War of Shadows (35 page)

“What in Raka was that?” Piran said as he and Blaine battled their way forward one bloody inch at a time in the bitter wind.

“More importantly, whose side sent it?” Blaine replied. He was shaking from the resonance of the bond, and struggling to catch his breath.

The bodies of newly dead Tingur fell atop the snow-covered heaps of past days’ battles. Steadily falling snow covered the dead. But while the storm limited visibility, the sound of battle was a constant beacon.

“Push harder, lads! We’ve got them on the run!” Blaine shouted. The command echoed down the line. Those still on horseback drove the Tingur ahead of them, sending them stumbling over treacherous footing, trampling them when they fell.

The Tingur’s unpredictability was more dangerous than their swords. Now that their confidence in a quick victory was dashed by the number of their fellows who lay dead, panic replaced triumph. They fled the battle, stumbling into the thick of the chaos as they careened into Lysander’s advance.

The wind shifted, giving Blaine his first clear view of the battlefield in quite a while. His side had advanced. Lysander’s soldiers fought the Tingur to push them out of their way and clear a path for the assault on the Solveigs’ fortification. That trapped the Tingur in a no-man’s-land between Blaine’s troops and Lysander’s forces.

Blaine’s soldiers charged with a battle cry, overrunning the Tingur stragglers and attacking the flank of Lysander’s army. It took Lysander precious moments to realize that he could not afford to devote his army’s full attention to scaling the Solveigs’ walls. And in those moments, the battle began to turn.

“Where in the name of the gods is Verner?” Piran grumbled. The snow closed in around them once more, isolating them.

The buzz in the back of Blaine’s mind grew louder. He
staggered, and Piran reached out to steady him. “It’s the magic, isn’t it?”

Blaine nodded. “It’s here and it’s strong, though I’ll be damned if I could tell you what the mages are actually doing.”

“Sweet Esthrane!” Piran yelped. “What’s going on?”

Blaine followed Piran’s gaze. The main group of their soldiers were fighting valiantly. But at the outer ranks, the soldiers stumbled and milled about in confusion as if drunk. As Blaine shouted to them to rouse them, Lysander’s troops rode in to cut the men down.

“They looked bewitched!” Piran exclaimed.

The battle shifted, and the wind dropped suddenly, clearing the air. Blaine got his first good look at the battlefield in several candlemarks.

The Solveigs’ fortress still stood, damaged from the assault. Any surviving Tingur had either run away or been absorbed into Lysander’s army. On the far side of the battlefield, where Verner’s troops had been, was a blackened crater.

“Oh my gods,” Piran swore. “Do you think…”

Blaine stared at the charred ground before the snow closed in once more. “I don’t think we’re going to be getting any help from that direction,” he said quietly.

The hum in Blaine’s mind grew deafening, and pain drove him to his knees, threatening to black him out. Overhead, the sky exploded in flame. The soldiers on the edge of Blaine’s group caught fire like tinder, and their agonized screams sounded above the wind. In that moment, when the air felt thick as deep water and it was hard to breathe, Blaine understood.

“It’s the mages,” he managed, trying not to retch or pass out. “They’re spending their magic defending us against the kind of strikes that destroyed Verner.”

Piran helped him to his feet, though Blaine’s head swam
and his body felt leaden. The magic tethered through Blaine’s blood drew from his life force, and Blaine was weakening. Gritting his teeth, Blaine raised his sword, signaling for the troops to charge, and they surged against the Lysander troops, seizing the moment when Lysander’s mages would be too spent to launch another attack.

Blaine’s head snapped up at a cry from across the battlefield. The portcullis on the Solveigs’ fortress was raised, and armed men poured out with a fierce roar.

Renewed by the appearance of fresh troops, Blaine’s soldiers took up the shout, pushing past exhaustion to make one last press against the Lysander forces.

Once more, Blaine felt the painful buzz of magic. In the space between where Blaine’s troops held the line and where the Lysander army began, the snow trembled. From beneath their icy shrouds, the dead shuddered and woke. Here and there, ragged, bloody hands thrust up from the trampled snow, struggling free.

