Free Ravensoul by James Barclay Page A

I was thinking a little more widely than that.’
    Gresse drew in a pained breath.
    ‘There’ll be a mage here soon,’ said Blackthorne.
    ‘I’ll try to contain my excitement,’ said Gresse. ‘So what do you think? From another dimension?’
    ‘Probably. Good to see them folding under spell attack, though. It means we can fight them.’
    ‘And win.’
    ‘Easily.’
    A smell of burned mana drifted across them. A moment later the valley was crowded with Garonin. Blackthorne shot to his feet, gaping. Fifty and more of them where a heartbeat before there had been none. Materialising as if dispelling a massed Beyen’s Cloak spell. And these had not come merely to walk in front of the machine. As the beasts’ roars split the air and they began to walk, Blackthorne could see what he assumed were weapons in the hands of most of the new invaders. They advanced.
    ‘Gresse, I don’t think we can wait for that stretcher.’

Chapter 7
     
     
     
     
     
    The mournful calls of the ClawBound soared above the anxious rainforest, a companion to Auum’s run north with his Tai towards Ysundeneth. The proud roar of the panthers, the guttural call of the elves combining to summon the nation to the Harkening. By day a clarion call to action. By night a haunting resonance that denied rest and demanded movement.
    Every creature in the rainforest heard the song. For Tual’s denizens, it was an alien sound that kept them in hides, burrows and nests; for the elves, a sign of mortal peril that none dare ignore.
    From every corner of the mighty rainforest they came. Temples were left untended. Villages and towns deserted. Crops abandoned and fishing fleets drawn up onto riverbanks. All making the journey that had existed before only in legend and myth, lost in the ancient writings of elven history. Still, some had personal memories of the time before they would rather forget. All gathering at the huge natural amphitheatre that the elves called Ultan-in-Caeyin, where Gods are heard.
    The last gathering here had taken place in the aftermath of the Elfsorrow which humans had unleashed on Calaius and which other humans had helped defeat. Auum had not been in attendance. This time it had to be different. Then it had been in celebration, now it was in fear of extermination.
    Ultan-in-Caeyin was a gem unearthed not long after the founding of Ysundeneth on the northern coast of Calaius. A huge bowl of stone and grass banks on the edge of the rainforest, carved by the Gods for their words to be heard. Ringed by sheer cliffs, bordered by river and ocean, it had been embellished over the years. A vast stage stood at the northern end away from the entrance. Bridges and paths had been laid for people to walk the short distance from the city’s western edge. Hundreds of brackets for torch and lantern had been hammered into the walls. Benching had been built in vast concentric arcs. Ultan-in-Caeyin could seat two hundred thousand comfortably.
    Auum shuddered as he approached the wide entrance. Elves were streaming in and that was bad enough. But inside there were, he was told, upwards of thirty-five thousand already assembled. He stopped and stared at the masses inside. The gloom of evening was descending. Cook fires were being lit all across the bowl.
    ‘Is there no other way to the stage?’
    ‘Straight ahead is the only way,’ said Ghaal.
    Auum looked over at the stage, impossibly distant through the throng and blazing with light that taunted him. The walls of the Caeyin appeared to press in, sheer and impassable, pushing the crowd in, shoving them towards him. He backed up a pace.
    ‘I don’t like crowds,’ he said.
    Miirt exchanged glances with Ghaal.
    ‘We will make passage for you,’ she said.
    Auum nodded his thanks. ‘You are sure?’
    ‘We were not born as you were,’ she said.
    ‘Tai, we move,’ said Auum. ‘Quickly.’
    Elves outside the warrior castes stepped aside for he and his Tai to make their way to the stage. The faces