The Raven Collection Part 280

Hirad moved past her and yanked open the door. 'Ilkar. He moved straight through me. He was running. He was frightened.'

'That's not . . .'

Hirad didn't stop to ease Erienne's confusion. He trotted along the short corridor to the aft steps and up out into the fresh smells and bright light of the deck. The sun washed over the timbers, the sails flapped idly in the light breeze and the scent of the sea filled his nostrils.

Rebraal was in a seated position, leaning against a crate and surrounded by The Raven and TaiGethen. The Unknown pa.s.sed a cup to him and he drank. His face was pale in the light and his eyes darted here and there, settling on Hirad.

'You felt it too,' said Hirad.

Rebraal nodded. 'Through every fibre.'

'What does it mean?'

'It means he is chased. It means the demons are breaking down the doors. It means they think they have found a way in.' Rebraal paused and sighed. 'It means we need the wind. I think the dead are running out of time.'

Chapter 16.

Dystran made sure the survivors had s.p.a.ce, warm food and blankets. He had taken them into his tower and sat the three of them in his chambers. They were chilly like the day outside but the chairs were deeply upholstered and comfortable. Dystran had often sunk into one of them himself to try and imagine what life had been like before the demons came.

Already he had people looking at the texts they had brought back with them but he was more concerned with the condition of the raiders right now. They had lost one swordsman in the library, which still burned though it was clear the demons were trying to extinguish the blaze. Slaves had formed a bucket chain that snaked and split to six wells in and around the college.

One of his archivists had also perished, right at the moment he must have thought he was safe. It was ironic that the raiders' escape route back into the dome should be that first trodden by The Raven when they broke in. A time of life that seemed so distant now.

Suarav had survived by sheer force of will, holding off demons to give his mages enough time to get through the window and away into the ColdRoom lattice. But he was suffering for it now. He sat hunched in a blanket, staring down at his quivering hands. His fingers were blue and the twitching of his muscles meant he could barely hold his mug. Dystran pressed his hands around it and helped it to his lips.

Suarav's hands were so cold. Unnaturally so. His face bore the scars of a dozen demon's claws, his lips were cracked and pallid. The soldier had trouble taking the drink. Much of it dripped down his chin.

'Take your time,' said Dystran. 'You can relax now, you're safe.'

'They couldn't take my soul,' said Suarav. 'They couldn't take it.'

'No indeed.' Dystran had been genuinely surprised by the fact.

'And do you know why?' Suarav's face cracked into a pained smile. The cuts on his face crinkled, spilling fresh blood. 'Because not all of them can do it.'

'What?' Dystran started and had to remind himself not to take his hands away from Suarav's.

'Some of the lesser castes clearly don't have the ability or I would not be here.'

Suarav took another sip of his drink and coughed. A shudder ran the length of his body and he sighed, collapsing in a little on himself.

'All right, enough now,' said Dystran. 'Build your strength. Rest easy. We will guard you here.'

'It's cold,' said Suarav.

'Yes it is,' said Dystran, though not cold enough to account for the captain's condition. 'I'll get you another blanket. Maybe some gloves.' He snapped his fingers at one of the guards. 'See to it.'

He pressed Suarav's hands to his mug once more and turned to Sharyr who sat on a small sofa with the other archivist, Brynel. Both men were lapsing into shock. Bodies trembling, eyes staring. Brynel swallowed repeatedly. He was going to need attention quickly. Sharyr was only marginally better. At least he raised a smile and was able to drink.

'You've done a marvellous thing,' said Dystran.

'If the texts we took reveal anything.' He tried to laugh but it came out a splutter.

'Even if they don't, it shows we are still fighting. That we still believe we can beat these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.'

'Without him we'd all be gone.' Sharyr nodded at Suarav. A glance told Dystran he'd closed his eyes, his breathing was laboured but at least it was even. 'He was immense. He saved us all so many times.' Abruptly, tears streamed down Sharyr's face and a heaving sob shook his body. 'Sorry, sorry.' Tea slopped over his hands and he dropped the mug which shattered in the empty fireplace, making him flinch violently.

'Shh,' said Dystran. He placed a calming hand on his shoulder and stroked his upper arm. 'Let it out. It's all right, you're safe now.'

