Witch Wraith

Eighteen

The second attack on Arishaig by the demon hordes was launched just before midnight on the same day as the first. It came against the south and west walls once again, but with fresh ferocity. The creatures swarmed out of the darkness bearing grappling hooks and scaling ladders and threw themselves against the stone and iron of the fortress with such determination that, for a few terrible moments, Keeton thought his soldiers would be overwhelmed. Setting fire to fresh oil in the ditches, forming tall walls of flame, failed to deter them. Even the presence of the warships attacking from overhead did little to slow their assault. They came at the walls in wave after wave, shrugging off arrows and spears and missiles fired from slings and launchers. They fell dying and their fellows simply climbed atop them, lifted a little closer to their goal atop the piles of bodies.

But Keeton had brought flash rips to the walls and mounted them at regular intervals. They were illegal everywhere, but there wasn’t an army that didn’t possess them. And since the Federation had pioneered their manufacture, they had them stockpiled in secret caches throughout the city. Conventional weapons, however powerful, had not proven strong enough during the previous attack, and Keeton was not about to let legalities and Druid prohibitions stand in the way of saving his city and its people.

His decision was quickly vindicated by the results. When the flash rips fired on the attackers, dozens of the creatures simply vanished in ash and smoke and flame, disintegrating under the concentrated power of multiple diapson crystals. Strikes into the thickest clusters broke the momentum of the attack and sent it reeling away in spite of its vast numbers. Keeton thought maybe this would be enough to put an end to the attack for the night.

But the demons had other plans. After the oil fires burned themselves out and enough time had passed to persuade the defenders that the attack had been broken, the creatures returned. And this time they came from the air, borne in baskets carried by winged creatures that resembled giant bats and dropped onto the walls close by the flash rips and their crews. Hurtling themselves on both, the demonkind tore the men to shreds and disabled the weapons by smashing both the barrels and the swivel stands that were used to support and direct them. In a matter of minutes, all the weapons and mounts were destroyed and the creatures still alive had gone back over the walls and disappeared into the night.

Then the dragon reappeared, as black as its rider, little more than a shadow against the night, sweeping above the battlements, breathing flames on the defenders, and leaving everything dead in its wake. It happened so swiftly there was no time to use the few rail slings and fire launchers that remained intact or to bring to bear the weapons mounted on the warships that warded the corners of the fortress.

This time after the demonkind retreated, howling and screaming as they went, they did not come again right away, leaving the defenders sitting in the darkness and carnage to wonder, through the remainder of the night, when they would reappear next.

Keeton was angry and frustrated when Wint found him. “Tell me how many we lost?”

His second shrugged. “Can’t be sure. At least several hundred. Likely more. All the flash rips are destroyed. We have more, but the mounts are another matter. We can fasten the rips to the walls in some makeshift fashion, but we can’t replace the mounts.”

“Because we didn’t think to make more than a handful of those—am I right? We manufactured all the weapons we could ever need, but forgot about the importance of the mounts. Shades!” Keeton looked away, glowering at nothing in particular. “Do the best you can to find a way to secure a fresh supply of the rips to the walls south and west. They know that’s where we’re weakest now. That’s where they’ll keep attacking.”

Wint disappeared without a word. Keeton stared out into the dark for a few minutes longer, then went to speak with Sefita Rayne. He found the Federation fleet commander standing above the gates talking with several of her warship captains. When she saw Keeton, she broke off the conversation and came over to him. “I saw,” she said.

He shook his head in disgust. “What can we do? What can you do to help us with this?”

“Good question. Not much seems to help. I’ll move the warships off the corners and place them just outside the walls where they can better support the soldiers on the battlements. I’ll take them straight out at the first sign of an attack and try to disrupt it before it reaches the city.”

“But you’ll have to watch for that dragon.”

She nodded. “Our weapons aren’t quick enough to track it; it’s too agile for us. Then again, we might get lucky. Do you think the attack will come against the south and west walls again?”

“After the damage that’s been done? I can’t imagine they would bother attacking anywhere else. A bigger problem is the oil for the trenches outside the walls. We’re running out.”

