‘You’re safe now,’ Hirad said. ‘Quiet down.’

Denser landed close by, Erienne tumbling from his grasp to snatch the toddler from Hirad’s leg, holding him to her chest and patting his back, his arms thrown around her neck.

‘Do you know nothing?’ she asked him, but there was admiration in her voice, not anger.

Hirad smiled. ‘Not a great deal,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’ He looked about the College courtyard. It was teeming with bewildered but relieved city folk, some of whom had the presence of mind to thank their rescuers before being ushered away by College guards anxious to clear open spaces at risk from projectile attack.

Above The Raven, who leaned against the walls, the spell barrage had ceased and outside the Wesmen clamoured, kept back for now at a safe distance, wary of magic. But soon, the false calm would be shattered and already men had fought and mages had spent themselves and it was not yet full dawn.

And before they could join the battle, The Raven had texts to find but, more importantly, a duty to perform. One that wouldn’t wait.

Hirad indicated the infirmary.

‘Come on, Raven, we have a Vigil to observe.’ The mercenaries walked solemnly across the College courtyard. Of Thraun, there was no sign.

Chapter 26

Styliann felt a tiny pang of sorrow for what he had led the Wesmen into.

The Protectors had run on, indefatigable, resting only when the Wesmen behind them had to pause, and pushing on before their pursuers began again. Throughout the chase, the Wesmen never fell back by more than a few hours and Styliann was impressed by their sheer stamina and determination.

But, with the sun at its zenith on the third day of the chase, he had met the Protector army he had summoned from Xetesk and now he waited. The scouts he had posted estimated the Wesmen force to be in the region of four to five thousand but, even though he had perhaps a tenth that number of Protectors at his disposal, he knew he would win, probably losing no more than forty of his charges in the process.

Styliann surveyed the land on which he had chosen to fight. He sat on his horse on a small rise to the right of his main force of Protectors. In front of him, the ground rose gently to a small plateau, on the other side of which lay a steeper slope up which the Wesmen would soon be marching.

To the left and right, tracking through areas of low crag and woodland, a dozen Protectors swept for forward enemy scouts while two groups of forty lay ready for the flanking order when battle was joined.

That left almost four hundred to take the core of the Wesmen battle front. They stood absolutely silent below the lip of the rise, waiting for the pulsed command from Cil to surge over the top. Should everything go as planned, mêlée would be joined before the Wesmen archers could string their bows.

Styliann had chosen a reasonably narrow focus for the attack. His front line would be no more than eighty warriors wide. Narrow enough to ensure he couldn’t be overwhelmed, wide enough to unleash the full force of the Protectors on an enemy who would be totally unprepared for what they faced.

He heard the Wesmen long before a silent order brought his Protectors to the ready, each with sword and axe in either hand. The tribal songs echoed from the slopes, filtered through the trees and rang into the clear blue sky on the gusting breeze. Ten tribesmen, making up a Wesmen advance guard, ran up the rise and over it, meeting swift, silent death on the blades of the waiting Xeteskian warriors before they had a chance to change their songs to warnings. The rest of the army were jogging, the pace and rhythm of the words told him that, driving hard towards their doom with victory on their lips.

Styliann smiled at the irony.

It would soon be time, and the former Lord of the Mount found himself irritated at the necessity of the fight to come. But he couldn’t have the Wesmen chase him to the gates of Xetesk, as they would undoubtedly do if not stopped before. He had no guarantee that he would gain access to the city immediately and any delay could quite literally be fatal. The ground around Xetesk was too open and even the Protectors would struggle against four thousand on the fields before the walled city. No, it had to be here and it had to be now.

Styliann turned to Cil. ‘Engage at will.’ Cil nodded and faced the ranks of his brethren, still with a secure hand on the reins of his Given’s horse. Styliann felt a stab of nerves through his confidence but he quashed it merely by looking again at his Protectors.

Not a word was shouted, no signals fanned through their ranks, no heads turned to await command. The thunder of footsteps grew, vibrating through the ground as the enemy closed. Individual voices could be heard through the mass of the song, whose intensity never let up as they ran. Four thousand Wesmen calling death to their enemies, beating axes against thighs, the dull thumping adding a grim beat to the song. On they came, a surge racing forward, ready to crash on their foe. They had no fear. It could be heard from every throat. They were the Tribes; the land would be theirs.

And hidden before them, the Protectors. One moment, they were standing stock still while the songs of the Wesmen and the sound of their feet rolled over them. The next, battle was joined in a ring of steel and a storm up the rise.

Wide-spaced, to allow the free wielding of both weapons, the Protectors ran mute into the unsuspecting ranks of the Wesmen, whose songs died in their throats, turning to warning and battle order as the first of their number dropped lifeless to the ground. The Xeteskian thralled force plunged in with extraordinary brutality, stopping the Wesmen in their tracks with a blistering barrage of axe and longsword. Screams filled the air.

Styliann watched dispassionately as his Protectors destroyed the vanguard of the Wesmen before they had a chance to break from their ten-abreast column, the mana shape for HotRain playing in his mind.

He rode further up the rise on which he was positioned, moving nearer the battle, and was greeted with the sight of his flanking forces wading in from the left and right. They scythed through the column, cutting off a section of perhaps three hundred Wesmen.

Completely surrounded by Protectors, they were simply massacred while the Dark College force simultaneously formed a new advanced front line, again precisely spaced but with a concavity to draw the Wesmen in.

The enemy leader finally managed to force order on his men. Commands ran throughout the panicked column, which broke and moved to attack on a broader front, meeting the Protectors head on. Behind the lines, archers peeled away and Styliann quickly adjusted his mana shape, moving from the lattice that was HotRain, to the tight spheroid that produced FlameOrbs.

Before the first volley of arrows was nocked, the ex-Lord of the Mount’s quartet of white-striated orange Orbs, each the size of a human skull, sailed over the closing battle lines to splash fire on the defenceless archers. Those not deluged, scattered, a pall of thick smoke rising from burning victims, cries of pain louder than the urgent orders to reform.

Battle proper was joined with the Wesmen in turmoil and fighting as much for shape as for their lives. They were scared. Styliann could see it in the set of their bodies and knew what they faced. Masks and polished steel. Death whose countenance they would never see, death that was silent and unstoppable.

The Protectors made no sound. No grunts of exertion as they struck, no battle cries, no screams from the injured and the few who died. Nothing. Just a wall of blades; flat, featureless masks and dark-stained leather, chain and plate. To Styliann’s ears, the sound of their weapons was almost musical, and he watched their inexorable advance, likening it in his mind to a macabre dance.