The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO





HARKELD GRIPPED HIS sword and watched the soldiers struggle to hold back the tide of corpses. The creatures’ silent ferocity was as terrifying as their sightless faces. The lions roared and fought, the fire-witches cast balls of flame, but for every corpse that flared alight, every corpse the lions tore apart and the soldiers hacked to pieces, a dozen more stepped forward. The sheer number was overwhelming. They stretched as far into the darkness as his eyes could see, an endless, jostling mass of bodies. We’re all going to die.

Movement on the ground caught his eye—a severed arm, fingers working like spider’s legs, scrabbled over the sand towards him. Harkeld raised his sword and slashed at it, cutting it at the elbow.

The fingers kept moving, surprisingly fast, scrambling towards him.

Harkeld swung again, slashed again, cutting the arm off at the wrist. The hand still scuttled forward, an immense, grotesque spider, the fingers finding purchase on his boot, scrambling up over the toe.

He kicked, trying to shake the thing off. The hand gripped his ankle with tight, bony fingers and hung on.

Harkeld threw down his sword. He tore the hand off, snapping the brittle fingers, throwing them away. The palm fell to the ground—gray bone, leathery skin—and lay twitching.

Harkeld snatched up his sword again. His heart was beating too fast.

“Sire?”

“I’m fine.” He jerked around as a panicked scream rose in the air. Another soldier was dragged off his feet. The man’s cry cut off as he vanished beneath a seething mass of corpses.

Harkeld gripped his sword more tightly and started forward. If he was going to die, he’d die fighting.

Dareus thrust him back. “No.”

Flames crackled from the witch’s outstretched hand. Two corpses flared alight. Fire seemed to lick across Harkeld’s skin, sizzling. He jerked away from Dareus’s grip, stumbling back, falling to one knee. It felt as if a bonfire had ignited in his chest.

Justen hauled him to his feet. “Behind me, sire!”

A brassy, trumpeting cry rang over the battle, echoing off the canyon walls. Justen’s head jerked around. He uttered a hoarse, disbelieving laugh. “An oliphant!”

Harkeld followed his armsman’s gaze. There was indeed an oliphant. The creature towered over the milling corpses. Each of its legs was the size of a tree trunk. As he watched, open-mouthed, it charged, cutting a wide swath in the horde of dead, crushing the desiccated husks underfoot, spearing them with its tusks. The oliphant tossed its head. Skewered bodies smashed to the ground.

“Who is it?” he asked, but the creature screamed its brassy battle cry again, swallowing the sound of his voice. It charged once more, impaling the dead on its tusks, trampling them beneath its great feet. The huge gray trunk unfurled. It plucked a corpse from those pressing the soldiers and tossed it aside, smashing it against the canyon wall, plucked again and tossed again.

Another trumpeting cry rang out. There were two oliphants now, charging among the corpses. No, three of the creatures.

We may actually survive this.

But even as Harkeld thought the words, one of the soldiers stumbled and fell. A severed hand gripped the man’s ankle, the leathery arm trailing in the sand. The corpses surged forward. The fallen soldier gave a shout and struck out with his sword, swinging upward, burying the blade deep in a bony ribcage. Gnarled hands grabbed the sword, yanking it from his grasp, grabbed at the soldier, fastening on his arms, on his legs. The man screamed and disappeared into the teeming corpses. They surged over him, like ants engulfing a piece of food. A high shriek of agony ended as abruptly as it started.

Flames roared up, consuming the corpses. They fell back from the fallen soldier, charred.

Harkeld clenched his jaw and looked away from what was left of the man.





THE NIGHT SEEMED endless, as if the sun would never rise again. They fought grimly—soldiers, mages—the darkness punctuated by bursts of fire.

Petrus stayed where he’d been ordered, guarding Prince Harkeld. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed. He watched with gritted teeth, every muscle in his body tense with the need to join in, to fight.

He concentrated on what little he could do, watching the corpses’ amputated hands and arms, shouting warnings to the desperately fighting soldiers, hacking into pieces those crawling limbs that were within reach of his sword.

Sometime after midnight a subtle change occurred. The corpses still came relentlessly, but the sheer weight of their numbers was no longer overwhelming. They arrived in twos and threes, not in their dozens, marching over the trampled fragments and charred remains of their comrades. Petrus knew that if they could just keep on their feet, they’d make it to dawn.

Prince Harkeld pushed forward again.

“No—” he started to say.

“There’s no danger now,” the prince said roughly. “We’ve won this battle.”

Petrus took his place at Prince Harkeld’s side, hacking and slashing, butchering men who’d been dead for centuries. After an hour his arm began to ache, after two, it was trembling, after three, the muscles began to cramp—yet still the corpses came, trudging across the sandy floor of the canyon to their second deaths.

Ebril and Gerit fought in human form now, wielding swords, not tusks. Only one oliphant patrolled the darkness, crushing the dead beneath its feet—Innis. She had to be as tired as them all, yet she still had the strength to maintain the shift.

