Lon crossed the temple bridge and stepped into the smoky world beyond. Inside the miasma he saw how Atarskal burned. Small flames licked at many wood buildings and bucket lines stretched through the construction site which was also charred and ruined. He gasped when he saw what structure the Calbians struggled to save; it was Atar's lodge that was ablaze.
Another incoming shot lit-up the sky. A flaming bag of oily pitch landed amidst a crowd of firefighters and the sudden strike set their cart alight. When the fiery shot hit the wagon its resin and pitch made it a pyre which became a flame fountain that sprayed liquid fire. Those wet with flame stopped, dropped, and rolled to extinguish themselves. All but one. One poor soul with a captain's hat had an orange furry coat that continued to flicker. It was Jarl of course; his outline was unmistakable. He'd removed his jacket to quench the sting, but his fur covered arm continued combusting; the flammable pitch was in his hide and wouldn't stop burning no matter how hard he tried to smother it.
"Som Gum Gei," Lon shouted after hastily arranging his first-ever water-from-air construct in his mind. It was the first time, (as the one he'd done below was only a gatherer glyph, som) and he surprised himself with the speed of his creation. The words popped in the smoky mist and the Calbians turned in shock to see him emerge with a ball of water on his wrist.
The bubble grew with every step Lon took toward his friend. It was just like the battle with the cave-slime all over again, but this time Lon brought cool clear water. He hustled straight for Jarl.
The big cat saw him approach and glimpsed what he carried and crouched to make his shoulder ready. Splash. Lon let go of the new glyph just as the load became too heavy to lift. The lionfeigor was knocked down and drenched under a tun of water. He almost drowned under the wave and he coughed and hissed to catch his breath. His body steamed, but the fire was extinguished. Everyone in the area clapped and cheered.
"Lon!" It was Tharus who spoke and his leather jacket also smoked and was burned from the Crolean pitch. "You've returned. I heard them whissper it..."
"Just in time lad," Jarl gasped as he recovered in the mud puddle. "My thanks."
"Atar's lodge. It's lost." Lon watched the roof collapse. No water balls would save it now.
Tharus and Jarl looked across the construction yard at their failure and closer at hand at their ruined wagon.
"It doesn't matter. The giant is dead." Jarl stood on his feet again, "did you hear?"
"Yes. I saw him fall." Lon watched the giant's house burn now and he grew really sad considering how a lifetime of memories would be consumed. Inside that structure were priceless artifacts and a vast collection of deepcombers' memorabilia, art, books, sculptures and countless one-of-a-kind keepsakes from another age.
"This is hopeless" Jarl said.
"He'ss winning Lon," Tharus said.
Lon grew angry. Curse this evil priest!
"Where is Saeya?"
"The mist comes from the grotto."
"No. They're on the wallss now. All three." The swampkin clarified what he knew for sure. "There are three Varget-speakers making blue strikes from the middle tower on the east wall."
It was then Lon felt three distinct smilkripples exactly the same as when they'd fought the wildkin and he knew Tharus was correct.
"Come with me," Lon said and he saw the swampkin's face light-up at the possibility, but Jarl was in charge and he cussed and looked over at the charred water-wagon. If he were to leave the scene and follow Lon it would be a dereliction of duty. His next order should be to repair the cart and continue battling fires.
"We can't leave."
"This is hopeless Jarl." Lon said. "Come with me and we'll stop this." The young lad gently set his bandaged hand and the lionfeigor's uninjured shoulder. "I need you to look after Miss Saeya. You need to make sure she's not anywhere near me in the end. Okay?"
"In the end? Lony?" Tharus and Jarl cast glances at each other, "what are you going to do?"
"I have to roast that priest."
"Roast him?"
Trumpets sounded beyond the wall.
"Come. Dismiss this rabble before anyone else gets hurt." Lon said. He didn't give any thought to how insensitive that sounded, or how poorly such a remark reflected on Jarl's leadership.
The lionfeigor frowned. It wasn't in his nature to relinquish command for any reason, but their cart was ruined. They could still ferry water direct from the river, but there were only five wooden buckets for seven feigor. He wrapped his burnt arm in the linen cloth and then mumbled new orders. "Put Hendry in charge."
The swampkin's face broke into a wide smile; he'd much rather follow Lon than chase fires and so he turned and spoke slither-tongue to their squad and he pointed at one tall fellow in particular who looked like he was a blacksmith's apprentice or a craftsfeigor of some kind for he wore a leather apron over rugged work clothes.
