Violence wasn’t coming. Violence was here.
Michel emerged onto one of the streets behind a battalion of Dynize soldiers, all of them focused on Palo partisans shouting at them from second-story windows. He stared at the group in dismay as the commander very clearly vacillated between retreat and attack. Michel knew enough about uprisings to be confident that all these partisans would be dead by nightfall.
Ichtracia stumbled out of the alleyway behind him and turned her attention on the soldiers, raising her hands. Michel leapt back and grabbed her by the arm. “They’ll be fine for now,” he told her. “If we’re still alive, we can come back and help after we stop the Privileged from destroying the Depths.”
She hesitated only a moment before lowering her hands and giving him a determined nod. He tried to swallow his own terror at the realization that she’d been a hairsbreadth from attacking her own people—something she’d claimed she would avoid doing at all costs. He pulled her toward the next alley, where they cut across several more streets and then through a tenement, taking them behind the barricades.
As they neared the rim of Greenfire Depths, Ichtracia suddenly came to a halt, throwing her hand up. Michel froze while she stood stock-still, her chin lifted, sniffing the air like a hound at the hunt. After what felt like an eternity, she finally said, “They’re here.”
“The Privileged?”
“Yes. There are three of them, and they’re not even bothering to hide.” Her lip curled, and she pointed at the wall and then slightly to the left, and then farther to the left of that. “There, there, and there.”
“Do you know them?”
“Doubtlessly. Our cabal is enormous, but not that enormous.”
Michel watched the side of her face, wondering if she was about to get cold feet at the idea of attacking her companions. He could see a flurry of emotions playing out across her face, revealing that moment of weakness before her expression hardened once more. “It doesn’t matter who they are,” she continued. “They’ve come to slaughter innocent people.”
She moved slowly, carefully, in a half crouch as they emerged from the alley. Michel followed her to their next hiding spot—an overturned cart off to one side of the street—and she raised her hand once more and turned to him. While her expression was cold and distant, he was surprised to see tears streaming down her cheeks. “Ichtracia?”
She suddenly reached out, touching his face with two gloved fingers. “I’ve liked you from the beginning, Michel. You made me laugh, but then you made me care about things. Thanks for that.”
“I’m kind of sick of people thanking me for doing my job,” Michel retorted with forced bravado. His own gut turned somersaults. “You don’t need to thank me for anything. Just stay alive.”
“I’m afraid that’s not very likely. There’s three of them and just one of me.” She wiped her sleeve across her face. “You shouldn’t make a Privileged cry, Michel.”
“We can do this,” Michel replied, biting his lip.
“No. I can do this. You’re going to hide. You’re not in charge this time, lover. I am. Now, go find Jiniel. Help her organize whatever needs to be done next.” Without another word, Ichtracia broke from their hiding spot and began to sprint.
Michel tried to shout after her, but he choked on the words. She was soon gone, leaving him alone in what seemed like the only pocket of quiet in the entire city. He looked over his shoulder to the east, where he could now hear the reports of musket fire and the screams of men and women. The south echoed with the same language of the rioters—and the soldiers sent to put them down.
It was just a few blocks back to the catacombs. He might find relative safety down there—unless Ichtracia’s fight with her countrymen collapsed the entire plateau. He grit his teeth and emerged from his hiding spot. Ichtracia did not deserve to die alone.
He ran along the street, perpendicular to the alley Ichtracia had disappeared into. The sound of an explosion nearly threw him off his feet, and he paused briefly to look toward the Depths, where a cloud of smoke now rose above the buildings nearest to him. No, not the Depths. That smoke was coming from the Rim. A thunderclap followed it, then a heart-wrenching sound like the world’s largest pane of glass had just shattered. More smoke followed it.
He traveled three more blocks and took a hard right, dashing down an alleyway. The sorcerous cacophony continued, setting his teeth on edge and making his hands shake violently. Anyone with any brains would be sprinting in the opposite direction.
