The Hidden Relic (The Evermen Saga, Book Two) (50 page)

It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

61

R
OGAN
Jarvish and seventy thousand men from Altura, Halaran, Loua Louna and Torakon had marched for two days and two nights. They were exhausted but they were determined, and they were ready to fight.

"Are you sure?" Marshal Beorn asked.

"I'm sure," Rogan said. "There's a time to lay plans, and there's a time to roll the dice and join the battle. The gate is open, but the Hazarans are nearly done for. Proper battle order will have to take second priority. Marshal Scola has the left flank, Beorn you have the right. I'll take the centre. Call the men to arms immediately."

Heralds ran along the lines and messengers dashed to and fro. Rogan had hardly finished speaking when he heard the clarions, and then the thumping of the colossi drowned all other noise as they took positions up front.

Down below the enemy were starting to realise their grave danger. Some astute commanders were pulling the warriors back and reforming ranks, but Rogan intended for them to be too late.

Rogan drew his zenblade as he faced down the hillside at the city of Seranthia. "Let it end here, today," he whispered.

To the left the Alturan heavy infantry were formed up with Torak spearmen and Halrana pikemen, and the thousand Dunfolk archers stood side-by-side with their taller allies. There wasn't time to separate the men into their divisions, and in a way Rogan found the idea of them all fighting together somehow fitting.

To the right were Halrana animators and the ironmen they controlled, mixed-up with Alturan archers armed with rail-bows and the youngest, newest of the recruits, most of them farmers who had never held a sword.

In the centre Rogan would command the men he had trained in Ralanast, along with the multitude of Halrana who had pledged to fight by his side since the liberation of Halaran. With them were the three Halrana colossi, and the animator Luca Angelo would control the largest of them all in front.

By Rogan's side were the last four bladesingers. These were men he had trained and led, in a brotherhood that had once consisted of more than seventy, yet whose numbers could now, at the war's end, be counted on one hand.

The call to arms had barely finished when Rogan ordered the signal to advance. Even mixed up as they were, the men ran forward together, tight and controlled. The soldiers in green and brown, blue and tan poured down the hillside, the ground trembling under the strides of the colossi. As the enemy drew back to reform, the Hazarans rode away to regroup, then joined the great mass of marching men, scimitars waving above their heads as they cheered wildly.

"The revenants are pulling back, leaving just the templars and the Tingarans," one of the bladesingers shouted above the din.

"Some of the legionnaires are trying to close the gate," another yelled.

"We need speed!" Rogan cried. "Attack!"

The cry was taken up by the men around him, passed to those further away, until seventy thousand soldiers were shouting with one voice.

"Attack!"

Ahead of Rogan the three colossi were the first to hit the gates. All three pushed against the closing gate on the left, while the ironmen under Beorn's control hit the right-hand gate. Inexorably the gates' halting motion ceased, and then with a mighty crash they were once more pushed wide.

Rogan was the first man through the portals of Seranthia, but once he was through he stopped, remembering Amelia's words, knowing he was a young man no longer. The soldiers passed him on both sides, pouring through the gates like a rushing river, unstoppable and inexorable. This was their moment. Let them go first.

Then he realised that he hadn't been the first man through after all. A warrior in the green of a bladesinger slumped against a wall, just inside the gate. A woman in a red robe leaned against him, and beside them both was a dark-skinned warrior in loose black clothing with a yellow sash.

Rogan walked over and grinned at Bartolo. "Looks like you beat me inside the city."

Bartolo opened an eye, the other so encrusted with blood it stayed shut. "Looks like we did, Blademaster."

The Hazaran warrior coughed, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth. "I would say we all came in together. Thank you, Marshal. You saved the lives of many of my people."

"You got the gates open," Rogan said. "I would think that makes us equal."

"I thought you were dead, you know," Bartolo said.

"I keep hearing that," said Rogan. "Have you heard from Miro?"

