The Shadow Of What Was Lost (70 page)

Finally, though, his Reserve
began to empty, and he looked up to see the Andarran line was dangerously thin,
threatening to break. Even as he did so, a horn rang out with two quick blasts.
The signal to fall back, abandon the First Shield.

He headed for the stairs, numb as
he glanced back to see black-clad soldiers pouring over the parapet,
dispatching anyone too slow to retreat.

They were losing.

***

Asha stared up at the Second
Shield in horror, stomach churning as the screams of the dying echoed around
the pass.

She glanced behind her at the
long line of Shadows that followed in her wake, suddenly uncertain. Were they
too late? Word of the Blind's sooner-than-expected attack had only reached them
an hour ago; though she'd done her best to organise the Shadows quickly, she
could see that the First Shield had already fallen.

She stared for a moment longer,
then drew a deep, steadying breath and grabbed the arm of the nearest soldier. "Where's
General Parathe?"

The man blinked at her in
surprise, his gaze shifting over her shoulder to take in the small army of
Shadows behind her. "I'm not sure if -"

"Just tell me," said
Asha, putting as much cool anger into her tone as she could manage.

The soldier blanched, then
gestured towards the top of the wall.

Asha gave a sharp nod. She turned
to Gaell, an older Shadow who had helped her distribute the Vessels to everyone
else.

"Keep everyone here. I'll
see where they want us," she told him.

Gaell nodded, turning to let the
others know as Asha hurried off. Several soldiers paused to give her curious
looks as she shouldered her way towards the Second Shield, but none moved to
stop her.

Asha climbed the stairs two at a
time, quickly spotting General Parathe once she was at the top. She was about
to head towards him when there was motion to her left, and a blue cloak
suddenly stood in her way.

"What do you think you're
doing up here?" the young Administrator asked, his tone grim.

"I'm here to help," Asha
replied, staring the man in the eye. "I just need to speak to the general.
Please let me past."

The Administrator stared at her
in disbelief for a few moments.

"Nonsense. Get off the
wall," he sneered eventually. "You're only going to get in the
-"

Asha gestured, a small movement.
She'd managed to practice a little with the ring today, knew enough to control
its strength now. And there wasn't time for this.

The Administrator stumbled
backward as if shoved hard in the chest, tripping and sliding several feet
before coming to a sprawling halt.

Asha walked past, ignoring the
startled stares from those around her who had seen what had happened.

"General Parathe," she
called when she was within hearing range.

The general looked up, frowning a
little when he saw who it was, but waving her through the cordon of men
surrounding him.

"Ashalia, isn't it,"
said Parathe, examining her with undisguised curiosity. "The Athian
Representative."

Asha nodded. "I'm not here
in that capacity right now, I'm afraid," she said. "But I do have a
hundred Shadows with me, and we all have Vessels that can be used as weapons.
Just tell me how we can help."

The general stared at her for a
few moments in silence.

"Do you now," he said
softly, a flicker of hope in his weary eyes. "Anything that can get rid of
this El-cursed darkness?"

Asha nodded; there were a few
Vessels that would create plenty of light, even if that wasn't their primary
purpose. "Some that can heal people, too," she said, noting a wounded
man being carried down the stairs.

Parathe nodded slowly, staring
out into the darkness towards the First Shield.

"Send a few of them
up," he said. "Let's see what you can do."

Asha nodded, exhaling in relief
and hastening back to find the others. The presence of the Shadows had already
caused a small stir on the ground, but thankfully the soldiers there had too
many other concerns already to have become confrontational. Soon she was
hurrying back up to Parathe with a small group of Shadows in tow, and the
general quickly allocated them to various points along the wall.

"Where do you want me?"
she asked Parathe as he sent the last man on his way.

The general shook his head.
"I need to keep you safe," he said. "I don't know any of these
people, and they don't know me. If they listen to you, I have to make sure you
don't come to any harm."

Asha grimaced, but accepted the
general's logic with a reluctant nod.

Parathe turned to the man at his
right. "Hael. Give the Shadows the order."

Asha stiffened at the familiar
name. This was Hael - the man from Erran's vision? In the back of her mind, she
suddenly wondered where the Augurs were in all this. She watched the
middle-aged man as he signalled to two Shadows standing at the back of the
Shield. He looked no different to, nor more threatening than, any of the other
soldiers along the wall.

She turned her attention to the
Shadows he had motioned to. Each held long, thin white rods; at Hael's gesture
they pointed the Vessels at opposite sides of the pass and closed their eyes.

Two lines of light burst into
existence, molten streams of twisted energy pulsing along the smoothly cut
walls of Fedris Idri, throwing everything into sharp relief. For a moment
everything paused; even Asha, who had been expecting it, was shocked at the
sudden brightness.

She looked over towards the edge
of the Shield, now able to see the black-armoured men as they scrambled over
the parapet. She shivered as she took in the unsettling, eyeless helmets - and
then her stomach churned as she recognised the design etched onto the front of
them.

It was the symbol she'd seen on
the side of Davian's neck, that night he had appeared in her room. The one that
had been cut into his skin.

She gave the attackers her full
attention now. In the distance, atop the First Shield, she could see more of
the Blind standing amongst the Andarran corpses that were littered across it.
These ones had no helmets, though.

They just... stood there,
motionless. Watching.

"Asha?"

The familiar voice interrupted
her thoughts, and she tore her gaze away with a shiver to see Wirr kneeling
beside a wounded man only a few feet away, staring at her in surprise. Her
friend let the last traces of Essence vanish into the man's newly-healed side,
then stood, hurrying over to her. "What are you doing here?" he
asked, concern in his tone.

