"Who," said Caina, "is your mistress?"
"You don't know?" said Sicarion. "You've already met her. And you will know her again, soon enough."
"And what are you?" said Caina. "A renegade necromancer? Or one of the Magisterium's pets?"
Sicarion laughed. “I was expelled from the Magisterium centuries ago. I found a better way. And necromancy is a useful tool. My hand won't replace itself." He flexed his new fingers. "And who am I? Why..."
He moved in a blur, and then he was inches before Caina's face, his jagged black knife resting against her cheek. The smell of him, a mixture of rotting meat and blood, filled her nostrils.
"I am a man," he said, "who cares about two things. I care about knives." He traced the edge of the blade down the line of her jaw. "And I care about killing things. I care about that very much."
"So why haven't you killed me?" said Caina.
Sicarion laughed. "The mistress chose well. Why haven't I killed you? I could cut out your heart now. But if I let you live...I'll get to kill so many more people in the future. Perhaps I will even get to kill the world itself." He nodded. "Yes. Take her. It is time she met my mistress's disciple."
The mercenaries kept their grips on Caina's arms and hustled her out of the warehouse.
Toward the Istarish army waiting in the Great Market.
Chapter 8 - Raiders
Lightning snarled overhead as Ark strode into the Plaza of the Tower, Tanya at his side.
The Plaza sat at the base of the Citadel's rocky crag, surrounded by the mansions of Marsis's wealthy nobles and merchants. The most prestigious, prosperous shops lined the Plaza, offering the finest goods - swords forged by the master smiths of Malarae, silk woven in Anshan, marble quarried from Alqaarin, oak felled in the forests of Ulkaar, wines pressed in the vineyards of Cyrica.
But now terror, not money, reined in the Plaza of the Tower.
Merchants fled their shops, holding whatever they could carry as they ran from the Plaza. Some fell prey to gangs of thugs lurking in the nearby streets. The smarter merchants fled without carrying anything at all. Gold would not buy freedom from Istarish chains.
Four thugs in leather armor and ragged wool appeared in front of Halfdan, clubs in their hands.
"A pair of old men and their maids, eh?" said the biggest thug.
"Be off!" said Zorgi. "We've no business with you."
"But we've business with you," said the thug. "Hand over your gold and your women, and we'll let you on your way after we've had our fun. If you don't..."
"For the gods' sake," muttered Ark.
He smashed the thug across the face with his shield, so hard that teeth flew across the cobblestones. The man collapsed in a heap. The remaining three thugs blinked, and Ark leveled his broadsword at them.
"Well?" said Ark.
They fled in search of easier prey. The man on the ground remained motionless. Ark didn't know if he was dead, and did not care to find out.
"Nicely done," said Halfdan.
"A useful fellow!" said Zorgi. "I can see why you keep him in your employ, Master Basil."
Tanya flashed him a smile. “He is.”
Ark knew better. He was strong, and skilled with sword and shield. But that was not enough. It had not been enough to keep Tanya and Nicolai free. And now it had not been enough to keep Nicolai safe.
He looked south, toward the plumes of smoke rising from the Great Market. Nicolai was there, trapped somewhere in the battle. Ark’s heart demanded that he tear his way into the melee and cut his son free. But his mind knew that Halfdan was right. His best chance to save Nicolai was to hold the northern gate.
And not to look for his son.
His hands curled into fists, clenching so hard that the knuckles crackled.
Halfdan stopped before a three-story building. A tailor’s shop occupied the first floor, the windows displaying bolts of linen and silk. A narrow alley ran alongside the building, and a set of wooden stairs led to a massive steel door set in the third-story wall.
“Ark,” said Halfdan. “Get Radast and Jiri. Hurry.” He looked at the Avenue of Governors, towards the Great Market. “I think the fighting is dying down in the Market. I don’t know how much longer we have until the Istarish and the Kyracians assault the Plaza.”
Ark looked at Zorgi’s family and his maids. “What about them?”
“I’ll keep an eye on them.” A grim smile flashed over Halfdan’s bearded face. “You’re not the only one who knows how to deal with thugs. But hurry. We’re running out of time, and we might need Radast’s help.”
Ark nodded, took one last look at Tanya, and ran up the stairs. The boards creaked and shuddered beneath his weight. He stopped before the steel door. Various plates dotted the massive slab of metal, and Ark suspected they concealed some of Radast’s nastier traps.
He pounded on the door until a plate at eye level slid open.
“Sign?” said a woman’s voice.
“Let the tyrants tremble,” said Ark in High Nighmarian, concentrating on the precise syntax. Gods, but he hated High Nighmarian. “And beware the shadows.”
“For in the shadows,” said the woman in High Nighmarian, speaking the countersign, “wait the Ghosts.”
Several locks released with loud clangs, and the heavy door swung open with a groan. A thin woman with a grim expression stood on the threshold, a loaded crossbow in her arms. She had gray-flecked black hair, and dark eyes tight with worry. She looked like many other women of common birth, but she was the Ghost circlemaster of Marsis, and little that happened in the city escaped her notice.
