Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 48

To make her preparations before General Utros’s army arrived, Verna studied the sheer cliffs around the main alcove. She and Nathan had discussed the fine points of the Weeping Stone spell, interpreting the complex nuances of how to soften the rock and bury the entire archive like fossils in limestone. It was not surprising that the naive student Elbert had caused a disaster. Such magic was like a viper that could strike if not held properly.

“The knowledge here could change the world in countless ways.” Nathan sounded forlorn. “The wizards in ancient times knew so much more than we do, and they had such great powers. In the right hands, the lore in Cliffwall could make so many lives better, heal terrible diseases, prevent disasters, bring food to starving villages. If only the right person used it for benevolent reasons…” He stroked his chin. “That is always the catch, isn’t it? If General Utros and his sorceresses use the archive to dominate the world, the amount of suffering they would cause is inconceivable.”

Verna shared his deep concern. “I will use the spell only as a last resort, if all our other defenses collapse. But I am glad we have this option. Either way, General Utros will never possess this archive.”

Nathan awkwardly placed a paternal arm around her shoulder. “I couldn’t agree more, my dear, but I am worried about you.”

She responded with a defiant smile. “I am no bumbling novice, Nathan. I can cast a protective web, and we will verify that all spell-forms are properly connected within the walls and tunnels. There is enough sorcerer’s sand for us to lay down the boundaries and through-lines I will need.”

She let out a quiet sigh and let him keep his hand on her shoulder. “You and I have often been at odds, but trust me in this. I know you and the other gifted defenders will do your best to block that army, and I would never underestimate your abilities. But if you and the D’Haran soldiers have to retreat, I need to be here to trigger the spell. Just in case.”

Inside the great overhang, she and Nathan gazed out at the canyon below, which was now nearly empty except for Zimmer and his soldiers preparing their last stand. All the traps had been laid, the spells from the archive put in place; all the defenders had taken their positions.

Verna said, “I think I have the easy part.”

Dangling by ropes, agile acolytes added a few grains of the prismatic sand at appropriate places around the high, sheltered archive. They found niches in the cliff or chipped out special gouges that would hold the grains in the right place to anchor the complex lines of magic. Verna had specified the correct placement deep within the tunnels as well. They had envisioned the three-dimensional complicated connections of the spell-form that wove through the entire library complex. The teams used every last grain of sand that remained in the porcelain urn.

And now Verna was ready.

Astride his black stallion, General Utros stared ahead at the maze of high canyon walls that closed in around him and his army. The late-morning sun shone down through a dusty sky, driving the shadows against the cliffs. Next to him, Ruva smiled. Her body was covered with bright paint—black, crimson, white, all the significant markings she needed.

Following guidance from Ava’s spirit to find Cliffwall, the army moved through the labyrinth. The high walls amplified the sound of hooves on the rocky ground, the jingle of tack, the men adjusting their armor, shields, and weapons. The murmur of excited voices echoed around him. They were almost to their destination.

Utros shifted his heavy helmet. “They know we are coming.”

Ruva’s smile hardened. “Even my magic cannot hide an army of so many troops, beloved Utros.”

“Don’t even try. I want them to see us. I want them to fear us.”

Thanks to Ava, the general knew that they would find the hidden canyon, although Nathan Rahl or some other gifted person had cast enough distortion and confusion that even the spirit of the dead sorceress had not been able to learn as much as he had hoped. The details of the defenses were unknown to him.

Riding ahead, his scouts had located the secret entrance, the narrow stone bottleneck that led to the Cliffwall canyon and its towering archive. Six of the scouts had never returned, presumably captured or killed, but he had plenty of men to spare. Two intrepid scouts had returned with a report, and that was enough.

His vanguard marched forward in a wedge, the first thousand soldiers pressing down the canyon. They were prepared to fight through any defenses to reach the secret archive. No matter how many of them died, Utros could keep pouring in thousands more until they overwhelmed the cliff city. Even the most determined resistance could not stand up to that.

As they rode forward, Ava’s spirit shimmered in front of Utros. “When you conquer Cliffwall, we will possess all that powerful lore, spells that no one can resist, maybe not even the Keeper himself! We will be invincible.” She drifted close to her sister on the bay mare and overlapped Ruva with her insubstantial form. Again, the twins spoke in a harmonized double voice. “Together we will eradicate the last wizards of Ildakar, and then your army will sweep across the Old World with nothing to hinder us.”

