A Dance of Chaos

by David Dalglish

  Once he was a few feet away, Haern drew his dagger and held his breath. So far the man still peered out the window, no doubt hoping to catch a glimpse of Thren or the Watcher. Now much closer, Haern could see he was incredibly young, maybe fifteen at most. Strangely enough, he was very softly whistling, no doubt thinking the storm would overwhelm the noise. The song was even cheerful, not nervous as Haern had first assumed. To kill him was to end the song. Haern knew this should give him pause, perhaps guilt, but instead the confidence of it angered him further. All across the city, men and women were dying. At the gates soldiers fought for their lives. In the streets the old guilds were rising up, slaughtering the new that had taken their place. Yet here, in this hollowed section of the city, members of the Sun waited for him and Thren like it was just a game? As if victory were already assured?

  Sickened, and with his pride wounded, Haern burst into movement. He clamped a hand over the man’s face, then jammed the dagger into his back. The whistle turned into a gargle. Yanking out the dagger, Haern thrust it again and again, each stab more vicious than the last as he felt the Watcher persona fully take control. Dragging the limp body away from the window, Haern gently let it drop, then returned to the window he’d entered from. Thren remained outside it, patiently waiting.

  Leaning out, Haern offered him his hand. Thren leaped, caught it, and then climbed up with his feet as Haern pulled.

  “Just one?” Thren whispered once he was inside.

  “Up here, anyway,” Haern whispered back. “The stairs are over there. Can you see them?”

  “I can’t,” Thren said. “But I don’t need to. Lead the way, and I’ll follow.”

  To the stairs they went, Haern realizing that his father had grabbed the bottom of his cloak and was using it to guide himself. At the top of the stairs, Haern peered down and saw that someone must have lit a small fire or torch given the way red-and-yellow light flickered against the wall, casting shadows. None appeared to be of men or women, leaving Haern with no clue as to how many were downstairs. Moving down three steps, the farthest he could go before he might be visible to those downstairs, he tensed for action. They’d need to act fast, just in case the numbers were far greater than they expected.

  Wait, he mouthed to Thren, who was one step behind him. Just in case the light from downstairs was not enough, he held out his right hand, blocking Thren’s way. Tensed and ready to run, Haern waited, knowing it shouldn’t be long. When lightning flashed, filling both floors with momentary light, Haern rushed down the steps two at a time. Thunder rumbled, and combined with the rain, he hoped the noise might mask their descent. Upon hitting the bottom, he pivoted, leaping with sabers leading.

  Four members of the Sun were gathered in a store, two men waiting at the door across from Haern, two more holding crossbows as they peered out the nearby windows. A lantern burned from a hook in the center of the ceiling, casting amber light across the two rows of shelves. It seemed they had not heard their approach, and Haern grinned with grim amusement at their intense concentration. As he crossed the room, he hopped atop the shelf, which was pleasantly thick and sturdy. A spare glance behind showed Thren climbing the other, and together they crouched along. Halfway there, they stopped when Thren was directly beneath the lantern.

  On your signal, Thren mouthed as he reached up to touch the lantern. Haern nodded, and he could not help himself. He counted to three, then let out a soft whistle, the same song as the man upstairs. Out went the lantern, flooding the store with darkness.

  “Shit,” he heard one of them cry, coupled with the twang of a crossbow string. Haern heard it strike the wood of the far wall, no doubt somewhere near the staircase. They didn’t realize how high up they were, how fast they rushed toward them. Thren leaped first, and Haern followed, the two descending upon the four before they could realize the danger they were in. Haern extended his legs, his heels slamming into the chest of the other crossbowman. The body crumpled beneath him. Just to be sure, Haern jammed his sabers downward until they both hit flesh. The man to his right swung at Haern’s face, but he dipped below, yanking free his sabers and then whirling, both blades cutting across his foe’s chest and waist. As the rogue cried out in pain, Haern completed his turn, bringing his sabers back down, this time across the neck and shoulders.