He emerged from the alley onto a narrow street that cut precariously along the Rim, and stopped to get his bearings.
A ways down, around the curve of the Rim, he caught sight of Ichtracia as a fireball appeared out of the sky and slammed into her. To Michel’s shock, she seemed to absorb the sorcery with a flick of her wrist, emerging from it unscathed. A section of the Rim suddenly collapsed, dust exploding outward. Michel caught sight of the first Privileged—a woman who leapt from the falling ledge, barely making it to solid ground before more fireballs appeared in the air above her head and shot toward Ichtracia.
Michel searched for the second and third Privileged and found both of them standing between himself and the ongoing fight. The second Privileged watched the fight with clear confusion, gloved fingers pressed to his lips. The third Privileged was less than two dozen paces away, with his back toward Michel. He regarded the battle with disinterest before turning away and looking down at the Depths. A few moments passed before he raised his hands, and one of the tallest buildings in the Depths became enveloped in flames.
Michel crept toward the Privileged, trying to watch both Ichtracia’s duel and the sorcerer at the same time. Another fire started down in the Depths, and then another. The Privileged smiled to himself. If he spotted Michel in his peripheral vision, he gave no indication. Michel removed the knuckledusters from his pocket.
A scream suddenly cut through the morning air, punctuated by another explosion. The Privileged looked toward Ichtracia’s fight. Ichtracia made an emphatic gesture, bringing her whole arm around in a chopping motion. Her opponent reeled, screamed again, and then slumped.
The Privileged closest to Michel gave an irritated sigh and turned to Ichtracia, raising his hands.
“Hey,” Michel said, sprinting the last few feet between them.
The Privileged whirled just as Michel’s shoulder connected with his kidneys. The Privileged gave a gentle “Oof” and disappeared off the Rim. A series of crashes followed. Michel caught himself on a railing and peered over the edge, noting broken shingles and a torn storm drain. There was no sign of the body. Michel gripped the railing under him hard, trying to calm his nerves, then looked up to find the second Privileged had turned to stare at him.
His eyes were drawn past the Privileged to Ichtracia, and past her to a figure that had just emerged on the Rim over her shoulder, tugging on a pair of white, runed gloves.
A fourth Privileged.
“Look out!” Michel screamed.
“I told you to run!” she shouted back. She flipped one hand toward him, and he felt himself suddenly lifted and thrown, cartwheeling head over heels up and over three-story buildings. The last glimpse he caught of Ichtracia was one of surprise, as flame and rock crashed down over her in a spectacular explosion. Michel’s flight was swift but steady, and he soared along in a clearly controlled bubble before it disappeared. He dropped the last dozen feet into a pile of rubble, catching himself with his three-fingered hand. The whole left side of him lit up with pain.
He lay that way for several seconds before the thought of Ichtracia being consumed by sorcery got him up and moving. He took one step, then another, forcing his body along until he was knocked backward by an unseen force. The air was smashed from his lungs, and he was thrown into the side of a building a split second before a rumbling sound reached him. Dust and flame coalesced, threatening to suffocate him, until suddenly he could feel air reaching his lungs once more.
He lay unmo
ving, trying to peer through the dust. When it had cleared enough to see, he found himself looking at… nothing. Every building between him and the Rim was gone, leveled to scattered rubble. The corpses of unfortunate bystanders were barely recognizable in the mess, and it only took him a few moments of searching to see that Ichtracia was missing.
CHAPTER 58
Styke sat in the corridor outside his shared room, whittling horses by lamplight and listening to the distant sounds of a sleeping city. Talunlica was, in his experience, an extremely quiet city after dark, even with the riots that consumed the daylight. But that didn’t mean it was silent—the rumble of delivery wagons, the march of patrolling city guards, the barking of dogs, the gentle lap of water against the compound’s outer wall. He found those sounds, and the stillness of the compound, to be comforting in these hours of sleeplessness.