-
Moments later the three old friends, escaped convicts from Crolean justice who'd battled bears, birds and swamp beasts together all across this sacred island walked through the settlement under siege toward the embattled east wall. The riverwalk below the bathhouse was busy with locals who fetched creek water to save their houses and shops. Their brisk march was momentous, and Lon felt both suspicious glares and friendly stares as they crossed through the flagstone compound. Some growled with obvious anger at the white-haired lad and this confirmed his fear that they believed he'd brought Horne here. Others bowed deferentially and still more smiled and seemed happy for his return. Everyone hoped he was the solution to the problem that burned.
Lon hoped that too; he strolled down the paved lane beside the rushing water and couldn't help feel like this was the last time he'd ever walk this path.
It was night and the torchlight from the walls showed the damage. Tharus pointed and Lon spied the smog that issued from the top of the middle tower. The young lad knew the mist came from Saeya's hands. But why? She made the gauze which added to the smoke and hung like a curtain to obscure the enemy artillery? Lon realized then that's why it was done, and that's why the monastery chanted so hard to stop the breeze. Really? Was that the best possible defense they'd conceived? Pathetic.
Whispers surrounded the trio as they crossed over the southern bridge by the goose pond. The white-haired lad saw how the wooden beams had been freshly repaired and he wondered if any of them cared that it was him who'd caused the flood that'd almost washed the bridge away.
"What are they saying?" Lon asked Tharus who walked proudly at his side over the span.
"Sea drover...has returned" the swampkin said and winked at him. The same s-filled words echoed around him and up and down the walls in the misty fog.
Calbian archers sat about resting below the battlements and these weary defenders looked less than enthused with the much-whispered news; they were tired and the rested their sore backs as they mentally prepared for the next attack. They milled about and refilled quivers from arrow sacks and ate the biscuit and cheese snacks Lon had seen being packed yesterday in the cookhouse. He approached the stone bastion but had to wait for the space below the wooden stairs to clear. An injured soldier on a stretcher was being ferried down to the ground and a templekin medic with hot hands spoke soft runes to staunch bleeding and repel infections on bloody wounds.
An ambulance buggy crossed the bridge behind them. There was a commotion ahead as a stretcher was hurried toward the wagon. The soldier being carried toward the cart was none other than Colonel Obrion. Lon watched as his dented silver cuirass was cut away by the medics. Tharus translated, "... gored in the side by an iron tipped spear."
The patient looked up and saw Lon and waved his arm to stop the conveyor. He spoke directly to the sea drover and his slithering mumbles still gobbled like a turkey-bird, but his voice was weak; Tharus translated, "let the Bombora flow through you and trust your instincts."
There was a sour mood as the old Coronal was strapped onto the vehicle. The cart would take him to the monastery and they'd attend to his wound inside the infirmary; the old reptile would quite likely live but he was out of the struggle and he'd probably be laid up for weeks.
Orchee fixed his eyes on Lon and "Don't let this be for nothing." Tharus translated. The lad nodded solemnly as he passed.
"Saeya Tashafariyan?" Lon asked aloud and to nobody in particular. Most of the archers looked away but some answered and pointed at the middle tower ahead.
"She serves with the others above." The swampkin translated one of the stronger mumbled replies they heard, and they climbed the steps. The red-faced militia and bowfeigors on the parapet parted to let Lon, Jarl and Tharus move north on the crowded walkway atop the twelve-foot-tall stone battlements.
Lon gasped when he saw the scenery beyond the wall. To the east and south, the once green crops were now ash-covered wastelands. Just yesterday bounteous fruit trees had grown in the lush groves below these walls and their leaves had shaded paths at the ends of the crop fields. Now these trees and trails were burned beyond recognition. The charred skeletons of what remained dotted the death zone littered with bodies and trash. The wooden tool sheds which had once been filled with rakes and stakes for planting were now just embers that made long grey smoke-trails. The billowing shrouds hugged the ground and obscured his line of sight. These little huts had fueled the bonfires he'd seen last night and one whole day had passed and still their ashes smoldered.
In the distance, great thumps echoed through the gauze. The weight boxes on the siege engines dropped. Thump. Thump. The action see-sawed long wooden arms up into the sky. Attached to these long levers were slings which could hurl twenty-pound stones four hundred feet. But the Crol's weren't flinging blocks to break walls; they lobbed sacks of oily pitch to burn buildings. The twin artillery pieces were in the turnip field he knew, and when their weight boxes dropped, he saw two flame shots scorch across the night sky. Boom. Boom. He watched the flame-strikes hit buildings in the settlement and heard the brass bells on the emergency carts echo up and down the smoke-bound riverwalk.
Lon marched his friends north on the wall. He entered the middle tower and squeezed past the Calbian bowfeigors and guards in the archway over the parapet . He'd only just stepped inside the spire when he saw his three counterparts huddled on the steps.
