The Lost Realm Page 21

  “Right? Right about what?”

  “This is no time for tricks, nor is there any time to waste. Toronia is in no position to defend itself from invasion. We are all in far greater danger than we imagined.”

  Shouts rang down from high above. Tarlan felt the weight of Theeta’s beak lift from his shoulder as the thorrod raised her head. He followed her gaze and saw tiny shapes moving at the crater’s edge, silhouetted against the sky.

  “Were you followed here?” said Melchior.

  “That’s why I wanted to hurry. Theeta—can you carry us all?”

  “Theeta strong!” the thorrod said. “Fly now!”

  Tarlan was about to help Melchior climb onto Theeta’s back when the old man surprised him by springing up with an acrobat’s easy grace. Turning his attention to Greythorn, he saw that the wolf was already settling himself into the thick feathers behind the wizard.

  “That water is powerful stuff,” Tarlan said as he joined his friends.

  “Powerful?” Melchior’s expression was severe. “My boy, you do not know the meaning of the word.”

  A shiver chased down Tarlan’s spine. Then the wizard cracked a smile.

  “But you will! Fly, you great bird! Fly!”

  Despite the extra weight on her back, Theeta flew a fast, straight line up toward the open sky. The shining stones sped past, falling away beneath them like shooting stars. Although their light was indeed beginning to fade, they still blazed bright enough to leave lingering streaks in Tarlan’s vision.

  They are all lit, he told himself. They are!

  And they were.

  Except one.

  It sat near the top of the scintillating bracelet of light through which they were ascending: a single, unlit stone. The instant he saw it, Tarlan’s heart froze. He felt Melchior stiffen beside him, and knew the wizard had seen it too.

  “What does it mean?” Tarlan cried over the rush of the air.

  “Nothing.”

  “I woke you too soon. I knew it was wrong!”

  “It’s nothing,” said Melchior again. Did the wizard sound troubled, or was that just Tarlan’s imagination?

  “You did nothing wrong, Tarlan. Pay it no mind. Remember the sparrow.”

  “Sparrows. There were lots of them.”

  “No. There was only one. That was the true magic.”

  Tarlan had no idea what the wizard was talking about. “You’re sure the stone doesn’t matter?”

  “Tarlan, we have more pressing concerns.”

  With a deafening screech, Theeta burst out of the crater and into the clear air above. The morning sky was bright, and the storm had left the air crisp and clear. The comet hung directly overhead, a frozen spark thrown from some unseen celestial bonfire.

  The volcano’s slopes were swarming with Galadronian soldiers.

  There are so many of them! Tarlan felt a stab of fear. What can one wizard and one boy do?

  They were spotted immediately. Shouts rang out across the mountain and the air around them filled with whistling sidebow bolts. Several passed close to Tarlan’s face.

  “They mean to kill us,” said Melchior conversationally. “We could climb out of range. We have a thorrod.”

  “I didn’t wake you up to escape,” said Tarlan. “I woke you up to fight!”

  “How sad,” said Melchior, “to wake to this. To find our old friends have turned enemy.”

  On the slopes below, the Galadronians were forming up into lines and reloading their sidebows.

  “Melchior! We don’t have time for—”

  “They invade despite everything.” Melchior’s eyes drifted to the mainland, where the village was burning with flames as bright as the risen sun. “They think they can defy the prophecy.”

  “Can they?”

  The wizard’s eyes filled with infinite sadness.

  “Nobody can say, Tarlan. Not even a wizard.”

  Melchior shuddered. Yet, at the same time, his body remained utterly still. Tarlan blinked, not quite sure what he’d just seen.

  “Do you have your sword?” The wizard’s voice was distant but immense. The morning sky darkened.

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Have you ever put its blade into a man?”

  “I’ve been in lots of fights, but . . .”

  “Are you ready to kill?”

  The question was terrifying in its nakedness. For a moment Tarlan didn’t know how to reply. Then he saw Seethan dead at the hands of the elk-hunters, the cruel, powdered smile of Lord Vicerin as he gloated over the kidnapped children, and the mindless fury of Brutan’s undead army.

