War of Wizards (23 page)

Daria had gained a momentary advantage over her pursuers and risked leading the dragon and the wasps in a big circle so she could fly over Whelan’s rear troops a second time. As she did, she lifted her father’s war horn to her lips, filled her lungs, and let loose a blast. The horn echoed across the distant hills. This drew movement from below, followed by cries when they spotted all the dark shapes in the sky, including the one larger and more monstrous than the rest. Men staggered out of tents. Others shouted orders.

Her warning might not gain them much advantage, but even delaying the enemy advance an extra ten minutes might turn the tide of the battle. She lifted her horn for another blast. As she did, she saw with dismay that the dragon had banked around to return to the battlefield. To attack and destroy Whelan’s army. And Daria couldn’t chase it down to harass it a second time, because the swarm of dragon wasps was still pursuing her and would overwhelm her if she tried.

This second horn blast had barely died on her lips when an answer sounded far to the west. She recognized the horn, she recognized the call. Her heart leaped. It was her Uncle Jhon, and he’d delivered a call to battle.

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Griffins came screaming past Daria on the right and left, above and below her. Her mother flashed by, her long braid flapping behind her like a griffin’s lion-like tail. Uncle Jhon whipped by, leaning forward on his mount, his sword outstretched. Daria saw Poul, the young man her mother had suggested as a replacement mate for Darik. She picked out several other faces. Fierce, angry faces.

The griffins barreled through the pursuing wasps and scattered them like leaves in an early winter gale. By the time Daria had turned around to join the fight, it was nearly over. Dead and dying dragon wasps and their riders plummeted to the ground, with a handful of survivors fleeing east. Daria looked across her army with disbelief. There were dozens of griffins and riders; it must be the whole army.

Daria pulled up alongside her mother as they flew east. Palina’s face was grim and determined. Daria gave her a questioning look. Her mother spoke in hand signals.

Forward to fight. Finish the battle.
 

Daria came in closer and shouted. “But why? You were going to rest for the night so you’d be fresh.”

“You didn’t return. I knew something had gone wrong. Anyway, we’re fresh enough. We’ll fight with what strength we’ve got.”

“I found the dragon.” Daria shook her head. “It’s too powerful to defeat.”

“We’ve destroyed its wasps and dragon kin. It will be defenseless.”

Daria remembered the arrows clanking off its iron-like hide. She remembered earlier in the year, when she’d scrambled onto its back and thrust her sword into the fleshy part where one wing met its body. She’d nearly been killed, and even then, she’d only wounded the thing. Now it was bigger and stronger.

“We have to try,” Palina continued. “Or else, why have we come out from the mountains? You gathered us, you ordered us into war. Now, we must finish it. One way or another, it ends here.”

Daria stared at her mother. A dragon had killed Daria’s father at Arvada. Would she lose her mother, too? Her uncle, her cousins, all of her people? This must be what Father had felt that day when he led them into battle. Their odds had been grim then, too. There had been two dragons then, neither so big as this one, but guarded by dozens of wasps and dragon kin. It had been a horrific battle, and Father must have known many of their people would die.

I should have let Mother go. Should have sent them all into the northern mountains to safety. We cannot defeat this thing.
 

Below them, the wights had reached the men guarding the supply wagons, who had thrown up hasty lines to stop them. The defensive positions were already crumbling, but more men streamed in by the moment, and two robed figures on the edge of one column of cavalry galloped swiftly toward the battle, their hands glowing with magical light. Wizards, come to aid in the defense. That encouraged Daria.

As soon as she was past the battle, her thoughts turned once more to the dragon. A few more minutes, and then they would be facing it. This time, there would be no fleeing. One way or another, her mother was right: it must be finished here and now.

Uncle Jhon came up on the opposite side from Daria’s mother. His face, glowing softly in the moonlight, wore a look of flinty determination to match his sister’s. He studied Daria.

“What is it?” he demanded. “What is the matter?”

“Nothing,” Palina shouted over Daria. “She has fought the dragon. She is exhausted.” Then, to her daughter. “Tell us what to do.”

