by Marc Turner
Then she flung herself into the wall of water at her back.
Mili and Tali stabbed their swords into the sea after her. From where Kempis stood, it was difficult to make out whether their weapons found their mark. He doubted it, though, for the stone-skin was already retreating swiftly into the sunlit waters. The shark Kempis had seen earlier didn’t even try to follow her. Evidently it was having too much fun tormenting the septia with its stare.
Kempis realized he hadn’t so much as drawn his sword in the emira’s defense. But then the clash between the twins and the stone-skin had lasted only a handful of heartbeats. The assassin had taken a risk trying to beard Imerle in her own den, yet it might have paid off had it not been for One-Eye’s warning. Kempis looked back at the old man to find him smiling inanely. So this was the Remnerol shaman, was it? The one who could read the future in his knuckle bones. Clearly he’d foreseen the threat to the emira and arrived in time to alert her, but why hadn’t he also foreseen the attacks on Mazana Creed and Thane Tanner?
Maybe he did, Kempis thought. Maybe he just decided not to share his knowledge with the targets. He looked at Imerle. At her order, perhaps?
The emira was studying Kempis, and he stilled his expression lest she read his suspicions in his look. She appeared unruffled by the attempt on her life, but Kempis was beginning to wonder if she was capable of any emotion at all.
“We suspect we may have just found Thane Tanner’s killer for you,” she said to Kempis.
The septia’s gaze flickered to the sea. “Found and then lost again.”
“And yet she used water-magic to get here, did she not? We assume you would recognize the signature of her sorcery if you encountered it again.”
He nodded warily.
“Then why are you still here?”
Kempis licked his lips, remembering the stone-skin’s speed with her blade. He looked at Mili and Tali. The twins hadn’t sheathed their swords and were now prowling the rear of the chamber. “Don’t suppose I could borrow your bodyguards, could I?” he said. “Just until the stone-skin is caught. I promise I’ll bring them back afterward.”
Imerle raised an eyebrow.
Sighing, Kempis turned away.
Forget I asked.
* * *
Senar descended the ramp into mist so dense the thickest curls felt like fingers brushing against his skin. Reaching the base, he paused on the threshold of a chamber. Its walls and ceiling were hidden by the fog, but Senar could sense the size of the room in the weight of emptiness before him. Ahead the torches of the two librarians were smears of blue light. That light had stained the mist through which the men passed, and the fog held the glow to leave a spectral trail that was now fading to black. Mazana walked in front of the torchbearers, her breath steaming in the chill.
Senar set off in pursuit.
He didn’t notice the corpse until he stumbled over it. Skidding on ice crystals, he threw out his arms to regain his balance, then turned to inspect the body. A male titan lay curled up in a fetal position, his right hand reaching for a sword just out of reach. His skin was encased in frost. Doubtless he’d been dead for millennia, yet somehow the mist had preserved—
The Guardian started as someone touched his shoulder. Cilin. The septia’s expression was bleak as he pointed back the way they had come. The ramp was barely visible through the murk, but Senar could see two soldiers stationed to either side of the base. One of them, a woman, was crouching beside the wall just inside the chamber. Through a curtain of fog, she appeared pale as a spirit to Senar’s eyes, but it was the wall that held his attention. The lowest handspan was a deeper gray than the rock above it, and the soldier scratched a fingernail along that darker section. She rubbed the nail against a thumb.
“Blood.”
Echoes of the word came at Senar from all directions—evidently there were titan faces carved into the walls of this room as there were above. When the Guardian looked for them, though, he could make out nothing through the mist. Other sounds reached him: a rustle of metal, fragments of words, a faint rumble like the growl of an approaching storm. It was only then that Senar realized the floor was trembling. Not the erratic jolts of an earth tremor, but a regular pulse like a heartbeat. The Guardian’s own pulse kept time.