  “Yes,” he said fiercely.

  “Then that is what you will do. Bring us to them!”

  “Yes, Melchior! Theeta—down!”

  The thorrod instantly changed course, plunging toward the nearest slope and landing just short of the Galadronian front line. Melchior slipped smoothly off her back and onto the broken black rock of the volcano. Tarlan joined him, his sword drawn and his head thumping with anger.

  Greythorn leaped nimbly down beside him and stood with his front paws splayed and his hackles raised, growling like thunder.

  Theeta opened her lethal beak and screeched.

  The soldiers at the head of the approaching army began to run toward them.

  Melchior raised his staff, gripping it tight in his left hand and running his right over the carved runes. His silent lips moved. Tarlan steeled himself and held out his sword. What forces would the wizard unleash? Would there be fire? Given the way the sky was darkening, he half expected something like the previous night’s storm.

  Throw lightning at them, Melchior! Bury them in thunder!

  There was no lightning. There was no thunder.

  The soldiers on the front line continued to run, but somehow they didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Tarlan squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing: perhaps two hundred armed soldiers bearing down on him and his diminished pack.

  Not two hundred. Not that many. Only one hundred, perhaps.

  The air was crackling around his head, just as it had inside the crater. The sky was the color of slate. The comet blazed, an all-seeing eye.

  The soldiers came on. And yet . . . they didn’t. Their legs moved, and their arms pumped, but they made no progress across the black rock.

  Fifty. There are no more than fifty of them!

  Beside Tarlan, the wizard had tightened his grip on the staff. His lips were a blur, now exposing teeth like ancient standing stones, now hiding them. The tendons in his wrinkled neck snapped taut. His tangled hair was a cloud of wild snow.

  Now there were twenty men in the Galadronian army. Now ten. Tarlan took a hesitant step forward, forcing his way through the buzzing air. His skin tingled; his face felt hot and cold, both at the same time. What was he seeing? Where had the rest of the army gone?

  They’re all still there! It was so hard to see, so hard to comprehend. They’re . . . inside each other . . . behind each other . . .

  No, that wasn’t quite right.

  He took another step, peered closer.

  Three men . . . folded around many. An entire army running without moving, crushed into the space of just three men . . .

  Two men . . .

  One man . . .

  Melchior let out a ragged cry and Tarlan nearly jumped out of his skin. Gripping the staff with both hands, the wizard thrust it toward the stationary, oncoming soldier.

  Soldiers?

  “Quickly!” Melchior cried. “Before the numbers unfold.”

  Tarlan took another step toward the man . . . men? As he did so, his vision seemed to double, triple. He saw many faces hiding behind this single visage. It was like looking through a shattered window to spy on an immense crowd.

  “NOW!” Melchior roared.

  Tarlan drew back his sword, hesitated, then thrust it into the stomach of the frozen, running man, just below his copper-colored breastplate.

  The blade entered sm
oothly, then jarred as it struck bone. Tarlan gritted his teeth against the sickening, grating sensation, plunged it home, twisted it once, twice, then yanked it free.

  The man crumpled and began to fall. His eyes were already dead. Tarlan stumbled back, his guts climbing into his throat.

  Behind him Melchior let out a long, sad sigh.

  The crackling subsided. In the space of a single breath, the darkness fled the sky.

  The man continued to fall. He also . . . unfolded. Now two men were falling, now three, now five.

  Ten.

  One hundred . . .

  Tarlan continued to back away, breathless and unbelieving. The lifeless body of the man he’d killed lay sprawled before him. Beside it lay another. And another. Beyond them, spread across the volcano’s jagged slopes, lay hundreds more. A sea of corpses.

  All killed by a single stab of his blade.

  Tarlan’s fingers twitched open. His sword tumbled; when it struck the ground, it made a high ringing sound. His throat was dry. His eyes bulged.

  Something brushed the back of his leg and he almost screamed. But it was only Greythorn.

  “You bit the enemy,” growled the wolf. “You bit deep.”

