Chapter 16

Sevenspires, Suluk

Half the wharf was on fire, the smoke rising high and curling, mercifully, off to the east and away from the palace. Against the conflagration’s ruddy glow, the two armies became one, countless black shapes striving with sword and axe and spear, shadows in some mummer’s epic play. Beyond them, the harbor was a nightmare tangle of broken timbers, half-sunken boats, and corpses that bobbed on the lapping red waters. Dim sounds rose from the battle: screams of maimed and dying men, roars and howls from ten thousand hobgoblin throats, steel clashing against steel, and hacking through wood… and flesh. The stink of burning and blood rose high up into the city, even without the wind’s help.

Essana watched from the high watches of Sevenspires, horrified but unable to look away. She shivered, feeling cold, gripping the rail of the balcony so tightly that her hands hurt. Normally brown, they were white as breaking waves. She shuddered, her eyes stinging, threatening to spill over with tears.

She’d thought she understood war. Her husband had served in the Imperial Legions for more than twenty years and had told her many tales of the battlefield. She’d read the histories and seen countless plays in the cities—even the bloodthirsty sagas of Halshar Esk-Burlut. She’d watched fighting on the sands of the Arena, which often ended in death. But she’d never actually seen a real battle, two armies meeting and pounding at each other with blade and bow and spell. She’d climbed the long ramp onto the parapet of Sevenspires’ highest tower, to stand among the kings and queens and observe the action, convinced she’d be inured to the horror.

Yet no play, no tale could prepare anyone for the sights she saw, even from that far up: hobgoblins on fire, flapping their arms and fanning the flames as they tried to put them out; severed limbs scattered like broken toys; men writhing on blood-smeared cobbles, trying to scoop their insides back in. She had a repeated urge to vomit, and each time she pushed back the bile. Not here, not now, she told herself. What she saw was awful, but she would not lose control. That night, in the privacy of her chambers…

… if she lived that long…

… that night she would weep and sob, and purge her churning stomach. But she stood among kings, Nakhil himself just out of arm’s reach and most of the Rainwards’ other rulers nearby, all of them gathered to watch the fighting from Suluk’s highest point. She must keep her dignity.

Oh, Barreth, she thought, staring at the carnage below. I understand now. I know why you were reluctant to talk about what you saw when you were campaigning. I know why you seldom slept soundly. I may never sleep through the night again.

What made it worse was Barreth was out there somewhere. Perhaps not with the horde—Nakhil and Roshambur both agreed that if Maladar were among the hobgoblins, they would have seen some magic from the enemy by then—but somewhere close. She could sense him, the way she’d always known when he was riding home from war. He was out there.

Her gaze shifted to her right. Azar stood beside her, silently watching men and hobgoblins die by the hundreds. He didn’t seem to notice her discomfort or feel any of his own, for that matter. He showed no emotion at all, regarding the two armies as if they were pieces at a shivis table.

He still doesn’t understand death, she thought. He doesn’t understand that lives are ending below us, that souls are flowing like rivers to the gods… and the Abyss. This is a spectacle to him, nothing more.

It was hard to admit, but Essana couldn’t deny it: she was more than a little afraid of her son, afraid of the power that hung about him like a cloak of shadows, afraid of the coldness in his eyes, afraid of the fragment of evil lodged deep inside him. She would never say so to Nakhil, or Shedara, or Hult. She might not even admit it to Barreth, were he here beside her. Azar frightened her to her core. He was her own child, but he was something else too, something terrible and strange.

A particularly ghastly shriek rose from the harbor. The wizards, clustered along the edge of the courtyard beneath her, were raining new death upon the wharf, raising their hands to gather the moons’ power then hurling it down in great disks of green flame. The disks spun through the air, trailing sparks the color of old copper, cutting through the hobgoblins’ ranks. Bodies came apart, severed at the waist, legs crumpling while their upper halves let out squeals of dying agony. Essana saw the hobgoblins fall like wheat, saw the black blood spout, and finally could take no more. Teeth clenched, she turned away and covered her face with her hands.

She didn’t really expect Azar to come to her, but she hoped. When she felt a hand touch her arm, she looked up with a thankful smile and stiffened when she saw who it was. It wasn’t her son at all, but Nakhil. The centaur’s face was troubled and grave.

“It is difficult, is it not?” he asked. “Battle is not what the bards make of it. You should not be here, my lady. Go inside and rest. We have the upper hand, it seems; the victory will be ours ere midnight.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see any victory. Only death.”

Nakhil thought about that. “Difficult,” he said again. “And horrible. But when the last sword is stilled, Suluk will still stand. We will be safe, and the hobgoblins destroyed. Maladar’s army has failed, and that cannot be a bad thing.”

