Hem whimpered at his friend’s side. “And it gets worse. Ferius was shouting about how Elorians caused the plague, how he must cleanse the land of the disease. He’s organizing an army of masked soldiers with torches. He will lead them into the hospice himself, he said—to burn everything and everyone inside.”
Koyee felt as if her heart stopped.
She turned away and faced a shadowy wall. Her chest constricted.
“Does it end here?” she whispered. “Do we fall now?”
The Elorians across the cellar prayed. Some wept. Others called for fighting. Koyee balled her fists at her sides, looked up through burning eyes, and saw Torin standing beside her. He gazed at her, eyes inscrutable.
“We will fight from here,” he said, and she heard the fear in his voice. “We will fight and hold them back.”
She shook her head. “For how long? How many hours can we resist, only a few defenders, until the mob breaks in, until they burn and slay us? This is no longer a war, Torin. This is genocide.”
Around her, the people heard her words and wailed. Children clung to her legs. Elders mumbled prayers.
Koyee raised her voice. “People of Eloria! Do not despair. As fire burns, your hearts must strengthen. You are children of the night; you are stronger than mountains and wind.” She raised her chin. “We will flee into the wilderness. Follow.”
As she turned to leave, the tall Timandrian woman with the two braids—Bailey Berin, her name was—grabbed her arm. For an instant, the woman’s eyes—so dark and small compared to the eyes of Elorians—blazed.
“The streets are swarming with soldiers,” Bailey said. “We’d be slaughtered if we step outside.”
Koyee narrowed her eyes, regarding the fair-haired woman. There was fear in Bailey and rage against the bloodshed, but … something else too. Hostility. After living on the streets of Pahmey, dealing with thieves and spicers, Koyee knew something of hostility.
This one holds no love for me, Bailey thought, tilting her head. I must be careful around her.
“That’s why we’re going to take a wagon,” Koyee said and stifled a shudder. “When the Sisterhood’s wagons of death move across the city, all flee before them. We will move like a leper through a ball; all will recoil from us.” She grabbed her beaked mask, wide-brimmed hat, and steel-tipped gloves. “Follow, my friends! I will lead you to safety.”
She began walking toward the door. The people followed—fifty Elorians and five Timandrians, all splashed with blood and caked with ash and grime. As Koyee walked, she placed on her mask, lacing it behind her head. Through the glass lenses, the world seemed hazy and twisted, a nightmare of shadows and ghosts. When she pulled on her leather gloves, each finger tipped with a steel claw, she felt less a woman than a bird, a great night vulture, a dancer of death. The Sisterhood of Harmony was created to lead this dance macabre, to escort the departed into the beyond, yet now Koyee would lead a different procession.
Now I lead life.
She led them up stairs and along halls of stone. The hospice seemed strangely deserted; she saw no other sisters. Her followers walked behind her; the Timandrians clanked in their armor and held drawn swords, while the fifty Elorians whispered and mumbled prayers. Their footfalls echoed in vaulted ceilings.
From outside, screams and chants rose. Ringing steel and thundering hooves pealed across the city. When they passed a window, Koyee glimpsed the slaughter; countless soldiers rushed through the city, smashing doors, slaying all they could find. Blood covered the streets of Pahmey. Already some soldiers were advancing across the square toward the hospice; they held swords and torches, and rage twisted their faces.
“Burn the diseased!” they shouted, marching forth, not an organized army but a seething mob. “Burn the twisted creatures who spread the plague.”
Behind her, the Elorians she led whimpered and one wailed aloud. Koyee looked over her shoulder at them; their faces were flushed, their eyes wide with fear. They clutched their wounds and pointed at the slaughter outside.
“Hush now,” she said. “Hurry. Quickly.” She looked at Torin. “Help them along, Torin. We must move fast.”
They walked beyond the window, down a narrow corridor, and through a tunnel. Finally they emerged into the hospice stables, a dusty chamber of exposed brick. Several bluefeathers—wingless birds the size of horses—stood here, cawing and scratching the ground with their talons. A wagon stood by the wall, built of leather stretched over a metal frame.