Except, apparently, the Istarish invasion.
“Jiri,” said Ark. “Is Radast here?”
“Ark,” said Jiri. “What is going on?”
“Nothing good,” said Ark. “Istarish soldiers have taken the Great Market, and the Kyracians have seized the harbor. If we don’t hold one of the gates until the Legions can return, Marsis will almost certainly fall.”
A man’s voice came over Jiri’s shoulder. “A ninety-seven percent certainty.”
Ark stepped past Jiri and into Radast’s workroom.
The workshop took up the entire top floor of the building. Slates hung from the walls, covered with scribbled chalk equations. Long tables ran the length of the room, holding elaborate mechanical devices. A Szaldic man with wild black hair and a bushy beard hurried toward Ark. He wore chain mail, and carried a pair of crossbows slung over his shoulder. A belt held quivers of quarrels and variety of tools. His expression was distracted, almost half-mad, but something cold and dispassionate in his dark eyes seemed to see everything.
“Radast,” said Ark. “We have to go.”
“Too many variables are in flux,” mumbled Radast. “How many Kyracians? How many Istarish? How many Legionaries? I cannot calculate the outcome. More data is…”
“Radast!” said Ark. “We must hold the northern gate. The Legions are a day’s march away. If we can keep the northern gate open, they’ll march into the city and drive out the enemy.”
Radast blinked several times. “Yes. Based on my current data, that plan has at least a thirty-seven percent chance of success.”
That was higher than Ark would have guessed.
“And the chance will be zero,” he said, “if we don’t go. Now.”
Radast nodded. “Yes. Decisive action will have a multiplier effect on our chances of success. Is Basil’s daughter with you?”
“No,” said Ark. “We don’t know where she is.”
Just as he did not know where Nicolai was.
“Regrettable,” said Radast, seizing a pair of knives from one of his tables. “Her insight is statistically exceptional, as is her tactical adaptability. She is a variable that alters the value of all other factors in an equation.”
“She knows her way around a fight,” said Ark. If anyone could keep Nicolai safe, Caina could. Ark had to believe that. “We must go.”
“I have already equipped myself,�
�� said Radast. “I calculated that the chances of violence were certain, once we saw the first lightning bolt strike the Citadel.”
“I am armed,” said Jiri. She held one of Radast’s intricate black crossbows, and wore a belt of knives around her waist. “My parents were slaves in Cyrica. If the Istarish devils want to take me, they shall pay for it.”
“There will be killing enough, before this is over,” said Ark.
They hurried down the wooden stairs, Radast pausing long enough to engage the locks. And to arm the traps, as well – if any soldiers or looters tried to force their way through the door, they would receive an unpleasant surprise from Radast’s various devices.
A pity his nastiest toys were not portable.
They returned to the Plaza.
Radast looked Zorgi up and down. "By my calculations, you are forty-two pounds overweight. Though I suspect a nontrivial percentage of that is muscle." He scratched his beard. "That will come in handy."
Zorgi gave a dubious grunt.
Halfdan beckoned, and the Ghosts moved just far enough from Zorgi and his servants that they could not overhear the conversation.
“Basil,” said Jiri. “How did this happen?”
"Our own folly," said Halfdan. "We spent too much time focused on Naelon Icaraeus."
"So many Istarish merchants have entered the city over the last few months," said Jiri, shaking her head. “I suspected them, aye, but I thought they were spies for Lord Naelon, not soldiers. I never thought the Istarish would be so bold to seize Marsis."
"One cannot calculate an equation," said Radast, "for which one does not know all the variables."
Oddly that seemed to comfort Jiri.
"What now?" she said.
"We make sure the northern gate stays open," said Halfdan, "and wait for the return of the Legions."
Jiri frowned. "And just how are we to accomplish this?"
"Lord Corbould Maraeus is probably dead," said Halfdan. Jiri's eyes flashed - Lord Corbould had done some wrong to her family in the past. Ark had never learned the details. "The Twentieth and Twenty-First Legions are outside of Marsis, under the command of Lord Commander Hiram Palaegus, but the Nineteenth is scattered through the city. Or what’s left of it. If we can gather enough of the Nineteenth at the northern gate, we can hold out until Lord Hiram arrives with the other Legions."
"We are spies, not soldiers," said Jiri. "How will we get the Legion's officers to listen to us?"
Halfdan gave her a bleak smile. "I can be very persuasive."
Ark gave the Avenue of Governors a wary glance. "This talk gains us nothing. We should depart." He glimpsed large masses of men moving through the Great Market, pouring into the Avenue like a river of arms and armor. "The Istarish could arrive at any moment."
"With an increasingly higher probability that they will do so with every passing second," said Radast. He had produced a small notebook and was scribbling equations into it.
"They're right," said Halfdan. “We can discuss things further at the gate."
Jiri nodded, and started to turn just as the Istarish soldiers burst into the Plaza of the Tower.