  “Big death,” added Theeta, her voice unusually soft.

  Tarlan nodded slowly, too shocked to speak.

  Melchior joined him. The old man was leaning heavily on his staff and breathing hard.

  “I didn’t know how magic worked,” said Tarlan at last. “I never thought . . .”

  “Magic has many languages,” Melchior replied. “The language I speak has few words. But it does have a great many numbers.”

  “We can defeat them all.” The idea was both horrifying and exhilarating. But Tarlan supposed it was what they would have to do.

  “Perhaps. How do you feel, Tarlan? Are you tired?”

  Tarlan consulted his body. “No. Not really. It only took one stroke of my sword. I suppose . . . I suppose the rest was down to you.”

  Melchior nodded. He looked exhausted, his face haggard. “That is why I need to rest.”

  They sat for a while then, in the bright silence of the battlefield, while the sun soared into the waiting morning. Impatient as he felt, Tarlan endured the delay. Without Melchior’s strength, what hope did he have of defeating the enemy?

  Far away on the mainland, the village continued to burn. Meanwhile, the beach where the Galadronians had landed was emptying as the invading force headed inland.

  I hope the rest of the pack is safe, he thought.

  At last Melchior stood. Tarlan joined him on a crag of black rock, and together they looked east. The wind blew their hair back so that it mingled together: white and red-gold, woven into a single knot of moving color.

  “Are you ready?” said Tarlan.

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  Melchior raised his staff. “Then let us begin.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Theeta flew in low over the beach where the Galadronian ships had landed. The squat vessels looked deserted but for a handful of lookouts posted high on the masts. Their faces turned to watch the giant thorrod and her passengers, but they made no move to attack.

  Of the rest of the army there was no sign.

  To Tarlan’s relief, his pack was waiting for them on the sand. As Theeta landed, he beckoned to Nasheen. The white-breasted thorrod came forward; with a spry leap belying his great age, Melchior hopped down from Theeta’s back and onto Nasheen’s.

  “Go to Filos and Brock,” Tarlan said to Greythorn. “Run with them. Follow us into the village and help as you can. But be careful!”

  “We will run,” Greythorn replied, his one remaining eye bright. “But it is hard to be careful when you are busy biting.”

  Before Tarlan could respond, the wolf leaped down to join his companions on the beach. Filos and Brock, clearly overjoyed to see Greythorn healed of his wound, ran circles around him, yipping and growling their pleasure.

  “Men gone,” cawed Nasheen, nodding her head toward the notch in the cliffs through which they’d first arrived. “Big walk.”

  “All of them?” said Tarlan, looking east with some concern.

  “They are an invasion force,” put in Melchior. “What would they do but march inland?”

  “Many stay.” Nasheen indicated the burning village to the south. “Hot death.”

  “Yes,” said Tarlan. “I know. And that’s where we’ll start!”

  With a yell, he spurred Theeta into the air. Melchior followed on Nasheen, with the silent Kitheen bringing up the rear. Down on the ground, Filos and Greythorn sprinted after them, running almost as fast as the thorrods could fly; Brock followed at his own lumbering pace, his lips drawn back from his muzzle to reveal his enormous teeth.

  The closer they drew to the village, the more Tarlan’s apprehension grew. At least half the wooden buildings were on fire, with more igniting every moment. The long central street was filled with panicked villagers. Some of them had formed bucket chains to douse the flames; others were frantically trying to rescue their belongings from their doomed homes. More were simply running.

  Down the many side alleys, Tarlan could see Galadronians systematically setting light to the remaining buildings. Each group of soldiers was clustered around a small cart. On the carts were metal barrels, from which jutted long spouts. The soldiers worked cranks and bellows, causing jets of flame to spurt from the ends of the spouts, igniting the thatched roofs of the buildings.

  The fire’s heat began to sear Tarlan’s face.

  “Stay back!” he shouted to the three animals on the ground. “Help the people who are trying to get out! Hold the enemy back! But don’t go in there! You’ll burn!”

