‘Sir!’ the sergeant called after him. ‘What do we do? Sir!’
The clash of battle echoing through the streets as Silk approached the Inner Round both reassured and dismayed him. It reassured him that he was right in his guess, yet he wished he hadn’t been. He did not even slow as he passed through fortified Hengan positions to enter a contested main thoroughfare that led to the nearest gate, which was held by Kanese infantry.
Even as he ran, crossbow bolts hissing about him, he raised his Warren and cast ahead of himself without restraint, without thought of what was to come. The infantrymen and women massed in the gate shouted their pain as they dropped weapons and pulled at their armour, falling and writhing. Smoke wafted up carrying with it the stink of burned flesh.
He ran over them where they lay crying in agony, the smoke rising from them. In such an extravagant manner, flaying all about without any holding back or husbanding of his energies, he reached the palace grounds. Here city elites still held the main structure of the Inner Temple. These ranks let him through and he jogged for the throne room.
He found Shalmanat cloistered within, together with Ho. He halted, panting, exhausted and drained. ‘Good,’ he managed, hardly able to speak. ‘I caught you before you withdrew. We can escort you from the city, of course.’
The Protectress wore a long cloak of thick wool that she drew up about herself at his words. ‘I’m not going.’
Silk looked to Ho for support; the man shrugged his helplessness. He offered, ‘We cannot hope to hold them all off . . .’
‘How long until dawn?’ she demanded.
‘Perhaps an hour.’
She nodded at this. ‘Until then. One hour. Can you do that?’
Ho and Silk shared a glance. ‘We will try,’ Ho answered.
Her nod turned fierce. ‘Do that. Give me the dawn, gentlemen.’ She backed away, waving them off. Ho bowed, and when Silk would not move he took his arm and drew him on.
‘Where is she going?’ Silk demanded.
‘I believe she is withdrawing to the tower.’
Silk was appalled. ‘There’s no retreat from there!’
Ho would not release his arm. ‘Then she will surrender – if she must. Now come with me. We have a great deal of work ahead of us.’ Silk allowed himself to be led off. Not that he had any choice as Ho was immensely strong, but he did not resist. ‘What does she mean, the dawn? What does she want with the dawn?’
The shaggy, unkempt fellow was grim. ‘I’m afraid we’ll find out. For now, we will hold, yes?’
Silk yanked his arm. ‘Yes. You can count on me.’
Ho released him. His thick lips drew back from his blunt teeth in a humourless smile. ‘We shall see.’
*
Fascinated, Dorin traced the route of the invading Kanese infantry along the Idryn’s course, past river gates and on to the city centre itself. From rooftops he watched while hastily thrown up barricades and strongpoints were overrun by an irresistible Kanese advance to the Inner Round. It was as if the Idryn itself had overflowed its banks, he reflected.
Here, resistance hardened. Elites with nowhere to retreat held out in narrow gates and chokepoints. Yet the overall current could not be held back. The Hengans were already outnumbered by the Kanese and more were flowing in from both the east and the west.
The end, it appeared to Dorin, could not be disputed.
And in consequence, it lost its interest for him. No need to linger here. What he wondered now was who was in charge of the operation. The slim possibility that Chulalorn himself might be down there somewhere directing the campaign was intriguing. That was worth investigating. And so he waited, and watched, and eventually he spotted a runner, a messenger, and shadowed the young woman as she jogged off along the river’s length.
He lost sight of her a few times in the thick curling scarves of fog – burning off now with the coming dawn – until her trail led him to the river gate of the Inner Round. Here she joined a mass of Kan Elites, all picketed and readied, guarding a position in the shadowed murk of the gate.
Chulalorn himself, he was sure.
And he became certain when he glimpsed the bright shimmer of the fine mail coats of the Sword-Dancers, in double ranks, encircling the centre.
His target, come into the open. Yet now would be the worst time, with everyone alert and readied. The very opposite of the proper moment, in point of fact. And so he sat back in the shelter of a chimney on a tall building overlooking the Idryn, content to watch, and evaluate.
