Elves: Beyond the Mists of Katura (49 page)

‘Defend the casters!’ called Auum on his way past. ‘Ystormun attacks.’

Sentaya nodded to him. Auum indicated his son and put a hand to his heart in sympathy. Sentaya seemed to understand and Auum felt a weight of guilt. He had brought this on Sentaya.

Breaking into open space, the Senserii spread out and moved up to take on Ystormun’s warrior guard which was already turning towards them. Ulysan and Auum went directly for the Wytch Lord,
neither knowing what he could do beyond buying a moment’s delay for Takaar, should he still be alive.

Ystormun poured his hate into another casting and obliterated a barn, the house adjoining it and all the souls within it. It was enough. Auum couldn’t help himself.

‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Over here, you bastard. Come and get me!’

He and Ulysan dropped into the shetharyn, streaking past the Senserii moving to engage the Wesmen. Auum paced easily around an enemy warrior, who knew he was coming but couldn’t follow
him, and kept his eyes on Ystormun. The Wytch Lord was turning his head in their direction and bringing up a hand.

Auum changed direction, but the hand and eyes tracked him despite his speed. Ystormun opened his palm then closed his fist. A sheath of black flame encased it for a blink before shooting out at
incredible speed, fast even within the shetharyn. Auum couldn’t dodge it. He felt an impact about his midriff and flew sideways, Ulysan’s arms about him, the big TaiGethen’s body
pressed against his and sent the pair of them tumbling over and over in the dust and bowling into the legs of warriors.

Auum came to rest on top of his friend and pushed himself to his feet. His swords were gone and he was amid enemies. He lashed a kick into the face of one, drew a jaqrui and slashed it into the
body of another. He squared up for another blow and the Senserii flowed past him.

Auum reached down a hand to Ulysan to help him up. The big TaiGethen’s chest heaved in breaths fast and let them out in a rush, his body juddering each time. Auum looked down and saw the
black wound all along his right flank and the blood pooling beneath him. Auum wanted to roll him on to his side but he was terrified what he would see.

‘Ulysan? Please, speak to me.’ There was no response and Auum roared, ‘Stein! Stein, please be alive, I need you here!
Stein!
’

Ulysan lay there, his eyes closed and his breathing so pained. Auum straightened, his mind submerged by fury. He turned and ran, the shetharyn taking him just as it had when Elyss had fallen.
Ystormun was close, distracted for a moment by the Senserii wiping out his guards. He killed one and sent another flying back, screaming and encased in a sheath of black.

Auum ran for him. Belatedly the Wytch Lord turned. Auum leaped and powered in a spear kick which caught the bastard square in the mouth and sent him staggering. Auum landed, dimly aware of the
Senserii’s ikari weaving their patterns as they kept Ystormun’s guards away.

Ystormun snapped his head round, glared at the elf and raised a hand, but Auum was on him again. He lashed a roundhouse kick into his temple, continued the movement and thudded a heel into
Ystormun’s groin. Auum planted his feet, slapped Ystormun’s hand aside and smashed his fists into Ystormun’s face again and again, feeling his skin rasp against the inhuman
creature’s hide.

Ystormun retreated under the onslaught as Auum powered forward, now thumping a kick into his midriff or up into his chin but wanting nothing more than to feel his fists pounding away at that
face, his nose, his teeth, his eyes. And with every blow he prayed that Ulysan would live, that the black fire had missed his vital organs, and with every blow he was so scared by the memory of his
ragged breathing that he dared not hope.

Auum drew back his fist again as Ystormun reeled back, his face looking bruised through the greyness of his skin but unbroken. Auum punched his jaw. A skeletal hand, skin mottled and stretched
tight over the bones, shot out and clamped on Auum’s neck, lifting him from the ground. He clawed at the hand, tried to angle his head to bite it and chopped at his wrist with a jaqrui blade
he grabbed from his dwindling supply, but he could not cut Ystormun’s skin. The Wytch Lord held him at arm’s length, his legs flailing uselessly.

‘Enough,’ rasped Ystormun. ‘Seven hundred years and now I have a prize.’

‘You will die today, you bastard,’ spat Auum.

Ystormun squeezed a little harder and Auum choked.

‘You cannot kill me,’ he said. ‘But I am not impervious to pain.’