  His pack—tigron, wolf, and bear—didn’t need telling twice. Tarlan could see Filos’s blue fur beginning to singe, and he was relieved when Greythorn and Brock hustled her away from the wall of flame. The three animals prowled, keeping their distance but remaining alert, ready to help or hinder as events dictated.

  Because it was wide, the main street was relatively clear of smoke and flame. Tarlan steered Theeta along it, keeping her level with the rooftops and looking for trouble.

  It didn’t take them long to find it.

  A squad of Galadronians emerged from an alley with one of the fire machines. While three of them kept the villagers at bay with their swords, two armor-clad women pumped the bellows on the side of the cart. A third woman stood astride the metal barrel, her hands on a large lever, clearly waiting for the order to unleash the flames.

  “Faster, Theeta!”

  Tarlan held tight as the thorrod beat her wings against the hot, choking air, dipping below the eaves of a tavern and heading straight for the Galadronians.

  “Hey!” Tarlan yelled. “Up here!”

  The look of surprise on their faces was as gratifying as the panic with which they tried to swing the cart around. Tarlan wasn’t worried. There was no time for them to take aim. Quick as the Galadronians were, Theeta was quicker.

  As they flashed over the soldiers’ heads, Tarlan felled the three swordsmen with a single sweep of his blade, Theeta’s momentum lending a power to his blow that in no way compared to the magic of Melchior, but which felled more than one enemy all the same.

  At the same time, Theeta lashed out with her talons, slicing apart both the bellows and the two women who were heaving at them. The woman on top of the barrel—now the only surviving member of the squad—yanked at the machine’s lever.

  This was clearly a mistake.

  As Tarlan pulled Theeta up and away from the cart, the lever broke free from its pivot. The torn end struck sparks from the barrel and the entire machine exploded into flame. The Galadronians exploded with it.

  Tarlan steered Theeta around in a wide circle, surveying the village. A group of Galadronians was gathered on the main fishing pier, torching the little boats moored there. He watched Kitheen dive and climb, dive and climb, a gold-winged engine of destruction
, crushing two Galadronians in his beak every time he skimmed the pier’s wooden deck.

  He looked around for Nasheen, only to find the thorrod flying right at Theeta’s side. “I have doubled the alleys!” the wizard called from her back. “Tripled some of them.”

  He pointed with his staff. Peering around Theeta’s neck, Tarlan saw several of the Galadronian squads dragging their fire machines around impossibly tight corners, only to come up against unexpected dead ends.

  “What did you do?” Tarlan rubbed his eyes, not sure what he was seeing. Was that one alley or two? Were there three streets meeting at that corner or five?

  “I told you,” said Melchior impatiently. “I counted the roads and made more. But it isn’t enough.”

  “Can’t you bring them all together, like you did before? Put them all in one place so I can use my sword?”

  “They are too scattered. Besides, death is not the answer here.”

  Tarlan watched helplessly as the flames rose higher and higher. Most of the villagers had given up hope and were running, screaming, away from the fire. But the only direction left open to them was west, toward the sea. When they reached the water, they would be able to go no farther.

  Burn or drown! Tarlan thought desperately. Which would I choose?

  “What can we do?”

  “You must stay, Tarlan. Do what you can. There are lives to be saved, even now.”

  “What about you?”

  “I will try to count to seven. Hope that I reach it.”

  Melchior tugged at the ruff of feathers on Nasheen’s neck, urging the thorrod over Tarlan’s head and directing her out to sea. Tarlan watched, his stomach churning with both hope and despair.

  Seven? What are you talking about, old man?

  Directly below him, a jet of fire shot straight up from a collapsing building. Theeta veered sideways, narrowly avoiding being swallowed by the sudden eruption of flame. By the time she recovered, Nasheen was just a dot against the smoke-filled sky.

  “Help! Help me!”

  The cry was coming from a row of houses in the shadow of the falling building. Tarlan had no need to tell Theeta to head toward it.

  Flames were steadily consuming each house in turn. Standing in the attic window of the last in the row was a little boy, no more than six years old. “Help!” he screamed again.