CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

FARID

Farid ran to the wall, all the way from the Tower courtyard, after finding himself on his back in the early morning light. Govnan’s fires in the north were gone. Moreth was no longer with him. Mura had never returned. He guessed the fighting must have begun, and as he drew closer to the Storm Gate he knew he was right. He heard no sword-work, no swinging of maces and chains as in the old stories, but archers moved along the wall, firing their bows, their officers behind them shouting orders. Catapults were loaded and fired and soldiers ran back and forth, relaying messages between their superiors. Farid slowed and watched the unusual activity; he had grown used to an empty city. The wounded sat with their backs against the western wall, cradling their injuries, and he saw Duke Didryk among the physicians.

He did not speak to the duke—he no longer needed his lessons since Meksha had blessed him. Now he understood patterns the way he needed to, down to the heart of them, and he could turn them to his will. But he also recognised their uselessness in the face of what was truly important: his love for his father, loyalty, the trust of his fellow mages. He climbed the steps and found the mages crouched beside a barrel full of arrows. In front of the wall was the Yrkman army, a sea of men and sharp metal, all blond heads and red coats, each one of them bent on getting through the wall.

Moreth held his hands to the stone, his eyes closed. Mura held her hands before her, sending a contrary wind against their archers—but only the ones before the Storm Gate. They did not have enough mages to cover the whole of the battlefield—surely Yrkmir could see that and would take advantage?

The fire-spirits he had seen with Govnan in the north quarter were now gathered into a tight circle, struggling against invisible bonds, surrounded by the charred bodies they had managed to consume before the Yrkmen trapped them. Farid had an idea what to do about that, but first he had to ensure the safety of the Storm Gate.

He ducked down before he became a target himself and Mura, sensing him, touched his arm.

“Look,” she said, and Farid raised his head again. An arc of Yrkmen soldiers approached with their shields out, protecting a group of austeres aiming for the wall. They raised their shields higher and higher again to protect the pattern-workers from the arrows and stones being thrown at them, and now Moreth joined in the effort, sweeping sand up into their faces and causing the ground to shift beneath their feet. The rock-sworn did not use as much force as he could have, fearful of losing control of his spirit. But if they made a hole in the stone, then Rorswan could repair it. Five Yrkmen soldiers fell and three austeres with them—but the remainder reached the thick wall. Farid did not try to see beyond the shields at the pattern-workers’ fingers. He knew what pattern they would shape.

“Moreth,” he said, crouching next to the rock-sworn who was still covered in dust.

“I will make sure the wall remains whole.” Moreth spoke in Rorswan’s voice.

Farid laid his own hand on the stone. He could sense the shapes the austeres were drawing and he found that by concentrating, he could break their lines even as they were still being formed. He spread his senses out across the entire western wall and felt them all—a dozen patterns, two dozen of them—and lifted the shapes from their webs.

He felt all of the patterns that were laid out in front of him: warding patterns, patterns to call water, and patterns intended for destruction should the Cerani army leave the city and attack them on the sands. Farid concentrated on the wards first, twisting their shapes and dragging lines out of their structures, stripping them of meaning.

Though he focused on the wards, other things sparkled at the edge of his awareness, greater things, and in a breathless rush his sight expanded out to them. He saw the whole city: the life rising from its soldiers, the magic in the charms and prayerbeads they carried, and the power in Meksha’s river and well. The wall itself held ancient wards and spells that he could not fathom, even with the power that had been given to him. They twisted and pulsed around the very stones and he knew that Cerana was more powerful than he could ever have believed. Just as the first austere could not have destroyed the Tower without his help, so the Yrkmen could not break through the wall with a simple pattern designed to powder stone.

Beyond the wall he felt the souls that pulsed in every Yrkman, their fears and doubts, their loyalties and brave impulses. Every one of them was as loved and connected to the world as the men who stood on the wall—and that was the evil of this war, of Yrkmir, and of Cerana too.

His senses faded when he turned his mind north, as if a fog had cut them off, and when he turned he saw the Storm bearing down on them, a blank wall as high as the mountains, as if that part of the world had been erased. It had grown so large that he had failed to see it, like the sky. He reached out for the emptiness and tried to sense something in it that he could alter, but he found nothing. It was as if he were blind.

A pattern moved towards him from inside the city—a line, a direction, a stream of dark shapes and letters meant to command—and he recognised the same spell that had been used against him in the Tower. He knew this mage and his madness, and knew his bent towards chaos. It diverged upon the wall, splitting into five, rising up through the stone and winding around the legs of White Hats, sinuous and malevolent. In the space of a moment the soldiers had turned and begun firing at their fellow Cerani. The struggles were short but deadly, and Farid felt the lives go out, five, six, seven. A solemn minute later, the White Hat bodies were thrown over the wall.

Farid watched in horror. He had been luckier when the pattern had taken his body.

“Mogyrk spells,” said the man next to him, a captain, by his insignia. Farid could still feel the edge of the pattern-command, sharp and full of harm, cutting through the soldiers’ will. Now he knew how to find the man

who had cast it—but there was something he must do first. He glanced at the battle—the Yrkmen had lost their wards and red-robed austeres were struggling to replace them under a hail of stones and arrows. But they were undeterred, as were their archers, focused on their duty.

Farid sensed the pattern that trapped Govnan’s fire-spirits, its signs and strokes, and knew it to be the same kind of barrier that the high mage had used against the Storm. The spirits could not sense it and therefore could not break it. He wondered if that was what had kept Meksha’s well hidden for so many years. He saved the pattern to his memory before twisting it, lifting the lines from their places in the sand and freeing the efreet.

At once a green and violet fireball spun into a group of Yrkmen archers and they screamed as the conflagration exploded outwards, consuming them. Farid stared in shock: those men had died because of him. He felt the light of their lives leave the world. Four more efreet followed the first, three moving quickly and the other slow, taking a human form. The fire moved among austeres, swordsmen, and archers—it did not matter; it took them all, one and then the next, and the next, and he stood in horror, careless of the arrows aimed towards the wall, towards him. He had seen that a bound mage felt pleasure in his spirit’s kill, but he felt only sickness.

The Yrkmen began to run in confusion, but only in the confined area before the gate. The battle was larger than that, spreading beyond Farid’s view. He would have to leave the rest of it to the soldiers who were trained to battle, greater in number and less sensitive to death. He turned away from the fighting and followed the line of pattern-casting. He would find the mage who had destroyed the Tower.