And the Great Guilds would be that much closer to defeating the only chance the world had against the Storm that threatened to wipe away everything. Just so that they could maintain their power for a little longer.
“We’ll stand then,” she told Bruno, finding the strength to make her voice sound confident. “We’ll hold here until my army arrives. It must be close by now.”
“We will fight to the last,” the lieutenant said. “But you, Lady: Field Marshal Klaus told me to inform you that…that your courage and commitment are unquestioned, and that you need not remain on the battlement any longer.” Bruno gestured to a place behind the wall. “Most of the cavalry we could still gather and mount are there, along with two horses for you and your Mage.”
Mari frowned at Bruno, trying to understand what he was saying. “Field Marshal Klaus wants me to lead a charge?”
“No, Lady, you can get away.” Lieutenant Bruno pointed south. “You and your Mage. Get clear of Dorcastle and make it to Danalee, where you can organize another line of resistance to the Imperial attack.”
“Me? And my Mage? What about everybody else? What about you and all of the other defenders?”
“We’ll hold them as long as we can to give you the best chance of getting away.”
She felt hot anger rising inside, burning away the apathy of despair that had once filled her. “What?”
Lieutenant Bruno, apparently used to having to explain things more than once to superior officers, began saying the same thing again.
“No,” Mari interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But, Lady, the daughter’s struggle—"
“It’s not my struggle!” Her voice was rising, catching the attention of other defenders who looked toward her. “It’s everyone’s struggle!”
Bruno shook his head, momentarily letting his extreme weariness show. “Lady, ask anyone. You are the daughter of Jules. We can all see it in you. We’ve watched you and heard you and we all know it’s true. No one else can do it. You have to stay alive no matter what, because we can’t do this. We spent centuries waiting for you because we’re not strong enough to do it alone. You have to leave us here so you can—”
“NO!” Mari struggled to her feet, glaring at the hapless lieutenant. “This isn’t about me. Don’t you understand? All of you!” she shouted as loudly as she could, her voice carrying along the battlement. “I am the one who can’t do this alone! I am the one who needs you! They’ve lied to you! They’ve told you that you’re inferior! They’ve kept you in chains! But you, each and every one of you, are the equal of anyone in this world!”
She was exposed to enemy fire, and heard crossbow bolts rattling off the battlement near her as the Imperials took their opportunity, as well as the occasional crash of a rifle shot and the snap of the bullets tearing past. But she stayed on her feet, raising one fist skyward as if defying even the low, leaden overcast. “I cannot win freedom for you! Only you can do that! Only you can win it, and only you can hold it! I will lead you! I will stand here and lead the defense of Dorcastle until the last breath of life leaves me! Because I will not leave you! I will not leave this wall! We will hold here, we will hold, we will save Dorcastle, we will save this world! Together!”
She kept her fist raised but swung up her other arm to point toward the Imperials. “They want to keep this world in chains! The Great Guilds and the Imperials who do their will! But we will not let them! We will be free! Our children will be free! Yours and mine! Because we held this wall, because we held this city, because we refused to allow ourselves to be beaten!” The harsh blare of Imperial horns sounding the attack came from below. “Stand up! Stand up and fight! So that our children will be free! Freedom!”
A roar erupted along the battlements that drowned out the battle cries of the Imperials hurling themselves at the last defense standing between them and victory. The defenders rose to their feet, unleashing a furious bombardment on the attackers, the air filling with shouts of “Freedom and the daughter!”
The front ranks of the Imperial assault shattered under a hail of rocks, spears, and crossbow bolts. Startled by the vigorous defense put up by an enemy they had thought tottering on the edge of defeat, the Imperial attack faltered, but only for a moment. Their officers screaming commands and brandishing swords to threaten their own soldiers as much as the enemy, the legions surged against the wall again.
Mari heard the fire aimed at her, but she felt no fear. She was beyond that, in a place where nothing mattered any more but continuing the fight. She brought up her rifle, standing in almost full view of the enemy, and began firing. An Imperial officer fell. Legionaries at the head of scaling leaders dropped. Mari aimed and fired, the weapon bucking against her shoulder with each shot, knowing that the last clip for the rifle would soon be empty.