There were a dozen men, most likely an advance scouting party. Ten of the men wore the spiked helmets and scale armor of the common Istarish infantry. But the final two wore elaborate black armor, their faces hidden beneath skull-masked helmets, a faint blue glow glimmering in the eye holes. Immortals, the elite bodyguards of the Padishah of Istarinmul and his favored nobles. The Istarish College of Alchemists fed them sorcerous elixirs, making them stronger and faster than normal men.
And far more dangerous.
Screams rang out, and the remaining people in the Plaza scattered in all directions. The Istarish soldiers charged, swords flashing in their hands. The two Immortals carried scimitars in their right hands, but in their left they carried whips of black chain, light and slender. A single blow from those whips would tear strips of flesh from the victim.
Halfdan spat a curse. "Go! We'll circle around the Citadel through Foundry Square, take the side streets to the gate. Go!"
They began running, and even as they did, Ark realized that it was a mistake. The Istarish saw them and decided they were a threat. One of the Immortals bellowed a command in Istarish, and the group of soldiers turned towards them. The Ghosts could outrun the soldiers easily enough.
But Zorgi, his family, and his maids could not.
"We'll have to fight!" said Ark.
Halfdan gave a curt nod and spun, short sword in hand. Ark raised his shield, broadsword drawn back for a stab, the drills of his Legion years taking over. The Istarish soldiers charged, and Ark's mind raced. Had he still been the first spear centurion of the Eighteenth, he would have ordered his men to fling their javelins. A barrage of javelins would break up the enemy's formation, allowing the Legionaries to strike...
He heard a click.
Radast stepped next to him, muttering numbers, and lifted his black crossbow. The weapon shuddered, and one of the Immortals collapsed, a quarrel sprouting from the eye hole of his skull helmet. Radast snatched up his second crossbow and squeezed the trigger, even as Jiri raised her own weapon. Two more Istarish soldiers fell dead, and the attack faltered, the Istarish thrown off-guard.
Ark charged.
He crashed into the Istarish footmen, the war cry of the Legions upon his lips. A blow from his shield sent an Istarish soldier falling to the ground. A slash from his broadsword ripped halfway through a soldier's neck. Behind him Halfdan attacked, his short sword stabbing. Even Zorgi fought, wielding a stout oaken cudgel, his blows denting spiked helmets and cracking the skulls beneath them.
Then the remaining Immortal stood before Ark.
The Immortal swung his whip of black chain, and Ark managed to block with his shield. The blow rocked him, sent wood chips flying from his shield. Gods, but the Immortal was strong! Ark darted forward, hoping to strike while the Immortal readied another blow, but the elite soldier was simply too fast. He circled the Immortal, looking for an opening, while the chain whip snapped and hissed at his shield.
Then the Immortal jerked, as if punched in the back. Ark saw the fletching of a heavy quarrel rising from the Immortal's armored hip.
Radast had reloaded his crossbow.
Ark seized the opening, his shield smashing across the Immortal’s grinning skull mask. The Immortal fell to his knees, and Ark brought his broadsword around with all of his strength behind it. The heavy blade crunched through the mail protecting the Immortal's neck, and the man fell, blood pooling beneath his black armor.
Ark wrenched his sword free, looking around for his next foe, and saw that the fight was over. With the two Immortals slain, the surviving Istarish footmen fled to the Avenue of Governors. No one had been hurt, saved for the dead soldiers upon the cobblestones of the Plaza. Radast reloaded his crossbows, as did Jiri, Zorgi wiped sweat from his brow, while Halfdan fell to one knee, hand clutching his side...
Ark cursed and hurried over.
"It's not bad," said Halfdan, face white with pain. Blood trickled down his leg. "It's..."
He toppled face first onto the ground.
"Move!" said Katerine, pushing aside Ark. She tore a strip from her sleeve, yanked open Halfdan's leather armor, and began bandaging the wound.
“Will he live?” said Ark. He had seen men die from violence many times. Men often recovered from wounds like Halfdan’s…but sometimes they did not.
“I do not know,” said Katerine. “He has lost too much blood. If we can get him someplace quiet where I can stitch this up, then yes, he should live. But if we cannot, he will die.”
“What do we do now?” said Tanya.
Ark opened his mouth to answer, and realized that he did not know.
He turned to Jiri. She was the circlemaster of Marsis, and she answered to Halfdan. Yet her face was tight and brittle with strain. Why was she so shocked? She had seen violence before.
Ah. But she had never seen war before, had s
he?
Radast was brilliant, but he could barely manage himself, let alone others. Zorgi was an innkeeper, not a soldier or even a spy. Ark realized that while most of his companions had seen violence, none of them had ever seen war. None of them had ever stood in the battle line, heart pounding, sweat pouring down their faces, braced to receive the charge of the enemy.
But he had. He had served sixteen years in the Eighteenth Legion, fighting the barbarian nations north of the Imperial Pale. He had risen to the rank of first spear centurion, commanding the Eighteenth’s prestigious first cohort. He had grown weary of war, and left when his term of service expired, intending to leave that life behind.
The Ghosts Omnibus: The Kyracian War Page 8