“Hold fast!” Muredarch’s resonant voice pierced the uproar as the pirate line quaked once more. Then it held, pirates bracing themselves in an ominous parody of trained troops.
“Back!” At Muredarch’s command, the line began a slow retreat.
“Break ’em!” Halice’s roar rose above renewed abuse from the mercenaries.
“To me!” His troop drew up either side of Temar, a solid rank of leather and steel. Temar thrust and cut, intent on blood and revenge but the pirates held their line, trading chances to wound Temar’s men for the safety of incoming blows. This was no rout but a disciplined retreat, step by slow step, towards the safety of the stockade.
If Muredarch secured himself in there, Temar thought furiously, they’d have to burn him out. As he thought this, scarlet flames soared beyond the melee, taking him so completely by surprise that a pirate sword darted over his guard to slice deep into his forearm.
“Curse you!” Temar rammed his blade full into the face of the man who’d wounded him, obliterating the bandit’s shout of triumph. He ripped his sword free, gouts of blood and mucus on the dulled steel. As the dying man fell backwards, Temar broke free of his own line, men on either side of him instinctively closing the gap. Temar darted this way and that to try and see what was happening by the stockade, straining to hear any clue in the all-encompassing noise.
The stockade was ablaze. Scarlet magefire licked ever higher, black smoke billowing into the clear blue sky. Was this Allin’s doing? As Temar wondered, pain erupted inside his head and he staggered with the shock, clapping a hand to his temple expecting to feel some dart or the score of an arrow. He squinted at his palm through tear-filled eyes but there was no blood.
The battle fell into chaos; all-pervasive pain wracking friend and foe alike. Men and women fell to their hands and knees, some clawing at their heads so fiercely they drew their own blood. Others folded around their anguish like wailing babes. Temar’s legs wavered beneath him but he forced himself to stay upright. Feet numb, he staggered towards the beached Dulse, clumsy waves of his sword sufficient to turn away a shrieking pirate who crossed his path.
“Oh my little son, who will guide you to manhood? I am burning, all is burning, fire all around. I have not the strength of will to turn it aside. Forgive my weakness.” Moin’s anguish tore at Temar. Had his own father burned thus with searing grief even as the fever of the Crusted Pox consumed him?
Darige wept for his parents’ loss, eyes parching faster than tears could refresh them, sore lids sticky and slow, unable to hide the brilliant death flickering all around. “How will you live without the bounty I earn you? Who will bring you fuel and food to ward off the killing cold of winter?” Skin reddened, blistered, scored and splitting, Darige envisaged his aged father grey and frozen, starved to death in his bed.
Temar dashed guilty tears from his own eyes. If he hadn’t sailed for Kel Ar’Ayen, bold and foolish, he’d have been there to comfort his grandsire on his deathbed. Why had he left the old man to die bereft of any of his blood?
“Why did I never tell you I loved you, Duhel? Now I will die and you’ll never know. I’ll never know the touch of your lips, your body meeting mine. Ilkehan said we should keep ourselves free from such ties but where is he now I die so utterly alone?” Yalda struggled for breath even as the false air scorched her throat and lungs. Her hair curled in futile retreat from the ascending flames, crumbling to nothingness, all the beauty she’d been so proud of turned hideous.
Screaming with all the living torment of death consumed by fire filled Temar’s mind. Fighting the pain, the excruciating memories and regrets, he reached the ship and seized the tarred and knotted netting hanging down the side. Blood from his wound made his sword hand slippery. Howls and weeping assailed him from all sides and the pain in his head felt as if it would crack the very bones of his skull. “Tur-ryal,” Temar gasped. “Tur-ryal en arvenir.” That gave him enough clarity within the sanctuary of his own mind to haul himself up a few meshes. “Tur-ryal en arvenir mel edraset.”
The aetheric ward pushed the pain that surrounded him to the outside of Temar’s skin. Even if he still felt flayed alive, it was just sensations of burning assailing him, not the searing bitterness of futile self-recrimination. He gasped, frozen with dread as he felt a death wish pass over him before realising, agony aside, he was of no interest to Muredarch’s three adepts. They were intent on spending their final breaths in visiting bloody retribution on the mages who had brought this fiery fate to consume them.
Temar felt the dying Elietimm turn their murderous will on Larissa. Soaring flames filled his vision, eyes open or closed and he saw the girl ringed in silver magelight. Her defences were tarnishing, melting before the Elietimm onslaught and Temar wished with every fibre of his being that he’d studied more Artifice. He racked his memory for any incantation that he might use to aid the embattled wizard. It was no good, he was no use, he just didn’t know. That realisation was more painful than the agonies hammering at his half-warded mind. There had to be something he could do. If he couldn’t reach Larissa, he had to try to help the other mages. He fell over the rail of the Dulse to land with a resounding thud on the deck. Sailors all around were struggling with the overwhelming pain, one man screaming, fallen from the rigging to shatter both legs into splintered bone.
Temar struggled to his feet to see Guinalle on the aftdeck, kneeling beside Allin who lay in a crumpled heap. Temar’s heart twisted with the worst torment yet.
“Guinalle,” he rasped, staggering towards her. “As you hope for Saedrin’s grace, help me!” She looked up, ashen, clinging desperately to Allin’s hands. “It’s the Elietimm. I’ve shielded Allin and ’Sar but I can’t reach Larissa.”
Temar nodded and wished he hadn’t. “They’re in there.” He pointed towards the inferno that was the stockade and took a deep breath. “You have to end it. You’re the only one who can reach them. It’s the only way to save the mages.”
Guinalle looked at him, horror struck.
Temar seized her hands. “You’re the only one who can give them mercy. By Ostrin’s very eyes, would you let them die like that?”
If Guinalle had been pale before, now her face was the bloodless ivory of old bone. She crushed Temar’s hand against Allin’s cold fingers so hard he feared he’d carry the marks for the rest of his days.
“Do what you can for her,” Guinalle whispered hoarsely, screwing her eyes closed, dark bruises in their hollows. “And ’Sar.”
Temar struggled to wrap his fragile ward around Allin. His inadequate skills were immediately thrown into disarray by an elemental chill, slippery and hard as ice as he tried to reach past it. The still cold of lightless caverns lost beneath the earth penetrated her very bones, refuting the Elietimm Artifice’s insidious boast that inexorable fires consumed her. Temar struggled to lend Allin whatever strength he could in denying the insidious appeal to the affinity within her, as the Elietimm sought to let elemental fire loose to destroy the wizard from within. What about Usara? The cold numbed Temar’s wits like a fall into freezing water but he tried again, holding Usara in his mind’s eye as he sought in vain for the mage. The chill became the bitter burn of midwinter wind and Temar recoiled from it but, before his skills deserted him utterly, he realised the cold protecting Allin was preserving the other wizard too.
“Eda verlas Moin ar drion eda. Verlas Yalda mal ar drion eda. Darige verlas ar drion eda.” Guinalle was chanting a litany that Temar had never heard before, tears streaming from her closed eyes. “Ostrin an abrach nur fel,” she added in fervent prayer.