Set in stone, p.37
Set in Stone, page 37
"In Grandurian hands!"
"Would you prefer they kept fighting until everyone lay dead, and the town shattered to ruin? Because that's what would have happened."
A little later, there was a stir among the Fast Rollers. Tomas had explained that the prisoner had arrived from Merkland and was being held in a tiny cave in the mountain nearby, reachable only via a narrow ravine.
Connor knew the area well. He and Hamish had played there as kids, storing their 'treasures' as part of a game of Guards and Robbers. He wished he could see the heavily guarded prisoner who General Wolfram wanted so badly.
Could they really be a child?
A voice called his name so softly he barely heard it. It sounded like Verena, and his heart quickened to hear her.
He slipped into his boots and moved toward the trees, searching for her. He was surprised by how much he wanted to see her big blue eyes, but worried what could have driven her to risk approaching so close. How did she pass the scouts? How did she pass Gregor?
Her voice came again, faint but close. "Connor, come to the river."
He slipped past sleeping men and into the deep shadow along the banks of the Lower Wick, but saw nothing.
How could Verena speak so softly and still remain unseen? Was this another of her powers?
Down by the river, when he was sure no soldiers lurked in the shadows, he called softly, "Verena, where are you?"
Nothing. He waited for three long minutes, but saw nothing in the darkness, heard nothing but the steady gurgle of the Wick, and the normal night sounds of frogs and insects.
Frustrated, he moved further downriver, scanning the bank for any sign of her. It was too dark to look for tracks even though the moon had risen.
After a few more minutes of steady searching, Connor was about to turn back when he heard a splash and what sounded like a girl humming.
The underbrush grew thick there along the river, so it took him a few minutes to find a narrow passage. He ghosted through, not wanting to scare Verena away.
He stepped through the last screen of brush into a narrow space right at the water's edge. Thirty feet out in the river, a woman surfaced and threw her long hair back over her head.
It wasn't Verena.
It was Shona.
Her skin glowed softly white in the dim moonlight, and Connor stared until she dove again. Only then did he realize she wasn't wearing her battle leathers.
They were piled right at his feet, close to a white towel that hung from a nearby branch.
"Connor, are you spying on me?"
She had surfaced again, much closer to shore this time, and stood in water up to her bare shoulders.
Instead of shrieking or shouting for him to leave, Shona was smiling. She took a step forward and rose a little out of the water.
Connor threw out a hand and cried, "Wait. Stay where you are?"
Shona's rich laugh floated over the water and caressed his ears. "Why so shy? We've floated this very river together."
"That was different."
Panic set his hands shaking. Even though he and Hamish had tried to spy on Jean this summer, they hadn't actually expected to see the girls bathing. He liked kissing Shona, but the thought of seeing her unclothed terrified him.
She was beautiful, but she was a high lady. When her father found out she'd kissed him, his life would be in enough peril.
If he found out about this . . .
Connor started to back away.
"Don't you leave me, Connor," Shona snapped and took another step toward shore. The water slid lower, and her skin glowed brighter. His heart pounded in his ears, and his face flushed with rising heat.
"Fine, but stay where you are."
Shona cocked her head and smiled again. "You dare command me?"
"Of course not. It's for your own good, though."
"I know what's good for me, Connor."
She leaned forward, "You either come in here and kiss me again, or I'll come out and kiss you."
I am so dead .
Chapter 61
Connor found it hard to think.
He should just run and risk Shona's wrath. Then again, if her father was going to kill him anyway, why not really earn the old man's wrath? The sight of Shona standing in the water, with the soft light playing over her shoulders was rapidly convincing him to accept her offer.
Before he could decide, the night sky suddenly lit, and the trees shook with thunder that pealed through the forest out of the clear night sky.
Connor spun. The source of the bright light came from the direction of camp. Worse, a billowing fireball burst up into view from behind the trees.
"The camp is under attack," Shona hissed.
Startled, he spun back to find her standing beside him, already wrapping a cotton bath robe around herself.
He wasn't sure what to feel. Part of him breathed a sigh of relief that he'd escaped Shona's ultimatum, but part of him raged at the interruption.
Shona scooped up her battle leathers and ran barefoot through the brush back toward the trail. "Come on."
The way the robe clung to her, he'd follow her just about anywhere. Still, he forced his mind to work a little. "How do you know it's an attack? Maybe Captain Aonghus burped in his sleep."
"That's not funny." She set a fast pace upriver and back to camp where they stepped into a scene of chaos.
Carbrey's command tent was simply gone, replaced by a blackened crater. Smaller tents and equipment lay strewn across the clearing, tangled amongst many unmoving bodies. Fires burned wild all through camp. Men were running and shouting and trying to don armor and grab up weapons and fight fires and give directions all at once.
Thick smoke rolled through the clearing, making everything look ethereal, like ghosts moving through a nightmare.
Shona ran through the press to Rory's camp on the far side. Connor followed, already coughing. They found Rory and most of his unit gathered. The rest of the Fast Rollers were sprawled unmoving on the ground.
