The Raven Collection

‘You had to wait, you bastard. Look at us now. As if being here wasn’t enough, we all look like we fell asleep in the sun for five days. Look at my son.’ The Unknown spun him so he could see. ‘Look at him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Hirad. ‘I didn’t—’

‘No, you never damn well do, do you?’

Sol thrust Hirad away, winding him against a wall. He put down his foot to steady himself and the pain tore a cry from his lips.

‘Burned, is it?’ asked Sol.

‘It’s a little tender,’ said Hirad.

‘Good. It’ll remind you what an idiot you are.’

‘I saved him, didn’t I?’ Hirad spread his arms. ‘What were you going to do? Stand there and watch the life getting sucked out of him? Because that’s what it looked like was happening. At least I did something.’

The Unknown bunched a fist, thought for a moment and then let it drop.

‘You just don’t get it, do you? Dead for ten years and you still have no more sense than when you fell. Septern’s grid is interlinked in ways that even he probably barely understands. You could have set off five, ten, twenty more wards, all in this small space. What then, eh? Who was going to head west and kill himself to save the living and the dead then?

‘Sorry, Ilkar, but if you had died before we came up with a plan, that was just going to be tough.’

Ilkar nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I understand.’

Hirad felt heat in his face but it was from inside him. ‘Right. I see. So you’re ungrateful too, are you?’

‘No, Hirad. I just see the bigger picture.’

‘I’ll tell you the big fucking picture,’ said Hirad, voice rising in volume all the time. ‘We’re trapped in this dusty little street, Xetesk at one end and the Garonin at the other. And neither you nor the Unknown has the first clue how to get out, do you? What happened to you anyway?’

Hirad’s last thought took all the anger from him.

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

‘I got sidetracked.’ Hirad rubbed his hands across his face and tried to ignore the burning throb in his foot. He gave the Unknown a light punch on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, big man.’

The Unknown nodded. ‘I know. And as usual you were luckier than a fox born in a chicken run.’

‘Sorry, Jonas.’

‘It’s all right, Hirad. Do I really look all red and blotchy?’

The Raven quartet all nodded simultaneously.

‘Look what’s happened to my clothes. Mama’s going to kill me.’

The Unknown ruffled his hair. ‘I think she’ll forgive you just this once. So, Ilkar, is it the usual news or do you have something good to tell us for a change?’

‘Good, I think. Look, the whole ward grid has gone active. Septern has done some very clever things with how mana is cha

‘If you insist.’

‘I do. The point I’m getting to is this. The whole system is clearly linked all the way back to Xetesk and draws its mana direct from the Heart, because that way no mage has to expend mana stamina. All very clever so far. But the Garonin have found a way to tap into it. They are drawing off huge amounts of mana, direct from the Heart. Septern’s whole grid is like one big feed pipe to them. Hirad was right: I was literally having the life sucked out of me. Every mote of mana I possessed, dragged out kicking and screaming all the way.’

The Unknown laughed but there was little satisfaction in it. ‘Poor Densyr. He refuses to listen to what is coming. How unprepared he is.’

‘So the good news is, the Garonin can drag off mana as fast as they want in the short term and so don’t need to attack the college directly,’ said Sirendor. ‘But there’s an obvious problem, isn’t there?’

‘Top marks,’ said Ilkar. ‘At any moment Septern and Densyr might close down the grid.’

‘And that is bad for us how?’ asked Hirad.

‘Well, they have two choices. Either shut down the grid nice and gently, rendering every ward inert. Or send a massive pulse through it and set the lot of them off.’

‘Ah.’

‘And from the Garonin point of view, someone will have shut off their flow of mana. What do you think they’ll do about that?’

‘Ah.’

‘We have got to get out of here,’ said The Unknown. ‘Ilkar, where are the wards around us?’

‘There are nine that I can divine, spread relatively evenly.’

‘Anything in front of that door, for instance?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Ilkar. ‘I don’t know what exactly, but it’ll either be very hot, very cold or make the walls fall on us.’

‘We’re going to have to take a chance,’ said The Unknown.

‘Oh, all right if it’s you, eh?’

‘Shut up, Hirad. Ilkar, do you have it in you to put up an Ilkar’s Defence?’

‘A what?’

‘Or maybe an Ilkar’s Heal My Foot spell?’

‘Hirad.’ The Unknown glared at him. ‘You’ll have to wait. Ruminate on why you got burned or something. Sorry, Ilkar, that’s the new name for a ForceCone.’

‘Very flattering, I’m sure. Look, I know where you’re going with this. Are you sure? I can’t guarantee the Cone will stand up to much.’

‘I can’t think of a better idea. Can you?’ Ilkar shook his head. ‘Then let’s get started.’

Chapter 26

Auum led his Tai back across the rooftops, across a fifteen-foot gap to the next line of houses, along five pitched roofs and into the lee of a huge chimney stack at the east end of the square. Here the smoke from the cook fires of every dwelling in the tenement house was released to the sky. He wasn’t sure if the Garonin had seen them coming but he was sure they had hit the roofs and ground looking for him and his kind.

‘Ghaal, what can you see?’

The Tai peered slowly out around the edge of the stack.

‘They have stopped about two hundred and fifty yards from us. Something’s happening. Perhaps they aren’t after us after all. On the ground they have stopped too, as if they’ve formed a perimeter at the edge of where they cleared the wards earlier.’

Auum joined him, Miirt went the other way.

‘The vydosphere is collecting,’ she said.

And so it was. The cloud was darkening slowly above the malevolent shape hanging in the sky, which had begun a lazy spiral. Fu

‘Where is it getting the mana from?’ asked Ghaal.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Auum was sizing up the distance to the enemy. ‘We can strike here. They are unprepared.’

‘They will follow if we do.’

‘So much the better. We need to bring them further into the grid and away from the others. We can do both if we’re quick.’

Ghaal was smiling. ‘Like a decoy run in the rainforest.’

‘With the rooftops as our canopy,’ said Miirt.

‘Are we one on this?’ asked Auum. ‘Draw them to the south if you can.’

‘Yniss will guide us,’ said his Tai.

‘Split and run hard, my warriors. Keep low and loose. Tai, we move.’

Auum hurdled wall, low chimney and alleyway. He sprinted on a long gentle curve, his angle and the presentation of his body making it hard for any projectile weapon to take certain aim. Seventy yards into the run, the Garonin began to fire, the entire front line of over seventy enemy soldiers carving up the dawn with their white teardrops.

Tile and flowerpot exploded by him as he ran. He saw Ghaal turn, dive and forward-roll while energy bit into a loft window where he had been standing momentarily. He came up low and ran behind a decorative wall. The fire followed him but when the smoke and debris cleared, he was long gone.