Storms (Sharani Series Book 2) (36 page)

“Tell the armies to pull back out of this place,” Sellia said. Lhaurel heard the words as if from a great distance as waves of pain coursed through her. She felt as if her blood was on fire, her very skin alight with flame. “Bring the Bleeders back except for the Seventh Phala. They can deliver our message for us. Let Beryl destroy them in this eruption. Let him destroy the very people he once saved. Take her to one of the wagons when she’s subdued.”

Blackness closed in around Lhaurel. “No,” she whispered, dropping to the floor. Her last fleeting thought as she succumbed to the pain and power thrumming through her was that she’d failed.

The vulcanist who had once been Beryl roared as flames licked at his body, but left his skin untouched, whole, and unburned. Beryl had kept him contained—mostly—for centuries, shutting him away in a tiny corner of his mind with the other past and future incarnations and Iterations. Now others blocked his powers. He could feel the Earth Wards working in concert to keep the stone, metal and earth intact above the roiling, beautiful magma deep within the volcano’s belly. They strove together to keep him contained.

The vulcanist laughed. He was finally out. He would not be contained again. He fought against the Earth Wards and, eventually, began to win out as they dropped out of the fight one by one, until only the first remained.

“The blood mages, the Seven Sisters, link us all to the paths we trod. They are the connecting force of the Iterations. They hold the ultimate power.”

—From
Commentary on the
Schema, Volume I

Gavin awoke as Farah stirred in his arms. He blinked blearily, his mind momentarily a second behind his body, then sat up, careful not to wake Farah. It was still dark, but there was a faint reddish glow resting on the eastern horizon and the stars were starting to fade in the night sky. It had been a long night, and it took several long yawns and stretches to fully banish the sleep from his eyes and mind.

The aevian riders had gone out and brought back as many as they could until the sun had fully fallen. Gavin had maintained a careful watch on the enemy army as Khari had taken charge of making sure everyone got bedded down for the night, Roterralar and Rahuli alike. As Gavin had observed before, there was unity in fear, and unity in a common enemy.

Evrouin’s clan had stumbled in a few hours after nightfall, the warlord himself leading them in by following the glowing lights of fires that blazed from the enemy encampment. Once during the night, shortly before the other clan had arrived, the ground had shaken and trembled. Gavin had thought they’d be too late, that Nikanor had lost his silent vigil, but the shaking had subsided after a moment. It wasn’t long after that the second clan had arrived, and Farah had found her way over to him. She fell asleep with her head in his lap, and he’d succumbed to exhaustion shortly thereafter.

Gavin got to his feet as the first few tendrils of dawn pierced the deep blue sky above. He stretched and looked at the slumbering forms around him. Dozens were already awake, though Gavin questioned whether or not many of them had even slept at all. Maugier’s clan still hadn’t arrived.

They were still alive though, that was something. Nikanor and the other Earth Wards had been able to keep the Sharani Desert from exploding, at least for now. Now they only had to worry about the armies of Orinai blocking their way. One problem down, just to be faced with another.

Gavin yawned, scratched at his growing beard to get the sand out of it, and then walked toward the sentries. He might as well go see how large the army had gotten during the night.

A few of the aevians called to one another from the outskirts of the group. Gavin looked over at them, spotting Nabil by himself to one side. Gavin shook his head. Why did Nabil insist on holding himself apart from the others of his kind?

Samsin lay a few spans away, head on a blanket, white-blond hair splayed out across the red sand.

Gavin shook his head again and then looked out to where the Orinai army had formed up. He blinked. Army? Fires still smoldered in the dim light, but no tents remained. Gavin had heard a commotion from the camp for a short while. Had that been them leaving? Only a hundred or so red-clad archers stood in formation in front of where the army had been. One man stood in front of the others, though he was clad all in white.

Gavin hurried up to the sentries. Darryn noticed him coming and met him partway.

“When did this happen?” Gavin asked.

Darryn shrugged. “Nearest we can tell, sometime in the night. Those ones have been standing there since it got light enough for us to see again.”

“Why didn’t you come get me?”

