North Star Guide Me Home (18 page)

Only three?
Rasten said.
I suppose they must be running short. How much power do you have?

As he asked the question, Rasten pushed further into Isidro’s head — and it was only then that the unease Isidro had been expecting finally broke through. But by then it was too late; Rasten had taken control, flexing the fingers of Isidro’s left hand, turning his head this way and that to orient himself. When he reached for the store of power wrapped around Isidro’s spine, he went still.
Where did that come from?

Took it from the men down there, I think.

Hmm. Sirri always said you have a way of absorbing power. Like a hearthstone soaking up heat, she said.

Something like that.

Well, it’s enough to begin. Let’s move.

Rasten pushed his borrowed body upwards, making no attempt at concealment.

The men spotted him in moments, even through the rain and the darkness and the dim gleam of the lanterns, and within moments a dozen bows and spears were trained upon him.

Rasten kept a steady pace, even when one of the officers barked an order to shoot, and in an instant every bow facing him was raised and pulled to full draw.

He spun a shield, covering him like a veil woven from smoke, and when the arrows struck it they flashed to ash in an instant, the iron arrowheads melting to globs of molten iron that hissed and spat on the wet grass.

A mutter of unease ran through the men, and from one of them a cry went up. ‘Mage,’ he called in Akharian. ‘Mage here!’

The officer rapped out another order, and the men bunched in Isidro’s path fell back, wheeling their horses. Rasten let them go — conserving power, Isidro guessed.

As the soldiers fell back, the mages gathered together to strike and loosed a crushing wave of force. Acting on instinct, Isidro spun a shield of his own, and as the combined blow struck he ducked under it, using the shield to deflect it just as he’d deflect a blow from a sword. This was not the way mage-crafted shields were supposed to work, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d made the unfamiliar forces of power and mage-craft match his warrior’s training. Still, the strike fell with bruising impact, making him slip and stumble on the wet grass, his shield giving off a flash of light and spitting sparks. Isidro dropped, rolled and kept moving, forcing the mages to turn to keep him in view. Mages were supposed to fight like this, circling like knife-fighters, but Isidro saw his chance and darted forward. The nearest mage was shielded, and though the man flinched he didn’t truly retreat, trusting to his shield to keep his enemy at bay — but it was flawed, like Rasten’s. It seemed to be a sheer, unscalable wall, but it was an illusion, no more solid than a waterfall.

With a spear of power, Isidro slipped through it like a needle through cloth. Rasten snatched control again, reaching for the knife at Isidro’s belt — but with the absent right hand. For an instant, Isidro felt his bewilderment — the discrepancy between mind and flesh so disorienting that it threatened to break his grip.

The mage staggered back, and before he could recover, Isidro lunged and kicked him in the belly, following it up with a punch to the jaw.

Then Rasten seized him again with a grip so tight Isidro knew he stood no hope of breaking it. He snatched at the knife with Isidro’s left hand and reached for the man with the stump of his right before breaking off with a wordless growl.
That’s cursed annoying.
He snatched for the mage with a lash of power, yanking him down into the mud and dropping to kneel on the back of his neck.

Tell me about it.

Don’t shift your weight, keep him pinned —

I know
, Isidro growled. He’d been learning how to fight hand-to-hand since before Kell had taken Rasten from his kin, but he bit back on the thought.

Rasten cast another shield, turning the shouts around them faint and dim.
How did you get through his shield?

It looks solid, but it’s full of gaps, like the spaces between rocks in a stone wall. Once you know what to look for, it’s obvious.

Kell’s the only one I’ve known who could do that
, Rasten said.
Alright, give me your hand.
As Isidro shifted his weight Rasten seized the limb and traced a sigil into the mage’s back, burning through his clothes with the sudden reek of scorched wool, followed closely by the sickening scent of charred skin.

Beneath Isidro’s knee, the man screamed, bucking with desperate strength.

