David Farland - The Sum of All Men

Raj Ahten struggled for control, found himself seething. He knew it would be hard for those men in the castle. It would have been quicker for all concerned if they had surrendered. Raj Ahten had taken a hundred castles, many as stout as this, until it was a practiced art. I'll make an example of haughty King Orden, he vowed.

He stood before his battle lines, raised his warhammer high, then dropped it with a cutting motion.

The first volley of stones lofted from his catapults. Some smaller stones disappeared over the walls, while heavier loads slammed lower on the battlements. Two of Orden's cutthroats dropped under the weight of the stones.

Orden countered with artillery from the city walls—six catapults, and four ballistas. The catapults hurled small iron shot that fell like a deadly hail—five yards short of his men. Orden would have done better with some lighter shot.

The ballistas were another matter. In all the South, Raj Ahten had never seen a ballista made with Heredon's spring steel. In cities like Bannisferre and Ironton, artificers—earth wizards who had mastered secret arts of metallurgy and artifice—had labored long to make such steel. Raj Ahten was unprepared when bolts flashed from the walls in a dark blur, striking through the ranks of his men.

One ballista bolt, like a huge arrow cast of iron, flashed toward him. He leaned away from it, only to hear the bolt plummet into someone behind with a sickly thud.

He turned to see a flameweaver sit roughly to the ground, a hole the size of a grapefruit through his navel.

The young man's saffron robes suddenly burst into white flame, as his power raged out of control.

“Retreat!” Raj Ahten called for his men to take cover. They needed little urging.

Raj Ahten raced over the hill as the flameweaver erupted—the massive form of the elemental that had coiled like a worm at the center of his soul suddenly escaping.

A lean, bald man took form, a hundred feet tall, sitting on the ground. Flames licked at his skull and swirled at his fingertips. He gazed at Longmont with a troubled expression.

Raj Ahten watched. Such an elemental could wreak havoc, blast the stone walls to oblivion, burn the gate, fry the inhabitants of the castle like maggots on a griddle. Just as the elemental had done at Castle Sylvarresta.

Yet Raj Ahten felt disappointed. For years he'd nurtured these flame-weavers. Now two had already been slaughtered in this campaign. It was a damnable waste of resources.

There was nothing to do for it but wait, watch the elemental do its work, then clean up after.

The elemental became a raging inferno that set the grass at his feet burning. The air roared like a furnace, and heat smote Raj Ahten, searing his lungs with each breath.

The hot-air balloon still hovered five hundred feet over the battlefield. Raj Ahten's men pulled it away before the elemental's heat made its silk burst into a ball of fire.

The elemental pointed itself toward the city, began striding across the battlefield.

Men on the walls of Longmont fired bows in terror. The tiny arrows flew toward the monster like stars that burst into flame in the night sky before they were consumed. The arrows could not defeat the elemental, only feed it.

The elemental reached for the nearest wood, its fingers extending in a twisting green flame that caressed the drawbridge of Longmont. The sounds of crackling wood and splintering beams filled the air. The soldiers atop the walls rushed to escape as a fiery blast slammed against the castle.

A cheer now rose from the throats of Raj Ahten's men, though Raj Ahten only smiled grimly.

Suddenly, water began gushing from the walls over the arch, flowing in runnels from the mouths of the gargoyles above the gate, wept from the castle's stone everywhere in great waves, so that the gray walls glistened.

Everywhere, water was rushing up the stone battlements from the moat, forming a wall. The great elemental turned to steam at its touch, began to shrink and dissipate.

Raj Ahten seethed, wondering.

One of his flameweavers shouted, “A water wizard's ward!” It seemed the castle had some unanticipated magical protection. Yet there were no water wizards here in Heredon that Raj Ahten had ever heard of.

Raj Ahten wondered. Such wards could not last out a year and required a magical emblem to be placed on the castle gate. He'd seen no such emblem or rune four days past.

Then he looked above the gate: Orden stood on the arch, holding his golden shield against the castle wall. The ward had been built into his shield, and by laying the shield against the castle wall, the entire castle, by extension, became shielded.

Raj Ahten's face twisted in rage as he watched his elemental shrivel amid the water's onslaught. It cringed and huddled like a lonely child, then became a common fire burning in the grass. In half a moment, even that was smothered.

Raj Ahten felt impotent, maddened.

Then the wizard Binnesman appeared on Raj Ahten's own horse, racing down from the wooded hills to the west, to put himself between the Wolf Lord's army and the castle.

King Orden pulled his golden shield up to his chest. He'd brought it as a gift to Sylvarresta, to celebrate their children's betrothal. The ward on the shield was to have protected Castle Sylvarresta. Now it had saved Longmont.

But the shield had become worthless, save as a target for arrows, drained of all its water spells.

Silently, Orden cursed himself. When he'd seen Raj Ahten fall from the arrow, he'd hesitated. He could have gone then, rushed down to attack the Wolf Lord and lopped off his head. Instead, he'd let his hopes soar, had thought for one breathtaking moment that the Wolf Lord would succumb from the poison. Then the opportunity to strike was gone.

Now this.

Orden studied the herbalist as he rode across the green grass on a great force horse, felt bemused. Earth Wardens seldom meddled in the affairs of men. But this one, it appeared, was fool enough to try to stop a war.

Though Orden had not seen Binnesman in a year, the old wizard had changed much. He wore robes in the colors of autumn forest—scarlets with bits of tan and gold. His brown hair had turned the color of ice. But his back was unbowed. He looked older, yet vigorous.

On the battlefield before him stood Raj Ahten's Invincibles, archers by the thousands, giants in armor, and mastiffs with leather helms and fierce collars.

Binnesman rode his mount before the castle gates.

Orden felt strange, expectant, filled with vast reserves of energy. Twenty-one warriors hid in various cellars, closets, and rooms throughout Castle Longmont. Each man, bearing arms and armor, was curled in a ball, waiting for the moment when Orden would draw upon their metabolism. Orden could feel their energy course through him. His blood seemed to burn, as if he were a pot ready to boil.

Across the battlefield, Raj Ahten's men stood under the trees, bristling at the way the battle had gone. Raj Ahten strode toward Binnesman, his motions almost a blur.

“Raj Ahten,” the old wizard grumbled, straightening his back to gaze at the Wolf Lord from beneath bushy brows, “why do you insist on attacking these people?”

Raj Ahten answered calmly, “It is no concern to you, Earth Warden.”

Binnesman said, “Oh, but it is my concern. I've spent the night riding through the Dunnwood, listening to the talk of trees and birds. Do you know what I've learned? I have news that pertains to you.”

Raj Ahten had moved forward a hundred yards—still out of easy bowshot, yet once again he stood before his army.

“Orden has my forcibles,” Raj Ahten said in answer to Binnesman's earlier query. “I want them back!” The sound carried well over the fields. Orden could hardly believe Raj Ahten spoke from so far away.