Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3)

by Y. K. Willemse

  “You are honest?”

  “Send out the grown men of this household,” Rafen said, “and get them to warn everyone else in the alley. Give them the message I gave you.”

  Transforming, he ran from the door as the woman turned back into the house, calling out as she went.

  Rafen was already in the next alley at the next door, now in his normal form, knocking wildly. Crowds of people in expensive night garb were starting to emerge, trying to figure out what the noise on the walls was about. Once again, the door was answered by a member of the nobility, who stood in a brocaded black gown next to a panicked peasant in a torn nightshirt.

  “In the name of the Wolf, get your women and children to the Sianian Arrow and help evacuate the city,” Rafen said. “New Isles is being destroyed.”

  “And why must we go to the Sianian Arrow?” the nobleman said sharply.

  “Because a passageway there leads to a place of refuge,” Rafen said, ready to explode with frustration. “Move now or perish later!”

  He transformed in the man’s sight, ensuring the nobleman knew without a doubt who he was talking to. The lord tensed and began moving.

  By the time Rafen reached the next alley, people were already running out of doors on both sides, crying out to each other. In response to his nearly unintelligible yelling, a trail of women and children scurried out of the alley and across the marketplace, while the men followed him to continue warning others.

  The smell of smoke was stronger when Rafen rushed into his fourth alley, and his worst fears were confirmed as a black plume rose into the sky above the roofs of the precarious houses. The Naztwai were burning the city. Rafen hadn’t thought them smart enough, though perhaps Tarhians and philosophers had gathered outside to give them torches.

  Screams rose in the air not far behind, punctuated by the screeches and heavy thuds of the Naztwai. Sweat broke out on Rafen’s forehead at the memory of his vision of the peasant man whom the Naztwai had consumed. Within these walls, they were like so many trapped rats, helpless in the face of their hunters.

  He continued his flight down the alley, banging on doors and shouting, whispering feverish prayers to Zion between houses. By the time he was in his fifth alley, the noise of the rabble and the smell of smoke was strong enough to wake most people in his near vicinity. The lords here would likely all be saved, once directed to the inn. Yet, there was still the thicket of southward houses in the heart of New Isles. Rafen knew the crowded position of these buildings made it almost impossible for their occupants to escape.

  He transformed rapidly, feeling the hair pass across his body in one surge, and he clattered to the ground. In a flash of gray, he raced through the alleys that separated him from the less accessible houses, watching out of the corner of his eyes to see the people were evacuating. Members of households he had warned earlier were continuing his work.

  Although it took him ten minutes to delve deeper into New Isles, to Rafen, it felt like hours. He glimpsed Naztwai occasionally, but they were individuals, and he escaped them easily. He looked up to see a jet of flame leaping happily on a rooftop. Transforming to whip out his sword, he flicked it at the fire, trying to absorb it. Nothing happened. He was much too far away.

  Now he was in a narrow alley. The cobbles beneath were slimy and strewn with refuse, the smell of urine mingled with the heavy smell of smoke. These were the peasant slums. The houses were narrow and ugly yellow, with paint peeling and holes showing through the walls.

  Rafen pounded on a door, his heart racing. It creaked open, and a peasant in discolored rags stared down at him, slightly cross-eyed. He smelled heavily of ale.

  “The city is being destroyed!” Rafen shouted at him. “In the name of the Wolf, get you, your woman, and children to the Sianian Arrow now! Warn anyone else you see on the way – knock on doors and just get people out.”

  The man stared at him blearily. Rafen had no time to see how he would respond. He raced over to the next alley, banging wildly on the door. Every step he took was as fast as he could make it, yet he felt as if he were crawling. Five minutes later he had passed through five more alleys. It was not good enough.

  The houses whose doors he now knocked on were in flames already, and he frequently absorbed the fires with kesmal. Because there were so many infernos, and they were so large, it was an effort. His mind was becoming foggy, and the quivering agitation of his own body as he sucked more and more flame into his arm was quickly passing out of his control. He felt oddly dizzy and terribly hot. Whole stories were engulfed in smoke, and the smell of the Naztwai was carried even through it. He surged blindly through a curtain of gray and hit something like a rock, staggering backward. A heavy hand swiped at him, striking his shoulder and sending him careening against the wall of a burning house. The groaning building showered fiery wood with a crackling roar. Rafen lunged forward, barely in time. The wooden beams struck the ground behind his heels, and sparks flew into the air.

