Seven Sorcerers(114)

Khama soared into the clouds east of the Holy Armada and then sped south across the unspoiled grassland. When the burning city seemed no larger than a bonfire on the north horizon, he opened his great maw and bellowed a roar that shook the plain. His Serpent body coiled and flashed sun-bright above the flatland, the second part of his prearranged signal.

As if some cosmic sleeper had awakened from a dream of flaming death, two things happened at once. First, the walls of the flaming city on the north horizon vanished, along with its toppled towers, shattered palace, and the charred bones of its Men and Giants. Second, the granite ramparts of the true Uurz appeared below the Feathered Serpent, its golden spires gleaming in the purple dusk. Like a desert mirage it shimmered into existence, along with the surrounding roads and plantations that had remained unseen.

Before the city’s double gate stood thirteen armored legions of Men, with a fourteenth legion of Giants. Dahrima and her spear-sisters stood among the ranks of anxious Udvorg. D’zan of Yaskatha sat upon a mailed warhorse at the front of the Uurzian vanguard. Vaazhia the Lizardess stood tall as a Giant at his side. Her crimson eyes were vivid with sorcery.

The Holy Armada of Zyung floated now above a great, burning ring of grassland north of Uurz. The phantom city conjured by Vaazhia had faded into nothingness, along with the phantoms of the six sorcerers defeated by Zyung. The false city and its defending legions had been as real as the Nameless Folk that served the lizardess during her isolation, yet also entirely unreal. Conjurings of dust and vapor, shadows and light given substance by Vaazhia’s willpower, guided by her imagination. While the armada had set the phantom city aflame, the real Uurz and its legions had stayed hidden beneath a cloak of sorcery a league to the south.

Until Khama’s signal, when the lizardess dropped her great mantle of phantasms.

Of the seven who battled the God-King before the gates of the phantom Uurz, only Iardu had been more than a clever apparition. “There must be some truth at the heart of any good lie,” the Shaper had insisted. “Zyung knows me better than any of you. When he sees my own reality, he will believe these phantoms to be my true allies. And when they are all vanquished, he will relish his victory over me. In that moment, when I claim the whole of his attention, Lyrilan must strike.”

The ruse had succeeded. Now, while the devouring of Zyung’s corpse claimed the attention of his sorcerers, the true battle for Uurz must begin.

D’zan raised a war horn to his lips and blew a mighty note. The true Men and Giants of Uurz charged across the steppe between them and the burning field. By the time they reached the outskirts of the conflagration, there must be foes upon the ground for them to slay.

Khama swept downward and Vaazhia leaped upon his back. He swung about and flew ahead of the charging legions. Their massed battle cries echoed his roar.

As the burning patch of earth grew nearer, Vireon grew once more to the height of a mountain, his greatsword raised high as both salute and beacon to the advancing legions. Khama sensed terror spreading across the decks of the dreadnoughts. Two thousand sky-ships hovered still above the flames in their concentric pattern of assault, yet Vireon’s head and shoulders rose far above them. The point of his blade pierced the clouds, sending a heavy rain to douse the flames at his feet. The befuddled Trills glided about the columns of his legs, a cloud of gnats caught in the tempest.

Vireon wore a crown of stormclouds now, aglow with crimson lightning.

In the moment before Khama reached the outermost ring of ships, Vireon swept his greatsword across the sky. Thunderbolts leaped across the blue blade, and a great wind rushed before it, tearing sails and masts from their moorings. The gleaming razor’s edge of the blade sliced through the first rank of dreadnoughts as a scythe reaps stalks of wheat. Golden hulls burst apart like cloven melons, spilling their silvery contents toward the plain. Vireon’s arc continued, shearing through the second rank of dreadnoughts, and the innermost third. A single stroke of the behemoth blade slashed half the armada to splinters. A sea of warriors and wreckage fell upon the blackened, muddy steppe. A great number of Trills were caught in the plummeting debris and torn from the sky.

A few motes of light, Lesser Seraphim trained to fly in their crystalline orbs of power, darted between the falling debris, casting deathlights at Vireon. They were less than stinging wasps to him. The Giant-King’s arm had reached the end of its arc, pausing before a reverse sweep that would split the rest of the fleet to kindling.

In the moment of that pause, Khama belched lightning toward the first dreadnought in his path, while Vaazhia tossed a bolt of crimson flame. The ship exploded, sending more of the horde plummeting to earth. Khama swung about as Vireon’s right arm began its dreadful backstroke. Yet many of the dreadnought captains were swift thinkers. Their unbroken ships dropped downward, as if the invisible strings holding them airborne had been cut. The blade roared past above them, taking down another hundred vessels that were not fast enough to avoid it. A second rain of bodies, splintered beams, and cloven Ethus Trees fell upon the first.