As the battle raged in the main plaza, the ancient soldiers did not at first realize that their commander had disappeared. They simply kept massacring the poorly trained refugees who threw themselves recklessly upon them. Bodies lay strewn across the plaza, but Nicci realized the Hidden People were inflicting numerous casualties themselves. They were hardened to sacrifices, and they were determined to win this fight.
But they stood against a thousand well-trained warriors in full armor.
Sword fights swirled through the streets, between buildings, under the imposing archways. In hand-to-hand combat, the fighters dodged the rubble of toppled monoliths and shattered statues.
An ancient soldier lurched in front of Nicci, raising his bloody sword and leering at her, as if he assumed she would be an easy kill. He slashed, intending to gut her, but she deftly avoided the strike, slipped in under his backstroke, and jammed one dagger between the man’s legs. She drove upward into the soft but crippling target, and the soldier collapsed with a squeaking wail. She could have taken the time to kill him, but decided to let him lie there screaming as she ran onward. She had to turn this battle and save the Hidden People.
Mrra let out a roar that shattered even the din around them. Thanks to their spell bond, Nicci felt the big cat’s joy, the hot iron taste of fresh blood in her mouth. The sand panther drove a soldier to the ground and tore open his leather armor. With blood dripping down her muzzle, Mrra let out an even louder roar, a summoning.
Sleek, powerful feline forms bounded in, more than a dozen sand panthers in a new bestial army that struck primal fear into the enemy. The ancient warriors screamed as the huge cats bore them to the ground and ripped them open. The panthers somehow knew to avoid the gray-cloaked Hidden People and attacked only the soldiers of General Utros.
Nicci strode in among the enemy, wielding a bloody dagger in each hand. Desperate men cried out for the general, and subcommanders demanded orders, but their leader could not respond. The mood changed like a shifting storm wind as rumors started to spread that Utros had left them. The mounted army started to fight with an increased intensity that bordered on violent desperation.
The poor Hidden People had just been released from their heavy burden with the zhiss, and now it looked as if they would all die before they could reap the benefits of their well-deserved freedom. Nicci felt a flare of anger and sadness as she fought her way back toward the towering palace. Somehow, she would rally the poor people and help them fight such an overwhelming enemy. Nicci did not accept an impossible situation.
She paused to assess what remained of her gift. When she felt the magic resonating within her, she knew that even diminished she was still a powerful sorceress. She could help the Hidden People and save as many as possible.
As she passed the empty sliph well, Nicci called on a few threads of her gift and created a small sphere of wizard’s fire in her palm. She paused there and faced the fighting, ready to make a difference, to help the Hidden People win. Pulling on her magic, she tossed the ravenous fire. The looping, twisting flames flared, then swelled into a greater flash as the fireball engulfed three enemy soldiers before fading. She had hoped for more.
She struggled to find enough of her gift to create more fire. From behind her, she heard an unexpected rushing sound of gurgling liquid that pushed upward.
She whirled to face the low sliph well in the plaza, where a roiling pool of quicksilver rose above the mouth, shaping itself into an icily beautiful human figure. Nicci was taken aback. “Sliph!”
Looming above the well, oblivious to the clamor of battle, the silver woman glowered at Nicci.
Why had the sliph come now? “I called you many times,” Nicci said.
“I heard, but I am not required to heed you.” The sliph’s face pinched into an angry expression. “I accept your terms. I will know about my Emperor Sulachan. Tell me everything.”
“Not now, sliph! I will summon you later.”
“Now,” the sliph said. “I will take you back to Serrimundi as you demand, and you must tell me about Sulachan. That is the bargain.”
Nicci raised a shield, trying to repel the sliph, but it wasn’t enough. “No, sliph! Not now.”
“Breathe!” The quicksilver wave plunged down to engulf Nicci and dragged her down into the well.
CHAPTER 36
Once the group descended out of the rugged mountains beyond Kol Adair, Nathan felt heartened. General Zimmer led the horses at a faster pace across the now-fertile valley. “On this terrain, we can get even farther ahead of the enemy army.”
Nathan rocked in his saddle as the horse moved alongside the prelate. “The sooner we get to Cliffwall, the more defenses we will be able to create.”