Alain stood beside her, his long knife in one hand. A ram exploded into flame as it approached the nearest gate, then another ball of heat exploded among the Imperial ranks.
Two Mechanics reeled away from the explosion. Mari shot both of them before leaning out enough to pump shots into the legionaries trying to hold scaling ladders against the wall.
The slide on the rifle jerked back and stayed there. Out of ammunition. Setting the rifle aside, Mari methodically drew her pistol, knowing that her last clip for that weapon was already partially used. She took a firing stance, extending her arm forward and down toward the enemy and began firing once again with slow deliberation, aiming carefully between each shot. One shot, two shots, three…
An Imperial came up a ladder just to Mari’s left, clashing swords with the nearest defender. Mari shot the legionary, seeing the slide on her pistol staying back, too. She bent down to grab a dropped sword as Alain dashed past her, using his long knife with deadly skill to kill the next two legionaries coming up the ladder. In the brief pause afforded by his blows, Alain and the Confederation soldier shoved the scaling ladder to the side so that it toppled and fell.
All along the wall the Imperial wave hit and hung there, striving desperately to surmount the last obstacle in its path. The legionaries had spent day after day charging to the attack, suffering horrendous losses as their commanders flung them forward time and again. The worn-out, wounded legions pushed against the exhausted, decimated defenders of Dorcastle. The strident blare of the Imperial horns bellowed the call to attack, while the defenders of the last wall screamed their defiance. “Freedom and the daughter!”
Beneath Mari, a sally gate was forced, but the small force of cavalry gathered to escort her to safety charged the Imperials coming through and drove them back until the broken gate could be shoved closed again and barricaded.
The Imperial assault clung to the wall, reaching for the top, running into an unyielding line of defenders. The legions pushed, and halted, then slowly, step by step, began falling back like a tide which has reached its highest point and now must recede.
Mari held her empty pistol in one hand and the sword in the other, looking for any attackers still trying to come up the wall, seeing none. All along the battlement, defenders were cheering and waving their weapons at the legionaries who had fallen back. The Imperial soldiers were staggering with weariness, not even yelling back to match the defiance of the defenders. They just stared upward while their officers bellowed and beat at them with the flats of their swords, slowly reforming the Imperial units.
Reforming them for another attack.
Lieutenant Bruno stood nearby, radiating joy, awe, and pride as he looked at Mari. “We held them. Lady, we held them!”
Mari, her burst of anger-fueled energy spent, looked down the battlement and saw how many of the defenders had fallen while hurling back the latest attack. Saw how few defenders remained. How the piles of rocks and spears were gone, used up in repelling the last assault. Her own weapons were empty of ammunition, nothing more than clubs. She held a sword she barely knew how to use.
There was nothing left. Mari glanced at Alain, saw the grimness i
n his eyes, and knew he understood the same thing. They had held the legions this time, but the legions were already regrouping. They would come again. Only another miracle could stop them, and miracles didn’t come in twos.
She heard the sweep of huge feathers overhead and felt a rush of wind.
Mari jerked her head up, staring in disbelief as a Roc glided low overhead, flying beneath the overcast despite the risk of Imperial projectiles. She could see the Mage who had created the bird, riding where the neck joined the body. Behind the Mage was a Mechanic, waving down at the defenders.
“Mari? Mari?” The words didn’t come from either side, but from one pocket of her jacket.
Still gazing upwards, Mari dropped the sword, holstered her pistol, and fumbled out the far-talker, her hands trembling as she found and pushed the transmit button. “Here. This is Mari. Calu?”
“You got it! Big as life and twice as ugly! We thought we wouldn’t get here in time. Part of your army is entering the city and coming on fast.”
