The Raven Collection

‘And we ca

‘Five Shamen could do it,’ said the old man, catching Tessaya’s train of thought.

‘See that it is done,’ said Tessaya.

The message was passed swiftly to the front lines and the quintet of casters gathered in the centre of the battlefield, a zone of calm in the swarming mass of warriors. Shields were raised over them and, with the noise of battle deafening in their ears and with boulders and bolts slicing the air above their heads, they cast the spell to change the course of the fight for Understone Pass.

The white fire lashed out, catching the top of the arch. It fizzed and crackled away, licking the rock either side and well into the pass itself. The rock glowed and shone, the Wytch Lord spell sourcing every crack, fissure and weakness. It poured down the side walls, dislodging chips and dust as it went, and raced here and there along the roof twenty paces in. The Shamen shut off the spell, the horns sounded a retreat and the Wesmen disengaged, shouting their hate and leaving their dead.

It began with a rumble that seemed to come from deep within the mountains. The arch shook, the walls shivered, the roof undulated and then the whole collapsed. Great boulders of rock fell from left, right and above, spreading panic through the defenders. Some ran inside, others for the slopes either side of the pass entrance, but most just stood as the ground juddered under the pounding rock that collapsed along a fifteen-yard stretch, destroying everything beneath it. Men, defences, catapults, all fell victim to the deluge.

In front of the pass, the Wesmen scented victory and yelled new battle cries of triumph at the floundering defenders. Dust filled the air, shards of stone lashed away into the gloom, cutting down those who had escaped the initial collapse, and then, as violently as it had begun, the fall ceased and all that was left was an echo, rumbling away into the heart of the Blackthorne Mountains.

When the dust began to clear, the sight that greeted Tessaya warmed his heart. The defenders’ lines were broken. Hundreds lay dead or dying and those that survived blinked into the new light, leaderless and vulnerable. Because behind them, the pass had gone. Blocked almost from floor to roof by the rock. Nobody was going back, nobody else was coming out.

Tessaya smiled, knowing that his Shamen and warriors could remove the fall as simply as they had caused it in the first place.

‘Sound the attack,’ he said. ‘We’ve a lot of work to do.’ With a roar to cool the heart, the Wesmen set to work.

Selyn had died in Parve and Stylia

He rode in the centre of his Protectors, knowing they would shield him and feeling the thrill of mana energy coursing through his body. As the sun rose, he saw the pyramid, its fires dulled by natural light but burning all the same, saw the miles of the Torn Wastes and saw a stand of Wesmen tents about three miles in to the right and in front of him. They would be first.

Ten Protectors moved ahead to take the encampment, wheeling their horses out of line with complete precision and forming two lines of five as they raced away to the right. The rest galloped on.

Reaching the tents, the Protectors reined in, dismounted and took the canvas apart, piece by piece. Wesmen hurried to defend themselves as the Protectors moved in a single line through the encampment, silent, masked, deadly. At its centre, they stopped in the ashes of the long-dead fire, waiting. In front of them, the Wesmen, around thirty of them, formed up, nervous, hefting blades and axes in unsure hands.

Ten Protector sword tips tapped the ground. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth, in response to unspoken command, they switched their swords to their right hands and swept the axes from their backs into their left and joined battle in a whirl of blurring steel.

The Wesmen had no defence. Where one thrust forwards, the gap he thought he’d worked was stopped by the blade of a different opponent. Axe followed sword, delivering death and dismemberment. The Protectors marched forwards, each one swatting one strike aside before delivering the next themselves, their wall of strokes complementing each other and giving the Wesmen no chance at all.

The shouts of the Wesmen as they fought and died were met with the eerie silence of the Protectors, who barely even breathed heavily as they advanced, slicing at torso, hacking at neck and stabbing at heart and head. It was all over in a couple of minutes, and without pausing to view their efforts, the Protectors left the Wesmen blood to soak into the earth of the Torn Wastes and rejoined their brethren and Given.

Stylia

He nodded, satisfied. He could take them all. And every skull crushed and heart ripped out was another he would offer to Selyn and another The Raven would not have to face. A quarter of a mile from the defensive lines, he brought the Protectors to a halt, dismounted them and marched to the attack of Parve, FlameOrbs already forming in his mind.

Under the cover of pre-dawn night, The Raven made slow and steady progress through the Torn Wastes, elven and shapechanger eyes directing every hoof fall. The horses were walking, no need for a gallop until or unless they were challenged. They would arrive at the City as light broke the darkness.

‘Are they here?’ asked Hirad. He was riding with The Unknown at the head of The Raven. Behind them rode Ilkar and Thraun, eyes piercing the darkness, low voices warning of any potential threat, although in truth there was little unless they were seen. The Wesmen who had been camped there were marching on Julatsa or pounding the defences of Understone Pass.

Jandyr, his face pale and slick with pain, rode between Denser and Erie

‘I can’t feel them,’ said The Unknown. ‘But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. If they are under instruction from Stylia