Sharyr clutched Dystran's robes. 'They kept on coming and we were too frightened to cast. They clicked their jaws, they reached for us with those hands. They got so close. We just ran and he kept them away though they bit him and scratched his face. They wanted his soul but he was so strong and they couldn't get round him to get to us. But they taunted us, they taunted us and they reached out for our souls.' He gripped harder. 'I looked deep in their eyes and there was nothing there. Nothing. It's what we face if they take us. Emptiness.'

Dystran gripped Sharyr's wrists and gently eased his hands away. 'But they won't take us, will they? Because in this room, three men of incredible courage have given us a chance. You Sharyr, and Suarav and Brynel.'

'They were so close,' moaned Sharyr.

'And that is as close as they'll ever get. Think on it, Sharyr, and remember you're safe now. They can't get you in here. I promise.'

At last, another smile from Sharyr. 'Thank you, my Lord.'

'No, my friend. It is Xetesk who should be thanking you. Rest. Rest, all of you.'

Dystran stood up and spread his arms, embracing them all with the gesture. 'Anything that you want that is within my current power, you may have. And consider yourselves stood down from any duties until further notice.'

None of them were looking at him. He wasn't even sure any of them even heard him. He snapped his fingers at Chandyr and strode out to the first landing.

'Laid that on a bit thick, didn't you?' said the commander as soon as the door had shut behind them.

'What would you rather I do? Rush them back to the front?' Dystran moved away to the top of the stairs. 'Did you stop to look at them?'

'Yeah, they look in some trouble.'

'Some trouble? b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Chandyr, I'm no healer but I'd say they were all dying, wouldn't you? Suarav is in desperate straits. Now you're out here to take orders, not discuss whether I'm patronising our survivors or not. I don't know what to do with any of them. Get our best up here and get me an answer. If that means getting them into the control zone in the catacombs so we can cast, then do it. Your men love Suarav and I need Sharyr able to help examine our new texts.'

'And Brynel?'

'We need every mage, Commander.' He indicated Chandyr go ahead of him. 'I'm not prepared to lose any of those men in there. And that means you need to run faster than I do.'

Dystran paused at the top of the spiral stair and watched his commander go. Halfway down he heard a hurried 'Sir!' and then a second set of footsteps came closer as Chandyr's diminished. Dystran waited for the man to climb the stairs. It was a mage, Feiyn.

'My Lord,' he said, breathing hard. He was weak from poor food and confinement and, like them all, dying by degrees.

'I'm presuming you aren't running up here merely to tone your legs.'

'No, my Lord.'

'Well, I'm on my way down. If you have breath, walk with me and tell me what it is that couldn't wait.'

Dystran led the way down the stairs at a gentle pace.

'Vuldaroq has read one of the texts.'

Dystran had to check himself before he spoke. 'He could read our lore, could he?' he said instead.

'This is a general research paper. A theory based on a mapping of energies in inter-dimensional s.p.a.ce.'

'Ah. Sounds like the work of dear old Bynaar to me. He was the first man to postulate that mana flow could be ordered and driven without . . .' Dystran trailed off even as he heard the sharply in-drawn breath behind him. 'I don't recall asking for texts on that subject.'

'It was inside another on demonology,' explained Feiyn.

Dystran stopped. 'What does it say?'

'Vuldaroq can explain it better. He asked if I'd come and get you.'

'Right, let's hear what he has to say.'

They found Vuldaroq sitting in the dome complex, his back to Dystran's tower, much as he had been since his dramatic arrival. There was still no colour in his face but his eyes had regained a little sparkle. He managed a smile as he looked up from his study to see Dystran approach.

'My Lord Vuldaroq, I understand you've been busy.'

'Best that way,' he said. Like those in Dystran's chambers, exertion and fear had left a tremble in his body and voice. But at least the shock hadn't set in. Not yet anyway.

'Care to enlighten me?'

'Your man Bynaar was an astute researcher. Arteche speaks highly of him in works we treasure . . . well, treasured.'

Vuldaroq flourished the paper. It was a small but heavy-looking set of parchments, torn about its edges. Dystran estimated a dozen pages, no more.

'Go on.'

'He was tracing shifts in mana density centuries ago. And in this paper he links it to the movement of demons from one s.p.a.ce to another. I'm presuming the knowledge we have concerning your links with the demon dimension is sound.'

Dystran coughed. 'If our spies' a.s.sessments are accurate then, yes, you've done rather well.'

