“What’s going on?” Fieran glanced first to the north, then to the south. The northern end of the river where it dumped into the Hydalla, was turning into a stagnant eddy. The southern end was draining away even as he watched, leaving behind a huge muddy trench a mile wide and only five feet deep at the center.
Dacha pressed his palm to the Wall, his magic crackling around his fingers and merging with the magic he’d embedded into the Wall seventy years ago. “I sense that strange magic. But I do not know what its purpose is.”
“Should I…” Fieran let some of his magic curl around his fingers as he waved toward the Wall.
“Not yet.” Dacha’s eyes went even more distant, as if he was sensing the immense length of the Wall.
Something moved beyond the Wall. Fieran squinted into the blue crackle, trying to make out the shapes.
There seemed to several large vehicles unlike anything he had ever seen rumbling toward them. They appeared to be giant metal boxes set on large rolling treads on either side, of the type he had occasionally seen used by farmers on their tractors.
These vehicles tipped over the lip of what had been the bank of the Chibo River. They splashed into the gloppy mud left behind, but the treads plowed through the mud, keeping the vehicles from burying themselves and getting stuck.
As they drew closer, Fieran could make out something sticking out of the metal box set on the treads, almost like a pair of wires. Was that some kind of machine perched on top?
Several men walked beside the vehicles, carrying metal shields.
“Should we stop them?” Fieran clenched his fists, falling into a fighting stance almost by instinct, even though he had no weapons besides his magic and his sidearm.
With a glint in his eyes, Dacha unleashed more of his magic, making the hair on the back of Fieran’s neck and along his arms stand on end.
Dacha lashed out with his magic, reaching through the Wall toward the line of odd vehicles advancing on them.
Yet as soon as Dacha’s magic brushed the vehicles, it stuck there, focusing on the protruding wires rather than consuming the vehicles.
Dacha muttered something under his breath.
“Dacha?” Fieran took a step forward, his magic curling around his fingers.
“It has caught my magic somehow.” Dacha almost seemed to be trying to tug his magic free.
The vehicles rolled inexorably forward. The machines on their backs brightened, glowing slightly blue, as a faint whirring sound filled the air over the crackle of Dacha’s power.
Dacha cried out, going down onto one knee as he pressed both hands to the Wall. The whole Wall wavered, bending slightly toward the enemy vehicles planting themselves in a line just on the other side.
“Dacha!” Fieran stumbled forward, his magic around his fingers as he reached, though he wasn’t sure if he should reach for Dacha or for the Wall. There was a faint tugging sensation, as if something was reaching for his magic. “What should I do? How can I help? Should I attack them too?”
“No!” Dacha’s shout was loud, tight. He shook his head, even as he squeezed his eyes shut. His silver-blond hair whipped around him as he unleashed even more power, filling the air with that lightning taste. “Those machines are pulling in my magic. You cannot risk your magic getting caught too.”
Fieran squelched his magic, standing there with his hands uselessly at his sides. How could anything overpower his dacha’s magic? Dacha had the most powerful magic—the most amount of magic—of any living person. Nothing could defeat him.
Yet magic poured from Dacha, more than Fieran had ever seen him unleash at one time. Fieran had to squint at the brightness, his breaths burning in his throat from his dacha’s magic filling the air.
Dacha cried out again, a shout that was both pain and a battle cry, his hands still braced in the Wall.
The Wall itself was flickering, its glow going more white than blue as Dacha poured more power into it.
“Dacha!” Fieran fell to his knees beside his dacha. He should do something. Dacha had told him not to use his magic, but what if they could defeat the foreign magic powering these machines between the two of them?
“Do…not…” Dacha growled the words between clenched teeth. Stray bolts of power flickered over his armor and along the strands of his hair. Magic roared around them in an inferno of power. His eyes were squeezed tight, his shoulders bunched as if straining under an immense weight.
Fieran had to do something. He couldn’t just kneel there, helpless, while Dacha fought…and seemed to be losing. “I can help. Together, we can—”
“Fieran.” Dacha’s harsh tone cut through the storm of magic. “The Wall is coming down.”
“What?” Fieran tried to process those impossible words. What was Dacha saying? Surely he couldn’t mean what it sounded like. That Wall had stood along the border for Fieran’s entire life. It was the greatest magical achievement of the age. It couldn’t simply…come down.
Dacha’s eyes snapped open. He half-turned his head, his blue, magic-laced eyes meeting Fieran’s. “The Wall is coming down.”
