She saw kneeling figures, their faces pressed against the stone floor. The ones nearest the door wore the gray shifts the servants had been issued. But there, beside them, was a woman in a dark robe--it took Cazia a moment to recognize it as a scholar’s robe--and her curly hair was shot through with gray. Doctor Warpoole.
The Scholar Administrator lifted her face, looking through the door into the darkness as if hoping help would come. Then she turned her head toward her left, watching something move around her.
It was one of the small, blue-furred grunts. The creature circled around them, its back to the door, then moved out of sight.
Frustration fluttered in Cazia’s stomach. How many people were inside? The way they were packed together suggested there were a lot, but she needed more solid than that. Where was Timush? Where were Jagia and Bittler?
Returning to her submissive posture, Doctor Warpoole moved her hand, leaving a red smear on the stone floor. She was bleeding, and as soon as Cazia realized that, she saw that the servants had been injured, too.
Why were the grunts guarding their injured prey? Maybe they bit them to mark them, like chewing the edge of a sourcake so no one else would want it. Maybe they could follow a bloody trail if someone tried to escape. Or maybe, she thought again, they were searching for a certain flavor, like the royal bloodline.
Maybe maybe maybe. She was sick of maybe. What she needed were definitive answers. She needed to know where the creatures came from, how they got into the fort, why they insisted on tasting everyone.
More importantly, she needed to know how she could rescue her friends from the makeshift pen they were trapped in.
The idea that Jagia--or anyone--was trapped, waiting for her turn to be torn apart and eaten, made her so furious her skin prickled. She had to find a way to free them. There were hot coals down in the kitchen to set the hall’s roof aflame, and Cazia had her quiver of darts. A fire would draw them out. If there were not too many grunts, and she could target them one at a time, without them all rushing her at—
A silhouette suddenly rose over the edge of the building just beside them. Cazia was too surprised to react, and within the space of a moment, the figure had vaulted onto the walkway, standing above them.
It was a grunt, of course. It turned slowly toward them slowly as though it had noticed something odd, but the darkness was too deep to clearly see what it was. Cazia suddenly remembered the queen falling from the dais—and Lar screaming as he was bitten—and all her heroic plans deserted her. The thought that she might be next paralyzed her.
Zollik slid to his knees and, in one smooth motion, rammed his spear into the creature’s guts. It gasped--a horrible, almost-human sound of surprise and despair--then roared.
Zollik stood swiftly, trying to withdraw his spear, but the grunt grabbed the haft and pulled itself toward him, growling. Cazia felt the weight of its hind foot land on her bare right calf--its toes wrapped around her like a clutching hand. She rolled over--if the thing was going to bite her, she had to see it happen--and the creature lost its footing. It snapped clumsily at Zollik’s arm but missed.
Hissing in disgust, Zollik lifted the butt end of his spear. The point struck the stone walkway and the haft levered against the grunt’s ribcage, lifting it off its feet. It slid backwards, a terrible death rattle escaping it. The sound made Cazia’s hair stand on end. Then it slid over the edge of the roof into the yard below.
Six more grunts rushed out of the hall. At the thud of the creature hitting the ground, the beasts turned toward the spot where Cazia was hiding and roared.
“They haven’t seen you,” Zollik said, then ran away from the kitchens, leaping down a flight of stairs onto a lower roof, heading south. “Alarm!” he shouted again and again, as though expecting the fort to rise up to help him.
The grunts charged after him. Vilavivianna stirred, but Cazia clamped her hand down on the girl’s arm to make her be still. Zollik had chosen to be brave again—for them—and calling attention to themselves would have wasted that.
Cazia peered over the edge of the building. Another grunt appeared in the doorway, looking out into the darkness after the other members of its pack. Zollik had given her the chance she needed to free the prisoners. She lifted the dart and began her spell.
A second grunt appeared in the doorway, then a third. That made nine that she could see. Where had they all come from? Cazia stopped her spell, letting it fade. She could certainly kill one, maybe two, but three? They were too fast, and her spells were too slow. Worse, there might be more inside.