Cilin stood watching him, irresolute. Senar could guess what he was thinking. The septia’s orders had been to attack Mazana, so why was he guarding her back? Why had he trailed her down here at all? Senar shared his misgivings. To follow is to let your fate be decided by another. He wanted to act, but act how? He knew nothing of what was happening here, and if he picked his course blindly, he was as likely to hit rocks as he was to find a safe harbor.
Mazana had halted a short distance in front, and Senar crossed to join her. Icy stone shavings cracked and popped beneath his boots. The Storm Lady cupped her hands through the mist as if she were scooping up water. When she opened her hands again, the fog sank down.
“Titan magic,” she murmured to Senar. “The air is thick with it, even after all these millennia. It deadens sorcery, did you know? My power is useless here.”
“And the priestess’s?”
Mazana gave a rueful smile, then moved deeper into the chamber.
Ahead and to the right were more titan corpses scattered about like discarded dolls. None of the bodies showed any wounds. All were perfectly preserved. Almost as if the titans had just been killed, in fact. But no, that wasn’t possible. Nothing could have survived down here on the wrong side of that sorcerous barrier. The Guardian reached the edge of a ring of fluted pillars curling away into the mist to either side. The columns to his left stretched upward into darkness, but the pillar immediately in front and to his right had collapsed to leave only a waist-high stump. The floor around it was strewn with chunks of rock, while on top …
Senar blinked.
A torch, its blue flame flickering weakly. A second torch lay atop another shattered pillar a few paces away. Of the librarians who had been carrying them, there was no sign. Darbonna, too, had disappeared.
A whisper sounded to Senar’s left—not the whisper of a hushed voice, but of a blade being drawn from its scabbard. Shadows gathered at the edge of the torchlight, and the Guardian pushed Mazana behind him.
“Weapons out!” he shouted to his companions, unsheathing his own sword.
Then the first screams started.
* * *
Sniffer and Duffle were waiting for Kempis at the palace gates. The Untarian shot him a black-toothed smile. “Never thought we’d see you again, sir.”
“Had them eating out of my hand by the end,” Kempis said, taking his stripes from his shoulder and putting them in a pocket.
“And Hilaire?”
“Stayed behind to brown-nose one of her Storm Guard contacts.”
As they climbed Kalin’s Hill he told them of the conversation in the throne room and of the assassination attempt on the emira.
When he finished, Sniffer said, “You want me to swim round to the chamber and see if I can pick up the stone-skin’s trail?”
Kempis eyed her suspiciously. On her last day in the Watch? What was she after, overtime? “Did you miss the part about that Shroud-cursed shark eyeballing me?”
“Untarians can swim as fast as most sharp-teeths over short distances.”
“But not as fast as water-mages, I’ll bet.”
“Why, Kempis, I never knew you cared.”
“That’s ‘Septia’ to you.”
At that moment a tremor shook the ground. Not as strong as the quake the other day, but still intense enough for Kempis to cast a wary eye over the buildings to either side. To the west the towers of the Founder’s Citadel, along with the tenement blocks around it, were shuddering like an old man’s palsied hands. Screams floated up the hill. From a house to Kempis’s right came the sound of breaking glass and a baby’s crying.
“It’s the denkrakil,” Duffle said as the tremors subsided.
“What is?” Sn
iffer asked.
“These quakes. Denkrakil’s got its tentacles wrapped round the island. One of these days it’ll give Olaire a shake and the whole city will slip into the sea.”
The Untarian snorted.
“On my life! Fisherman saw the thing a few weeks back off Ferris Point.”
“Then how in the Sender’s name did he survive to tell the tale?”
Kempis said, “Maybe it was hunting bigger game.”
Sniffer looked across. “Tell me you don’t believe this shit.”
The septia shrugged. “Why not? Suits the Storm Lords to have a denkrakil on the loose in the Sabian Sea. If the creature takes the odd ship, so what? Gives the emira an excuse to raise the Levy each year.”
“And if she’s on that floater when the thing attacks?”
He shrugged a second time. “Friend of mine knows a soldier in Dian who saw the Dragon Gate rise in the dead of night a couple of years back. Weren’t nothing to do with Dragon Day neither.” He looked between Sniffer and Duffle. “Don’t you get it? Not long after that is when the tremors started, right?”