Power came in a sudden heady stream, filling Isidro’s head with a golden song. It was entrancing — washing over him and sweeping him away …

Rasten was not caught by its siren call. Somehow he kept his attention on the prisoner pressed into the mud. He reached into the fresh rush of power, and with a bludgeon of shimmering, singing force he shattered the soldier’s femur. He did it again on the other side, and then broke his arms one by one, crushing each elbow to splinters. Then, with one final blow he cracked the man’s pelvis, and then rose smoothly to his feet, turning his back on the crippled mage even as he keened a low moan of pain, breathless and broken in the mud.

The rush of power hit Isidro with the first blow — it washed over him like a wave of acid, like fire in his veins, searing his nerves and wrapping around his bones with an acrid touch, washing over him as hot and fetid as a tiger’s breath.

Rasten forced him to walk away. The mage’s scream reminded him of wounded horses on a battlefield, the beasts driven to madness in fear and pain. He kept trying to turn back, but Rasten would not lift his eyes from the other mages, each of them now hidden beneath shields so thick they were utterly opaque.
Ignore it
, Rasten told him.
Focus on the task at hand. The one on the right next, he’s more powerful.

But Isidro felt frozen, as though the power flowing in from the dying man was a poison, a paralytic. It felt like worms beneath his skin, like some foul parasite eating him from within.

The other mages saw his hesitation and took their chance. Rasten’s next target backed away while the other circled around behind Isidro. The first sent a sheet of fire sweeping towards him, crackling like flames in dry grass and as hot as a blacksmith’s forge. Isidro cast a hasty shield to ward it off when he felt power flare above him, and glanced up to see a great bolt of flame poised overhead, ready to fall.

He tried to throw himself aside, but the first mage seized him, locking him in place with bands of power. The construct above was curved like a tusk, as tall as a man and sculpted out of solid flame. It burned so hot that Isidro could feel the water in his jacket boiling into steam.

All that power, so close, hanging above him like fruit from a vine, ready to be plucked … the bonds around him, too. All that power was as pure as flame, an antidote to the foulness that choked him — it was the sort he remembered from the old days, before Sierra had wounded and abandoned him.

Isidro snatched it, drawing it in in a heady rush, like the first gulp of cold water after a battle. The flame-spike fell, but slowly, almost lazily. Isidro reached up to catch the tip, and at his touch it melted away, flowing into his hand and down his arm like a liquid stream of fire.

But as that stream of molten power flowed into the store along his spine, it changed, taking on the taint of his poisoned well. Nearby, someone roared with frustration and fury, and he realised the sound came from him.

At the feel of it, slimy and stinking like spoiled meat, all he could think of was Kell’s leering face, his dry cackle as Isidro had writhed and convulsed at the first touch of tainted power, and the last dying breath of the man he’d slain with a mercy thrust. The image made him hesitate.
No. I can’t do this. It can’t be this way. I’m not a Blood-Mage.

Inside his head, Rasten gave a wordless growl of frustration and pushed Isidro aside. He flung one hand out to the mage ahead, sending a rope of blood-red flame shooting through the darkness. At the flare of it, the mage broke and ran, and the shaft of power speared into his back, lodging there like a harpoon, jerking him off his feet as the man screamed in pain. Then, while he was held fast, Rasten turned his attention to the other, and struck him in the small of the back with a whiplash of power. It knocked the mage off his feet, and with the first still anchored by that cord of flame, Rasten strode to the other. He reached the Akharian as the lad tried to crawl away, legs trailing uselessly in the mud.

Rasten felt along Isidro’s belt for a knife, but he’d had only the one and it was dropped when they killed the first mage.
Don’t you have any others?
Rasten said with exasperation.

Why would I need more? I’ve only got one cursed hand.

Never mind.

Rasten formed another crude bludgeon, and slammed it against the crippled man’s skull. The sodden ground was so soft that he only drove his face into the mud, but Rasten pounded again and again until the back of his head was a mass of blood and splintered bone. Then, he turned on his heel and marched back to the other mage, still tethered with a line of force.

