“It is not right that people live in such fear,” Alain said, his words coming out slowly as the idea crystallized in his mind.
“You figured that out for yourself?” Mari asked. “Good work, my Mage.”
“I have had a good teacher in what is right,” Alain said, feeling pleased that he had managed to work out the idea without asking Mari.
The cavalry column began moving again, except for those soldiers riding back toward the north gate as they took their wounded comrade and the Mechanic assassin back to the healers.
As the column came even with the people on the road, Mari called a halt. “We have come to bring Minut back into the Kingdom of Tiae,” she told them. “Tiae’s Princess Sien is leading the reborn army of Tiae into the west gate of Minut as we speak.” The people gazed back at her wordlessly. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Who are you?” one of the watching people finally asked.
Colonel Tecu replied, his voice carrying down the street. “This is Lady Mari, the daughter of Jules, come to free the world at last, and that is her banner that flies alongside the banner of Tiae!”
The cavalry cheered, and the faces of the men and women in the street took on expressions of disbelief and wonder. “Who will rule Minut now?” one cried.
“Princess Sien!” Mari called back. “Your princess rules Tiae, and today she once again extends her protection over the people and city of Minut!”
Alain could see that they did not believe Mari. But after Mari ordered the column back into motion, the people watched the rest of the cavalry pass and then followed, their numbers growing as more men, women, and children came out of hiding.
Up ahead, a large group of people pointed to a building. Colonel Tecu sent another detachment galloping ahead. “They say there are bandits in there!” the officer called back. “About a dozen!”
“Tell the bandits they can surrender or die! Make sure they know we have a Mage with us!”
The rest of the cavalry had nearly caught up when the reply came in the form of a prolonged burst of obscenity that Alain could easily hear.
“Let’s go in,” a lieutenant urged.
“Let’s not waste lives,” Mari said. “Alain, can you get them out?”
“I will have to leave you….”
“I won’t go anywhere until you get back.”
Alain nodded, dismounted and walked toward the building. He waited until he must have been clearly visible to the bandits inside before using his concealment spell. Normally, light in the world illusion showed someone’s presence. But if light could instead be imagined to bend around a Mage, then the Mage would become invisible to shadows, as Mages called both commons and Mechanics. Alain could not sense any Dark Mages in the building who would have been able to see him despite the spell, so he created it, drawing on the power in the land around him.
He saw his success mainly in the reactions of the commons around him, whose eyes unsuccessfully searched the place where he had been visible.
Alain, husbanding his strength since the spell drew on his endurance to maintain, walked steadily up to the building. One of the empty windows provided easy access inside, where Alain saw two men standing to either side of the window with ready swords and fearful expressions.
Never fully having accepted his Mage training to regard all others as mere shadows of no consequence, Alain nonetheless found it far easier than Mari did to dispose of those shadows who sought to harm others. To his mind, these shadows had chosen to hurt, and therefore had no grounds to complain of being hurt in turn.
The first man never saw the Mage knife Alain used to stab him. He was still falling when Alain turned to the second and with brisk efficiency whipped his knife across that man’s throat.
He left the room, walking softly, before the other bandits could react to the choking cries of their dying comrades.
Slipping nimbly between the three men who came running to check on the noise, Alain waited they were past, then stabbed the last.
He felt a powerful spell building behind him.
If Alain had been less experienced, he would have paused for a moment to think. That hesitation would have killed him.
In the same instant of realizing he had been lured into a trap, Alain swung behind him the body of the bandit he had just stabbed and then dove past the other two bandits toward the door of the room he had just left.
As he slid through the doorway at floor level, Alain felt the heat and crackle of lightning in the hallway. Bright light flared as the three bandits took the force of the spell, jerking under the impact, their clothes smoldering.
Before the bodies of the bandits could hit the floor, Alain was on his feet and sprinting for the window that he had entered. He dropped the concealment spell, knowing that it would be useless. His opponent was a lightning Mage, exceptionally good at hiding his or her presence and exceptionally powerful as well. Alain had no intention of trying to fight that foe on the attacker’s chosen ground.
He lunged headfirst through the window without pausing, feeling a gust of sizzling heat behind him as another lightning strike filled the room.
Alain hit the worn pavement, grateful that his robes absorbed some of the impact. He rolled back to his feet to face the attacker, knowing that he had no chance of dodging a third strike.
He heard repeated thunder, but it was not the enemy Mage. The cavalry were still gaping in surprise and trying to control mounts which were splaying their front legs and rapidly swiveling their ears in fear at the lightning attacks, but Mari had her reins in an iron grip and her pistol out. She was firing rapidly into the room that Alain had just left, her face a mask of determination.
The cavalry was finally beginning to react when several bandits boiled out of the building. Alain could see their panic, but the cavalry shot or stabbed most before realizing that the bandits were also fleeing Alain’s assailant.
Mari jumped down from her horse and stood over Alain as he straightened up, her weapon still aimed toward the building. “I don’t know if I hit anything,” she told him. “But I know nothing could have gotten to that window without taking at least one bullet.”