Daria gathered herself. If she failed, it could not be for lack of courage and determination. She thrust forward her jaw and forced confidence into her voice that she did not feel.

“We’ll form three ranks. I will lead half of the riders, you will divide the other half between you. When we spot the dragon, I’ll come in first, in the center. Fifty griffins, a direct assault. If there are wasps, Jhon will deal with them. Otherwise, he will guard my left flank, while Palina guards my right. The dragon will fight until wounded and then attempt to escape. Whichever direction it flees, you will cut it off and hold it until I renew the attack. We won’t stop until it’s dead.”

“Can we manage that?” Jhon asked. “Wounding it is one thing, but actually killing it?”

“Press it low to the ground, if you can. Come from above, attack its wings. Anything to force it down. We’ll get it among Whelan’s men. They can overwhelm it with numbers.”

It was the best Daria could manage. Her mother and uncle peeled away, shouting instructions. She watched them go, and the responsibility of being the flockheart pressed its crushing weight onto her shoulders.

Is this the end? The last flight of the griffin riders?
 

Who had she left behind in the mountains but children, the elderly, the lame and infirm? A few fledgling griffins, a few grizzled birds who were too old to fly into battle. If the army didn’t return, they would be finished. The griffin people would be no more.

Then you must not fail. You must fight this battle, and you must win it.
 

Daria urged Talon forward. She gave hand signals to gather her forces. Within minutes, the flock had split into three separate formations. Moments after that, the battlefield spread below them.

The fighting raged along the city walls of Veyre. A powerful army threw itself against the shattered wall, trying to press in, while other forces attacked the gates in an attempt to open a second breach into the city. The din and clash was terrible, the screams and shouts rising into the air. Smoke hung thick and choking over the battlefield, and the glow of a thousand fires reflected off the clouds above. There were cloud kingdoms up there, floating silently, observing. But though Daria searched desperately for some indication they would send their winged knights to intervene, she saw no movement and knew they would not.

A black shape was wheeling above Whelan’s armies. It was the dragon, monstrous and terrible, its black scales gleaming. It opened its mouth, and flames roared out to scorch the forces still charging toward the city walls, and men and horses alike fell screaming and dying. It landed on a ruined, burning tower next to the breach and sent flaming bits of debris cascading around it. It gathered its fire to blast the army.

Daria lifted her horn to her lips, gathered her breath, and emptied her lungs. A clarion call rolled over the battlefield. Into that long, single note, Daria poured her defiance. Her challenge. The dragon lifted its head and bellowed its response as it lifted into the air to face her.

Chapter Twenty-two

The wights attacked Balsalom again. The main force came flowing from the Tothian Way to hurl itself against the Great Gates, but Chantmer watched this with narrowed, suspicious eyes and ordered strong reserves held at the Gate of the Dead, including his mages on the walls above and Daniel’s forces ready to march out of the gate below. Then, he commanded Darik to follow him to the Great Gates.

Chantmer’s tone worried Darik. The wizard seemed nervous, irritable, and distracted as they strode around the city walls. Chantmer snarled at watchmen, archers, and even lieutenants and captains, treating them as annoyances, like rats in the palace cellar, rather than brave defenders of the city.

When they arrived at the Great Gates, a hail of fiery arrows was slamming into the forward ranks of wights. A few arrows seemed to penetrate and scatter the ghostly figures, but they were mostly ignored. The column of wights was as thick as a river, a single, glowing mass, so bright at the center that all Darik could see was light.

“They’re more concentrated than earlier,” he said.

Chantmer stared into the distance, turning north and then south. “What infernal wind drives them? How does Toth do it? And from so far and with such strength, too. Where does it come from? I haven’t seen magic so powerful since the cloud kingdoms were raised into the sky.”

“Do something,” Darik urged, dismayed by the defeat in Chantmer’s voice.

“What can we do against such an enemy?” Anger flashed on the wizard’s face. “I need Memnet’s orb. It should have been mine. Markal stole it, that backstabbing . . . it was mine!”

Darik stared. What did that matter now? Why wasn’t Chantmer doing anything?

