Disciple of War Disciple of War (Art of the Adept #4) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,93

a lot of white and the man had a wildness in his expression.

“I believe so,” said Will. “What’s the rest of the column look like?”

“There were more explosions like this one, spaced out along the road. I can see three from here, but they may go all the way to the end for all we know.”

“Get a messenger on a horse and send them ahead. We need to know!” barked Will, but then another thought came to him. He glanced at Laina, then back to the sub-marshal. “Find someone to watch over her. She’s healing, but she probably won’t wake up for hours.” Then he put together the spell construct for his elemental travel-disk and pushed some turyn into it. He felt even less drain on his turyn than usual, and it was then that he noticed his breastplate shifting colors. A moment before, it had been a shimmering black, on the verge of bursting into ebon flames, but now it faded to a more sedate shadowy matte hue. It must be easier to replace my turyn when I have a concentrated source close to me, he mused.

Pushing that thought aside, he stepped onto the travel-disk and shot away, speeding downhill over the heads of his still recovering soldiers. It was quickly apparent that Gregory had been right, there were small craters spaced every fifty yards or so along the road. Those who had been directly over one of the explosions suffered badly, while those at moderate distances had merely been stunned and bewildered.

Several hundred yards down the road, he found the source of the continued rumbling. A landslide had indeed been started, whether deliberately or as a result of the explosions on the road he couldn’t say. It had swept down along more than a hundred yards of the road on the right-hand side, and it probably would have swept a sizeable portion of First Division away but for the force-walls holding it at bay. Will felt a sense of pride and satisfaction seeing his students perform so well, but he had no time to indulge himself in his feelings.

A few of the sorcerers had been killed by the explosions, and in a couple of places the rockslide had been allowed to sweep through, killing those unlucky enough to be caught in it. The rock and earth was settling against the force-walls, and while it had lost its momentum releasing the spells would still result in some trouble depending on how much earth and stone had piled up against them. Will noticed one sorcerer from the left-hand side using his earth elemental to fuse and stabilize the broken detritus so his fellow sorcerer could release his spell.

It was an excellent idea, and one that needed to be shared. “Those who are free, if you have an earth elemental, help stabilize things so the others can release their force-walls,” he bellowed, amplifying his voice. The temperature dropped, and a chilly wind followed in the wake of his announcement. Coincidence? Or a side effect of my sound manipulation? Every day he had more questions.

Seeing that the situation was improving, Will continued on, until he reached the head of the column. A large crater there indicated an even larger explosion, and he saw bodies and horses scattered around it like broken dolls. From above it looked surreal, but he knew he wasn’t dreaming.

Scanning the area with his eyes, he saw no sign of enemy forces, so he descended and found Janice in the midst of the carnage, alive and unhurt. She was already organizing the other survivors, but there was obvious relief in her eyes when she saw him descend. “How bad is it further along?” she asked as soon as he was within earshot.

“Not as bad as this, but similar, every fifty yards, all the way back to the beginning of the narrow section,” he replied. “Were you farther back when it went off?” he asked.

She shook her head. “There was a man in the road. I rode forward with two squads. It seemed like he wanted to parley.” She paused and Will could see survivor’s guilt written on her face as she looked over at the bodies around the crater. “When we were almost to him, he pulled out a sheet of parchment and I saw the runes glowing on it. I didn’t have time to think. I put a force-dome around myself, but everyone else…” Her voice tapered off.

“You did the only thing you could,” he told her, knowing