched when she saw the scorched pole where she had been tied. What if Matthew had left his post for some reason? No, she wouldn’t dwell on what-ifs. That hadn’t happened—and now she was free.
“Saints,” Matthew muttered. “That could have been you.” He turned to her. “How did it start?”
“It was across from where I was sitting,” she said. “It was hard to see.” Which was true.
Matthew grimaced. “I think maybe no more poles, eh?”
Mel exhaled with relief. “Yes. No more.”
They spent the next hour cleaning up the remains and setting up a new tent. Her belongings were intact, though they smelled of smoke. She pulled leggings and a sturdy tunic on over Cobalt’s shirt and put on boots. She fashioned a sling for her metal ball out of a scarf and hung it from her belt. Although she had found her armor and sword where Cobalt had hidden them under a pile of rugs, she ignored them. Matthew was keeping an eye on her. The entire time, she worried about Cobalt. His men would have engaged Zerod’s army by now.
When they finished with the tent, Mel went to see Smoke. Matthew followed at a discreet distance, but close enough to stop her if she tried to get on her horse. Smoke didn’t need anything; one of the grooms had already seen to his care. But she spent time pampering him. When Smoke was blocking her torso from Matthew’s view, she folded her hand around the ball in her sling and gazed over Smoke’s back at a distant cart heaped with blankets and folded tents. Then she concentrated. Yellow. Her favorite silk tunic. Her mother’s hair. Wild suncups.
Yellow light glowed around the cart.
“What is that?” someone asked.
Mel intensified the light. A new voice called, “Look!”
Matthew glanced at the cart, then frowned and walked toward it. While that occupied his attention, Mel grabbed her saddle from the nearby gear, threw it onto Smoke, cinched it, and scrambled up on the horse. Leaning over his neck, she urged him toward her tent. As soon as they reached it, she jumped off, snapped up the bottom edge—and yanked out the sword she had just happened to leave at the edge of the tent.
“Hey!” Matthew shouted.
Damn. She didn’t have time to get her armor. She grabbed her sword belt and swung back on Smoke. Then she took off, one hand gripping the belt. Matthew would follow, but he had to get his horse. Smoke was fast. Very fast. And she was a good rider. Better than good. He wouldn’t catch her, nor would anyone he called on for help.
Smoke galloped through the camp, urged on by Mel. Her hair streamed behind her. A cook looked up from his pot, and a blacksmith paused in repairing a sword. A camp follower walked out of an officer’s tent and stood watching her. Smoke headed south, his long stride eating up the distance.
They soon left the camp behind.
19
The Qzure Fields
Mel heard the battle before she saw it. It came to her first as a distant rumble. She had followed the route taken by the army, through demolished meadows, until she saw a line of low hills. Her sword hung at her side, but she had told Cobalt the truth; she didn’t want to use it. Unless they had no choice, mages kept out of sight during battle. Usually one or more polygon formations of warriors protected them, but she had no one at all.
As she galloped onward, hills rose out of the countryside and the rumble swelled until it separated into individual sounds, a cacophony of yells and cries, the twang of arrows, the pounding of hooves, the groan of catapults, the clang of metal on metal, and a hundred other sounds she couldn’t identify. It swelled into a roar.
By the time she reached the first line of hills, sweat was dripping down her neck. She kept to the quilt-work of forest that patched the land, though at times she had to ride in the open to reach the next woods. She guided Smoke away from the soldiers who were serving as pickets, the men who kept watch. With such a large area to monitor, they were stationed at wide intervals, under cover, and she managed to avoid them. In the last hills, she rode into a clump of trees. The woods ended at the crest of a ridge where she stopped. A slope rolled down in front of her. She looked out into the plain beyond—
It was bedlam.
Thousands of men surged across the Azure Fields, on foot and on horseback. In some places, scattered soldiers fought, parrying with swords; in others, their numbers were so thick it was hard to make out individuals. It was a collection of battles. One
would flare, then die down as men retreated and regrouped. A line of Shazire archers stepped forward and fired a volley of arrows into the advancing Chamberlight troops. Then they stepped back and their cavalry thundered past, cutting and striking Chamberlight foot soldiers from above. To the west, other warriors all fought on foot. A man lost his sword and scrambled out of the fighting; two others fought hand to hand; another swung his blade against the neck of his opponent—
Mel groaned and leaned over Smoke, afraid she would retch. She had never seen a man beheaded before and she prayed she never would again.