The Untarian studied him, then grinned. “Now I know you’re kidding. A friend of yours knows a soldier in Dian?”
Kempis returned her gaze blankly.
“Since when have you had any friends?”
And with that, Sniffer spun on her heel and headed back the way they had come.
“Where the hell are you going?” Kempis shouted after her.
“To the palace, of course. To follow the stone-skin.”
The septia thought to call her back, then decided against it. Where was the harm? It wasn’t as if he could detect the assassin’s magical signature just now, so until the stone-skin used her sorcery again, the Untarian was the best chance they had of tracking her down. Assuming Sniffer meant to follow the assassin at all. Most likely she’d just wait until Kempis was gone before finding somewhere quiet to sit out her last day.
Duffle said, “What about us, sir, Septia, sir?”
Kempis resumed climbing the hill. “Back to the station. We’ll find Loop, see if anything’s come in on Thane Tanner’s killing.”
“And if Sniffer can’t find the stone-skin?”
“Then we hit the streets. If the stone-skin’s been in Olaire these past few days, odds are someone will have seen her. A woman with skin like hers can’t just blend into the scenery.”
Duffle’s long legs were eating up the slope, and Kempis found himself struggling to keep up. As he drew level with the Chameleon Temple, he saw two priests standing outside its gates. One of them—a middle-aged man with receding blond hair—was returning Kempis’s scrutiny, and the septia was oddly glad when a turn in the road took him out of sight.
Duffle placed a hand on his right arm. “Sir, look!”
Kempis swung his gaze to where the youth was pointing. He’d reached a position on Kalin’s Hill from where he could see the whole of Olaire, and to the west he spotted a dozen small ships approaching the Causeway, their gray sails filled by the strengthening east wind. At first he thought they were blueblood vessels returning from the Hunt. Then he noticed that none of the ships was flying a flag.
And that their decks were heaving with armored figures.
The lead vessel entered the Causeway. On the main deck, gray-cloaked troops were lining up along the rails. Ahead of the ship the docks were awash with color and noise from the crowds awaiting the arrival of whichever captain brought back the dragon’s corpse. It sounded like they had a party going on down there, but Kempis suspected someone was about to call time. As the galley entered the harbor, a cheer went up, only to die away as the revelers did the math.
People on the rooftops of the houses overlooking the Causeway ducked and scrambled away across the roof tiles.
Here it comes.
A volley of arrows flew out from the deck of the lead ship to strike the people on the docks.
As one, the crowd flinched.
A second hail of missiles rained down. The townsfolk nearest the water turned to flee, only to find themselves boxed in by the multitudes behind. Some threw themselves into the harbor and started swimming toward the shipyard to the north. Others tried to claw a way through the press behind. Kempis could taste the fear from up here. Fights broke out as the throng turned on itself.
Another volley of arrows.
Those at the rear of the crowd—the lucky ones—began streaming into the streets of the Maiden District. The Storm Guards who might have returned fire on the enemy were swept along with them. A lone arrow arced toward the gray ships. Kempis did not see where it landed.
Duffle stared wide-eyed at the mayhem. “What are they doing?”
“Sowing panic, lad,” the septia said. “Ain’t no way the Storm Guards can organize a defense with that stampede going on.”
“But, the ships … They’re attacking Olaire? The Storm Lords…”
Kempis did not respond. Out of the corner of his eye he’d seen movement in the flooded streets of the Deeps. When he looked across he caught sight of a flotilla of small boats gliding toward the Shallows. Sunlight glinted off the armor worn by their passengers. The septia tried to count numbers—ten boats, twenty, thirty, and still more were materializing from behind the buildings.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Duffle, striding in the direction of the Commercial District.
Above the tumult from the docks, the bells from the Maudlin Watchtower started to ring their note of warning across the city.