“There didn’t really seem to be a need,” Darryn said. “They’re just standing there. Besides, you and the girl . . .” He trailed off and then shrugged.

Gavin ignored that part, though he felt himself flush slightly. “Go get Khari and Cobb. Then wake Samsin on your way back.”

“I’m here already, boy,” Cobb said, walking up behind him. “These damnable beasts don’t allow my old mind much rest to try and sleep.”

“Go get the others, then,” Gavin said, nodding at Darryn. The man nodded and hurried off.

“He’s a good man, that one,” Cobb said. “If a bit stubborn.”

Gavin didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes forward, watching the red-clad archers simply standing there. Where had the rest of the army gone? Were the Earth Wards still helping keep Beryl in check or was Nikanor on his own once again? Why had that man been so willing to sacrifice himself for them?

Before too long, Darryn returned with Khari and a grumbling Samsin. The man looked even more disheveled, blond hair a matted mess sticking to one side of his face. The grumbling stopped as he got alongside Gavin and looked out over the remains of the army. He swore.

“Storms and seas unite!” he cursed. “That’s an Honor Squad.”

“A what?” Cobb demanded at the same time that Khari said, “I can’t find Lhaurel anywhere.”

Gavin held up a hand to quiet Khari and turned to look at Samsin, waiting for his answer to Cobb’s question.

“An Honor Squad,” Samsin said. “They leave behind a squad of Bleeders to deliver a message and allow a worthy enemy their final honors before death. When the sun appears on the horizon, the one in white will deliver the final message, then the archers will kill everyone here.”

“What honor is there in that?” Cobb demanded, voice quivering with anger and emotion.

Samsin turned to look at him. “The honor is being allowed to die on your own, without becoming fuel for the Sisters.”

Cobb snapped his mouth shut.

“We’ve got to stop them then,” Darryn said. “We can rush them from above and kill them before they have a chance to shoot us down.”

“They’ll just shoot you out of the sky,” Khari interrupted. “You’ll lose both the aevians and their riders.”

“Would you rather just sit here and die?”

Khari’s eyes narrowed. “What I’m saying is that we need a better plan. What range do those archers have, Orinai?”

Samsin looked down at her, lips pursed, expression affronted. “You can’t attack an Honor Squad.”

“What range, Samsin?” Gavin asked in a level voice.

"Fifty paces for accuracy. But they don’t have to get as close as that. They just fire in a massive cloud of arrows from far away.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Gavin said, ignoring the look of incredulity that still clouded Samsin’s chiseled features. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before the sun gets over the edge of the Forbiddence. Listen closely.”

Fifteen minutes later a score of aevians rose into the air, riders on their backs. The Bleeders, upon seeing this, started advancing.

“So much for stealth,” Cobb said with a chuckle.

He stood next to Gavin, sword in hand. A line of warriors stretched out to his left. More were on Gavin’s right. There weren’t many of them, only about ninety or a hundred. The rest of the Rahuli people, the women and children, retreated. Samsin stood in the line next to Gavin, though he kept muttering about impossibilities and dishonor.

“How do you miss a great massive bird flying around in the sky?” Samsin snapped. “Of course there’s not going to be any stealth.”

“It worked for the Roterralar for a thousand years,” Khari said from the other side of Samsin.

Gavin chuckled and Samsin muttered something under his breath. It felt good to laugh. Gavin had had so few opportunities for it lately. The large Storm Ward still disagreed with their plan, but had agreed to help them anyway. As he’d put it, it was better than simply giving up.

As the aevians climbed higher, the Bleeders broke into a run, narrowing the gap as quickly as they could. A small part broke off and stopped, loosing arrows up at the aevians. They fell miserably short, but it would only be a matter of moments before the bulk of the army was within firing range of Gavin and those with him. Gavin heard muttered whispers dance through the line of people and looked up at the aevians.

“A hundred paces,” Cobb yelled.

The aevians climbed high into the air. The riders, led by Farah and another of the mystics, carefully turned and climbed up out of the range of the archers below. Several of them readied the bundled blankets each carried with them.