Fewer and fewer corpses arrived at the firepit. “Rest your men,” Prince Harkeld told Tomas. “Justen and I can deal with this.”

Tomas didn’t argue. He stepped back. Petrus was aware of soldiers slumping wearily to the ground behind him. It sounded as if someone was weeping.

Petrus raised his sword as another of the creatures lurched into the firelight, and lowered it as Prince Harkeld stepped forward. He watched the prince grimly and methodically dismember the corpse, taking off its head, its arms and legs, and then hacking each limb into pieces. In the darkened canyon Innis trumpeted again. He heard the stomp of her feet as she trampled more corpses.

Hour after interminable hour passed and then, gradually, almost imperceptibly, the sky lightened into the gray of pre-dawn. The corpses stopped advancing. Petrus stood, his sword half-raised, watching as dark, shadowy shapes stumbled back towards the tombs in the cliffs.

The sky became lighter. The last corpse scrambled into a gaping tomb on the far side of the canyon. The only thing moving on the battlefield now was the oliphant.

Petrus sheathed his sword. He flexed his cramped fingers. His hands shook. No, all of him shook—with exhaustion, with relief. It seemed impossible that he’d survived the night, impossible that any of them had. He glanced behind him. Soldiers lay exhausted on the ground.

“Twelve dead,” Prince Harkeld said. “Including one of the witches.”

“What?” Petrus swung around to look at him. “Who?”

“Either the girl or Petrus,” the prince said. He gestured at the oliphant. “Whoever that isn’t.”

“Uh...” Petrus blinked, and then squinted up at the sky, shading his eyes with one hand. “I saw a hawk up there a couple of minutes ago. Had a pale breast. Petrus, I reckon.”

Prince Harkeld grunted. He sheathed his blade—a slow movement, as if his muscles ached—and lowered himself down to sit.

Petrus glanced behind him again, counting the survivors. Eleven soldiers were missing. His eyes skipped from person to person—Cora, Ebril, Gerit lying stretched out on the sand. Tomas sat beside Gerit, his head hanging, clearly exhausted. Dareus still stood, but as Petrus watched, he sank down on the sand, his face soot-stained and drawn, haggard.

Petrus sat down stiffly. He felt as aching and weary as an old man. He wiped his face. His skin was sweaty, sooty. Pieces of corpse littered the ground around him. Fingers, mostly, the dirty white of bone showing through the leathery skin. All he could taste, all he could smell, was burnt corpse.

He lifted his head wearily and watched the oliphant lumber towards them. One large, gray ear was ripped almost in half and caked with dried blood.

The oliphant shrank as it walked, becoming a black dog. Its ear was still torn. The dog picked its way carefully through the carnage, between the piles of broken corpses, past the smoldering fires. It panted, its tongue hanging from its mouth.

“Is there any water?” someone asked hoarsely, behind him.

Petrus was abruptly thirsty. His throat burned with thirst, hurt with it.

Tomas pushed to his feet with a groan. “We’ll drink and eat,” he said. “And then we’ll bury the dead. And find the horses.”

Petrus closed his eyes for a moment. All those tasks required more energy than he possessed. He touched the Grooten disc beneath his shirt—Give me strength, All-Mother—and opened his eyes and stood.

“Justen...” Someone spoke in a low voice, barely audible above the sound of soldiers clambering to their feet.

He looked around. Dareus beckoned, a tiny gesture.

Petrus walked across to him.

“Ah, Justen,” Dareus said more loudly, as if he’d only just noticed him. “Would you be so kind as to help me to stand?”

“Of course.” He held out his hand.

Dareus gripped it. “How are you?” he asked in a low voice. “Can you continue as Justen? I need Innis for something else.”

Petrus nodded. “The prince has noticed I’m missing,” he said in a whisper. “I said I’d seen a hawk flying.”

Dareus nodded. “Thank you for your assistance,” he said loudly.





INNIS COULDN’T FIND the clothes she’d been wearing; they lay somewhere beneath a smoking pile of corpses. She wrapped a blanket around herself instead. Right now, she didn’t care what the soldiers or Prince Harkeld thought of her. In fact—she glanced at the filthy, weary faces—she doubted they noticed, let alone cared, that she wasn’t clothed.

They ate in silence. Everything tasted of soot, of death.

When they’d finished, no one made a move to stand. Innis touched her ripped ear. Blood caked it. She should wash it, heal it; instead she ran a fingertip along the edges, sealing them. Small magic. The rest could wait. Exhaustion dragged at her, weighing down her limbs. She looked across the canyon. The red sand was hidden beneath a carpet of brown, gray-white, and black. Brown limbs lay strewn, graying ribcages gaped upward to the sky, charred bodies lay where they’d fallen. And buried beneath those things were eleven of Lundegaard’s soldiers.

A breeze stirred along the canyon, bending the sluggish columns of smoke, coaxing a faint wail from the sandstone cliffs.

Prince Tomas stood. “We need to find our men. Bury them.” His mouth tightened. “They died well. It was a terrible battle.”

“It’s a battle we’ll have to fight again tonight,” Dareus said.

