The village that had been the site of the first alarm was but a half-hour’s fast ride up the road. If he hurried, he might overtake the raiders, burdened as they were by their captives. There was only one way for them to travel, for on the right the river Gagajin flowed down a series of rapids and cut gaps, at times falling a hundred feet below the roadway, and on the right a series of steep hillsides vaulted upward, giving little room for more than a trio of riders or a heavy wagon to pass.
A short time later he saw by dust on the road ahead he was catching up with the raiders, and none too soon, if he could tell from the splatters of blood along the trail. If the villagers were netted as he suspected, many would be dead, crushed under the weight of their companions or from the repeated pounding as they bounced along the ground.
There was dust over a rise, a position from which he should be able to see the next village. He hurried his now tiring horse up the steep road, and when he came to crest, he reined in.
Galloping down the road were men – if that was what they were – mounted on creatures unlike anything he had ever seen, from this world or the world of Midkemia. They dragged large nets behind them, in which a dozen or more bodies were confined. Weak cries told the scout a few wretches endured within the masses of the dead. But what commanded his attention was what he saw as their destination.
A sphere without feature rose up above what should have been the village of Tastiano. It rose easily three hundred feet, and from the rider’s vantage, appeared to be half a ball buried in the soil. Which would mean a six hundred foot diameter. More than a quarter mile across! He realized it must be some Dasati magic as he saw the first rider vanish through the wall as if passing through a sheet of smoke.
Two Dasati riders were turning and the scout realized he had been observed. Their alien looking mounts were quickly at a gallop and the scout turned his horse about. He put heels to the mount’s barrel and urged him to a gallop. His horse was tried, but bred for endurance as well as speed and he just hoped it was faster than those monsters coming after him. He had to carry a warning, for at the last instant, just before he lost sight of the murky sphere, he had seen it expand. It was now bigger than it had been moments before.
The magician cast a spell. A pair of Dasati Deathpriests erected a protective barrier but not before one of them was struck by a flaming globe of fire. Tomataka, the Tsurani Great One who had cast the fireball was knocked backwards by the concussion of the following explosion. The Deathpriest standing next to the one who had been struck was thrown sideways almost thirty yards and slammed against a rock-face hard enough to break his bones.
The battle had raged all morning, with thousands of Tsurani warriors streaming into a pass that led into the small valley. They were south of the village Tastiano in the northern mountain range that bordered the Empire, The High Wall, or where that village had rested before being devoured by the black sphere. The river Gagajin had one of its two sources in the mountains high above this valley and what was called the Greater Gagajin flowed through heart of the valley.
The Dasati had chosen well in establishing this beachhead, for there was only one access point – a narrow pass a few hundred feet above the river. The Gagajin flowed too quickly and the pass was too constricted for boats to be used to ferry soldiers upstream. To the south of the valley the invaders could move directly into Hokani province, threatening old Minwanabi estates now belonging to the Emperor’s family. From there it would be down to the city of Jamar, then on to the City of the Plains, off Battle Bay, where the great rift which had enabled the original invasion site of Midkemia still existed. Or they could swing southwest, and attack the city of Silmani, the northernmost population centre on the River Gagajin, then cut down through what was left of the Holy City of Kentosani, on to Sulan-Qu and down to the ancient Acoma estates, where the Emperor was hidden away.
Tomataka was one of a dozen magicians who had volunteered to accompany the massive response to the reports of invasion that had been communicated to the Assembly the day before. The Empire was in turmoil, although some order had been restored by the simple means of the Emperor issuing edicts and every house in the north of Hokani obeying. Tens of thousands of warriors were on the march, although many were still days away, but the first few hundred accompanied by the Great Ones had entered the valley pass this morning at dawn.