“Into that wagon!” Koyee said, turning toward the Elorians. “Lie upon it and play dead. The Sisterhood often takes the dead out of the city for burning. We’ll smuggle you out as plague victims.”
The people hesitated, staring at the wagon, and whispered among themselves.
Standing beside her, Torin grimaced. “Koyee, this wagon…” He lowered his voice. “Does the miasma of disease cling to it? How many dead have lain here?”
Koyee glared at him. “The wagon is clean. We scrub it with boiling vinegar after every delivery. You will be safe. Now move! Pile up! Children on top.”
She began ushering them onto the wagon, tapping her foot, her eyes darting. The sounds of soldiers rose outside. Chants of “Burn the diseased!” and “Death to Elorians!” rose louder. Koyee grimaced. Would they even let her wagon pass, or would they attack her on the streets? She ground her teeth. She had to take this chance.
“Here, Grandpapa, into the wagon,” she said, helping an elder climb.
They began to pile up, lying one atop the other. When Hem tried to climb in too, Koyee tugged him back. “Not you!”
Finally they all filled the wagon—fifty Elorians stacked together like a pile of diseased corpses. Their silken robes were already tattered and bloodied, but they lacked the telltale signs of the curse; they bore no boils, their fingertips had not rotted, and teeth still filled their mouths. Koyee rushed to a shelf, grabbed homespun sheets, and pulled them over the people. She bit her lip. Like this, only limbs emerged from the under the sheet; the rest of the Elorians were but lumps under silk. It wouldn’t fool a Sister of Harmony, but perhaps it would fool the enemy.
She tethered four bluefeathers to the wagon and climbed into the seat. “We move. Timandrians, you walk alongside. Guard this wagon.”
They opened the stable doors and wheeled out, leaving the hospice, a hive of dying, and entering the city of Pahmey, a dreamscape of slaughter.
Torin and Bailey led the way, helms on their heads, swords drawn. Clad in her Sisterhood mask, Koyee drove the wagon behind them, the bluefeathers clacking, the refugees hidden under the sheet. Cam and Hem brought up the rear. Koyee’s heart thrashed as they moved down a cobbled backstreet, narrow buildings at their sides. When they passed through an intersection, she could see into the square; troops were racing across it toward the hospice entrance, the place where only hours ago she had kissed Torin.
Several soldiers burst from around a corner, laughing, their swords stained with blood. When they saw the wagon, they froze and their eyes widened. One spat and raised a torch.
Koyee’s heart thudded, and for an instant she was sure their escape would end here, that they would die in a shadowy street corner only steps away from the hospice.
Torin raised his voice and sword. “Stand back! The plague festers in this wagon. We will burn them outside the city. Make way!”
The soldiers stared, rabid beasts with bared teeth. Koyee stared back through her mask, sweat trickling beneath her leather suit. She reached down between her legs where lay her katana; she was ready to fight and die if she must.
“Go on, move!” shouted Bailey, taking a step toward the soldiers. “Or do you want to catch the disease too? Go!”
The soldiers cursed, glanced at one another, then spun around and fled.
Koyee breathed a shaky breath of relief. “Walk!” she said and the bluefeathers obeyed, dragging the wagon forward.
They kept moving through the city, road by road. Torin and Bailey walked ahead, ban
ging swords against shields, crying out for all to move aside.
“Death festers!” they cried out in Ardish. “Plague corpses for burning. Make way!”
As they moved down the boulevards of Pahmey, all parted before them, scuttling into shadows. The wagon trundled down streets lined with looted shops, bodies strewn across the cobblestones. They passed under crystal towers, their light dimmed, corpses piled up around their bases. They moved through marketplaces, the stalls smashed, the peddlers slain upon their wares.
So many dead, Koyee thought, eyes stinging behind her lenses. Thousands of Elorians lay fallen here. Soldiers kept rushing about, rifling through homes and gutters and attics, seeking more to kill, more blood to fill their endless appetite. Tears filled Koyee’s eyes and her lenses fogged, but she kept moving her wagon forward. Her city crumbled around her, but she could save a few. She could carry a flicker of life through the endless death.
