The three selka warriors cowered, backing away, while the queen bounded toward the Norukai. The rest of the selka left the bound slaves alone, satisfied with many other victims to kill.
King Grieve roared as he hacked at the attackers with his war axe. He continued to fight, drenched with blood and slime. Dead sea people lay all around the deck. Chalk huddled among the barrels and crates near the front of the serpent ship. “My Grieve, King Grieve! I will grieve!”
Gnashing her teeth, clacking her jaws, a Norukai woman bounded forward to intercept the queen. “I will gut you, bitch!” She strode past the slaves as if they didn’t exist at all.
Bannon lashed out with his uprooted chain, caught the Norukai woman around her thick leg, and drove her to the deck. She writhed in astonishment and lunged for Bannon, but he swung the chain and caught her on the side of the head, caving in her skull. She grunted, then wilted to the deck as blood leaked from her ears and mouth.
The selka queen saw what he had done and let out a hiss that might have been appreciation. Lila also noticed. “Don’t flirt with her, boy.”
The selka queen chose the brawny Norukai king as her next target. She prowled forward with feral beauty, as graceful as death. When Grieve saw her, he also recognized his main opponent. With a heavy swing, he buried his axe in the chest of a nearby selka. The curved blade dug deep, cracked bone, and Grieve pressed his boot on the creature’s chest to rip his weapon free.
He faced the queen. Four selka warriors flanked her, pressing closer, and Grieve made his stand near the confined wedge of the bow. The serpent god figurehead stared out into the darkness.
All along the deck, selka and Norukai fought and killed and died, turning the scrubbed boards into a bloody quagmire. Grieve snapped his scarred jaws and glared at the selka queen. She, in turn, splayed a webbed handful of claws, and crouched, unafraid of his great axe. All of the selka prepared to spring at the same time, and they would tear the king apart. Grieve cocked back his massive arm to fight to the death.
Suddenly, a pale figure streaked between them. Chalk yelled, waving his hands. Tears streaked his white face. “No, no! You can’t have my Grieve. My king!” He threw himself in front of the selka queen, unarmed, defenseless.
With a quick slash, she hooked her claws into Chalk’s abdomen below the navel, then in a flash tugged brutally upward, laying him open from his groin to his breastbone like a gutted fish. Chalk’s entrails and organs slithered out of the wide wound, and he dropped to his knobby knees, gurgling, “My Grieve?.?.?.”
The Norukai king’s scarred mouth dropped open in utter disbelief. “Chalk!”
Bannon felt sickened and horrified. He loathed the scarred albino, but even so?.?.?.
With a second gesture, the selka queen ripped out Chalk’s throat, and she hurled him to the deck like a bloody white rag.
“No!” The word was ripped from Grieve’s throat and heart as if his entire universe had just ended. “Nooo!”
In a mindless blood rage, he lunged forward, and the surviving Norukai joined him, redoubling their efforts to fight.
CHAPTER 46
There is no more time,” Zimmer announced, and everyone in Cliffwall knew he was right. More D’Haran scouts had returned with the expected news that the marching army was already crossing the fertile valley and leaving devastation in their wake.
“No doubt about it, sir,” said the dust-covered young man who ran up to issue his report. “General Utros is heading straight for these canyons.” He wiped sweat from his forehead. “They intend to take Cliffwall.”
“Ava told them exactly where to find us,” Verna said, her nostrils flaring.
Nathan had gone without sleep since the first emergency meeting, and he suspected it would be a long time before he got a good night’s rest again. He turned to Verna. “It’s time to evacuate the families and scholars to safety, while some of us remain to make a last stand. With our layers of new defenses, maybe we can save Cliffwall.”
Throughout the sheltered canyon, the ungifted workers had packed whatever possessions they could carry. Many complained at having to abandon everything they had worked so hard to create.
“We can’t just leave it all behind,” said one shepherd trying to chase his flock to the end of the box canyon, where steep paths wound upward to the high plateau.