Shortly afterwards the crackle of grit on the rooftop alerted him that he was not alone. Knives readied, he peered round the brick chimney to see a lone figure standing on the roof’s edge, also studying the secured position on the Idryn. He relaxed, lowering his weapons; it was that strange foreign female mage.
‘Greetings,’ she called without even turning.
He straightened and approached. ‘We meet again.’
‘Indeed. It would appear we are creatures of habit.’
‘Why are you interested?’
‘This . . .’ she gestured airily to the night, ‘manifestation interests me.’
‘I know its author.’
She turned to face him directly, one brow arched, and again he was struck by her alien appearance: not obviously inhuman, but not quite right in the proportions of the eyes, cheekbones and chin either. ‘In truth? Now you interest me. Who, or what?’
‘A Jag. Named Juage.’
‘Ah. He is here. We have met . . . long ago. Strange that he should lend himself to such an . . . errand.’
‘He said he was compelled. That the Kanese kings have a hold over him.’
‘Indeed.’ Now her face hardened, the jaw tightening and the lips compressing into nonexistence.
‘He is a friend?’
‘Not as such. He is Jaghut. They are a strange kind, I admit. Alien to you, but admirable – in their own manner – to me. Their current . . . well, situation concerns me. It is something I have sworn to look into.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Nothing. As yet. But time is running out.’
Dorin eyed her, wary. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that dawn is coming and these Kanese have yet to subdue the Protrectress.’
‘And so?’
Her mouth drew down once more. ‘There may be a confrontation that would be dangerous for everyone.’
Dorin was shaken by the strange woman’s certainty, but there was little he could do at the moment. ‘Well, thank you for the warning.’
The mage turned to the east and raised her chin to peer past the forest of roofs that lay all about them. ‘We shall see soon enough.’
*
Silk used his forearm to push up the sword thrusting at him and drew the soldier’s belt-knife with his other hand to thrust it straight up under the man’s chin. He staggered backwards as the man fell. Ten of the Hengan palace elites remained standing with him in the corridor. A new wave of Kan infantry rounded the corridor to crash shields with the elites. Silk reached for one shield and took hold; with direct touch he easily heated the bronze to glowing and the fellow howled, falling away as he pawed at the burning piece. A javelin thrust at him but, as he had experienced only a few times before, with his Warren elevated to its fever pitch everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. He jerked his head aside and thrust in past the weapon to take the fellow in the eye. This brought him to the front and now he was forced to bat aside several short sword thrusts, turning one to break a wrist, slashing a forearm, and leaving the dagger in a last one’s throat.
The rush ended with this last Kanese to fall; the elites were panting, seeing to minor slashes and cuts. Silk fell back as well, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. ‘That’s all for now,’ he managed.
‘We’ll hold,’ a female elite said. ‘What with you taking half of them.’
A mass of approaching footsteps announced another rush of Kanese.
He signalled fo
r a withdrawal to the next inner set of doors.
Crossbow quarrels whisked past them and the Hengan elites ducked, holding their wide shields behind them. Silk merely backed away, dodging the missiles – as before, with his Warren sizzling about him he could see their paths the way a shaft of light crosses a darkened room. Yet he was past spent now, weaving, his grasp upon Thyr slipping. He ducked behind the palace guards to lean against a wall, his head spinning in exhaustion.
The bellowing and laughter of Koroll in full battle fury echoed up the corridor from another wing of the palace. Beneath that growled the constant low roar of Smokey’s Telas flames and a kiln heat emanated from the main audience hall on the left.
Silk nodded to the surviving men and women of the guard to hold these doors. Only one last set remained behind: those that led to the throne room itself, their last retreat. He was worried that the Kanese may yet get behind them and cut them off, and wanted to check on all the other accesses and corridors. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave these guards. Earlier this winter he knew he would have, without a moment’s thought or misgiving, but something had changed. Men and women had died for him. They’d given up their lives. He’d seen it up close, felt their blood on him. And it had changed him.
