“Will King Grieve be here in Renda Bay? And his vile shaman?” Ruva’s voice turned sour.
“We shall see. We don’t need the Norukai, but we can use them.” He urged his black stallion toward the town’s outskirts. A ripple of excitement rolled through the ranks, an awareness that their destination was ahead at last, and the town would no doubt be filled with supplies and plunder.
They passed empty meadows, stripped orchards, abandoned farmhouses, vacant paddocks for goats, sheep, or cattle, but no livestock. Utros frowned. “The people have fled. Where are the animals?”
“That’s no surprise, sir,” Enoch said. “They must have seen our army coming for days. Who would dare to stand against us?”
Outriders broke into farmhouses and came out with blankets, some cook pots, and scraps of clothes, but they reported that the pantries were empty, every one of them. Even barrels in the root cellars were gone. More scouts ransacked the outlying buildings and issued similar reports. Seeing no food at hand, anywhere, the troops began to grow anxious.
Enoch’s expression hardened. “Should I make a sortie into town, General? See what we can find?”
Annoyed, Utros urged his mount to a faster pace. “We will all go.”
With a flicker in the air, Ava’s shimmering spirit appeared. “I went ahead, beloved Utros. Renda Bay has been abandoned. The people fled.” She drifted against her twin sister, and the green aura brightened, as if the two drew energy from each other. “The whole town is empty.”
Ruva’s voice echoed along with her twin’s. “The wizard Nathan and his gadflies must have arrived first and warned them.”
Ava separated. “We should have killed him and all those others at Cliffwall! That might have appeased the Keeper while we continue our war.”
“Killing those people is of secondary importance,” Utros said. “Even if the town is empty, we will occupy it as our base of operations. I need to plan our next move, with or without the Norukai.”
He pressed his stallion into a gallop, and Enoch and Ruva rode beside him as if making a military charge. The soldiers in the vanguard let out a heroes’ cry and charged ahead to attack a silent city.
At the edge of town, Utros noted stables, farmhouses, a smithy, a sawmill, a brickyard, a cooper’s shop with half-finished barrels lying among piles of staves and iron hoops. At the center of Renda Bay they saw the main square, the large town hall. Everything was empty.
“Find them!” Utros pointed to the left and right. “Those are warehouses, grain silos. There must be some animals in the pens and stockyards. Report all food stockpiles you find. Our supply sergeants will divide up the spoils to best feed our men.”
The encroaching army roared with excitement. Soldiers broke ranks and rushed into the streets, ransacking the buildings. They smashed doors and charged into warehouses, but they came back out perplexed, angry, and empty-handed.
“There’s nothing, General,” reported one of the first scout captains. “The barns and warehouses are vacant. We didn’t find even a bale of hay for our horses.”
Utros adjusted the horned helmet and stared ahead. “I have conquered an abandoned town.” He pushed his stallion toward the central square. “There must be more here!”
Enoch gestured beyond the descending streets that led to the water and the open bay. “Down there, sir. Look at the docks—all the boats are gone.”
Utros’s leather gauntlet creaked as he clenched a fist. Beyond the mouth of the bay he spotted three large ships departing under full sail. Then he caught his breath as he saw more than a hundred serpent ships pursuing them like a pack of wolves. “The Norukai are coming. King Grieve hunts them down as they try to flee.”
Ruva raised her fingers and traced invisible lines of magic in the air. “I would be happier to kill those vermin ourselves, but I will rest easily just knowing they are dead.”
“The fleeing people aren’t our concern. They are already gone.” Utros ran a finger over the smooth surface of his half mask. “We need to find what’s left of this town. We need to feed our troops.”
The streets were paved with cobblestones, and the horses’ hoofbeats echoed loudly as they clattered forward. On the way to the central square, hungry vanguard soldiers rushed past the general and spread out to break into shops and homes. They smashed windows, battered down doors, and caused even more damage in their frustration. Utros expected they would find some stragglers barricaded behind doors, but Renda Bay was eerily silent.
Ava’s spirit drifted about. “There’s nothing?.?.?.?but also something. I sense danger here. Beware, General.”
Ruva sat on her bay mare, shuddering. Gooseflesh covered her pale skin. “I can feel deadly lines of force. This isn’t simply an empty town. Nathan and the others left something for us here.” She sketched in the air with an extended fingertip. Ava faced her sister, touching her spectral fingertip against Ruva’s, and together they opened a spiderweb of bright lines, identifying a pattern.
