Instead, their approach was signalled by the drum of hooves and the weirdly musical jangle of massed armoured riders on the move. Vaelin saw Ahm Lin straighten as the noise abated, his head snapping to the west.
“What is it?” Vaelin asked.
“The song is loudest there.” Ahm Lin pointed in the direction of the west-facing gate. His features bunched as if in pain and he added in a hiss, “There’s a truly ugly note to it, brother.”
“Stay here,” Vaelin told him. “Guard him well,” he added to Alum before sending one of the Skulls running to fetch Juhkar, Nortah and Ellese. He ordered the rest to follow as he made for the west gate. This section of wall was held by regular troops from the city’s garrison, all hard-faced men with more than one battle in their past. He found Commander Deshai atop the small diamond-shaped bastion that housed the gate, sword already drawn as he peered at a row of flickering lights a few hundred paces from the wall.
“Torches?” Vaelin asked, coming to Deshai’s side.
“Looks like it.” The stocky commander rubbed his broad chin in consternation as more torches blazed to life until at least a hundred bobbed in the gloom. “Can’t see the purpose to it. Stone won’t burn and the gate is made of iron.”
A series of shouts sounded along the wall as the bobbing torches seemed to blaze brighter in unison, each one growing into a large fireball. As the glow increased, Vaelin was able to make out the sight of large bundles of what looked like entangled gorse or sapling branches, each one bursting into flame at the touch of a torch. The lighted bundles glowed brightly for only a second or two before becoming dimmed by a thick pall of smoke. It swirled and eddied in a dense mass, its apparent immunity to the prevailing northerly wind convincing Vaelin that what he witnessed was far from natural. Some unseen hand had command of this miasma.
“Well, that complicates things,” Nortah observed, coming to a halt at Vaelin’s side, Ellese and Juhkar close behind.
“Can you sense them?” Vaelin asked the tracker.
“They’re close,” he confirmed, grimacing in frustration as he viewed the thickening smoke. “But not close enough.”
More shouts rippled along the battlements as the smoke seemed to convulse, throbbing and expanding as if possessed of life. It grew paler as it spread, coalescing into vague, ghostlike shapes that began to drift towards the walls. The smoke gathered pace as it drew nearer, the shapes within it taking on clearer form, seeming to lope across the plain with swift, predatory energy. The shouts rose in volume, taking on a panicked edge that was only partially quelled by Deshai’s barked orders commanding silence. The commander himself seemed only slightly less alarmed than his men, wide-eyed horror creeping over his face as he gaped at the fast-approaching host, a single word slipping from his lips in a fear-laden whisper: “Harbingers.”
They were fully formed now, snarling as they sped towards the wall, each one the size of a horse, striped in black with eyes that glowed like silver orbs. “These are not the Harbingers of Heaven!” Vaelin called out as fresh panic swept through the ranks. “They are illusions! They cannot harm you!”
Such reassurance, however, found no purchase on the soldiers as the oncoming monstrosities reached the base of the wall, sweeping up and onto the battlement with hardly a pause. Shouts became screams as men reeled back from the slashing, snapping phantoms, well-ordered companies dissolving into chaos in the space of a few seconds.
“Stand where you are!” Vaelin barked at the Skulls, seeing them begin to waver, the first rank starting to edge back from the wall. “Smoke cannot pierce armour!”
Vaelin turned back to the wall to face a tiger as it clambered into view. “Watch!” he ordered, rushing forward to meet it. The tiger whirled towards him as he closed, mouth gaping in a roar that emerged as a howling gust of choking smoke. The sight of the cat’s seemingly solid fangs and scythe-like claws birthed a momentary doubt regarding its harmlessness, but it was too late to avoid the collision. Vaelin found himself enveloped by the smoke, the tiger’s blows like hard gusts against his armour, but inflicting no wounds. It dissipated as he wafted his sword about, leaving him coughing in the fading tendrils.
“You see?” he called to the Skulls, all staring in blank amazement. “These are phantoms. No more than mummery—”