The sword stroke did no real harm, rebounding from the ridges of his helmet, though it drew a crimson line across the bridge of his nose-but it did serve to make him jerk his head sluggishly back from the blow. Far more dangerous was the suddenly altered path of his enormous axe. It swept down and around, into the thigh of the Knight beside him, and the fury-assisted blow sheared completely through the luckless Knight's armored thigh.
Both men fell, hampering those on either side of them, and it gave Amara a single, flickering instant of opportunity. She drew a dangerous portion of her fury's essence within herself-far more than she ever had before, far too much-until that instant expanded into a nearly motionless lifetime.
She lunged forward, moving with a speed no body in Alera was designed to bear, and she felt muscles and joints scream in protest and tear like wet paper as she did. She had an age to experience the pain, an eon to aim her thrust, an eternity to focus all of her body's weight and strength and speed upon the gleaming, needle-sharp tip of her gladius.
The Knight Ignus saw her coming, and his eyes widened as slowly as ice forming on a winter pond. He tried to draw aside from the oncoming blade, but he did not have the time she did. His head moved a fraction of an inch, no more.
Then her sword's point sank into his desperately widened eye, and the length of its blade followed in slow, dreamlike motion-all the way to the weapon's hilt. The man's head snapped languidly back, and droplets of blood spewed forth in a misty cloud.
Amara felt an explosion of fire in her hand, her wrist, her elbow, her shoulder. Her bond with Cirrus faltered, and everything rushed into a single blurring motion.
Though she could not hear it, she felt her throat go raw with screaming.
Pain and terror wiped the world away.
Amara awoke to find herself dizzily content to remain absolutely still. It took her a mildly astonished moment to notice that she was still moving. Her hair hung about her face-crusted with mud and blood and the filth of their swampy journey. It smelled like rotting vegetables.
Beyond her hair, her hands dangled limply. Her right hand, from wrist to fingertips, was swollen up like a collection of sausages knotted together into a rough doll. The skin was deep purple, one solid, livid bruise that covered it all equally-or so she supposed. It was difficult to be certain because of the mud and blood and flecks of something grey and gelatinous still clinging to her skin.
She was fairly sure something like that ought to hurt. It didn't. She attempted to wiggle the purpled fingers and found them entirely unresponsive. She felt sure that was not an encouraging sign, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember why.
Past her fingertips was stony ground, moving steadily by. Something was pressing up hard against her stomach in steady rhythm. Bernard, she thought. His shoulder. She was draped over Bernard's shoulder. Yes, she could see his swamp-ruined boots, down by the ground.
"Hurry," snapped the First Lord. He sounded steady, confident. That was good. It had almost been more than Amara could stand to see Gaius, who had always been so dynamic, so vital, reduced to a fevered wreck on an improvised litter. He must have watercrafted himself better, lying still on the litter, while Brencis had examined her and Bernard.
It occurred to her that she did not know if even the First Lord's skills could have wholly restored himself so swiftly. She felt a vague sense of worry, that the old man had simply shored up his condition as best he could, then opted to block out the pain of it with his metalcrafting, proceeding as if nothing was wrong. If he was, in fact, operating on the borrowed time given him by a crafted insensitivity to pain, then he was in danger-and that bothered Amara enough to make her move her head and stir her weary limbs in a faint effort to attract someone's attention.
"She's waking up," Bernard said, his tone urgent.
"We're almost there," Gaius said. "Once we've crested this rise, I'll be able to see the mountain Kalarus has prepared, and-" The First Lord drew in a sharp breath. "Knights Aeris are coming, Count. Quite a few of them. We have only moments. I should think we would both appreciate it if some of your salt arrows are ready."
Then there was much huffing and puffing and scrabbling of boots over stone. Amara gave up on her efforts to move and drifted through a haze for a while. She wasn't sure how long it took for things to change, but it didn't seem like a very long time until Bernard slowed, then set her carefully on the ground.
He dropped to one knee beside her, breathing hard, his face set in an expression of pain. He drew the arrows from his quiver and began thrusting their tips into the earth. Then he muttered and laid his hand upon the ground among them.
"Bernard," Amara said. It barely came out, but her husband turned to her immediately.
"Love," he said quietly. "You mustn't move. You've been badly hurt."
"I'm tired," she replied. "But it doesn't hurt."
"Sire," Bernard said, his voice hard. "She's awake. Shivering. I think she's going into shock."
Amara looked to one side, where the First Lord stood staring down, and for the first time she noticed that they were high upon the shoulders of the mountain and that they could see clearly into the vast bowl below them.
There, miles away, twinkled the lights of the city of Kalare, a luminous emerald jewel in the darkness. The smaller clusters of other lights showed where several smaller towns lay in the region around the city, and small, single pinpoints of light showed where dozens of individual steadholts lay. The moonlight shone off the shallow-water fields of barleyrice, turning them into mirrors that were acres across.
Amara had been to Kalare. It was an ugly city, run-down, deprived of any apparent virtue, where the only thing in greater abundance than slavery was misery. After two years of war and economic isolation, it was bound to be even worse, dirtier, poorer, cruder, and more disease-ridden. But from up there on the mountain, from far away, when only the characteristic greenish furylamps of the city were visible, Kalare and its flock of child-cities possessed an eerie and fragile beauty.
"Sire!" Bernard barked. He began jerking arrows from the ground, their heads now encased in translucent crystal. "She needs your help."
Gaius stood facing a mountain on the far side of the valley, and Amara realized that she shouldn't have been able to see the mountain from here, or at least not in the dark. But she could, see it, a vast black cone backlit by dim red light at its crown.
Bernard nocked an arrow and rose to his feet. "Sire!"
"In a moment, Count," Gaius murmured. "There are other matters that-"