"Lon." Saeya jumped up and hugged him.
Valari had ash on her forehead and her face was smudged but she was still as beautiful as he remembered. She smiled and showed all her teeth and gave him an equally intense hug.
"You didn't go ?" Melcart asked.
"I went," Lon smiled. "Didn't work out like we thought.."
"Was it like death up there?" the rogue asked.
"No. It's... Regimented. Like a town-smithy. You could never imagine..." All eyes were on him and he felt compelled to add more details. "It's tropical. Everyone is... So... Productive. You'd like it. You all would."
"How'd you get back so quick?" Valari asked with just a hint of suspicion. "You haven't even been gone one whole day."
"I didn't stay..."
"Did you see your friend?" Saeya asked.
"Clyde? Yes. Er well no." Lon sighed and looked down at his bandaged arms. "You're not gonna believe what happened..."
Saeya hugged him again to let him know she didn't care if he'd succeeded or failed; she was just happy he wasn't killed. When she finished her embrace, she turned his face to point his eyes out across the battlefield. "He's brought the ring close to the wall," Saeya said. "He's set it up in the same place where Atar... What does that mean?"
Lon stared out across the dark field and saw the glowing red ring propped up on a flatbed wagon on the roadway very close to where Atar had perished. It appeared now just as it'd been depicted in Mendal Fernswart's sketch; it glowed, and its round frame cut a hole through the gloom. Why was it here? Seeing the First Age relic thrilled Lon but he knew it struck terror in the hearts of the others; they were scared of that hole that marked the edge of the unknown. But he wasn't frightened, and Lon wanted more than anything to touch it again. He wanted to reconnect with the machine that'd made him, his conduit to Kluth.
There was a white ring in the shrine, and it let the Watchers see through the eyes of the geigorin. White was the colour of the first kingdom and red was the hue of the second - Fire or Fei. Was that red ring a weapon of some kind? Clyde had said it made horizontal lightning bolts when Horne had taken it from the wildkin's temple in Northerm. Now here it was propped up in the same position where Atar had fallen. Was that just a coincidence? He was beginning to suspect these coloured rings were the most powerful of all the First Age relics.
"I have no idea."
"The physical places where feigorin pass. There is a channel." Valari suggested. "The prayer circle churns beyond and they hope to open it."
Lon knew she was right. Valari knows things. He could hear the Crols chant salutations to Alocer and he glimpsed the copper can twinkle in the distance. Nearby, the ring glowered like volcano ready to erupt. The sea drover focused his eyes and confirmed his suspicion; he pointed out an observable fact to the others. "See how it makes fire on top and ice on the bottom?"
"Ohh," Saeya and Melcart said in unison, seeing or understanding that it was ice that was visible on the bottom for the first time.
"Yes. " Valari said, "the artifact can channel the groundsmilk directly. It's both the sun and the moon, day and night, fire and ice."
"But then what?" Melcart asked, "What can he do with it?"
"Clyde said it made lighting," Lon suggested.
"That's what I heard too." Valari nodded in agreement, and Lon wondered how she could have possibly heard that? Her daily mail from Damatia perhaps.
Saeya looked at Lon with hungry eyes; he knew she wondered if he'd achieved his mandate, and whether or not he could move the elements, and if his quest for enlightenment was a success on any level...? But she feared to ask.
"You did talk to Ephram right?" Melcart inquired indelicately and everyone waited for his answer.
"Bah. What a disappointment." Lon was triggered by the great sage's name, "as a teacher he comes highly overrated."
Saeya bit her lip and frowned, and Melcart looked down and Valari hid her face behind her hair. Lon was about to explain how he was just flushed down the drain and came to find the Samardina on his own, but right then he saw something else. There was a brief commotion on the wooden stairs from which they'd just climbed to access the wall.
Captain Owen appeared wearing the coronal's blood-soaked silver armour and now he had the same lime green cape draped about his shoulders. This shabby cloak marked him as the new overall camp commander. The pink-faced captain was now the highest-ranking military officer as Atar was deceased and Coronal Obrion was out of action. The new supreme leader appeared on the wall near the south corner bastion. This was the tower near the waterspout and its where the walls were strongest with the widest parapet.
All nearby archers and feigor-at-arms snapped to attention as he passed. Tharus and Jarl also stiffened and stared straight ahead when it became clear he was bound for their group.
"Obrion has fallen and he's devastated," Saeya whispered.
"Looks like finally being in charge was the last thing he ever wanted." Melcart said.