He finished one of the horses, holding it up to the lamplight to make small, final adjustments, before setting it aside and preparing a new piece of wood for whittling. He was almost finished with the entire set. All the whittling had given his hands something to do while he planned how, exactly, he was going to get Ka-poel near the godstone.
Etzi spoke of escalating conflict and his fears of violence. Styke longed for it. His knife hand twitched constantly, and last night he’d spent several hours in the stables seeing to all of the Lancers’ horses, just to give himself something to do. He longed to throw himself back in the saddle, lower a lance, and charge an enemy.
But he had to keep himself in check. He was a guest here. Ka-poel and Celine were under his protection, and he was under Etzi’s protection. He did not feel guilt over the mob attack yesterday, but he understood that it may have been in response to his murder of Ji-Patten and that he shouldn’t be personally involved in further escalation. No need to push Etzi’s hospitality.
Styke heard a throat clear and looked up from his whittling, expecting to find Etzi or Maetle out for a midnight stroll. Instead, he discovered a figure dressed in a loose Dynize traveling smock leaning on a wall at the end of the corridor as if he’d been watching Styke for several minutes.
“Jackal?” Styke asked cautiously.
The hood of the traveling cloak was thrown back to reveal the Palo warrior. Jackal approached, coming into the light of the lantern and lowering himself down beside Styke as if they were meeting casually in a park or on the street. Jackal had gotten significantly more weather-beaten in the last nine days: cheeks dark, hair looking redder. Perhaps it was the clothing, but he seemed oddly more Dynize, as if he’d been absorbing the energy of the people.
“Took you long enough,” Styke snorted.
“Sorry. Took me longer than I expected to find Ibana—an alarm was put out after my escape and I had to take a longer route.”
“But you did find her?” Styke set his whittling aside and stared at Jackal eagerly.
“Once I was away from the godstone, I just needed to avoid patrols and listen to the spirits.” Jackal tapped the side of his head.
“And?”
“Roughly ninety percent of our fleet arrived safely. They put to shore at the rendezvous point almost a month ago. Just as Orz told us, the rendezvous was deep enough in the swamp that they haven’t been discovered. The Dynize claim they tamed the Jagged Fens, but they’ve really only cleaned up a corridor along the main highway. Everywhere else…” Jackal shrugged. “Nobody goes that deep into the swamp, and Ibana has been being really damned careful. She even dismissed the fleet so they wouldn’t be spotted from the sea.”
Styke felt his eyes widen. “Dismiss the fleet? You’re joking.”
“Ibana seems confident that we’ll be able to commandeer a fleet once we’ve accomplished our task.”
“Does she have any idea how badly we messed up with the maps?” Styke gestured at the city around them.
“Some,” Jackal answered hesitantly. “She’s been using our Palo as scouts, hoping they blend in. They’ve hunted to conserve rations and stayed well away from the roads. They’ve lost some soldiers and horses to the ravages of the swamp, but were in higher spirits than I would have expected. So far, they haven’t been discovered.”
“You updated them?”
“I did. Ibana wasn’t happy.”
“I can imagine.”
“But she’s pleased that you’re alive. She hid it well, but I could tell.”
“What do you mean she ‘hid it well’?”
“There was a lot of swearing and cursing your name. I got the feeling that she regretted dismissing the fleet and probably would have gone back to Fatrasta by now if she hadn’t.” Jackal hesitated again, long enough that Styke could tell he wanted to say something else.
“Spit it out,” Styke said.
“Well,” Jackal drew out the word. “They’re running low on rations. Now that Ibana knows you’re alive, and knows about Talunlica, she wants to move on the city.”
Styke felt his stomach lurch. His wish for something to happen was about to come true. “How soon?”
“She was mobilizing everyone before I left.”
“How long ago?”
“Two days.”
“Shit.” Styke spat the word and resisted the urge to throw his whittling knife across the corridor. “She needs to hold off. Sedial’s goons are using the Lancers still imprisoned against me—the moment they find out we have an army here, they’ll execute the lot.”
“I told her about Zak. She said it was an acceptable loss.”
