Page 49 of Siege of Stone (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles 3)

Thorn, Genda, Ricia, and the other morazeth women fought in a cluster, selecting targets to strike and destroy. The ancient warriors were powerful, but their stony bodies made them sluggish, while the more nimble morazeth struck, retreated, and struck again, like angry vipers. The women ranged ahead, setting an example for all the arena warriors they had trained.

The morazeth were whirlwinds, and Lila glanced over her shoulder as she sprinted ahead. “Follow closely, boy! I’ll damage them, and you finish them off.”

“I’m trying.” Bannon swung the heavy club in his left hand, breaking the face of an ancient warrior. His sword arm already ached from hammering enemy soldiers, smashing their armor, damaging their skin.

Jed and Brock fought clumsily nearby, shoulder-to-shoulder. Their silk cloaks offered some protection as enemy soldiers pummeled them, but the bright colors made them targets. The two men battled defensively, not seeking targets, just trying to survive.

On the other hand, Timothy was exhilarated. The young yaxen herder had trained with a sword in practice sessions, but now seemed much happier with his club, which he swung with reckless glee. The enemy soldiers were startled to encounter such a wild fighter who also had a chalky, hard complexion like theirs.

Leading the more organized city guard, High Captain Stuart bellowed orders. One of his guards blew a golden horn, rallying the uniformed soldiers into a singular attack against the forward contingent of the enemy. The crash of the Ildakaran guard against ancient soldiers resounded like a thunderclap.

In the loud, violent frenzy, Bannon couldn’t keep up with Lila and the morazeth. He spent all his time defending himself against oncoming warriors, thousands of them. His sword cut into the breastplate of a bearded soldier, but that did not deflect the enemy’s charge. As the bearded opponent swung his scimitar for a killing blow, young Timothy sprang in and hammered the man on the back of the helmet. The enemy soldier grunted and crashed to his knees. Timothy made a “be my guest” gesture to Bannon, who swung his sword to chop the soldier’s neck.

The fighting grew more frenetic on the battlefield, the sounds deafening. Riding ahead on horseback, Nicci and the wizards of Ildakar unleashed magic in volleys of rock-hard wind and slashes of lightning. In a different part of the battle, Nathan and Elsa hurled fireballs, intentionally setting the dry, grassy hills ablaze with strategic fires.

Then Bannon saw a tan blur out of the corner of his eye as Mrra darted in. The powerful sand panther crashed into an ancient warrior, mauled his hardened skin, then sprang away to attack another, dodging blows from enemy swords. Mrra raked the prey with her claws, tearing their armor and doing some damage to their hardened skin. Her golden feline eyes met Bannon’s for an instant, and then she streaked off.

Jed and Brock fought back-to-back, their faces tense and terrified.

Timothy ran in, challenging two large warriors. Foolishly thinking himself invincible, he struck right and left with his iron clubs until the two hardened soldiers turned on him. They swung their heavy swords and sent Timothy reeling. The cocky grin on his face faltered.

“Watch out!” Bannon yelled. “Get away from them.”

Instead, Timothy swung his clubs even harder. “For Ildakar!” He smashed the arm of one of his opponents. The other soldier struck the yaxen herder from the side, spinning him around. Because his half-petrified skin made him resistant to the damage, Timothy recovered, but his enemies had the same protection. From behind him, a third warrior struck the boy hard with the flat of his blade, stunning him.

Bannon fought an enemy of his own. Slashing and pounding, he tried to dispatch the man quickly so he could help the young scamp, but his opponent was more skilled than he expected. Bannon needed all of his concentration just to stay alive.

Timothy flailed his clubs and kept the three enemies at bay for a moment, until a fourth soldier joined them. They all pressed around the boy, raising swords and clubs. One carried a massive mace. In a concerted, horrifying effort they pummeled Timothy, and his defenses faltered. A heavy blow from the mace shattered his arm. Even though it was half stone, the bone broke, as did the skin.

The ancient soldiers took turns: one hammered Timothy, then stepped back while a second dealt another blow, and a third drove him to the ground. The yaxen herder was broken, his shoulder smashed, red and white, like a bleeding statue. He sobbed, “For Ildakar!”

Bannon finally killed his enemy. His lungs burned and his arms trembled from the effort, but he lurched after the trapped boy. “Timothy!”

On his knees, the young yaxen herder could no longer hold his clubs. The four enemies kept hammering their victim into the bloody mud of the battleground.

Bannon arrived too late. More burly soldiers trapped him. In desperation, he looked ahead and saw that Lila and the other morazeth had pulled out of reach, fighting wildly and slaying countless opponents. He shouted for Lila, but the clamor drowned out his words.

