Devan Chronicles Series: Books 1-3 (168 page)

Kornel hid his eyes from the sight, but then he looked at his son again. He reached to touch his boy, but even that was denied him when his fingers encountered the ward. He climbed to his feet but one step later and he was down again.

“My leg, I can’t feel my leg,” Kornel hissed hammering the useless thing with a fist.

“That will do no good, it’s not asleep. It was almost severed and I reattached it. What you have is the best you will get.”

“I can’t stand?”

“Try, try hard!” Julia said.

Kornel climbed to his feet and found if he favoured the leg he could stand and even walk a little. “A horse, get me to a horse. I can still be a man in the saddle.”

She nodded and blasted a huge hole in the ranks of legionnaires pushing at the ward. She grimly moved forward into the space she had created while Lucius and Mathius kept up a constant barrage with fire. Twice more she blasted her way through until finally encountering cavalry again. She reached out with her magic and plucked a man out of the saddle so that Kornel might mount.

“Tobiah is dead!” Kornel yelled as he struggled up onto the horse. “Retreat! Tobiah is dead! Retreat!”

A great cry of despair arose as the retreat was ordered, but Julia felt the difference immediately. The struggle eased as warriors disengaged and pulled back.

“Julia, up behind me woman!” Kornel said reaching for her but she stepped back.

“Lead the clans out of here, Kornel.”

Kornel looked to Mathius and Lucius but received nothing from them but hard eyed stares. He nodded and urged his horse out of the press chopping at legionnaires as he went.

“Julia?”

She looked at Mathius sadly. “I saw Brian go down. I want to find him and Keverin.”

“You don’t know—”

“Either way,” she said cutting Mathius off before he could say it.

As the clans pulled back the cornets blared among the legions. The response was immediate. Legionnaires hefted wounded comrades and ran back to their own lines leaving the heaps of dead in their wake. Julia and her three friends stood exposed in the middle of the slaughter. Lucius mumbled that now would be the time, but again the sorcerers seemed uninterested in attacking.

The ward hummed and crackled as they moved among the bodies searching for friends that still lived. Julia’s thoughts were far away from battle now as she used magic to toss legionnaires out of her way to find clansmen alive but buried under the bodies. She healed those she could and they stumbled away to find Kornel with tears running down their faces.

The field of sorrows.

A fitting name for this place. She stopped and looked around at the piles of meat that had been her friends not long ago. The clans had lost this battle; there could be no doubt. Less than a quarter of the dead were legionnaires—their armour had saved them, but the clans did not have armour and had paid dearly for the lack. Looked at one way it was amazing the warriors had killed as many as they had, looked at another it was a complete disaster. Wolf Clan had gone the way of Dragon Clan here today. Less than three in ten had survived. Bear and Eagle Clans had come out lightest with their late entry into the battle. Tobiah’s Wolves had taken the brunt, but Julia saw the familiar swirling pattern on the backs of all too many dead warriors and knew her clan had been hurt badly.

They found Brian eventually. He didn’t appear injured at all! She looked at him with her mage sight and groaned, he was alive but he had been hit upon his helmet. Head injuries were serious; many times she had tried and failed to heal this kind of thing.

“I won’t fail this time!” Julia growled as she attacked the purple stain in his aura.

Being linked had its advantages. The purple was wiped out instantly and Brian blazed up white as she cleaned the yellow away, but he did not wake. Her tears ran and dripped onto to his dear face as she wept for her friend… all her friends.

“He won’t wake up, Lucius. He’s like Renard.”

“Not so,” Mathius said sadly. “Renard was burned out. He wasn’t in one of your comas.”

It wasn’t her coma, but Julia knew what he meant. She had taught Lucius and Mathius all she could about healing, and what she knew from her old world. She knew quite a lot, common sense and general knowledge she supposed it was really, about medicine and healing. Simple things like sepsis, blood transfusions, and appendicitis, but coma wasn’t a simple thing in any world.

“I’ll carry him back,” she said in defeat. She wasn’t willing to leave him in all this mess and misery.

