James Islington - The Shadow Of What Was Lost

He glanced at Taeris, who made an impatient gesture.

“Go. Quickly,” the Elder said through gritted teeth. "I can’t hold it open for more than a few seconds."

Caeden braced himself, then tentatively stepped through the hole. He’d expected some sort of sensation or resistance, but it was no different to stepping through a doorway.

Taeris followed and the portal blinked shut behind him. He stepped quickly over to a nearby table, scooping up a polished black stone and pocketing it before turning to Caeden.

“Now,” he said, “Let’s find this device.”

Caeden barely heard the words.

On a shelf, not far from where the stone had been, was the bronze box.

To Caeden’s eyes it burned like the sun, though he knew only he and Davian saw it that way. Taeris probably hadn’t even noticed it yet.

The tattoo on Caeden’s wrist was shining brighter than ever, too, even through the fabric of his shirt.

“Where should we look?” asked Caeden, not taking his eyes from the Vessel.

Taeris shuffled his feet, casting a nervous glance towards the door. “It’s large. A pillar of stone, about three feet tall if I remember correctly. If we just -”

Taeris' voice faded into the background.

Caeden stepped forward, reached out his hand, and picked up the bronze Vessel from the shelf.

The explosion nearly tore him from his feet.

He stumbled backward, throwing a hand to his eyes to shield them from the intense red light that had erupted in front of him. Taeris was yelling something at him, screaming it, but there was a roar of power that drowned out everything else.

When Caeden’s eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, he felt a stab of fear. Before him was an enormous vortex of pure red fire, swirling and coalescing, stretching from roof to ceiling. He stared at it for a few moments in shock, then glanced down at the box in his hand. It was warm, but its glow – so bright a moment ago – had vanished.

As had the glow from his wrist.

“What is it?” he screamed to Taeris.

“I don’t know!” Taeris yelled back, only just audible. “We should leave it be, though! There’s no telling what it does!”

To his left, the door to the storeroom burst open.

Caeden turned to see a wild-eyed Davian rushing inside, followed closely by a red-cloaked man he recognised as Elder Eilinar. Both men stared at the vortex in shock, then headed straight for Caeden.

"Caeden!" screamed Davian, seeing the box in his hands. "Put it down!"

Caeden barely heard, even his shocked delight at seeing Davian alive registering as only a minor distraction. Somehow he knew that the vortex was meant for him. He was supposed to step into it. It would take him… he wasn’t sure where, but it was somewhere he wanted to go. Somewhere he needed to go.

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he yelled, including both Davian and Taeris in the apology. “I have to do this.”

"Caeden! Don’t!" It was Taeris. "We need you here!"

Caeden closed his eyes. Breathed steadily.

Then he spun, sprinting as hard as he could towards the tunnel of fire. He could sense Taeris and Davian both moving to stop him, but he was too fast. He was always going to be too fast.

He leapt into the vortex at full speed, bracing himself.

There was heat, the briefest instant of feeling like the flames were dancing on his skin. The shouts behind him faded.

And then he was somewhere else.

Wirr stood alongside Aelric and Dezia atop the First Shield, staring apprehensively out over the plains beyond Fedris Idri as they waited for the first sign of the enemy.

The Blind were coming, and fast. The report had arrived an hour ago from one of General Parathe’s scouts, who had ridden his horse near to death in his urgency to return. The invaders were no longer taking their time; they had seemingly marched throughout the previous night, pausing for neither sleep nor food. They were likely to reach the city walls by nightfall.

Now afternoon was waning to dusk, and the gates below were finally shutting. Wirr flinched as the massive doors sealed the city, the ominous boom echoing around the narrow pass.

Then the sound faded, leaving almost utter silence. At least a few minutes ago there had been the low murmur of voices from the several hundred men manning the First Shield, even the occasional nervous laugh. Now that had died away too as the sun began to slip below the horizon.

Wirr felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Aelric looking at him with a serious expression.

"Are you sure you want to be up here?" the young swordsman asked quietly. He glanced across at his sister, including her in the query. "It’s not like the Second Shield isn’t going to need defenders."

Wirr winced, glancing around to check that no-one had overheard. His father had warned him that the fighting would reach Ilin Illan itself, and Wirr in turn had felt the need to tell Dezia and Aelric. That didn’t mean he wanted the soldiers to know, though. For most of the men, their hope of victory - their belief that it was attainable - was what gave them the courage to fight.

Dezia evidently knew that too and gave her brother a withering look, shaking her bow at him. "We’ve already discussed this. My skills are going to be all but useless once it comes to hand-to-hand combat," she said in a whisper. "I may as well make a difference while I can."

"And I can be most effective healing the wounded from up here, getting them back in the fight quickly," added Wirr. "No different to the Shen Gifted." He glanced across at the nervous cluster of red-cloaked men and women, who stood together at the city end of the wall, back a little from the front lines. There weren’t many of them, but it was more than Wirr had expected from Tol Shen. And their presence would make a real difference.

Aelric grunted as he followed Wirr’s gaze. "Fair enough. Just… stay as far back as you can once everything starts, both of you. You’re no good to anyone if you get hurt," he said gruffly, turning his gaze back out onto the plains.

Wirr exchanged a small grin with Dezia; her brother had already said something similar a few times in the past hour. He clapped Aelric on the back. "We will," he assured the young man.

On a whim Wirr wandered closer to the edge of the wall, tentatively leaning forward to see the hard stone below, marvelling again at just how high up they were. A mild wave of vertigo washed over him before he drew back. The First Shield – the outermost of Fedris Idri’s defences, atop which he now stood – was at least fifty feet tall, allowing anyone manning it to see for miles across the plains in any direction.

Height wasn’t its only advantage. Despite the narrow pass, the Shield’s depth allowed hundreds of men to be atop it at once. At the front, its thin parapet tapered upward everywhere into sharp points, jagged but elegantly symmetrical, as if rows of enormous swords had been carved from the stone itself.

He’d tested one of the edges of those impossibly thin stone spikes himself, drawing blood from the lightest of touches. His father had once explained that the Builders had created every edge of the parapet to be razor-sharp; any attackers clambering over it would inevitably be cut. And the tapering shape of the parapet itself meant that ladders could never sit flat against it, could never jut out over it in order to bypass its dangers altogether.

Even so, none of it made Wirr feel any safer.

"So what news from General Parathe?" he asked after a moment. "I saw you speaking to him a few minutes ago."

Aelric shrugged. "He says there’s likely to be about a thousand of the Blind. They’re not going to fit more than a couple of hundred into the pass at once, though, so that’s something." He hesitated, glancing along the line and lowering his voice. "He’s worried about how these men are going to hold up in a battle. Many of them were left out of Jash’tar’s force for a reason - Parathe said a lot of them have had discipline issues, lately. Difficulty completing their drills sometimes. Gone for a day or so doing fates know what, then back and pretending like nothing’s wrong. Not men he particularly wanted to have to rely on."