Dragons massed above us, dropping flaming oil barrels directly over the gate. So, they have a new supply of those. Amadeus nudged me out of the way of one just in time. The oil barrel smashed straight into him, rolling off his left haunch and onto his furred tail.
Tyba threw water over it, but the skyearl’s shrieks of pain brought tears to my eyes. Amadeus was a friend, not only of Ciera’s, but of mine. When the drama had past, a bloody burn was visible down the skyearl’s striped haunch and tail.
‘My thanks,’ I said, stroking his neck and wincing at the pain he tried to ignore.
‘I wish Ciera was here to help us,’ Tiaro echoed my own thoughts.
More oil barrels fell around us, throwing balls of flame up around the map table and provisions.
‘Can you stop them, Talon?’ Crystom asked me.
I licked my lips, shielding my face from the blistering heat. ‘I can try.’
Crystom put his hand on my shoulder, saying, ‘I will watch over you.’
Amazed that the king of Tanza would say such a thing, I humbly obeyed his command. Lifting my eyes to the sky I cast aside all concern for my own body and threw the net of my wave senses out over the descending dragons.
With one hand on the Jarian Anzaii belt I caught hold of a group of four dragons and sent confusion into their minds. The suddenly-empty vessels were completely at my mercy. Unable to direct them separately, I sent the suggestion to them to attack the other oil barrel dragons. There were dozens of them nearby carrying barrels of oil towards us and towards the southern end of Condii.
The vicious snarling of the dragons above us brought a whole new frenzy to the battle. The dragons tore at each other, snarling and shrieking like dogs with wings. The sound was terrifying.
Other Zeikas aback their own conjurations swerved to seek out the author of the attack.
Crystom and his entire personal guard were standing over me, with their shields raised. I was vaguely aware that Tyba and Amadeus were caught up some distance away with Zeikas who had landed on the gatehouse.
Zeikas had blockaded the entries to the inner towers near the gatehouse and were burning down the doors with green flames. All around us was the mayhem of battle. I hardly knew what to do.
‘Confuse another,’ Tiaro suggested.
‘There are so many…’
Staring up, as even more dragons with oil barrels flew into Condii, I did not see the approaching fireball. It struck me full in the chest, bowling Crystom and me over. Unable to catch on my fire-resistant clothing, the flames woofed out, but my breath was gone. I struggled there on the ground, unable to breathe until somebody rolled me over and stretched me out.
The heat of the fire had singed the hairs and skin of my neck. My chest ached as if I’d been crushed.
Just as my breath started to come back, I located a new presence with my wave senses. Although I’d come to expect the unexpected over the past year, the vision that presented itself was enough to make the breath rush out of me again.
A whirlwind about twice the size of Ciera raced across the space between the fallen outer towers and the gatehouse. The inner towers continued trying to defend one other. As the whirlwind approached, several of King Crystom’s guards helped the king to his feet and tried to draw him back. They were flung back by the wind and disappeared over the back of the ramparts.
The rest of us stayed where we were, unsure how to face this new threat. My breath came in short gasps and pain seared through my upper body. I wanted to stand, but Crystom gestured for me to stay put.
Out of the winds appeared an immense chestnut horse of the deepest red. Its entire body was enflamed, with small red fires licking off its flesh. The tail and mane were cords of molten lava interspersed with flames. Gold bands encircled some of the cords, chinking as the winged creature hovered.
Its eyes were opaque yellow balls with tiny red slits and its teeth were long enough to rival Rekala’s. Black smoke snorted from its nose and a tinkling of fine silver dust blew out. As the dust settled on the parapet, it etched small holes into the stone.
Mounted on the back of the summoned equine was a man whose face I did not know, but he needed no introduction. Here was the ruler of all Reltland, Bal Harar. With pale, youthful skin and large liquid-green eyes, the Bal looked calm and serene upon his outof-this-world mount. His eyes roved over the stunned Tanzans, coming to rest on the king.
An arrow sailed at the Bal, fired by one of the king’s personal guard. The demon-horse reared up, taking the arrow into its own fiery hide, where the flames absorbed it. In the same smooth motion, the horse lashed out its head and blasted the guard with flames and hot black soot. His screams pierced the night as the acid particles dissolved his body to ashes. Nobody else fired a shot. Bal Harar continued to stare at us as if studying our every feature.