A long horn blast echoed along
the wall, the signal Parathe had arranged for the Shadows to attack.

The area in front of the Second
Shield exploded into a cauldron of light, wind and fire.

The soldiers along the top of the
Shield stopped as one, watching in awe as the pass below vanished under wreaths
of thick, swirling smoke, which flickered an ominous red with the light of the
fierce flames beneath. Several men covered their ears as shrieks of power
ripped through the night, bolts of Essence sizzling down from the Second Shield
into the maelstrom.

A thunderous gust of wind
suddenly swept down, catching up the black-clad men clambering over the wall
and casting them back out into space like rag dolls. Asha watched as they vanished,
screaming, into the cloud of crimson smoke. She spotted one or two holding on
and flicked her wrist at them; they sailed off into the air like the others as
Wirr looked on, frozen to the spot, open-mouthed.

"Prince Torin!" It was
Parathe, shouting over the cacophony that still thundered around the pass.
"The Shadows look to have things under control for the time being. Get
some rest!"

Wirr glanced around, spotting the
group of Shadows that had joined the Gifted and had started healing some of the
wounded. He sagged with visible relief and for the first time, Asha realised
just how pale and drawn he looked. She didn't know how many people he'd healed,
but it was evident he'd pushed himself to the brink.

Even so, Wirr looked about to
protest before eventually giving a reluctant nod. "You fetch me if I'm
needed!" he yelled to Parathe. He threw a questioning glance at Asha, but
she shook her head, indicating that she was going to stay. She was needed up
here.

Wirr gave her a tired smile,
squeezing her arm in farewell before joining a trail of weary soldiers limping
down the stairs.

Soon the initial thunder of the
Shadows' attack quietened, and an eerie hush descended on the smoke-filled
pass. The silence was still broken by an occasional ear-piercing shriek as one
or another of the Shadows fired bolts of energy into the chaos below, but the
ringing in Asha's ears slowly faded.

Finally confident that the Blind
had broken off their attack, she crept forward to the edge of the Shield,
peering down. Smoke still obscured some of the gap between the First and Second
Shields, but enough was visible to know that the Blind had withdrawn,
regrouping atop the First Shield and out of range of the Shadows' weapons.

There were plenty of bodies
below, but her stomach lurched as she realised that few of the ones she could
see were clad in black. Either the Blind had dragged away their dead, or - more
ominously - not many of those who had been blasted off the Second Shield had
been killed by the fall.

"We've pushed them back for
now," said Parathe as he joined her at the parapet. He stared down into
the smoke-filled pass below, his expression pensive. "Those flames are too
hot even for them to get through, I suspect... but there's only stone down
there. Nothing that will burn of its own accord."

Asha gave a thoughtful nod.
"If we rotate fresh people onto those Vessels every so often, we should be
able to keep the fires going indefinitely," she said in response to the
implied query.

Parathe exhaled, a relieved
sound. "Thank the fates," he said. "If you hadn't arrived when
you did...."

He was silent for a few moments,
then clapped her gently on the shoulder. "I'm heading down to check how
everyone is faring below, but stay alert. If you see anything, have someone
fetch me. You've given us an advantage, but these El-cursed Blind don't strike
me as the type to give up. It's not over yet. Not even close," he
concluded, gazing through the shimmering red haze towards the First Shield.

Asha watched as Parathe walked
away, wondering if the general knew exactly how true those words really were.

"Not even close," she
repeated quietly.

***

Wirr flinched as another shriek
of power cut the air, echoing off the walls of Fedris Idri.

He glanced back up towards the
top of the Second Shield, swaying a little as exhaustion threatened to get the
better of him. He knew he needed to sit down, to rest, but already the screams
of the dying were beginning to weigh on him. Even with the Shen Gifted and the
Shadows still on the wall, he was one of only a handful of people who could
truly help the wounded.

"I wonder how long they can
keep that up," came a voice from behind him.

Wirr turned to see Davian
following his gaze upward. His friend looked haggard, but uninjured.

"Davian!" He embraced
the black-haired boy in relief. "I lost track of you. I didn't
know...."

Davian gave him a tired grin.
"Can't say it wasn't a near thing, but I'm okay. And Aelric and Dezia are,
too; they're around here somewhere. We all fell back after the Shadows... did
what they did." He shook his head dazedly at the memory, as if still
unwilling to believe what had just transpired.

Wirr knew exactly how he felt; he
was still trying to comprehend the implications of Shadows apparently being
able to use Vessels. "Did you see Asha?" he asked.

Davian frowned. "She's
here?"

Wirr was about to reply when he
spotted his father approaching, walking alongside a fatigued-looking General
Parathe. Wirr gave his father a weary smile, and the two embraced.

"My father," he
explained to Davian after stepping back again. "And General Parathe."

Davian shook hands awkwardly.
"Pleased to meet you, general. Your Grace."

The duke gave an absent nod,
though his eyes were still fixed on the top of the Second Shield. "And
you, Davian. Torin has told me all about you," he said. "We have much
to discuss once this is all over."

Wirr smiled when he saw Davian's
expression. "He really does just mean a discussion, Dav - nothing
sinister. I promise."

"Of course," said
Davian quickly, though Wirr could still see a hint of nervousness in his nod.
Wirr turned to Parathe. "How are they doing up there, general?"

"Well enough, for now,"
said Parathe. "The Shadows say they can do what they're doing
indefinitely. It at least buys us some time." He hesitated, casting a
cautious glance at the duke. "And perhaps if the king changes his
mind...."