Seven Sorcerers(53)

The allied fleets were assembled in a great half-moon arc east of the islands. A wall of flapping sails and rippling banners. Khama’s concentration assured that none of them would be capsized by his storms. Yet the driving rain and whipping winds could not altogether be banished. All he could do with the forces of nature he had aroused was to focus them away from the isles and its protectors. This he did, and after two days he began to feel the strain of working such sorcery without pause. Still he would not relent. The tempests must rage across the distant seascape until Zyung’s forces reached the isles. Only then would he re focus his efforts on more direct assaults. He was the single factor that gave his people any chance of victory, slim as that chance might be.

Perhaps Iardu will return with more of the Old Breed before Zyung arrives.

The thought was of some comfort, but Khama knew it was still too soon. This battle was being waged against Iardu’s wishes because the Shaper already knew that he would not be able to gather a formidable force in time. It was Undutu and his impenetrable sense of honor that brought all of this to bear. The warrior code that belonged to his fathers, passed down to him from the tribal chieftains of the Ancient Land. A land that Zyung had crushed like so many others and remade into his own image.

Khama might have tried to talk Undutu out of this dangerous and near-futile course of action, but his duty was to support the decisions of his King. To advise, not to dictate. So he had done throughout the course of Mumbazan history. Khama reminded himself again that this battle would stall Zyung’s advance, giving Iardu’s mission more time to bear fruit. By the time Zyung reached the mainland, there must be a cadre of Old Breed sorcerers standing with the armies of the Five Cities. Khama forced himself to believe that the sacrifice of these fleets would be worth that time. Meanwhile, he would do what he could to balance the scales of war.

Undutu and D’zan stood upon the foredecks of their flagships, gazing into the black tempests. The Kings were too distant from the Feathered Serpent for him to set eyes upon them, but he saw the banners of the Bird of War and the Kingspear flying near the center of the great arc. Along the decks of every ship a hundred archers stood ready with arrows wrapped in pitch rags. Two iron braziers blazed beneath canopied rain shelters at the prow and middle deck of each vessel. The Mumbazan and Yaskathan forces had also treated the great bolts of their ballistae with pitch and oiled lengths of hemp rope. The Khyrein reavers possessed no ballistae, but their catapults were filled with oily spheres of pitch set to burn. The allied fleets would hurl fire at the sky-ships when they came within range.

Khama did not know if the dreadnoughts would burn, or if sorcery protected them from such danger. It did not matter; there was little else the seabound vessels could do to assault the aerial armada. The hope was to force them out of the sky so that ship-to-ship grappling and boarding would be possible. The invaders had more manpower, but the defenders would fight more fiercely; they were protecting their homelands and loved ones. Numbers were not everything–history was full of battles that had been won by outnumbered armies. Khama took some comfort in that fact as he stared into the thundering wall of stormclouds.

There.

A single pinprick of light amid the churning thunderheads. Not the flicker of lightning, but steady as a lantern moving through fog. Then another, and another, and a whole line of lanterns emerging from the tempests.

Across the entire horizon they appeared, spanning the length of the visible world. Orbs of glowing white radiance, like the sphere that had surrounded Damodar. Inside each great orb floated a dreadnought, gliding through the ravaged sky with triple sails intact. On they came, rank after rank of golden sky-ships wrapped in shells of gleaming sorcery. Leagues away still, they seemed tiny as model ships, yet Khama knew that each of them was three times larger than the greatest Yaskathan trireme. Seeing the dreadnoughts emerge now from his battery of hurricanes, he realized the truth: Not a single dreadnought had been lost to the storms. The magic of a thousand Old Breed, the most highly prized servants of Zyung, had protected them from harm.

The beating of war drums rose to Khama’s ears from the Mumbazan warships at the center of the great arc. Their persistent cadence spread across the allied fleets, and men readied their arrows for igniting. “Not yet!” Khama could almost hear the captains shouting. “Let them draw near! Wait for the signal!”

At once the storms ceased. The rain disappeared and the winds fell to nothing. Khama withdrew his furious control and replaced it with the peaceful glow of sunshine peeking through the clouds. The armada of dreadnoughts sailed on through the sky, still encased in their sorcerous radiance. The sea grew still and golden as the stormclouds dissipated. Calm air was needed to allow the arrows and bolts of the fleet to fly true. Khama would throw winds where needed, to fan any flames devouring the sky-ships. If that were even possible. He would know soon.