Lucius nodded as she hefted Brian with magic and all three began walking back to Denpasser. She prayed for her friend as she walked amongst the dead, it was all she had to offer now. She prayed for him to wake, she prayed for her dead friends, but most of all she prayed that Keverin lived.

* * *

Shelim dismounted and ran with Nyx trailing behind. All the shamen did the same without needing to be told. They had to reach the battle before it was too late.

Julia’s words did have the desired effect on Kerrion. Immediately after her argument with him, he had called a meeting and told them he was going to war. Larn had immediately stood in support and every other shaman had roared in approval. The rush to the horses had the women and children running in alarm to see what was happening but there hadn’t been time for questions. As a result he was afraid many of those left behind feared the worse, but better that than the worst actually happening.

Shelim stopped and studied his mirror again. They had to turn to the east slightly. He waved in that direction then mounted Nyx and pushed her to a gallop. He knew this area intimately. He had lived at Denpasser for four seasons during his training, and had ridden this far many times in his circuit around Denpasser. He had no qualms about pushing Nyx to her limit. Darnath was sticking to his side, and even Kerrion had not fallen back. Kerrion was over a hundred years old. Shelim hoped he was as good at sixty as Kerrion was at a hundred!

“How far?” Darnath shouted into the wind of their passage.

“Two leagues at most!” Shelim shouted. “We should see it any time!”

“We are too late my boy!” Kerrion said. “We would have been too late leaving with Julia. She was right all along. Tobiah will destroy us all with his foolishness!”

Shelim agreed. He should have counselled Mazel to challenge Tobiah, but at the time unity seemed more important. How he cursed himself for not going the other route. The one he had taken now seemed worse than folly; it seemed to him the coward’s way. He groaned when the battlefield came into sight. They
were
too late! Thousands of dead warriors and outclanners lay in tumbled heaps upon the ground.

“We have lost,” Kerrion whispered in shock. He had feared it, but had not truly believed until now.

“Not yet,” Darnath said as they rode to join the survivors. “We can hit them and—”

“He doesn’t mean that,” he said. “There were three clans here. Now there is less than one. I see Kornel, but where are his warriors?”

All three looked at the piles of dead and knew. The Wolves were destroyed.

“Who’s that?” Darnath said shading his eyes. “It’s Julia!”

“What’s she doing?” Shelim said as he pulled up and dismounted.

“Healing the injured. I’ll go help.”

“Wait Darnath, we’ll all go, but let me talk to Kornel first,” Shelim said not noticing Kerrion’s small smile as he took charge.

Shelim pushed his way through the warriors ignoring their questions and came to Kornel’s horse. The chief was stony faced as he looked upon the death of his honour. With his warriors gone he was chief of women and children now, not warriors.

“What are you waiting for?” Shelim said and ignored the anger beating at him from the crowds.

“For Julia to find her man. When she’s done with that, Kadar will lead you all home and I will attack,” Kornel said in a dead voice.

“Fool!” Shelim spat imitating Kerrion at his worst.

“…get away with that—”

“…talking to a chief not his apprentice!”

“…cut him down—”

“Fool I said!” he shouted over the angry voices. “This is one battle not the entire war! Do you give up a feud after one raid? No! You attack again and again until you win!”

“We can’t win here,” Kornel said looking down at him.

“Not here. You need all the clans
and
every shaman to beat these outclanners. I say we should—” Shelim broke off as Darnath burst through the crowd.

“They’re killing Julia!”

* * *

When the attack finally came it was a shock for all of them. Something hit the ward and went straight through to strike Julia squarely. The magic in her grasp increased by a colossal amount and she screamed in agony as burnout threatened. An instant later she was down, screaming and banging her head upon the ground as every muscle in her body jerked her this way and that spasmodically. She tried to release the link even as Lucius and Mathius fell to mimic her.

All three were screaming now as the pain reached a height undreamed of. Julia was taking the strike, but the link was feeding her friends as well. If it hadn’t been there, she would have died instantly, but now it threatened all three of them. She had to break it. She struggled but it was no use. The medallion representing her link to the magic was welded in her grasp.

