Down on the hill, High Mage Tayschrenn rose and lifted his arms out to the sides. A wave of golden flame spanned his hands, then rolled upward, growing as it raced toward Moon's Spawn. The spell crashed against the black rock, sending chunks hurtling out, then down.
...
A figure had appeared on the ledge before the portal, its arms upraised, long silver hair blowing from its head.
...
Even as Rake gathered his power, twin balls of blue fire raced upward from the center hill. They struck the Moon near its base and rocked it. Tayschrenn launched another wave of golden flames, crashing with amber spume and red-tongued smoke.
The Moon's lord responded. A black, writhing wave rolled down to the first hill. The High Mage was buffeted to his knees deflecting it, the hilltop around him blighted as the necrous power rolled down the slopes, engulfing nearby ranks of soldiers. Tattersail watched as a midnight flash swallowed the hapless men, followed by a thump that thundered through the earth. When the flash dissipated, the soldiers lay in rotting heaps, mowed down like stalks of grain.
...
The world became a living nightmare, as sorcery flew upward to batter Moon's Spawn, and sorcery rained downward, indiscriminate and devastating. Earth rose skyward in thundering columns. Rocks ripped through men like hot stones through snow. A downpour of ash descended to cover the living and dead alike. The sky dimmed to pallid rose, the sun a coppery disc behind the haze.
...
Magic rained in an endless storm around Tayschrenn, where he still knelt on the withered, blackened hilltop. But every wave directed his way he shunted aside, wreaking devastation among the soldiers cowering on the plain. Through the carnage filling the air, through the ash and shrill-tongued ravens, through the raining rocks and the screams of the wounded and dying, through the blood-chilling shrieks of demons flinging themselves into ranks of soldiery -- through it all sounded the steady thunder of the High Mage's onslaught. Enormous cliffs, sheared from the Moon's face and raging with flame and trailing columns of black smoke, fell down into the city of Pale, transforming the city into its own cauldron of death and chaos.
///
Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, walked between the shanties of Worrytown. The gate was ahead, but no guards were visible. The huge doors were barred.
From beyond, from the city itself, fires roared here and there, thrusting bulging cloaks of spark-lit smoke up into the black night.
Five paces from the gates now, and something snapped and fell away. The doors swung open. And, unaccosted, unnoticed, Anomander Rake walked into Darujhistan.
Howls rose like madness unleashed.
The Son of Darkness reached up and unsheathed Dragnipur.
Steam curled from the black blade, twisting into ephemeral chains that stretched out as he walked up the wide, empty street. Stretched out to drag behind him, and from each length others emerged and from these still more, a forest's worth of iron roots, snaking out, whispering over the cobbles.
He had never invited such a manifestation before. Reining in that bleed of power had been an act of mercy, to all those who might witness it, who might comprehend its significance.
But on this night, Anomander Rake had other things on his mind.
Chains of smoke, chains and chains and chains, so many writhing in his wake that they filled the breadth of the street, that they snaked over and under and spilled out into side streets, alleys, beneath estate gates, beneath doors and through windows. They climbed walls.
Wooden barriers disintegrated -- doors and sills and gates and window frames. Stones cracked, bricks spat mortar. Walls bowed. Buildings groaned.
He walked on as those chains grew taut.
No need yet to lean forward with each step. No need yet to reveal a single detail to betray the strength and the will demanded of him.
He walked on.
Throughout the besieged city, mages, witches, wizards, and sorcerors clutched the sides of their heads, eyes squeezing shut as unbearable pressure closed in. Many fell to their knees. Others staggered. Still others curled up into tight fetal balls on the floor, as the world groaned.
Raging fires flinched, collapsed into themselves, died in silent gasps.
The howl of the Hounds thinned as if forced through tight valves.
In a slag-crusted pit twin sisters paused as one in their efforts to scratch each other's eyes out. In the midst of voluminous clouds of noxious vapours, knee deep in magma that swirled like a lake of molten sewage, the sisters halted, and slowly lifted their heads.
As if scenting the air.
Dragnipur.
Dragnipur.
///
Samar Dev saw Anomander Rake's gaze settle briefly on Dassem's sword, and it seemed a sad smile showed itself, in the instant before Dassem attacked.
To all who witnessed -- the cultists, Samar Dev, Karsa Orlong, even unto the five Hounds of Shadow and the Great Ravens hunched on every ledge -- that first clash of weapons was too fast to register. Sparks slanted, the night air rang with savage parries, counter-blows, the biting crunch of edges against cross-hilts. Even their bodies were but a blur.
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