James Barclay - Ravensoul

Auum ran directly at a trio of Garonin in front of the centremost machine. His Tai were level with him. That the Garonin saw him was not in doubt, but their confidence was such that they did nothing to halt his advance. Theirs was millennia-old information. And it told them the elves would turn aside. Ten yards from them, Auum saw the first flicker of concern in the slight turning of a head.

‘Split,’ he ordered.

His Tai stepped aside left and right. Two paces later, all three dropped and rolled below the sweeping fists of the marshals, coming up behind them. Auum drove his blades into the gaps between boot and calf armour. The Garonin shrieked, anger and pain clashing as he pitched forward. Auum leapt on to his back, dragged his head back and drove a blade into the eye slit of his helmet. The Garonin jerked and disappeared.

Miirt and Ghaal had followed his lead, but to either side none of the other attacking elves had got any further.

‘Strike and turn,’ said Auum. ‘Hesitation is death.’

He led them to the two hanfeer yoked to the vydosphere. Dull eyes peered from beneath heavy brows. Bone stood proud from flesh, natural armour against predators. But the beasts were weak in the legs, just like their masters. Auum moved in for the crippling blow.

This close, beast and machine were a sight to take the heart of even a strong elf. The hanfeer stood almost twice Auum’s height, their massive shoulders straining against the yokes that they bore. Hawsers as thick as his thigh ran from the yokes to the machine, tensing and relaxing with each measured pace forward.

The vydosphere was a towering monument of creaking metal, raging heat and thrumming malevolence. Auum had no idea what much of it was made from. Its skin was not hide, more like expanding metal. The whole was as tall as a three-masted elven cutter, twice as broad as the ocean-going vessel and set on runners that barely settled on the ground, as if the hand of some giant were holding it just in contact. All that he saw, he logged for the future, for the time when they could strike back with an eye to victory, not to mitigate defeat.

White tears ripped up the earth in front of them. Auum threw himself to his right, the ground at his feet blistering and bubbling in the heat of the strike. He rolled and ran into the lee of the hanfeer pair. His Tai were still with him. Ghaal had fear in his face, Miirt was burned down her left leg.

‘Strike and turn,’ he repeated.

Auum’s blades whipped down into the lower leg of a hanfeer. The beast bellowed, a primeval sound, and fell forward, its ankles collapsing under its weight. Immediately, an alarm rang out from the vydosphere. With a squeal, it halted, belching smoke. Miirt struck at the second beast, Ghaal with her. Blood gouted from deep wounds. Another scream of bestial agony.

‘Run,’ said Auum.

He led them right, away from the Garonin attacking them and briefly into the shadow of the vydosphere. Above him, its skin groaned and protested. He saw bubbles appear beneath its surface and a rippling that ran along a seam. Steam escaped.

The fires were close, the heat unbearable. He turned to run back into the rainforest. The remaining Garonin were all staring at the stricken hanfeer and the machine halted behind them. Some were moving, hurrying even, towards the beasts. Tears fled from weapons held high. Flesh ripped from the beasts, heads caved in. In that same moment, two more hanfeer blinked into existence. So did another thirty Garonin.

Auum glanced over his shoulder as he ran, free from attack for the moment. All the vydospheres had stopped. Every Garonin worked to shepherd the new hanfeer towards the yoke of the stranded machine. The corpses of the dead beasts were fading, taken back by their masters. Al-Arynaar and TaiGethen surged back to the attack, seeing opportunity.

But Auum knew they had already achieved what they must.

‘Break off!’ he yelled.

ClawBound heard him if no others could. The calls of panthers echoed across the battlefield. Warriors turned at once.

Auum raced back into the relative safety of the deep canopy, not pausing until he had reached the forward camp. Rebraal was issuing orders. Carts were rattling away towards the docks at Ysundeneth, three days distant. Squads of warriors were forming up, ready to join the attack.

‘I thought I told you to leave for the docks,’ said Auum. ‘I need you standing with me at the Harkening.’

Rebraal smiled. ‘Too many still left behind. I will leave with the last of them.’

‘That time is now,’ said Auum. ‘We have stalled them for the moment. Precious time is ours. Use it. Evacuate the rest.’

‘We can strike further. Damage them more.’

Auum shook his head and leaned in to whisper into Rebraal’s ear.

‘No, my friend. More have come. And not merely to harvest this time. To destroy us. More machines are arriving too. Enough to lay waste the entire rainforest. They mean to destroy us and our lands.’

Rebraal stared at him, not believing. ‘They will not let us go?’

‘And they will pursue us. They have not forgotten.’

Scant hundreds of yards to their left, a huge detonation. Flame swept across the horizon. Trees cracked and fell. Elves and animals screamed, broke and ran.

‘How long have we lived here?’ asked Rebraal.

‘Three thousand years and more, and now we have no time,’ said Auum. ‘Miirt, have that leg healed. There is more work to do. Tai, we move.’

There was an acid taste to the air. It was the sort of taint that signalled trouble for delicate grapevines.

Baron Blackthorne trusted that whatever caused it would not travel south to his burgeoning slopes. He was expecting a supreme harvest, much as Baron Gresse had been. And indeed the evening before there had been no hint of any problem. But this morning that aftertaste to every breath lingered.

The two men stood on the wide, decked veranda of the plantation lodge hidden among the hills, terraces and valleys of the Gresse vineyards. They had enjoyed a fine dinner the night before and had broken fast well this morning. But now coffee was growing cool in mugs and frowns weighted the brows of both men.

Gresse wrinkled his nose yet again.

‘Stinks like old magic,’ he said.

His voice, gruff for as long as Blackthorne could remember, was further deepened to a painful phlegmy rattle.

‘You should have someone check out that throat of yours.’

‘Hardly, Blackthorne. Damn mages have done enough damage to my land and people over the years. I’m not going to start entertaining them in my house now. Too old for that sort of thing.’

‘You’re what, sixty-five? A few years older than me, anyway. Never mind damage; you might even get saved.’

Gresse waved a hand impatiently. ‘Cancer is just nature’s way of telling you to step aside for your sons.’

‘And you think that’s what it is?’

‘If the blood I cough up and the pain when I swallow are anything to go by.’

Blackthorne sighed. He couldn’t help himself. He stared at Gresse and those sunken brown eyes stared back, the hanging skin on his cheeks quivered and the pale small mouth tugged into a smile. At least he had the decency to blush a little.

‘Stubborn old goat,’ said Blackthorne.

‘It’s the progression of life, my friend.’

‘Yes, and I’ve lost enough to war, disease and demon to last two lifetimes. I don’t need to lose any more unnecessarily. Certainly not those with a part to play while we try and climb out of the mess the demons left behind. It’s not burning martyr I can smell but it surely should be, shouldn’t it? What by the Gods falling is this defeatism?’

‘You really want to know?’