Steel And Flame (Book 1) (61 page)

A conical roof sheltered the platform from rain.  Only
a foot-tall railing protected the sides open to the wind.  Still soaked from
the battle, Marik shivered when he sat cross-legged on the floor.  Fortunately
the darkness concealed their elevation, or his unease around heights would
refuse to allow him within five feet of the edge, despite the railing.  That
short barrier would never guard against pitching headfirst over the side.

He took in the surrounding lands, wondering how the
other two men in this crow’s nest with him could decipher anything at all.  The
rain clouds blocked all star and moonlight from the world.  These lookouts
would never see an enemy until he stood atop the earthworks and waved a hand in
greeting. 
Well, that’s why Fraser sent me up here.

Marik opened his inner eyes, using his magesight to
examine the terrain surrounding the depot.  Darkness no longer hindered him. 
The uniform glow of diffusing energy illuminated all.  This land, rich in
growth, glowed the bright green of healthy plant life, black rain slashing
through.  Normally the bare earth between the vegetation bore a very faint aura
of its own if he studied it hard, caused by the insect life within the soil,
but the water soaking into it tonight turned anything not actually alive into a
dark void.

Tollaf had yet to explain that to him.  Water being
the basis of life, as most priests he had ever known claimed, Marik would have
thought it should glow with its own cool blue aura to match its reality. 
Instead, rain, rivers and standing pools were so dark they might as well have
been black and depthless.  It turned the field of grass and trees into a
floating celestial garden adrift it a starless sky.

Tonight the plant life shone brighter than usual, the
shades of green unmatched anywhere on the physical plane glowing vibrantly. 
Many men had died this day.  Their life energies rent prematurely from their
husks had settled into the ground.  Though much of the liberated energy
immediately evaporated into the free-floating etheric mists, the majority
saturated the flora.  Eventually it too would dissipate.  For the moment, it
enriched the soil.  By summer’s end this field, if left alone, would burst
forth with thick vegetation.

Far across the glowing green field, the Nolier auras
were plain.  Most were orange or yellow, a few reds sprinkled throughout.  From
this view they looked no different from his friends below.  To his talent’s
hidden eye, race and allegiance made no difference.

But it was not his place to say such, especially
around the Galemaran soldiers.  Instead, he settled in to watching with his
water skin and the bread loaves he’d snatched from the cooks before Fraser had
deployed him up the tower.  On an impulse, he glanced back at the page,
catching movement from the boy quickly averting his gaze when he saw Marik
turn.  He studied the boy’s aura, discerning the faint swirl in the energies he
had learned to associate with hunger.

“Hey, sprat!”

The boy looked up.  He nearly dropped the loaf Marik
tossed to him, then barely managed a grip before it tumbled away.

“Might be a long night.  Best grab a bite while you
can.”

“Thank you, sir.”  He grinned in reply.

“Don’t mention it.”

Marik spent the next candlemark nibbling his bread
while sorting the Nolier auras.  Attempting an accurate count would have been
an exercise in madness.  As men moved around, the colors shifted and blended
together, splitting apart when men with similar colors moved away from each
other or merging while they approached.  What he most wanted was to read their
nature if at all possible.

Plants and the like might share similar auras, but
creatures, especially men, shone in a wide variety.  As Tollaf had taught, he’d
come to recognize a person’s personality usually defined their aura’s color. 
Most soldiers and mercenaries were bright yellows and oranges.  It seemed to
represent their confrontational nature as warriors.  Red cropped up at times
though he noticed the fighters held no special claim to the shade.  One tavern
keeper on the Row in Kingshome glowed a brilliant red, and everyone knew him to
possess the shortest temper in town.  Others who shared the color also shared that
same trait, so he felt confident that the color represented a quickness to
anger.

Oddly enough, when he had looked at Sloan the first
time, he’d been amazed to see a steady green.  Far from the bright green that
plants gave off.  Closer to the deep shades of moss on fallen tree trunks.  He
still groped for a handle on what to make of that.  Everyone else in the Fourth
Unit shared the normal yellows and oranges.

In the Nolier camp, Marik focused on specific auras,
his mind drifting about the camp like a wandering spirit.  His ability to
seemingly leave his body behind by using the magesight proved useful.  It
allowed him to walk among them.

Discerning anything specific that lacked an aura
remained a problem.  He found the head officer with his assistants and hovered
nearby while they discussed matters…except sounds from the physical world
failed to penetrate into the etheric, which made this other plane silent as a
tomb when he drifted outside his body.  Marik concentrated on the maps they
passed between them while they debated.  To his eyes, they were dark squares
without details.  In the light from their auras he could see the squares were
indeed maps, yet he could no more read the markings from the etheric than if he
held them in a thick forest on the darkest night of winter.

Finally abandoning the effort, he retreated to his
vantage from atop the lookout tower to wait.  They still made ready to move. 
He spent a moment searching the nearby lands for lines of power flowing
silently through the not-ground of the etheric.  There were two, and both were
very small, hardly an inch in diameter.  All the heavier life concentrations
were elsewhere; in the Green Reaches and the towns miles off.  The plant life,
abundant as it might be, only gave off so much excess energy.  Most of it
formed the mass diffusion in this area, only slowly collecting in the lines. 
Forget about finding a knot anywhere in this region.

The Noliers remained still so he drifted, looking for
signs that a magic user might be with the group.  Nothing.  Or nothing that he
could distinguish.  He had no idea what signs to look for in the first place.

Marik had been on the tower one mark and half of the
next when the Noliers began their move.  The rain and clouds provided perfect
cover, hiding them from the eyes of their foes, but not from Marik’s.  He
watched their auras creep forward through the darkness, bright as if they moved
at high noon.

“Boy.”