It was a while before she could swallow the bile in her throat and heave in a shaky breath. Then she raised her head and searched the fields below, looking for Varqelle. The battle was too large to find one person. She had overheard some of the war councils Cobalt held with his top officers; they considered Varqelle too valuable to risk and wanted him to stay out of the combat. She also knew how much Varqelle loathed the idea. He was a warrior king, not a statesman.
She continued scanning the field—and froze. Cobalt was at the top of a knoll, on foot, surrounded by his men. His sword cut through the air, silver and crimson. And in that moment, she understood without a shred of doubt why he felt driven to keep her as far from combat as possible, for she died a million deaths every moment she saw him with his life in danger.
Mel tried to steel herself. She had to put aside her emotions and do what she had come to do, for as long as she could manage, until someone stopped or killed her. She slid her hand around the ball in the sling that hung from her belt.
Mage power built within her like the embers of a fire stoked into life. Blue sky stretched overhead, and seemed to fill her, luminous and full. Blue light glowed around her body. The battles blurred in her vision, hazed with the radiance. When her head began to throb, she eased her concentration; when the pain receded, she focused again. She didn’t force the spell. If she pushed too hard with such powerful colors and shapes, she wasn’t certain she would survive.
“Mel?” The voice seemed far away. “What are you doing?”
She slowly turned her head. Matthew was sitting on his horse a short distance away, his body limned in blue light. He held his reins tightly.
“Don’t interfere.” Her words echoed.
“You are a sorceress.” His face had paled. “You started that fire in the tent and made the gold light at camp.”
“I am a mage,” Mel said. “You knew that.”
“I thought it was a glorified title for a woman who healed with herbs.”
“I know little about herbs.”
“What are you going to do?” Matthew asked.
“Shazire will fall.” A shudder went through her. “Will this battle rage for days until all who fight for Zerod are dead? Until the exquisite capital of Alzire is razed to the ground? Until this land and its people are beyond repair?”
“You think you can stop it?”
“No—” Her voice cracked with the pain of knowing how little she could do. “But I can soften it. I will do everything I can to sway Shazire to surrender. I will help Cobalt win with as little bloodshed as possible, strengthen his men in mind and body, in morale and prowess, and I pray, in their capacity for mercy. I will do this, Matthew. Do not try to stop me.”
He looked down at the battle. In profile, his features were even stronger, the straight nose, high cheekbones, and firm chin. It was the profile of a king.
“Cobalt tasked me with guarding you.” He turned back to her. “I will remain here and do so for as long as you work.”
Mel released the breath she had been holding. “Thank you.”
“Wait here,” he added. “I will return soon.”
Mel blinked. She wasn’t certain why he was leaving when he had just sworn to stay, but she trusted him. “All right.”
After Matthew rode back into the woods, Mel refocused on her spell. Blue light inundated her mind. Although she watched the battle, her concentration turned inward.
A short time later, branches crackled behind her. She looked back to see Matthew riding with two sentries. They stared at Mel. One began to speak, then stopped, his face ashen. The other leaned forward as if he would kick his mount into a gallop. The horse neighed and shook its head. But then the sentry straightened again and drew in an audible breath. Matthew had chosen well; both men stayed.
As the three guards took up formation around her, Mel said, “Can you make a triangle? The shape will strengthen my spells.”
They nodded tensely and moved into place, each a vertex of the shape. A triangle was a low-level shape and gave little power, but that also meant she could easily fill it with a spell. A blue spell. Physical strength. She poured it into the three guards. She added green swirling along the diagonals of the triangle. A mood spell. She sent them confidence.
When her triangle spells were complete, Mel returned her focus to the battle. Had the Dawnfield army been below, they would have fought in polygon formations, creating shapes for their mages. If the enemy formed such shapes, it worked against them, for Mel could just as easily pour dismay and weakness into her spells. Such tricks came at a high price, however, for they also affected her; when she gave others strength or confidence, her own increased, and if she demoralized or impaired them, so she also affected herself. It was why mages sought light rather than darkness.