“Tell me if you learn anything about their plans,” Utros said. Ava disappeared like a wisp of greenish steam.

The lead horses snorted and plodded along. Utros felt tense and excited, ready for what was sure to be a wholesale slaughter. Weapons ready, the first foot soldiers marched ahead in organized ranks. As the main canyon narrowed toward the bottleneck, the companies had to fall behind one another, becoming a human battering ram instead of a wave.

Ruva fidgeted in her saddle. “Let us go closer. We are almost at the entrance to the canyon.”

Utros urged his black stallion forward. When the front ranks approached the high, sheer wall that was really a hidden crack leading into the main canyon, the soldiers stumbled to a halt, milling about, not sure where to go.

The general waited as word came back down the line, passed from company commander to company commander. “The wall is solid, General. There is no opening as we were told. It’s a blind end to a box canyon.”

“Not possible,” he said.

Ruva interjected, “My sister saw the opening. It has to be there.”

He and the sorceress worked their way forward among the armored men. From what Utros could see, the smooth stone wall did indeed look impenetrable. “Have they sealed it somehow? Closed this canyon?”

“If so, then we will blast through it.” Ruva glared at the barrier. “But I sense something.…” She swept her gaze over the towering uneven surface, then extended a finger and traced lines through the air as she amplified her focus. “The people of Cliffwall are good at hiding. There is something here other than stone.” Then she laughed. “It is not a solid barrier, my general! Just an illusion, a camouflage field.”

She flung out both hands and released her gift, sending ripples through the air. A line of distortion washed across the cliff barricade as if a thousand spirit forms had been released. The curtain of imaginary rock buckled and faded under Ruva’s onslaught, no more than a simple mirage. “Now we can enter.”

The soldiers cheered, raised their swords, and prepared to attack.

The ground beneath them broke open and began to boil with movement. The sand and rocks of the canyon floor suddenly softened, and the soldiers stumbled backward, their boots slipping on the ground. The surface wasn’t just unstable; it spewed forth innumerable scuttling creatures, an infestation of buried scorpions, each the size of a man’s hand. The storm of stinging arachnids rushed out with sharp legs, hooked stingers, and snipping claws.

The soldiers let out a roar, colliding with one another, swatting, stomping, and slashing to get rid of the deadly bugs. The scorpions stung repeatedly and crawled all over them as they fell.

Undeterred by the distraction, Ruva continued to tear down the camouflage curtain until it vanished to reveal an entirely different sheer cliff with an offset opening, a crack wide enough for a flow of soldiers to enter. “There!”

As the swarming scorpions continued to pour out of the ground, Utros raised his sword and yelled, “That’s the way in! Charge past the scorpions. Your boots and armor will protect you.”

Though frightened and disorganized, the first terrified soldiers rushed ahead. Belying the general’s promise, more than a hundred men already lay dead on the canyon floor, poisoned by scorpion venom.

“Ride!” Utros kicked his horse forward, with Ruva galloping beside him.

Needing no excuse to run, the vanguard charged to the canyon opening. After the camouflage fell away, the general looked up to see figures high on the cliff, several of them in wizard’s robes. Utros spotted the ambush as the invading army pressed into the bottleneck, running from the scorpions.

The surviving wizards of Ildakar began their counterattack.

Just inside the canyon, the D’Haran soldiers stood ready to make their last stand, only a hundred against a hundred thousand. The odds were breathtaking, and impossible. Nathan stood beside General Zimmer, Olgya, Perri, and five Sisters of the Light. Stationed on the outer wall were Oron and Leo for the initial defense, in addition to all the traps they had established.

Using her expertise, Olgya had woven her camouflage spell, an impenetrable illusion that caused confusion and delay, but Nathan had never expected the disguise to fool the enemy army for long. Nevertheless, that challenge distracted the vanguard enough for the scorpion trap to be effective.

Their plan would depend on numerous smaller victories instead of a single decisive blow, and the defenders had countless small and innovative attacks. General Utros could not possibly stop them all. Still, a handful of defenders against such an overwhelming horde …

Inside the main canyon from behind the towering walls, they heard the initial attack begin as Leo and Oron summoned their scorpions. Nathan turned to Zimmer as if they were having a dinner conversation. “I can’t say how many times I’ve gone to battle against impossible odds, sure that I was going to die.” He gave a rueful smile. “Yet here I am, still alive and still fighting.”