“Eighty paces!”

Gavin felt Samsin drawing energy into himself through the sands, a tingling sensation running through Gavin’s body and up his arms. Gavin drew his greatsword and reached inside himself as well, pulling on the energy already flowing around him. His arms erupted into white sparks and crackling bands of energy at the same time that Samsin’s did.

“Sixty paces!”

The aevian riders hurled their bundles over the side of their aevian’s backs. Rocks, daggers, bits of metal, and misshapen, heavy lumps of crockery and anything heavy they could find plummeted through the air toward the heads of the Bleeders beneath just as the red-clothed soldiers halted in formation and readied their bows.

“Now!” Gavin shouted.

The rocks and assorted falling objects hit the bleeder Honor Squad at the same time that Gavin and the rest of the Rahuli Warriors surged forward in a rush, shouting at the top of their lungs. Dozens of the Orinai men were struck, falling with brushed skulls or with something sharp sticking from some soft bit of their anatomy. Not all of them went down, however. At least two score arrows left strings and screamed toward the oncoming Rahuli.

Gavin felt a thrill of fear as time seemed to slow. Screams filled the air, both from the crushed Orinai army and the Rahuli, though theirs were screams full of fear rather than pain. The arrows fell. Rahuli fell. Gavin screamed and pulled ahead of the others, matching Samsin’s longer strides pace for pace. They closed the distance between them and the remaining Bleeders before a second wave of arrows could be launched. Gavin spared only half a thought for those who had fallen behind him. More would die if he didn’t stop them now.

Samsin crashed into the line with a sound like thunder. Gavin, one step behind him, noticed that the Bleeders weren’t as tall as Samsin, nor as muscular, though they were larger than the average Rahuli. Then a bolt of ragged energy burst from Samsin’s fingers and tore into a cluster of Bleeders on the verge of shooting another wave of arrows. The smell of char mingled with the salty tang of sweat, fear, and pain.

Gavin crashed into one of the bleeders who was still standing, his greatsword leading the way. They collided with resounding force and toppled to the ground. Gavin flared his powers, driving the energy down his blade and into the man that had landed beneath him. Anger and confusion melted to terror in the Orinai’s eyes as Gavin stared down into them. Green eyes. Human eyes. Eyes that clouded over in death even as Gavin watched. Then he tore his sword free of the Bleeder’s chest. He was up moments later, joining with the wave of Rahuli warriors who fell upon the red-clad remnants of the Honor Squad.

Samsin roared and fired another bolt of energy through the crowd. Gavin felt the hairs on his arm stand on end and his own inner powers and energy pulsed with the crackling beam branching off from Samsin’s upraised fingers.

Something
slammed
into Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin spun around as pain blossomed along his right arm and down his back. One of the Bleeders who Gavin had thought dead, stood just a few paces behind him, bow still upraised, string slowly reverberating back and forth. Had he just been shot?

The Bleeder reached for another arrow. Gavin drew upon his powers, drawing energy into himself like a cloth wicking liquid from a pail. He poured it into the greatsword in his hand until it crackled and pulsed like a living thing. Then he threw it, ignoring the fire of pain that lanced through his back as the arrow sprouting from his shoulder dug just a little deeper into his flesh, working toward bone.

The Bleeder froze with his hand halfway to his quiver, eyes widening slightly. Then the sword took him in the chest. For a moment, the sword crackled with surging light, the buried hilt deep in the Bleeder’s chest. Then the smell of char grew stronger and the man toppled into the sand.

Gavin stumbled forward and pulled his sword from the man’s chest, groaning now at the pain. He considered yanking the arrow free, but thought better of it. Gripping the sword in his left hand, Gavin turned to survey the battle.

What was left of the Honor Squad fought hand to hand with the Rahuli, who now outnumbered them at least three to one. Here and there, Gavin noticed a Rahuli body among the fallen with a rush of anger, guilt, and sorrow, but the majority of the bodies that littered the ground were Orinai. The soft hum of pain buzzed through the air accompanied the greater staccato clangs of battle.