Verna mused, “The scholars have been cataloging the materials for years, and the memmers are sorting the vital missing pieces. By now they must have found many books containing deadly spells.”
Nathan looked across the bowl-shaped valley, remembering what it had been not long ago. Those lakes and streams, the green expanses, the lush trees, had been devastation for as far as he could see: cracked dry terrain, volcanic glass, broken fissures, all caused by the Lifedrinker, a hapless gifted student who had triggered more magic than he could handle. “It’s not finding the deadly spells I’m worried about, my dear prelate. It is controlling the awful magic that can be released.”
Verna looked doubtfully at the verdant landscape in front of her. “I know the stories about the Lifedrinker, but Victoria restored all the vegetation with a rejuvenation spell she found in the archives. Wasn’t the world saved because of her?”
Nathan clucked his tongue. “Dear spirits, who told you such nonsense? Victoria was as dangerous as the Lifedrinker, but in a different way! She also triggered a spell she didn’t understand, and her explosive vegetation would have engulfed the world. We stopped her only at a terrible, terrible cost.” His heart suddenly beat harder, as if Ivan’s dark remnants relished the painful memory. “The poor girl Thistle sacrificed her heart’s blood to give Nicci the weapon she needed.”
His long white hair blew about his shoulders as he stared toward the desert highlands where they would find Cliffwall. “Even if we do find powerful spells, will we be strong enough and wise enough to use them properly? That is what worries me the most.”
*
The maze of canyons had hidden Cliffwall for millennia. The young scholars Oliver and Peretta now led the way, eager to get back home. The horses clattered along the stony floor of the wide entry canyon. Ahead, the towering tan walls closed together into what looked like a dead end, but it was merely an optical illusion, with a hidden gap wide enough for two horses to travel side by side.
The party worked their way through the gap, turned left then sharply right, and emerged into a wide sheltered canyon that looked like a paradise.
Captain Trevor, the leader of the remaining Ildakaran escort guards, let out a dry chuckle. “I don’t know how we ever found this in the first place. Our party was staggering, weak, starving. We thought that Renn had led us astray.”
Oron looked around him in amazement. “If the knowledge here is as extensive as you suggest, then we will find some way to defeat General Utros.”
“In that case,” Leo said, “the final result justifies all sacrifices.”
Lady Olgya’s face pinched in a bitter expression. “Says a man who has
made no sacrifices! You didn’t even have a wife or family in Ildakar. What have you lost? My son was killed by those soldiers!”
Oron grumbled, “As was mine.”
Nathan didn’t comment, since those two young men, Jed and Brock, had been despicable people who had caused Bannon great pain. But grieving parents would remember a child however they wished.
He raised his voice as they rode into the Cliffwall canyon. “The important thing is that General Utros and his army must never find this place. Cliffwall’s greatest defense is its camouflage. Those thousands of enemy soldiers are on a forced march, and no doubt starving. They should walk right past these canyons.”
“Then we could spring a trap,” said Perri, the youngest of the gifted defenders from Ildakar. “If we can figure out how.” She had been a shaper back in the city, manipulating trees and vines into interesting topiary shapes. Her gift, though powerful, was likely too subtle to be useful in any large-scale attack against General Utros.
“The Cliffwall records may suggest dozens of new methods of attack,” Verna said. “We could create a powerful gifted army of our own.”
As they proceeded forward, Nathan drank in the view. A stream ran along the canyon floor, flanked by fruit and nut orchards. Sheep grazed in open meadows, and terraced gardens lined the steep hillsides. People tending their flocks, working in their gardens, and fishing in the stream all looked up to watch the party enter the canyon.
The high, sheer walls were pocked with natural alcoves and overhangs, some of which held a personal dwelling or two. The largest overhang held a veritable city of knowledge. High up the cliff wall, a grotto contained buildings made of adobe and hardened brick, some structures so tall they reached to the curved rock ceiling. Stonemasons had added beautiful ornamentation on the façades and carved archways over the grand doors of the main archive.
Oron shaded his eyes and peered at the vertical cliff with a skeptical expression. “How do we get up there? Is that supposed to be a path?”
