Healer's Ruin (17 page)

The last golems facing the King's army had fallen, their composite bodies giving way beneath a desperate barrage of sorcery. A group of Dread Spears, having survived the massacre of the Rovann lines, had concentrated their power against the giants and bolstered by a handful of surviving Ektan had managed to weaken them enough for the Fenc to dash in and deliver the killing blows. To the east of the plains, the Black Talon brought down another, the Krune doggedly pursuing the giant before swarming around the hooves of its massive steed to avoid the deadly glare of its  eye. With swords and axes they hacked at the horse's limbs until the beast crumpled. Then, what remained of the Gilt Plates – their armour warped and cracked by supernatural heat and dented by lashing chains – clambered onto the rider and tore him apart.

There was little jubilation in the army of the Ten Plains King, however, because the dead now outnumbered the living, and of the latter the wounded outnumbered the fighting fit. Most of the shadamar were gone as were the majority of ranged combat units, the Phaeron having suffered particularly badly, having been a little too self-assured for their own good.

As the southerners staggered through their own dead, keen eyes spotted a line of dust beyond the Ruin. The King's scryers called out a warning and the lines of the army began to reform. They were ragged and despondent at first, shuffling their blood-stained boots in the churned-up dirt, but their stalwart officers soon stirred them to attention.

To the north was an opposing force made up of tens of thousands of Riln, dark-skinned and broad-shouldered, their fluttering emerald banners identifying them as the renowned Sabres of Tchiqua. And either side of this force, twice the number of Riln regular infantry from the city of Aphazail and its environs. Professional warriors, armed farmers, raw recruits, all ready for a last ditch attempt to repel the Ten Plains King from their lands.

Both armies were rooted to the spot as the dust of the golem attack settled, revealing the Riln Plains to be strewn with rubble from which giant limbs poked and patchwork cloaks quivered in the breeze. Here and there were patches of smouldering fire. Black lines had been burned into the earth for hundreds of metres where the golems had cast their deadly glare.

Mysa circled for a few minutes, wondering which general would blink first, and then returned to the tower.

She had perched upon it soon after leaving her master's shoulder, and from that vantage point she had watched him ride through a tunnel of fire, marvelling at his magery. It was to the tower that she had led the two naked, shivering slingers, and in its dusty upper rooms they found bundles of clothes and rotten rations.

Neither of the Rovanns had cared to ask to whom the clothing belonged, here in a city where nothing had lived for centuries and everything of worth had crumbled to dust. Mysa had an inkling, but did not venture her opinion. She just wanted to see them covered up and warm as the day edged towards evening, the sun beginning its slide into the jagged, black mountains.

'What's happening out there?' Chalos asked. The healer was lying on a bed of furs that had been prepared in the corner of the room. Someone had used it for slumber several days previously. It was warm, and comfortable. He had a vicious migraine, as if his corporeal mind was shattering, ready to slip into the world of magic forever.

Samine was rebuilding a fire that had once raged in the centre of the circular chamber.

'A stand-off,' the crow replied, hopping down from the windowsill to the floor. 'The golems have been vanquished and the King's army still stands, but now the Riln approach from the north in great numbers.'

'Who'll win, do you think?' asked Chalos, who was lying on a pile of furs that someone had recently used for a bed. His eyes were closed, pain pounding behind them. His brow glistened with sweat.

'Nobody will win,' the bird said with an avian approximation of a shrug. 'It won't stop them warring, though.'

'Such a waste,' Chalos said.

'I take it the crow has bad news,' Samine said, snapping her fingers. A spark, conjured from the air before her, lit the fire.

'Just more war,' Chalos sighed, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling. There had once been a fresco, colourful and bizarre, but now it remained only in grey slivers. He could only guess at what it had all once meant. 'Nothing to write home about.'