The grunts were clearly anxious to join the chase, but they lingered with their prisoners. Something inside the hall drew their attention, and the creatures charged back inside, roaring challenges. Vilavivianna pushed at Cazia’s arm, and Cazia agreed that it was time to go. Where before they had crossed the walkway at a crouch, this time they crawled on their bellies as quickly as they could. They’d barely gotten a quarter of the way before they heard Zollik’s battle cry, then his scream.
It was too much. The danger of staying in the open took control of her, and Cazia scrambled to her knees, crawling as quietly as she could back toward the kitchens. Could she be seen from below, and was anything looking? She had to risk it; being out in the open air was unbearable.
They reached the juncture and the stairs down into the kitchen without drawing the attention of the grunts. Cazia rushed into the warm room, glad to be out of the wind and darkness, and to have stone walls between her and the creatures outside.
Vilavivianna came right behind her. “The fool!”
Cazia turned toward her, utterly flummoxed. “Who is a fool?”
“The guard! He should have taken the creature in the throat with the spear. The throat! Then it would not have been able to call the fellows.”
Cazia was too startled to respond properly. The throat was a very small target, especially in the dark. He’d have been a bigger fool if he’d missed.
The princess wasn’t finished. “But no, he had to stir them all up, the stupid—”
Cazia remembered Zollik’s foolish plan to break into the fort, his ambition to be captain, the astonishing and thrilling strength he had shown, and she slapped the girl’s face. Hard.
Vilavivianna staggered and let her hand fall to the empty knife sheath at her belt. There was no fear in her eyes when she spoke. “How dare you strike me, girl—”
Cazia slapped her again, then again, then again. By the fourth time, the arrogance and outrage had gone out of the princess’s expression and, by the sixth, she actually became afraid.
“Stop,” Vilavivianna said, tears on her cheeks. “They will hear. The beasts will hear us. “
“You’re the one who has to stop,” Cazia hissed. “I just spent two days with that man, and yes, he was a bit of a fool. But he just gave his life to protect us. If you can’t honor that, then you can at least keep your mouth shut about it. We’re all likely to be Fire-taken before sunrise, and we would be lucky to die as well as he did.”
“I would rather live,” the princess said petulantly.
“He felt the same way.”
The girl raised her hand and touched the red spot on her cheek. “I am sorry. You are right, I’m sorry.”
Stoneface wouldn’t have apologized for slapping the girl, so Cazia squelched the urge. “Let’s figure out what we need to do next. How can we free the others?”
Vilavivianna only sighed and began searching the shelves, looking for something to eat. At the mere thought of food, Cazia became ravenously hungry. She took a familiar-looking crock off the top shelf and, as she hoped, found pickled compote within. There was leftover wet rice and some rather bland stewed lamb beside the stove.
The princess grabbed bowls and spoons, and they retreated to a corner of the kitchen well away from the doors and below the tiny windows into the yard. The girls sat on the floor and spooned the food into the bowls. In the dim light, Cazia thought she saw the princess scowl at the ric
e, but she ate.
“I do not think we can free them,” Vilavivianna finally said. “I have no love for imperial troops or the servants, but they are at least human beings. I would prefer not to have them feasted upon. But I do not have the strength of arms to set them free, and I do not have a gift for trickery. Do you know any useful spells? You are a wizard, after all.”
“I’m a scholar,” Cazia said quickly. “Please.” They fell silent while they ate. Trickery? Cazia had played her share of pranks in the palace--leaving anonymous “love gifts” for her Enemies, sneaking into rooms to rearrange furniture, filching cakes and buns...
But against grunts? To free prisoners? It was like going to war with a child’s play weapons. “And none of the spells I know would be much use. I could seal one of the doors with stone, but the hall has four.”
“Six,” the girl corrected. “And the beasts become enraged when they find a closed door. What else can you do?”
