War of Wizards (26 page)

Talon keened, and it was hard to say how much, if anything, he’d understood. But there was an anxious sound in the griffin’s voice, and she thought he’d understood enough.

The dragon’s wing brushed the ground. It tried to fight loose and get up again. Daria took a handful of feathers and pulled down.

“Go!”

Talon screamed and tucked into a dive. Daria waited until the last minute and jumped. She landed on the dragon’s back, sword in one hand, the other used to brace her fall. She jerked her hand back, scalded by the burning dragon scales. She could feel it through her deerhide boots and the soft leather of her breeches. There was so much heat in the furnaces of the dragon’s belly that its entire scaly hide was hot enough to burn her.

Griffins and riders flew all around her as she staggered along the dragon’s back. She reached the monster’s beating wings and ducked to keep from getting knocked free. A roar filled the air: people shouting, cheering, crying in pain and anger. There was fire everywhere, as the dragon attacked its enemies.

Daria found the hard, fleshy surface, a rough and horny scar; her old wound from the battle in the mountains. She picked a spot to its right, gripped her sword with both hands, hilt up and tip down, lifted the weapon high, and stabbed down with all her might.

The dragon roared and bucked beneath her.

Its neck seemed longer this time, more maneuverable, and she had to duck to keep from getting caught by its front teeth. Daria shoved and jerked and tried to work the sword in deeper, but the hide was too hard, and she didn’t have enough weight to force it down. The dragon hit the ground and thrashed. Black, smoking blood poured from the wound.

“Help the girl!” a man bellowed to her right from somewhere on the ground. “Charge!”

Men on horse and foot came in from all sides, and griffins and riders from above. Still, the dragon was fighting Daria and ignoring the other attacks. It rolled as if prepared to crush her beneath it. This was just what she was hoping it would do, thinking that only its own weight could force the blade in deeper. She released the sword hilt and prepared to jump clear.

But the roll had only been a feint, and the dragon quickly righted itself and arched its back. Daria didn’t have a grip, was standing and dancing about on the dragon’s back to keep her balance, and now she slipped. She rolled along the monster’s back, down toward its head and jaws. She grabbed at its spines, but they were slick with hot blood, and she couldn’t keep a grip. It opened its jaws to take her in.

Daria’s hands found something at the last moment. Poul’s sword, still skewered in the dragon’s nostril. It broke her fall, and she swung her legs wide as the dragon tried to get its mouth around them. A hot tooth tore through her legging and gouged her flesh. Daria gasped in pain, but managed to get her legs clear before it snapped down on her.

Voices cried her name: her uncle, her mother, other riders. They were trying to get in to relieve her, to haul her to safety, but couldn’t get close enough.

Suddenly, the dragon bellowed in rage. Several brave men had been galloping in with lances along one flank, trying to penetrate the monster’s armor, and now one of them broke through. A lance tip found a seam or a weak chink in the armor and penetrated several inches before it snapped off. The dragon twisted its head toward this stinging attack, and Daria flew loose.

She flipped end over end through the air, trying to get her bearings, but before she could right herself to land gently, the ground rushed up and hit her. She landed awkwardly on one ankle, and it twisted beneath her. The dragon’s head was thrashing about, and she tried to gain her feet to scramble away, but her ankle wouldn’t hold her. Only then did she feel a white-hot flash of pain, and her head felt light, as if she would pass out.

Daria tried to crawl free of the battle, but the dragon was stumbling toward her. It was wounded now, beset on all sides. The men and women attacking from the sky and ground were taking a terrible beating, caught in its fire, crushed by its tail, or torn apart by teeth and claws. But still they kept attacking. The ground thundered next to Daria, and unarmed and with a twisted ankle, she could only cringe to keep from getting crushed.

The dragon head fell next to her with a crash. Fire jetted from its nostrils, expelled by the force of its collapse. Burning, scalding liquid sprayed across Daria’s face: dragon blood. The pain was terrific, like nothing she’d felt before. She clawed at her face, screaming, trying to get the dragon blood out of her eyes. She smelled her own burning flesh and hair.

