“I was ready to defeat you at Ildakar, General Utros,” Nicci said. “Now I will drive you from Orogang as well.”
*
With the bright sunlight on her blood-mottled skin, Nicci dredged up all her strength. She didn’t dare let Utros or his sorceresses see how drained she remained from the previous night’s battle.
Ava and Ruva skewered her with their glare, and then the two raised their hands in unison, ready to attack. Nicci could sense the waves as they summoned their gift, and she readied her shields. She had every intention of destroying the twins, but her real enemy was the ancient general.
Nicci called back to all the downtrodden Hidden People watching from shadowed doors and windows. “Behold the man whose statue you revered, whose legends you told. General Utros.” She glared at the blackened skeletons sprawled on the flagstones in front of his black horse. “Cyrus and his followers worshiped him, came to offer their swords to him—and he wiped them out. What will he do to the rest of you? General Utros is not your hero. He wants to subdue the Old World for his own gain.”
“We thought you had vanished along with Ildakar,” Utros growled at her. “Who are these people huddled in the shadows of Orogang? Why do they infest my capital city?”
“They are the descendants of those who overthrew Emperor Kurgan and claimed the city as their own.” Nicci took another step closer. “You are not welcome here.”
Ava and Ruva called on their gift, and an angry knot of clouds appeared over their heads. The wind whipped up, startling the horses of the ancient army.
Nicci called up an invisible shield to deflect their initial forays, though it cost her an alarming effort. Showing no weakness, though, she didn’t tear her gaze from Utros. “If the great commander needs lackeys for protection, then the legend of General Utros has dwindled indeed.”
The twins snarled, curling their fingers to build another attack.
Utros halted them with a gesture. “I don’t need them to protect me, but I can let Ava and Ruva play.” He released them.
On foot, the twin women glided toward Nicci like reptiles on a hot rock. She met them with a smile that was sharper than any sword edge. “You tried to kill me and my friends, attacked me with my own hair.” She touched her ragged blond locks. “It’s time I repaid you for that.”
With a thought and a push, she created wizard’s fire, a shimmering and searing globe in her hand, which she hurled into the crowded soldiers in the plaza. The molten flash incinerated five of the warriors and threw the remaining ranks into disarray.
Unexpectedly, the heavy doors of the stone buildings swung open behind her, and crowds of Hidden People emerged, angry at what they had seen and inspired by Nicci’s words. Shouting, they rushed out in a surprisingly coordinated assault, carrying weapons from the armory that Cyrus and his followers had maintained for centuries.
The general’s army swung their horses around in the plaza, and their once-coordinated ranks faltered as they faced ghostly attackers who swarmed toward them from every building in surprising numbers.
Utros lifted his gold-masked face and shouted orders. “Eradicate them! You outnumber the enemy ten to one.”
In a great clash across the plaza, the ancient soldiers fought the cloaked opponents, hacking them down. But more and more Hidden People emerged from the buildings, the force growing every minute.
Ava launched a wave of dazzling light at Nicci, whose shield deflected the blast. The effort made her stagger backward, though, and she shored up her defenses, trying to find more strength in her core as she pushed herself toward the twin sorceresses.
Ruva made a whiplike gesture with her arm, and the black thunderhead overhead swirled into an ominous storm. Nicci retaliated with a curtain of air that slammed the woman into her sister. The general fought to keep his stallion under control as it reared.
Facing the reckless charge of the Hidden People, the ancient soldiers broke ranks and fought in individual battles. Many wheeled their mounts and used the sharp hooves to strike down their pale attackers, while others hacked down with their swords.
The surging Hidden People stabbed the warhorses, chopped at the soldiers’ legs, and pulled them from their saddles. The air rang with screams and the clang of weapons.
Amid the clamor, Nicci heard a primal snarl, and Mrra leaped into the fray. The big panther pounced on the ancient soldiers and tore out throats and ripped open chests.