  A black shape exploded out of the smoke and landed on his back, driving the air from him. Rafen’s chest and face collided with the cobbles, the odor temporarily blinding him. The hot breath was on his neck, and the Naztwai gave a piercing whistle of triumph as it dug its claws into his shoulders and threw its head forward, maw open, ready to sink its teeth into Rafen. Rafen cast his sword out behind himself, and the burst of flame from it shook the ground with its power. His muscles slackened with relief. He no longer felt like a bottle packed full of some explosive liquid. The Naztwai screeched, blinded, its head on fire. It flailed with its arms, one of which struck the sword in Rafen’s hand with so much impact that he was forced to drop it or break his fingers. He scrabbled awkwardly for it from behind.

  The Naztwai’s head swooped downward and Rafen screamed, turning to thrust his left hand against the flaming, hairy blue-black face. He shoved, and the Naztwai pushed back, threatening to snap Rafen’s arm. Rafen’s hand slipped from its flat nose to its mouth. The blackened, blood-stained teeth snapped on his fifth finger. The pain was a searing behind his forehead – strange, that something so small could cause so much pain. He pulled with all his might, and his hand came away, streaks of blood coagulating on it. The Naztwai wasn’t dying, he realized dimly. Even though it was still alight with Rafen’s kesmal, it showed no signs of damage. The Lashki had likely bred this group to be resistant to flame, because of the job they were destined to do. The Naztwai gave another whistle, its yellowed eyes dilating. It raised its fist and swung it across the top of Rafen’s head.

  Blotches of black discolored Rafen’s sight. He was trying to keep himself turned on his side, so it wasn’t easy for the Naztwai to rip the back of his neck open. But the arm propping him up gave way, and he fell facedown, the talons once again gripping his shoulders as the Naztwai’s head dived down, aiming for where the kill would be richest. Flinging his left arm behind him, Rafen tried frantically to locate his sword. His heart pounded; he was going to see his mother again.

  A sickening thud sounded nearby, and the Naztwai’s weight fell fully on his spine. Rafen choked, suffocating; black was surging up to the edges of his vision.

  Grunting, somebody rolled the Naztwai off him and seized him under the armpits, pulling him up. When Rafen’s knees buckled, the stranger supported him. Rafen’s sight was still blurry, and the thumping of his head was insistent. Brilliant orange flames licked the buildings in the alleyway. A huge banging nearby was a house collapsing; a flurry of sparks and debris filled the air momentarily. Rafen coughed. His back was sticky, even through his shirt, and the sickeningly sweet smell of Naztwai blood clung to him. The Naztwai lay on the cobbles below, a hole in its neck. Rafen snatched up his sword from where it lay nearby.

  “Quickly,” the stranger said, carrying him over some rubble before shoving him into an adjoining alley.

  It was a thicket of flames. A woman’s throat-tearing screams came from a three story house. Through the vibrant fire around one window, an arm strained wildly, grasping at not
hing. Rafen threw himself back toward it desperately, close to falling in his dizziness.

  “No,” the man said, flying forward with him and dodging the flames.

  Rafen kicked, screaming, “I can kill the fire! Let me go!”

  The man slapped his face, sending more lights popping before Rafen’s eyes.

  “There is no time!”

  They were already out of the alley. Four Naztwai lunged toward them as one, their yellowed eyes crazy, their gaping mouths open.

  The man threw Rafen behind him, and Rafen stumbled against a fiery wall. Flames leapt hungrily onto his clothes, yet were unable to consume anything about his person. Rafen struggled to rise again. The man’s broadsword was flashing; he had run one Naztwai through and beheaded another. But the third hurled itself against his chest, knocking him to the ground. As the man fell, his head swung sideways so that his blue, eagle eyes met Rafen’s.

  It was the previous Sianian General Jacob.