The little princess asked that question with such seeming innocence. Cazia considered snubbing her--scholars were not supposed to discuss the Gifts with anyone outside the Empire--but this was Lar’s betrothed. “I can crumble stone, suppress fire, start fire, create a light to see by, shoot one of these darts, create a stone that will translate languages, purify water—”
“One moment: you can translate languages? Why have you not... The beasts may be speaking to each other with the grunts and roars, yes?”
“They’re animals,” Cazia said. “The spell doesn’t work on sheep or lions or sparrows or....” She suddenly remembered the Indregai kept serpents. Did the serpents speak with each other? Was that even possible?
“Is it not worth trying?” Something in the princess’s tone made Cazia suspicious. Was there something she wasn’t telling her?
“It is,” Cazia said. “But it’s a difficult spell. Let me finish my supper, and I’ll see what I can do.”
They ate, and after they finished, Cazia prepared a second bowl for herself. She also cast a spell to fill a pitcher with water; pickled compote was a particular favorite of hers, but it was salty.
Afterward, she felt much better. She took the net of blue stones from her hair and pulled another free. The net came apart, which made her feel strangely sad. The stones weren’t particularly valuable, but they were pretty. And blue was in style this year again. In Peradain, she meant, which didn’t even exist any more.
Still, there was nothing to be done about it. She had to surrender yet another thing she cared about. She called up the mental images she needed for this particular spell, then began to move her hands into the necessary positions. She had practiced some spells, like dart-casting, so often they were automatic, but this spell needed concentration and care.
When she was done, she wiped the sweat from her face with her sleeve and let Vilavivianna press a cup of water into her hand. She drank, then drank some more. When she finished, she started in on the second bowl of lamb, compote, and rice. Monument sustain her, but that spell was exhausting.
The stone lay between them. In the dim emberlight, it looked dark purple. The princess stared at it but did not touch it. “Valuska pinsh kartooskik,” she said.
Cazia understood. She picked up the stone.
Vilavivianna spoke again, but this time Cazia heard “I would like to pinch it for myself.”
“You can ‘pinch’ it, if you want,” Cazia said, “but be aware that the translation might seem strange. It’s very literal.”
The princess did not reach for it until Cazia held it out. Only after the girl had taken it did Cazia realize that she only spoke Peradaini. Some years ago, she’d thought to study Surgish, but all she could remember of her lessons was “Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.”
Vilavivianna quirked her head, then smiled as she understood. Cazia tapped the floor between them and the princess set it down with less reluctance than Cazia herself had shown, when Doctor Twofin had shown her one so many years before.
“I can see that it is difficult to make,” the little girl said. “But do you have the strength to make two?”
“No,” Cazia said warily. Betrothed or not, sharing magic with someone outside the empire would cost her life. “Not if I want to survive the night. Besides, they’re dangerous.” She emptied a pouch full of mint, slipped the stone inside, then rolled it up and stuffed it into a skirt pocket. “Use it too much, and you start to speak gibberish.” That wouldn’t really discourage the girl from stealing it if she wanted to, but it might make her think twice.
“We need weapons and provisions,” Vilavivianna said, seeming to forget the stone as soon as it was out of sight. She gestured toward the remnants of their meal. “This food is sustenance, but it will not travel without spoiling. We need to find the meatbread your soldiers carry when they campaign; it does not seem to be kept in the kitchens. Also, I had heard that the armory was near the kitchens, but I will be floated away if I can find a path to it.”
“The kitchens are servants’ areas,” Cazia said. The princess had seemed too smart for this sort of mistake. “The armory isn’t going to be connected to the hallways and workrooms they use.” But Zollik had said it was in the next yard over from this one.
Before Vilavivianna could respond, a footfall squelched in the mud from somewhere beyond the door. Both froze in place, turning toward the door. Cazia quickly, quietly drew a spike from her quiver. The metal tip made a faint scraping noise as it came free, but in the dark stone room, it sounded as loud as a blacksmith’s labors.
