A Dance of Chaos: Book 6 of Shadowdance (48 page)

The retreat was only to use his dual image trick, but as Haern watched the elf split in two, leaping in opposite directions so they might close in from both sides, he saw one holding his weapons at equal height, while the other let his right hand dip. Trusting his instincts, Haern ignored the first completely, and he refused to let Muzien reclaim the offensive. Haern turned and leaped right at him, the two connecting in midair with their weapons crossed. They spun, shifted, kicking and punching as they both crashed to the rooftop.

Haern rolled away, having managed a satisfying elbow to the elf’s face. When he rose to his feet, Muzien did the same, glaring as blood dripped down his chin.

“You’re no longer entertaining, Watcher,” Muzien said. “This ends now.”

“That it does,” Haern said, settling into a stance, his feet loose, his sabers ready. “You’re all out of tricks.”

“Am I?” Muzien asked, twisting one of his rings.

The elf’s body shimmered for a moment, and then he ran both left and right, six mirror images of himself forming a circle encompassing Haern from all sides. Once he was fully surrounded, every image leaped into the air, swords pulled back for the plunge. Haern remained still, feeling as if time itself were slowing. The six were perfectly similar down to each strand of hair, their movements exact copies of one another’s. There was no difference, no difference at all. Except the gentle wind that teased Muzien’s wet hair and clothing did not come from six directions.

Just one.

Despite his instincts, his fear, Haern forced himself to ignore all others, to not flinch or react. At the last possible moment he spun, one saber thrusting, the other swinging high and wide. Five killing thrusts sank into him. One he parried, and it was not smoke or illusion he struck, but solid steel. Muzien fell, unable to shift his momentum, and Haern’s other saber sank up to the hilt in the elf’s gut. His body collapsed, both swords held out wide, wrapping about Haern as if seeking a final embrace.

“I am Veldaren’s Watcher,” Haern whispered into his ear as the elf bled out against him. “And I will be remembered.”

Before Muzien could respond, Haern yanked free his sabers, spun, and slashed twin gashes across his throat. The elf opened his mouth, closed it, eyes wide with shock. Even as he died, Haern saw him unable to believe he could be defeated. It filled his veins with ice, his stomach with disgust.

“Not a god,” he said, reversing the grip on a saber. Falling to one knee, he rammed the tip through Muzien’s eye, pushing until he felt the saber press against the back of the skull.

“Just a corpse.”

Haern pulled out his saber, and as he slowly sank back from exhaustion, he heard his father speak his name.

“Watcher…”

   32   

A
t first Delysia thought the defenders would be overwhelmed when the gray-skinned tide came slamming in with raised axes and swords. Their numbers were so great, and they were both taller and stronger than the city’s soldiers. The defenders had shields and a narrow space to hold, though, and when the tide reached the entrance it slowed as the orcs jostled one another, fighting for order. Even that minor cut to their momentum hurt the effectiveness of their charge, and without armor, they had no protection against the swift, steady blows from the soldiers. Above them the archers rained down arrows, chipping away at the massive numbers beyond the wall.

For a moment Tarlak and Delysia remained silent and watched the battle, only Brug having joined in. Antonil’s men fought bravely, and they used the limited space to the utmost effectiveness. Brug did himself proud, for in such close quarters, and against such reckless foes, he could punch and slash with his thick daggers and rely on his armor to keep him alive. Antonil lorded over it all, shouting out orders, directing the reinforcements to wherever the line of soldiers began to bend, sometimes even physically yanking men back himself when he saw they were wounded and would not hold.

And then the initial rush was past, the surge of fear and excitement replaced with the brutal, ugly cutting of throats and hacking of limbs. Rebuilding the wall with the dead had been no idle boast by Antonil, for as the orcs died at the broken entrance, their corpses became obstacles those behind had to stumble across, and with each one that fell, the wall grew higher, the footing more treacherous.

Minutes passed, and still the fight went on, the orcs having to pause to drag away their dead so they might charge anew. So far the human soldiers had suffered drastically fewer deaths. They also had far fewer lives to give. Delysia wondered why her brother remained out of things, but before she could ask, he turned to her and ducked his head closer so she might hear him.

“The necromancer’s so far staying out of things,” he said. “The moment I start flinging fireballs, I doubt that stays the same. But if we can be clever about this…”

He pointed to the sky, hurrying through words of magic. At the spell’s completion, he flung down his hand, and from the storm clouds shot a thick bolt of lightning that crashed down into the center of the orc army. A grin on his face, Tarlak did it again, this time on the far corner of the battlefield. Delysia winced against the brightness, and she wondered about the efficiency of such a tactic.

“It won’t be enough,” she told her brother after a third.

“I know,” he said. “Just testing. He’s not shielding his army against magic, which means this might have a chance.”

Tarlak rushed forward, pushing his way through the soldiers so he might reach Antonil’s side. Delysia followed, a gut instinct telling her she needed to stay with her brother at all times, for when the necromancer finally turned his attention on Tarlak, he would need her aid.

“Let them through!” Tarlak shouted once he was close enough to grab Antonil’s pauldron and yank him around.

“Are you mad?” Antonil asked, gesturing behind him to where his men were desperately fighting to keep the bottleneck going. “This is the only hope we have!”

The wizard shook his head.

