A great gout of flame reached for the distant sun and I saw Kalion ignite the ground all around him, a knot of panicked scholars clinging to the tails of his jerkin as the fires greedily licked at their boots. The handful of Elietimm who escaped immolation circled the inferno, seeking any flaw only to die at the hands of Lessay and his warriors coming up behind them, eager to channel their own fury and chagrin into killing those who had taken them so badly by surprise.
In what could only have been a matter of moments, Arest’s harsh voice was echoing around the encampment, the stone now betrayed as such an inadequate defense, as little use to us as it had been to Den Rannion. “Any enemy still alive? No? Make sure!”
“My lads, get your arses on to the walls!” Outrage thickened Minare’s yell.
Lessay’s shout came hard on the heels of Arest’s. “Find your pairs, check who’s wounded and count the dead!”
Voices harsh with the accents of Lescar came from all directions in turn, other mercenaries hurrying to fetch water, bandages and salve as calls came from the wounded. I hugged Livak close once she had sheathed her daggers and we looked around for Halice and Shiv. They were together, Shiv pale as Halice ripped away a bloody sleeve in one brisk movement.
“I have tunics I’ve put fewer stitches in than you, wizard,” she remarked with rough sympathy as she washed the gore from a ragged slice above his wrist. “Whoever taught you to use a blade left a nasty hole in your defenses; I’m going to have to give you a few lessons!”
“Leave that! Shiv, here, with me!” Planir caught the dented silver bowl from the ground as he strode toward us, the rim now an irregular ellipse. The Archmage swept a hand over and across it, the last remnants of the morning mist sucked down to coalesce into a feeble puddle in the mud-smeared base.
“Your hand,” Planir caught Shiv’s fingers, still slippery with blood, the burns on his own wrist raw and angry beneath the scorched linen of his shirt.
A flash of multi-hued light struck an image from the surface of the water, the inlet where the Elietimm had anchored, the rocky arm reaching out into the surf, the trees of the forest gently tossed by no more than a breeze, no sign of either camp or vessels.
“Pox on it!” spat the Archmage. “Tonin, get over here!”
The still trembling mentor peered into the bowl and shook his head slowly in mystification, wringing his hands.
“Are they still there and somehow hiding themselves, or have they gone elsewhere?” demanded Planir.
Tonin shook his head again. “I have no way to tell, Archmage.”
“We’ve three dead and a handful wounded, two badly, out of the fighting force,” Arest declared, striding up. “What of the scholars?”
Parrail peered unhappily around Tonin’s shoulder, tears carving pale streaks through grime on his face. ‘They killed Keir and Levia, mentor—”
“How many of your number are wounded?” demanded Arest.
“Six,” Parrail drew a long, shuddering breath and tried to straighten his shoulders. “And two others dead, Alery and Mera.”
I winced; by my count, that meant two of every three of the scholars were fallen or injured. I was relying on them and their learning to free me from Temar’s insidious tyranny.
“What of the wizards?” Arest looked around and cursed. I looked after him to see Kalion kneeling by a motionless figure, one of the two cloak carriers who had attended him so assiduously on board ship, a youngish wizard whose name I had never quite caught. When the fat wizard stood, his face was swollen and purple with a fury that promised dreadful retribution.
“Get Shannet and that lass of hers off the ship,” Planir ordered, dropping both Shiv’s hand and the scrying bowl. “Arest, deploy your troops to give us a secure perimeter while we work. Kalion, over here, if you please. Kindly work with Shannet to construct both a barrier and concealment over this place; you can draw on everyone save myself, Usara and Shiv.”
Kalion nodded, eyes burning with determination now he had a task on which to focus. “The only thing that will get past me will be embers blown on the wind!”
“I’ll provide that,” croaked Otrick hoarsely, rubbing darkly purple bruises on his throat with a shaking hand.
The Archmage spun on his heel to fix Tonin with a challenging eye.
“Mentor, who is your most adept pupil still unharmed?”
“That would have to be Parrail,” Tonin quavered.
“Then work with all the others, wounded or not, to weave whatever enchantment you think might conceal or protect us from aetheric magic,” the Archmage commanded him crisply. “Get to it at once, if you would be so good.”
“What do you want with the lad?” asked Tonin, shuffling through his parchments nonetheless.
“You’re going up river, scholar,” Planir turned from the gaping lad to me. “Ryshad, we need to find that cavern and fast. You and Shiv, take the boat, take ’Sar and as many troops as Arest can spare you. The Elietimm will be here as soon as they can. If they’ve crossed the ocean, they almost certainly have magic to work against the weather, so it could be any time. Otrick, Kalion and I will be able to hold the river mouth for a good while, but the faster you find the colonists, the happier we’ll all be!”
I could feel Temar’s exultation echoing around the back of my mind. “Of course, Archmage,” I replied with some difficulty.
“I can scout for you and we’ll ask Minare for some of his lads.” Livak spoke up from where she was holding Shiv’s arm secure for Halice’s needle. “Go on, Rysh, find him while we finish up here.”
I did as I was instructed and we had the ship manned and rigged for river sailing before the sun was halfway across the morning sky. I stood on deck, looking up at the Den Rannion steading, no heads visible against the greenery although I knew full well archers now waited patiently on every trust-worthy section of the wall walk, ready to send a deadly rain of arrows down from the battlements. Equally unseen, Kalion’s magic was enclosing the whole area in defenses of elemental fire, Shiv assured me, while Planir’s power stalked beneath our feet and Otrick’s skills rode high on the winds above. Parrail had tested the aetheric barriers with repeated attempts to contact his colleagues, each failure perversely boosting his confidence.
“Are you sure you’re doing it right?” Livak demanded a breath before I could come up with a more tactful version of the same question, but Parrail was not affronted by this.
“Quite sure, my lady,” he replied in the cultured tones of Selerima, one of the great trading cities of western Ensaimin. “I am one of the most well-versed practitioners of these arts, as we so far understand them,” he added with simple pride.
“Do you know what you have to do to revive these colonists?” I asked, trying not to let my desperation show. At least Parrail was proving older than I had first thought, being a rather baby-faced youth with softly curling brown hair above a snub and freckled nose. His rueful hazel eyes told me he was well used to this kind of reaction, as he nodded, clutching Tonin’s ornately inlaid casket to his chest. “I will continue to study our theories as we travel,” he assured me earnestly.
The word theory had a worrying lack of certainty about it, but there was nothing I could do about that. The boy had earned the silver ring to prove his scholarship, hadn’t he? I waved to Halice, who nodded to the mercenaries waiting with her on the wharf side. They cast the ropes securing the boat into the water. Raising a hand, I signaled to Shiv who was standing by the captain of the ship at the tiller. Defying both current and tide, masts and spars bare of canvas, rails lined with mercenaries, bows at the ready, the boat moved upstream, slowly at first and then more rapidly, a spur of foam at her prow frothing with green light.