Alain nodded, trying to regain his breath after the burst of activity and spell-casting. “You stopped him from making another strike at me that would have very likely hit.”
“How did he get in there?” Mari asked.
“He was waiting inside, but I did not sense him until he attacked.”
“Can you tell where he is now?”
Alain focused on the fleeting impressions he had gained of his attacker, trying to spot where that Mage was. He felt a sense of distance, of movement, then lost the trace. “He has left. That way.”
“The back of the building,” Mari said, then looked at the cavalry, hesitating.
It was not hard to understand why Mari had paused. The cavalry, brave when facing most opponents, were clearly unnerved at facing a powerful lightning Mage. Their horses were still stamping and moving about nervously. “I will pursue him,” Alain began.
“Not alone you won’t!”
“Mari—" Alain felt something else. “Another spell, in that direction. A powerful one. It does not feel like the work of any of our Mages.”
A commotion in the street marked the arrival of Mage Asha and three other Mages, riding through the commons and soldiers who parted hastily to clear a path. “I know the feel of this Mage,” Mage Dimitri said. “It is a Mage creating a Roc.”
Mari’s far-talker buzzed urgently. “Lady Mari! This is Princess Sien. We have spotted another Roc rising from the city, and the Mages with me say it is not one of ours.”
“Where is it headed?” Mari asked.
“North. It has already gone out of sight and has probably left the city. We saw two Mages riding the Roc.”
“The lightning Mage is making his escape,” Alain said. “I know the feel of him. He is the same who attacked me in the Northern Ramparts.”
“What about Paland
ur?” Mari asked. “Was that him there, too?”
“It may have been,” Alain said. “He has become more capable since that time.”
“If we meet him a fourth time we have to make sure he doesn’t get away again. At least for now he can’t—" Mari stopped speaking, her expression growing horrified. “Blazes! He casts lightning and he’s heading north! Calu!” she yelled into her far talker. “Calu! Emergency!”
“…Mari? What’s…?” Calu asked, his voice coming faintly from the far-talker. “Your signal…weak…buildings around…must…blocking…not getting…word.”
“Listen! There’s another Roc with two Mages on it headed for you! One of the Mages throws lightning! Get away from the guns! Everybody get away from the guns!”
“You…get away…guns? Why?”
“Lightning, Calu! He can hit the guns with lightning!”
“Lightning?” Through the far-talker, Alain could hear Calu yelling at the others near him. “…away from the…! …run!”
“What is the danger?” Alain asked Mari.
She stared to the north. “Lightning is a powerful electric charge. It can set off the ammunition for Alli’s guns. If that Mage causes all of Allis’s ammo to explode at once, it will wipe out everything on that hill.”
Alain looked to the north as well, blaming himself for his failure to spot and stop the Mage. He did not doubt that the lightning Mage would try to kill him again. And next time must be the last time.
A titanic, prolonged crash of thunder rolled down from the north.
Chapter Three
“Calu!” Mari yelled into her far-talker as the echoes of the blast faded. “Calu! Answer! I need a better place to transmit from!” She looked around frantically, then spurred her horse to the other side of the street. “Calu!”
Alain followed, sick inside from seeing Mari’s worry. If only he had—
“Mari?”
“Calu? Are you all right? What happened?”
“Mari,” Calu said, sounding breathless but his words understandable. “I can’t really hear you. Too much ringing in my ears from that explosion. Uh, I guess you need a status report. We’re mostly all right. It looks like two…no, three folks got hit by fragments. I can’t tell how bad yet. Alli had already hitched the horse teams back up to the two ammunition caissons, so when your warning came through she ordered the drivers to stampede in different directions while the rest of us ran like blazes. That left, uh, eight ready shells near the guns. I think they all blew when that lightning hit. It looks like one of the guns is a total wreck. The other one is damaged but I think repairable. Alli’s all right, but she’s standing near the guns cursing a blue streak, mostly about the terrible things she’s going to do to that Mage who threw the lightning if she ever gets her hands on him.”
Mari sagged with relief, rubbing her forehead with her free hand. “Thank you, Calu,” she shouted into the far-talker. “Tell us more when you can.”
Another voice came over the far-talker. “Mari! This is Bev. What happened?”
Mari inhaled deeply before replying. “An enemy Mage caused Alli’s ready ammo to blow. Nobody was killed. Why didn’t General Flyn call?”
“He thought the far-talker was broken and asked me to look at it. I think he was just pushing the wrong buttons. Commons may be able to use these things but they sure aren’t comfortable with them. So, we’re all good? Attack continues?”
“Continue the attack,” Mari confirmed. “Are you guys running into any trouble?”
“Just what General Flyn calls ‘isolated pockets of resistance’,” Bev replied. “He thinks it will get a lot worse when we push down to the waterfront.”
“We’re all converging that way. Princess Sien, did you hear?”
“I did,” Sien replied. “The army of Tiae has met only minor difficulties and will meet you at the waterfront.”
Mage Asha had ridden up to Alain as he returned to the saddle. She gestured to the hem of his robes, blackened from heat. “This one failed to find the Mage who attacked you.”