Historically, armies without mages had never fought in polygon formations, especially against a military force backed by the Dawnfields, the only House with good access to mages and the knowledge to train them. To form a polygon on the battlefield was to invite a mage to fill it with a spell. Neither the Chamberlight nor Shazire forces presented Mel with formations she could use. No matter. Every one of Cobalt’s men, from the youngest to the most experienced, had one thing in common on the breastplate of his armor.
The Chamberlight sphere.
The Misted Cliffs was the country farthest from Aronsdale. Its people either didn’t believe mages existed or else didn’t understand how spells worked. When they thought of mages, they associated them with tales of witches and arcane signs rather than geometrical shapes. That was especially true with spheres. The ability to use such a shape, particularly a flawed representation of one, was almost unheard of even in Aronsdale. But Mel was a sphere mage—the child of another sphere mage who could use only flawed shapes.
The design on the breastplates wasn’t a circle; the raised curve evoked a shape in three dimensions rather than two. Nor was it a true sphere; it couldn’t be on armor. But the intent was obvious. It clearly represented the highest shape.
Mel reached out with her power.
Her spell diffused across the battle with no moorings. She affected no one. She could create it using the catapult ball, but she had no way to direct the spell. Envisioning the breastplates of Chamberlight warriors had no effect. Pain sparked in her temples, and it took a conscious effort to stop herself from pushing too hard.
The spell caught.
It felt like the mental equivalent of silk snagging on a sharp edge. Her spell hooked the breastplate of a warrior, then ripped and began to slip. She strengthened her focus and the spell held. She filled the round depression on the inside of the breastplate with blue power.
Mel reached again, searching—and caught another sphere. Then another. As she poured her power into the Chamberlight spheres, her spell built and spread. The more spheres she filled, the easier it became to find others. She sent Cobalt’s men health, confidence, acuity, renewal. She gave them strength and prayed they used it wisely. Subdue without massacring. Shazire couldn’t win, but in the fiery rage of battle, it was easy to forget, to destroy. To slaughter.
When Mel could offer succor to a fallen warrior, she gave it freely for Chamberlight and Shazire alike. She couldn’t stop them from dying or mend fatal wounds, she could only speed healing that would happen anyway. She tried to help the dying, and she wept when she failed.
Show mercy.
The day passe
d, and the combat wore on beneath an overcast sky heavy with dark clouds. Mel either sat on Smoke or stood by the horse, all the time maintaining her spells, green and blue, as she watched the armies fight. She felt it all, the blows, wounds, deaths, and grim emotions. She could hardly see for the light that surrounded her and the tears in her eyes. Her strength drained away until she floated in a sea of exhaustion.
And she watched Cobalt.
Mel had known men feared her husband’s prowess as a warrior. She had watched him train at the castle. She had even seen him kill, the night they were attacked in the carriage. But she had never seen him fight, truly fight.
He terrified her.
Cobalt cut a swath through his challengers. No one could stand against that huge sword or a warrior of such uncommon height and strength. Sometime during the day, he regained his mount, not Admiral but a black charger with great speed. The Shazire warriors fought with bravery and would face almost anyone, but Mel saw men run in panic when the Midnight Prince bore down on them.
As the day darkened, a ripple went through her awareness of the battle. She turned her head, her body heavy with the spells that saturated the air. A rider was galloping across the field, his sword high. He looked as if he had been fighting hard and long, his armor dented and his shield cracked. With her awareness so sensitized, she could even tell that the hilt of his sword was fashioned into a true Chamberlight sphere, one of the few on the battlefield. It grabbed her spell like a great claw.
Varqelle.
Do not slaughter. Mel pleaded with her spell, but even with a true sphere enhancing it, she couldn’t reach him. His battle fury was too intense. He was Cobalt, but with a cruel edge, one honed first through the loss of his family and then his years of captivity. Of all the officers in the battlefield, only Varqelle and Cobalt had led engagements beyond this one, and only Varqelle had previously led an army to war. His presence rallied the men. He was the king who would make this land his, and he could no more stay out of the battle than could Cobalt.