The Bal was attired in white chainmail, a red cloak and a reflective, silvery chest-plate. A belt of silver girded his waist and a metallic-red ram’s head was nestled over each buckle of his armour.
His head was unprotected and he had close-cropped black hair as fine as a child’s. Corded muscles stood out on the bare parts of his arms and neck, that were coated with intricate rune tattoos.
An elaborate green neck-piece framed his upper torso and a large green stone of some kind was the setting for his Xeldfet. The five pointed star indicated he was a fully initiated Zeika, as enslaved to Zei as the demon-horse was enslaved to him.
As with Boiva, this demon was as elusive on the waves as a wet piece of soap. If its fiery body could absorb a flying arrow I didn’t dare to imagine what would happen if I tried to touch it. Yet how could it be banished if I couldn’t touch it?
While Bal Harar continued to stare at Crystom, the demonhorse’s snake-like eyes seemed locked on me. A wicked, pointed tongue flicked out over its fangs.
Although I was unable to discern a way to attack the demon on the waves, I did become aware of its name: Ignice Jabez, the fiery one who causes pain.
It raised its head, sniffing the air. Small flurries of wind brought the smell of rain even closer. I hoped the demon had as strong an aversion to water as Zeikas did in general.
‘Now I really wish Ciera was here,’ I murmured to Tiaro.
‘Well you have us,’ King Crystom suddenly shouted to his enemy.
Surrender?
Bal Harar cocked his head. Ignice Jabez continued to flap its wings, slowly. The sound was distracting, like someone fanning the flames of a fireplace.
‘I only wonder why you, the king of Tanza, are here,’ Bal Harar began, ‘and not within the safety of your waterfall city.’
I could tell Crystom’s heart sank, but his expression did not change. Of course it would seem strange for him to be here. Even as we spoke, the many hundreds of hunter-skyearls in the mists around Centan were struggling to keep the Zeika legions occupied. If the Bal was here, he clearly knew something important was going on in Condii. If he uncovered our ruse now, it was unlikely all our citizens would escape on the Elonavé path.
‘What can I do?’ I asked Tiaro desperately. ‘I don’t know what to do!’
‘Unlike your cowardly kind, I stand with my warriors in battle,’ Crystom declared.
Bal Harar seemed unperturbed by the jibe. Raising one eyebrow he said, ‘You are a fool. For decades I have known you would be the king I finally defeated in Tanza.’
‘Why bandy words about then?’ Crystom demanded. ‘You can take Tanza, you can take our very lives, yet Krii is still triumphant. I will live in victory after death for the victory of eternity has already been won.’
‘Ah yes, eternity. Ones with lives as short and pitiful as yours would have to hope in a life after death.’
The smell of smoke and the roar of the flames coming off Ignice Jabez made it hard for me to hear.
‘What do you want?’ King Crystom asked, lifting his arms in surrender.
‘Your lands for my own irrepressible people! You and your self-righteous fairytales silenced,’ Bal Harar shouted. ‘You and your weakminded, evangelical, bigotry gone from this world.’
Crystom laughed. ‘No matter how many years you live, Harar, you will never live to see that. Even if I should die. There will always be another to take up the call of Krii.’
Bal Harar leapt from the back of his horse, landing on the edge of the parapet in a crouching position. The warriors that rushed forward to defend the king were knocked flying by Ignice Jabez’ burning tail, its acid breath and its wickedly sharp hooves. Yet it remained hovering above the ground.
The Bal threw a fireball over Crystom’s shoulder at his Sleffionkin. Before the king could even raise his sword, Bal Harar punched him in the chest.
King Crystom’s body convulsed and tensed up as straight as a pillar. The Bal’s fist remained against his chest, shaking with some strange force. Crystom’s feet left the ground.
‘Then die,’ the Zeika leader said, a smile of ecstasy spreading across his face.
With a jerking motion, Bal Harar drew his fist away. The king’s body tore in countless places at once, dark blood gushing out. The arms separated from the body at the shoulder. Veins ruptured in the neck and the legs tore right out of their sockets.
There were screams of shock all around me and more emotions than I could bear. Amadeus and Tyba’s cries of agony reached me through the waves, even though they didn’t specifically intend it.
