42

As they watched Hyam and Selim depart, Meda said, “Remember our aims.”

“Diversion, patience, surprise,” Alembord replied, his voice hard as the desert light.

“And the vial,” Meda added. “We have given Hyam our word. Whoever survives must help the ghost army search the Milantian realm, find Joelle’s breath, and deliver the container to the Elves.”

“It will be done,” Fareed replied solemnly. “Our oath upon it.”

Shona walked with the others across a dusty plain toward a hill they could not see. Guided by a bird who was nowhere to be found. The Milantian sword was strapped to her back and bounced uncomfortably as she marched. The sword-belt was bound beneath her ribs and the buckle gnawed at her middle. The wand hung from a loop in the cloth belt holding up her trousers and patted her thigh with each step. She could feel a new blister growing under her sandal strap. Her legs ached and her skin was caked with grit and dried sweat. There was every chance she would not survive the coming day.

She had never been happier.

Alembord observed, “Shona’s sword is not riding properly.”

“So I see.” Meda adjusted the scabbard. “How is that?”

“Much better, thank you.”

They walked for a time, until the hill appeared as a vague lump directly ahead. They paused to drink, passing the skin from hand to hand. The land remained as empty as the sky. The hill was a lone mound, a hundred paces high, and not steep. But the surface was ankle-deep sand, fine as milled flour. They scaled the slope on all fours. When they crested the hill, the light had strengthened to where they could see the city clearly. There was little left except vague hints of past triumphs and wealth. There was no sound save the soft rasp of their own breathing. But the dawn light had competition now, for both Shona’s and Fareed’s wands had started glowing.

Meda watched as Fareed held his wand aloft. “What does this mean?”

“There must be a current of power running through the earth below us,” Shona said.

Fareed said, “The legends claim mages lived in all the ancient cities. Practicing magic in the open.”

Meda gestured to the long straight-line indentation that ran horizon to horizon, between them and the ruins. “Why not build the city wall to include such a place of power?”

“Perhaps all the city has such veins of force,” Fareed suggested.

“Or they kept magic outside the walls,” Shona said.

Meda clearly disliked starting their attack in the face of such mysteries. But all she said was, “Signal Hyam that we are in position.”

Hyam thought the light shining upon the distant hilltop held an uncommon brilliance. He stood for a moment and relished the silver-violet illumination. Its aura took him back to the last time he had held his orb. The morning of the Emporis attack, he had given it to Trace, who had wielded it until Hyam had extended his power across the desert valley and shot the orb like a crystal bomb at the red mage. And like a bomb it had exploded, turning both orbs and their crimson foe into dust. But Hyam’s usage of mage-force without his own orb as a conduit had burned him so badly he had lost his abilities. Victory for the realm, defeat for him.

Hyam refocused on the battle at hand. Selim’s bow was triple curved and not large by hunting standards. What was more, the two ends of Selim’s bow slanted away from the archer, while the middle was so thick it looked deformed. A handhold was carved into this broad center. Time and sweat had oiled the wood and turned it slick as a black mirror.

Hyam watched Selim string it and said, “I have never seen such a bow.”

“It is a desert weapon, made for shooting from the back of a galloping animal. The tips are enameled antler horn. The wood I carved from the heartwood of a felled tree within the Ethrin grove.”

Hyam flicked the string and listened to the hum of a death harp. “It was made for this very day.”

“So I am thinking also.” Selim selected an arrow. “Make your spell.”

Hyam turned to the ruined city. He touched the center of his forehead and shouted in Elven, “Reveal!”

Instantly his own earthbound star defied the morning, the desert, and the unseen foe.

In some respects, Hyam was more frightened than when he had entered the Emporis battle. Then he had been guided through Elven tunnels, while an army of allies had surrounded him on all sides. But this morning his meager company had been guided into position by a bird that had now vanished. Even so, Hyam’s fear could not touch some deeper part of him. Down at the level of bone and sinew and spell casting, Hyam was gripped by an uncommon calm, a stillness strong as the grave.

As he began weaving his spell, Hyam wondered if this was what it meant to embrace his Milantian blood. Perhaps fear, that most human of emotions, did not touch them.

Hyam finished the spell. He then drew his dagger and touched the arrow fit into Selim’s bow. “Now we will see.”

Selim hesitated. “I sense no power at work.”

Neither did Hyam. He had the momentary sense of leading his company off the edge of a cliff. Onto the rocks far below. Lost to the shadows of a morning they would never witness. But it was too late now. They were committed.

“Loose your arrow!”

“All right, that’s enough.” Meda gestured for Fareed to extinguish his wand.