Cursing and scrambling, the Lysander troops scrambled back. Blaine gave a feral grin. He could feel Tormod’s necromancy sending its tendrils of power out to the fresh dead, waking them from their slumber, calling them to arms. Seeing the enemy flee in fear was worth the pain the magic caused.

Curses and cries of alarm rose above the storm as the snow-covered corpses struggled to their feet, lumbering toward the terrified Lysander line. One last service the dead could do for their brothers-in-arms and that was to send their killers into retreat. Mottled with the cold, covered in blood, marred with the gruesome death wounds that had sent them to the Sea of Souls, they’d been called by Tormod Solveig to a final duty.

“Those dead are our men,” Blaine shouted, raising his sword like a battle standard. “Let’s do them proud. Forward!”

With a roar, Blaine’s army surged forward, as the Lysander
troops recoiled from the frozen corpses that staggered toward them. The animated dead moved slowly, but as more and more struggled from their frozen graves, they formed a front line that had nothing to fear from the enemy troops.

Blaine watched the lurching corpses in fascinated horror. He knew that Tormod was controlling them like a master puppeteer, that the dead had not risen on their own, and that he and his men had nothing to fear, and yet he shuddered. Blaine let the dead men take the lead, driving Lysander’s soldiers back with a buffer of fighters who were beyond the harm of mortal weapons.

For a moment, the line held. The corpses stopped. They stood, pale as the snow, trembling. With a muted bang, hundreds of corpses exploded at once. Frozen gobbets of gore splattered Lysander’s soldiers as the bodies blew apart. Bone and tissue, hair and skin rained down on the enemy troops.

Blaine’s soldiers surged forward, followed by the Solveig troops. Lysander’s army ran, stumbling and falling over the corpses that littered the snow-covered field, terrified that more of the dead would rise up to take their vengeance. Blaine snagged a riderless horse and swung up into the saddle. He saw Piran do the same. Together, they led the charge. Lysander himself was nowhere to be seen, and his mounted officers spurred their horses to full speed, outpacing the hapless infantry.

The storm abated one more time, clearing just enough to afford the fleeing troops no cover. Blaine and Piran were in the vanguard, with the rest close behind. They took out their anger on the stragglers, cutting them down without quarter, trampling the bodies of the fallen as they pursued the rear guard of Lysander’s army. As they fought their way through the chaos, Blaine felt the buzz in his mind grow distant. He was exhausted from the weather, the exertion of battle, and the pull of magic, but he kept up the pressure on the retreating troops, bringing
his sword down again and again, sending more of the enemy soldiers to the Sea of Souls. It was taking effort for Blaine to stay in his saddle, but he was resolved to see the battle through to its end.

Harried by the dead and pursued by the living, Lysander’s troops retreated, leaving their stragglers behind. Blaine’s men chased the enemy to the foothills. Exhausted, cold to the bone, and weary of battle, Blaine and Piran led their portion of the army back to rendezvous with Niklas, who was standing with Rinka Solveig.

Rinka’s blood-red armor did not stand out against the stained and sullied snow. Tormod was nowhere to be seen. Rinka eyed the retreating Lysander troops. “That was bloody expensive,” she said.

“I’d say we put a crimp in Lysander’s plans,” Blaine replied. “We definitely took a toll on his troops. Thank Tormod for us.”

Rinka grimaced. “My brother enjoys this kind of thing.”

“I don’t think Lysander will be coming back today,” Blaine replied.

Rinka looked at him. “Not today. But we haven’t broken him.”

“What about Verner?” Blaine asked.

Rinka jerked her head in the direction of the blackened crater. “Mage strike. Killed about a third of his men, injured a lot more. We’ve got medics getting the survivors to shelter.”

“Our mages had their hands full keeping that from happening to us,” Blaine replied. He looked out over the battlefield. “Let’s get my troops to shelter, and we can plan our next move from there.”

