Fionn gritted his teeth. Bearach, as you sure you don’t want me to tell her?
No! roared the knight. Not when there is so much at stake right now. If we live to see the dawn, perhaps. But not now. Please.
“Of course,” said Fionn out loud, responding to both of the Carríga siblings at once. “Has Argyll spoken to the healers regarding Cathal’s treatment yet?”
“No,” said Aislinn. “Though I agree that my brother’s fate can wait. We need to focus on defending the city first.”
“Aye,” said Commander Plackart. “And the Silverback used that as an excuse to leave us in the dark for his plans, too.”
“What do you mean?” asked Fionn.
“Look down over the wall. Tell me what you see.”
Fionn tentatively stepped towards the edge of the gate and peered down at the empty valley below. There wasn’t much to see apart from the plain, dusty floor. But there, sitting right against the wall, were three strange azure shapes. Fionn squinted through the falling darkness, and made out their vague impressions, like huge suits of armour. Though instead of carrying weapons, the ends of their left arms formed pointed ends like lances. Their right arms, however, lacked anything resembling a weapon, and instead bore great holes where their hands should be.
Fionn tore his eyes away from the statues and faced Commander Packard. The Simian shrugged his shoulders in response.
“The Silverback tells me nothing,” he said, as if the name itself was a curse. “He told me not to worry about them, and to stick to the plan. But something about them makes the hair on my brow stand on end.”
“Me too,” muttered Fionn, stealing one last glance down the valley. “Me too.”
***
As darkness descended on the city, the troops at the Gold Gate frantically made their final preparations. From atop the battlements, Fionn watched as colonels and captains hurried up and down the ranks below, shouting orders and running drills with their men.
Soldiers and couriers ran along the wall, bringing supplies and orders from the other gates in the city. From what Fionn could make out, there was still no sign of the horde yet. Every now and then, a Simian scout mounted upon a massive, armoured elk would arrive at the wall, deliver a message, and gallop away into the night.
“Firemaster,” called a gruff voice, pulling Fionn’s attention away from the troops on the ground. “A word, if you please.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fionn, bowing to Commander Plackart, though the young mage wasn’t quite sure who should be bowing to whom.
“Tell me about your magic. Its limits, its uses, its weaknesses in battle.”
Fionn hesitated, as the hundreds of dusty texts he had studied on Pyromancy back with Firemaster Conleth resurfaced in his memory. Complex calculations and equations on heat transfer across metal, through air, through flesh….
“I don’t know where to start,” said Fionn. “Is there anything in particular you’d like me to discuss?”
“Tell me about its range,” said the commander immediately.
“Well,” began Fionn, “the concentration of the heat dissipates with distance, but it can reach the same distance as a bolt fired from a crossbow, though with not quite the same power.”
“What about energy? Will you be able to keep your magic up for the full battle?”
“Like the other schools of magic,” Fionn recited, “Pyromancy uses the soul as its fuel source. I would need to rest after using a significant amount, but I have learned that I have more endurance than others.”
One more soul than most others, more like, said Sir Bearach.
The commander didn’t reply immediately but stared down at Fionn with his single eye. “I ask that you remain on the wall for the duration of the fighting,” he said, eventually. “Given the range of your spells, you’ll be just as effective up here as you are down there. Lacking close combat experience and armour, you’d be quite vulnerable in the fray. Accommodations can be made for the latter, but I believe you’ll be more valuable up here, with respect to morale.”
“Sure,” said Fionn, trying to hide his relief. “I’ll keep away from the fighting, if that’s what’s best.”
The commander bowed curtly and left, weaving past a group of marksmen stationed on top of the wall and toward the stairs leading to the ground below.
“You seem glad,” came a voice from behind Fionn. He turned to see Aislinn, fully clad in armour, but with her helm held under a thickly plated arm. “Most lads your age would kill to be on the frontline.”
He nodded towards the ranks of soldiers below. “Most lads my age are fools. With so much death in the world these days, why are so many more willing to die?”
Aislinn sighed deeply. “My father believed it was part of Human nature,” she said, lowering her gaze to the ground. “Humans conquered Alabach through force, and the sacrifice of their soldiers has paved the way for the peace our kingdom saw for the following four hundred years. But peace comes with a price. Many of the smallfolk live and die achieving next to nothing in their lives. Feeding one’s family may be a man’s only purpose, just so his sons and daughters can grow up to do the same. But if some earl or captain calls to your village, hands you a weapon, and tells you that for the first time in your family’s history you can be part of something larger, what choice would you make?”
Fionn recalled the face of Cormac from amongst the ranks. He seemed so happy to be there, even awaiting certain death. Given his background, it was possible too that he lived a life not unlike what Aislinn had described. It was easy to understand why someone would want to make a mark on the world, and if running off to die was the only way to do that, then….
“Do you agree with your father?” asked Fionn. Aislinn didn’t reply straight away, and instead stared out at the empty valley ahead of them. Flanked by huge, grey mountains, the land looked like a black and white painting, with bare trees and decaying plant-life staying perfectly still in the darkness.
“I didn’t before,” she said. “But on the night the dead came to Rosca Umhír, when my father refused to help, I felt the ‘call,’ as he had once named it. The urge to fight, even when there was no hope. I snuck away and donned my brother’s armour, this armour, and rode out to meet the horde head on. It was such a powerful feeling, seeing all the other soldiers’ spirits rise, believing Sir Bearach Carríga had returned from the dead to save them, and for the first time in my life, I felt that I finally understood my father. And my family.
“But as I crossed the drawbridge, I was thrown from my horse and disarmed. With no weapon, I found myself in the heart of the horde. Amongst the stench of decay and the guttural cries of the dead, all my sense of valour vanished. In that moment I ran, and I no longer felt like a Carríga.”
“Aislinn…” said Fionn. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“What’s that?” Aislinn said suddenly.
“It’s your brother, he’s—”
“No,” she said, grabbing Fionn by the shoulder and pointing down the valley. “What’s that?”
Fionn had to squint to make out what she was referring to, but when he did, the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. A faint black cloud was rising above the mountains, amorphous in form, spreading inwards and outwards as it went. The darkness smothered the peaks, descending down the valley like a flood. A faint, screeching sound came with it, but only when Aislinn spoke did Fionn finally make sense of the shape.
“The crows,” she muttered. “The crows always come first.”