  The man crumpled, and having finished his opponents, Haern looked to see Thren having done likewise, one of his short swords still sticking out of the back of a Sun member lying facedown beside the window.

  “Did they hear us?” Thren whispered. Haern almost admired how quickly he could put the dead out of his mind, always focused on the task at hand.

  “I’m not sure,” Haern whispered. They’d only allowed a single cry of pain. Swiping clean his sabers on a dead man’s coat, he leaned against the wall and peered out the window. He saw only an empty street, the two buildings on the other side appearing dim and empty. Not far to his left was the destruction left by the exploded tile, the street turned into a crater, the nearby buildings crumpled into ruin. They, too, were dark. The realization made Haern’s nerves tingle.

  “This was the only one with a lantern,” Haern said.

  Thren caught his meaning immediately.

  “Drawn like moths,” he said. “Upstairs, now.”

  This time without need for stealth, they ran as fast as they could, and by the time Haern set foot on the bottom stair he heard the door to the store bang open. A crossbow bolt thudded into the wall behind him as he followed Thren into the upstairs storeroom. The windows both had grappling hooks attached to them from the outside, but so far no one had made the climb.

  “Take the windows,” Thren said. “I’ll hold the stairs.”

  “Sure, claim the easy job,” Haern said, rushing the window to his left. As a woman grabbed hold of the sill and started to pull herself up, Haern took advantage of his momentum and leaped into a kick. His right heel slammed into her chest while she was still halfway inside, and against such force she could not maintain her grip. With a cry she fell back outside, returning to the rain and the dark. Landing on his side, Haern ignored the jolt to his elbow, rolled to his feet, and then leaped to the other window. An ugly man with the four-pointed star on his chest hopped into the room, and he drew his daggers just before Haern tore into him, making a mockery of the man’s defenses. Two vicious hits, and the man staggered back to the window. Feinting a thrust to put him out of position, Haern cut across his groin, the pain breaking whatever concentration the man had had. When he instinctively doubled over in pain, Haern uppercut him with the butt of his saber, then stabbed. His sabers buried themselves halfway to the hilt in the man’s chest, and with a kick, Haern sent him tumbling out the window to the ground below.

  Haern was tempted to cut at the rope of the grappling hook but knew he had no time. Rushing to the other window, he caught sight of Thren battling two at once, using the limited space and his height advantage to keep them bottlenecked at the top of the stairs. Trusting him to hold, Haern engaged the two Suns who had made it inside. They stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to form a defensive perimeter to protect the rest who climbed. Despite how young they looked, each had seven rings in his left ear. Skilled for such youth, Haern realized. The Sun Guild was throwing its very best at them in one last-ditch attempt at victory.

  That number stops at seven, Haern thought as he spun. With such little light, he knew the twirling of his cloak would be an indecipherable jumble of gray and black. They tensed, unsure where his attack would come from and not knowing he had fallen to his knees.

  Swiping sabers wide each way, he jammed the blades through their boots and into the tender flesh just below their shins. He yanked the weapons free as he pulled back, spraying blood across the floor. The two unable to evenly brace their weight, Haern assaulted the one on the right, beating him away from the window with a flurry of slashes. When the other tried to aid him, Haern immediately switched targets, parrying a thrust high and then kicking him in the stomach. The windo
w now unblocked, Haern pivoted, stabbed the throat of a third still trying to climb through, and then returned his attention to the one on the right. One hand pushed aside the frantic attempt to block, the other plunged a saber into the man’s chest. As he dropped, Haern left the saber embedded, drew a dagger from his belt, and then flung it across the room. He’d hoped merely for a distraction, but luck was with him, the throw embedding the dagger in the eye of a man pulling himself up from the other window. The body slumped over, half in, half out.

  “Running out of time!” Haern yelled to Thren as he blocked a swing, juked one way, then pulled his other saber free. His opponent tried to press the attack, but Haern was already on the move, just a ghost in the room the other could not hope to follow. Dashing one way, then another, he caught him off guard with a kick to the groin, then a second kick to the chest. The man stumbled back, hitting yet another trying to climb through the window. Haern left them entangled and ran to Thren’s side.