'Listen to the jaded veteran,' Samine said with a smile, rising and bounding over to the bed. She sat next to him and pressed the back of her hand to his head. 'You've got a fever. Come on, sit with me by the fire. Bring some of these animal hides.'

'You should listen to her, Chalos,' said Mysa.

The healer grunted and went with Samine to the fire. They sat with hides drawn around them, his head on her shoulder.

The sun was shining in through the wide, arched window. Without warning, figure appeared there, crouched on the weathered stone sill, casting a long, black shadow.

'Make yourselves at home, why don't you?' the kid said.

Chalos sat bolt upright and stared at the silhouetted figure. Mysa rose from the floor, flapping her wings and shrieking in as fearsome a manner as she could muster. Samine whirled, making a claw of her right hand.

'I like what you've done with the place,' said the Wielder as he hopped down. Chalos noticed the slight wince on his young face as he landed.
He's sick,
the healer realised.
Sick inside. Something terrible ravages him. No wonder, all that magic coursing through him...
'Oh no, wait,' the Wielder said with a mock frown. 'I like what
I
did with the place. You're just here on a jolly, right?'

Chalos sensed a static charge in the air a heartbeat before he saw any sorcery. The Wielder was about to unleash his power but Samine got there first and with a loud tearing sound the air before her split and a bar of violet light spilled out, crashing into the young northerner. The Wielder deflected it with a flash of emerald light and Samine's magic flayed wildly at the walls and ceiling, pulling tiles loose and boring deep holes into the stone.

Then there was a flicker of silver and a broken cutlass arced from the Wielder's hip, dodged another salvo of the Dread Spear's sorcery and drove into Samine's chest. She fell back onto the fire which went out with a loud, fizzing hiss.

Adrenaline pushed both pain and exhaustion from the healer's body as he hurled himself towards Samine. The broken-bladed cutlass pulled itself free from the Dread Spear and Chalos felt it sweep past him, opening a wound on his side. He went down, throwing himself over Samine. The sword came in again, digging its meagre blade into the back of his shoulder. Chalos tried to heal both Samine's wound, and his own, but the combination of exhaustion and the blade's constant assault prevented him from forming a robust connection with the world of magic.

Suddenly the cutlass was wheeling away from him, its hilt gripped by Mysa's fierce claws. The bird wrestled with the weapon which seemed able to fly almost as well as the crow could despite having no wings and appearing to be an inanimate object, and the two were quickly crashing blindly into the walls. First Mysa would crack the cutlass against the stone and then the cutlass would take control of their flight path and drive the bird into something hard and unyielding. Loose feathers twisted in the air. Then, through good fortune more than judgement, Mysa rammed the blade into the wall at such an angle and with such wanton force that the weapon's ornate guard split and what remained of the blade spun away. The handle dropped straight down, bouncing once, and lay still.

Mysa fell after it, landing with a dull thud.

Chalos looked at the bird. The Wielder looked at the cutlass.

Then they looked at each other.

'Come on then, invader,' the Wielder said. 'Stake your claim.'

Chalos growled and lunged, clearing the space between them in two great leaps. But anger was no substitute for combat skill and the Wielder dodged his gouging fingers, kneed him in the gut and tossed him out of the window.

'Overrated,' the Wielder said, dusting his hands. 'Unlucky.'

The Wielder turned back to see Samine struggling to her feet with a groan. The air around her was rippling as if a cavalcade of energy was trying to burst through. Alarmed, the Riln hero raised an arm, preparing to blast the southern girl to pieces.

Something hit him in the back with enough force to break his concentration and his power fizzled away to nothing. He felt tiny pinpricks rake through his cloak and flesh. Gasping with surprise, he reached around and took hold of something dry, small and muscular. With a deep frown he raised the little creature up, peering at it in fascination.

'You're an ugly little shit,' the Wielder said to the dangling reptile. Its hide was burned away in patches, revealing raw, blistered wounds. Dark shards of what seemed to be pottery were embedded in its flesh. It looked half dead, yet stared evilly out of its one good, beady eye. The Wielder had never seen such a thing before. 'What are you, then?'