P
OLLARD DID THIS?” CONNOR LOOKED AROUND
the ruined grounds. The sturdy gate hung askew from its hinges, its iron bars twisted and bent. A fortified inner door lay battered into splinters. A battle took place here. But there were no corpses, no newly dug graves, and no scorched pyres.

Penhallow nodded. “Not Pollard himself. One of Reese’s brood, on Pollard’s orders. That’s why there are no casualties. They were turned.”

On a gut level, Connor suspected that Penhallow was right. “Why?” The Wraith Lord also accompanied them, though he was visible only when he chose to show himself.

Penhallow looked out over the moonlit ruins as the Wraith Lord answered Connor. “Pollard and Reese hoped to keep McFadden from restoring the magic. They failed—and their loss at Valshoa cost them dearly. Pollard needs an army. He has far too few men left to wield the kind of power he desires.”

“Pollard’s forces must have used magic of their own to overcome the mages,” Connor said.

Penhallow nodded. “Which means that they’ve figured out
how to use the ‘new’ magic without destroying themselves. Or they got lucky.” He paused. “I suspect it’s the latter. Pollard couldn’t stop magic from returning, so now he’s got to have mages of his own, thoroughly loyal, if he hopes to win any future battles.”

“And if the mages are turned, they’ve no choice except to be loyal,” Connor finished the thought. A small group of mages who had survived the Cataclysm and escaped both Quintrel and Reese had made a new home for themselves in a converted granary. They had politely turned down an alliance with Penhallow, and with any warlord, they insisted. They merely desired to practice their craft. For that, they had been slaughtered and brought across against their will.

“Do you think Reese will escape?” Connor asked.

Penhallow shrugged. “Nothing is certain. He can afford to be patient. After all, he can outwait the mortal players. Pollard’s lifetime is extended as Reese’s servant. He, too, has time. He’ll need it to rebuild an army, and time for his fledglings to adjust and gain strength.”

“Does Reese really have the support of some of the Elders?” Connor walked through the wreckage of the mage’s retreat. Scrolls and parchment were strewn everywhere. Tables and shelves were filled with glass vials, abalone shells, tins of herbs, and other mage tools, but anything that might have been a relic or magical artifact appeared to have been taken. Some of the vials and tins had been knocked to the floor and scattered.

“I believe at least two of the Elders support his ideas, maybe more,” the Wraith Lord replied. By moonlight, the ruined compound looked even more forlorn. Pollard’s men had left nothing of value behind. “Whether or not they will back him in fact as well as in theory remains to be seen.”

The granary was the third incident in the last few weeks. “I
didn’t think it was easy—or wise—to turn a lot of people at once,” Connor said.

Penhallow shook his head. “It isn’t. Fledglings are vulnerable while they get accustomed to the Dark Gift. Many of them don’t survive the transition. If Reese’s brood are turning all the mages they’ve taken, it’s a very risky proposition.”

“But they would be ultimately under Reese’s control,” the Wraith Lord replied. “Which may be his intent.”

“Can we stop him?” Connor asked.

“From killing mages? Probably not,” Penhallow acknowledged. “Even with Voss’s army supporting us, we’ll be busy enough holding Rodestead House and Westbain, plus Voss’s lands, and now sending a contingent to Mirdalur.”

He shook his head. “Each of the warlords has gathered mages,” Penhallow replied. “We’ve taken in our share, and so has Traher Voss. Pollard is targeting mages who refused alliances.” He shook his head. “This is a very dangerous time to decide to be independent, if you lack an army to back it up.”

“Is there any way to warn the mages?” Connor mused.

Penhallow grimaced. “Pollard’s strikes don’t leave survivors. So there’s no one left to spread the word about what happened. I doubt the other mages would listen.”

“Which is why we haven’t had a mob of mages arguing to be protected.” Connor sighed.

“We’d best keep going,” Penhallow said. “Nidhud will be expecting us at Mirdalur, and so will Traher Voss and his men. I’m anxious to see how Dolan’s research is coming, and whether he thinks Blaine can anchor the power soon.”