  There were four on the stairs, two of whom had managed to make it to the very top step and even height with Thren. It was taking all of Thren’s skill to keep them at bay, parrying and thrusting with his short swords, their battle illuminated by a single torch carried by a man at the bottom of the stairs. When Haern joined, however, it went from a close battle to a slaughter. His father taking the left, Haern the right, they cut the two down, then sent the bodies tumbling into the others.

  “Follow me,” Haern said, dashing to the left window. The entangled pair had just managed to make it inside, and Haern crashed into them like a whirlwind. The first fell, a gaping hole in his throat, while the other managed to barely avoid death by leaping to his left … and right into Thren’s charge. His father brought him down with ease, and with the window free, Haern put a foot on the ledge, stepped out, and spun to grab the rooftop. Pulling himself up, he rolled onto his back and gasped in air. His heart pounded in his chest, yet they weren’t close to finished.

  Thren joined him a moment later, dropping to both knees as he also fought for breath.

  “They won’t follow through the windows,” he said. “Too easy to defend. They’ll come from the other rooftops.”

  “Makes sense,” Haern said. “Question is, how many?”

  “Does it matter?” Thren asked. “We’ll have our answer soon enough.”

  Haern sat up, then hopped to his feet. Twirling his sabers, he pointed east.

  “This side’s mine,” he said. “You take the west. Fall back to the middle if you cannot hold.”

  True to Thren’s assumption, the remaining members of the Sun Guild scaled the two adjacent buildings, gathering on the flat rooftops in preparation for an assault. Haern saw four on his side, and a glance over his shoulder showed five at the other. Terrible numbers, but they’d need to cross the gap between the buildings. An easy feat under normal circumstances. With Haern and Thren protecting the way? Hopefully that would prove far more fatal.

  “What are you waiting for?” Haern shouted when the four remained where they were. “The fun’s over here, not over there!”

  One of them raised an arm, and Haern realized they were synchronizing their attacks from both sides. Not a bad idea, Haern thought, though it gave him and Thren even more time to catch their breaths. All in all, a trade he’d gladly take.

  The fist dropped, and the four ran. They’d been bunched together, but upon receiving the signal, they spaced out so that they covered the building from corner to corner. Haern pulled back a step, knowing he could not protect the entire stretch of the wall, which meant he had to make sure the first exchange of the battle was lethal, before they could surround him.

  No doubt they’d assumed he’d stay near the middle, but just before they leaped, Haern dashed north. He saw the panic in the farthest of the rogues, saw how the woman tried to bring her weapon to bear. It only botched her landing, her left ankle twisting upon contact with the roof. As she fell, Haern was ready, dropping to his knees and then bracing his sabers. The woman rolled straight into him, as if for an embrace, and the movement impaled her on his blades. Lifting her up to a stand, Haern stared into her dying eyes. He looked for malice, or for fury, but he saw only fading surprise and shock as her blood poured across his hands. Berating himself for such weakness, he kicked her body off the rooftop, then turned to the others. Only three now, and he let the magic of his hood dim, let them see the grin on his face. He felt no joy whatsoever, but they need not know that. Let them see a monster reveling in battle. Let them see the blood of their friend upon his sabers, and be afraid.

  When he attacked, two met the charge, the third hesitating out of fear. Better than he’d hoped. Haern never slowed, and when the men planted their feet and swung, Haern dropped to his side, sliding beneath them on the rain-slick rooftop. Back on his feet in a heartbeat, he rushed the frightened, solitary man, who had retreated to the rooftop’s edge.

  “No, wait!” he shouted, green eyes wide, scraggly red hair drenched with rain. It was so strange to hear. Wait? For what? Did he want mercy? Was he hoping to somehow survive after all his guild had done? Haern kicked him in the chest, sending him tumbling off the building. He didn’t watch him fall. When he heard the sickening crunch of the body smacking the hard stone below, Haern envisioned the breaking bones, and he saw the shocked look on the face of the woman he’d killed moments earlier. Was that how greatly Muzien had won over these men and women? Did they think death could never come for them so long as they wore the four-pointed star?

