Page 88 of Valdemar

:Lythe and Rothas are on the way.:

Before Kordas could respond to that startling information, the two were already on the wall and fitting themselves in beside him and Isla before a captain could yank them away. Immediately, Kordas extended his shield to cover them. “What are you—”

“We’re going to help,” Lythe said, in a firm tone that brooked no argument.

“But your curse—”

“We don’t care,” Rothas interrupted. “Besides, if these things get inside the wall, something would break the boundary on our quarters anyway, so we figured we’d break it ourselves. We’re going to help. Or at least Lythe will for as long as she stays awake.”

They had to speak between the booms of the nearby Poomers, and had to scream to be heard. Kordas wished they had Mindspeech.

Lythe shaded her eyes with her hands as the storm clouds continued to roil overhead. “Why isn’t anyone using lightning to strike those things?” she asked.

“I’m working on that. Give it a while. Palonia is keeping the enemy from taking the storm away from her control,” Isla said, her hands sketching diagrams in the air before her. “She can only let one of us have a go at a time. It’s about to be—ah!”

Her hands shot up in the air and made a grasping motion, and she brought them down again, hard, as if yanking on a rope, toward the invaders. Kordas had seen this before, so he was braced for it, but Lythe and Rothas both jumped and yelped as lightning bolt after lightning bolt lashed the ground in front of the wall, and arced from figure to figure. Thunder shook the wall under them; Kordas had “tuned” his shield to exclude some of the noise, but a sharp scent stung their noses and made their eyes water, and even muffled by the shield, the thunder was almost enough to deafen. It was difficult to see, too, because of the afterimages of so many lightning strikes combined with the irritation of the smoky air—plus, the maka’ar gambit had left everything with a layer of dust to be kicked up with every breeze and blast wave.

It took only a few moments, but that was enough to turn Isla’s hair dark with sweat, and bring more sweat to streak her face. She crossed her hands at the wrist to dismiss her control of the lightning, and sagged a little against Kordas, panting. They all peered over the edge to see what effect it had had.

The ground was littered with monster corpses, but other creatures just hauled them out of the way and moved closer, waiting for the moment when the Palace gate would break and they could pour through. Some of the larger creatures picked up the bodies of smaller ones and wielded them like shields, holding them up to take any incoming arrows or Spitter bolts.

Trouble was, the sounds of Poomers and Spitters were becoming more infrequent as their finite supply of charges ran dry. Kordas patted his pockets and found he had spent his, too.

These invaders have a direction—into the Palace—but they’re being wasted. It’s as if they were told, “Go there,” with no further orders. Aside from the wyrsa, and the humans at the main gate, none of them are coordinating defenses or deployment. They’re being—spent.

And it has all our attention.

:Ardatha, send four Heralds on perimeter scouting. Fast pace.:

:Ah, you were thinking “diversion” too?: his Companion replied. :They’re formidable, but they’re feeding themselves to us.:

Kordas paused to sum up his thinking. :Huge force of enemy arrives, heads for front gate. No skilled deployment, no ranged attacks or softening, aside from war fear. The big spiders could climb the wall, but they aren’t. We aren’t losing soldiers or civilians. No conditions or envoys, no demands. In short, there’s an empty space where the enemy’s “results” should be. The monsters aren’t here to help us, that’s for sure, but there’s something we aren’t seeing yet.:

Ardatha took that in, and apparently shared it around with the other Companions before replying, :Pebble isn’t coming aboveground at all, and will alert us to any threat from below. Two of the Old Men are watching our shields and intrusion alarms, two are setting new ones. It’s nerve-wracking, especially considering what the Adept theoretically could do.:

:Wait,: Kordas realized. :There is a strategy to it. I’m not taking arrogance into account. If they were deployed in—gods, any formation at this point—the monsters would overwhelm us, but they’re not. To their commanders, they’re just monsters, set loose to go monstering. They aren’t being deployed as troops. They’re a mob.:

He wrenched his concentration back to the here and now.

“My turn,” Lythe said. She closed her eyes.

Isla sat down, still panting. Kordas continued to send levin-bolts down among the monsters below them whenever he got a glimpse of an eye for long enough to make it a target. But the damned things were learning, and didn’t give him many opportunities. Creatures continued to rally in the distance and spread themselves out further. Other mages sent down firebolts and levin-bolts; not too far away he watched a barrel sail out over the massed creatures and upend, pouring something too thick to be water over them. A moment later, they were on fire. Delia, without a doubt, and one of the mages.

He glanced over at Lythe, and wondered if she had fallen asleep. Then he noticed that the creatures immediately below him were . . . twitching. Startling. And clawing at themselves.

That was when he saw the insect swarms converging on the enemy creatures.

Clouds of gnats, midges, and other tiny insects attacked eyes and mouths, and clogged nostrils. So many ants covered the creatures to their knees that their legs were an entirely different color than the rest of their bodies. Enormous horseflies clustered on their eyelids, biting. Bees and wasps buzzed around their heads and into their ears. To an extent, the Adept’s control of her creatures held—but here and there, the torment became too much, and a few broke away and fled.

“Now let’s see what—” Lythe muttered. And suddenly, without warning, one of the tortured creatures turned and attacked the one next to it. Another did the same, and another, and another, until about a third of the monsters were locked in combat with their own kind.

“How long can she keep that up?” Kordas bellowed to Rothas, feeling his hope finally rise.

“Until she falls asleep or this is over,” Rothas shouted back. “Whichever comes first.”

• • •

The guardhouse gate fell before the humans who had cut it free, and monsters poured into the grounds of the Palace. They would have hit the front lines of the massed Heralds and Companions, except for all the shields held by the Herald-Mages. The invaders’ surge crashed against their shields, starting a life-or-death shoving match. The defenders on the wall couldn’t turn their heavy weapons around, because there were still more creatures and humans below them than on Palace grounds, and massing lighter weapons stood a good chance of hitting some of their own with deflected shots, or by sheer accident.