Chapter 200: Something Stronger [BONUS]

The Elder reached the barrier a quarter of an hour later.

It did not charge. It did not rush. It walked down the road the same way it had walked across the killing ground, slowly and steadily, and the horde parted around it like water around a rock.

It was blind.

Encrid could see that clearly now. Both of its eyes were ruined. The right one was a crusted black hole where Rael’s greatsword was still buried to the hilt. The left one was scorched and blistered, burned out by Iolan Vire’s hands.

And yet it walked straight toward the barrier.

It did not wander. It did not hesitate. It walked the way a man walks in a room he knows well, in the dark. As though something was showing it the way.

Compelled.

It reached the golden light and did not stop.

It put its head against the barrier and pushed.

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The barrier held.

For a moment.

Then Encrid heard it. A thin, high sound, like the rim of a glass being rubbed with a wet finger. It came from the place where the Elder’s forehead pressed against the light.

A crack appeared.

It was small. A thin dark line in the gold, no longer than a man’s arm. It spread slowly outward from the Elder’s forehead, branching like frost on a window.

The Elder pushed harder.

The crack grew.

Beside Encrid, the Grand Magus had not moved. He was still leaning on his walking stick, still looking north. But his knuckles had gone white where he gripped the wood. And a thin line of sweat had appeared on his bald head.

"It’s strong," he said quietly.

"Will it hold?"

"It will hold for a while." The old man’s voice was calm. "That barrier would stop a mountain falling on it. For a while. But that isn’t a mountain. That’s an Elder of the Great Green."

The crack spread another few feet.

"It will hold for an hour. Perhaps less, if it keeps pushing like that."

Encrid looked back at the Span.

Merta was still standing at the northern end, counting. She saw him looking and held up one finger.

One thousand.

"We need an hour," Encrid said.

"Then you’ll have one." The Grand Magus did not take his eyes off the Elder. "Probably."

Encrid turned and looked down at the line.

The soldiers had stopped fighting when the barrier went up. Now most of them were standing in front of the golden light, staring at the Elder’s face pressed against it from the other side. Close enough to touch. Some had sat down where they stood. Rael was leaning on his spear with his eyes closed.

"Sir Gareth," Encrid called down the slope.

Gareth looked up.

"Rotate the line. Half of them sit and eat while the other half stand. Count of eighty."

Gareth frowned, not understanding.

Down in the line, a soldier of the Third Watch who had heard him laughed out loud. Then he turned to the men around him and began to explain.

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Encrid felt it a few minutes later.

It came the same way it had come in the Council chamber, and on the eighth mile, and on the road. A pressure from the north. The feeling of being seen by something enormous.

But this time, it was different.

On the Wall, it had come down on everyone at once, like a wave.

This time, it came down on one person.

The Grand Magus stopped leaning on his walking stick.

He straightened up. Slowly. For the first time since he had appeared on the rise, he looked like something other than a tired old man. He stood very still, and his sharp old eyes went past the Elder, past the front of the horde, far back into the grey mass beyond it.

Looking for something.

Encrid felt the pressure grow. Not on him. On the old man beside him. It pressed on the Grand Magus the way a hand presses on a table, testing its weight.

The barrier flickered.

It was the first time it had done that. The whole golden dome shivered, from the edge of the gorge to the top of the hill, as if a wind had blown through it.

The crack in front of the Elder spread another ten feet in a single breath.

"Stop that," the Grand Magus said quietly.

He was not talking to Encrid.

He was not talking to the Elder.

He was talking to something far back in the horde, something Encrid could not see.

The pressure did not stop.

It grew heavier.

The Grand Magus’s walking stick sank an inch into the rock beneath it. The ground around his feet cracked. His face did not change, but his breathing had become slow and very careful, the way a man breathes when he is carrying something too heavy to set down.

Zuri had taken a step back. Gareth had his hand on his sword. Ysolde had gone very pale.

And then, as suddenly as it had come, the pressure withdrew.

It did not fade. It simply pulled back, like a hand lifting off a table.

The barrier stopped flickering.

The Grand Magus let out a long breath. He leaned on his walking stick again. His hands were shaking slightly.

For a long moment, no one on the rise spoke.

"What was that?" Encrid finally asked.

The old man did not answer right away.

He was still looking north, into the horde. His face had changed. It was not irritated anymore. It was not tired.

It was careful.

"There’s something back there," he said at last. "Behind the Elder. Somewhere in the middle of all that."

"Stronger than the Elder."

"Much stronger than the Elder." The Grand Magus’s voice was very quiet. "It just put its hand on my barrier. Just to see what it felt like. And it could have torn the whole thing apart like wet paper."

He turned his head and looked at Encrid.

"It didn’t bother," he said. "It’s watching. It wanted me to know it was there."

He was silent for a moment.

"Boy," he said. "What exactly did you bring me to?"

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Thank you @Stingdragon for the Magic castle~