Styke felt his hackles rise. “How could you possibly know about Zak? You were two days out of the city when it happened.”
Jackal tapped the side of his head again. The damned spirits.
Styke swore. “She wants to get me killed, too?”
“She assumes you’re safe enough.”
“Like pit I am. Etzi has stood up for us so far, but I can’t imagine me and Ka-poel will be welcome when they find out we have a foreign army on their shores.”
Jackal spread his hands as a show of helplessness. “Ibana is champing at the bit.”
“No stopping her. Damn it, she’s supposed to be the cautious one.” Styke rubbed furiously at his Lancer ring with one thumb. He should probably be happy to hear that the Mad Lancers were coming to get him. But the chaos in the city was too unpredictable. The appearance of a foreign army might make Talunlica fall to bits, allowing them to storm in and crush the city garrison. Or it might unite the Dynize against a common threat. Styke was willing to bet it would do the latter.
“All right,” he breathed. “This is what we’re going to do. I need you to return to Ibana as quickly as possible. If you can reach her before she leaves her hiding spot, you need to tell her to stay put—a direct order from me. If not… well, you need to keep her from riding into the city. It’ll be a tempting target for her, but I want to have a couple of days to get me and the others out. Tell her to come within four miles and hold for my order. If she doesn’t hear from me within a couple days, she can torch the city.”
“Four miles, two days.” Jackal nodded. “I’ll ride as fast as I can.”
“Good. Get moving.”
Jackal disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared. Styke heard the scrape of someone shimmying over the compound wall but nothing else. He listened for several minutes and then, troubled, picked his whittling back up. No hope of sleep now, not unless he could calm himself down a little—and his mind was racing, his heart eager for a fight, but his thoughts cautious.
He was a fighter, not a strategist. A million variables could make things go wrong between now and Ibana’s arrival. He resisted the urge to bolt right away—to saddle his horse, grab Ka-poel and Celine, and follow Jackal out of the city. Never mind the risk of such a flight; he refused to leave Markus, Sunin, and the rest to die in a Dynize prison.
He finally tossed aside his whittling and climbed to his feet.
It had been days since he’d spoken to Orz. The dragonman had been given a small recovery room just beside Maetle’s
infirmary, and according to the compound gossip, he was healing at an astonishing speed. He’d been seen walking on his own—albeit slowly—just yesterday. Unfortunately, Styke needed more than just “walking” right now. He approached Orz’s quarters and knocked gently on the door before stepping inside. There wasn’t much room to maneuver. Like every other building in the compound, it had been built to take up as little space as possible. Just stepping inside put Styke immediately beside the one small bed.
Styke felt something press against his inner thigh. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “It’s Styke,” he said.
“Should have known,” Orz answered. “The emperor doesn’t have any assassins that cast that big of a shadow.” Orz’s voice was weak, not much above a whisper. He pulled his knife away. “You have news?”
Styke lowered himself down beside Orz’s head. The dragonman hadn’t attempted to sit up, eyeballing Styke from his supine position. Styke couldn’t help but wonder if he didn’t want to move, or couldn’t. “Why does everyone seem to know things before me?”
“I heard someone slip over the wall, then bits of a whispered conversation, and then they went back over the wall. I can only assume it’s the man you had break out of prison the day I woke up. Jackal, right?”
“That was halfway across the compound,” Styke grumbled.
“I have very good hearing, and it’s hard to sleep when Maetle won’t give me more mala until tomorrow night.”
Styke tapped the side of his ring. “You’re right, I have news. Jackal found Ibana.”
“Is she where she was supposed to be?”
“She is, and by some miracle she hasn’t been discovered yet. But she’s running low on rations and champing at the bit. As far as we know, she left the swamp the moment Jackal headed back to find me.”
“So news might reach the city at any time.” Orz sounded resigned.
“Correct.”
“They’ll come for us,” Orz said. “It’s just the excuse Sedial’s people will need—perfectly justified.”
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