The absence of Fareed’s light left Shona feeling both isolated and vulnerable. The ruined city stretched out before her, silent and deadly. Suddenly she felt as though every spell she had studied was lost to her, brief wisps of a life that she would not have a chance to claim.

Meda squinted at the tower and asked, “What’s holding them up?”

Fareed said, “Patience, mistress.”

Shona could not fully hold back her terror. “Show me the spell to recharge the wand.”

“You did it in the valley,” Fareed pointed out. “Several times.”

“Remind me again.”

Fareed was clearly reluctant to look away from the silent tower, but he lifted his wand and said, “Pay attention.”

She repeated the words, as much from memory as his instruction, and felt her own confidence return as the wands became traced by lingering ribbons of power.

Then Alembord pointed to the north and cried, “There!”

Hyam watched the arrow fly from Selim’s bow and create a thin river of fire across the dawn. The scrolls he had found in the cave had contained segments of several spells. Hyam had built his plan upon the hope that he might rework them into one. Join them all, and in so doing compound their force.

It all came down to this. Doing the unexpected. Surprising the enemy right out of their safe little holes.

But as Hyam watched the arrow fly through its golden arc, all his logic and plans and hopes seemed paltry indeed. The light seemed a trivial force, blazing merrily against the backdrop of another hostile day.

“Is that it?” Selim demanded.

All four pairs of eyes atop the hill squinted against the sunrise and watched the fire arrow rise.

Alembord muttered, “Did his spell fail?”

Shona felt her own heart sink in agreement. The arrow’s trailing flames were a trifling, of no importance whatsoever.

Beside her, Fareed said, “Patience.”

Meda asked, “You know what Hyam is doing?”

“No, mistress. But I am coming to know the sahib.”

And at that moment, the dawn erupted.

The remaining spell came much easier, which was good, because Hyam had little time to cast it. Just the space between the arrow’s fiery zenith and striking the earth. Call it three heartbeats. Hyam shouted the words in a fluid rush, weaving his hands so fast that the magic’s lingering trace formed a ribbon, then a knot, in the air before his face.

His hopes proved correct in a quite spectacular fashion.

To Shona’s mind, it seemed as though the arrow suddenly became a fist. One fashioned from flame and fury, and a force great enough to dim the desert sun.

WHUMP!

The fist slammed into the earth.

The earth shuddered such that Shona might have toppled from the summit had Alembord not gripped her arm.

The impact threw up a dust cloud that caught fire. A circular wave of flame swept over the entire city of Alyss. The blaze lapped against the tower and hill both. Shona felt the heat scald her face and hands. Then it vanished.

The silence that followed was as deafening as the blast.

Meda spoke in a conversational tone. “Well, I never.”

Fareed laughed out loud and pointed north. “The sahib, he is just warming up.”

From the ruined tower came a faint cry, but Shona could not make out the words. “What is he saying?”

“I expect,” Fareed replied, “the sahib is introducing himself.”

“My name is Hyam,” he shouted. “I am human. I am Milantian. I serve as emissary to the Ashanta. I am crowned by the last Elven king. You have stolen something precious from me. I want it back.”

He turned to the grinning Selim. “Loose another arrow.”

“With pleasure.” Selim lifted his bow and aimed to the right of his first shot.

Hyam cast his series of partial spells, the words coming now with swift ease.

WHUMP!

He waited until the tidal force had broken against the tower’s base. Into the silence he shouted, “Return to me the vial holding my mate’s life-breath. Grant my company safe passage to and from the harbor. Vow never to set foot in any human or Elven or Ashanta settlement. And I will let you beg me for your lives.”

WHUMP!

“Respond or perish!”

WHUMP!

Selim loosed another arrow when the first enemy appeared. The arrow became a fiery fist that pounded the earth a hundred paces from an opening where warriors climbed forth. Hyam cast the spell and sent out a further circular flame. When the wave subsided, it appeared to him that the impact had not affected the warriors. He could see where several more openings had appeared, where before there had been nothing except yellow dust and ruins.

“Here they come!” Selim notched another arrow.

“Hold,” Hyam said, waving the caravan master to lower his weapon. “We may need those.”

“What are we to do?”

Hyam was wondering the same thing. For the dozens of warriors had become hundreds, and still more climbed out and formed into ranks and marched with weapons drawn. All of them headed straight for their tower. Hyam doubted they were actually Milantians. If so many real foes existed, then all was lost. For him, his company, and the entire realm.

“Hyam?”

“I’m thinking.”

As if in response, the two mages atop the distant hill struck.