The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [203]
Creslin grasps for the winds, seeing no choice. His blade falls, and he wheels the black as he seizes the nearest high winds, bending them toward the archers, trying to grasp the water and ice, molding ice arrows.
Once again the winds howl.
“Get the silver-head!”
He ignores the cry but continues to ride across the dunes, sightless, letting the mare have her head and ducking low beside her neck, twisting the winds with what power remains to him.
Crackkk!
Lightning flares beside the archer-laden ship.
“Get him!”
Another line of flame scores his right thigh—or is it Megaera’s?—as he grapples with the oncoming wind.
“Protect the regents!”
The panic in Hyel’s voice spurs Creslin, and he wrenches at the higher winds, struggling, tugging, yanking . . .
Wheee . . . eeee . . . The black swerves, then stumbles, but Creslin’s fire-scored arms hold tight.
The ice-rains lash the ships; the cold arrows of the storms drop the archers in a single line of death.
Creslin reins in the black, sitting erect in the darkness, waiting for whatever will come. Nothing does as the sounds of swords and shouts die away, nothing except the burning of wounds that are not his. The darkness remains.
“Ser?”
“Yes?” He can tell that the voice comes from below him, but he cannot feel the land.
“What should we do?”
“How many do we have left?”
“About half.”
“And the Nordlans?”
“Ser . . . you killed all of them . . . and a few of ours.”
Creslin’s sightless eyes burn. Burn for his stupidity.
“Take the horses that are left. Find all of the Recluce troops. If they haven’t gotten into fights, tell them not to. Just wait until the land makes the Nordlans—and whoever else survived—surrender. It will, you know.” Before the other can speak, he adds, “I should have thought of that earlier. Darkness, we’ve had enough trouble with the land.” Waves of dizziness batter at him, and his left hand clutches the edge of the saddle.
“Ser . . .”
“Megaera? How is she?”
“The healer . . . she’s looking at her. But ser . . . they’re over there . . .”
“Oh . . .” Creslin tries to ease the black so that he at least appears to be looking in the right direction. He fights the darkness swimming before him, and he fights against the searing pains that score his shoulder, arms, and leg. He fights—and loses, even as his hands grasp for Vola’s mane.
CXXXIX
“NO ONE’S EVER seen a storm like that,” mumbles Ryedel, his thick lips barely moving.
“Tell me about it,” snaps Hartor. “Hundreds of kays away, yet it ripped out the breakwater at Tyrhavven and turned the piers into so much kindling. Half of the water-front at Renklaar is gone. Even the waterfront buildings at Lydiar—and that’s inside the Great North Bay—were flattened.”
“But none of it reached Recluce.”
“Of course not. Creslin caused it. And that idiot Gyretis said that he didn’t have that much power.”
Ryedel spread his hands, his eyes not leaving the High Wizard’s face. “Gyretis paid for it, didn’t he?”
“I should have sent him to Recluce. He wanted Creslin to win.”
There is no answer.
“How could anyone refuse to trade with Creslin now? Or attempt to cheat him?”
Ryedel looks toward the window.
“Can you honestly say that we’re stronger now?”
“It depends on what you mean,” ventures the younger wizard. “Hydlen has almost no ships left, nor do Certis and Austra. We’re in a better position than anyone except Sarronnyn.”
Hartor shakes his head. “So . . . now everyone will watch everything we do.”
“And Ryessa,” reminds Ryedel.
“Fine. At one stroke, Creslin turned Candar into a continent ruled in the west by the Legend, in the east by the Whites, and both have to bow to a damned island that perhaps has two thousand souls. Maybe he’ll die young.”
“It won’t do much good unless his White witch does too, and unless they don’t have a child. Even then, Gyretis . . . I mean, I wouldn’t be too sure.”
“What do you mean? Or what did our dear departed brother mean?”
“The rains stayed where Creslin put them, even after the great storm.”
“Oh . . .”
“What he’s done seems to stay done.”
The High