“Let’s hope Dolan’s been successful. The magic is too fragile to remain this way much longer,” the Wraith Lord replied. “And McFadden’s time is running out unless the anchor can be shifted.”

By the time they reached Mirdalur, Niklas Theilsson and his soldiers had left for battle north of Glenreith, and Traher Voss’s men had taken their place. Connor and the others found Nidhud and Dagur waiting for them in one of the reclaimed cellar rooms of the old manor.

“For a place that stood abandoned for so long, Dolan and the mages have managed to make it more livable than I would have expected,” Connor remarked. Several of the underground rooms had been cleaned of debris and set up for the use of Dolan and his mages, both the
talishte
warriors of the Knights of Esthrane and a dozen mortal mages.

“McFadden, the Solveigs, and Verner pooled some of their mages and had them working at the Citadel,” Dagur said. “We felt their work would be more useful here, and they would be easier to defend. They’ve been a great help,” he added, “and with the rumors of mages disappearing, they were happy for the additional protection.”

Connor shook his head. “Those aren’t rumors,” he replied, and told Dagur what they had seen on their way from Westbain.

“Then I’m doubly glad the mages joined us,” he replied. “The Knights have been kind hosts.”

Nidhud chuckled. “And your mages have enabled us to progress much faster,” he said. “An excellent alliance.” He turned to Penhallow. “Welcome. Good to see you’ve arrived safely. You’ll be glad to know the repairs and fortifications at Rodestead House are nearly complete,” he reported. Rodestead House, Penhallow’s manor, had been badly damaged by the Cataclysm.

“Good to hear,” Penhallow replied. He accepted a goblet of deer’s blood from a tray on one of the worktables. Connor was
quite happy with a glass of whiskey. “And what from Voss? I assume news came along with his troops.”

Nidhud nodded. “His men are guarding Rodestead House, as well as Voss’s own fortifications. These troops arrived a fortnight ago, at the request of Niklas Theilsson. He’s gone to support McFadden in the north, along with Rikard and the mages who stayed with Glenreith and the army.” He paused. “As for Voss himself, he sent word that he would love a chance to finish what we started at Valshoa.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Penhallow said, smiling. “Let him know that he’ll get his chance against Pollard again, though they’re the least of our worries for now.”

Nidhud reached for a goblet and took a sip. “Dolan is getting closer to a solution here,” he said. He gestured for Connor and Penhallow to join him at the worktable. Connor found a plate with sausage, bread, and cheese set out for him, as well as a flask with more whiskey. After the long ride, he was grateful for the refreshments, and he ate quickly.

“It’s taken us quite a while to examine the artifacts you hid in the crypts beneath Quillarth Castle,” Dagur said. “I’m glad you managed to keep them out of Reese’s hands, although some of the pieces are corrupted enough that they’re no use to anyone.”

“We had very little time,” Penhallow replied. “We gathered what we could and secured them.”

Nidhud nodded. “That’s where it’s been valuable to have mortal and
talishte
-mages working together. Having the
talishte
mages reduces the deaths and injuries when pieces are tainted, and the mortal mages give us an idea of whether or not McFadden could safely use an artifact.”

“What have you found?” Penhallow asked.

“I’ll show you,” Nidhud said, rising and gesturing for them
to follow him. He led them into another, more crowded workroom. Dolan and several mages looked up as they entered.

“Glad you’re here,” Dolan said brusquely. “We’ve nearly figured this out, I believe.”

Penhallow and Connor crowded around the table, where thirteen crystal rods and obsidian disks were scattered, along with yellowed manuscripts, a piece of wood covered with carved sigils, an ornate boline knife, and a stone chalice.

“Those are presence-crystals,” Dolan said, indicating the rods. “I took them along with the manuscripts that Quintrel thought were the key to creating a new anchor. McFadden already had the thirteen obsidian disks. But we suspected something was missing, and we were right.”

“The disks and crystals will create the anchor,” Dagur said. “But what we’ve learned—from the Valshoan manuscripts and from some that we found in the crypts at the Citadel—make it clear these other artifacts are needed to create the new Lords of the Blood.” He looked to Connor. “And we’ll need your help—along with that of the Wraith Lord—to make it happen.”