“One of these days, Wizard, your fears are sure to come true,” Zimmer said.

“I might be a thousand years old, but I still have a few things to do in my life.” Nathan adjusted his blue cape, resplendent in his ruffled shirt and new vest. He also wore the ornate sword, just in case more traditional fighting might be required.

Oliver and Peretta fell back into the canyon, dodging the sharp spikes that had been placed as a primitive but effective line of defense against charging soldiers. “Here they come!”

Nathan smiled at the clever maliciousness. He had no doubt that the sorceress Ruva could strip away Olgya’s camouflage curtain; in fact, they counted on it, because once the illusion faded, the army would plunge headlong, harried by all the scorpions—and they wouldn’t expect a second camouflage field that hid the spiked spears.

The first enemy soldiers began to pour through the bottleneck into the Cliffwall canyon, but before they got far, the men stumbled into deep, hidden trenches. A thin layer of sand suspended by a levitation field covered the pits, looking like solid ground, but as soon as the soldiers stepped on the illusion, the sand and rocks collapsed. They fell screaming, impaled on buried spikes. The first hundred died without knowing what was happening, and such a nasty surprise demoralized the next ranks fleeing from the poisonous arachnids. They couldn’t retreat or go forward.

But behind them, the invaders kept pushing ahead, running from scorpions, piling on by the thousands. Even when the soldiers saw the exposed trenches and spikes, they couldn’t get out of the way, and more were forced forward and impaled.

Sheer numbers did what caution could not. Body after body fell upon the spikes, skewered on top of the hundreds of soldiers who had died before them. Within minutes the trenches were filled to the brim with victims, many still squirming and groaning. The next ranks of soldiers trampled them, packing down the countless bodies, to push into the canyon.

Outside the bottleneck, from the cliffs above, D’Haran ambushers hurled rocks down upon the soldiers below or fired a stream of arrows. It was a bloodbath. Leo, Oron, and two Sisters of the Light used their gift to call forth lightning and wind that slashed at the invaders. Though he was the former owner of yaxen slaughterhouses, Leo was skilled in winter weather magic. From his perch high up on the cliffs, he created sheets of sleet and ice, slapping down the ranks that had survived the scorpions and the spikes.

In a frenzy after she had dissolved the camouflage field, Ruva lashed out at the wizards above, retaliating with everything she had. Leo balanced on a high outcropping near the top of the wall, and the sorceress blasted the rock beneath his feet. The outcropping crumpled. Gaping in astonishment, Leo tumbled down with a cascade of rock to the base of the canyon. Even as he plummeted, his wizard’s robes flapping around him, Leo released wild bursts of magic. He smashed the opposite cliff and brought rocks down on the gathered soldiers, before he himself was buried in the avalanche. The raging winter winds and snow faded away.

Olgya summoned wisps of fog that built into a snarl of misty curtains that muffled visibility. The soldiers stumbled, running into one another, and the smoke screen tangled about, blinding many. Shapes appeared in the fog, ominous silhouettes, and the invaders attacked, striking down imaginary enemies, killing many of their own. The fog was only a distraction, though, and the army moved forward, blindly attacking.

Lord Oron and the Sisters continued their ambush from the outside of the bottleneck, but there was no stopping General Utros. The invaders marched over the corpses of thousands from the front lines. Wearing his horned helmet and his gold mask, the general looked like a demon as he urged them on.

Inside the canyon on the other side of the headwall, Zimmer rallied the line of defenders. “Prepare yourselves! We have to hold this opening.”

Nathan summoned his gift to fight against the oncoming stampede of swords and men.

Outside the bottleneck, Ruva called up more magic and hurled explosive force that made the rock shudder. Twisted lightning cracked fissures in the cliff, flaking boulders away. With a resounding blow, the sorceress shattered the headwall and brought down a curtain of rock. When the roar quieted and the dust settled, she had tripled the size of the opening.

Ignoring the enormous number of casualties, thousands of howling soldiers surged into the hidden canyon with only Nathan and a handful of defenders poised to stand against them.