Jed and Brock were also surrounded, fighting for their lives. As clashes continued around them, hundreds of one-on-one duels, he saw that many enemy warriors had fallen, but it seemed that half of the Ildakarans lay dead as well.

General Utros had roused his army, responding with a vicious counteroffensive. Thousands of reinforcements came from the other side of the valley. The Ildakaran attackers were driven back as the enemy numbers flooded in.

Bannon backed closer to Jed and Brock, forced to fight alongside them. He feared they didn’t stand a chance. He pushed away the ache and exhaustion and understood that this would be his last fight.

Remembering Timothy’s defiance in the face of despair, Bannon yelled, “For Ildakar!” He looked at Jed and Brock. They were sweating, terrified, flailing their iron-tipped clubs—the same weapons they had used to bash motionless statues as a prank. The two young men didn’t echo his battle cry.

Feeling his blood boil with the battle rage that sometimes came upon him, Bannon prepared to fight to the last. He yelled again, this time without words as the enemy warriors closed in, and he lost himself in the combat.

CHAPTER 37

The grass fires set by Nathan and Elsa burned out of control. As Nicci attacked with her own lightning and aggressive storm winds, she watched the flames leap from the tall grasses to gnarled live oaks in the hills. The burn line hooked down toward the rear of General Utros’s camp, spreading faster than any man could run. The reawakened army had a few hundred tents scattered among the dispersed companies of soldiers. Nicci watched the brush fire catch on the tents, setting them ablaze.

The legendary general emerged from his headquarters, bellowing orders as the grass fires spread and became a greater threat than the Ildakaran attack. He commanded thousands of his soldiers to fight the blaze, which threatened to engulf the entire valley. The ancient army had plenty of men to spare, though, so the firefighting efforts didn’t ease the pressure on the Ildakaran defenders.

Nicci, feeling drained after drawing on so much of her magic, nevertheless summoned another wall of lightning. The jagged bolts blasted the ground, hurling several hundred enemy warriors away, trapping them between the fire line and the lightning. Most of the hardened soldiers chose to face the blazing grass, staggering about with their armor and bodies smoking.

Nicci unleashed more lightning. She could see that the Ildakaran army was indeed having a destructive effect on the segment of the camp they had targeted. The duma members reveled in the mayhem, but for her it was a bittersweet victory. She knew Utros could recover from whatever damage the Ildakarans did here tonight.

The city guard and arena warriors, who fought with conventional weapons, were being slaughtered by the hundreds. Utros’s army could lose fighters all day and suffer no great harm, but these initial Ildakar forces had only a few thousand in the first place.

Nicci’s bay charger whinnied, unnerved by the carnage and noise, but she gripped the reins to steady her mount. Riding next to her, Oron lifted his chin in a haughty gesture. “How much longer can we sustain

this attack? Our people are dying everywhere.”

Nicci conjured a whirlwind that spun like a rampaging monster, ripping up ranks of enemy soldiers before she grew too exhausted to sustain it. “I think we’ve made our point.”

Following her example, Oron called a storm, icy wind and rain that tumbled across the vast camp. Nearby, Quentin and Damon conjured similar storms, disrupting the forward charge of five hundred enemy warriors. Olgya sparked fire and drew strands of lightning through the air.

The sortie had gone on for nearly two hours, and General Utros and his soldiers had begun to form a full-fledged defense. Massive reinforcements were coming in from outside the targeted ranks. The duma’s surprise attack had concentrated on the northern end of the valley, but after the calls to arms, the bulk of General Utros’s army was converging on the main fight. Ildakar’s defenders would have to withdraw soon, or they would be overwhelmed.

Also hardened with lingering stone, the sorceress Lani strode into the fray. She wore no armor, just her pale blue robes. The enemy soldiers recognized her as a powerful, gifted opponent, and four of them ran toward her, shouting, their curved swords raised. Lani paid them no heed as she prepared her own attack. Nicci destroyed a group of the oncoming warriors with a blast of lightning to give Lani more time, and the other sorceress didn’t even flinch. Instead, she knelt on the ground, alone, and raised both pale, hard fists. Chanting unintelligible words, she brought her fists down like a blacksmith hammering an anvil.

Bright light splashed around her hands, dazzling Nicci, and the resounding impact sent a shock wave through the ground. The battlefield lurched like a bucking horse. Lani remained on her knees at the center point of her quake, while charging troops were flung to the ground all around her. A jagged fissure split the earth, tearing the ground apart.

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