“How?” Connor asked.

The Wraith Lord had been listening. He stood near the fireplace, where his ghostly form was half-hidden by the shadows. “I was among the lords at Mirdalur. But I inherited my disk from my father, and his fathers before that. Even I don’t know how the Lords of the Blood were created.”

Dolan nodded. “We realized that the Lords of the Blood were either special because of their magic, or made special because they took part in the binding ritual.” He leaned back and took a sip from his goblet. “But we did have a clue—the thirteen onyx disks.

“The disks were made for the Lords of the Blood, handed
down through generations. They weren’t just artifacts to call and bind the magic,” Dolan continued. “They were the story of how magic was originally bound, split into thirteen parts, and put into code for safekeeping. And together with some of the artifacts we’ve recovered, we believe we’ve discovered how to create new Lords of the Blood.”

“Your mages deciphered them?” the Wraith Lord asked, his gaze sharp. “And are they certain of their conclusions?”

Dolan nodded. “As certain as they can be, without putting what they’ve found into practice.”

“If you’re wrong about this, Blaine McFadden dies,” Penhallow said.

“I’m well aware of that,” Dolan replied archly.

“That’s where these other pieces come in,” Dagur said excitedly. “The key was combining that sigil wood with the disks. It held the words of power and the ritual instructions for binding blood to magic.” His eyes gleamed with the discovery. “It’s blood magic, very old and strong.”

Dagur gestured toward the table. “That knife and the chalice have matching sigils,” he explained. “Words of power open the ritual and activate the chamber, drawing on the meridians.”

“The knife draws blood from each of the thirteen participants,” Dolan continued. “It’s mingled in the chalice, where it awakens the chalice’s power. Pouring the blood onto the sigils that are carved in the ritual chamber floor connects the power to the meridians.”

“And where do the Wraith Lord and I come in?” Connor asked.

“The Wraith Lord is the only one who has seen the ritual completed successfully. We’ll need you to be part of the anchoring,” Dolan answered.

Connor slept fitfully. Dagur provided a cot for him in the room shared by the mortal mages, where a small fireplace drove away Mirdalur’s persistent chill. Connor’s dreams were dark, shifting from visions of flame to memories of being buried alive. When he woke, the sun was just struggling above the horizon, barely visible behind the thick gray clouds.

“I hope you and Lord Penhallow weren’t planning to go anywhere soon,” Dagur said as Connor got dressed. “Looks like we’ve got another storm heading our way.”

Connor shook his head. “We’re here until Niklas returns, maybe longer. Penhallow and the Wraith Lord believed we were needed.”

Dagur nodded. “As usual, his instincts are good.”

“I don’t know what I can do to help. I’m a medium, not a mage.”

Dagur smiled. “You—and Penhallow—are among those McFadden wants for his thirteen.”

Connor stared at Dagur in shock. “Me? I’m just Lord Penhallow’s servant.”

Dagur seemed to be enjoying his shock. “You’re also the Wraith Lord’s host. And McFadden says he trusts you, that he’s seen you show a lot of courage.”

“Who else is to be among the thirteen?” Connor asked, still sorting out the news.

“I don’t know that he’s chosen them all,” Dagur replied. “His mates from Edgeland, and General Dolan, plus Niklas Theilsson.”

“Blaine’s married to Kestel, so that’s one bloodline,” Connor said, thinking aloud. “Piran, Dawe, and Verran he trusts with his life.”

“It wouldn’t be a surprise for him to choose his strongest allies,” Dagur added. “It seals the compact, and binds them together.”

Connor nodded. “Voss maybe, then. Perhaps one of the Solveigs, and Verner.”

Dagur shrugged. “Perhaps. But you were one of the people he was certain he wanted.”

“That’s going to take some time to get used to,” Connor replied.

Dagur moved to respond, then froze. A look of confusion turned to terror, and with a cry of pain, he fell to the floor, holding his head in his hands.