“If it looks like you’ll hold, or seal the gap, that necromancer out there will just blow another hole through a different part of the wall. Let them inside, Antonil. Let them think they’ve won!”

Antonil leaned down so he might lower his voice.

“And then what?” he asked.

Tarlak glanced Delysia’s way.

“Leave that to us.”

It was an incredible gamble, and Delysia did not think Antonil would accept the risk. It seemed, however, she had underestimated the trust the guard captain had in the wizard.

“I’ll pull everyone back, forming a perimeter,” he said. “We won’t last long, not without aid, but we can keep several hundred pinned in at the least. Will that suffice?”

Tarlak nodded.

“It will.”

Antonil jabbed the wizard in the chest.

“Gods help me, I’m putting the lives of all my soldiers in your hands,” he said. “Don’t let me down.”

“I give you permission to haunt me throughout all eternity if I fail,” Tarlak said, and despite the grim atmosphere, he grinned. Antonil shook his head, hardly sharing his humor.

“Damn wizards,” the man muttered before lifting his sword above his head and shouting orders, screaming for his men to fall back into a defensive perimeter. As he did, Tarlak grabbed Delysia’s hand and pulled her along, running deeper into the city.

“What are you planning?” she asked him as they ran.

“It’s not much of a plan,” he said. “Get the orcs inside, out of sight from the necromancer, and then blow them to bits with the nastiest spells I’ve got until he catches on. Hopefully by the time he does, there won’t be much left of his army.”

With the wall, the bodies, and the rain, it would indeed be tough to see anything from afar. That was assuming, of course, the necromancer watched with normal eyes, but she decided there was no point in voicing such a concern. The plan, what little of it there was, had already gone into motion. The city’s defenders steadily retreated, their deeper ranks spreading out. With each step they lashed at the orcs, slaying them by the dozens. With their little armor, all they had to rely on was their strength and their numbers, and so far they had not been given a chance to bring either fully to bear. Antonil’s men continued to spread out, forming a great ring of mail and blades, but it took longer for the orcs to fill the gap, having to stumble through the broken corpse-filled gate. Delysia lost sight of Brug, the shorter man hidden among the hundreds of others, and she prayed he would survive the night.

At last the ring reached the farthest it could without breaking. Two men deep, the soldiers did their best to fight the orcs to a standstill, letting their enemies’ blows rain down upon their shields before retaliating. Delysia felt her breath catch in her throat, the bloody battle mere feet in front of her, but before she could join in, Tarlak grabbed her shoulders and turned her so she might look him in the eye.

“I need your help on this,” he said. “Do you understand? I know you hate killing, but if any of us are to survive tonight, it has to be done.”

The night she’d helped rescue Haern from the Stronghold flashed through her mind, immediately coupled with a sense of revulsion.

“I don’t know if I can,” she said, softly enough she wondered if Tarlak would hear her amid the clashing of swords, the screams of the dying, and the constant fall of the rain.

“Yes, you can,” Tarlak said, turning his attention back to the battle. “You’re stronger than you know.”

Fire danced around his hands as he began his spell. Delysia watched, feet feeling as if they were made of stone. No, she did know her strength, perhaps far better than Tarlak could believe. She was not naïve enough to think this battle could be avoided, nor to believe there would be any reasoning with such a vile race. The power given to her, she wanted to use to heal, not to hurt, not to destroy. To let such a cruel world force her to kill, to turn her into what she’d sworn to Haern never to become again …

The first spell leaped from Tarlak’s hands, a ball of flame that soared over the defenders’ heads before dropping down. It detonated, sending out a rolling ring of fire in all directions. The orcs it passed over screamed, the flesh from their necks to their knees charring, exposing pink muscle and inner organs that spilled across the ground. Pushing himself through two soldiers so he might have space, Tarlak followed it up with a blast of lightning that struck an orc mere feet away who was trying to decapitate him with an ax. It leaped five more times, tearing into the orcs, each leap accompanied by a loud
crack
.

“Come on!” Tarlak shouted over the rain as he flung two smaller balls of flame, each one striking an orc in the chest and dropping him to the ground. “Come on!”

Arcane power swirling around his hands, he lifted them above his head and then slammed them together. The ground rumbled, and then in a straight path between Tarlak and the broken entrance the ground rose and then dropped, cracking the stone and upending all combatants in the way. Over a hundred orcs found themselves on the ground, helpless as Antonil’s soldiers surged in, cutting them down before quickly retreating as the seemingly unending tide from beyond the wall rushed through to replace their numbers.

Two more bolts of lightning followed, Tarlak firing them as fast as his fingers could manage. Delysia watched him, her guilt steadily increasing. Such a pace would exhaust her brother, but he did not slow. He couldn’t. Shards of ice flew from his palms, their tips razor-sharp, and they slashed through the attackers with ease. The space before the entrance had become a horrific mess of blood, bone, and gore, yet it seemed the tide would not relent. More ice, and then Tarlak switched back to fire, unleashing a torrent from his palms that shot out as if from the belly of a dragon, consuming a dozen of his foes. All around Tarlak the soldiers cheered him on, lifting their swords and shouting his name when he struck down a trio with a long lance of ice that impaled them together, even when they crumpled in death.

“Too much,” Delysia whispered, watching him falter a spell and have to try a second time before summoning a bolt of lightning from the sky to strike the center of the penned-in orcs. “You’re doing too much.”