“Can’t it?” she asked. “If it truly is Maladar’s army… if he meant to overthrow the Rainwards with it… do you think the victory would be gained so quickly? And where is he, anyway? Why isn’t he with them?”

The centaur was silent, his eyes dark. He glanced at Roshambur, who stood nearby, stroking his golden beard. The dwarf was tired, having worn himself out lifting the fog and summoning the first lightning storm to shatter the oncoming fleet. He leaned on a short staff of ivory, tipped with a large, egg-shaped topaz.

“We thought about that also,” Roshambur said. “I have no answer. But it troubles me as well. There is something else at work, I agree.”

“It’s a trick.”

They all turned and looked toward the speaker. Azar had turned away from the battle to face them and was smiling. Smiling. Essana had to swallow the desire to smack him and wipe that smile off his face. Pride shone in his eyes; he had figured something out when they had not. And, perhaps, he was also proud of what Maladar was doing. Essana’s stomach twisted.

“A trick?” Nakhil asked, waving a hand at the slaughter below. “All these hobgoblins? That seems quite a bit of work just to fool us.”

Azar shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Essana asked. “What worked?”

It was Roshambur, not Azar, who answered. “Misdirection,” the dwarf said. “Oldest rule of cheap conjurers. Get someone looking here”—he raised one hand high, stubby fingers wiggling—“and you can do whatever you want over here.” He held out his other hand, in which was a small, golden object with a blue-green seastone on it.

“My signet ring!” Nakhil exclaimed. “How did you—”

“Misdirection, as I said.” Roshambur handed the jewel back to his king, his mouth crooking into a sour grin. “Maladar throws half the hobgoblins in Old Aurim at us, and what do we do? We gather all the kings and their armies here… and leave the rest of the isles unwatched. Mark me well: what Maladar wants is here, on the Rainwards… but I agree with Azar. It’s not Suluk.”

“What, then?” Essana asked.

The dwarf looked at Nakhil, who shook his head. They all stared at Azar.

“That,” Nakhil said, “is something we need to figure out, before—”

He said no more; indeed, everyone on the parapet fell silent. Even the sounds of battle dropped away suddenly. The armies, too, had turned to look to the northwest, over the mountains and many miles on. On the horizon was something that hadn’t been there only moments ago: a pillar of red light, lancing high into the darkening sky. It was the color of blood, deep and menacing. Its radiance washed over Suluk as it rose and rose and finally burst into a crimson sphere, more than a mile above the ground.

“There’s your answer,” Essana murmured.

Then chaos descended.

The trees atop the mountains began to wave and shake, leaning away from the bloody burst in the sky. Some toppled, splintering and tumbling end over end down the slopes. Elsewhere, shelves of rock broke away, sliding in vast cascades down the cliffs, throwing up plumes of dust that billowed toward the city. A mighty roar sounded: not just of crumbling stone, but wind as well—a thundering, tempestuous gale.

Essana felt frozen in place. Several of the Rainward kings broke and ran, yelling and shoving each other as they bolted for the ramp that led back down the tower. Below, the mages were shouting and running too. But many, like Essana, simply stood and stared, too bewildered to grasp what was happening, what was coming toward them. Essana’s eyes rose to the red blaze in the west, expanding and twisting in the high, cold wind.

He had done that, her husband—or what he’d become.

“We should have guessed,” Roshambur said dully, also motionless, fixated. “I should have known he was up to something—”

“Come on!” Nakhil broke in, grabbing the dwarf’s arm. “We’ve got to get down from here before it reaches us!”

“We’ll never make it,” Essana muttered, watching the shockwave descend from the mountains toward Suluk. “It’s too late.”

Roshambur woke from his trance, his craggy face turning the color of bleached bone. He gawked at the sundering mountains for a moment, then turned to grab Essana. Nakhil took hold of her other arm, and together they started to pull her away. As they did, though, Azar stepped forward and raised a hand. There was a strange sensation in the air, like a brief but powerful gust of wind, and both centaur and dwarf flew back as though he’d struck them. Nakhil went down in a heap, and Roshambur slammed up against the battlements. They stared at Azar, stunned, as he stepped forward to position himself between them and his mother.

“She stays,” he said, his voice deep and growling, unlike anything she’d heard come out of his mouth before. “There is no time to reach shelter from this storm. I will keep her safe.”

“Azar?” Essana asked. She could see the front edge of the blast, crashing down the mountainsides, leaving the trees broken and leafless in its wake. At the edge of the city, buildings began to shudder and collapse into shattered heaps of stone. “What are you doing?”

He turned and looked at her, his eyes gleaming with reflected fire. Behind him, Nakhil got to his feet and looked out over Suluk, gaping as the wave began to tear apart his city. Shaking himself, Roshambur took a step toward the ramp then stopped, his shoulders slumping. He would be barely halfway down the tower, even at a full run, before the shock hit. Other kings and their advisors still were bolting down the steps and out of sight.

