CHAPTER SIX
“Cannevar Barrial has been Mage-claimed.”
After sighting Lord Barrial on the ramparts of Kreppes, Rain and the tairen had broken off their attack and returned to the Fey command post with the grim news.
“Impossible,” Gaelen said. Now that most of the camp had retreated out of range of the castle’s weapons, the influx of wounded needing Ellysetta’s care had slowed to a trickle, and since the worst of the injured had already been healed, she’d released him to join the rest of her quintet.
“Dahl’reisen have lived on Barrial land for centuries.
They would have known if he’d been claimed. ”
“Then perhaps the claiming happened in Celieria City, when he was away from the dahl’reisen,” Rain said, “because that was definitely him on the ramparts, with his Elfbow. Shooting at me.”
“Could he have been trying to send you some sort of signal?” Bel suggested.
“Not likely. It’s only because I turned away that he missed.” Considering how fast Rain had been flying in that strafing run, that was no mean feat.
“Then you should have killed him when you had the chance,” Gaelen said. “Terrible as it sounds, death by tairen flame is the greatest boon you could give the soul-claimed. It stops them from harming others, and they can’t be called back to serve in demon form.”
Rain hunched his shoulders. Everything in him rebelled against the idea of slaughtering friends—especially Cann.
“It just doesn’t feel right,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t have been surprised at all to see Sebourne up on that wall… but Cann… He doesn’t like the Mages. He’s worked against them all his life…”
“Most Mage-claimed have no recollection of their claiming. That’s part of what makes them so dangerous. They’re undetectable unless you spin Azrahn to check them for Mage Marks.”
“Maybe, but could all of Kreppes have been claimed without detection? Over half the forces in the castle are Barrial men who’ve been stationed at Kreppes for years. Even if Cann is Mage-claimed, he couldn’t have overtaken all the troops in the castle without help.”
“Perhaps vel Serranis’s dahl’reisen friends haven’t been quite as observant as he thought,” Tajik suggested with an arched brow.
Gaelen cast a withering glance Tajik’s way but didn’t take the bait. “How many Eld did you and the tairen see on the ramparts?” he asked Rain. “It’s possible they came in through portals to the Well of Souls like they did at Teleon and Orest and overwhelmed the defenders.”
Rain reran the strafing runs in his mind’s eye. How many Eld had he seen? “I don’t know. It was dark. They were firing on us and the encampment.” His brows drew together. Come to think of it, he couldn’t recall seeing any Mage robes at all on the wall.
?Feyreisen! Come quickly.? A cry rang out across the new Warrior’s Path. ?Something is—? The call broke off abruptly.
Rain tried to trace the weave back to its sender, but the Spirit threads had already dissolved. “Who was that?” he asked. Gaelen and the others shook their heads. ?Fey!? he called. ?Report! Identify yourself? What’s happening??
A moment later, another call rang out, but it was a different voice this time. ?Fey! Ti’Commander Bonn! We’re under attack! It’s—?
The second call broke off as abruptly as the first.
“Where is Bonn?” Rain demanded.
“Here.” Bel pointed a finger and threads of Spirit illuminated a position deep in the heart of the allied encampment—well out of range of enemy fire. No attack on that particular location should have been possible without the enemy coming through the surrounding allies.
Unless the enemy had been among them all the time.
Sudden suspicion reared up. “Where are Sebourne’s men?”
Squads of Fey went in search of Sebourne’s men while Rain and several hundred Fey raced across the allied encampment to Commander Bonn’s position.
They arrived to find a full-fledged melee in progress.
Shouts of “Save the king!” and “For Celieria and King Dorian!” resounded as silver swords flashed in the moonlight.
?Fire masters!? Rain cried. ?Light the sky!?
Streamers of brightly burning magic shot into the air over the encampment, illuminating the battle below.
Shadowy figures struggling in the darkness became Celierians and Fey locked in mortal combat.
Rain had suspected he would find Sebourne’s men among the group, and he did.
But there were others, too—King’s army, Barrial men, even Fey, all slashing at each other with grim savagery.
Of the Eld, however, there was no sign.
Not a single sel’dor blade or arrow. Not a single Mage robe. Nothing.
“My Lord Feyreisen!” Surrounded by a cadre of armored soldiers, each with shields raised, Bonn was being driven back by a horde of attackers wearing Sebourne colors.
?Fey, form a line. Take out Sebourne’s men.
? Rain dove towards the beleaguered commander.
Fey’cha flew from his fingertips, spinning out in silvery blurs, thunking home with lethal accuracy in the throats of Sebourne’s men.
