Shona watched as the warrior horde rose from the parched earth. They were all dressed exactly the same, in white robes with a crimson belt and tall boots of polished red leather. They carried a round shield in one hand and curved scimitars in the other. They marched in silent unison. Every step struck the earth precisely in time with the soldiers to either side. Thousands of warriors advancing in deadly synch.
Meda declared softly, “They are not human.”
Shona glanced over. Meda’s face had tightened into hard angles and fierce determination. She studied their foes with an unblinking gaze. Shona found an odd sense of comfort, two women and two men against thousands, but knowing she was in the company of such a fighter.
Meda sniffed as though searching for a scent upon the heat-drenched breeze. “My guess is these are golems in human form.”
“Look at their precision,” Alembord said. “They march like machines.”
“How do we . . .” Shona’s question went unformed, because a cry rose upon the wind, this one coming from somewhere deep inside the city.
A charge ran over the horde, a flickering wave of force that blocked the army from view. When the marchers reappeared, the horde had grown. Not in number, but in size.
Another cry, and another flickering shroud passed over the soldiers. It came and went in two frantic breaths.
The horde had grown larger still.
Shona now watched an army of giants on the move.
They roared with one voice, a single unified blast that caused Shona’s chest to quaver.
Fareed stepped up close, where Shona was forced to look at him. Gone was the young acolyte eager to help train her. Gone too the former desert waif who had helped her adapt to the yellow realm. In their place was a young wizard whose mage-force was etched into his features. “We must strike.”
“But so many, how . . .”
He lifted his wand so that its gleaming tip was directly before her eyes. “The sahib needs us. Remember the fire-blade spell?”
Shona drew her own wand. “I . . . Yes.”
“You strike right, I shall go left. Avoid the tower! Ready? One, two . . .”
As she chanted the words, Shona felt a change. Power surged through her as though her entire body was merging into the wand. The force rose through her feet and up, up, passing through her frantically beating heart, along her arm, through the wand, and . . .
She did not speak the final word. She screamed it.
The flames shot out in blinding ferocity, thousands of sickle-shaped blades that spun outward. They sliced through the army. The giants blasted apart into dust the color of dried blood. Their remnants spun in the soft wind, then vanished.
“Golems,” Meda repeated.
Alembord lifted his blade over his head and shouted a war cry all his very own.
The sound seemed to galvanize the giants. The entire horde wheeled about, taking aim directly at them.
They shot out another spell. Fareed screamed with her. They cut down dozens of the giants. Hundreds. But still more of the blank-faced warriors poured from the holes in the earth and were caught up in another of the magical veils, became giants, and filled the ranks. In half a dozen breaths, Shona could not even see where their force had struck.
Steel snickered as Meda drew her sword. She stepped midway down the hillside, took a two-handed grip upon the hilt, and crouched. Ready. “Alembord! By me!”
Then Shona remembered the sword.
The giants seemed to take the two warriors as a challenge, for they spurred to greater speed. Shona drew the Milantian blade from its shoulder holster, reached out, and cast the spell a third time.
When she reached the final phrase, she touched her wand to the milky blade.
The effect was blinding. Shona had to wait through several breaths to even see what had happened. When her vision finally cleared, she saw that a broad channel had been cut through the golem force, fifty paces wide and stretching all the way back to the city’s distant border.
The army faltered, a single moment of hesitation. But it was enough for Fareed and Meda and Alembord all to shout their exultation to the midday sun.
In response, the giants regrouped, tightened their ranks, gave a unified bellow, and surged forward. The hilltop trembled at their stomping progress. They even ran in unison.
Shona started to cast another spell, only to realize the orb at her wand’s point had gone dark.
“Here, here, take mine!” Fareed snatched away her wand, gave Shona his, and began casting the recharging spell.
Shona turned back to the army, lifted her arms, and fired off another round.
Hyam and Selim stared in astonished delight as the spell-waves tore through the giants. Each strike resulted in spumes of dust that filtered up and vanished. Hyam assumed Fareed recharged a wand while Shona applied the other to the Milantian sword. It was a brilliant idea, one he should have thought of himself. Part of him fretted over what else he might have neglected. But mostly he knew a biting satisfaction. Things were holding to his strategy. Hyam was afraid to name what he felt as hope. But he hoped just the same.
His plan, his company’s survival, relied on him having solved one key mystery.
The Milantians were few in number.
There was no other reason Hyam could find for why a lone enemy would have attacked his home. Or why the next assault came from a golem guarding a deserted valley. Or why a single witch hunted Selim all the way to Emporis, then lingered in solitude and attacked the Ashanta banker’s residence, then stole Joelle’s breath.
The answer he had hoped for was now clear as the desert light. The Milantians sought to weaken Hyam because they themselves were weak.
The master’s pet, the Emporis witch had said to Shona. The master commands. Which led Hyam to the most crucial element of his mystery. Where was the one they called their master, this senior Milantian mage?
The only answer that Hyam could see, the only solution that worked, was this:
Not here.
Hyam watched the giants’ dust settle and the silence grip Alyss once more. The only sign the giants had ever existed were the holes that dotted the ruins.
Selim asked, “Is it over?”
Hyam remained too caught up in his internal dialogue to respond. These meager remnants of the great Milantian army had returned here. Once again they gathered the golems. Hidden behind battalions of enslaved ghosts, they built a new force of giants. They had hoped for enough time to uncover the missing scrolls and rise up to their full power.
But Selim had come and disturbed their secret strategy.
As a result, the Milantians chased him, both for the scroll to create the miniature orbs and to keep their secret from reaching human ears.
Up to then, no citizen of Olom had tracked the golems to Alyss. No word of the Milantians’ return had reached the realm. Until Selim arrived in Emporis. Then the enemy had been forced to reveal itself. Hyam stood by the tower’s ruined outer wall and realized this was why they had come after him in Falmouth. The unseen master had assumed Hyam would be alerted. The enemy had sought to destroy him before he realized the foe had returned.
But their attacks had failed. And now Hyam stood at the border of their hidden lair. With powers they assumed were theirs and theirs alone.
Selim handed him a full waterskin. Hyam drank greedily. As he handed back the skin, the earth gave a cautious shudder, as though the entire city vibrated.
Selim exclaimed, “What is happening?”
The thunder accelerated, and Hyam knew it could only mean one thing. He replied, “Monsters.”