He could admit that now. A damned late time in one’s life to come to any sort of empathy with others, but there it was. Some never came to it at all.
He nodded encouragement to the female guard, who was clutching her leg where she’d been stabbed through. ‘No need for much marching now anyway,’ he told her with a wink.
She smiled through her pain and gestured up the hall. ‘You needn’t stay, sir.’
Sir. First time anyone in the palace had ever called him sir.
‘We promised the Protectress the dawn, and we’ll give it to her.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘They’re advancing as a solid column behind shields,’ the forward guard warned everyone.
Silk roused himself, pushing from the wall. ‘One more time . . . I will try to hit the shields again.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The elites readied themselves in ranks, two across. Silk, at the rear, reached for his Warren once more and found it frighteningly distant. In attempting to raise it he fell forward on to the rear of the soldiers ahead of him and they supported him, alarmed. Their mouths moved but he heard nothing above the roaring in his ears as he pushed himself further and harder than he ever had before. Finally, almost beyond conscious volition, he grasped it and lashed out at the shields and armour of the column now pushing against the elites before him.
When his vision returned he found himself being dragged backwards between two wounded palace guards. They sat him just inside the threshold of the throne room and swung closed the double doors and barred them. He struggled to his feet. ‘What happened?’
‘They bought us some time,’ one told him.
Neither of these was the female guard he’d spoken to. He nodded, accepting this just as they had. ‘Hold here,’ he told them. ‘I’ll check on the others.’
In answer they saluted him as they would a commanding officer. He returned the salute then jogged, or rather staggered, to find the others. The main entranceway to the throne room he found choked with thick black smoke and radiating a deadly gasping heat – somewhere within that maelstrom Smokey appeared to still be holding.
The crash of stonework sounded from further along and here he came to Mara, panting and sweaty amid a cloud of dust. The hallway before her lay choked by a collapsed heap of fallen blocks and crushed masonry. In the east he found Ho and his contingent of guards retreating towards the throne room. Next to him, Koroll held a barred set of doors. From far off came a resounding booming, as of heavy blows. He headed back to his position.
The two guards were pressed against the doors, which jolted beneath a steady pounding. ‘They’ve brought up a timber or something,’ one shouted to him.
Mara joined them. ‘Not long now,’ she muttered, sourly.
Silk glanced back to the frail filigree door that led to the tower stairs. Hardly defensible, that.
The pounding stopped. Silk listened, wondering what was going on, and dreading some new stratagem.
‘Hello inside!’ a voice called, its south Itko Kan lilt quite strong. ‘Is anyone there?’
‘What do you want!’ Silk bellowed with more defiance than he felt.
‘You have fought well in defence of your ruler. Chulalorn sends his respect. But it is over now. Surrender and we will allow you to keep your lives.’
‘And what of the Protectress?’
‘Exile.’
The heavy stink of smoke wafted over them and Silk turned to see Smokey approaching. His clothes were scorched and blackened, his hair smoking.
‘What guarantee can you offer?’ Silk demanded.
‘The word of our king. From one ruler to another.’
‘I don’t trust Chulalorn,’ Smokey growled to Silk, his voice so hoarse as to be near soundless.
‘Give us your answer,’ the voice warned. ‘If we must break in we will slay all we find within.’
‘Give us time to put it to the Protectress,’ Silk called. He whispered to Smokey, ‘How long until the dawn?’
‘About a quarter of the hour,’ Smokey mouthed, near silent.
‘Give us half the hour!’ Silk called.
They waited in silence for the Kanese response. After a brief time the officer answered, ‘Very well. The half-hour. But no more.’
Smokey offered Silk a wink, but Mara scowled, still dubious.
*
Dorin was crouched on his haunches on the rooftop, listening to the general panic gathering in the streets below. He’d heard some fighting up and down the river’s shore, isolated pockets mostly; the majority of both sides appeared to be waiting. The Hengans were exhausted, numbed by the invasion, and too heavily outnumbered to mount a counter-attack. The Kanese infantry remained firmly in ranks, obviously under orders to defend their frozen highway through the city.
