The wagon bounced across a rut in the ground. Above there was a shifting of feet and the multiple impact of weapons. Bodies hit the ground, death cries fading to nothing.
'You know, you might be right but I think there's more to it,' said Denser. 'The One is Erienne's only link to Lyanna. When she lets it thrive it's like life.'
Thraun shrugged. 'Yes. It is why I have to live part of my life with the pack. It is a link to something I cannot deny.'
'Do you remember any of the years you spent as a wolf after the Noonshade rip?'
Thraun's face darkened. 'No. It is at best like scent on the breeze. Fleeting reminiscence, soon dispersed. I'd rather it was that way.'
Erienne shifted in her sleep and Denser caressed her brow. 'It's all right, love. You're safe.'
Denser hated himself for saying it but it was the only way he could feel any worth at all. He glanced up at Thraun but the shapechanger wasn't looking at them. He was sniffing the air, sword clutched in his hands and his muscles tensed.
'Thraun?'
The shapechanger's eyes glinted yellow in the swimming lights reflected from the demons' bodies as they flew outside. 'Threat,' he said.
He stepped over Erienne and Denser and stood at the covered rear of the wagon, silent and unmoving. Denser could see him balancing with the shifts of the axles and could hear The Unknown shouting instructions from where he was riding with Darrick at the front.
There was an impact on the wagon's tail board. Thraun stiffened, crouched very slightly. The canvas rippled. Thraun's right hand shot out through die opening and dragged a reaver in by the throat. He held it down by his knee and growled, sword cocked and ready.
The demon screwed its head round, its body flaring yellow, bathing die wagon with an alien light. Both Hirad and Erienne moaned. There was a concerted movement towards the front of the carriage.
'Shapechanger,' grated the demon, voice strangled through Thraun's grip.
'And the reason you will never take what you want so badly,' he replied.
He jerked the creature further into the wagon. It spat and struggled, wings beating against the canvas, arms clutching Thraun's wrist. Thraun merely tightened his grip.
'Look,' he said. 'Look at what you are so close to but can never touch.'
His sword drove through the demon's chest. Within the Cold-Room shell, there was no defence against that. The creature convulsed and died. Gore drained onto the floor timbers. Thraun flung the body from the wagon and thrust his head out into the open air.
'Any more of you come right in.'
Denser had never seen him this animated. The big warrior withdrew and retook his seat.
'Glad you're on my side,' said Denser.
'Always,' said Thraun.
'What's got into you?'
Thraun's eyes bored into his. T have watched her these years, only leaving her side when I thought her to be safe. I have seen her grow in strength even as her heart broke. She can save us all. It is best that they know it.' He gestured outside.
'You're baiting a trap,' said Denser.
'And The Raven are its jaws.'
Hiela was unused to resistance. But the incompetence of the aggressor strains over an insultingly long time had forced his early appearance in Balaia. It had not been in his plans for this time. The orderly transfer of mana energy from their home of the last generations needed careful marshalling and he was particularly schooled in the linkage between their land and Balaia.
Hiela, of course, was the designated Shroud Master. He had overseen the capture of so many souls from the Balaian mages when their petty squabbles had forced them to come to him for protection. He understood how they thought. How anything was better than that which they had just faced.
He still remembered how the Julatsans had capped and dismissed the shroud around their college almost at the moment he had forced a breach that would have made all that had happened since an irrelevance. Balaia had been so weak at the time. One rabble had been fighting the other and breaking the spirit of the whole. How easy it would have been to invade at that moment.
But dragons had become embroiled in the dispute. And so had this group of humans and elves that so went against all their teaching about the weakness of the spirit of those from Balaia's northern continent. This Raven. To find they were still a thorn in the side <>l conquest and dominion had hastened his departure.
And so, rather than sit basking in the warmth of the mana flow and see to the needs of the masters who maintained the gap and focused the stream, he was here. In the heat of the Balaian dimension. Smelling their foul air and hearing the pathetic excuses as to why the land they had identified was not yet sanctified for habitation. Why so many humans, elves and damned Wesmen ran free to cause them trouble rather than build, breed and die at their pleasure.
Hiela hovered outside the walls of the city known as Xetesk. He was aware of the activity within its boundaries. Of the lift the withdrawal of forces from its people had given them. It bothered him very little. He had overflown the city before agreeing to the order to defend the borders and had found them broken. Even those still nominally at liberty within their spells were cracked and their wills close to collapse. He could hasten that inevitability by the destruction of those who came to their aid. Hence the arrangement of his forces as a welcome. Latterly, though, this tactic had been somewhat complicated.
'They are within, you are sure?' he demanded.
'Yes, Master Hiela,' said the messenger. 'All of them.'
T see.'
He turned to his advisers. Incompetents all but with more knowledge of the developing situation at present.
'Tell me, any of you, why this force should be so keen on driving to the heart of a college which we have so effectively sealed from the outside?'
Hiela regarded them, waiting for one to speak. He scratched at the beard he still preferred to sport. It was a legacy of his grudging respect of the Julatsan mages of old. Men and elves of some strength and spirit. Those who would have been a challenge to break.
'It is their way,' said one. 'They group together for strength in times of duress, believing their best hope for survival lies in their numbers.'
'Hmm.' Hiela nodded. 'But there is more, isn't there? The Raven are with them now. These are not men who come merely to extend their lifespans. These are men who expect victory and travel only to the places where they believe that chance exists.'
Silence.
'Idiots. Isn't that why you crave their souls? Isn't that why they fascinate you yet more than a mage or an elf? Within diem is that life force that is so exquisite it burns us not to be able to touch it. Do you believe such as these would join a hopeless defence?'
'But even for them there is nothing to be done,' said another. 'We will prevail. It is a question of time.'
'Even at the time of our burgeoning strength there lies risk,' said Hiela, letting his colour drift to a brighter blue. 'You swallow too much of what you are told by the masters. They have not dealt with these people before. I have. And this is not a futile gesture. There will be a purpose.'
'But surely there is only one . . .'
Hiela snapped around in his position, floating in their midst, to stare hard at the long-fingered cerebral that had uttered the words. He let the import sink in.
'Yes,' he said. 'And can you think of another reason why the Julatsans would leave their college - the one place where we had doubts about our ability to dominate - and travel to the heart of dimensional research and understanding of our race? And why do the Wesmen still watch? Why are they so close?'
There was a wind blowing across the open lands. It brought a welcome chill though the assembled company barely acknowledged
it. Hiela turned a slow rotation in the air, making sure they all heard him.
'Out there, travelling towards us, are those who are capable of beating us, should they receive the help they need. We can suppose that this is why they are travelling to Xetesk. And you can suppose this is why we are ranged here. Because they shall not make the walls of the college. And they shall not ask for what they need, let alone find it.