Connor stared in horror. What devilry could have dropped those powerful warriors? Fear began replacing his initial shock.
"Captain, what's going on?" Shona called.
Rory looked relieved at seeing Shona, and didn't bother commenting on her appearance. "We've been attacked. I didn't see it strike, but the fumes are poisonous to Boulders."
"Nonsense. I'm tapping my powers now and they are . . . unna . . . fudda."
Connor leaped forward to catch her as her voice slurred just as it had in the manor house. He almost made it.
Shona fell hard onto her face.
He dropped to his knees beside her, and found her unconscious, breathing shallow. He arranged her robe to cover her a little better, brushed her hair from her face, and his eyes lingered on the curve of her cheek, the soft glow of her skin. Even though many might think him cracked, he was glad he'd told her to stay in the water.
His feelings for Shona were strong, but not entirely clear. Her motive for taking such an interest in him were cloudy, and having accepted her offer by the river would have played into whatever scheme she was developing. Her attention flattered him, but he didn't trust it yet.
Rory pulled him from the brief reverie. "Don't use granite, lad."
"I don't have any."
"Good." He gripped Connor's shoulder. "Join the defenders and watch yourself, lad."
"Defenders? From what?"
Distant screams and the clear ringing of clashing steel sounded from the north. Rory grimaced.
"Grandurians."
Then he strode purposefully through camp, shouting orders, driving back the bedlam with a growing circle of restored discipline. Within seconds entire companies were catching up weapons and running north toward the battle.
Connor raced through the mobilizing camp, dodging soldiers still strapping on armor, trying not to inhale the acrid smoke too deeply. He found his small bedroll and scooped up his bow and arrows before following Rory.
The army rushed north through the forest, bearing Connor along like the current of the Upper Wick. As he ran, Connor reached into his belt pouch and found the basalt Shona had given him. He absorbed it all.
A moment later they reached the northern edge of the forest and, as soldiers shouted battle cries and surged forward, Connor paused to stare.
Wolfram's army had attacked down the slope and initially cut down the small company of soldiers who first responded. Light blazed like miniature suns in several places around the perimeter of the battlefield, bathing the entire area in a patchwork twilight.
Hundreds of newly mobilized Obrioner soldiers, led by Captain Rory, charged toward the much smaller Grandurian force, and it looked like they would smash through Wolfram's lines without pause.
The ground shook and walls of earth burst from the ground to block the way. They towered fifteen feet before toppling forward. Rory, who could not tap his granite strength, scrambled with his soldiers to escape the sudden danger, but some of the men did not react quickly enough, while a couple fell. The entire charge degenerated into a mass of milling men, unable to run.
With a shout of defiance that echoed over the battlefield, Rory reversed course and charged straight at the falling wall.
Connor took an involuntary step forward, his eyes locked onto the big man, one hand raised in a useless gesture to help. Hundreds of stone weight of earthen wall fell upon the defiant warrior.
Rory burst through the far side amid a spray of earth. The wall to either side of him disintegrated as it hit the ground, melting back into the earth. The breaking wave of earth tossed dozens of soldiers through the air to crash down onto their comrades.
Rory saluted to his left. Connor followed his gaze and noticed Gregor. The giant Sentry nodded gravely, and Rory raised his sword to resume the charge.
In that second, something fell from the sky. Connor caught the barest hint of movement before it exploded into the very center of the closely packed army at Rory's heels.
Fire blasted in every direction, tossing men aside like chips of stone under the Ashlar's hammer. The entire company disintegrated into a jumbled mass of burning soldiers.
Then the flames leaped skyward in a single pulsing column that arced north and thundered down upon the smaller Grandurian army.
Captain Aonghus stood near Gregor, hands raised, fire dripping from his mouth.
Screams rent the night air from both armies, and the stomach-turning reek of burned flesh and hair clung to Connor's nose.
Rory's army resumed its charge, but a small group of hulking Rumblers broke from the Grandurian line and moved to intercept. The six giant warriors, encased in heavy armor and bearing gigantic weapons met Rory and his two hundred.
The Rumblers, who had come from the north and therefore had not breathed the poisonous fumes that prevented Rory's army from tapping granite, shattered the leading edge of the army. Soldiers flowed around them and encircled them in a wall of steel, but the Rumblers tossed men aside like babies and shattered them with heavy blows.
For a moment, Connor lost sight of Rory in the crush. Then, as the Rumbler who held the very center of the line smashed three soldiers aside with a single blow of his hammer, Rory dove in close and punched the huge Rumbler in the side of the knee.
The leg buckled, so he must have tapped granite despite the danger. The Rumbler toppled, and Rory surged to his feet, his roar of victory echoing across the battlefield.
Then he too collapsed.
Soldiers tackled the mighty Rumbler and fought to pin his arms and legs while two of them attacked his eyes with thin bladed daggers. The Rumbler convulsed off the ground and shed soldiers like a man bursting up through the surface of a loch. Then he fell lifeless to the earth next to the motionless Rory.