  Haern whirled, remembering the other two, but it seemed they’d chosen safer prey. Thren had fallen back to the center of the rooftop as Haern had ordered, two of his five dead, the other three methodically cutting and thrusting in rhythm so Thren could not manage a counter. With two more rushing in from his blind side, he’d be a dead man. Haern had to be faster. Picking up speed, legs pumping, he let out a scream and prayed his father would obey.

  “Thren, turn!”

  His father disengaged a step from the three, then spun to face the other two. His back was vulnerable, but as Thren blocked the attacks of his ambushers, Haern came crashing in from the other side. Mind focused to a razor’s edge, Haern spun and blocked, parried and twisted, his blades dancing in a weave the three could not hope to match. One fell, heel sliced out, and then a second dropped, a red smile opened on his throat. Haern never lost momentum, stabbing the wounded man in the heart as he leaped over him, parrying a frantic thrust of a dagger, and then plunging both sabers into his final opponent’s chest. Pushing for a few steps, he twisted his sabers free as he shoved the body with his heel, sending him tumbling off the rooftop to die in the rain on the street below.

  Turning, he saw his father standing above the corpses of the final two. Given how perfectly still he remained, how stiff his arms and tense his legs, Haern thought Thren had taken a wound, but then he followed his gaze to the nearby rooftop.

  Standing alone, rain beating down against his long coat, was Muzien the Darkhand.

  He said nothing, only stood there watching as the soft wind of the storm played with the bottom of his coat. Slowly Haern joined his father’s side, and they both readied their weapons. Here he was. At long last, they faced the elf who had held the entire city hostage.

  “What is he waiting for?” Haern asked in a low voice.

  “For us to approach,” Thren said. “It’s his way of challenging us, seeing if we’ll accept.”

  “He’ll kill us the moment we try to leap over.”

  Thren shook his head.

  “That isn’t like him. That elf’s pride won’t let him kill us except in a fair fight.”

  “Two against one? Hardly sounds fair.”

  Thren grimaced.

  “Trust me,” he said. “It’s fair.”

  He broke into a steady jog, and after a moment’s hesitation, Haern followed. Together they reached the roof’s edge, leaped over, and then landed before the master of the Sun Guild, who at last showed a sign of life.

  He sm
iled.

  CHAPTER

  29

  The symbol of the spider consuming the sun had just graced their skies when Deathmask arrived at the temple to Ashhur, the rest of his guild in tow. He was pleased to see Calan waiting for him underneath the awning of the temple, along with what appeared to be the majority of the priests and priestesses. Deathmask walked up their marble steps, giving not one thought to the rain. Rain, darkness, shadow … they only gave him more tools to spread fear.

  “It seems this is a night for strange bedfellows,” Calan said, offering his hand to Deathmask while looking up to the symbol of the spider slowly fading away before the crimson clouds.

  “Let the underworld decide its new king,” Deathmask said. “We have more important matters to deal with. Are you and your kind ready?”

  Calan turned to those with him, about twenty in number. While Calan looked calm as ever, the rest were clearly nervous, and Deathmask hoped it would not affect their abilities should it come to battle.

  “We are,” Calan said.

  “Good,” Deathmask said. “Follow me.”

  He hopped back down the steps, where Veliana and the twins waited.

  “I’m not comfortable with this,” Veliana said, joining him in stride.

  “You don’t need to be,” Deathmask said as he hurried through the rain toward Karak’s temple. “You just have to look pretty, be dangerous, and follow orders. Being comfortable is currently a perk we’re not allowed to have.”

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw the trail of priests and priestesses in their white robes falling behind and growing scattered.

  “Pick up the pace,” he called to them. “Or is a bit of rain too much for your old bones?”

  “One day, when you are old, you will see how terrible it is for your bones to hate the rain,” said Calan, who had caught up with him, the effort leaving him slightly out of breath.