She was silent a moment, considering. “Have you spoken with the Prime Minister about any of this?”

He exhaled sharply. “I haven’t seen her.”

“Then maybe it’s time.”

He nodded. “Past time.”

He went down off the walls and into the city, making his way through the streets to the offices of the Coalition Council and the Prime Minister. He was admitted immediately and went straight to Edinja Orle’s quarters, only to be told she wasn’t there. No one had seen her since the previous night.

He left for her home after that, not eager to venture into that black den of rumors and strangeness but unable to do anything less if he wanted to find her. He reached it quickly enough and pounded on the door. A servant spoke to him through a slit in the door and told him her mistress wasn’t there, either. She had been gone all day.

Keeton tried to think where else to look, but didn’t know enough about Edinja even to make an educated guess. He considered speaking to members of the Coalition Council, but what would he say to them that would make a difference?

He went back to the walls, resigned to pursuing the matter in the morning. For now, he needed to sleep. He trudged through the darkened streets, plagued by the nagging feeling that events were overwhelming them and their chances were slipping away. This enemy seemed unstoppable, its size and the alien nature of its creatures beyond anything they had ever encountered. Traditional tactics weren’t going to be enough to stop them. In the end, they were going to break through and the city was going to be overrun, and all the weapons and warships in the world weren’t going to be enough to prevent it.

Worse, he believed now that he wasn’t the man for the job he had been given. He wasn’t trained to command an entire army. He had never envisioned he would be the one made responsible for the defense of a city of thousands against an enemy no one had ever before encountered. He was a tactical commander of First Response, a small elite unit designed to execute surgical strikes and provide brief but intense defensive fire on larger enemy forces. He wasn’t trained for what was happening now.

But then, who was?

All this was something more than anyone he knew was equipped to handle.

He reached his quarters and went to bed, exhausted and dismayed.

When he woke, the sun was just rising. He washed, dressed in fresh clothes, and went out to find Wint. His second was still sleeping, so he let him be. The city was quiet, the walls manned but unchallenged since the previous night. No further attacks had been launched. Peering out over the surrounding countryside, he found bodies and scorched earth, but not much else.

He asked after Sefita Rayne and was told she was sleeping but had asked to be woken if he needed her. He shook his head and said to let her be. As with Wint, there was no reason not to let her sleep. Even this small respite might be of some help. With no immediate sign of the enemy, he could assume the next attack would come with night’s return.

Although he hadn’t been able to correctly anticipate the timing of anything the attackers had attempted so far, he reminded himself quickly.

He ate breakfast with some of his men, and then took his place on the wall to keep watch. He was feeling better rested than he had thought he would, and his mind was already hard at work turning over possibilities for improving their situation.

He was still struggling with that effort when drums began to boom from somewhere off to the west. They began all at once—a thunderous sound that broke the stillness of the morning with a steady pounding that reverberated all across the city. Keeton and those standing with him on the walls stood in silence and stared out across the flats leading off toward the ridgeline where the demons had first appeared two days ago.

Within minutes, Wint appeared at his elbow. “You should have woken me.”

Keeton nodded. “I suppose.”

They watched the ridgeline, waiting. The minutes slipped away, the drumming continued, but nothing else happened.

Then, abruptly, a long dark line of bodies surged over the crest of the ridge, trudging toward Arishaig’s walls. They did not march or attempt to keep cadence, but simply moved in a huge wave that washed over the ridgeline and down onto the flats. Keeton peered north and south to measure the length of the line and could not find its ends. He waited for the wave to trickle off, but it continued to flow like a living thing—thousands of bodies of all shapes and sizes, churning and roiling toward the city and its defenders.

When the wave had gotten to within five hundred feet of the wall, it stopped. Keeton could just see the last of its stragglers as they came into view over the crest of the ridge. Were there even more beyond that? Keeton couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered. The numbers he could see were more than enough to engulf the city and its defenders and put an end to both.

“That’s an awful lot for us to stop,” Wint whispered.

Keeton nodded. “You must be reading my mind.”