'Normally, I'd be flattered,' said Vuldaroq. 'Now it all seems just a waste of effort.' He cleared his throat. 'Bynaar was the first to theorise that demons were a nomadic race, using up one home, then moving on by conquest.'

'I am a scholar on the subject,' said Dystran before he could stop himself.

'Then you will know that Bynaar has tracked demon progress across inter-dimensional s.p.a.ce by measuring mana density and movement. Particularly noting the disappearance of mana clouds which he concludes is caused by those clouds entering the fabric of another dimension.'

Dystran's smile was thin. 'One cannot hope to a.s.similate every piece of knowledge.'

'a.s.similate this now. It's not a solution but it does answer the question of what the demons are doing.'

'Which is?'

'Well, according to Bynaar, for demons, mana is an eminently movable element, one which they can attract to themselves. Which is how they move it of course. Establish demons at both ends of a path, so to speak, and send the mana along it - and the more they have, the stronger they get. It's almost a commodity to them, hence their obsession with getting into Balaia. We are mana-rich.

'Now I've cross-referenced that with your young mage, Feiyn here, who was kind enough to read a pa.s.sage from the demonology text into which Bynaar's work was inserted. Would you be so kind as to repeat it, young man?'

Feiyn glanced at Dystran who nodded and shrugged simultaneously.

'It said that demons are forced into their nomadic existence because they consume the dimensions they inhabit. It says that when they have access to another dimension, that is when they destroy the last of what they have and move on. All of them.'

'And they send the mana they have acc.u.mulated on ahead, to their vanguard,' added Vuldaroq.

'So they aren't just pa.s.sing through,' said Dystran. 'We aren't a territory.'

He'd known it all along when it came to it.

'No. I'm afraid we're home for them now,' confirmed Vuldaroq.

'And the mana build-up?'

'You'll have to take readings,' said Vuldaroq. 'But for what it's worth, I'd bet the little I have that when it is complete, they will be strong enough to breach the ColdRooms. Or else why be so happy to leave us as we are - the stronger colleges, I mean. We can all feel the cold that the mana seems to bring - this chill is unseasonal and it's getting worse.'

Dystran thought for a moment. Emotions clouded his mind. His immediate reaction was to dismiss the Dordovan's inferences simply because of who he was. But that att.i.tude had to be consigned to history now if they weren't all to go before it. Vuldaroq had put a time limit on their future but the deadline was unknown. The course, difficult though it might be, was clear.

'Two things,' he said. 'One, we need to know when the density of mana in this dimension will give the demons the strength to overwhelm our defences. Second, we need a four-college strategy to see they never get there. And we need it fast.'

Arabelle ducked a killing blow and backhanded her sword across the demon's chest. It howled and tumbled back. Four of her men closed in.

'Hold it, this time, hold it!'

Two were already dead, victims of the demon's soul-touch. Two others stood with her, one a mage, ready to cast if capture became an impossibility. They'd cornered the beast after days of surveillance from the upper windows of the tower had identified a pattern in its behaviour. They knew what it was doing: searching for their tunnel entrances, but it had become obsessed with a blind alley close to the northern wall of the college. This night, they were waiting for it.

The plan had been simple but they'd miscalculated its strength. Their first volley of blows hadn't weakened it enough and it had s.n.a.t.c.hed its two victims too easily. Arabelle wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

'Makkan, Terol, club it!'

The blows rained in on its body and head. The other two pounced on its arms, pinning them to the ground. The demon's fingers grasped and clutched, looking for a death touch, but it couldn't angle its wrist enough. It was a tall demon, better than six feet in height. Its hairless body was a livid sky blue and the veins and muscles writhed below its skin. Underneath its back, its gossamer, mana-based wings beat uselessly at the ground. It howled and screamed, its toothless mouth snapping. They would not be alone for long.

Arabelle and her remaining two men closed in. They pinioned its legs, she moved to its head.

'Struggle all you like, you are coming with us. Now I can have my mage cast to subdue you or you can do it yourself.'

The demon's small black eyes regarded her from a heavy brow, tongue licked the edges of its lipless mouth. It relaxed and quietened, holding her gaze.

'Don't ease your grip even one degree,' she warned, not flinching from its stare. 'That is exactly what it's waiting for.'

The demon snarled. A sibilant hiss escaped its mouth. 'You will still all be ours,' it said.

'Maybe, but not yours, eh?' She turned to her team. 'Right, on the double. Let's get inside.'