Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 76

All the flatboat pilots, fishermen, and river traders had been warned away from Ildakar as soon as the giant transference rune was painted on the bluffside. When Elsa activated the towering spell-form, the backlash would be dangerous for anyone in the vicinity.

Lila stood with Bannon at the edge of one of the tunnel openings, peering down the network of ramps, stairs, and cargo platforms to the river below. Considering the huge painted design, the morazeth frowned. “I should not have allowed you to hang from a rope while you painted. It was a risk, and I promised to keep you safe.”

“There are different ways of fighting the enemy.” Bannon gestured with pride at the prominent design, which stood out bright and red on the cliffs. “And I needed to help.”

She scoffed. “You could have fallen.”

“I’m not clumsy.” He was exasperated with her attitude. “Neither of us needs protection here. The battle is on the opposite side of the city, and I am worried about the strike teams, and Nathan. By now they should be ready to ride out to place the boundary runes on the battlefield, and that is far more dangerous than anything I’ve done here.” He looked behind him into the tunnels and the city beyond. “Nathan tricked me. I wish he had let me go along with him.”

“Your wizard friend wanted to protect you, and he gave me instructions to do the same. I intend to obey them,” Lila said. “My morazeth sisters are out there with the teams. Therefore, the mission will succeed.”

Bannon touched Sturdy, which he kept comfortably at his side. “What if they fail because one more fighter would have saved a wizard or a sorceress at a critical time? What if Nathan needs me?”

“I don’t dispute your concerns,” Lila finally said, sounding wistful. “I would have liked to go along as well.”

Doing a final check, four painters on separate scaffoldings touched up sections of the design that had washed thin in the rain overnight. “Hurry!” Bannon called to them. “The attack will launch any minute now. When Elsa triggers her transference magic, you don’t want to be out here.”

The cocky young painters swung on the ropes, with no fear of heights. They completed their work, called to one another, then lowered themselves to the wooden platforms. After securing their half-empty buckets of paint, they ducked into the entry tunnels. Rainwater trickled out of small drain outlets from gutters in the streets, streaming down the cliff to the river.

Bannon felt a strange premonition when he saw the water running out of the drain holes. It looked as if Ildakar were weeping rivulets of water, like tears pouring through the painted spell-form and down the cliff.

He thought of the enormous statue of the Sea Mother that towered over Serrimundi Harbor and remembered that he’d felt a similar strange dread when the Wavewalker sailed past. Bannon wondered if that had been an early warning about the selka attack that had destroyed the ship not long afterward. Nathan and Nicci had told him time and again that prophecy was gone, that Lord Rahl had changed the underpinnings of magic. The young man didn’t think he possessed some previously undiscovered gift that let him glimpse the future. He decided the shiver must have been caused by the damp chill in the air.

Lila stood practically naked with only the thin leather wrap around her waist and chest, sandals laced all the way up her calves. Moisture glistened on her skin, highlighting the rune markings. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

“No. Never.”

From the tunnel overhang, Bannon and Lila watched the fog lifting off the river as the day brightened. He heard the whisper of the sluggish current, the stir of turgid swamps; then in the distance he heard an eerie, muffled thumping, like a steady heartbeat.

Alert, Lila leaned out over the edge. “Those are drums. Many drums.” The sun broke through, warming the air, dissipating the mists as the approaching drums grew louder. “Something is coming.”

Straining to see through the thinning fog, Bannon felt an ominous change in the air. Unconsciously, he moved closer to Lila.

Together, they watched in horror as a shape appeared on the wide river below, dark sails, a frightening sea serpent head carved at the prow. The ship glided forward as the drums continued their steady threatening beat, oars raised and lowered, pushing the vessel against the current.

Bannon remembered the Norukai slave traders who had come to Ildakar to sell their cargo of walking meat, and he felt angry.

Behind the lead ship came another, then another—dozens of vessels, with even more trailing off in the remaining fog. Ice spiked through his veins as he realized this was no small merchant expedition. “Sweet Sea Mother, those aren’t Norukai traders. This is an invasion!”

Bannon’s hatred for the Norukai remained unbounded. He had slain many in a blood rage at Renda Bay, and he had loathed them when they came to trade in Ildakar. When he’d foolishly challenged three Norukai near the yaxen pens, he was battered and thrown into the training pits.

The drums pounded louder, and the serpent ships drifted close to the docks at the base of the cliff. Bannon could hear the shouts of challenge from hundreds, thousands, of Norukai as they closed in on the city.

He grabbed Lila’s arm. “We have to raise the alarm, jettison the docks below, and guard these tunnels. Ildakar is under attack!”

After Elsa and the five other strike teams rode out on their mission into the huge army camp, Damon and Quentin remained in the ruling tower. The two wizards made plans, afraid they might have to launch their final solution after all. They had to be ready. Although Nicci had traveled through the sliph to spread her dire warning across the Old World, Damon knew she would never bring reinforcements here. Ildakar had to save itself.

After discussing with Sovrena Thora the possibility of restoring the shroud, the two wizards had proceeded to lay the groundwork without consulting the rest of the duma. As a shaper, Damon had worked with metals, fusing and forming a new crucible, mirrors, and guidance channels exactly like the ones used on the stair-stepped pyramid. While the other wizards of Ildakar were preoccupied with their own desperate plans, he and Quentin were pragmatic about what would truly save Ildakar. They knew their scheme would work, even if everything else failed. Elsa’s dramatic plan with transference magic would cause tremendous harm, if it succeeded, but the risk was high. And even if it worked, the destruction might not be sufficient. Again.

He and Quentin were realists.

Suddenly, Bannon burst into the ruling tower, flushed and breathless. “It’s the Norukai! Dozens of serpent ships, thousands of warriors. We have to mount a defense on the cliff.”

Lila ran beside him. “The boy is correct. The Norukai are not here to trade. They’ve come to conquer. We are under attack.”

Turning pale, Damon looked at his companion. Both wizards knew that this was why they had remained behind, while Elsa and the others rode out to place the boundary runes.

Quentin pressed a hand to his chest as if in a sudden bout of indigestion. “I always found the Norukai disgusting.”

“You should never have traded with them in the first place,” Bannon growled. “They are monsters, and they mean to kill us all. Their warriors will storm us from the river. We’ve got to stop them. We need you and your wizard’s fire. We need to activate the traps that were built into the cliffs—and we need them now.” As thoughts circled and tangled in Damon’s mind, Bannon snapped at his hesitation, “Sweet Sea Mother, can’t you hear me? There are thousands of them! They will attack the city.”

“Sound the alarms,” Quentin ordered.

Damon wiped perspiration from his brow. “Call the city. We need every remaining fighter to drive back the Norukai.”

But he had another thought. Was this not proof that they needed to raise the shroud and isolate the city? It was the only way to be certain. When the alarm bells rang through the streets, he thought they sounded like the call to the old bloodworkings at the pyramid.

Lila took Bannon’s arm, and they sprinted back to the bluff so they could fight. Remaining behind, Damon looked at Quentin and saw the same realization in his friend’s wide brown eyes. “Even if Elsa’s plan works, General Utros will retaliate. He will stop at nothing to break down our walls.” He shook his head. “And now the Norukai are swarming to our cliffs. If they get inside, the city will fall—unless we do what we must. You know we have no choice, Quentin.”

His companion nodded. “We will send out the call and summon the volunteers to the arena, and the city guard can round up as many more as we need. Gifted blood is strongest, so if they can find a few useless nobles, that would be even better. This is no time for delicacy. We have to start immediately. Shedding so much blood might take more time than we have left.”