Masters of Magic by Chris Wraight

Author:Chris Wraight
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2008-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The afternoon sun was low in the sky when the men finally stopped marching. Their legs were aching and their throats were parched. Lothar was weary to his bones. His efforts in summoning the ward had drained him even before the forced retreat from their pursuers. Thankfully, the race had not lasted long. The destruction of Grauenburg had broken the cohesion of the horde, and their half-hearted attempts to catch up with them had soon fizzled out. Karsten had driven them hard nonetheless, pushing his diminished and exhausted band until they had cleared the thick woodland and passed on to a ridge of high, rocky ground. Some of his men, scattered in the flight from the castle, had found them, but many others were still missing, perhaps slow to escape the orcs, or simply lost in the maze of hill country around them.

Lothar sat heavily, throwing his staff onto the ground beside him, grateful for the break in the endless marching. Marius sat down next to him. The Amber wizard scrabbled around for a filthy-looking gourd, half-full with something that might once have been water. He took a swig before offering it to Lothar. Despite his raging thirst, he declined. There was bound to be a stream or river soon. In any case, it was food he needed most. There had been precious little of it since the days of waiting at Grauenburg and he was beginning to feel his stomach ache with emptiness.

‘That was a powerful spell you used,’ Marius said, gruffly but sincerely. ‘We’d have struggled to get here without it.’

Lothar nodded weakly. He was too tired to take much pleasure in the escape.

‘It ought to have been, I’m suffering enough for it,’ he said, smiling grimly, feeling a fresh swell of nausea pass through his exhausted body. He waited for it to pass.

Karsten came over to join them.

‘So, castellan,’ said Marius, ‘what’s your next move? You’ve given them something to think about, but once they’ve got over their shock, they’ll come again.’

‘Aye, that they will,’ Karsten said, the fatigue evident in his voice, ‘but it was worth doing. There must have been hundreds of orcs in the castle by the time the blackpowder was set off. Even if some of them got out, that’s a lot of soldiers to lose. We may even have got the big one.’

Lothar shook his head.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Ever since Helmgart, I’ve felt as if I’ve got some kind of link with the monster. I think I’d know if it had died. Don’t ask me how, I just do.’

Marius raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Karsten shrugged.

‘Perhaps it would be too much to ask. Nevertheless, the shaman seems at least to have learned to stay away from the forefront of the attack. That may be something worth knowing.’

Marius sighed, and stretched his long legs out on the grassy surface of the ridge. They were facing south. In the gathering dusk, it was hard to make out much movement in the valley.

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