“It is a trap. These buildings are more than empty. They’re waiting to be—”
As the scouts broke into prominent storehouses near the town hall, they triggered an activation web. Bright lights sizzled through the walls of the storehouse, and the shuttered windows overhead burst open with a flood of bright light, a flare of heat. Gouts of flame erupted through the roof. Covered with fire, soldiers staggered back out, trying to smother the flames on their smoldering leather armor. In seconds, the entire storehouse became an inferno, as if it had been built of straw and kindling.
On the opposite side of the square, another building ignited, then a third one with such a vigorous explosion that the wallboards shot deadly splinters in all directions.
Ruva raised both hands. “I feel the tingling everywhere, down that street, down this street, along that alley!” She looked in horror at the cobblestones, where she saw painted lines that some wizard had left behind. “We are caught in the middle of the web.”
The town hall suddenly glowed with jagged cracks of orange heat, like lightning bolts within the stone blocks. A blast broke down the façade, and the debris crumbled toward them. The general’s black stallion screamed, and he hunched over the saddle, holding on as he galloped away. Flames raged down the street as one spell triggered another.
Ava’s spirit swooped along, leading him to safety. Other horses raced for the harbor and the open water. His soldiers scattered, charging at a full run down side streets, trying to stay ahead of the flame front. In doing so, they ignited one booby trap after another, setting off a cascade of magic.
The cobblestones cracked and shuddered. Lines of magic drew down into swirling patterns that connected building to building and square to square. The Renda Bay streets became molten, and all the adjacent buildings ignited from the connected tapestry of magic.
“Ride!” Utros roared.
The entire town became an inferno, incinerating countless soldiers. Summoning her gift, Ruva called a downpour to drench some of the fire and douse the lower streets. It was enough to keep Utros and the front ranks safe, but behind them the burning town cut off the rest of his army, engulfing many of the soldiers in flames.
Once he was safe by the waterfront, Utros turned away from the smoke and fire and looked angrily out to sea, where Norukai ships were approaching the fleeing cargo ships that carried the survivors of Renda Bay.
*
Out beyond the harbor, the two big sailing ships commanded by Captains Straker and Donell sailed away from Renda Bay full of evacuees. As the last of the gifted defenders came aboard the third ship, Captain Mills rang the alarm bell again and again. The serpent ships closed in on Renda Bay.
Nathan took a position near the bow as they got underway, following the other two large vessels. A sudden ripple of dismay crossed the deck as the passengers watched orange flames blossom in the center of town. Smoke erupted in pillars. He smiled. “Looks like General Utros found our surprise.”
Oron wore a grim expression as he stroke
d his thick, pale braid. “There is more to come.”
Moments later, additional blazes surged, like storms of fire triggered by the unsuspecting invaders. The sky blackened as more smoke rose, and the inferno built upon itself. Before long, the entire town was engulfed in fire. The blazes leaped from building to building, raced down street after street.
Thaddeus and other evacuees from Renda Bay stared back at their receding homes, weeping. The freed slave Rendell placed a comforting hand on the town leader’s shoulder.
Olgya was more intent on the countless serpent ships racing toward them across the sea. “How do we fight against the Norukai? They are closing in fast.”
Captain Mills paced the deck, shouting orders to his sailors. Familiar with their ship, they used the complex interaction of rigging, rudder, and sails to catch breezes and steer the ship at the greatest possible speed. Some of the gifted passengers assisted by increasing the wind in the proper direction.
Norcross stood next to General Zimmer, who alternated his glare between the burning town and the fleet of pursuing serpent ships. “After attacking Utros so often, it should be a nice change of pace to fight the Norukai.”
Nathan watched the receding siege towers at the mouth of the bay and felt a pang in his heart, which twisted as Ivan’s presence plagued him, but he pushed back the darkness. He turned his attention to the oncoming Norukai fleet.
The serpent ships had the breezes at their backs, and they put on an additional burst of speed using oars manned by strong warriors. Ten Norukai vessels continued after the evacuating ships, while the rest of the enemy fleet slowed and diverted toward the burning town of Renda Bay. Increasing smoke rose into the sky.
