Dreams of Fire and Gods 2: Fire Read Online Free Page A

breaking the door down.
    He checked the latch on the window, finding it not much more secure but at least made of brass. Then he closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself to wake before dawn before he lay down on the surprisingly comfortable mattress and finally gave in to sleep.

“W E COUNT at least ten thousand men,”
General Meik told Sael, “with more on their way, you can be certain.”
    “The emperor won’t leave himself unprotected in the capital,” Sael pointed out. “Just how many soldiers do you think he’s likely to spare?”
    “The army has been conscripting men from Mat’zovya and other towns. They aren’t well-trained, but they’ll easily outnumber us.”
“Except that they can’t enter the valley,” Geilin commented.
    They were in Sael’s private drawing room in the master suite once occupied by his brother Seffni. Considering the hour and the fact that only the three of them were present, he’d chosen this room over the much larger— and much less comfortable—council chamber. They sat in overstuffed chairs before a large fireplace with a moderate fire built in it, sipping glasses of fortified wine, as much to combat the gloom of the omnipresent blue light that bathed the keep as to keep out the slight chill.
    That the emperor’s men were unable to enter the valley was news to Sael. He drained what was left in his glass and asked, “What’s this?”
    Meik leaned forward and picked up the bottle of wine from the table. “It appears to be true. They’re camped in the forest just at the edge of the valley, but whenever one of them steps foot within the boundaries of Harleh Valley, he collapses to the ground. Our scouts have witnessed this with their own eyes.”
    “They don’t actually die, do they?” Sael asked. He recalled the thousands of soldiers lying in neat rows on the battlefield after the rise of Gyishya had brought the emperor’s siege to a halt. The Taaweh hadn’t killed them, thank the gods—merely put them into some kind of supernatural sleep.
    His suspicion was confirmed by Geilin. “They fall into a deep sleep, from which nothing will wake them, as long as they remain within the boundary.”
    “The first time it happened,” Meik added, “several soldiers ran to the aid of their comrades and every last one of them succumbed to the… spell, if that’s what it is. After that, the soldiers were more cautious. One of their mages was summoned to lift the fallen men back to their side, but his spells had no effect. It was only when one of our scouts revealed himself and offered to haul the unconscious soldiers across the boundary that they were able to retrieve them.”
    Sael raised his eyebrows and held out his glass for Meik to refill it. “And they let the scout return to the valley unharmed?”
    “Of course!” The general looked vaguely insulted, as if Sael had been impugning his own honor. “There are codes of conduct on the battlefield, even for the emperor’s men.”
    Sael wasn’t certain if that was as true as the general liked to think it was, but he lacked experience in the matter, so he chose not to argue. When Meik filled his glass, Sael sat back in his chair and asked, “And their men?”
    “They were all fine,” Meik replied with a casual shrug. “They woke as soon as they were across the boundary.”
    “Yet our men were unaffected, regardless of which side of the boundary they were on,” Geilin observed. “Just as all of us have been since the valley was shrouded in darkness.”
    Another example of Taaweh magic that was nothing like the magic Sael had learned as apprentice to Master Geilin. All three of them had witnessed the power of the Taaweh, and they knew it was formidable. Nevertheless, Sael was nervous relying on something so nebulous with the emperor’s army camping in the forest just ten leagues away. He asked the general, “Just how many men do we have stationed along the boundary?”
    “None, Your Lordship.”
“None? None