"No," Bartolo said. "He's not with you? Wait, I'm coming with you."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Rogan said. "Take care of your friends, and we'll speak later. I'm sure Miro's fine."

Rogan knew the battle was far from won.

He headed for the Imperial Palace.

62

M
ORAGON
cursed the Akari as he stormed into the Imperial Palace. Cowards! He had ordered them to stand their ground, but when the time came, they had run like the skulking curs they were.

Guards and servants got out of his way, most of Moragon's fellow Tingarans fleeing in panic, as with his mind fixed on one thing and one thing only, Moragon searched the palace for his son.

He climbed the wide marble stairs and then ran up a second stairwell. The living chambers inside the palace were all clustered on the fourth and fifth levels, and, still clouded by battle-lust, he momentarily couldn't remember which chamber he'd left the Alturan woman in. Finally it came to him, and he climbed yet another set of stairs and turned down a corridor, his boots leaving bloody footprints on the spotless white floor. He hit the wall with his metal arm as he walked, so filled with rage that he could hardly think.

He had held victory in his grasp! The Hazarans should have been crushed beneath his boot-heel, and Moragon could have again closed the gates before the newcomers arrived.

Scratch it all! The scouts had said the Alturans were far away. How could such a thing have happened? Even so, if those craven Akari hadn't fled he could still have held. He hoped the four meldings he'd sent after Dain Barden had made a bloody mess of the Akari leader.

Moragon came to the door and kicked it open. The heavy wood fell back on its hinges, bouncing off the wall behind it.

The Alturan woman, Amber, stood by the window, looking out at the commotion below. Even she would realise the city was lost. All Moragon wanted was his son. He drew the long sword from the scabbard at his side. He planned to disappear into the wild lands of northern Tingara, or perhaps head for one of the free cities. The woman wouldn't be coming with him.

Amber turned and fixed a sad smile on Moragon. In her arms she held a bundle, and Moragon had a sudden premonition she was going to do something rash.

"I'm not letting you take my son," she said.

"He's my son, woman, and you'll give him to me or I'll run you through."

Amber inched closer to the open window.

"What are you doing?" Moragon demanded. He could see through the window how far below the streets of Seranthia were.

"I said I'm not going to let you have my son," Amber repeated. She held the bundle out through the window and turned back to Moragon, her eyes threatening. "Do you understand me?"

Moragon continued moving towards Amber, the light from the window glinting from the steel of his sword. "I don't believe you. You wouldn't do it."

"Don't come a single step closer," Amber said. Her eyes were wild, and there was a hysterical note to her voice.

"Give him to me," Moragon said. He laid down the sword on the floor and held out his hands in supplication.

He wanted his son more than anything; with the end of the Primate's vision for the world the child was now the only thing he had left. The Tingaran loremasters who had given Moragon his arm of metal, making him into a melding, rather than a cripple, had told Moragon he would never father a child as a result of the magic. The child was a miracle. They had been proven wrong.

As Moragon took one step closer, Amber leaned out the window as far as she could, and let the bundle go.

"No!" Moragon shoved her to the side and leaned out the window. He could see that the bundle had slid a short way down the sloping wall and then stopped when it hit a gutter. Below the gutter there was nothing more to stop it from tumbling down to the ground far below, where the babe would certainly be killed.

Moragon leaned out as far as he could, but his son was too far out of his reach. He pushed himself through the window, heedless of the danger, with only one foot now on the floor and his body precariously positioned half-out the window.

He heard a voice behind him. Where Amber's voice had been meek, it was now strong and confident.

"Let's see you regenerate your way out of this," Amber said.

Moragon felt a heaving on his body, and as precarious as his balance was he began to slip. He had one last attempt at smashing Amber with his metal arm but she ducked out of the way, and Moragon's blow instead took a bite out of the stone of the window frame.

He scrabbled and slid on the sloping wall, his eyes still on the bundle that perched against the lip of the gutter. Moragon reached the bundle and grabbed at it even as he tried to arrest his motion, his hands closing on nothing but cloth.

