War of Wizards (17 page)

“I understand.” Narud’s attention was fixed, his eyes unblinking as an owl studying a mouse to devour.

“Shield yourself,” Markal said. “We’ll weather their own attack first. It will leave them weaker.”

The conjurers had been chanting, and Markal felt their spell before it came. It had heat; the enemy meant to boil their blood in their veins. Markal drew another thread from the orb, which had found its way to his hand as if of its own accord. A quick spell came to his lips. He called the cold air from the open mine shaft to his right. As the air came rushing out, he formed it into a swirling vortex and sent it spinning toward the conjurers. The conjurers finished their incantation.

A wave of heat rolled toward him. Markal’s cold air mass slammed into it, blunted its force, but the wave was so powerful that the shed over the mine shaft burst into flames as it hit. Markal braced himself to be cooked alive. But Narud had cast his own spell, drawing the moisture from the air. A sudden cloudburst drenched them at the same moment the heat washed over them. Markal gasped at the fire that seemed to fill his lungs, at the pain of boiling water steaming off his skin. But it passed quickly.

The conjurers stared back in dismay that their powerful spell had been blunted and then broken. The wave of heat had dropped men and horses from both sides, who lay burned and screaming on the ground, and others now fled the area, leaving the battlefield to the wizards.

Markal and Narud took each other by the hand. Markal began the chant, and Narud’s voice joined his as they spoke the words in the old tongue.

“
Habitantes in deserto te et siccabo venam eius. Utinam impleatur terram pulmonaris. Sitis felices et tu arescet et mori.
” 

The desert dry you. May dust fill your lungs. May you wither and die.

Narud drew in his breath in a sharp gasp of pain. This time, Markal called on the strength from his hand, as well, and it burned and withered. The magic had power and concentrated might as it rolled away from them.

Dust swirled around the feet of the enemy conjurers. One of them tried to voice a counterspell, but dust flowed into his mouth like smoke drawn into bellows, and poured down his throat. Another turned to flee, but his ankles broke like a pair of dry sticks. Two others grabbed their faces, which shriveled like the hides of dead cattle abandoned in the desert sun. The last two simply collapsed in a heap of robes. Within seconds, they were all dead.

A horn sounded on the city walls. The Veyrian army turned and fled back toward the gates. A mounted company of Balsalomians gave chase in an attempt to cut them off, but the enemy cavalry led by the ravagers moved swiftly to protect the retreat.

Markal stared at the shed over the mine, which was still burning fiercely. It could be rebuilt. The enemy hadn’t collapsed the tunnel, which was the key thing. Then he looked back to the dead conjurers lying dry and desiccated where they’d fallen.

“You were right, they were weak,” Narud said. “We were fortunate.”

“They weren’t true wizards, only torturers trained in minor magic. Any strength they had came from the dark wizard.”

“Why didn’t Toth face us himself?”

Markal looked up at the Dark Citadel, looming above the city. Yes, why? That would merit some thought. He searched the sky for the dragon. Nothing. And no further attack from the city.

The battlefield was littered with the dead and dying. More of their side had fallen than the enemy, but the siege was unbroken.

Chapter Fifteen

The second day of tattoos was even more grueling for Darik. They began earlier, and the sessions lasted longer. Chantmer ordered a relentless procession of victims (volunteers, Darik had to remind himself) to step forward to be hit, stretched, twisted, squeezed, and struck. To have their nightmares, their deepest fears, dragged screaming into the light of day. The rush of pleasure that came every time the needles touched Darik’s skin piled upon him until he felt suffocated by guilt.

Kallia appeared in the afternoon. She stood in the corner, chewing her lip anxiously, but her appearance seemed to bolster the courage of the palace servants. Their cries diminished, they sat for the torturers with fewer whimpers, fewer people balking at the last minute.

“Good,” Chantmer said with satisfaction. The wizard sat in a chair next to Darik, with Roghan working the needles and ink on his bare shoulders. “Their faith in their queen, their love for her, helps draw out more power.”

“Makes our work more monstrous, you mean,” Darik said.