“Where have you— Why didn’t you—" Mari saw more Rocs flying in just beneath the clouds, all carrying both a Mage and a Mechanic. Some of the Mechanics tossed objects down toward the Imperials, the objects exploding as they hit the ground. The “grenades” Alli had been working on, Mari realized as she tried to grasp what was happening.
She saw soldiers in the blue uniforms of her army running up the stairs to her left, all of them armed with rifles, lining the battlement and beginning to fire a barrage into the legionaries below, the rattle of gunfire forming a continuous roar that drowned out the calls of the Imperials.
More soldiers in blue came up onto the battlements to her right.
Young cavalry soldier Bete from her army dashed up the stairs nearest to Mari and Alain, carrying the banner of the New Day, and breathlessly planted the flag next to Mari.
The roar of fire from scores of rifles, then hundreds of rifles, echoed through the city.
The Imperial officers who had been beating their soldiers into another attack had stopped when the Rocs began swooping overhead. The Imperials were all staring upwards as the rifles of Mari’s army began filling the air with lead and thunder. The legions had never faced that kind of punishment. No one had, in all the world. With the last wall standing strong, with fresh forces appearing before them bearing overwhelming firepower, the legions wavered.
They started running.
Legionaries, their officers, the few Mechanics with them near the front line. They all ran, down through the ruins of the city toward the harbor where the Imperial fleet was now being bombarded by some of Mari’s Mechanics tossing firebombs from the backs of Mage-created Rocs.
“Mari?” Calu’s voice came again. “How are you doing? Are you all right?” Mari raised the far-talker to her lips again. “Yeah. I’m…I’m all right.” That was all she could get out. She stood there, dazed, gazing with disbelief on the retreating enemy. An occasional enemy figure was still turning to loose a crossbow bolt or fire a Mechanic rifle in their direction, but the rest were running. “We actually did it, Alain,” she told him. “We held them. We saved Dorcastle. We beat the Great Guilds.”
She didn’t see the Mechanic assassin, one of the few still alive, who stopped long enough to aim and fire his last bullet.
Mari began turning to look at Alain, just having time to realize that he was staring not at the retreating legions, or at the Rocs overhead, or even at her, but at the stones beneath her feet as if they told of something horrible.
He began lunging toward her.
Too late.
Something slammed into her upper body as if a heavy hammer had struck her. Mari felt and saw the world spin wildly as her body fell, the pain almost lost in the shock of the moment. The spinning stopped as she came to rest on her back, staring up at the gray sky, unable to move.
Alain’s face came into her field of vision, his expression openly terrified. “Mari! No!”
She could hear other voices, sounding as from a great distance, calling faintly and frantically. “She’s been shot! The daughter has been shot!” Mari could hear the words, but couldn’t understand what they meant.
The rock was hard beneath her. Something wet was all over her shirt and back. People were pushing at her, shoving her body around, but she was only vaguely aware of the pressure.
Darkness gathered around her, clouding her eyesight. She tried to focus on Alain as her vision faded. “Goodbye, love.” Mari didn’t know if she had actually been able to say that. The darkness covered her and filled her, leaving only a lingering sense of regret.
Chapter Eleven
Alain, on a short bench against one wall, sat outside the room where Mari lay. Inside, behind a sealed door guarded by two grim-looking sentries, healers were working to save Mari’s life in the small emergency hospital built into the back of the seventh wall.
Beside him sat Mechanic Calu, and on the other side Mage Asha. Both had rushed to join him as Mari was carried into the hospital, Calu looking ready to cry and even Asha revealing shock that anyone could see. Everyone else had been kept away.
Alain could not forget his last sight of Mari. Her shirt and jacket had been soaked with her own blood, her breathing shallow and labored, her mouth hanging open, death hovering very near. Just as in the awful vision he had first seen a year ago.
“I did not look in time,” he whispered. “We retreated to the last wall. The Imperials came after us. We repelled the enemy attack. I did not think to look. I did not see that the stones beneath our feet were the same as in my foresight.”
“It’s not your fault,” Calu said, his voice cracking with grief.
“You were beside her,” Asha said. “You did what you could.”