“Make way!” Torin cried. “Plague wagon for burning—make way!”
They rolled by the city library, a domed building lined with columns. When Koyee looked toward its doors, she grimaced. She was tempted to leap off her wagon, charge up the marble stairs, and attack.
Ferius stood outside the library doors, hands raised to the sky. Blood stained his palms and dripped down his arms. He led a chant to Sailith, a hundred monks chanting around him, their yellow robes turned red. A hundred Elorian bodies hung behind them from the library roof, their necks stretched. Countless more corpses littered the stairway below their feet.
“For the glory of sunlight!” Ferius called, seeming in rapture. “We have vengeance. We purify the night. We light the darkness. Slay them all!”
Without realizing it, Koyee wheeled the wagon toward the library. Snarling behind her mask, she reached down and grabbed her sword. Torin had to block the bluefeathers, stare at Koyee, and direct her away.
“We have to run this time,” he said, kindness and sadness mixing in his eyes. “We will fight him, Koyee. I promise you. But not here. Not now. Now we must flee.”
His face was pale, and dark bags hung under his eyes. He seemed so tired to her, so haunted, that she wanted to embrace him. She nodded. They kept moving, leaving the library and entering the narrow streets of the dregs. Soon they rolled down the old market way, heading toward the city gates.
Fifty Timandrian soldiers waited there, clad from head to toe in steel, pikes in their hands.
Koyee tugged the reins, halting the wagon. Behind her, she heard one of the Elorian children whimper under the sheet.
Torin took a step forward toward the small army. “Make way! Open the gates. We have plague victims to burn, damn it.”
The soldiers would not budge. Their lord, a burly man in dark steel, stepped forward. The sunburst of Sailith blazed upon his breastplate, the gold turned red in the torchlight. He spoke from within his barred visor, his voice gravelly.
“On orders of Lord Ferius, none may leave this city.” The man pounded his chest with a gauntleted fist. “I serve Sailith. All will remain within these walls. All will die.”
Koyee leaped off the wagon and marched forward. Torin tried to hold her back, but she whipped around him. She stomped up toward the burly soldier—she barely reached his shoulders—and glared up at him through her mask. He took a step back and cursed.
“Stand back, Sister of Harmony.” He covered the mouth hole of his visor. “I know your kind. Diseased birds! Stand back or I’ll slay you.”
Koyee would not budge. She raised her beak toward him. “You will stand back. I carry fifty bodies rife with the plague. Their miasma fills this street as we linger. They are already dead. Unless you want to join them, you will open these gates. Now move!”
A few of the soldiers at the back shifted, their armor clanking. They glanced at one another and a few covered their mouths. Koyee leaped back onto the wagon, drove the bluefeathers a few feet forward, and shouted out.
“Move—now! Move or the plague will touch you too. Move so we may burn them in the wilderness.”
The beefy lord all but fled backward, nodded at his soldiers, and the gates creaked open.
The night spread outside.
For the first time in moons, Koyee saw the Inaro River, a stream of silver in the moonlight. She saw the rolling black plains that sprawled into the horizon. She smelled the cold, fresh air, air that did not reek of death. Lips tight, she drove her wagon onward, her friends walking at her sides.
The wagon bumped over the last few cobblestones, and they passed under the archway … and emerged into the night.
They kept going. They rolled across the boardwalk, heading toward the river. The stars shone above and the river sang, screams rose and echoed, and she could still hear the chants of the monks. Even though darkness folded around them, she could still see those hanging corpses, still see the blood on Ferius’s hands, dripping, seeping, blood that would forever fill her nightmares.
Her eyes stung and the screams rose behind her, but she kept going. She had to keep leading these people away, into darkness, into hope, into a cold endless night that could never drown the fires. She looked over her shoulder only once, and she saw the city walls behind her. She remembered herself a year ago, a frightened girl in a fur tunic, seeing this city for the first time, a hub of light and wonder in the darkness.
Now she saw smoke and fire. Now she smelled blood. Now countless voices cried in agony … then fell silent … vanishing in the wind until only the chanting of monks and the cheers of soldiers remained. And Koyee Mai knew: They were gone. They were silenced forever.