Tomas’s face blanched beneath the soot. “What?”

“This—” Dareus gestured to the carnage, “is the result of Ivek’s curse, something he’s done to guard the anchor stone.”

“But I’ve been up here before,” Tomas objected. “We’ve never encountered—”

“You haven’t been here since the curse came into its power,” Dareus said. “This is why the curse shadows became darker yesterday: we crossed a boundary. From now on, we’ll face this each night.”

“Is there another route?” Prince Harkeld asked. “Do we have to stay in the canyon?”

“We’d never get the horses out.” Tomas gestured at the sheer cliffs. “And the only water’s here.”

“How many days is it to Ner?”

“Four, maybe five.”

“We can do it,” Dareus said. “Innis, are you up to another shift? I want you to fly ahead. Find somewhere we can camp tonight. Something we can fortify.”

Another shift. So soon. Her weariness was bone-deep—but of all of them, she was the one most able to do it. She nodded.

“No more than six or seven leagues,” Dareus said.

Innis nodded again.

“The first oliphant—that was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You did well, Innis.”

A flush heated her cheeks. She was aware of others looking at her—Prince Tomas, Prince Harkeld, Justen.

“Yes,” Tomas said, his face sooty and sincere. “Thank you.”

Beside him, Prince Harkeld nodded.

Dareus turned away from her. “Ebril, are you up to a shift? We need to find the horses. Petrus is already looking for them. See if you can find him.”

Innis fingered her ear again, checking the wound. Then she gathered her magic and shifted. The blanket slid from her back, pooling around her. Prince Harkeld was still watching her. His expression was indecipherable.

Innis stepped free of the blanket. She extended her wings, allowing a sense of her new form to fill her for a few seconds—the clarity of her vision, the lightness of her bones—then she launched herself up into the sky. Even tired, the pleasure of flying caught her, as her wings caught the breeze.





PETRUS WORKED ALONGSIDE Prince Harkeld, heaving aside desiccated limbs, hollow heads, crumbling torsos, searching for the fallen soldiers. Guilt rode him, a heavy weight on his shoulders. Such a gruesome death. If he and Prince Harkeld had fought with the soldiers from the beginning, would some of these men have lived?

He pushed a smoking carcass out of the way, uncovering the body of another soldier. The man’s back was charred. Carefully he rolled the soldier over. His face was unburned. Tomas’s sergeant. The man’s teeth were bared in a grimace of agony. The half-open eyes seemed to stare at him accusingly.

Petrus looked away. He wiped his face with a forearm, smearing soot and sweat. “Here’s another one.”

Tomas came to stand beside him. He looked down at his sergeant for a long moment and then sighed. “He’s the last.”

Petrus helped dig shallow graves. They were interring the last body when hoof beats echoed up the canyon. He leaned on his shovel, panting, and watched as three soldiers cantered up, leading the horses Ebril had found.

“That’s not all of them,” Tomas said.

“Lots of leg injuries,” a soldier said, sliding from a horse’s back. “Not fit to ride. Some we killed. Others...” He grimaced and shrugged. “We didn’t have time to hunt them all down.”

They loaded the horses once the final grave was filled and the words committing the men to the All-Mother’s care had been spoken. The corpses had been single-minded in their purpose; the neatly stacked sacks and saddlebags, the bundles of firewood and arrows, had been left untouched. Petrus was strapping the last of the wood on a weary mare when Innis glided down from the sky.

He watched her land. Dareus held out a blanket, shielding her as she shifted, a small privacy.

Petrus fastened the last strap and followed Tomas and Prince Harkeld to where Innis stood. She was talking to Dareus, the blanket hugged around her shoulders. “...about five leagues,” he heard her say as they approached.

“And it’s big enough for us all?” Dareus asked.

Innis nodded.

“Then we’ll camp there tonight,” Dareus said. He turned to Tomas. “An outcrop of rock, large enough for us all. We can rest once we’re there.”

Tomas nodded.

“Innis, keep watch. If you see any movement at all—ahead or behind us—check it out. We can’t afford more surprises.”

Innis nodded. “I will.”

Petrus opened his mouth to protest. Dareus caught his eye and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Petrus closed his mouth. He waited until Tomas and Prince Harkeld had headed back to the horses, then spoke in a fierce whisper: “Innis has been shifted too long! She needs to be herself.”

“She can’t,” Dareus said. “We need someone up there.” He pointed at the broad ribbon of sky above them. “Neither Ebril nor Gerit have the strength, they’re exhausted. Which leaves you.” He pinned Petrus with his gaze. “Can you do it?”

Petrus gritted his teeth. Exhaustion trembled in his muscles, but more than that, it trembled in his blood, in the very core of him. He only had the strength for one more shift: back into himself. “No,” he admitted.

“Then it must be Innis.”

He looked at her, seeing the fatigue, the smears of soot, the dried blood on her neck. “Innis—”

“If I feel I’m near my limit, I’ll change back into myself. I promise, Petrus.”

Petrus gave a short nod, and turned away.