Shards of stone filled the air. The clamor of battle from the wharf had ceased, and the screaming started. The tower trembled beneath their feet, and the air grew warm, then hot, then searing, worse than the most inhospitable desert. Tiny spiderweb cracks spread through the stone; to their right, one of the blue towers broke off and went down with a roar. The green one beside it collapsed a moment later, throwing up colorful grit. Wind scorched Essana’s face as Sevenspires fell to pieces around her.

“Whatever you’re going to do,” shouted Nakhil, bracing himself against the rail, “do it quickly, for Chalva’s sake! Hurry!”

Azar barely even moved. All he did was raise his hand, suddenly, when the storm was on the edge of striking the tower. Behind him, one of the white spires blew apart, raining glistening fragments onto palace and courtyard alike. From below came a boom, then a lurch and distant screams amid a roar of stone and debris. Essana shut her eyes, screaming: their tower had given way too. Any moment, the purchase beneath her feet would drop, and they would plummet to their doom.

The blast hit her like a fist, reeling her backward. She hit a merlon, her head cracking against the stone. Lights exploded in her head. The world became nothing but heat and wind and dust. Then it all went away, and at last there was silence.

Shedara saw the wave of heat and wind coming, saw the western quarter of Suluk turn to rubble, saw the mountains broken and scattered with rocks and splinters beneath the glare of that strange, scarlet eye.

This is how I’m going to die, she thought.

Most of the fighting had ceased when the sky filled with red beyond the mountains. Man and dwarf, centaur and hobgoblin all turned to stare, their swords slowing, then falling still. None of them had seen anything like that before. It wasn’t just magic; it was magic of a size they’d never beheld, had only heard of in tales told late at night.

“The Third Destruction!” cried some. “The wrath of the gods is upon us!”

Shedara knew better. She’d seen sorcery like it before. She knew the one who’d cast the spell.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” asked Hult, shading his eyes against the rising gale. “Forlo.”

She glanced at him. He was covered in black blood, head to toe, except where he was covered in red. There were cuts on his chin and both his forearms, and a gash just above his left knee. Bodies of hobgoblins, slit open and hewn apart, lay strewn about him. She’d never seen anything quite like it: he must have killed fifty of the creatures, if not more. But they were out of time. Doom was almost upon them. Men were screaming down the wharf and being thrown into the air like leaves in an autumn storm. Hobgoblins rained down on the rooftops; then the rooftops themselves blew apart, peppering the ground with shards.

“Not Forlo,” she said. “Maladar.”

He nodded and reached out to touch her arm.

“It has been a joy of my life, knowing you,” he said.

She smiled, then reached out and squeezed his hand. Up on the slope above them, the towers of Sevenspires were swaying and toppling, one by one. Sorrow stabbed Shedara in the heart: Essana was up there. The palace collapsed, half its courtyard shearing away and pouring down onto the city below; wizards tumbled, wailing, amid the avalanche.

The central tower was the last standing; it was stronger than the rest, dwarf-crafted, reinforced with sorcery. But even it couldn’t hold up against the devastation that tore through Suluk. Cracks webbed its white stone, widening as she watched. Bodies poured out the rents in its sides, kings and courtiers who hadn’t been able to get to safety. Finally, the spire shattered, folding in on itself, dropping almost straight down into the earth…

But not all of it.

“Gods of the kender,” Shedara swore.

Hult stared too, and so did those who stood nearby. The top of the white tower hadn’t fallen; it stayed aloft, borne by a whirlwind of blue and green dust. It hung suspended there, impossible, and Shedara laughed in spite of all the carnage, in spite of her own impending death.

Essana was safe up there. And she wasn’t alone. Her son was with her.

“Well done, Azar,” she murmured.

Very near, a temple of Zai erupted into slivers of marble and crystal. The flying debris turned those standing nearby to red and black mist. Shedara flinched, throwing up an arm to shield herself. Hot winds buffeted her. This is it, she thought. She turned to say good-bye to Hult.

He wasn’t there. In his place was a shimmer of silver light, swiftly fading. She felt the sting of magic in the air, fading… then growing stronger, coalescing around her body. She recognized the sensation as it built within her, shining white, growing ever brighter. Her stomach dropped, as if she had just looked down into a bottomless chasm. The world grew hazy, indistinct. A sharp chunk of a boulder passed right through her, and it didn’t hurt at all.

A sending spell. Azar hadn’t forgotten them.

Oh, she thought, as the wharf turned to a wasteland of corpses and ruin around her, as the soldiers of the Rainwards and the hobgoblins of Aurim alike blew away. Very well done.

Then she was gone.