“It was not enough, it— You can sense her, Asha. What do you sense?”
Asha shook her head. “The fire of her inner self still burns, but it is weak and grows dimmer. It fades as she does. It feels…as if it will soon cease.”
“It…cannot.” Alain looked down at his hands, the hands that had just started to pull Mari down when the enemy bullet struck her. The hands that now felt useless. “The elder said that as long as I stayed with her, hope would remain. I stayed with her. Why did hope flee? Why is there nothing left?”
“She’s hurt really bad,” Calu said. “Nobody is stronger than Mari when it comes to spirit, but even she can’t will itself out of this.”
Asha grabbed Alain’s arm so tightly that it hurt him. “Mage Alain. What did the elder say? About hope?”
“She said that if I stayed beside Mari that hope would remain.”
“You are not beside her.”
Calu jumped up. “Asha’s right. Mari’s still alive and you’re out here!”
Alain felt a sudden shock of anger and fear, realizing that they were right, that in his dismay over Mari’s injury he had forgotten what the elder’s words might mean. “There must still be something that I can do.”
They were all on their feet, Asha and Calu somehow beating Alain to the door and pushing aside the startled guards before they could protest. Alain slammed open the door, staring past the shocked faces of healers and their assistants to see Mari lying on a table nearby.
Some moved as if to block him, but Alain shoved his way through with all the speed he had. He had the impression of voices raised, but the words meant nothing to him. It was just noise.
Mari lay on the table, not moving. Her injury had been bandaged. Someone else lay nearby, a tube showing where blood was being sent from that person to Mari. But he could see that was not enough. Not nearly enough. Mari’s eyes were still closed, her mouth open and slack. She gave no sign of awareness of him or anyone else.
A hand reached for him, but Alain threw it off violently. “No! No! This shall not happen while life is in me!” He seized Mari’s limp hand in both of his, staring at her.
In that moment, he didn’t see Mari lying before him. He saw the young Mechanic appearing out of the dust as the caravan to Rin
ghmon was attacked, Mari as he had first seen her. He saw her in the dungeon of Ringhmon, he saw her in Marandur, in the office where they got married, in the tower of the librarians on Altis, on the Gray Lady, leading the charge into Minut, aboard the Terror, standing on the last wall of Dorcastle and rallying the nearly beaten to one last effort. In an instant, he saw her in every way and form he had known Mari, and in that instant there was nothing else but her.
He saw her in Altis, both of them trapped, hopeless—and power suddenly coming to him from somewhere, from Mari, he had always believed, who had sworn to die before she allowed the assassins to reach him, thinking not of herself but only of him.
That was the answer. He finally understood, now, when it might be too late.
What happened then? He felt an odd jolt inside himself, knowing not just that she was real, that the Mage Guild elders had lied when they claimed Mari was only a shadow born of Alain’s own imagination. For the first time Alain felt nothing of himself. His own reality, the sense of himself being here, had vanished. He felt no urge for self-preservation, no need to protect himself, no ambitions or thoughts or desires. Except one. That Mari should live.
The power of the world illusion could provide him strength to use. But no Mage had ever been able to directly affect another person, because Mages thought only themselves were real. If he completely forgot himself, if he thought only of Mari, he could direct his Mage power into her. He could become for a few moments part of the illusion, not real. He could become the spell.
The spell to change, to give power, to what was real. To do something no one ever could before. To save Mari.
Her body knew how to heal itself. It just needed the power to do so.
His mind worked as if during a spell to change the world illusion, summoning a vision of a different illusion, but it felt as if everything was happening in reverse. Nothing changed outside of him. Strength surged into him from the Mage power available here, but instead of funneling it into something to alter the illusion Alain funneled it into Mari. It was as if a hole had opened in him, a place where his hands met Mari’s hand. The power of this area drained to nothing and Alain drew more strength from the core of himself, pouring everything into the almost empty basin which he felt still held a lingering spark of Mari’s spirit. Was it still there? He no longer knew. It no longer mattered.