The Raven Collection

By the time the TaiGethen had steered back towards the walls of the college, ordinary folk and a good number wearing the livery of the college guard were making their hurried way to the west gates and out onto open ground. Auum only hoped they weren’t too late. The Garonin were creatures of habit and marched in straight lines everywhere they went, but even they would eventually realise that another path existed. And then stopping the exodus, to herd, corral and massacre the people, would be relatively simple.

Auum led his Tai into the lee of the western walls of the college. The explosives display to the east had turned every head. The barrier before them was some fifty feet high, dark and imposing. But Ghaal merely smiled.

‘Smooth walls and beautifully repeated stonework,’ he said. ‘Old concrete and moss. My trusted friends.’

He reached up with both hands, set his feet into a crack at about hip level and began to climb, his brother and sister following his every move.

Densyr was weeping with the effort. He could easily imagine himself standing between two forces desperate to pull apart and release the power contained within while he held on to each one with every mote of strength that he had. And he wouldn’t be able to hold on forever.

He could feel Septern with him. The master mage was weak but his mind still clung on, and would do for as long as his soul could do the same in his borrowed body. Septern’s grid had come under extraordinary pressure but some sections remained undamaged by their efforts to pull the plug on the Garonin attempt to drag mana direct from Xetesk’s Heart.

Densyr, his own heart flailing and his temples pounding, relaxed enough to be able to look about him in the mana spectrum. The Heart had returned to something like normal balance. The hourglass shape of mana encasing the Heart was no longer distorted like a glass-blower’s nightmare. There were wild pulses within it but the depletion had been halted, with Densyr acting as the door wedged firmly into the frame.

Still, the remains of the grid, particularly at its periphery, were a disaster waiting to happen. What had been a tightly bound structure built on lines of energy criss-crossing in arcs, horizontals and verticals to join each and every ward together, had become a fractured mess.

Loose lines whipped and spat with the remnants of mana within them seeking a place to earth themselves. The entire security of the arc lines was gone, ripped to shreds by the feedback of mana along the grid itself. Eighty per cent of the wards had detonated when they had been torn asunder. Densyr shuddered to think what had happened to the eastern side of his city. The remaining parts of the grid were all active, and that was some relief should the Garonin still pursue their plan to march east to west without deviation.

Unfortunately, it seemed to Densyr that he would be unable to abandon his position. The grid was so unstable that to remove himself, and probably Septern too, from their buffering duties would allow the flailing mana lines to reco

‘Did we win?’ asked Septern.

Through the haze of the mana spectrum Densyr could see him slumped in his chair, eyelids fluttering.

‘That depends on your point of view.’

‘Where are the enemy?’

‘I can see no sign of them in the spectrum. But that means little, I suspect. We’ve surely given them a bloody nose and pause for thought.’

Septern chuckled. ‘And now you want me to work out a way to unpick the rest of the grid safely.’

‘It isn’t that I don’t enjoy standing between these two unruly forces, it’s just that I have other duties today.’

‘You are a strong mage, young Densyr. I am not surprised you were entrusted with Dawnthief.’

Densyr felt a warmth radiating through him, calming the forces pummelling him from the outside.

‘I am flattered,’ he said. ‘But let’s raise a glass to ourselves when we’re out of this. I’m tired. You must be exhausted.’

‘I can take the pressure now,’ said Septern. ‘Release yourself. Let me work.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘We’ll find out.’ Another dry chuckle. ‘Just don’t go far.’

Densyr disengaged himself from the point between Heart and grid, feeling Septern take the strain. Densyr sagged back into his chair. The roar of unsuppressed mana faded but there was no peace. He became immediately aware of a low unsettling noise from behind him, to the west. And of angry shouts coming from below, inside the college.

‘Sing if you need me, Septern,’ he said, pushing himself to his feet.

Densyr had to cling on to the arms of his chair just for a moment while the blood rushed away from his head, threatening to black him out. When it cleared, he walked to his balcony doors, took a deep breath and threw them open.

Ten years of rebuilding and pride, wiped out in the time it took to boil a cauldron of water. Densyr felt physically sick. In his mind’s eye he had seen rubble and dust but nothing could have prepared him for this. A few half walls were standing beyond the college gates but aside from that nothing remained of the entire eastern section of the city. On an arc that stretched for four miles left to right and three miles in depth, everything was gone.

‘Who needs the Garonin when we have such means at our disposal? ’ he whispered.

Fires still raged in hundreds of places. The yellow flame of burning wood mixed with the harsh dark blue flame of mana gorging itself on any material with which it came into contact. Those flailing strands of the grid, easily identifiable now, spewing out their energy, adding final insult to the crime that had been committed on Xetesk. The Wesmen had come and been beaten off. The demons had done such awful damage. Yet no enemy had managed quite the complete desolation that Densyr and Septern had been forced to perpetrate to save . . .

Beneath him the Heart was still intact and the college walls had not been breached. But what of the body of Xetesk? He didn’t even need to look west to know what the rumbling hum was. People were leaving. They were scared and they were ru

‘Despair is the province of the weak,’ said a voice behind him.

Densyr straightened his shoulders, lifted his head and turned.

‘What am I saving, Dystran?’ he asked. ‘How am I benefiting Xetesk and Balaia?’

‘Don’t let what you see fool your mind,’ said Dystran gently. ‘When the battle is won, and it may be that it is already, there is but one beacon for the leaderless and it is here. Only one place capable of rebuilding all that we have lost. Only one place with the strength and the desire to make Balaia a power again. And only one place that can rule.

‘The Heart of Xetesk still beats and it must beat on, my Lord of the Mount. It is our destiny to lead and yours to rule. And it is surely all within your grasp.’

Densyr felt almost too tired to argue. ‘You know they are not beaten, don’t you?’

‘Perhaps, but now they have seen the extent of our power and the sacrifices they will have to make to take our Heart. Surely a negotiation is the least we can expect and a withdrawal is something for which we can now hope.’

‘I wish I shared your optimism.’

‘Take a look outside.’ Dystran moved past him and out onto the balcony. Densyr followed a little reluctantly. ‘What do you see? What do you hear?’

‘I see the mess I’ve created in the most beautiful city on Balaia and I hear the sounds of my people panicking and ru