He spoke his return word to call his blades back to their sheaths and threw a second volley even before the first bodies hit the ground.
Reaching Bonn’s side, Rain dispatched another six attackers with red Fey’cha to their throats and spun a rapid fivefold weave to shield the Celierian commander.
“Commander Bonn, order your men to fall back behind the Fey. It will be easier for us to deal with this attack if they stand clear.”
“My men?” Bonn gave him a harried look. “Most of those are my men.”
“We were waiting for the Earth masters to finish the battering ram,” Bonn explained. “There was a commotion near the tents, and the next thing I knew my men started attacking each other.”
“Did you see anything else? A Mage perhaps?” Rain could detect no Azrahn, so if the Mages were controlling the allies, they’d either found a way to mask the signature of their weaves, or they were using some other method of control entirely.
Before Bonn could answer, an armored Celierian infantryman charged the Fey line. “For King Dorian and Celieria!” he cried as he attacked.
Seven Fey’cha hit him simultaneously, and he dropped like a stone at Commander Bonn’s feet. The commander stared at the fallen man in shocked dismay. “Avis? “
“You knew him?” Rain watched the commander’s face for any sign of deceit or treachery but saw only genuine shock and sorrow.
“He was my Sergeant at Arms. One of my most trusted men.” Bonn’s dark brows drew together. “There’s no way he could have been one of Sebourne’s plants.”
“Mage-claimed?”
“Impossible.” Bonn shook his head in bewilderment. “Vel Serranis checked all my men yesterday at my own request.”
Rain skimmed the minds of the combatants with the light Spirit weave Fey often used in melee combat to determine enemy from ally.
The only thoughts he could detect came from the allies and were predominately concerned with defending king and country and slaughtering the traitors wearing their own colors.
A number of the combatants kept wondering how friends they’d slept, eaten, trained, and worked beside could have turned on them with so little warning.
He tried a different, more probing weave with the same result. Rain could not tell friend from foe.
What the flaming Seven Hells was going on here?
?Bel.? Rain sent the call on gleaming lavender threads.
?Scan the area around me. Tell me if you can sense anything controlling these men.
? Apart from Rain himself, Bel was the strongest Spirit master of the Fey, and with the bond madness making Rain’s control of his magic increasingly unpredictable, it seemed only wise to get a second opinion.
If there were any subtle weaves controlling Bonn’s men, Bel would be able to detect them.
One of the Fey behind him gave a strangled gasp. Rain turned in time to see the flash of the red Fey’cha embedded in his throat wink out as its owner invoked his return weave. The dying Fey gazed at him in an instant of mute surprise, then crumpled to the ground.
Rain spun back around, searching the crowd, finding the soulless eyes, the vivid scar marring the perfection of what otherwise would be a shining Fey face.
?Dahl’reisen!? he cried. “Dahl’reisen are among the attackers! Fey! Fall back. Bonn, tell your men to get out of there now!”
“Dahl’reisen?” Tajik turned to Gaelen. “That’s three times now we’ve found your friends in league with the Eld.”
“Not every dahl’reisen joins the Brotherhood, nor does every one who joins stay,” Gaelen answered with a scowl. “Whoever these dahl’reisen are, I doubt they’re acting in the name of the Brotherhood.”
“You doubt?” Tajik pounced on the opening. “Which is another way of saying you hope it’s not them, but you aren’t really sure, isn’t it?”
“They are dahl’reisen, Tajik. The Dark Path’s call can be very strong.”
“Quiet!” Bel snapped. His eyes were hazy, his mind traveling on weaves of lavender light, probing the minds of the warriors engaged in the melee.
“Bel, something is wrong.” Ellysetta walked into the command tent. “No one from this new battle in the encampment is being brought to me. Surely there must be wounded? “
“There are wounded.” His eyes narrowed and began to glow as he sent his senses out, away from the protected healing enclave. “They do not come.”
“Why?”
“They don’t believe themselves badly injured. They are determined not to give up.” He blinked, and his eyes lost the soft haze of magic, becoming twin cobalt diamonds glittering beneath ebony brows. “All they’re thinking of is fighting, of dying, if necessary, to protect king and country.”
“Krekk,” Gaelen said.
“What is it?” Ellysetta asked.
“It’s a rare mortal who, when faced with his own death, thinks only of king and country. Mortals may believe in the Bright Lord and his promises of a next life, but every one of them I’ve ever fought beside has clung to this life with his last dying breath.”
“Are they Mage-claimed?”