‘Then all my blows were worth my death,’ said Auum.

Ystormun pulled Auum close and the TaiGethen hung limp, his breath hard to draw and his strength beginning to fail. Still the sounds of battle carried to him and the day was not yet lost.

‘It is over, Auum of the TaiGethen; for you, for man and soon enough for all of your kind. What strength remains when I have wiped you out here?’

‘Come to Calaius and find out,’ said Auum.

‘I have every intention of doing just that,’ said Ystormun.

The Wytch Lord studied Auum’s face while he squeezed. Auum tried not to panic, but every breath sounded like fear and he could no longer force the words out. He stared into
Ystormun’s eyes, wishing upon him the most enduring agony that Shorth could inflict while commending his own soul to Yniss for the struggles yet to come beyond the halls of the ancients.

‘Put him down.’

Auum wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the words, so full was his head with the thumping of his heart and the roaring of his blood. His chest heaved but so little came in and he felt his
consciousness slipping away.

‘Ah, my second prize. Another who thought to hurt me only to find he could not.’

‘Wrong.’

Auum felt a sudden rush of energy. Ystormun gave a shriek and Auum was airborne, flying backwards, gulping in air through the raw agony of his throat. The Senserii flowed around him. He felt a
brief touch on his shoulder and looked up at Gilderon while the rest of them threw a screen of whirling death around Takaar as he circled Ystormun.

‘We will protect him. See to your brother.’

Auum frowned and looked to where Gilderon had indicated before joining his people. The
thwack
of wood on blade and the singing of the ikari were rejoined. Auum heard both Takaar and
Ystormun cry out, and a huge pressure of magical energy settled across Auum’s shoulders.

Ulysan lay on the ground where Auum had left him. Auum scrabbled over to him and took his hand. He was still breathing but it was in short whistling gasps now. The blood seemed to have stopped,
but the wound, dear Yniss, the wound was horrible. Auum could see a great gash that led from beneath Ulysan’s ribs all the way down his right leg in which burned flesh and bone were
visible.

Auum felt the tears rush and fall down his cheeks. He didn’t care that the fight for Balaia, for Calaius, the whole dimension was going on right behind him. This was his fight right here,
to save his greatest friend, his conscience, his rock . . . his life beyond the haunting pain of the loss of Elyss.

‘Stein!’ he roared. ‘Where are you?’

Auum heard footsteps run towards him and stop. He looked up, but it was not Stein; it was Marack, Nokhe and Hohan.

‘The right is holding,’ said Marack. ‘I . . . Oh, Auum, no. We’ll . . . we’ll stand over you. See to him. Tai, with me.’

‘I need Stein,’ said Auum, weeping and hoarse. ‘Please bring me Stein.’

Auum looked down on Ulysan and the pain that crossed his face every time he breathed.

‘It’s all right, old friend,’ he said. ‘Help is coming.’

‘Liar,’ said Ulysan, his eyes flickering open.

Auum gasped. Elyss had said the same thing, and she had died.

‘He’ll be here,’ said Auum. ‘Just don’t die, Ulysan, please don’t die.’

Auum gulped, and the tears fell on Ulysan’s face. The big TaiGethen focused on him anew and frowned, clutching his hand tight.

‘It was you who saved me, wasn’t it? Back in Hausolis? It was you.’

Auum nodded. ‘And you’ve been saving me ever since.’

‘Are we even?’ asked Ulysan.

‘Yes, old friend, we’re more than even.’

Ulysan smiled. ‘That’s good. Can’t go dying if I still need to save your sorry hide.’

‘You’re not dying,’ said Auum.

Ulysan’s hand slipped from his and his eyes closed. His body, so tortured by pain, relaxed. He was at peace.

Auum bent forward and kissed his eyes, his forehead and his mouth.

‘Shorth’s embrace will be eternal for you, my brother.’

Here on the battlefield, surrounded by his friends and beset by his enemies, Auum sat down next to Ulysan’s mercifully undamaged face and stroked the top of his head while the tears rolled
unchecked down his face. There was nothing left. Marack was fighting right in front of him. The Senserii were fighting behind him. The elves he’d brought here were struggling to save the
lives of countless thousands, and he had nothing left.

Auum wept.