Daria dimly heard a cheer roll across the battlefield, and then strong hands were grabbing her, men with harsh, flatlander accents asking if she was alive. Her mother’s voice, calling for her. The low, anxious keen of a griffin. Talon. He was close, right by her ear.

Daria reached out and found his feathers, but everything seemed to have gone dark.

Chapter Twenty-five

Darik was in the guard tower at the palace gates when the wights came streaming up the road. They were in the city now, all along the west and north side, killing and burning. Thousands of defenders were still down there, fighting for every street, but with little magic to aid them, their cause was hopeless.

And now a column of wights, a tributary of the main river, rolled up the road toward the palace, destroying the Eriscoban pikemen who formed ranks to stop them. They crashed into the palace gates. Archers fired volleys of flaming arrows into their midst, sending dozens breaking apart to flee the battle, but more wights joined the battle. The gates rocked, and the hinges groaned.

Darik signaled to the men massing behind the gates. Ethan commanded several dozen knights and footmen from the Free Kingdoms, while Rouhani boasted perhaps two hundred men from his Desert Lions. The joint force looked impressive clustered within the tight confines of the courtyard, but they weren’t nearly enough, and exhaustion and fear showed on their blood-stained faces.

The top hinge popped out of the right gate. The gate twisted, ready to come loose, with more wights pulling and tearing.

Darik held out his left hand and concentrated on the spell. The words of the old tongue rolled across his lips.

Armaments of fire, destroyers of the living and undead alike.
 

His left hand blackened and withered, and he winced in pain. He bit his lip to keep from screaming. The spell washed out from him even as the first gate broke free with a final, protesting groan and crashed to the ground. Wights streamed into the palace courtyard.

Men with glowing swords, scimitars, and pikes met them in battle. Archers on the walls suddenly possessed arrows of unnatural fire that destroyed every wight they hit. Darik’s own sword was in his good hand, glowing yellow, and he rushed down the staircase to join the battle.

Darik hacked his way into the thick of the fighting. From above, the wights had seemed a single, flowing creature, with faces and limbs only occasionally showing themselves on the fringes, but up close, he saw faces stretched in torment, their eyes staring with silent madness. They clawed at him, bit, swung broken axes and ghostly swords. His sword sliced through them as if they were made of silk, and they bled into the air.

The army of wights had rushed through the broken gates and into the courtyard, but now they seemed to falter. More kept pushing forward, but scores were destroyed by the ferocious defenders.

If only Darik’s magic had lasted, they could have been pushed back, first out of the palace, and then from the city altogether. But his spell was already fading. His early blows had cut down wights with every swing, but now he had to hack and chop, the ghostly figures seeming to solidify. And still the wights kept coming.

Someone grabbed him from behind, and he turned. It was Ethan, with Rouhani by his side.

“Into the palace!” Ethan shouted.

“There’s nowhere else to defend. We must stop them here.”

Behind them lay only gardens, apartments, simple doors into private chambers. If they couldn’t push the wights from the courtyard, the palace would fall within minutes.

“The khalifa,” Ethan panted. Blood trickled down his forehead. He gestured behind them. “She called for you.”

The three men stopped to fight off two wights that threw themselves at them. Darik looked back to where Ethan had pointed to see Kallia’s servant girl, Rima, standing flat against the palace wall beneath the arcade. Her eyes bulged, and she was shaking violently. The khalifa must have sent her. But why? Did Kallia mean him to help her escape in some other way? What did Darik have now that could do that? He had one undamaged hand, but no spell that he could think of, nothing sufficient to save the khalifa.

Unless . . . wait. There was the spell he’d used when hunting Chantmer through Balsalom. A spell to hide the caster and his companions from eyes both spiritual and physical. Darik could cast it on himself, the khalifa, and perhaps a few others—Rouhani, Ethan, and the grand vizier—and they could flee the city. Balsalom would die, but he could save its queen.

“Come on,” Ethan urged. “We must hurry.”

Men cried out in dismay when they saw Darik retreating from the courtyard. He hesitated, knowing he couldn’t leave them leaderless. They were already faltering, and if they broke, he’d never have time to save the khalifa.

