trees and across the courtyard. The fighting changed in tone. Voices lost their authority, blades fell with less power.
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Fight. Now you’ve got to fight!’
He began to run forward again but his men were wavering. The Protectors would slaughter them. But they weren’t moving, satisfied to stand by and watch. And the reason became all too clear.
Above the level of tree and building rose a globe of fire, tinged deep Xeteskian blue and ringed by sparks and sheets of what looked like lightning but Senese knew was unstable mana.
‘Oh dear Gods,’ said Senese, staring up as the globe rose smoothly, its radiance glaring harsh, its size, bigger than a ship, awesome and stupefying. His men were starting to break. ‘Stay under the shielding. It’s your only chance!’
But while the Xeteskians stood and watched, the Dordovans scattered beneath the globe and the stillness that accompanied it.
‘Stand firm!’ screamed Senese, but they weren’t listening to him.
Weapons fell from nerveless hands, brave men stumbled and sprawled, legs pumping as they tried to flee, not heeding the most obvious fact. There was nowhere to run. Hinar came to his side.
‘Where are the mages?’ he shouted into the pounding of feet and cries of fear.
‘Trying to shield us. Pray Gods they can make it stick.’
Hinar nodded as the two men backed away, watching the globe gathering speed and, impossibly, size as it rushed over the heads of the Xeteskians.
‘Come on, Indesi,’ breathed Senese. ‘Come on.’
The globe struck the Dordovan outer shield. Mana flared and spat, the globe flattened over the curved surface, bulged down over them. Senese felt a sudden intense heat as the shield gave way.
He put his hands above him and crouched reflexively but the globe didn’t travel far, striking the second skin, but hard. The temperature was like the inside of an oven, the blazing heat of the Southern Continent desert and increasing. From the command post, Senese could hear screaming and voices urging effort.
‘They aren’t going to do it,’ said Senese, breaking at last. ‘Run.’ The two men turned, but at the same moment the second shield collapsed, the great globe crashing down into the courtyard. Senese was blown from his feet by the rush of displaced air and connected hard with the wall of a building. It jarred his back and he crumpled into a half seated position, winded and groggy. He focussed his eyes as the globe struck the ground.
Fire washed across the cobblestones, surging up the sides of buildings and blasting through windows and weakened timbers. Across the courtyard, a damaged tenement shattered under the blast, the rending of wood and squealing of nails torn from stays lost in the roar of flame. Everywhere, men, helpless under the spell, were rolled over or plucked from the ground, clothing and flesh charred in a heartbeat.
The heat in the courtyard intensified still further. Sword metal glowed red, stones blackened, timber disintegrated, glass dissolved. Roof tiles flew high into the sky as the globe breached another building, tearing it apart. A great pall of smoke billowed in the superheated wind, which took the screams of the dying and whipped them away like chaff in a breeze. A burning corpse struck the wall by Senese and broke apart, gaping skull pleading.
Indesi had been right; this was no ordinary FlameOrb construct. There was too much heat, too much energy. It consumed everything in its path, scoured the ground clean as would the fires of hell.
And as the heat lashed the moisture from his body Senese’s last view was of the Xeteskians, standing and waiting, their fire breaking over their mana shields which glowed blue and dissipated its power.
‘What have you done?’ he rasped.
The flame wall rolled over him like an angry sea.
Chapter 15
It was night. Yron was standing alone in the centre of the stone apron outside the ring of guard fires. Behind him, his men either stood nervous guard or tried to rest as best they could in the increasing humidity and heat that had penetrated the temple in the last few days. Presumably, the atmosphere had been spoiled by the removal of the doors but Yron thought there was probably more to it than that. It was like the ambience in the rainforest; he couldn’t put his finger on it but he knew all was not well.
He had come beyond the guard fires to listen and to think. Out in the forest the sounds of the night echoed around him; the growl of big cats, the calls of monkeys