"You witch!" he screamed up at Amber.

He slipped down and over the gutter, catching onto the lip of stone with his fingertips. He looked up at Amber, where she looked at him from the window with cold eyes.

Moragon saw she held the baby in her arms.

"The child isn't yours," Amber said. "It never was. I was already with child before we met."

They were the last words Moragon heard, as he fell through the air, screaming as he went, until he hit the hard stone of an innocuous garden wall.

His back broke instantly, and his skull caved in. His arm of flesh and both legs were broken, the splinters of bone protruding from the skin.

The pain was excruciating, indescribable, beyond belief.

Moragon was conscious throughout; he knew exactly what had happened to him. The elixir coursing through his veins tried to rebuild his body even as his internal organs ruptured and he bled internally, even as bits of matter from his head were splattered on the street, and his blood welled in a pool around him.

Then his body gave up.

~

"
T
HANK
you, my sweet," Amber cooed to the babe. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rocked him in her arms, even the slightest thought of harm coming to him too much to bear. "Thank you for staying quiet. You knew, didn't you?"

There were shouts and the sounds of running boots outside Amber's chamber. Amber frowned and with the baby in the crook of her arm she bent down and picked up Moragon's sword. Nothing would stop her now.

A man appeared in the doorway. When Amber saw his scarred-face, dark hair lined with grey, and the zenblade in his hands, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"I've found her," Rogan Jarvish called over his shoulder. "Lord of the Sky, Amber, am I pleased to see you."

He walked past her and leaned out the window, looking down. "My men found him. Moragon?"

Amber nodded. "Is he dead?"

"He's dead." Rogan then turned his eyes on the baby.

"He's my son," Amber said.

"He's beautiful." Rogan smiled at her.

"Where's Miro?" Amber asked.

"He was coming in by way of the harbour."

"Please, Rogan, can you take me to him?"

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure."

63

D
AIN
Barden was angry, and when he was angry, men jumped when he told them to jump. With satisfaction he saw that the skiff he had commandeered was gaining on the Primate's slower vessel.

He wasn't sure if it was the bloodstained war hammer he held in his hands or the two draugar by his side, but the six men who rowed the boat pulled on their oars as if their lives depended on it, which, he supposed, they did.

Barden was in a foul mood. Not only had the Primate proven himself to be a man without honour, but the melding, Moragon, had betrayed his trust.

Sending only four meldings after the Dain had been foolish though. He was the ruler of the Akari. His race was the strongest of all the peoples of the world, and Barden was the strongest of his race.

When he'd killed Moragon's men — the first two with crushing blows to their skulls, the third smashed in the guts, the last with a hammer strike to the back that broke the melding nearly in two — he'd taken the time to get a message to his captains. The draugar were to withdraw immediately, leaving the Tingarans to their own devices, and all of the Akari were to return to the north.

Now Dain Barden was angry, and wanted revenge.

"Hurry," he muttered to the rowers. "Hurry!"

The rower in front of him whimpered. There was a slight increase in speed.

Both the Sentinel and the Primate's cruiser were growing larger as Barden's skiff grew closer. In the distance, Barden could see ships of the imperial fleet, but they were far away on the Sentinel's other side, looking for enemies coming in from the ocean. Barden saw with satisfaction that the Primate had no soldiers with him; he was accompanied by the ship's crew, but no one else.

Barden knew, though, that he would need to be careful. The Dain remembered the time the Primate had taken a revenant's sword thrusts in the chest without a hint of pain or being weakened in any way. Additionally, the Primate had the knowledge that Barden himself lacked.

Barden thought about the Primate's words; words that had been verified by the Dain's own necromancers when they had examined the Primate's damaged book of the Evermen.

The most powerful magic the world had ever seen was somewhere inside the ancient statue. A pool of essence was there for the taking.

No matter what, Dain Barden wasn't going to let the Primate have it all to himself.