Captain Owen was flanked by two senior feigor-at-arms and everyone looked miserable. The newly caped commander came close and the young lad began to fear he'd lost his mind. His eyes were red with stress and tears and his dirty face was unshaven which added many years to his once crisp and youthful appearance. He pointed at Tharus and Jarl and spoke sharp instructions to the guards in their silky language. The sentries looked at each other and tried to decide if his orders should be obeyed.
"Lon..." Tharus whined, "he says we're deserters," the swampkin translated. Jarl sighed.
"Oh, it was me. I need them..." Lon started to explain in Common but Captain Owen briskly interrupted with more slithering barbs. The commander pointed at the lad in his chain mail smock and loudly harangued the assembly. His words were loud enough for everyone on the wall to hear and grasp the meaning; all but a very few understood his spiteful sentences.
"Lon. He says you're also to be arrested." Tharus continued, "he says you're merely posing as a pilgrim."
"What are you doing?" Saeya asked Captain Owen directly and he answered her.
"I'll end this misery they've brought." the pink faced Calbian replied. "Nobody could visit the shrine and be back in such a short time." he looked directly at the sea drover and said, "you've fooled everyone here but me. You are Atar's last and greatest mistake."
"What will you do?" Lon asked.
"What the giant should have done the night you arrived." the weary captain snapped his fingers and that his orders should be obeyed. "I'll arrange delivery. Then we'll be free. The priest can fetch the Tolden scion himself."
"You miserable coward," Saeya spit at him. "Atar always said you were a coward." Saeya shouted loud 'ess' filled words and Lon reckoned she repeated the harsh criticism in the Calbian tongue so everyone would hear, but Owen stood unmoved.
The guards inched closer and the young lad could see that one burly feigor-at-arms held iron shackles bound with chain. They looked the same as those on the Annabelle.
"Oh. Well fine then. Go ahead." The white-hired lad stuck out his arms peacefully and the bandages on his hands showed just beyond his ring mail sleeves. "Lock me up."
Melcart raised an eyebrow and studied him. Saeya hissed at the guard who moved the restraints toward young lad's proffered appendages.
"Fei Gum Gei," Lon intoned and words rumbled and boomed. A red-hot ball of flames the size of muskmelon appeared in the air above his wrists and sizzled with destructive power.
The would-be jailer jumped back in fright and dropped the metal cuffs he carried. The iron pieces clattered to the stone beside his boots.
"Hahaha. Well done," Melcart laughed.
Saeya turned and smiled at Lon with unabated love and devotion. The look in her eyes was priceless, but it was Valari who defended him.
"Back off Owen. Let us finish this."
The shocked commander obeyed. He took a step back, his eyes on the flame ball above Lon's hand. Everyone stared at the orb. Nobody had expected to see a ball of fire held in midair this way; the soldiers had likely only ever seen Ephram make such a display. He waved his guards back and then felt the need to say something, "... if you can finish this.. Then do it." Then he turned his back to retreat with whatever dignity he could muster.
"Shhh quietly now." Tharus glared at Melcart who'd increase the volume and tempo of his retaliatory laughter. Lon let the flames fade .
That's when it happened. On the field below there appeared a yellow robed figure who was almost certainly Minister Horne. The young masters saw him immediately and watched as he climbed aboard the wagon to stand beside the circular artifact. The red ring pulsed with power and Lon could feel the oscillations and smilk vibrations in his stomach.
They all watched as Horne opened the can. The lump had been depleted during their last encounter atop Wolfspire's stairs but now hundreds of devoted Crols had recharged the item with prayer and it flashed as bright as the starlight in his hand.
When the the priest touched this incandescent object to the side of the smoldering red relic the circular aperture came alive and fired a massive bolt of pale-yellow light directly toward Atarskal. Whisshherrrzzzzboom!
The mighty golden ray was like a dozen lightning strikes at once; it was thick and sustained. A twenty-foot section of stone wall flew apart as though kicked into the sky by giants. The barrier didn't crumble or collapse, but rather it exploded with a thunderclap and jagged chunks of ashlar flew in all directions. A deadly hail, the flying rock flattened and impaled dozens of friendly fighters but the young masters in the tower arch were spared.
When the dust settled in the explosion's wake Lon saw a twenty-foot break in the wall perfectly outlined by small fires.
The eerie silence that followed the blast was pierced by the priest's maniacal laugh and the thunderous screech of the Crolean elites who waited impatiently to charge the breach. This was the payoff they'd sought and all they'd dreamed since they'd signed-on the expedition; Horne was about to complete his mission and bury the history of Kluth under mounds of funeral ash. It would be easy for them now; there is no better way to enter a fortified skal than through a gaping hole in the wall.