Cazia began the hand motions for casting a dart, moving slowly so the intruder would not hear her clothes rustle, and also because, if she finished too quickly, she would have to disrupt it and start over. They could hear the grunt’s heavy breathing, but where was it? Wedged as they were in a corner, they had no way to retreat. Vilavivianna could probably have wriggled through one of the windows into the yard, but Cazia would never fit.
Cazia remembered the way the queen’s neck had looked as she hit the ground. Lar’s mother had been trapped on that dais, just as she was trapped now, and that was all that was needed to break her concentration. She restarted the spell, moving faster this time. The flinches, Treygar had called it. It wasn’t fair. Her stupid brain was going to get them both killed.
The spell was nearly finished, and still the creature hadn’t appeared. Cazia broke it, and just as she was about to start again, Vilavivianna screamed.
Cazia nearly jumped out of her skin. A dark-furred arm had come through the window and caught hold of the girl’s long braid. Vilavivianna bared her teeth in pain as the creature dragged her toward the narrow window.
Without a moment’s thought, Cazia stabbed the dart into the creature’s forearm. It passed between the bones and stuck through the other side. The grunt roared in pain but didn’t release the braid. Instead, it pulled harder, the point of the protruding spike striking the window jamb. Vilavivianna gasped from the pain, but she didn’t cry out again.
This was no good. Cazia could stab the grunt until it looked like a thorn bush, but that wasn’t going to free the princess, not before more beasts arrived. She snatched a knife from the table beside her. An orange flash in the dim light told her it was copper, but that wouldn’t matter if it was sharp.
Cazia slashed the little girl’s braid, cutting it straight through. She felt an absurd rush of gratitude for that officious Chief Servant, or whatever he was called, for the way he ran his staff.
“The door!” Cazia said, her voice high with fear. The girl ran out of the corner as Cazia thrust the knife toward the window. As she expected, the grunt leaned into the opening, but she misjudged its position and the tip of the blade glanced off its brow above the eye.
The beast shrieked and reeled back. The door closed with a bang, and the princess hissed, “There’s no latch!”
Of course there was no latch. Why would you let servants barricade themselves in with the food? Cazia pivoted toward the door and started another spell.
This time, no matter what happened, she could not let her concentration falter. Vilavivianna snatched a coal spade from beside the oven and wedged it against the door and a crack in the stone floor.
The grunt continued to spit and roar at the tiny window, but other roars began to grow nearer. This was the Fire that might take them both; Cazia walled off all thought about her growing panic and focused intently on the work her mind and her hands were doing. The spell itself helped, smoothing out her emotions, flinches or not.
It worked. A block of pink granite—taller and narrower than the ones she had created outside the wall--appeared beside the door, jamming it closed. “Close the other one,” Cazia said, and began her spell again. The princess hesitated, but she did it. Cazia laid another block atop the first one.
She cast the spell again, this time against the door to the stairs. The howl of the beasts became louder as the pack drew near. All of her spells were too slow, too slow! The next block of granite appeared at the base of the stairway door, jamming it shut. She turned back to the yard entrance. That was where the grunts were, and that was the door they’d try to batter down first. Three more blocks should close off that entrance.
As she cast the spell, she felt Vilavivianna’s gentle hands against her skirts. Why would the girl reach for one of her darts when the kitchen was full of knives? Cazia couldn’t remember what she’d done with the copper knife she’d taken from the bench, but she hoped the princess had it.
Focus. Focus on the spell. The grunts had arrived. They battered against the door and roared through the narrow windows. Cazia had never heard anything so loud in her life; not even the chaos and screaming during the attack on the palace had pressed in on her like this.
The block appeared, fitting snug against the door and lintel. At the same time, Cazia experienced another of her flinches, and Vilavivianna took something from her that most definitely wasn’t a dart.
Cazia turned as the girl stepped away. She’d taken the pouch with the translation stone. The princess deftly opened it and overturned it into her palm.
The Way Into Chaos Page 17