Crown of Crystal Flame
Page 35

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!”