The front of the column had reached the gates. Two of the former torturers stood chanting on the gate tower opposite Darik and Chantmer. They gathered a ball of red light between them.

“The fools,” Chantmer said. “That will do nothing.”

Darik better understood the magic of these conjurers and its limitations, but he dared hope as the ball of red light left their hands and sailed in a slow arc toward the enemy. It struck the front of the column. The enemy slowed its march, but only for a moment, and then the river of blue light was flowing around the fireball and piling against the gates.

A shudder worked through the great wood and iron doors, repaired again and again after enemy attacks. The vibration flowed through the stone and shook the tower on which they stood. Men cried out along the walls and redoubled their attack. More men, exhausted after days of combat, formed ranks behind the shaking city gate. Chantmer stood gaping down.

Darik angrily grabbed the wizard’s wrist and spun him around. “Why are you standing there? Why don’t you do something?”

“Do something yourself.” A bitter laugh. “If you think you can throw them back, prove it.”

“I will, damn you.”

Darik pulled back his robe from his shoulder and exposed the fireball tattoo that marked the same spell he’d cast to such effect earlier. He gathered his will, focused his anger at Chantmer, his desire to burn these wights and send them screaming back to the Desolation.

He thought about Balsalom, this great city built on the ruins of the capital of Aristonia, the only part that hadn’t fallen into blight and desolation. Refugees had built this city, survivors. They had saved precious tomes from the great library, had reopened trade with the sultanates and over the mountains to the Free Kingdoms of the west.

Its queen was Kallia Saffa, the most just, wise, and kind ruler in all of Mithyl, perhaps in the history of the world. She was struggling at the palace and would die if he couldn’t stop these wights.

“Ignis globus percutiens inimico iram et perditionem.”
 

A fireball formed in his hands. He pushed it over the edge. It seemed to grow smaller as it fell toward the ground, but it gained in light and heat as it did. It smashed into the enemy at the gate. Wights flew high into the air, burning, their suddenly distinct faces writhing in agony. Others evaporated with a hiss like drops of water on a hot stone. Defenders on the gates had been waiting for just such a spell, and several of them dumped pots of hot oil over the edge. The oil ignited when it hit, and soon there was a roaring fire in front of the gates, destroying any wights that touched it.  

Chantmer regarded Darik with a raised eyebrow. “Impressive. Of course, it is entirely insufficient. Already, they fight through your spell. Look.”

Indeed, the dry breeze off the desert gained strength, pushing the wights forward and driving a gritty sand over the walls. The column coalesced again and was soon glowing brighter than ever as it surged against the gates.

“By the Brothers, won’t you help me?” Darik pleaded.

The wizard was already pulling back his sleeves and chanting. The air blowing off the desert grew hot until every breath scalded Darik’s lungs. The wind gathered its strength, howled, seemed to force itself into his mouth and nostrils. He stared, horrified, thinking that Chantmer had turned against them again, that he was lending his magic to the dark wizard.

But then the hot wind started blowing
downward
, onto Darik’s fire still burning at the gate and along the front of the wall. The flames leaped up and engulfed the front of the glowing blue column. The whisper of burning wights rose until it was a scream that drowned the wind.

But still the wights kept coming. They were an unquenchable river, and they surged through the fire until they were once again at the Great Gates and flowing laterally along the walls. Like a churning flood, digging into weak spots, tearing.

Chantmer fell back from the edge, panting. “It’s too much. We can’t turn them aside.” Trumpets sounded from the west, and the wizard turned toward the sound. “The second attack. We are doomed.”

Chantmer was either unable or unwilling to give orders to other defenders around them, so Darik took command. He cast a sleep spell to slow the attack, then called over several of the former torturers from the opposite tower. They came running fearfully across the shuddering gatehouse, as if afraid it would collapse below them.

Darik ordered the conjurers to strengthen the weapons of the men massing behind the doors, then cried for the gates to let them out. Chains creaked, and they pulled open. Balsalomians and Marrabatti rushed out with a great cry. The two armies clashed, the living and the dead mingling.