Nathan shook his head. “Save your family. You will have to rebuild, but you can’t rebuild if you’re not alive.” The shepherd stubbornly kept chasing his sheep.
Nathan walked along, touching the ornate sword at his hip. From the Cliffwall stores he had found new garments, acquiring a deep blue vest that matched the azure of his eyes. He even found a fine traveling cape that he thought matched his demeanor as an adventurer.
Men and women climbed down the stone steps or wooden ladders from the cliff alcoves, moving with a sense of urgency and sadness. Parents led their children up the canyon to the winding paths by which they could reach the highlands. Thorn and Lyesse accompanied them as watchful guardians.
The D’Haran soldiers drilled constantly and developed pragmatic ways to hold the bottleneck opening to the canyon. General Zimmer and the wizards were still confident they could stop the enemy. Trenchers dug pits, erected spiked barricades, and laid down numerous hidden traps. Soldiers scaled the cliffs and set up caches of stones that they could hurl down on the ancient army from above.
Ava’s spirit was seen, flitting into the canyon, spying on them, but Olgya had worked with countless gifted apprentices, teaching them distortion spells, masking spells, even raising fog banks to confuse the surveillance of the evil spirit.
Perri, the gifted shaper, followed some of the agile soldiers up the cliff above the bottleneck opening, and she manipulated the stone to form perfect handholds and footholds. Ten D’Haran soldiers stationed themselves in hiding places for an ambush from high above, each man carrying a bow and a basket of arrows. They would rain down deadly projectiles as soon as the invaders approached the sheer cliffs that blocked the entrance. Oron, Olgya, and Leo discussed ways in which they could use their magic to fight back.
As she and Nathan watched the preparations, the prelate drew her mouth into a tight frown. “If your handful of defenders can keep the canyon safe, then I will be relieved.” She sighed. “And completely surprised. If you should fail, Nathan, I am fully prepared to bring down the cliffs and obliterate this dangerous library. I have studied how to use the Weeping Stone spell. That will seal off the entire archive to make sure the knowledge never, ever falls into enemy hands.”
He shuddered at the metal in her gaze. “Be very careful, my dear prelate. We’ve seen how powerful magic can burn like a wildfire out of control.”
She gave him a skeptical
frown. “You mean Elbert and the ruined prophecy building? We saw what happened when an untrained novice got out of his depth. I have a bit more experience than that.” Verna softened her expression, reached out to touch Nathan’s shoulder. “But yes, I will be careful.”
They climbed the narrow stone path to the large primary archive. Inside the buildings and tunnels, scholars were frantically sorting the most important documents, while memmers opened the chosen volumes and scanned them, impressing more and more words upon their memories.
Franklin could not decide which volumes to salvage, because there were so many. “We have to leave soon, but what am I to do? We have only cataloged a fraction of the books. How do we even know which are the best ones?” He ran both hands through his brown hair. “When Simon was killed, I became the scholar-archivist, but I never knew I would face a decision like this. Historical chronicles will record my name as the man who let Cliffwall be destroyed. What was it all for?”
“We’re doing it to save the world,” Verna said. “It is not a useless gesture.”
Nathan forced a bright tone in his words. “If we can deflect that gigantic army, then we won’t have to destroy the archive, and all the people can return home to a happy celebration.”
Prelate Verna snorted. She joined the eight Sisters of the Light who pored over the segregated books of dangerous magic, hoping to learn new spells they could use to attack General Utros. They had already discovered several techniques they wanted to try, but time was running out.
Young Amber looked flushed and overwhelmed. She stared at several books spread out in front of her, but couldn’t decide which one to read first. “Now I know what my brother felt when his commander left him behind to defend Renda Bay. He only had fifty soldiers, too.”
“He had more than that, my dear,” Nathan said, trying to calm her. “He had ingenuity, and the people of Renda Bay were motivated to fight back against the Norukai. We’re also fighting back.” He wrapped his new cape around his shoulders, feeling the fine fabric. “Admittedly, Utros’s army is a lot larger than any raid the Norukai ever sent against Renda Bay.?.?.?.”
