Page 337 of Of Empires and Dust
“What about them?” Rist hadn’t intended for his voice to sound as sharp as it did, but neither did he apologise for it.
“There’s nothing we can do for them up here.”
“They’re just dying down there, Garramon. We can’t leave them.”
Garramon grabbed Rist’s shoulder. “The fighting would be long over by the time we got down. The Battlemages will hold thedragons off while the army gets inside the mountain. The rock is their best shield. Taya knows what she’s doing.”
“You need to have faith, lad,” Magnus said. “Sometimes faith is the only armour we have.” He motioned Rist on. “The Saviour will watch over them.”
“I’ve never seen a god watch over anyone,” Rist said, turning his gaze back to the battle below. He’d intended for the words to stay within the boundaries of his own mind, but his lips had stolen them.
Magnus’s eyes sharpened for a moment, but he just nodded and turned. “Keep moving. We help them down there by killing everything inside. Go.”
Coren pressedher back against the rock, arrows clattering off the mountainside above. Threads of each elemental strand swirled in the air around her as the Lorian mages laid siege to Tarhelm’s main gates.
She drew a breath, then slipped an arrow from the bucket at her side and nocked it. She shifted to look over the ledge, found a black cloak, and loosed. The man dropped like a sack of stones. Coren repeated the motion, scanning the swell of bodies below, following the threads of the Spark to their sources.
For every arrow that found its mark, another ten were plucked from the air or set ablaze by threads of Fire. The main path from the gates to the plains below was inked with black Lorian leather, their number stretching outwards to the sea of tents beyond. The bodies had piled so high the Lorians had started to toss them back down the mountain just to find space to move.
At first she had wondered why they’d sent so many to simply die while beating themselves uselessly against the gates. Then she’d seen the shoddy, patched armour and the weary faces and understood they’d sent the auxiliaries first, those drawn from the refugees and citizens of Berona. The mages hadn’t even arrived until a few thousand had been sent to Heraya’s embrace.
A tremor swept through the rock, and Coren dropped back down behind the ledge, the vibrations sweeping through her. She could feel the power of the Spark pulsing in the air as the Lorian mages smashed threads of Air into the gates below and tried to crumble the rock with threads of Earth, all while the battering ram smashed at the wood unceasingly.
The only thing stopping the gates from caving in at the Spark’s touch was Farwen and the ten mages who stood with her on the other side slicing through Lorian threads. And the only reason they stood a chance at all was because the Lorians were keeping most of their Battlemages in reserve – something Coren was well aware of. It had been clear for centuries how much higher the Lorians valued the life of a mage over that of the common people.
The power of the Spark pulsed below, and threads of Earth pushed into the ledge upon which Coren and the others stood. She opened herself to the Spark and fortified the ground with Earth while Tahro, one of the three other mages not holding the gates, sliced at the Lorian threads.
Another pulse of the Spark sent a tingle down Coren’s spine, and arcs of lightning smashed through the ledge to her left.
A handful of rebels who had been hunkered behind the ledge were torn to pieces, shards of rock slicing through flesh and crushing limbs, while others were ripped apart by the lightning, the smell of burning flesh filling the air.
“We can’t hold them here forever!” Varik shouted, scuttling over to Coren on all fours, pausing only briefly at the sight of atorso severed across the chest, the heart hanging from the open cavity, blood pumping.
Streams of blood flowed through the matted dirt on Varik’s face. Almost three hundred souls were spread about the ledges that overlooked the main path, raining death from above. There had been over five hundred when they had begun.
“No,” Coren answered. “But as long as Farwen can hold the gates together, we will do what we must. Understood?”
Varik gave a sharp nod and his lips moved, but the sound was drowned out by a monstrous roar.
Every hair on Coren’s body stood on end, and she twisted, leveraging the rock behind her and staring up at the sky.
“He came.” The tone in Varik’s voice was equal parts relief and awe.
It can’t be.
The awe within Coren however was not that Calen Bryer had answered her call, but that the dragon she saw above was not white. She knew Varthear instantly. The dragon’s soulkin, Ilmirín, had been a close friend of Coren’s master. And it had broken Coren’s heart to watch Varthear sit about Alura’s eyrie, the light gone from her eyes.
But this Varthear was all fury and power, her vermillion wings like streaks of blood against the clouds. This was the Varthear of old. Most astonishing of all though: she was here. She had left the Eyrie. Coren hadn’t thought that possible.
The dragon lifted into the clouds once more before re-emerging only a few moments later. This time, Varthear was not alone.
And once more, Coren had more questions than answers. The clouds swirled around Avandeer’s body as she dropped in the open sky above Varthear. Barely a few seconds later, a smaller dragon, white as the winter snow, streaked from the cloud cover, wings folded.
The white dragon unfurled a massive pair of black-veined wings and swooped forwards, its roar rippling across the sky.
“The white dragon!” a voice called out from somewhere on the ledge. “The Warden!”
More voices answered. “The Warden of Varyn! He’s come!”