The youngster had slipped into a light doze, bored and
cold.  He jerked at Marik’s voice.

“Run and tell the major the Noliers are moving. 
They’ll be on us in a quarter-mark at their current rate.”

The boy nodded and scrambled to the steps.

“Where?” demanded one of the other lookouts.  He
strained his eyes against the dark in a losing battle.  “I don’t see anything.”

Marik pointed.  “They just left their camp.  You can’t
see it since they haven’t lit any fires, but they’re coming.”  He refocused on
the auras inching south.  “Looks like they haven’t left anybody behind.  No
one’s in the camp now.  Can’t tell if they left any of their gear behind.”

“Are you crazy?  You can’t see anything out there!”

“Maybe you can’t, but it’s as plain as day to me.”

The lookout continued to challenge, glaring at Marik
until a new man rose through the trap in the floor.

“Major Enson!”

The major looked at the man.  “You say the Noliers are
moving?”

“Not me!” he vehemently denied.  “This
chaco
is
hearing bells and seeing stars!”

He started apologizing for dragging the major from his
rest.  The major ignored him to question Marik.  “You’re Earnell’s pet mage,
right?”

“Yes, sir,” Marik replied unhappily, but honestly. 
“Though actually only a mage in training.”  The lookout jumped backward in
horror, nearly doing the header over the short railing Marik had envisioned. 
“I can see through the darkness, as long as there are people to look at, and
maybe defend against a spell or two from an enemy mage.  I’m a much better
fighter with my sword in my hand.”

Enson nodded.  “Where are they then?”

“They’ve covered about a quarter of the distance
between their camp and the trench.  It looks like they’re angling to the west. 
Maybe planning to hit the breach where the ramp usually sits.”

The major considered for a moment before ordering
Marik to keep an eye on them.  He descended the stairs, leaving the lookouts to
their eagle’s roost.

Marik glanced at the man who had tried to discredit
him and noticed him huddled in the furthest corner, back turned, staring into
the night with fervor.  He could think of nothing to say and discovered he
didn’t want to anyway.  The man had not endeared himself to Marik, yet the
knowledge that every new encounter for the rest of his life would likely result
in such cringing put Marik in a depressive mood.

He watched the Noliers, deciding they were indeed
circling around the depot’s western side to reach the breach in the
earthworks.  They must figure it for the weakest point in the defense,
especially in this dark.  Luck had favored them, the cloudy night obscuring
every step and providing steady rain to hide any sound of their passage.  After
covering half the distance, they still remained undetectable to Marik’s
ordinary senses.

Major Enson issued fresh orders.  Marik watched the
northern defenders moving through the dark to take new positions in the west. 
They congregated around the barricade filling the breach.  Officers sorted them
out, assigning new positions along the western stretch.  Several soldiers
stayed on the north earthwork to hold in case the Noliers spilt or doubled
back.  A sizable group ran across the compound to the south to do the same.

Not a torch moved.  All were left along the north
mound or scattered about the grounds where they had been set previously.  Marik
could see the darker shapes of bows in every hand near the breach when Major
Enson reemerged from below.

“Report.”

“They’re closer, sir.  They should reach the breach in
five minutes or so.”

“Good.  Let me know when they come into bow shot, then
let me know when they cover half that distance to the barricade.”

“Right.”

Marik watched them close, then needed to revise his
time estimate when the Noliers spread out.  Their main concentration stayed
parallel to the barricade while half their forces split north and south.  He
reported it to Enson, who nodded once, saying only, “I thought they might.”

The Noliers spent ten minutes moving into position for
their planned attack.  Two groups Marik estimated at three-hundred apiece
poised at the northwest and southwest corners of the depot while the remaining
seven-hundred massed directly west.  Runners sprinted from the main.  When they
reached the corner groups, each moved forward.

“Hoping that we’ll think they split in half for a
simultaneous assault,” Enson thought aloud.  “It might have worked, too.”  He
turned and spoke to the stairs.

A boy Marik only then noticed rose from the steps to
dash down while a second followed after.  Two new youths climbed and took
positions on the top steps.

The swordsmen without bows were mostly grouped
together at the north and south fringes of the Galemaran force.  After the two
boys dashed into the twin masses, the sword fighters moved swiftly to the
corners.

Soon the Noliers were close enough for bow shot. 
Marik informed the major.  Once they were halfway again to the earthworks,
Enson grabbed the rope for the alarm bell and swung it once into the side,
creating a single peal to shatter the constant rainfall.  As one, the archers
clustered in the middle turned left or right, unleashing a swarm of blind
shafts into the two Nolier feints.

Other hands struck flint and steel together.  In
moments a torch forest blazed across the western mound.  Dark man-shapes were
revealed and the archers drew fresh shafts, at last having visible targets.

The Nolier forces paused, the element of surprise in
full force but not in the direction they had expected.  Their hesitation cost
lives as the archers practiced their skills.  Shouts flew from their officers,
unheard by Marik as he observed the battle while drifting the etheric plane. 
After the arrows flew a second time, the Noliers surged forward.

Foot soldiers drew their swords.  This time they
jumped the trench, many falling short, others landing below the first stake
line.

The Nolier army’s dark blue uniforms merged with the
night and made them appear wraithlike.  They had coated their blades in
weaponblack so no stray, betraying light would reflect.  Combined, it made them
into phantoms; heads floating atop nothing as empty hands dealt death from a
distance.  Or perhaps a demonic horde escaped from the lowest hell to wreak
havoc wherever they could.

In the darkness the archers were having a harder time
picking out targets than earlier in the day.  The Noliers who reached the top
owned the advantage over the Galemaran swordsmen.  With their blades blackened,
they blended into the night despite the oil-soaked torches, all of which
sputtered in the falling rain.