By the time Hyam and Selim arrived at the hill’s base, the golems milled about in lowing confusion. Most of the dust had settled. Hyam thought the beasts now resembled mammoth cows. Except, of course, for the petal-like mouths filled with teeth longer than his arm.
Hyam said to Selim, “Speak to them. See if they’ll obey.”
“And tell them to do what?” But Selim did not wait for a response. Instead, he climbed far enough up the hill to look over their weaving heads and called, “Heed my voice! There are sheep waiting for you in Olom. And clans needing you to dig more tunnels!” He pointed back toward the long red hills. “Go! Now!”
Hyam climbed up beside Selim and repeated the words in Milantian.
To their vast relief, the golems departed.
Meda descended the hill as the beasts trundled away. “Nice to see them behave.”
Hyam asked, “Is everyone okay?”
“We are indeed. But it was a close-run thing.” Meda grinned a welcome to Selim. “Your arrows carry quite a punch.”
Selim’s reply was cut off by a cry from the hilltop. Hyam looked up to find Fareed, Shona, and Alembord all pointing in the direction blocked by the hill’s curvature.
When Hyam and Selim scampered up the steep slope, they discovered three crimson-robed Milantians standing beside a trio of holes. They were positioned so that four or five hundred paces separated them. Then a fourth mage emerged from the hill upon which they stood.
Shona gasped, “That’s her!”
“Who?” Selim asked.
“The witch who stole Joelle’s breath,” Meda snarled. “She’s mine.”
“There you are, my lovelies! The master will be ever so pleased.” The witch clapped her hands, which apparently was the signal for her companions to begin casting their spells. “Now come down off the roof of my house this instant!”
Shona was already preparing her own response, fueled by the revulsion that creased her voice and features both. Hyam admired her spirit, though he was filled with the sinking certainty that her attack would come to nothing. The Milantians had waited for this moment. All the earlier attacks had been the mages’ way of taking their measure.
Shona completed her spell and touched her wand to the sword. Her fire shot forth, a huge blast of fury. But in swift response, the mages simply melted away.
The Milantian wizards dissolved. All four of them, in the span of a single heartbeat. Gone.
Four crimson dust clouds rose up, swirling in deadly intent. The arid crimson mist flowed like desiccated blood.
Swiftly Hyam encircled them with a shield. But the four clouds joined together, swept down, and entered the portal through which the witch had emerged. Too late Hyam realized what was happening. The mages were attacking from beneath, through the unshielded earth.
The mist emerged in a hundred tight streams from the hill where they stood. They wrapped around all of Hyam’s company. Chaining them with the relentless pressure of forces that yearned for nothing more than another chance to kill.
Hyam knew he had lost. He could not even cry a final apology to the company who had trusted him. His breath was already stolen, for the tendrils clenched his chest with impossible strength. The pain was so intense he could scarcely even think the final word. The one person whose trust he had most forsaken.
Joelle.
The air around his head was thick with the dust. So much, so fast, there was no air at all. Hyam was as blinded as he was choked.
His final panic was a breathless cry. His lungs burned, his open mouth was packed full with the crimson dust. Every shred of his being shrieked that all was lost.
Unless . . .
Hyam had a lightning image of Shona relating the witch’s attack in the Emporis tent, how the mage had sucked in the power that had ensnared them, growing larger and larger . . .
But Hyam could not breathe.
Even so, he sucked in. Not with his lungs. They were locked tight. With his entire Milantian being.
He could feel the mist filling him. And as it did, three impressions shot through him with the intensity of a departing life.
First, he could feel some inner portion of himself growing steadily larger, a balloon-like component that spread and swelled and took in ever more of the putrid killing dust.
Second, he felt the scar tissue of all his lost abilities, the remnant of his last battle against crimson foes, crack and break apart.
Third, he knew he was dying. The physical component of his being still could not breathe. He no longer had the ability to force his body to do anything. Even as he sensed the hilltop becoming free of dust. Even as his company gasped and cried and breathed and survived. Hyam felt his own body drift down, down, to collapse upon the dry and dusty hilltop.
He gave in to the darkness and knew no more.