Page 96 of Elvenbred

“Where will we go?” she asked him. He had, in a minute or so, chewed through an arm’s length of wall. He would be completely through within a few minutes. She turned around to look for more guards, but the weapon appeared to have overthrown the defenses as much as it did the monsters.

Rock pulled more material out of the wall. This seemed softer, perhaps a rubble core. Triana had heard her cousin Kyrtian talk about that once. Walls with soft centers absorbed more blows better than rigid solid ones. She had no idea where that memory came from, but she was proud she remembered it, nonetheless.

She felt Rock’s mind brush hers once again and memories called up. Different voices, different words from different events in her past. Rock’s way of talking, but real talking. She couldn’t quite recall when he had made that adjustment, and stopped using mind pictures. Faces and voices rippled through her mind, one after another. You go home now, little one. Do there what needs to be done.

She felt the tears flow. “I want to stay here. Stay with you.”

Your place is with your people, as the Old One said. Rock shifted forward, and more rubble piled out. The wall had been two full strides thick, thicker at the bottom, but Rock continued to bore through. Once the hole is cut, and I am out, others will come in. I can hold them for a time, but you must go.

She ran forward, heedless of the flying rubble, and hugged Rock, aware this had the same effect as hugging a house. Nonetheless, she felt a gentle pressure on her back from a single pseudopod. She hugged it. After a few moments it grew warm, then hot. She let go. It pointed up the hill. Go now.

She followed the direction he pointed, and up the switchback hill emerging onto the backside of the residential block where she had first been held. She came around that and into the courtyard, and stopped cold. The side furthest from the city wall had burned to ash, and was covered in dead bodies and burned debris. A few people still moved, emerging from rooms and offices near Haldeen’s. All of the windows on that side had been blown in, making them into missiles for anyone inside. She hoped fervently that Haldeen had been looking out one of those windows when this happened.

As she looked out across the courtyard, she realized she had no plan for what to do next. She looked up at the drunkenly leaning tower, Haldeen’s Tower, and thought back to the day she had arrived, and the route they had taken when she had first been brought here. Her nighttime explorations of the grounds had given her a working knowledge of the layout on this side of the estate, and she was fairly certain she knew which door she had been brought up. Once there, she remembered a few turns, and she was pretty sure she could retrace her way to his lab. Once there, she would find the Gate and get it working somehow.

She felt a sudden longing for home. Her home. Her estate. Once she was back, she would have to reclaim it or retake it. Falcion was hers.

She stepped over a dead elf. She knelt by his side, closed his eyes, then took his sword and scabbard.

Time to go home.

22

N

Haldeen sat, his back against the wall that faced his courtyard, and worked to stop the bleeding. His leg continued to hemorrhage, even through the dressing. He removed his belt and tightened it around his thigh, just above the knee, cinching it as tightly as he could. He had no idea if that would help … but it couldn’t hurt. He pulled the belt tightly enough that it should hurt, but it didn’t. His thoughts felt slow. Muzzy. It wasn’t if the problem was in his legs … pain he should feel, but didn’t … or in hands … too weak to pull the belt tight enough. He looked around for someone to call out to, to ask for help.

The top of the battlement had a scorched, abandoned feel. A few elves stirred, but most appeared as shocked as Haldeen felt. The blast had been indiscriminate. The remaining crenellations blocked his view of the forest beyond the city, but the cinders and ash that rose suggested serious damage. Smoke blew into his eyes, carrying the smells of soot and a deeper note … burned meat.

He coughed as the stuff seared his lungs. A few elves emerged from the stone towers that overlooked the main battlements. A few of the towers had been swept away by the sere wind that had blasted across the wall after the king had used his actinic. The final weapon in their arsenal; the last resort.

Haldeen turned his head to the left, further along the wall. Here and there soldiers rallied, but slowly, recovering from the force of the king’s will. The weapon might have done for the monsters, but its effects on the garrison looked to be nearly as severe. He might have blacked out then. Or not. But, he found himself looking up, at the line where the green edge of the shield failed and gave over to the blue. His eye followed the line downward as far as he could, until the smoke and debris from the blast blurred the lines between shielded and not-shielded.

He tried to rally his thoughts. The southern part of the shield had failed, and the Monsters had attacked. The part of the shield that lay over his home, his domain, his responsibility. He struggled with that thought for a few moments, then realized some time had passed. Troops swarmed up the stair from the courtyard below, dragging a cart full of firelances … bump, bump, bump … up the stair.

He heard them call out to each other. Taking the firelances … were they really the last? … to the front wall, and stopping the Monsters. Monsters? Hadn’t they been stopped? He saw the first blast of fire down into the plain. Perhaps not.

He had a hard time focusing. The shield had failed. Either it came up and the city would be safe, or it stayed down, and they were done. He tried to concentrate. Hard. The pain in his leg flared, and something cast a shadow over him.

He missed seeing it, but heard the buzz of the Skydancer as it crossed over him, headed back to the city. Something sounded off. Damaged? Or, was it his hearing? The world swirled then, yellows and greens and blues together, before it steadied out, and he saw the elves along the battlements firing their firelances down … at steep angles. Whatever they shot was close, nearly to the base of the city’s wall.

He tried to gather his wits. Two elves lifted him, and started dragging him towards the stairs, one to each side. His leg burned like fire. He cried out.

“It’s all right, friend,” one said, as he shifted. One took his leg, holding him under his knees, while the other brought his hands up under Haldeen’s armpits. They lifted him together, then started down the stairs. Haldeen flinched away from the agony as his injured leg clipped against the stairs. He cried out.

“We’ll get you down, lad,” the one said. “No place for your sort.”

Haldeen laughed. He had years on the two of them.

They had gotten to the bottom when a vast roar came from up and over the wall. The two helped carry him to the bottom of the stairs, and propped him up against the inner wall, near the place where he had fallen, and just before the actinic had incinerated the further half of the courtyard. Other elves had been dragged next to the shade. Some moaned while others lay still. Haldeen tried to shake off the cobwebs that fogged his brain.

A woman came by, her street clothes streaked with blood. She bent down, opened his right eye, cast a quick incantation, then shifted to his left eye. She called out something he didn’t quite make out. She yelled something again, then swore. He saw her look around for something, pat her pockets, and swear again. She dipped one finger in the blood that had pooled around his leg and used it to write something on his forehead.

“Wha—?” He started to ask.

“You’ll live,” she said. “If the city does.”

He heard the sweet arrival of Machina a few minutes later, at least two clomping along somewhere on the battlements overhead. He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds he knew so well. The firelances first, then the whirring sounds as the shot furnaces heated and fired. The city had gone past the point where a single shot furnace eating itself mattered … other than its effect on the volume of fire produced. He focused on the sounds. A second, and then a third, as they cycled and threw everything they had at whatever was coming from outside.