Terry Simpson - Etchings of Power

Guthrie whispered a prayer to Ilumni. A few others touched fingers to their lips, then their foreheads and their hearts in their own reverence to the god of Streams.

As if in answer, trumpets blared from the Sendethi army in a long bray. Wails, howls and screeches answered from somewhere within the Greenleaf Forest’s darkened interior.

A flood of black-furred bodies, forms that moved with the fluidity of smoke, and those covered in dark armor, spilled from the Greenleaf. At their head, on a large dartan, rode a figure silhouetted in shadow and swathed in the blackest armor Galiana had ever seen. It was as if all light shrunk away from the man. A huge sword stood out at his hip.

“I guess we have our answer,” Stefan said, his hand on his sword hilt. “Dagodin, Ashishin! Form ranks! We won’t be easy meat.” His voice boomed with unnatural power. “Shin Galiana, you remember during the Shadowbearer War when you sent signals by shooting those great balls of fire into the air?”

Galiana raised an eyebrow. Why would he require such a thing now? She nodded.

Stefan’s emerald eyes were cold steel. “On my order, spring the traps. At the same time have several of yours shoot three fireballs as big as they can make as far into the sky as they can. Whatever happens after that, do not attack the Dosteri.”

Dosteri? Galiana opened her mouth, but another blare from the trumpet stopped her question.

Across the field, the black armored man whipped his dartan into a gallop. The shadelings charged with him. Behind them, the Sendethi followed suit, the earth shaking as thirty thousand Sendethi feet and hooves thundered.

“Go, now,” Stefan commanded.

“May Ilumni help us,” Galiana prayed. She ran back to meet her Ashishin who were scrambling to form up once more and pointed to the five closest. “When we spring the trap, launch three of the largest fireballs you can Forge into the sky.”

“Yes, High Shin,” they replied as one.

Over the din of the oncoming forces and the storming weather, Stefan’s voice rose, clear and deep. “Ashishin, ready.”

Galiana linked with the other Ashishin. For this, they would need her complete guidance. She reached through the ground, gathering essences of the Forms. Earth and metal stood most prominent, mixed in with the Flows of rainwater. She felt for the weaknesses out in the fields that she’d painstakingly Forged over the last few days. The Forgings of the other Ashishin followed hers. They’d taught these exact skills to manipulate Mater for years now. It came as second nature.

When her power touched the thirty pillars she’d Forged to give the ground the impression of solidity, Galiana paused. She waited for the others to grasp the supports as she did. Then with a squeeze of her mind, she used the Forms to crush the pillars of earth.

A chasm several hundred feet wide and a hundred feet deep opened up beneath the onrushing army. The hole swallowed those too slow to react. Cries and wails of triumph and bloodlust abruptly changed into panicked screams.

Orange light bloomed, illuminating the carnage within Eldanhill and the roiling mass of shadelings and men trapped on the chasm’s far side. Three fireballs the size of wagons sailed into the sky, before arching down toward the rent in the earth. They passed below the lip and a loud thump followed. More screams rose. Flame tongues licked hungrily from the lips of the chasm.

The majority of the shadelings either Blurred to the top or across the trench. The earth opening up had missed their leader altogether. The man came on undaunted, cloak flying behind him, the fiery backdrop highlighting his charge like a god out of a storybook.

From the north rose a roar as if from several thousand throats-loud, barking grunts, growls and men’s battle cries. Galiana’s head whipped around.

Across the field, on the Eldanhill side of the crevasse, rumbled several thousand white-furred beasts. Some were smaller than the wraithwolves. Others were larger still. Along most backs rose dagger-like ridges made of bone. Galiana’s eyes widened. She’d never before seen so many daggerpaws and mountain wolves. Big men, wearing mostly fur and leathers rode several of the beasts. Charging behind them came at least a legion’s worth of soldiers in blue and gold armor. A battle standard of a wall with a shield and a sword in front of it flew high in the air-the Guardian Wall-the Dosteri insignia.

Galiana inhaled sharply. How had Stefan managed to bring together both the mountain tribes and the Dosteri? How had he managed to convince the Dosteri to fight for Eldanhill in the first place?

“In the name of Ilumni, the shade shall fall,” yelled Stefan. He charged toward the oncoming shadelings and their black armored leader.

Overhead, an eagle screeched a warning. Chest burning, Ancel gasped for air, but he couldn’t allow his aching, mud spattered legs to stop moving. Up, down, up, down…Don’t you dare fail me , he begged, his footsteps and ragged breaths thundering in his ears with the rush of his pulse. Sweat mixed with rain poured down his forehead, the liquid trickling down his nose onto his lips. Hair and clothes already sodden, he lumbered forward one agonizing step after another.

The bridge was only a few hundred feet away from them. Close, but the distance felt more like a mile. Ancel thanked the gods the earlier storm had ended, and the rain was now no more than a drizzle. Still, slogging through mud proved more difficult than he could have imagined; each step he took came with a soppy slurp that made him yank his booted feet free of ankle-deep muck. At least he didn’t have to fight against the cold and fog with the sun having risen some time ago and burning off both. Of course, that didn’t account for the wind, which whipped at him mercilessly as if conspiring to push him away from his intended target.

To his left, the Kelvore River roared, its banks swollen from the earlier deluge, the fresh smells of wet earth filling the air, pieces of trees and driftwood swirling about in the rushing brown and gray waters. Way beyond the Kelvore, plumes of smoke still billowed into the air from Eldanhill’s direction. The same direction from which they’d heard war trumpets earlier that morning. Then, they’d seen the horizon light up and soon after, the smoke. His stomach churned with the memory even as he clung to hope. He dared several glances over his shoulder. Mirza and Danvir labored not far from him, their clothes and countenances covered in thick mud. Farther behind ran Kachien and Charra.

The Sendethi cavalry topped a hill several thousand feet behind them. How had the men caught up? Kachien had made them push their dartans until the animals collapsed, but somehow some of the soldiers had been able to maintain their pursuit on horseback. Ancel’s throat constricted and his already straining heart thudded harder still-a rapid booming drum within his chest. Colors bloomed as far as his eyes could see.

Squinting, Ancel picked out a darkness roiling around the men similar to what he’d seen around Kachien. But this was darker, blacker, yet shiny like polished obsidian. The same aura encroached around the soldiers’ mounts. A lump formed in his throat at the sight. Ancel stumbled and almost fell, breaking his vision. Swallowing, he turned his attention to the bridge and the muddy ground once more. They weren’t going to make it. At the speed those horses traveled, he and his friends would be caught at the bridge or on its wooden planks. The eagle screeched again.

Run, damn it. Run. He willed his legs to keep going. Maybe, if they reached the bridge they could fight off their attackers. The span was wide enough for only one man on horseback or two on foot. With Kachien’s help, they might hold their own in such a tight space.