* * *
The two former torchbearers rushed at Senar from the mist beyond the ring of pillars, chanting in a language the Guardian did not recognize. He parried a strike from the first, then ducked under a head-high cut from the second and slammed his blade into the man’s groin. With a cry the injured swordsman staggered back into his companion, and they went down in a tangle.
Senar stabbed out twice and they fell still.
He swung back to Mazana. The Storm Lady stood behind a half circle of her bodyguards, none of whom had made any move to help Senar. Greave watched him with a hint of a smile. The others peered into the fog beyond the torchlight, their weapons held ready. From the direction of the ramp came the clash of metal on metal, chanting, bellowed war cries. It had to be more of these so-called librarians; they must have followed the company down from the upper level, meaning the emira’s soldiers, at the rear of the party, would bear the brunt of the assault.
White-robed figures came swarming out of the gloom. Mazana’s ax-wielding bodyguard leapt to meet them, his weapon a glittering arc that cut the mist to ribbons. The Everlord was calmness personified as he stepped between the flailing swords of two female assailants. He ran one through, then delivered a punch to the throat of the second. She dropped to her knees gasping for air. A black man carrying a shortsword and a shield came for Senar. The Guardian dispatched him with a feint and a slash to the neck, and the man toppled into the back of Greave’s legs. Senar thought the champion would go down, but he kept his balance and blocked the attack of a male assailant, pinning his foe’s blade on the barbs of his fish-spine sword.
Senar crouched to collect the black man’s shield, fumbling the strap with his halfhand.
A shout from Mazana.
Two swordsmen materialized from the fog to Senar’s right and advanced on the Storm Lady. She tugged a dagger from a scabbard at her waist and flung it at the nearest enemy. The throw went high, but it bought Mazana time to skip behind a pillar and out of her attackers’ reach.
Senar hurled himself at the newcomers. The first man had his back to the Guardian and died before he could raise his sword. The second retreated, parrying feverishly, until a push from Senar’s shield drove him back toward one of the broken pillars. Mazana rose up behind and brought down a chunk of stone on the back of his head. His skull caved in with a wet crack. He slumped to the floor, his blade slipping from his fingers.
The Storm Lady gazed at her blood-spattered hands, then dropped the roc
k on the corpse. Her breath came quickly, and her face was flushed.
She shot Senar a grin.
The Guardian scowled. Something funny in all this, was there? Maybe someone had cracked a joke that he’d missed.
Thus far the sound of fighting had been loudest from the direction of the ramp, but the titan faces had taken up the clamor so that now it seemed to Senar as if he were standing in the middle of a pitched battle. Of Mazana’s bodyguards only Greave and the Everlord remained visible in the mist, fighting back-to-back against half a dozen assailants. As Kiapa cut down a woman to his left, a man appeared from the fog to his right, swinging a saber in a decapitating stroke.
The Everlord spun to catch the attack.
Only for his foe to trip on the body of one of his white-robed companions. The librarian’s sword dipped beneath Kiapa’s block, slamming into the top of his right leg and cutting cleanly through the limb.
The Everlord toppled wordlessly.
Greave, sensing his back was now exposed, carved his fish-spine blade through the chest of an opponent, then grabbed the man and threw him into the librarians approaching from behind. Before the champion could dispatch the fallen swordsmen, another enemy emerged shrieking from the mist.
Senar cast a look at Mazana to find her watching him in turn. He raised an inquiring eyebrow, only for her to repeat the gesture at him.
Sighing, he went to help Greave.
Three librarians rushed the champion, and he swung his sword in a wide arc to meet their attack. Two of the foe checked their advance, but the third was struck on the chin and fell in a spray of blood. A thrust from one of Greave’s remaining assailants pierced the champion’s defenses only to deflect off the armor beneath his puffed shirt. Greave’s countercut lifted the swordsman’s head from his shoulders.
A white-robed young man appeared from the shadows behind him, chanting in a voice that quavered with fear. Senar moved to intercept. It was clear to him the librarians weren’t librarians in truth, but nor were they warriors of any distinction, for when the youth attacked he raised his sword high overhead as if he were chopping wood. Senar parried the blow, then ran the youth through.