Yet as time passed the fog was lifting, and Dorin wondered whether the sorcerous ice would melt with it. The Kanese would have to get moving if that were to happen.
‘It looks as if they’ve won,’ he opined to the female mage with him. ‘What is your name, if I may?’
‘You may call me Nightchill. And do not be too hasty.’
‘The Hengans aren’t even fighting. They’re beaten.’
‘They are certainly shocked and demoralized, I agree.’
‘What is everyone waiting for?’
‘Word from the palace, I imagine.’
He grunted his understanding. They believed the palace taken, the Protectress fallen. Why fight and die when the cause was lost already?
The citizenry, however, was not quite so pragmatic. Panicked mobs surged through the predawn streets and the Hengan guards now found themselves embroiled in crowd control.
‘It has taken too long,’ Nightchill suddenly announced, and Dorin peered up at her. She was studying the one tall structure of the city – the tower that rose so very high over the palace. He straightened to examine it as well. Something strange was happening there at its peak. ‘What . . .’ He realized that what he was seeing was the dawn’s oblique golden rays striking the parapet at the tower’s viewing terrace. ‘I don’t see what . . .’ He stopped again as an answering glow seemed to echo the rays. It was swelling, burgeoning, even as he watched. ‘What—’
‘Get down!’ the woman yelled, and, displaying astonishing strength, she yanked him to the ground and bent over him.
Blazing ferocious radiance stabbed at his eyes and he groaned his pain, pressing his fists to his face. A deafening sizzling like the crackling of ten thousand fires erupted next to him and he howled, certain he was being burned alive. The very building shook and juddered beneath him as in an earthquake as something came grinding and thundering through the city. ‘What is it?’ he yelled to be heard.
‘Elder magi
cs,’ the woman shouted, next to his ear. ‘Kurald Liosan, unveiled.’
‘Who?’
‘The Protectress, of course.’
The unveiling, or summoning, pounded onward in a sizzling growling as of a waterfall in flood rushing past his position. It went on and on, swelling, burgeoning until he was certain he was about to be consumed, then slowly, relentlessly, it passed, or faded, or he’d become deaf and blind from the punishment. He dared a glimpse by pressing the backs of both hands to his eyes and sliding them apart until he could glance between fingers. The vision dazzled and awed him. Twin sizzling firestorms of light each as tall as the sky. Each pounding its way along the river – one rolling to the east and the other to the west. Even as he watched, the westward one overran a huddled column of Kanese soldiery. Within the waterfall of brilliance they seemed to blur, dissolving, eroding. When the avalanche ground onward all that was left behind was a smear of ash and soot upon the rotting ice.
The power unleashed here appalled him. How could they counter such might? In short, they could not. No one could. Surely there must be an equivalent price to be paid for such expenditure. He was frankly rather overawed; he thought he’d known power before. But all he’d seen to date paled to insignificance next to this display. Nothing, it seemed to him, could ever be the same again.
Nightchill helped him up and he stood blinking as a glow filled his vision. The thundering roar scoured onward, but distant now. ‘I can barely see.’
‘It should pass.’
‘What was that?’
‘She has sent the fires of Liosan, or Thyrllan, down the river. Many are slain. I must go now.’
Dorin blinked his weeping eyes. ‘If you must.’ She did not answer – no doubt she’d left already. Blind, feeling as if he’d been roasted over a fire, he sat again then hissed, yanking his hands from the roof: the bricks had burned his palms and he could just hear them all about him, crackling and ticking with the radiated heat of the sorcerous onslaught.
*
The instant the brilliant light burst upon them Iko and her sister Sword-Dancers were blinded with everyone else. Blinking, hands extended, they encircled the king and began edging him back along the river, heading for the Outer Round. Panicked officers and messengers pulled and clutched to reach Chulalorn, but the Sword-Dancers, unable to tell who was who, fought everyone off.
Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 Page 39