He looked east and saw it: the Scar rose before them, a wall of scintillating colour and motion. While the wound at the northern wall had been blank and featureless, the Scar showed energy and light. It was so large that he could not determine its distance. It took up the whole of his vision, and yet he could see the dunes in front of it, far enough away to make it a day’s travel. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing, feeling the magic prickle against his skin.
‘Here!’ A strangled cry from Adam.
The first austere rose before them, sand still sliding away from his form. Farid had seen Adam’s ward in the southern courtyard; he could easily remake it. As he worked, a wind flowed from Mura, brushing against his cheek. Duke Didryk scuffed at the sand and knelt, undoing a pattern hidden there. Emperor Sarmin stood in the midst of them all, not moving, and neither did the empress at his side, though her golden hair wafted in Yomawa’s wind.
Behind him Farid could hear sand scattering from running feet: likely Blue Shields running from their carriages. ‘Stay back!’ he shouted over his shoulder, not knowing whether his words would have any effect.
Mura held out one arm, her palm flexed outwards, as she moved in front and set the full force of Yomawa against the austere. Sand rushed from the ground with a loud hiss, flying against her enemy, each grain carrying the force of a dagger, but warding symbols flared and the sand fell harmlessly to either side.
The first austere lifted his own hands, palms facing out, and from one came a ribbon of indigo shapes and lines, hastily constructed but deadly nevertheless, cutting through Adam’s cheek like the edge of a sword. The man had learned how to bypass the shapes Farid had put together. Blood splattered over his robes as confirmation, and a line of bright yellow, looking sickly beneath the sun, came from the first austere’s other hand.
Farid raised no hand. No movement was required, no drawing of circles. It was his mind – his will – that unravelled that thread before it could cut again.
Mura raised her hands against the first austere a second time and sand swirled around Farid, obscuring his vision, ending his work. He could not protect himself. The austere’s pattern came across the fingers of his outstretched hand and snapped them. He screamed as bones punctured skin and he fell back. The sand blowing against his wound was an agony of tiny blades, and the knowledge that he was about to die settled inside of him – but the austere could not see either, and the stream of pattern-shapes flowed over Farid’s head and beyond him into the desert.
‘Concentrate!’ Adam snarled at him. ‘Forget the pain.’ Farid got to his knees and saw the duke caught in a whirlwind, his dark hair blowing like a cloud around his face. He looked uninjured, but his hands were pinned to his side and his eyes and mouth were squeezed shut against the sand.
‘Kill him,’ said Didryk, his voice tight with concentration, though what he was doing, Farid could not tell.
‘Hurry!’ Mura said. ‘I can’t hold him long.’ The whirlwind faltered and the austere began to smile.
Grada started to move towards the first austere, but the emperor stopped her.
‘No, Grada,’ he said, taking the Knife from her hand. ‘This is our work now.’ With his left hand he took his wife the empress’ arm and together they stepped into the biting sand.
‘Magnificence!’ Grada fell to her knees. ‘No—!’
The austere fought to lift one arm and pointed at Mura, a river of molten silver shapes flowing from his fingers, its course unaffected by wind or sand.
Farid caught the pattern in his mind and struggled to undo it, but it felt sticky, as if strung together by honey. Adam joined with him, and the shapes rippled under the force of both their efforts, but still Mura screamed and clutched her throat, falling to her knees, choking.
The first austere lifted his other arm and pointed at the emperor.
58
Mesema clutched Sarmin’s hand and with their eyes closed, they pushed through the wind and sand. She remembered the path through Helmar’s pattern as well as her own corridors, and this pattern was a simpler, rougher one: half-moon, line, circle, dot, square. Her path lay clear. She stepped around the shapes and Sarmin moved with her. A second later the sand that had been scouring her cheeks and neck fell away. Mura is hurt, or dead. She could not stop and look. She paused, searching for more patterns to come against them and saw the first, red against her eyelids. Circle, square, half-moon again. She sidestepped, pulling Sarmin along with her.
*
Sarmin let Mesema lead him. He felt Mura’s attack fall away and wondered whether his wind-sworn mage had died. His hand sweated around the twisted hilt of Grada’s Knife. The last time he had used it, his brothers had spoken to him, guiding his hand; but today the Knife was silent. Heat seared his cheek – an attack from the first austere, barely avoided by Mesema’s sidestep. He knew he was drawing closer to his enemy; he could smell the man’s sweat and the stink of his wool, fabric for the mountains, not for Cerana. The man did not belong here. The conviction strengthened him and he gripped the Knife harder.