She couldn’t let it go!

* * *

“Noooo,” Shelim gasped.

He ran through the crowd toward the battlefield throwing fire for all he was worth. He saw the fireballs strike all along the outclanners ward but not one penetrated. He kept raining his fire upon the enemy as he reached his screaming friends. A line of white fire was going through Julia’s ward and hitting her.

“Tell me what to do!” he cried but she just looked at him with tears running from her eyes and screamed.

The other shamen were slower than him, but soon they were all raining lightning and fire on the enemy. Two hundred shamen were giving everything they had but it wasn’t enough to breach that stupendous ward.

Ward? His shield!

Shelim concentrated and raised his shield over himself and his screaming friends. Instantly Julia collapsed into unconsciousness with Mathius and Lucius closely following. He didn’t have time to think about that. Whatever the white fire was, his shield had intercepted it right enough, but already the cursed thing was full and trying to escape his grasp. Remembering a time similar to this he gritted his teeth and discharged it back at the enemy.

A solid bar of magic crackled and roared toward the outclanners. Almost instantly it smashed into the ward covering them. The deafening roar drowned out Kerrion’s gasp of shock. Shelim could hear the teeth grinding in his head as he struggled to prevent the bar from swinging sideways. It was the same as that day when in a blizzard he had tried to punish the monster’s men for killing a Dragon tribe. That time seemed so long ago now, but his cursed shield’s antics brought it all back. The shield was trying to spin like a wheel on its axle. Again he envisioned himself as the axle and tried to clamp the cursed thing solid. As before it worked, but unlike last time, his attack upon the ward succeeded. The sorcerer’s ward howled and shattered with a crashing roar as his magic punched through the line of outclanners. Those directly in its path died instantly turned to sparkling motes of dust, but his weapon ran out of magic almost as the men died when the enemy shaman gave up their attack. His shield was depleted in that moment, but Kerrion was ready.

“Everyone link!” Kerrion shouted.

Shelim reached out to Kerrion and Darnath as Julia had taught him, and suddenly he felt like a giant! He was one of many now as each link group turned its attention upon the outclanners and attacked.

He was leading his group of ten. He pulled on the magic and threw a stupendous fireball. It impacted with others of similar proportions upon the outclanners, but again a humming and crackling ward covered them. He tried again and again but he was getting nowhere. He had penetrated a ward stronger than this but only because his shield had been overloaded by the outclanners. If he tried to draw that much he would be burned to a cinder even linked as he was.

It was useless.

*
Stalemate,
* Shelim said even as he tried to rain destruction on the enemy. It was all to no avail.

*
Yes my boy,
* Kerrion said. *
Without Julia we cannot win this war.
*

*
How is she?
*

*
Older,
* Kerrion said sadly.

Shelim nodded unsurprised. *
The others?
*

*
They seem all right. Julia was their target not her friends.
*

*
What do we do?
*

*
I don’t know my boy,
* Kerrion said looking down at Julia. *
I just don’t know.
*

* * *

23 ~ Chief of Chiefs

Navarien nodded as he listened to Cragson’s report. They were walking the ramparts in a slow and casual circuit of the camp. The battle earlier in the day had not gone precisely to plan, but the outcome was close enough for him to call it a victory. Not an unqualified one maybe, but a victory nonetheless.

“And Julia?” Navarien asked.

“No sign of her, Sir.”

“Hmmm. Hardly surprising is it?”

Cragson shrugged in the gloom. It was a movement barely seen against the backdrop of the stars. “They had her. They had her and let her get away!”

Navarien squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “Peace. We can hardly crow about our dealings with her can we? Wotan will deal with Odelyn. I have his word on it.”

“Well… well. If Wotan says he’ll deal with the matter, I’ll say no more about it.”

He smiled. Everyone had great respect for Wotan and not because of the robes he wore. He was a young man and inexperienced in some ways because of that, but he learned quickly and did not ask the same questions twice. Everyone liked him for his easy manner.

“I think it’s time to retire. We have—” Navarien broke off as Cragson drew his attention to the south. “Good. The last of them are coming in.”