Pushing forward, Nicci swept her hands apart and sent waves of wind that buffeted the mounted soldiers as if they were game pieces on a har’kur board. The Hidden People darted into the disarray with their sharp blades, while Mrra lunged in with fangs and claws.
Utros kicked his horse into a gallop as he charged to the other side of the plaza. The twin sorceresses each sent searing lightning at Nicci, which she deflected. The ricocheting bolts shattered the flagstones. With her eyes on her real enemy, she focused on Utros.
Carefully manipulating her gift, Nicci found the stone resonance in a granite monolith that loomed thirty feet high above the general. The segmented column shuddered and wobbled as she moved the foundation stones. When she weakened the underpinnings of the column’s base, cracks raced up through the bottom block and crumbled it into powder. The great pillar began to topple toward Utros.
He leaped off his horse and scrambled out of the way while the terrified stallion galloped off. With a tremendous crash, the monolith smashed into dozens of fragments, spraying rock splinters in all directions.
“You are mine, Utros,” Nicci said, stalking after him. “Why bother to run?”
The general turned his golden half mask toward her and drew the long sword at his side. “Run? I will squash you.”
As she focused on him, Nicci was caught unawares from behind when Ava and Ruva threw a combined blow of magic. The fabric of her black dress smoldered and burned her skin, but she extinguished it with a thought. Even though her legs shook with the exertion, she pressed forward. The air burned in her throat and nostrils.
As the increasing battle swirled across the central complex of Orogang, Nicci mentally sneered at the fallen statue of Emperor Kurgan, his arms and head broken off, the features scoured away by time. Not far away, the mysterious sliph well sat empty and silent among the other monuments, and she thought it might be fitting to throw General Utros down the bottomless pit.
Unified against her counterattack, the twins hurled more lightning at Nicci, but she strengthened her shields and turned to face them. Utros was just a man, no matter how powerful or legendary he might be. The two sorceresses, however, were genuine distractions.
Ava sprang onto the body of the Kurgan statue and called another flash of light that dazzled Nicci. Below her, Ruva stomped hard, pounding her heel to send a shock wave through the flagstones, which rippled across the plaza.
At just the right moment, Nicci leaped into the air and landed on the unstable flagstones after the wave had passed. She retaliated with a bolt of lightning, pure energy called from the sky. The twin sorceresses cast desperate shields that crackled and sparked against the barrage.
“I am stronger than you,” Nicci said.
The twins retreated into the next plaza, and Nicci followed, vowing to eradicate them. Without his horse now, the general charged toward them, his sword drawn and ready to fight alongside his sorceresses. They gathered beneath the titanic Utros statue that loomed over the high square.
Ava and Ruva faced her, building their magic to defend their commander. Nicci concentrated the air into a single force, forged an invisible knife, and slashed sideways with a razor of air. Ruva thrust up her shield and blocked the brunt of the attack, though Nicci’s unseen blade sliced a long furrow down her right arm. Ruva cried out in pain, and her sister responded by hurling a shock wave woven with a wall of fire.
Nicci dodged, and the magical hammer blow swept past her and smashed the base of the Utros statue, cracking its pillar legs.
Ruva wailed to see fractures spread throug
h the muscular stone legs. Both women screamed as the enormous statue toppled toward them. Utros and Ruva scrambled away from the impact area, but Ava darted in the other direction. She staggered two steps away as the stone figure thundered to the ground. Waves of dust and rock chips flew in all directions.
Ava stared, horrified, her mouth agape. “Utros!”
Nicci used that moment of vulnerability to call down another bolt of lightning, braided and twisted with both the Additive and Subtractive sides of magic. The fierce energy slammed into Ava like a bright and dark spear, piercing her chest, shattering her spine, and blowing out her back.
Ruva screamed. The agony and dismay in her voice nearly tore her throat open.
Nicci could barely hold herself up after expending so much energy. Her knees buckled.
