Ravensoul by James Barclay Page A

and enormously powerful legs. Blackthorne switched his gaze onto the figures walking ahead of them.
    They were three in number, walking at a languorous pace. Deliberate, a plodding speed more like shire horse than man. Yet they ate up the ground. Behind them, the machine rumbled. Heat swept out from it in waves, creating the shimmer in the air. A cloud formed above it, shot through with flames of green, blue, yellow and orange.
    The outlines of the figures distorted in the force of the inferno at their backs. They had come quite close before Blackthorne realised how tall they were. Perhaps eight feet. Huge bodies wearing ornate helms. Bone spurs jutted from shoulder guards. Ribs of boned leather layered torsos and legs. Gauntlets of obsidian and white covered huge hands. He could see no weapons.
    The three walked in a loose line. The full faces of their helms, carved to depict something Blackthorne was too far away to discern, looked unflinchingly forward. Not a glance to their machine or beyond it to the annihilation of everything in their wake.
    ‘Well, that clears it up,’ said Gresse when the machine quietened and the cloud dispersed. ‘Magic’s involved somewhere, wouldn’t you say?’
    ‘Those colours leave little room for doubt,’ agreed Blackthorne.
    ‘Then I won’t be welcoming them onto my lands.’
    He swung his horse about and cantered back down the slope, shouting orders to his guard. Blackthorne chased after him, glancing to the north and south to see yet more shimmering in the air.
    ‘I thought you were too tired to fight any more,’ he shouted when he caught up with the older man.
    ‘But the idea was to leave all my worldly goods to my children. Can’t have them wiped out now, can I?’
    ‘What do you intend to do?’
    ‘Bring everyone I can and ask these gentlemen politely to stop and turn back. That or get carved up. The choice will be theirs.’
    ‘I don’t share your confidence,’ said Blackthorne.
    ‘And nor should you, as I have none to spare.’
     
    ‘We’ve been monitoring some very odd movements in the mana flow all over Balaia. Research on inter-dimensional magics has had to be suspended because the streams have been rendered unstable by something we are trying hard to fathom . . . sudden huge dropouts in the density of mana. Like someone’s blotting it up and leaving nothing behind. Am I boring you, Hirad?’
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘Your ignorance is not my concern,’ said Denser.
    ‘Gods falling, Denser, I’ve been dead ten years. There are gaps in my knowledge.’
    ‘There were plenty of those when you were alive.’
    ‘It was part of my charm,’ said Hirad.
    ‘So what’s with the sighing and the tapping of your foot? Or the foot of the dead man whose body you have appropriated.’
    ‘I just don’t see what it has to do with our problem.’
    Hirad felt hot. It was not a sensation he was familiar with any more. He felt like his body wasn’t big enough to contain him, like he was pushing at the skin from within, threatening to burst out. And his head was thumping madly, blurring the merchant’s already poor vision still further. Hirad didn’t know how to stop it. Maybe he needed a bigger body or something. Ilkar would know. If Ilkar ever made it here.
    ‘You’re telling me you fail to see a connection between the mana shield around the dead dimension being ripped to shreds, and disturbing changes to mana flow pretty much everywhere else?’
    ‘I’m telling you I don’t much care. I just want to go back but I can’t. It’s all any of us want.’ Hirad couldn’t fail to notice Denser’s cheeks colouring. ‘All right, all right. Tell me what it all means.’
    ‘It means our dimension is under attack too.’
    ‘Strange thing but I thought that’s what I came here and said.’
    Hirad scratched his head. Everything felt wrong. It was like someone was trying to pull him out of his body. He glanced at his shadow. It was shredding like paper in a gale. He