Rouhani grabbed Darik’s shoulder with a gloved hand. “You go, both of you. I will lead the defense.”

Darik stared into the guard’s eyes. They were hard and grim. It was a last stand, and both men knew it.

“May the Harvester rest your soul,” Darik said.

Then he followed Ethan and the girl into the palace. Behind him, men continued to fight and die.

#

They said the khalifa was in her chambers deep in the palace. It was quiet and cool in the hallway, and even when Darik reached her actual rooms, the fighting came only as a distant noise through the closed shutters. The smells of battle were gone: sweat, blood, and smoke. In their place, the gentle scent of perfumed water mingled with incense from smoldering braziers.

Kallia lay on her pillows, writhing in pain. Ethan drew short, cursing, and Darik stared in dismay, not sure how he would help her if she were in the throes of an attack. It might last hours, and they only had minutes.

“Damn you!” Ethan cursed again.

Darik looked up, confused. There were others in the room. Rima had come in with them, there were three guards, and two of Kallia’s ministers stood to one side: Hajir, and the grand vizier, Fenerath. Another tall figure stood by the open shutters, and it was this man who had drawn Ethan’s anger.

“Chantmer,” Darik said. A cold, righteous fury settled in his stomach. “You abandoned us. You left us to our death.”

“And yet, here I am. How would you explain that, boy?” His voice was as haughty as ever.

“What do you want?”

“To help.”

There was no time to argue with him. “Very well,” Darik said. “Help me conceal the khalifa. We can carry her to safety. Then, we’ll go back out and drive off the wights.”

Chantmer laughed. “There is nothing your feeble magic can do. Not to defeat the wights, nor to hide this woman. Kallia Saffa carries a piece of the dark wizard within her—they would find her were she to flee to the farthest reaches of the world.”

Kallia cried out. Her head tossed back, and sweat stood out on her forehead. She had been alone on the pillows, as if the others were terrified of approaching her, but now Rima dropped next to her and grabbed her hand.

“What is it, my queen? What is the matter?”

“What is the matter?” Darik repeated, confused. “Is something different? Is she in new danger?”

“The dark wizard comes,” Chantmer said ominously. “King Toth will be rebirthed at last and come into his full power. And then—”

“You mean the baby is coming?” Darik interrupted. “That’s all it is, right? A baby? We can . . .” Darik swallowed hard, his mouth dry. “We can kill it.”

“Believe me, if such a thing were possible, it would have already been done. You could not even kill the
khalifa
now—she is protected with an aura that would destroy you should you try.”

“Then we have to drive the wights back so they can’t get to the baby,” Darik said.

“The khalifa will die when it is born.”

“We have to do something! Take her from the palace, or—I don’t know—can you change her into a bird?”

Chantmer looked down at him. “Are you finished offering your worthless, uninformed opinions? Or will you keep babbling like a village idiot until the wights arrive?”

“It’s coming,” Kallia cried. She arched her back and grabbed at her belly. The others in the room muttered in worried tones.

“Then what do we do?” Darik asked.

“We have to keep the thing inside her. Block it from coming.”

“Inside her? Why?”

“Remember, this is not a child. It is not even living, not yet. It is a vessel for the dark wizard’s soul. The wights are at the limit of their strength now,” the wizard continued. “It’s the very edge of how far and how hard the enemy can drive them. They are pushing tonight because they believe it will come. If we can keep the thing inside her, they will fall back for another day.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“I will cast the spell. You will destroy your good hand to lend me strength. The khalifa will bend her mind to obey the commands of my spell. Are you ready?”

Darik hesitated. Chantmer had used the magic of his fellow wizards once before, to force the creature of mud and sticks to obey his will. The Order of the Wounded Hand had created it to battle the dragon. Instead, Chantmer had used it to kill his own people.

But from the look of agony on the khalifa’s face, Darik knew there was no other possibility. If Chantmer was right, she would die giving birth to this thing. And the wights would get it. Balsalom would fall, the dark wizard would be reborn, and the world would fall under King Toth’s power. He had to trust Chantmer.

“Are you ready?” the wizard asked again. He cocked his head, listening. “Quickly now, the wights have broken out of the courtyard. They are coming here.”