“This Mage could not sense the one who attacked me even when close,” Alain said.
“The Guild laid many traps in Minut,” Asha observed. “Some Mage must have had foresight that we would come here. The one who casts lightning has tried to kill you before. Mage Siva is his name.”
“You think that Mage Siva saw that I would come to Minut?”
“He has tried to kill you twice before, and was injured by Mari’s weapon in Palandur. I heard after Palandur that Mage Siva was so greatly angered by your escape that the elders rebuked him for the emotion.”
“He is angry again, then,” Alain said, “for once again he has failed.”
Their conversation was halted by Colonel Tecu calling out orders to advance. The Mages rode with the cavalry as it swept through the city, heading south.
The column reached the great central plaza, once a place of gardens and towering trees, now an emptiness marked by barren patches of dirt and piles of rubbish. After crossing the plaza, the cavalry spread out to enter several roads on the south side.
A trumpet sounded to the left. “Our flank has met up with the foot soldiers,” Colonel Tecu told Mari.
A short time later, another trumpet gave the same call from the right. “We have established contact with the army of Tiae.”
The crowds of people who had come out to watch their progress had fallen back, watching as the soldiers continued toward the waterfront.
Alain saw a stretch ahead where one side of the street was marked by piles of rubble that had once been buildings. From the old scorch marks on the ruins, fire had played a role in their collapse.
“This reminds me a little too much of Marandur,” Mari murmured to Alain.
He nodded, looking around for signs of trouble. “Would your old Guild send only one assassin to Minut?”
“That depends on how much warning they had that I’d be here,” Mari replied. “I thought we kept our plans pretty quiet. We certainly surprised the warlords.”
“Mage Asha believes that I was attacked by Mage Siva, and that Mage Siva may have had foresight that I would be here,” Alain said, keeping his eyes on the path ahead. “You remember what happened at Edinton, where the Mage Guild elders shared with the Mechanics Guild the foresight that you would come there. If the Mage Guild elders also shared with your former Guild foresight that you were expected in Minut, they may have had more warning than we hoped for.”
A partial barrier had become visible up ahead, as if someone had begun building a barricade across the street using the rubble but abandoned the work after doing only a small section. Alain could hear a low rumble of sound coming from the waterfront and realized it was many voices crying, shouting, and yelling.
The leading cavalry reached the end of the street, where it let out onto the broad open area of Minut’s waterfront. The soldiers paused, waiting for Alain, Mari, and Colonel Tecu to catch up.
Alain could see many people on the waterfront, almost all adults. The roar of conversation was falling off as the cavalry pushed their way into the crowd, which fell back without resisting. Men and women stared fearfully at the soldiers, their eyes coming to rest on Mari and the banners of the new day and Tiae which floated behind her. “Have mercy, Lady!” one person cried, and the others took up the plea, all raising their hands in surrender or supplication or both.
“Your orders, Lady?” Colonel Tecu asked over the uproar.
Mari shook her head. “What happens to them is up to the princess. But I do not want anyone hurt who is not fighting us. Alain, are they just trying to fool us?”
“I see fear,” Alain said. “I do not see an intent to attack us.”
“I see this, too,” Mage Asha said.
“Extend our line toward the water,” Tecu ordered the cavalry. “Maintain a solid defensive line and don’t let any groups of soldiers get cut off from the rest.”
A scattering of shots from Mechanic weapons erupted to the wes
t.
“Mari? This is Captain Banda.”
Mari yanked her far-talker up. “Here. What’s happening?”
“A small craft left the outer breakwater, moving west and hugging the coast. A couple of Tiae’s coastal guard ships moved to intercept and were met with rifle fire. I can’t get any larger ships close in there but I can try to hit it with the Pride’s deck gun.”
“Go ahead,” Mari said. “Princess Sien? Can your army see the boat trying to escape?”
“I am sending dragoons to the coast,” Sien answered. “They have two of your rifles with them.”
“Send one of my Mechanics with them as well,” Mari said. “If these are Mechanics, they will be more likely to surrender to another Mechanic.”
The boom of the Pride’s deck gun, smaller than Alli’s new artillery but much closer to the waterfront, drew the terrified attention of the people still crying mercy. When the shell explosion sounded a ways off along the coast, those on the waterfront relaxed a little, but their jumpiness worried Alain. “They might panic,” he warned Mari. “If they panic, they will blindly attack.”
Mari nodded, standing up in the saddle to yell over the noise. “We will not harm anyone who does not attack us!”
More shots came from the Pride, but Alain could see a measure of calm flow through the crowd as Mari’s words spread like the ripples from a stone tossed into water.
“The small craft has run aground while trying to evade our shots,” Captain Banda reported. “I can see mounted soldiers wearing the colors of Tiae approaching along the coast. There is one Mechanic among them. I would like to drop another shell near that boat, not aiming to hit but to encourage them to give up.”
“Good idea.”
Alain kept his attention on the crowd, noticing one figure who, unlike the others who milled about aimlessly, was instead drifting on a meandering route through the crowd that always brought him closer to Mari. Alain edged his horse between the man and Mari, watching and waiting.