A long black forked tongue shot out, going for his eye. With a yelp, the Wielder threw the creature across the room and pressed a hand to his face, blood trickling between his fingers.

'That's Sixt,' said Samine. 'And his timing is impeccable.'

Through his remaining eye the Wielder saw the air before him slashed open and glimpsed, beyond the rent, a world of glistening bands of energy. His mouth gaped.
So this is where the slingers of the south get their power from...
Then, a volcanic surge of raw magery thundered over him, pouring out of the window behind him in a thick, sludgy mass. The floor of the chamber gave way beneath the deluge and the top of the tower split like eggshell as a column of energy forced itself out to jab at the guts of the grey clouds above.

Chalos fell eight floors. He cracked his upper back on the edge of a square stone building, spun vertically, smashed a flailing wrist on an outcrop of masonry and struck the pathway below which crumbled beneath the impact. He hit the carven slabs of a vast underground chamber surrounded by streaming soil and rubble.

For a long moment he lay there, staring up. Through the ragged hole in the ground, he could see richly coloured patterns of light play across the sky. He heard the boom of magery and the rumble of a toppling tower.

Sick from the pain that lanced through his body, he rolled onto his side and tried to rise. The bones in his right forearm and wrist were shattered and he fell onto his face. Even the drawing of one ragged breath made his whole upper body protest. Blood was seeping through the sword wound in his side. The room was starting to spin.

Samine. Mysa.

His groan became a roar of frustration and then of stubborn determination as he managed to get onto his haunches. Closing his eyes, he tried to force back the mind-killing barrage of pain to found his mirror. It was brighter than before, the world of magic. More real, perhaps. Yes, he was slipping into it. He could feel the madness on the edge of his consciousness, a howling black field that was desperate to claim him.

Come,
his own voice seemed to say to him.
Step over to this side of the world. Embrace these bands of energy. Stop all of your pain and suffering forever and dwell in a haze of eternal wonders until your body withers and turns to dust. What have you got to lose?

He resisted the urge to abandon himself to the world of magic, repeating in his mind the same mantra.
Samine. Mysa.

Drawing from the energy before him, Chalos felt his wounds heal. The pain was slow to leave him as his nervous system responded in utter confusion, still reporting the agony of injuries that had suddenly vanished.

Samine. Mysa.

The chanting in his head continued. It was his mind's way of keeping him focussed, of taking his mind away from his agony.

Climbing to his feet he mopped sweat from his brow with the back of his right hand. Although the appendage was no longer twisted and useless, it nevertheless housed a phantom pain that would perhaps never truly be exorcised. Wincing, Chalos looked for a way up to ground level.

He was in a huge circular room. The stones beneath his feet were marked with oblique, impenetrable script. There did not seem to be any doors, though there were a number of alcoves in which small stone pedestals suggested the past presence of statues. Turning towards the centre of the chamber, his eyes settled on a wide-jawed well, its lip a ring of shining bronze etched with complex alien glyphs.

Chalos could feel something in the well. A voice, calling. No, scratch that – a multitude. The chorus sounded behind his eyes in a language he had never heard and could never understand, a language that was never meant for the ears of a Rovann, or any inhabitant of the contemporary world. He edged closer, careful to avoid tumbling into the pit. Craning his neck, he looked in.

Blue. Green. Red. Pink. Purple. Orange. A swirling, marvellous tumult of magical energy. It seemed frozen in a glacier-like substance, and the well looked down upon it. The light from above, meagre though it was, picked out strands of colour so vivid that they hurt the healer's eyes.

It's magic,
he knew.
Actual magic, a raw and volatile physical manifestation of it. Pulled from the realm of sorcery and fixed, somehow, in this world by the people who built this city... the people who were slaughtered by the golems for their crazed experiments.