Other Rumblers plowed through the ranks of soldiers and wreaked terrible vengeance on them.
Captain Aonghus unleashed a barrage of pulsing fire against the Rumblers. Whip-like streamers snaked over the Obrioners to drive at the Rumblers' eyes, or wrap them in pillars of billowing flame.
The giant soldiers fell back under the onslaught with armor melting to their stone-hard bodies. Meanwhile, the ground under the entire battlefield groaned and shifted ominously underfoot as Gregor fought Anton for dominance of the earth.
Even though his arrows would do little against the Rumblers, Connor drew and fired faster than he ever had in his life, driven by rage at the horror of battle, and by Rory's heroism. The fighting raged a good hundred yards away, a long shot for perfect accuracy, but he didn't care.
His first arrow ricocheted off one Rumbler's helmet and, although it did not damage, the soldier raised a hand to shield his eyes.
The eyes.
That's why Rory dared tap granite, despite the heavy price, to give his men a chance at the Rumbler's eye.
Connor ran for higher ground where his arrows could prove most deadly. Battle rage coursed through him, an urge to leap into the fray despite the danger. The feeling thrilled as much as terrified him, amplified by the screaming of men, the clear ringing of steel on steel, and the sickening sound of steel rending flesh. The sharp scent of burning hair and the stomach-wrenching aroma of cooked meat joined in his mind with bright blood that seemed to coat everything, particularly the unmoving bodies of fallen soldiers.
Connor passed behind General Carbrey who stood calmly amid the chaos of battle, shouting orders that his Striders raced to deliver. The two Blades flanked him, but even as Connor caught sight of them, they moved toward the right flank of the battle line.
Connor finally saw General Wolfram, surrounded by a small personal guard, including his remaining Wingrunners. The two Allcarvers, so similar to Carbrey's Blades, advanced at a trot to meet their deadly counterparts.
As the pairs closed on each other, soldiers scattered out of the way. When only ten strides separated them, all four drew their twin swords and charged.
Their swords leaped like living things, slashing so fast they blurred. The four men pivoted and twisted around each other, swords clashing with showers of sparks. In seconds, Connor lost track of who was who as they turned, slashed, and spun in an intricate, graceful dance that moved so fast Connor could not follow individual strikes.
Connor ran past it all to the flank of Alasdair Mountain that formed the western boundary of the valley, and climbed about thirty feet up. Just as he turned to find targets, movement above him caught his attention, and he cringed, expecting another exploding fireball.
Instead something huge swooped out of the night sky in a steep dive just above the mountainside. It would pass to his right, about a hundred feet up. Could it be another great stone pedra? Connor knocked an arrow and took aim despite the futility of the gesture if it proved to be another monster.
It wasn't a pedra.
It was a wagon.
Chapter 62
A wagon?
Connor blinked a few times to try to clear his vision. The incredible sight of a large wooden wagon did not change. Could the Grandurians have pushed it off the flanks of the mountain, or constructed another giant catapult?
No, it wasn't falling. Instead it dove steeply, like a bird, not a falling stone. It swooped overhead and continued its steep descent to the south, headed toward the main campsite. As it passed, it banked slightly, revealing a glimpse of several people riding inside.
Connor spun back to the battlefield, but no one else was looking in his direction.
He turned back and, after a couple seconds scanning the night sky, found it again. The flying wagon had all but disappeared in the deeper shadows of the night sky to the south, but he caught a whisper of movement at the edge of vision.
Connor didn't hesitate. He reached for the boundless energy of basalt and raced after it.
The wagon glided fast, but Connor ran faster. He poured on the speed, drawing deep from the basalt, to the point where his legs started to ache in the early stages of the Fracking. He held that tap-rate and angled his course up along the steep slope until he hurtled just above the tree line, so fast he tore across ground so steep he'd normally never maintain purchase.
Brush clung to this part of the slope, little more than deeper shadows in the night. Using the skills learned from Donald, he shifted his shoulders, altering course by tiny degrees, and he closed on the wagon, avoiding collisions by sheer instinct.
He risked occasional glances into the sky to confirm the wagon maintained its course. It leveled out about fifty feet above the slope, just barely higher than his position, and he closed further. Within seconds, the fires of Carbrey's camp glowed from his right.
If the wagon banked in that direction, they'd reach the mostly deserted camp in seconds. Why would they go there?
Shona.
She and the Guardians who had tapped their granite power would still be lying helpless on the ground. Connor's blood ran cold as he realized that must be their purpose. If they murdered the granite Guardians, they'd shift the balance of power firmly to Wolfram's advantage.
The wagon began to slow, but instead of turning toward the camp, it banked to follow the curve of the mountain farther east around a rocky outcrop. As it did so, it tipped toward the slope where Connor ran, giving him another glimpse of those who rode inside.
Verena sat at the very front, while Kilian sat in the back with Anika and Erich and a handful of soldiers.
He should have known. Somehow Verena had given the big blocky wagon wings and flown it down the mountain.