The attack force paused a few moments longer as the drums beat on, then it swung left as if become a single body and began to move clockwise around the walls in a slow, steady surge. It made no effort to come closer or to employ any weapons. It showed virtually no interest in the city at all. It simply began circling the walls, a huge silent snake winding about its prey.

Keeton backed away. “How many weapons and men do we have on the other walls?”

“Less than half of what we have west and south,” his second answered. “What do you want me to do?”

In truth, Keeton didn’t know. “Come with me.”

He found Sefita Rayne where he had left her the previous night, standing on the battlements atop the west gate. She turned at his approach, brushing back her blue-streaked hair, a look of grim determination etched on her face.

“Can you signal the warships we have aloft to keep pace with them?” he asked quickly, indicating the enemy force.

“Already done,” she answered, pointing skyward to the north. “I’m keeping a pair of vessels in reserve at the southwest corner in case this is another feint. The rest will track this new threat.” She shook her head. “What are they up to?”

“Nothing good.” Keeton watched the marchers turn the north corner and start east, the drums still beating in the distance. “We don’t have enough defenders to hold all the walls.”

“We don’t have enough defenders to hold the city period if they come at us with all those bodies,” she answered with a snort. “Even the warships won’t be able to hold them off.”

They stood together, still watching the demon snake wrap itself around the city. “I can’t march my soldiers around the walls like that,” Keeton muttered. “It will wear them out if I do. They’re worn down already as it is.”

“Did you find Edinja?” Sefita asked.

He shook his head. “No one knows where she is.”

“Then she’s left.”

Keeton stared at her. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t dare.”

“That woman would dare anything,” Wint said.

“Abandon us? Abandon the city?” Keeton shook his head. “It would be the end of her career as Prime Minister.”

“I wouldn’t want to bet on it.”

Keeton fought down a sudden rush of anger. He turned to Wint. “Go see if there’s been any word since last night. Go to the Council Buildings and to her home. Demand an answer. Insist she come to the west wall. Use my name.”

Wint departed without comment.

Keeton waited with Sefita Rayne, watching the demonkind continue their march, listening to the insistent pounding of the drums. Odd, he thought, but they couldn’t even see where those drums were positioned. It was as if the sound were coming out of the earth itself, as if the netherworld had opened up and released its dead.

Abruptly, a fresh horde of creatures appeared atop the ridgeline, cresting its heights and spilling over, thousands strong.

“I knew it,” Sefita said.

Keeton watched in disbelief as this new threat gathered momentum and surged toward the west wall.

Farther south, but still within the Four Lands and outside the breach in the Forbidding, the shape-shifter Oriantha crouched beside Tesla Dart in the shelter of a heavy woods and watched the attack on Arishaig quicken. They were only a quarter mile from the cage that held Redden Ohmsford prisoner, still looking for a way to set him free.

But doing anything more than she had already done had so far proven impossible. Too many guards encircled the cage. Too many of the demonkind prowled about, many of them the wolves that the Straken Lord kept as pets. It was necessary that something be done to lure all of them away before she could risk a second approach. For three days she had waited patiently, but no fresh opportunity had presented itself.

Until now.

A new attack on Arishaig had emptied out almost the entire camp, distributing virtually everyone between the hordes that had been circling the city in a slow march and those that had first hidden behind the ridgeline and then abruptly surged over its crest and attacked the city’s west wall. Even those few that remained had moved onto the ridgeline to watch the impending destruction. No one was particularly worried about the boy in the cage. Who would even try to rescue him at this point?

Indeed, Oriantha thought. Who?

The city, she knew, would not survive what was coming. It would fall, and all those within would be slaughtered. There was nothing she could do to help them. But this was the chance she had been waiting for to help Redden Ohmsford, and she intended to take it.

She nudged Tesla Dart. “I’m going to try again.”

The Ulk Bog gave her a despairing look, scrunching up her wrinkled face. “Bad idea. Still too dangerous. Still there will be guards.”

“Still there will be ways,” Oriantha replied softly.

