William King - The Queen's assassin

The city of Halim burned. Flames leapt from the red-tiled roofs. Drifting clouds of black smoke obscured the ancient walls.

The rolling thunder of cannon-fire assaulted Rik's ears as the guns pounded away at the capital of the nation of Kharadrea. One of the disadvantages of his privileged position on this hillside overlooking the doomed metropolis was its proximity to the batteries of huge siege weapons.

He was a tall, slim, fair-haired man. The fine scarlet tunic he wore emphasised the Terrarch half of his heritage, making him look every inch one of his world's inhuman rulers, leaving no trace of the grubby street urchin he once had been. He stroked the pommel of his sword as he watched the fortifications crumble, glad for the moment that he did not have to be down there, preparing to enter the inferno of battle that was so soon to come.

Rik shielded his large almond-shaped eyes with the long fingers of one hand, and squinted down. The trampled fields around the city seethed with soldiers in the red uniforms of Talorea. Massed regiments of infantry hunkered down amid a labyrinth of trenches, waiting to attack. Squadrons of cavalry grouped to their rear. Monstrous bridgeback wyrms, reptilian quadrupeds as large as a house, bellowed challenges as they made their way towards the front-line. Their long necks snaked skyward. Troops filled the howdahs on their backs. The defenders lining the wall responded with obscenities and defiance.

Near where Rik stood, in the cleared area between two batteries of siege guns, groups of sorcerers performed arcane rituals, warding the troops below from hostile magic and directing their own spells at the enemy. All of them were Terrarchs, taller and thinner than humans, with beautiful high cheek-boned faces and hair fine as spun silver. Their ears were pointed and their eyes almond-shaped and huge. Their lips were thin and cruel, and all of them had the arrogance of the undisputed lords of creation. They were God's Chosen, and they felt it to the marrow of their bones.

Among them, standing alone and nearest to him, was the Terrarch noblewoman responsible for Rik's rise from the gutter to the outer reaches of Talorean society: the Lady Asea. Today she was garbed for battle. Magical armour clung to her tall, spare figure. A silver mask with a dark gem in the centre covered the upper half of her lovely face. Her long thick silver hair was braided and held by a clasp at her neck. In her hand she held a ritual wand, used to bind and guide the creatures she would soon summon. Tall urns stood within a circle of strange runes laid out in multi-coloured salts. Each contained a bound elemental.

Rik envied Asea her power and her confidence. For months now, all through the long summer of campaigning, she had been teaching him the rudiments of magic, but he was a long way from even the beginnings of mastery. Despite his best efforts he could get not even the simplest spell to work. He supposed he should be grateful to be here at all. As senior mage attached to the army, Asea enjoyed many privileges and one of them was having her favourites present in this specially screened area near where she had inscribed the circles and Elder Signs of her calling.

A flicker of movement in the northern sky grabbed Rik's attention.

A flight of dragons streaked across the heavens, wings spread, exhalations of flame bursting from their nostrils. Traceries of energy danced around them as the defenders lobbed alchemical weapons into their path and the wizards of the besieged city invoked powerful spells. The great winged reptiles kept their line. Destructive spheres, each as large as a barrel of ale, arced down from the dragons and exploded on the rooftops adding their freight of destruction to the inferno below.

A murmur of dismay rose from the nearby wizards. As if born of this new torrent of flame, a massive fiery humanoid was taking form over the burning city. At first Rik could not tell whether it belonged to the defenders or his own side but he got his answer soon enough. The fire giant gathered all the flames into itself and leapt skyward, aiming for the dragons. Even at a distance of over a league, Rik could hear his crackling roar. The dragon flight split, one section veering left, the other right, the other heading straight up. The elemental bellowed its frustrated fury and sprang towards the army of its tormentors.

Fear filled Rik for a moment. The sorcerous thing was tall as a six-storey tenement building and much larger than a bridgeback wyrm. It looked capable of defeating the entire Talorean army on its own. As it walked, the flames of the burning city leapt to it, increasing its size even as it damped out the fires on the buildings within the walls.

Asea stood within a circle rimmed with Elder Signs. She was the greatest of the Talorean sorcerers, and this hill had been chosen to give her a view of the whole battlefield and to let her protect the battery of siege artillery nearby. A whole regiment of infantry was posted downslope to protect her. Two squadrons of cavalry waited nearby.

As the fire elemental left the city, the warding spells protecting the besieging army took their toll. Parts of its body broke off and spluttered out as it moved. It tried to reach down to the troops below but enchantments protected them. Only once did it break through and lift the swiftly blackening form of some poor soldier from the mass. Rik prayed it was nobody he knew. The Seventh, his old regiment, was down there getting ready to storm the city when the walls finally gave way.

Asea began to chant. A glow appeared on the lid of one of the urns in front of her. Rik has seen its like before in the ruins beneath the demon-haunted city of Deep Achenar. That one had contained a bound fire elemental. This urn looked different. The binding was blue crystal; the Elder Sign on its side resembled a snowflake. Asea's chant rose in pitch even as the fiery behemoth came closer.

Cracks appeared on the seal of Asea's casket. Rik hoped she could complete her ritual in time. The frustrated fire giant had given up attacking the soldiers and was coming straight at them now, as if guided by some malign intelligence that knew only too well that they were there despite the spells of concealment that were supposed to shield their position. It moved faster than a destrier could charge, and its size became all the more intimidating as it drew nearer.

The urn broke open. Wisps of mist, cold and clammy as fog on a winter morning, emerged. Rik felt very chilly. The fog rushed skyward. Snowflakes and cold droplets of rain formed the gigantic outline of a man sculpted from snow-clouds. Within it, small tornadoes stirred the cold air.

Asea spoke orders in a language that Rik had never heard. The elemental’s reply echoed within his head, a voice of arctic chill that held the power of a chained hurricane. If a storm in the iceberg-filled Northern seas had a voice it would sound like that, he thought.

The approaching fire elemental gave another crackling roar. Sensing the presence of an ancient enemy, the storm elemental rushed to meet it, its body flowing in tattered streamers, like clouds driven before a powerful wind. It fell on its foe like a blanket thrown over a fire. Tentacles of flame tore into cold clouds.

Where the fire elemental passed the grass was blackened and scorched. Where the storm elemental had stood it shone with a coating of ice. The stench of ozone filled the air. Lightning flickered around the storm elemental and lashed the flame creature. It responded by breathing jets of fire into its foe.

For long moments it was impossible to tell which was winning. Asea unleashed another storm elemental. It leapt into the fray and soon it and its brother had reduced the fire being to a thing the size of a small bonfire. It dwindled down to a candle flame and then vanished entirely. The two storm elementals headed for the walls of the city, aiming for a gap blown in the stonework by cannon fire. In those places the warding spells in the walls were damaged or broken entirely. The storm things made their way into the city, the first of the Taloreans’ sorcerously summoned creatures to do so.