  Rafen leapt shakily to his feet and reeled forward, whipping his sword from his sheath. He threw his weight behind it as the Naztwai ducked its head, its blackened teeth at Jacob’s neck. The blade punctured the unnaturally hard flesh and with all his strength, Rafen drove it in, knocking the Naztwai slightly off balance. Jacob heaved beneath it, throwing it off, taking Rafen’s embedded sword with it.

  Still clinging to the hilt, Rafen stumbled forward and fell headlong on the cobbles before the dying Naztwai, the fire on his shirt going out. The Naztwai’s head still twitched crazily, and one hand clawed at Rafen, the talons narrowly missing his arm. Rafen jerked backward, gripping his sword with both hands. The blade came free agonizingly slowly as Jacob leapt between Rafen and the fourth Naztwai, his broadsword at the ready. Rafen stared disbelievingly at his own bloodied left hand. From the mid joint upward, part of his fifth finger was missing. Though the pain had been eclipsed with everything that had followed, its eye-watering searing caught his attention now.

  A ground-rocking thump signaled the death of the fourth Naztwai. Jacob snatched Rafen’s shoulders and heaved him up.

  “Run!” he said.

  The alley around them was now an inferno. Jacob’s eyes were red with the smoke, and his face glistened with sweat as they ran, Rafen fighting the thunder in his head. Just as they exited the alley, another building fell into a heap of burning beams behind.

  Though the alleys they now entered were less fiery than the southernmost ones, the smoke was still blinding. Rafen collided with a gangly farmhand, and they fell, sprawling, in the rubbish of the nearby houses. Rafen scrambled up again, the farmhand clinging to him. The stranger sobbed something unintelligibly, wringing his free hand.

  “Move!” Jacob said harshly. “Now!”

  It seemed to take no time, but all the energy in the world. The blood loss was telling on Rafen, and every minute, he thought he would collapse as easy prey for the Naztwai. He pushed himself on relentlessly, but Jacob pushed him harder, shouting at him, swearing at him – something Rafen had never heard Jacob do – and hitting him. Naztwai were swarming in the alleys, and Jacob fought them wildly. While Rafen helped as much as he could, his hand was paining him more and more, defying his control. Within what felt like thirty seconds – but was probably fifteen minutes – they were in the open, clouded oval of the marketplace. Beneath the smoky night sky, a sea of churning Naztwai separated them from the eastern wall and the Sianian Arrow. Rafen remembered the Lashki saying at the camp of two thousand that he would “call the rest”; perhaps he had even had another camp. It looked like four thousand here. Among the Naztwai, Rafen glimpsed the occasional gray form – the wolves he had called much earlier, who were trying their insignificant strength against the monsters.

  “We’re just going to have to run!” Jacob yelled in his ear. “Keep your sword at the ready, Rafen, and commit your soul to Zion!”

  Rafen’s committing was an internal, frantic signal from a man lost at sea. He tried to create a fiery shield, one at least for Jacob or the farmhand with him. However, his throbbing hand was so off balance that his kesmal flashed on the air and vanished meaninglessly. His best hope now was brute force. The two men were running again, and he lunged forward into the thick of the hairy, crushing bodies, swiping his sword left and right. The scent of Naztwai filled his nostrils, swallowing up any thoughts, other than a vague screaming in his head. Talons knocked him sideways, and an arm clamped him to a hairy, unforgiving side. Rafen threw himself forward with all his might, yet he was going nowhere. The warring shriek of a nearby Naztwai struck his eardrums; another pair of hairy hands tore him from the first Naztwai’s grip. Rafen lashed out with his sword, hitting a rocklike body nearby. Claws sunk into his side, and blood bubbled on his skin. He tried to drive his blade into the beast directly before him, but he couldn’t even move forward, because a Naztwai was holding him back, threatening to crush his ribs.

  Rafen screamed as a blue-black body above him raised its arm: the movement was reminiscent of the dream Rafen had had, when a Naztwai had swept down its clawed hand to tear away a layer of the farmer’s flesh. Why couldn’t it break his neck instead?