“And your doubts and complaints weaken them. So unless you want this to be more difficult for everyone involved, I would suggest that you keep your thoughts to yourself.”

Darik closed his mouth and looked away, duly chastened. When he glanced up a few minutes later, the khalifa was gone.

The enemy attacked again that night. This time, while they were hurling themselves against the Spice Gate, a second force hit the North Gate on the opposite side of the city. Darik joined three other mages in racing around the city wall to find that the enemy had already broken down the gate. Wights were pouring into the city. Aided by magic, Ethan’s forces threw them back, but not before several dozen wights had infiltrated one of the residential quarters. It took all night to hunt them down, and by then they’d slaughtered hundreds, set fire to the quarter, and nearly reached the gates of the palace.

At dawn, Darik staggered back to his rooms in the palace and collapsed in exhaustion. Chantmer rudely shook him awake a few hours later and snapped at him to stop wasting time and go to the courtyard. Darik dozed through the morning’s work.

The first contingent of Marrabatti arrived at the city that afternoon. There were no more than a thousand tired men on exhausted mounts, but a great cheer rose from the Spice Gate as they entered. The cheering followed them through the city and all the way to the palace. Another two thousand men arrived in the middle of that night’s battle. These newcomers fought their way from the Spice Road to the gates. At first, the wights faltered with their arrival, but they redoubled their attack, and morning saw the Great Gates in ruins, the chains broken, the great iron bands torn off. The stretch of wall between the Great Gates and the Gate of the Dead had been attacked so many times that it looked like a lump of sugar dipped in hot tea, riddled with holes.

Darik dragged himself to the palace courtyard a few hours later, ready to complete another grueling day. His body was aching for the rush of pleasure until he almost shook with it. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday at noon, but all he could think about was the touch of the needle on his skin. It was horrifying, like a man who would starve himself to death because he couldn’t stop drinking poppy milk.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said as Chantmer ordered him to strip and present himself to the needles.

“You can and you will.”

“What good am I doing? Isn’t there someone else? I could fight alongside Rouhani. Use my sword instead of rely on this devilry for my magic.”

“Do you want me to tell you how wonderful you are?” Chantmer scoffed. “To caress your ego like you’re a vain concubine of the sultan’s harem? To assure you that without your magic the city would fall? Is that what you need?”

“We’re torturing these poor people. Every day we bring them in here, they scream and beg for mercy, and for what? Last night, wights got into the city anyway to murder and destroy.”

“And how many would have entered the city if we hadn’t stood tall and cast them back?”

“There has to be some other way. This is changing me, Chantmer. Look at my hands, they’re shaking.”

“You’re only tired. I shouldn’t push you to the point of collapse—that would do me no good at all. Get your work done, and you can sleep a bit in the afternoon.”

“I’m craving the pain of my victims, is what it is. You know that, so don’t lie to me and tell me it’s exhaustion. The Harvester take me, I can’t do it anymore.”

The wizard had apparently grown tired of the conversation, for he stalked off without answering Darik’s complaint. And it
was
a complaint. Darik knew better. He had to keep doing this until they either destroyed the wights or Markal and Narud arrived to relieve him. The mages and torturers were settling into their chairs all around him, heating needles, preparing pots of ink, setting out the tools by which they would extract pain from the people of Balsalom. So far, only a handful of people had arrived to submit to the torturers. They were starting late this morning.

Chantmer came back a few moments later. “They’re balking.” He sounded disbelieving. “Fifty people offered themselves last night, and only a dozen of them have arrived. A disgusting display of cowardice.”

“Can you blame them? Word is spreading. The longer we do this, the more people know what they’re in for.”

“How else can they contribute to the defense of this city? Old women, children, freed slaves—they have nothing to offer but their bodies.”

“Those same people are starving,” Darik said. “The khalifa sent so much food east to Whelan’s army that there’s little left for her people. The farms are burned, the city gates blocked, and now the Marrabatti army is arriving with soldiers famished from a long march across the desert. Those who offer themselves to your torturers have already suffered plenty. Is it any wonder they balk?”

“Then bring out the prisoners. Let us work them over. Or send Rouhani’s men into the city to gather the unwilling and bring them here.”

