Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 52

Exhausted and soaked with blood from all the enemy soldiers he killed, Nathan hauled himself up the rocks at the end of the dwindling side canyon. He climbed handhold after handhold, anxious to reach the highlands and the wilderness where they could shelter. Olgya climbed next to him, along with ten D’Haran soldiers who had retreated with their band. On General Zimmer’s instructions, the defenders had separated into many different parties, all taking different routes.

One of the wounded soldiers with them, a cocky card player, was bleeding badly from a deep gash in his side. He spilled a trail of red as he plodded alongside the others, painstakingly working his way higher. Nathan wasn’t certain the man would survive much longer. Though the wizard had little strength left, he could have used his gift to heal the deep cut, if they stopped for a while and rested. But that was not an option. Utros threw thousands upon thousands of warriors after the last surviving defenders of Cliffwall, and they kept closing in.

When Nathan finally reached a high point, he turned and watched Verna’s Weeping Stone spell destroy Cliffwall. The roof of the archive grotto dripped down and closed over, sealing the tunnels and the library chambers forever. The rock walls melted and sagged like a mudslide, pouring down onto part of the army.

Even from his distant vantage, Nathan could feel the prelate’s building magic that resonated through lines of force. The sheer walls began to run like wax, and as the destruction continued, he stared in disbelief. Verna had only planned to collapse the alcove opening and seal the books and scrolls in stone before she retreated. But the devastation continued to unfold. “Dear spirits, she is destroying the entire canyon!”

He saw Verna’s tiny figure climbing above the slumping alcove, racing to get out of the way, but the stone itself shifted beneath her. Nathan sensed the exact point at which she lost control of the powerful spell. It was like a vicious dog that turned on its master.

Beside him, Olgya and the soldiers watched half of the Cliffwall canyon turn into liquid, and the flood of stone rolled down to engulf the countless ancient warriors. With a groan of dismay, Nathan watched Prelate Verna slip and plunge into the flowing rock. She tried to pull herself out, but sank down, engulfed.

The world went silent as the shock shut down his senses. His heart ached with a swell of memories. So much of his life had been bound up with the prelate. He had never loved Verna as he had come to love her predecessor, Prelate Ann, but now watching her die, he felt a tremendous blow. Tears glistened in his azure eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

Elsa had done a similar thing, unleashing enough magic to save them, even though she knew it would destroy her. Now both of those marvelous women were gone, sacrificing their lives in order to wound the army of General Utros.

After Verna died, her spell faded, and the lines of magic came untangled as fields collapsed and webs unraveled. The stone hardened again.

While the refugees stared in horror, though, they lost track of their pursuers. With an outcry, one of the gaunt enemy soldiers charged toward them with a notched sword. The wounded card player had sagged down on a rock to rest, bleeding heavily from his side, but now he lurched to his feet and used the last of his strength to deflect the attacker’s sword. He drove his own dagger into the enemy’s throat, but in the process he suffered another deep stab wound. Dying, the card player pushed himself over the edge of the drop-off so that both he and the ancient soldier tumbled down the steep canyon in a bloody tangle of arms and legs.

Although Nathan’s party had finished the climb and worked their way into the high desert wilderness, enemy stragglers still pursued them up the canyon. Blocking off his grief, he found the strength to call up more wizard’s fire, a sphere in each hand. With anger at Verna’s death driving him, he hurled the searing fire toward the pursuers. They threw up their gauntleted arms to deflect the fire, but they could not block the unstoppable inferno that burned them to ashes.

Nathan dropped to his knees and wept. His long white hair was a tangled mess. His new vest and embroidered cape dripped with blood and human cinders. During the battle at the bottleneck in the headwall, he and his gifted companions had used every desperate trick, all the spells they knew. He had even killed five with his sword, and now his arm was sore from ringing blows.

Olgya stepped closer to him. She was compact and tough, wearing skirts and a wrap of her enhanced silk, which remained unfrayed even after all the abuse. Crimson droplets spattered her face. One of her tight braids had been severed by a knife stroke, and the ragged end hung down to her ear like a decapitated snake. Her expression was tight, as if all the gift had been wrung out of her, but she clung to life and determination. She nodded at the blackened stains in the wake of his wizard’s fire. “We don’t have to worry about pursuit anymore, Nathan. We can take care of any stragglers that managed to get through.”

Nathan wiped his cheek and looked back down the canyon to where the flood of rock had rehardened, leaving innumerable bodies trapped within like flies in amber. “I know. Prelate Verna did what she needed to. Neither General Utros nor anyone else will get their hands on the dangerous knowledge from the archive. It is gone forever.”

“It was necessary to protect the world,” Olgya said. “We all agreed.”

“That’s true, but Verna is gone … just as Elsa is gone. With each victory like this, we lose a part of ourselves and a part of our heritage. What will be left of us when all is said and done?” He turned away so he no longer had to look at the ruins of the once peaceful canyon. He couldn’t even feel satisfied to know how many of the enemy soldiers had been killed in the flood of stone. Thousands? Tens of thousands?

Verna was still dead, and the core of Utros’s army was still out there. Even with Cliffwall destroyed, they would continue marching across the Old World.

“Let’s get to the rendezvous point,” Nathan growled, “and take stock of who we have left.”

They followed a tangled route through the high canyons up and beyond Cliffwall, and they met up with the other evacuating parties. Thorn and Lyesse guided six soldiers, Rendell, and a handful of shaken Cliffwall scholars. The two morazeth were covered with gore and soot, their rune-marked skin laced with minor wounds, but they were charged with energy, as if this were no more than an enjoyable game of Ja’La.

Thorn looked at her partner. “We killed so many that we each lost track of our score.”

Lyesse said, “Therefore we will consider it a tie and start over. I look forward to the challenge.”

The other woman nodded. “There will be more of them to kill.”

When all the groups gathered in their makeshift camp, Oron was clearly relieved to see that Nathan, Olgya, and Perri had survived. “Good, we could not afford to lose more of our gifted.”

“We’ve already lost too many,” Nathan said.

“Who else is gone?” Olgya asked, looking around and counting heads.

Oron described how the wizard Leo had fallen from the outer cliff when Ruva blasted the stone. In addition to many D’Haran soldiers, two of Captain Trevor’s Ildakaran guards had been killed. Perri hunkered down and shook her head. “Almost nothing remains of our great city of Ildakar anymore.”

“We remain,” Lord Oron said.

“There won’t be much left of the Old World once General Utros is through with it,” Nathan said. “Ah, Verna … poor Verna.”

The Sisters of the Light were deeply shaken by the loss of their prelate. Sisters Rhoda and Eldine joined Nathan by the small campfire. “After the star shift eliminated prophecy, our order’s reason for existence suffered a terrible blow,” Rhoda said. “But Verna didn’t give up. She helped us try to find new purpose.”

“No, Verna did not give up,” Nathan said. “She made quite a difference for all of us, and for me in particular.”

More Sisters joined him, and they all reminisced about the prelate. Nathan let out a bitter laugh, and when Mab looked at him in surprise, he said, “Considering all the resentments I held for the Sisters of the Light, the irony is deep that you should comfort me.”

Amber also joined the group. “We should all comfort one another, because we’ve all been hurt, but we have to keep moving.” She looked around for reassurance. “We are going to keep moving, aren’t we? General Utros and his army will continue marching to the coast. My brother Norcross is at Renda Bay. He’ll help us fight.”

“Yes, my dear,” Nathan said. “We must get to Renda Bay before that army does.”