She rose and began checking the supply of knives she had strapped to her waist. She intended to go in swift and sudden, to break the locks, haul the boy out of the cage, and kill anyone who interfered. She would not bother with subtlety this time. She had a new plan.

“Take Lada,” Tesla offered.

Oriantha shook her head. “I don’t need him. I know the way. Better if he remains here with you. Once I have the boy, I will come back.”

“And do what? Go where? Tael Riverine will hunt us down!”

“He will try.”

Tesla Dart shook her head. “The boy is not worth it.”

“We’ve had this discussion. If you don’t want to be part of this, go back into the Forbidding.”

Lada hissed at her, as if the idea were a personal affront. Tesla Dart glanced down at the Chzyk. “Even Lada knows this is not what we would ever do. Knows we want to be here. The Forbidding is down. Our worlds are joined.”

Now, there was a prospect that left Oriantha chilled to the bone. She hoped it wasn’t so because she had seen the size of the army Tael Riverine commanded and judged it to be only a fraction of the creatures that remained inside the demon prison. The Races were doomed if the walls were not restored, but she had no idea how that was supposed to happen.

Only that it must.

“I’m getting Redden Ohmsford back,” she repeated. “Wait for me or don’t. It is up to you.”

“You won’t come back.”

Oriantha left without another word, departing the woods for a cluster of boulders about halfway between where they were hidden and the center of the enemy camp. She moved swiftly, not bothering to try to hide her coming. It was broad daylight; there was no darkness to screen her approach. She had to rely on the distraction provided by the battle for Arishaig. She had to rely on speed and surprise.

When she reached the boulders, she wormed her way into their center where she could not be seen and began to transform. She used her shape-shifting abilities to shed her human form and adopt a new look entirely. She turned herself into one of the Goblins she had seen patrolling the camp—just another familiar presence no one would question. It took her time and effort to achieve the look she wanted, but in the end she was as hunched and disjointed as those she had encountered on her first attempt at rescuing the boy. She could not see herself from outside her body, so she could not be certain she had gotten everything right. But she felt the way she wanted to feel, and the parts of herself she could see clearly looked as she had intended.

Without further deliberation, she set off.

She crossed the open space that separated her from the fringes of the enemy camp at a steady walk, assuming the loping gait and slope-shouldered stance of the Goblin she was pretending to be. She didn’t try to hide her coming, intending to show she was a part of the camp and not an intruder. Only a single guard was positioned anywhere close, a creature she didn’t recognize that glanced over without interest and went back to studying the landscape beyond. Oriantha reached the camp’s perimeter without challenge and walked in.

Armed with confidence and steely determination, the shape-shifter moved steadily ahead, looking as if she had important business and a clear destination. This was true, of course, although not in the way anyone would suspect. She ignored those around her, exuding an air of importance that suggested they would do well to let her be. Her attitude and obvious indifference to others worked; those who watched her pass left her alone.

Within fifteen minutes, she was approaching the cage that held Redden Ohmsford imprisoned, already planning how she was going to free him.

There was nothing she could do about whatever alarms might be sounded if the magic that warded the cage was disturbed. That being the case, she intended to break the locks and take him out as quickly as she could before anyone realized what was happening. And for that to happen, she needed a distraction to cause those close enough to interfere to look somewhere else for the few moments she needed.

She slowed as she entered the clearing where the cage had been placed. Redden Ohmsford was slumped in the middle, apparently sleeping. Two Goblins were keeping a disinterested watch on their prisoner, and a pair of the huge wolves slept some twenty feet from the cage, curled up next to each other. A few other creatures could be seen off to one side, but everyone else had moved over to the bluff to watch the battle.

Oriantha walked through the clearing and passed on, seemingly without wasting a glance on anyone. Once out of sight, she quickly doubled back again. Moving to a place close by the cage, but just out of sight, she pulled a blowgun from her belt and a steel-tipped dart from her pouch, slid the dart into the barrel of the blowgun, took a deep breath, placed the end of the weapon to her lips, and stepped into view again.

She was ten feet from the closest of the sleeping wolves.

