Seven Sorcerers(78)

Suddenly night fell across the world, though it should have been hours away. It did not come as a creeping cloak of darkness, but all at once. Tyro’s stinging eyes sought the sun and found only a disk of darkness surrounded by a corona of brilliant flame. He looked away, nearly blinded, and endured a stab in the shoulder for his distraction. The Manslayers were not fazed by the loss of daylight, yet the Men of the Five Cities knew a sudden confusion.

Tyro had seen eclipses before, but they had lasted only a handful of seconds. This was no natural event. It must be Zyung’s sorcery, stealing the light and forcing them to battle in the gloom. Now the only lights were the blasts of annihilation falling from the airborne sorcerers.

Tyro’s legs were caught now in an iron grip. Clawed arms of solid darkness emerged from the blood-soaked ground, wrapping about his lower body, tearing at his skin. All about him men suffered the same fate. Devils of shadow poured from the cursed earth of the valley, tearing at throats, chests, and necks. A cold mouth latched over the wound in Tyro’s back, sucking out his blood like a great leech. The shadows clutched at his arms, digging fangs into them as well.

Only D’zan was untouched by the swarm of shadows. The blade of his greatsword gleamed with a pale light now, and he slashed apart the shadows instead of living men. The Sun God’s blade tore through their substance where all other blades did nothing. D’zan carved a man free of shadows, only to see him subsumed again by a fresh cluster of the devils.

Tyro cried out. D’zan turned to face him. The fangs of a dozen shadows sank deep into Tyro’s body. Their claws tore his armor away so they could dig into his flesh. D’zan swept his blade across the knot of darkness that overwhelmed Tyro, shredding some of the devils. Yet more of them sprouted from beneath the mangled bodies and pulled Tyro lower. Men howled and were torn to bits in every direction.

Tyro’s broadsword fell free of his numb fingers. He lay naked and writhing now among a swarm of feasting shadows. Manslayers rushed at D’zan, who turned to defend himself. Tyro knew the bloodshadows feared nothing but the sunlight and D’zan’s holy blade. It carried the Sun God’s sigil, and they could not touch D’zan while he wielded it. But how long would it be until the Manslayers killed D’zan, now that everyone who did not serve Zyung was being devoured by shadows?

D’zan fought alone, surrounded by the blades of Zyung. This was the last thing Tyro saw as he drowned in a sea of ravening shadows.

You will see them again when you enter the valley of death.

The words rang in his dying head. Tyro knew that his brother would never forgive him, but he hoped Lyrilan would prove a wiser Emperor than himself.

The last drops of blood left his body as his every bone splintered.

I will see them again.

Now.





12


Colossi


Above the surging tides of metal and flesh a ring of sorcerers converged on the Feathered Serpent with light and flame. Khama’s flashing coils drank in their light and his eyes cast it back at them in flaring volleys. He grabbed them in his fanged jaws, cracking their crystalline spheres one by one, tearing their bodies to ribbons. The black stinger at the end of his tail flashed like a spear, piercing globes of light to impale chests and bellies. Still they came, shredding his hide with blazing whips of sorcery.

The rest of Zyung’s silver-robes hovered above the battleground like sunbursts, dropping columns of stellar heat to disintegrate Men and Giants. Khama broke free of his assailants several times to allay the slaughter as best he could. Yet always a cadre of silver-robes converged to smother him again, pummeling him with bolts of brilliant agony. Most of his feathers were burned away, and his scaly skin was charred and blistered. It hung in tatters like the torn banners of the desperate Kings below.

The death of Undutu had nearly felled Khama as well. The young lion died instantly, caught in a blast of sorcery from above. Khama’s foes were too thick in that moment, or he might have saved his King. Later he managed to spare Tyro from a similar fate, obliterating the Sword King’s would-be slayer with a reflected torrent of power. Tyro and D’zan fought their way toward the heart of a Manslayer legion. Khama lost sight of both Kings as the silver-robes swarmed him yet again, lacerating his flesh with their cruel magic. Their sorcery had no finesse or creativity; they were trained only to be destroyers, murderers, bringers of death.

Vireon tore them from the sky, crushing sorcerers like beetles in his fists. More than once the Giant-King saved Khama from a blast that might have been the end of him. Vireon stood tall as a mountain above the bay, his feet planted among the wreckage of dreadnoughts he had stomped to twigs. Piles of pulped Manslayers lay about him like a range of red hills, even as more of Zyung’s legions streamed across the heaps of dead to join the fray.