‘Pleasure meeting you.’ With a courteous smile, Bal Harar flung what remained of the corpse down. I sensed the death of Crystom’s Sleffion-kin through the waves, like a punch to the chest.
Dozens of skyearls attacked Bal Harar and the demon-horse, but he was fast with his two swords. Coupled with the utter devotion of his demon-horse, the Zeika leader seemed untouchable.
The prince ran towards me shouting, ‘Do something!’
His shock and grief came secondary to the stark realisation that if I didn’t do something, we would all die.
I grabbed Tyba by the arm saying, ‘I need Jaalta and her piece of the Centan tree.’
‘You know she is injured,’ Tyba replied hotly. ‘You have the waves. Use them. Command whoever you need. You have my authority.’
‘All Anzaii to me!’ I shouted through the waves, hoping it was a broadwave like what Jaalta had described. ‘And bring the Centan artefact with you.’
Several preoccupied voices floated back to me saying they would try to reach me.
‘Now!’ I replied. ‘Bal Harar is before us. If we do not stop him, nobody will.’
Huddling down behind the blackened supply table, I sent my awareness towards Ciera. I quested stubbornly for his mind, finding him in a distant dream, soaring over fields of purest white.
‘Wake up, Emperor,’ I commanded him. ‘Your people need you! I need you.’
There was a hint of recognition. The great skyearl stirred. As he opened first one eye and then the other, he was startled to see the Elonavé pathway already unfolded. He stood up hesitantly, watching as the other shrouder-skyearls coaxed more of the spongy white surface to unfold and flex out towards the north.
A blast of burning air enveloped me and I snapped my attention back to my immediate surroundings. Ignice Jabez had sprayed fire at a group of Tanzans who were firing cross-bows at Bal Harar. Tyba was off to one side, calling in more troops and trying to coordinate their efforts.
Skyearls continued to bombard Bal Harar and the fire-horse. They would soar in and dart back, looking for any opportunity to bite or slash their enemy. They mostly avoided the demon-horse, except to distract it. Any time a skyearl attempted to grapple with it, the singeing flames and acidic breath soon killed them.
Spear skyearls flew in from the north, pitching their weapons at Bal Harar. Not one made its mark on him. Though some hit the horse, it did not appear to be injured in any way.
‘Krii!’ I cried.
‘By the nine!’ said a soldier nearby.
Having slain all the humans and kin close by, Bal Harar sheathed his swords and gestured at his summoned demon. The great fiery wings folded at its side as it landed on top of the gatehouse next to him. It lowered its head and looked around, powerful neck muscles straining against the bounds of its summoned skin. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
More troops ran across the top of the gatehouse, shouting incoherently. Bal Harar threw up his hands, directing fireballs bigger than his head in multiple directions. Unsheathing his swords again, he sliced the arm off one opponent and vaulted backwards to avoid the strike of another. His moves were dizzying.
‘Ciera!’ I called. ‘We need you!’
At last my Sleffion-kin started to come to his senses. He shook his wings, which had been bent in an unusual position for six or seven hours. Still groggy, and parched from thirst, he ambled over to the barrels of water that had been left for him. Lightning ripped across the sky as he ate them, wood, nails and all. Four banana trees went next, each one gone in three quick gulps down the enormous gullet.
Ciera flexed his wings and dived off the sky kingdom. The span of his wings easily reached from one side of the central plaza to the other. Without a second thought towards the precious banana trees he’d left behind, he soared straight for the gatehouse.
Three Anzaii from the strike force and one from the Condii Defenders ran up a rope ladder behind me and came to my side. I recognised one of them as the girl, Riftweaver, who had hailed Ciera and I near the strike force shroud. It was she who bore the Centan artefact.
‘Stand behind me,’ I told them. ‘Put your hands on each other and on me.’
‘But we must be touching the demon’s physical form in order to dispel it,’ one of the strike force Anzaii said.
‘I will touch it,’ I replied. I set aside the fear of what might happen to my hand. There was too much at stake now to be concerned with my own life or wellbeing. If I didn’t act soon, neither I nor any Tanzans would be around to worry about it.
Tiaro was transfixed with Ignice Jabez, her full attention upon it. The demon-horse squealed and pawed the ground, staring straight at us. Bal Harar was occupied with a relentless tide of Tanzan attackers.