She sent the dart deep into its rear haunch and the wolf leapt up, roaring with pain and rage, and turned instantly on the other wolf. Taking advantage of the chaos, she came up behind the Goblin guards who were watching the wolves struggle, and used her knives to kill both with a single pass. Moving swiftly to the cage door, she broke the chain and tore the cage door off its hinges.

To her surprise, no alarm sounded. She leapt into the cage, snatched up the unconscious Redden Ohmsford, and bounded out again with the boy slung over one shoulder. The wolves were still tearing at each other, and the guards were all dead. The one or two others who had been present had fled toward the heights to give warning.

Grabbing a bloodied cloak from one of the dead guards, she wrapped it about Redden, tied off the ends so that only his legs were hanging out, and started back through the camp as if carrying a dead body. She angled off to the north where no one was in sight, pretending to be in a hurry. There was still no alarm, and she couldn’t decide what that meant. The magic that had been used to wrap the cage had been set in place for a purpose. It was more troubling to her not to know what that purpose was than to have to deal with it.

The boy was heavy and weighed her down. She knew she wouldn’t be able to carry him all the way back. She needed him awake and on his feet if she was to get him to Tesla Dart. She was choosing ground on which her scent would be disguised by dozens of other tracks, but that wouldn’t be enough. Eyes had seen her, and their owners would remember what she looked like.

She found a tent right at the edge of the camp and slipped inside. The tent was empty, and she quickly untied the ends of the blanket and rolled the boy out.

She noticed for the first time the strange metal band that was fastened around his neck. The conjure collar—Tesla had mentioned that he would be fitted with one. She reached into her tunic pocket, took out the key the Ulk Bog had given her on her first rescue attempt, slipped it into the lock, and twisted. The collar fell away.

“Redden!” she hissed, shaking him.

His eyes snapped open, widening as they saw the Goblin bending over him. He cringed, and squeezed his eyes closed again.

“It’s me!” she hissed, realizing she was still in her Goblin disguise. “Open your eyes. Look at me!”

She shed her disguise, returning to her true form, her young face peering down at him, silver hair spilling over her forehead. His eyes opened slowly, and he blinked rapidly. “Oriantha?”

His fingers went automatically to his neck, searching for the conjure collar. Oriantha reached down to retrieve it and held it up for him to see. “You’re free, Redden. But we’re still in the demon camp and we have to get clear. Can you walk?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. Tears filled his eyes and he began to cry. He broke down completely, and she reached out awkwardly and pulled him to her, cradling him as she would a small child. “It’s all right,” she said. “This is over now. You’re free, and you’re not going back. Hush, now.”

It took precious minutes for him to compose himself, and while he did she was envisioning hordes of creatures scouring the camp for them. But she needed him to be mobile and composed if they were to make it back to Tesla Dart in one piece.

Without further discussion or delay, she pulled him to his feet and braced him by his shoulders so he was facing her. “Can you use your magic? Are you strong enough?”

He shook his head hesitantly. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I can do at this point.” He looked down at himself. “I don’t even know if I can move. Everything feels numb.”

She sat him down again, took his hands and rubbed them between her own, first one and then the other, then spent several more precious minutes working on his feet and legs. “We’re being hunted. They’re out there looking for us right now. I don’t know if I can defend us both. I need you to help me. Can you do that? I’m sorry I have to ask this, but I don’t have any choice. I need you to be able to defend yourself.”

He stared at her as if she were speaking another language, and she slapped him hard across the face. “Can you do that?” she snapped angrily.

His hand went to his face, and he nodded slowly, the light coming back into his eyes. “I can do whatever I have to if it means getting out of here.”

She took his hands in her own and squeezed them. “Stay close to me. Follow my lead. I won’t leave you, I promise.”

He nodded. “I’m not going back, no matter what.”

“Then be strong, and you won’t have to.”

Still watching him, she shape-shifted back into her animal form, all muscle and sinew and rippling power. Drawing him after her, she moved to the tent opening, hesitated for a moment to peer through the flaps and make certain no one was lying in wait, then together they burst back outside.