  Chapter Thirty

  The Return

  to the Hideout

  An explosion of kesmal threw the first Naztwai back. A beam of yellow sliced neatly into the back of the second, and its eyes darkened as it fell to the ground on its knees, releasing Rafen. Etana swept forward in a bubble of gold, unbelievably small and skinny within the crowd of beasts. She grabbed Rafen’s hand and pulled him into the circle with her. From their side, Jacob flung himself at the kesmalic shield with a frenzied shout, and Etana drew him in also. A group of Naztwai had interlocked nearby, leaping onto each others’ backs in an effort to get at the screeching, now moaning form of what was once a man.

  “I couldn’t save him,” Jacob rasped, his eyes haunted.

  Horror rose like vomit in Rafen’s throat. All he could think of was his own pathetic attempt to shield Jacob or the farmhand.

  “Hurry!” Etana said.

  She grasped his hand, and they rushed forward through the Naztwai, the shield buffeting the stampeding bodies.

  “Please last, please last,” Etana murmured under her breath.

  They flew up the steps of the Sianian Arrow. Rafen glimpsed the city behind them. The mass of Naztwai blotted out the cobbles and the cheerful remains of the market, creating an ocean of blue-black, whistling splotches. The buildings around them, and the walls around the buildings, were now wreathed in feathers of flame, the smoke creating a cloud that blotted out the navy night sky. Already, the walls seemed to have somehow shrunk, and even as Rafen watched, layers of buildings collapsed inward and slid down to the ground, clouds of dust rising where they had been. The crashing of rubble, the roaring of flames, and the insane Naztwai shrieking couldn’t overpower the distant screams of the many who had not been saved: the voices of men, women, and children – cracked, hoarse, and twisted. The temple was completely erased by the smoke and the leaping, ape-like monsters.

  Rafen’s heart was a cold, pulsating fist as he turned and lunged through the doorway of the Sianian Arrow after Etana and Jacob. Etana’s shield had unexpectedly popped like a bubble.

  The inn was hazy within, and he careened into a table. Etana had his hand again and was shouting unintelligible things to him above the roaring flames that had already taken the attic. The boarded panels above were each outlined with orange.

  He stumbled down the stairway into the cellar, which was crowded with barrels that had been moved hastily. An open trapdoor was a rectangle of deeper black in the darkness. Two figures stood beside it.

  “Get in!” Etana shouted. “We have to leave!”

  Jacob helped the two peasant men through the trapdoor. Above, the whistling and screeching of Naztwai accompanied heavy footfalls that passed through the inn’s doorway and into its front room. Etana bit her lip in terror. With her absence, the last of the doorway’s guards was now gone.

  She shove
d Rafen before her, and his foot missed the edge of the trapdoor. With the sudden shift in gravity, he seized her hand and pulled her after him. The rush of air stopped abruptly as they hit the ground, tangled in each other’s limbs. Jacob’s voice sounded nearby. Rafen had dropped his sword somewhere; he groped for it while Etana raised a sliver of silver and made the finishing stroke that slammed the trapdoor shut and sealed it with an odd sucking noise. A number of other swishes in the darkness were the sounds of her constructing protective barriers.

  The muffled clamor of the Naztwai still seemed too loud. Rafen found the warm handle of his sword and wrapped his mutilated left hand around it. Blood made everything slippery. He shook uncontrollably as he pulled himself up.

  “Rafen?” Etana gasped, unable to feel him.

  Rafen put out his right hand, touching her arm. She slipped hers through his quickly. He raised his sword with his other quivering hand, and the blade glowed orange with the light of his tremulous kesmal, threatening to go out. Because of his wound, all his concentration was required to do even this simple deed.

  “The others are ahead,” Etana said softly.

  “We didn’t save enough,” Rafen groaned. “I could hear them when we ran. Zion help us.”

  “We did everything we could, Rafen,” Etana said, her eyes brimming. “Absolutely everything. You tried, but there is only so much one person can do. The people you warned, warned others. I think we have several hundred, Rafen. I really do.”

  “Several hundred?” Rafen said.

  It wasn’t nearly enough. There would have been six or seven thousand in the city: thousands that would have died the horrible death of being eaten or burned alive. He at least could have died with them. He remained paralyzed beneath the trapdoor, even as the heavy scuttling of Naztwai sounded above.

  “The Lashki made them resistant to flame,” he said numbly. “I tried to kill one with kesmal. Where are Francisco and Sherwin?”