Lips tight and eyes stinging, she drove her wagon toward the docks where a hundred vessels moored. The river would take them into darkness. She did not look back.
CHAPTER NINE
THE WATER SPIDER
Torin was loading refugees into a boat when he heard shouts behind him, turned around, and saw Ferius at the city gates.
Torin froze and stared across the boardwalk.
About a hundred yards away, Ferius stared back and smiled—the smile a snake gives a mouse.
The city gatehouse rose across the wide, cobbled boardwalk. Torin stood upon a stone pier that stretched into the Inaro River. Several refugees had already boarded the vessel, a rowboat named the Water Spider. It was the same vessel Torin had first rowed into this city six months ago, a landing craft that had once hung across the hull of a towering carrack. Eight oars rose along its sides like spider legs. Cam and Hem were already manning two oars, while Elorian refugees were grabbing the others. It was a small boat, and Torin had a good fifty people to save, but his heart had already been rising with hope … until he saw the monk.
For a few heartbeats, the two only stared at each other across the dark distance. An Elorian child in his arms, Torin could only stand, frozen and breathless.
Fifty more monks emerged around Ferius, filling the gateway; here were the bloodsuns, the warriors of Sailith, clad in crimson armor and bearing maces with flanged heads the size of skulls. Two of the city guards, soldiers of Arden, were bowing and groveling, pleading for mercy. Never tearing his gaze away from Torin, Ferius snapped his fingers; his bloodsuns stepped forward, clubbed the two guards, and sent them bleeding to the ground.
The monk pointed at the docks. “Stop that boat! Slay them!”
Torin could finally move. Heart lashing, he all but tossed the child he held into the Water Spider.
“Bailey, hold them back!” he shouted, grabbing another Elorian and guiding the elder into the boat.
Eyes narrowed, Bailey was already nocking an arrow into her bow. She tugged the bowstring back, whispered a prayer, and sent her arrow flying.
Torin helped a wounded woman into the boat, looked back at the monks, and sucked in his breath. The arrow narrowly missed Ferius, instead slamming into a bloodsun. The shaft snapped against the man’s armor.
Torin cursed and helped the last few Elorians into the rowboat. The Water Spider was meant for twenty soldiers; fifty Elor
ians now filled it, pointing at the monks and praying to the stars.
“Slay them!” Ferius shouted.
His bloodsuns ran across the boardwalk, heading toward the pier. They held lanterns and maces, and their eyes blazed red. Bailey shot another arrow, and this one punched through a man’s armor, sending him sprawling across the cobblestones.
“Bailey, Koyee, come on!” Torin shouted, climbing aboard. “Into the boat!”
Koyee was struggling to untether the boat from its peg, but the knot wouldn’t loosen. She cursed, drew her sword, and sliced the rope. The boat began to drift away, and Koyee leaped inside, landing between the refugees.
“Bailey!” Torin shouted. His friend still stood upon the dock, firing arrows at the approaching monks; the enemy was only paces away. “Damn it, Bailey, into the boat.”
Her back toward him, she fired another arrow, hitting a second man. The bloodsun fell, an arrow in his chest. The boat floated several feet away.
“Bailey!”
Finally she turned, ran several paces across the pier, and leaped. Her legs kicked and she landed in the boat, missing the water by inches. She wobbled, arms windmilling. Torin had to grab her and pull her forward.
Quarrels whistled around them.
Torin cursed, pulled Bailey down, and leaned across several Elorian children. Metal bolts whizzed above them. One slammed into his back, denting his armor; it felt like a horse kick. Torin winced, looked over his shoulder, and saw the bloodsuns upon the docks.
“They have crossbows,” he muttered. “Lovely.”
Another barrage flew toward the boat. Torin raised his shield, wincing. A bolt slammed into the wood. More flew overhead. Bailey stood with a raised shield beside him. Together, they protected the boat’s stern. Their shields blocked most of the barrage, but one quarrel whisked between them. An Elorian woman—a weaver clad in the azure sash of her guild—clutched her chest and fell, a steel shard in her heart.
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