She looked around, vaguely recalling that a company of soldiers had sought refuge on the blasted summit. Then something had hit her, taking all she had left to resist it. Now, nothing was left of the company but their armour. Always an even trade, Sorceress. She fought against a sob, then swung her attention to the first hill.
Tayschrenn was down, but alive. A half-dozen marines scampered up the hillside to gather around the High Mage. A minute later they carried him away.
Bellurdan, most of his clothing burned away and his flesh scorched red, remained on the centre hill, collecting Nightchill's scattered limbs and raising his voice in a mournful wail. The sight, in all its horror and pathos, struck Tattersail's heart like a hammer on an anvil. Quickly she turned away. “Damn you, Tayschrenn.”
Pale had fallen. The price was Onearm's Host and four mages. Only now were the Black Moranth legions moving in. Tattersail's jaw clenched, her lips drawing from their fullness into a thin white line.
Something tugged at her memory, and she felt a growing certainty that this scene was not yet played out.
The sorceress waited.
The Warrens of Magic dwelt in the beyond. Find the gate and nudge it open a crack. What leaks out is yours to shape. With these words a young woman set out on the path to sorcery. Open yourself to the Warren that comes to you-that finds you. Draw forth its power-as much as your body and soul are capable of containing-but remember, when the body fails, the gate closes.
Tattersail's limbs ached. She felt as though someone had been beating her with clubs for the past two hours. The last thing she had expected was that bitter taste on her tongue that said something nasty and ugly had come to the hilltop. Such warnings seldom came to a practitioner unless the gate was open, a Warren unveiled and bristling with power.
She'd heard tales from other sorcerers, and she'd read mouldy scrolls that touched on moments like these, when the power arrived groaning and deadly, and each time, it was said, a god had stepped on to the mortal ground.
If she could have driven the nail of immortal presence in this place, however, it would have to be Hood, the God of Death. Yet her instincts said no. She didn't believe a god had arrived, but something else had.
What frustrated the sorceress was that she couldn't decide who among the people surrounding her was the dangerous one. Something kept drawing her gaze back to the young girl. But the child seemed only half there most of the time.
The voices behind her finally drew her attention. Sergeant Whiskeyjack stood over Quick Ben and the other soldier, both of whom still knelt at Hairlock's side. Quick Ben clutched an oblong object, wrapped in hides, and was looking up at his sergeant as if awaiting approval.
There was tension between the two men. Frowning, Tattersail walked over. “What are you doing?” she asked Quick Ben, her eyes on the object in the wizard's almost feminine hands. He seemed not to have heard, his eyes on the sergeant.
Whiskeyjack shot her a glance. “Go ahead, Quick,” he growled, then strode off to stand at the hill's edge, facing west-towards the Moranth Mountains.
Quick Ben's fine, ascetic features tightened. He nodded at his companion. “Get ready, Kalam.”
The soldier named Kalam leaned back on his haunches, his hands in his sleeves. The position seemed an odd response to Quick Ben's request, but the mage seemed satisfied. Tattersail watched as he laid one of his thin, spidery hands on Hairlock's trembling, blood-splashed chest. He whispered a few chaining words and closed his eyes.
“That sounded like Denul,” Tattersail said, glancing at Kalam, who remained motionless in his crouch. “But not quite,” she added slowly.
“He's twisted it somehow.” She fell silent then, seeing something in Kalam that reminded her of a snake waiting to strike. Wouldn't take much to set him off, I think. Just a few more ill-timed words, a careless move towards Quick Ben or Hairlock. The man was big, bearish, but she remembered his dangerous glide past her. Snake indeed, the man's a killer, a soldier who's reached the next level in the art of murder Not just a job any more, this man likes it. She wondered then if it wasn't this energy, this quiet promise of menace, that swept over her with the flavour of sexual tension. Tattersail sighed. A day for perversity.
Quick Ben had resumed his chaining words, this time over the object, which he now set down beside Hairlock. She watched as enwreathing power enveloped the wrapped object, watched in growing apprehension as the mage traced his long fingers along the hide's seams. The energy trickled from him with absolute control. He was her superior in the lore.
He had opened a Warren she didn't even recognize.