“Where is the khalifa?” Darik asked.

“The viziers can’t raise her. She’s in her room suffering some sort of attack.” Chantmer snorted. “Maybe the baby is coming, the blasted dark wizard coming out of her womb. Then we’ll see what happens.”

Darik eyed Chantmer, surprised at how bitter and discouraged he sounded.

“Let me find Ethan,” Darik said. “He can make a request to his troops. There will be men from the Free Kingdoms brave enough to suffer for a day. More Marrabatti are arriving to take their place—surely we can spare a few battle-weary soldiers.”

Roghan approached and whispered in Chantmer’s ear. The scowl spread on the tall wizard’s face as he heard what his mage had to say.

“Perhaps it is time,” Chantmer said when Roghan had left.

“For what?”

“For this city to be ruled by wizards.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We did it in Marrabat. Why do you think Daniel is on the throne and not Sultan Mufashe? We’ll find someone else to take the scepter of Balsalom. A warrior king, who can enforce hard measures until we’ve won this war.” Chantmer cocked his head and fixed Darik with a sharp look. “Perhaps you, if you were not so craven. From slave to khalif in a single year, what do you think?”

“It’s madness.” Darik’s face flushed. “And anyone who tried such a thing would be my enemy.”

“Of course, you are right. It would have to be someone stronger, yet more easily bent to my will.” Chantmer looked up, and his face brightened as palace guards brought in a row of frightened, trembling people. “Ah, here they come at last. Finally, we can get something useful done.”

#

It was early evening, during the first enemy surge, when Darik realized something was wrong. Because the wights were only able to attack at night, builders and masons spent every moment of daylight furiously repairing the damage of the previous night’s battles. Against any expectations, they’d managed to shore up the Great Gates. But they were still the weakest part of the defense, and it was here that the wights concentrated their initial assault.

Chantmer ordered his mages to use the well-tested defenses of the previous few nights: fire and heat, earth and stone, and atmospheric disturbances, backed by flaming arrows from the walls and magically enhanced swords and spears from troops on the ground. These tactics had thrown back the enemy again and again, but tonight, the spells seemed diminished somehow. They crippled the enemy where they had once destroyed, and slowed where they had once crippled.

Chantmer cursed when he sent a wave of boiling heat and scalding sand only to see the wights struggle through it to tear at the weakened stone surrounding the gates.

“What is the matter?” Darik asked. “Are they stronger?”

“No, we are weaker. Quickly, your sleep spell. You must slow them, even for a moment.”

Darik obeyed. The Balsalomian archers had been wrapping their arrows with pitch-soaked rags and now sent a massive barrage of flaming missiles as the wights faltered under Darik’s spell. The attack withered as the arrows made a wall of flame at the base of the city walls, and the wights fell back to regroup.

“You see, it is only our magic that suffers,” Chantmer said. “They are still vulnerable to fire.”

The fighting raged hotter over the next hour, with wights smashing through the wall in two places. The second breach, several hundred yards southeast of the Great Gates, would have allowed in the whole army if the forward wights hadn’t stopped to kill and burn the quarter into which they’d entered. That bottled the rest of them at the wall until Ethan and Rouhani threw enough men at the breach to plug it. The wights gathered for a fresh assault on the gap.

Darik and the wizards were nearly exhausted, and hundreds of men-at-arms had fallen in the night’s fighting. There was a sense that this would be the final assault, that should the wights break through, the battle would be lost. Thousands of the dark wizard’s undead would flood into the city where they would murder and burn. By dawn, Balsalom would be in ruins.

A trumpet sounded to the south, a single, long note. The defenders stopped to listen. Marrabatti within the city lifted their own horns to answer. The bulk of the Marrabatti army had arrived.

By the time the wights attacked again, ten thousand new troops had come racing up the Spice Road to join the battle. For three hours, they brawled outside the city walls, while Chantmer ordered all of his magic wielders to throw their support to the newcomers.

When at last the sun crept over the eastern horizon, the city and its defenders were battered and bloodied, but still standing. The wights melted away onto the dusty plain. Balsalom had won another day’s reprieve.