The man was on his feet, but only just, and as Isidro drew near he tried to face him, a knife in his hand. But Rasten yanked on the harpoon cord, jerking him off his feet. Isidro felt the mage’s life-force pumping through it, draining his strength with every pulse of his heart. By the time Rasten reached him the mage had lost the strength to fight, and simply lay limp in the mud, his skin ashen grey. Rasten was utterly impassive as he hooked a foot under his shoulder to roll him onto his back.

Beneath the mud his eyes were rolled back into his skull, and his lips were blue and bloodless. Rasten hauled on the cord once more, and the body sighed one last breath, his strength draining away through the cord.

Alright
, Rasten said.
There’s a start. Where next?

Delphine swallowed hard.
Good Goddess, have mercy. If anything’s happened to him, I’ll never forgive myself.
Her eyes kept searching the crowd, even though she knew it was useless. The whole camp had been roused, and with men and women rushing everywhere in the darkness and the drizzling rain, she had no hope of finding him.

She could only hope he had come to his senses before he wandered out beyond the camp boundaries. If the Akharians found him, the fact that he was a one-armed man with addled wits meant nothing — they’d fill him full of arrows the moment they saw him.

The thought almost sent her retching out of sheer nerves.
Oh Gods, how am I going to tell Cam and Sirri that I lost him?

It was too late to alert the sentries. She’d made it only halfway to the edge of camp when a blood-red gleam on a distant hillside lit up the rain-filled night, followed by a distant rumble that was like, and yet utterly unlike, thunder.

She wasn’t the only one to spot it. Horns rang out through the camp, sounding the call to arms, and now the camp was full of men and women rushing to join their squads, while others tried to calm frightened children even as they grimly gathered up any weapons they could find. If the soldiers fell, their motley collection of axes, spears and clubs would be the only weapons raised against the Akharians who came to reclaim their property. Delphine wondered how many of them were at this moment feeling for the knives on their belts, weighing up a plan to open their own veins rather than be put in chains again, and found her hand reaching for her own belt-knife. She was an enemy of the state, now. If she was captured, they wouldn’t wait for her babe to be born before they strangled her in a public execution.

Amidst the far hills came another flash of light, a deep, bloody red, the colour of the setting sun.

It was in a different place, some way south of the first pulse. What did that mean?

Eyes on the distant hills, thoughts pulled in a dozen different directions at once, Delphine slipped on the muddy path. She would have fallen had not a soldier caught her by the arm. ‘Hey! You alright there, miss? You’re heading the wrong way, non-combatants are to gather at the heart of the camp.’

Stammering her thanks, Delphine turned, only to have the guardswoman reel back as she recognised her. ‘My — my lady, may I escort you somewhere? I could never face the king if some harm came to you or the babe, and it looks like there’s fighting on the way.’

The king.
She’d seen Cam shy away from the title, but the folk who followed him didn’t seem to notice or care. It didn’t matter to them that there was no crown, no throne, no trappings of royalty. They believed he would take them home, and that was enough. ‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ Delphine said. ‘I … I need to find Commander Rouldin, or the mages …’

In minutes, the woman brought Delphine to the command post near the western edge of the camp and then, with a crisp salute, melted away to find her squad.

From out in the hills red light still flickered. The burst of power must be massive — at this distance, it seemed as though a whole valley had been consumed in flame. Why were the Battle-Mages burning through their power before they’d even made contact with the enemy? It wasn’t just that one valley, either — there was more power flaring in the night.

Delphine was still watching as Rouldin strode over to meet her. ‘Ah, Madame Delphine, I just sent a runner to find you. Will you assist the defence?’

‘I may not be a Battle-Mage, but I’ll do what I can to protect this camp,’ Delphine said.

‘Very good, my lady. We have men and horses waiting at the rear of the command post.’ He pointed through the rain to a dozen horses tethered with their rumps into the wind. ‘If the camp falls, they’re charged to take you to the king and Lady Sierra. If they say it’s time to go, do not argue.’

‘Commander Rouldin —’

‘These are standing orders. If the king’s brother can be found, he’s to be evacuated the same way. These are your orders, madame.’

‘Very well,’ Delphine said, pressing a fist into her aching back.
Good Goddess, I hope it doesn’t come to that.
‘I take it there has been no sign?’