Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

The stockade was ablaze. Scarlet magefire licked ever higher, black smoke billowing into the clear blue sky. Was this Allin’s doing? As Temar wondered, pain erupted inside his head and he staggered with the shock, clapping a hand to his temple expecting to feel some dart or the score of an arrow. He squinted at his palm through tear-filled eyes but there was no blood.

The battle fell into chaos; all-pervasive pain wracking friend and foe alike. Men and women fell to their hands and knees, some clawing at their heads so fiercely they drew their own blood. Others folded around their anguish like wailing babes. Temar’s legs wavered beneath him but he forced himself to stay upright. Feet numb, he staggered towards the beached Dulse , clumsy waves of his sword sufficient to turn away a shrieking pirate who crossed his path.

“Oh my little son, who will guide you to manhood? I am burning, all is burning, fire all around. I have not the strength of will to turn it aside. Forgive my weakness.” Moin’s anguish tore at Temar. Had his own father burned thus with searing grief even as the fever of the Crusted Pox consumed him?

Darige wept for his parents’ loss, eyes parching faster than tears could refresh them, sore lids sticky and slow, unable to hide the brilliant death flickering all around. “How will you live without the bounty I earn you? Who will bring you fuel and food to ward off the killing cold of winter?” Skin reddened, blistered, scored and splitting, Darige envisaged his aged father grey and frozen, starved to death in his bed.

Temar dashed guilty tears from his own eyes. If he hadn’t sailed for Kel Ar’Ayen, bold and foolish, he’d have been there to comfort his grandsire on his deathbed. Why had he left the old man to die bereft of any of his blood?

“Why did I never tell you I loved you, Duhel? Now I will die and you’ll never know. I’ll never know the touch of your lips, your body meeting mine. Ilkehan said we should keep ourselves free from such ties but where is he now I die so utterly alone?” Yalda struggled for breath even as the false air scorched her throat and lungs. Her hair curled in futile retreat from the ascending flames, crumbling to nothingness, all the beauty she’d been so proud of turned hideous.

Screaming with all the living torment of death consumed by fire filled Temar’s mind. Fighting the pain, the excruciating memories and regrets, he reached the ship and seized the tarred and knotted netting hanging down the side. Blood from his wound made his sword hand slippery. Howls and weeping assailed him from all sides and the pain in his head felt as if it would crack the very bones of his skull. “ Tur-ryal ,” Temar gasped. “ Tur-ryal en arvenir .” That gave him enough clarity within the sanctuary of his own mind to haul himself up a few meshes. “ Tur-ryal en arvenir mel edraset .”

The aetheric ward pushed the pain that surrounded him to the outside of Temar’s skin. Even if he still felt flayed alive, it was just sensations of burning assailing him, not the searing bitterness of futile self-recrimination. He gasped, frozen with dread as he felt a death wish pass over him before realising, agony aside, he was of no interest to Muredarch’s three adepts. They were intent on spending their final breaths in visiting bloody retribution on the mages who had brought this fiery fate to consume them.

Temar felt the dying Elietimm turn their murderous will on Larissa. Soaring flames filled his vision, eyes open or closed and he saw the girl ringed in silver magelight. Her defences were tarnishing, melting before the Elietimm onslaught and Temar wished with every fibre of his being that he’d studied more Artifice. He racked his memory for any incantation that he might use to aid the embattled wizard. It was no good, he was no use, he just didn’t know. That realisation was more painful than the agonies hammering at his half-warded mind. There had to be something he could do. If he couldn’t reach Larissa, he had to try to help the other mages. He fell over the rail of the Dulse to land with a resounding thud on the deck. Sailors all around were struggling with the overwhelming pain, one man screaming, fallen from the rigging to shatter both legs into splintered bone.

Temar struggled to his feet to see Guinalle on the aftdeck, kneeling beside Allin who lay in a crumpled heap. Temar’s heart twisted with the worst torment yet.

“Guinalle,” he rasped, staggering towards her. “As you hope for Saedrin’s grace, help me!” She looked up, ashen, clinging desperately to Allin’s hands. “It’s the Elietimm. I’ve shielded Allin and ’Sar but I can’t reach Larissa.”

Temar nodded and wished he hadn’t. “They’re in there.” He pointed towards the inferno that was the stockade and took a deep breath. “You have to end it. You’re the only one who can reach them. It’s the only way to save the mages.”

Guinalle looked at him, horror struck.

Temar seized her hands. “You’re the only one who can give them mercy. By Ostrin’s very eyes, would you let them die like that?”

If Guinalle had been pale before, now her face was the bloodless ivory of old bone. She crushed Temar’s hand against Allin’s cold fingers so hard he feared he’d carry the marks for the rest of his days.

“Do what you can for her,” Guinalle whispered hoarsely, screwing her eyes closed, dark bruises in their hollows. “And ’Sar.”

Temar struggled to wrap his fragile ward around Allin. His inadequate skills were immediately thrown into disarray by an elemental chill, slippery and hard as ice as he tried to reach past it. The still cold of lightless caverns lost beneath the earth penetrated her very bones, refuting the Elietimm Artifice’s insidious boast that inexorable fires consumed her. Temar struggled to lend Allin whatever strength he could in denying the insidious appeal to the affinity within her, as the Elietimm sought to let elemental fire loose to destroy the wizard from within. What about Usara? The cold numbed Temar’s wits like a fall into freezing water but he tried again, holding Usara in his mind’s eye as he sought in vain for the mage. The chill became the bitter burn of midwinter wind and Temar recoiled from it but, before his skills deserted him utterly, he realised the cold protecting Allin was preserving the other wizard too.

“ Eda verlas Moin ar drion eda. Verlas Yalda mal ar drion eda. Darige verlas ar drion eda .” Guinalle was chanting a litany that Temar had never heard before, tears streaming from her closed eyes. “ Ostrin an abrach nur fel ,” she added in fervent prayer.

The screaming agonies of the dying enchanters faded but slowly. Temar could still feel the scarifying pain through the shreds of his untutored warding as he scrubbed cold tears from his face. Down on the shore, he saw some were recovering faster than others.

Muredarch was one. The big man was charging up the slope towards the edge of the trees where Darni stood swaying over a fallen figure that could only be Larissa. Intent on his prey, the pirate leader didn’t realise Halice was pursuing him, mercenaries behind her dragging themselves to their feet with desperate determination.

“Look after Allin.” The effort of leaving her behind nearly broke Temar’s resolve but he drove himself to a cable hanging over the side of the ship. He welcomed the burn of the rope on his palms, the throbbing ache of the gash in his forearm; any pain to distract him from his frantic worry for Allin.

He ran past pirates and mercenaries stirring and senseless, the echo of the enchanters’ death pangs lessening with every step. Determination to exact full penalty from Muredarch filled him with new energy. The pirate leader had reached Darni now and was hacking at the warrior’s guard. The big man was defending himself but with nothing like his customary skill, every block weaker, every movement too slow for safety. Temar nearly cried out to give Darni new heart but seeing Halice was there, he held his tongue. Darni fell and Muredarch roared with triumph but Halice cut his jubilation short. The woman fell on the marauder’s unprotected back, her clotted sword sweeping across to lay open bloodied flesh and the white gleam of rib bones.