Alan Foster - Kingdoms of Light

A giant stepped out from among the trees.

The figure was of indeterminate outline, clad from head to foot in black cloth. No gold thread adorned the massive chest, no precious gems sparkled atop the concealed skull. Though no more massive than the blond-furred lumpenkin or dark lurchers presently crowding the bridges, its oddly shifting outline inspired much comment among the onlookers. As to its identity, that did not long remain a mystery. A chant rising from the far shore began to swell in volume. Soon it was loud enough to be heard on the bridges, among the towers, and finally within the fortress of Kyll-Bar-Bennid itself.

"Mundurucu, Mundurucu, Mundurucu …!"

"So that's the legendary Khaxan Mundurucu. At last." Along with the restof his fellow officers, General Mauffrew was leaning against the parapet, staring across the river past the battle raging below. "He's big, but not all that big."

"It is not his size that should concern us." No sooner had Goughfree proffered this sensible observation than the truth of it was proved right.

Erupting from the newly arrived necromancer's right hand, a ball of orange-yellow fire soared castleward. Among shouts and involuntary screams as the members of the general staff, their aides, and waiting couriers took cover, Susnam Evyndd calmly turned slightly to his right and raised both hands, palms outward, the thumbs touching. No one paid much attention to the words he uttered, but they must have been powerful indeed.

A glistening, shimmering transparency materialized around him, glass and crystal come together to form a bubble of what one distant onlooker later described as clear magic. Striking this, the ravening orange fireball shattered into fiery, swiftly dissipating embers before crossing the wall.

His arm wheeling round in a great arc, the wizard flung riverward a bolt of pure sorceral force so intensely white that it verged on blue. Goughfree and the others strained to see, but it was the colonel of horse, she of the sharpest vision, who reported to them that while two dozen attending retainers had been blasted into oblivion, the black-clad figure had only been staggered by the blow, and remained standing.

It was Chaupunell who thought to look, not at the continuing pandemonium of battle or the opposing warlock, but at the valorous Evyndd. What he observed was not encouraging. The wizard was frowning, his head inclined forward, as if unable to quite believe that the tremendous blow he had just delivered had not resulted in the complete destruction of its intended target. Drawing himself up, he raised both hands high above his head, fingers pressed tightly together and pointing downward. Lightning began to crackle and take shape before his fingertips as he summoned forth a ball of energy even greater than the one he had just flung at the opposite shore. Chaupunell had to shield his eyes from it. Everyone else kept their gaze focused on the far bank of the river.

Just as the eminent Evyndd was about to deliver his blow, a cylinder of gleaming blackness shot through with internal flame struck the parapet. The result was a narrowly focused but intense explosion that knocked everyone down while rendering them momentarily blind and deaf. When Goughfree had recovered enough for his eyes to focus, he saw that a man-size chunk of wall and floor was now missing from the castle's rim. Smoke rose from the solid stone, which, unbelievably, crackled with flame in several places, the raw rock burning like kindling. Fragments of quartz within the rock had melted and run like pallid butter from the extraordinary but tightly focused heat. His throat clenched, though not from the smoke or dust.

Of the great wizard Susnam Evyndd, protector of the Gowdlands and defender of Kyll-Bar-Bennid, nothing could be seen. Then a soldier cried out, and the survivors ran to see where he was pointing. Below the wall, on the lower landing, the transparent sphere the mage had enchanted around him still sparkled in the dim light. It had preserved not only the wizard's body but those who had been standing in his vicinity. In turn, it had absorbed the full force of the strike from the far side of the river. While not strong enough to penetrate the transparent shield, that awful speeding black cylinder of unknown composition and unimaginable power had blown it and the man contained within right off the parapet on which he had been standing.

Within the sphere of protection, the wizard Susnam Evyndd had been violently buffeted about by forces no human body could be expected to withstand. As he lay unmoving on the stone paving, the pellucid bubble surrounding him made a slight popping sound—and was gone. Blood trickled from his nostrils and the corner of his mouth, staining his simple cotton clothing.

Those deliberating mages who had gathered below to defer to the greatest among them now formed a circle around the intact but motionless body. The expressions on their faces sent a cold, damp chill running down the length of Goughfree's spine. Looking up and back, one disconsolate wizard met the general's stare—and slowly began to shake his head from side to side. Goughfree's jaws tightened until his teeth began to ache. It was impossible, it was madness—Susnam Evyndd could not be dead. He couldn't be!

But he was. While the concussive power of the black cylinder had not shattered his body, its force had broken something within his skull. As the circle of melancholy mages gathered up the limp form of he who had been foremost among them and prepared to carry him safely away from the scene of battle, a distraught Goughfree realized that the defenders of Kyll-Bar-Bennid would have to make do without him.

It must be said that no one gave ground easily. The guardians of the city did not break and run. But when Khaxan Mundurucu took personal charge of the assault and started across the Hidradny Bridge, flinging fire and destruction in every direction from amorphous, black-shrouded hands, Goughfree knew in his heart of hearts that all was lost. Fears of defeat became a certainty when first the Salmisti tower, then the one on the Hidradny, fell to the invaders' relentless onslaught. To save the remainder of the army from complete destruction, and to preserve what he could of the city on the river, he and the rest of the general staff agreed to a full and complete surrender. There was nothing to be gained by trying to hold only the castle against the kind of otherworldly might they had just seen so overpoweringly demonstrated.

They met the enemy officers in the wide, central square. It was quiet, the clocks in the town towers silent, the crackle and roar of burning buildings much less than would have been the case had Goughfree and his colleagues chosen to fight to the last. Heroic bronzes of heroes and artists looked on in silence, unable to influence or comment upon the disturbing proceedings. Ranks of sullen, exhausted soldiers tried to maintain a semblance of order as they were forced to gaze across the two-inch-square individual paving stones at smirking, triumphant men, women, and spear-carrying creatures that were neither.

Standing near the center of the square, apart from the ranks, Goughfree, Chaupunell, and the others waited stoically. Their aim was to save the city and preserve as much of the Gowdlands as possible from pillage, rapine, and worse. Anxious eyes searched the lines of monsters and men for their enemy counterparts.

The forward line of the enemy suddenly parted to allow three figures to step forward. Two were men, tall of body and brutal of aspect. Goughfree was unsettled by their appearance, but did not let it show. What did he expect—court dandies fitted out in elegant silks and brocade? The third figure was much shorter, an impossible progeny of rodent and human, with a long orange-red face, a small mouth full of thin, sharp teeth, and downward-slanting, mournful eyes.