Ystormun gave an ululating cry and every head turned towards him.

Bring blades. Bring the fire. Break him.

Wesman warriors, weak of mind but strong of body, turned and ran from their petty squabbles. But the fire was gone. No shaman touched his mind. Ystormun pushed back against the wall Takaar had
erected about him and experienced what he had to assume was fear.

The words of his cadre echoed in his memory. How he longed for their chiding now, their thundering voices in his head, because they would be able to lend him the strength to unpick the casting
that threatened to bind him. But inside the spell they were lost to him.

Ystormun opened his eyes. His arms were outstretched and the fire roared from them only to be swallowed by the shimmering sphere that dipped below the earth as if Takaar knew he could attack
through the rock itself. But Takaar was not a Wytch Lord and had neither their strength nor their stamina. Again he battered his fire at the construct and Takaar winced, standing holding his palms
open and his wrists side by side.

Ystormun looked at the burn on the arm that had held Auum. Another moment and he would have seen the warrior’s light go out. The pain had been a shock. It had blistered his skin and he had
thought only his brothers could channel such energy. He flared again, and this time Takaar moved back across the ground.

There. A pin hole. A place to work myself free.

‘You are weak, Takaar. You cannot destroy me and you cannot hold me. You will fail and then I will tear out your heart with my bare hands.’

Takaar opened his eyes, stared at Ystormun, and Ystormun flinched. There was no sanity within, just a strength born of madness and of a desire he could only guess at. The hatred matched his.
Ystormun’s heart, for he still thought of it as such, trilled with anxiety.

‘I don’t have to hold much longer. I know you will kill me, but here I stand. Look and see what is coming for you. Pound with all your might and know it won’t be enough. We
have you.’

Ystormun looked and this time his shriek was of desperation and panic.

Gilderon whirled his staff in front of his face too fast for any foe to track, too strong a defence for their swords and axes to pierce. He stilled the motion and snapped out
left and right, striking his blades into his foes, seeing great cuts open up in their faces, across their chests or across their necks.

Helodian was next to him, Teralion on his other side, and their brothers made a lethal web of wood and steel, protecting their master, whose struggle they could feel inside their minds. The
Wesmen were relentless and Gilderon could see many more coming, chased by TaiGethen and the painted warriors who fought with them.

To his left Auum was protected by a cell of TaiGethen hard pressed by a group of a dozen or more enemies, but Gilderon could offer them no help. At a call from the rear of the Wesmen, they
surged forward, fifty against ten.

‘Brace!’ yelled Gilderon.

They attacked, yelling cries of death. Gilderon held his ikari on the diagonal as four came at him. He snapped his staff out straight-armed, catching one in the face and another across the
knees. Weapons came through the defence. Gilderon swayed inside a sword thrust that nicked his left arm and ducked his head as an axe flew past, its haft clattering against his ikari.

He pulled back the staff and jabbed out, taking one in the chest, who fell back, clutching the weapon to him. Gilderon went with it, leaping as he fell and kicking high into the nose of one who
thought to strike him while he was exposed.

Gilderon came down on the chest of the fallen warrior, pulled his blade clear and swiped down hard to the right, slicing deep into the arm of his target. He jumped back, an axe whispering past
his midriff. The Wesmen fell back as one.

‘Hold,’ said Gilderon.

Behind him Takaar grunted with exertion and said something to Ystormun that made the Wytch Lord squeal. Gilderon glanced left and right. Two Senserii were down, eight were left. He could see the
Xeteskian force sweep towards the village, bare moments away from beginning their casting.

TaiGethen were attacking the rear of the Wesman lines, deflecting significant numbers, but at the front the enemy had changed tactics. Through came thirty or more archers while warriors spread
wide left and right, waiting to exploit any move to run or to attack the bowmen. They knew nothing of the Senserii.

‘Ready defence!’ called Gilderon. ‘Close the net, defend the master.’

The Senserii closed up, moving forward or back half a pace. The archers stretched their bows.

‘Execute!’ ordered Gilderon.

Eight ikari whirled, their speed making the air hum around them. The arrows flew. Some missed but most were straight enough. Gilderon felt one slap away from his staff, but near him Cordolan
grunted and fell forward with a shaft jutting from his chest.