Reaping the Aurora

by Joshua Palmatier

  He didn’t give Allan time to respond, snatching at one of the torches and breaking into a run down the channel. Allan ordered everyone else into a light jog to keep up, grateful Lienta hadn’t gone for an all-out sprint.

  As they raced for the embassy, cracked stone flying by, the enforcer beta paced him and managed between breaths, “Is he . . . not concerned with . . . the gates?” At Allan’s questioning look, he added, “The Hound . . . could open . . . the gates . . . from within.”

  Allan swore, a pit opening in his stomach. “Lienta!” he shouted, his voice echoing down the length of the tunnel. But the Temerite captain didn’t slow, too caught up in his fear for the Matriarch to heed him. Cursing again, Allan picked up his pace, the beta following suit.

  “What’s your name?” Allan barked as they reached the ladder, Lienta already gone. He heaved himself up the rungs as the beta answered, “Kurtch.”

  The beta ascended in a scramble that belied his bulk.

  “Hand me the torch,” Allan called down. Dylan passed it up. “Stay with me, Kurtch. The rest of you, catch up when you can.”

  Dylan nodded, being shoved up the ladder by the other enforcers, who looked pissed at being left behind. Allan and Kurtch bolted after Lienta, shadows flaring around them, the mouths of the vaults gaping wide and empty as they sped past. When they reached the first set of stairs and came out on the next level, they could see Lienta at the end of the corridor ahead. Allan called out again, but he ignored them, turning the corner. Allan charged after him, putting on more speed. In the hallway beyond, Lienta had been slowed down by the servants who hadn’t seen him coming and didn’t get out of the way in time. They’d nearly caught up to him by the time he reached the main floor of the embassy and burst out into the foyer.

  “You three,” the Temerite captain snapped at the startled guards at the entrance, “with me. Where is the Matriarch?”

  “H-her rooms,” one of the men stuttered.

  “Send another twenty guards into the ley tunnel below. It’s been breached. Then begin scouring this building. There may be a Hound present.”

  As the guard stammered out an acknowledgment, Lienta and his new escort sprinted up the stair opposite to those where Allan and the others had been given rooms, Allan and Kurtch hard on his escort’s heels.

  Lienta slammed through the large double doors at the end of the extended hall, coming to a halt in the receiving chamber beyond, where between Lienta’s and the guards’ bodies Allan saw the Matriarch look up from the papers she was examining at the desk, a disgruntled look crossing her face at the disturbance.

  She sat back in her chair, setting the papers aside. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Lienta stepped forward, a gesture sending the three guards with him into a search of the two adjoining rooms. Allan noticed three others in the room—two guards and the attendant that had been with the Matriarch when Allan and Bryce had been brought before her the first time. He and Kurtch were still in the hall outside.

  The Matriarch’s gaze followed the guards, then flicked toward Allan and Kurtch before returning to Lienta, one eyebrow raised.

  “Excuse our sudden appearance, Matriarch. I have recently discovered a breach. Someone killed our guards on the southern ley tunnel beneath our walls. It is believed that a Hound has made it inside our enclave.”

  The Matriarch’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought you’ve been keeping an eye on the Hound who follows this Baron Devin around outside the walls.”

  “We have, Matriarch. He is still at Devin’s side. We believe there is another Hound.”

  “But you have no proof.”

  The guards returned from their scrutiny of the other two rooms and shook their heads. “Empty,” one of them reported.

  Lienta did not relax, Allan noted. “Someone killed those guards and entered our walls. Whoever it was is here now. We need to move you to a safer location.”

  “And where exactly would that be?”

  “A room that’s easier to defend, Matriarch.”

  She considered him at length. “Very well. Janote, if you would get my chair.”

  The assistant stepped into one of the side rooms and pulled in a chair with two large wheels attached to its sides. Janote maneuvered the chair close to the Matriarch’s side, then—with the help of one of the guards—lifted the Matriarch up from behind the desk and into the seat. Her legs dragged limply behind her, but after being seated, the Matriarch settled them into position, her feet resting on a small ledge that had been built into the base of the chair. Janote had gathered up the papers and placed them in a satchel, handing it over to the Matriarch when he was done.

  “I’m ready, Captain Lienta.”

  Allan shared a shocked look with Kurtch. He’d only run across the Matriarch a few times over the course of the last few days, but he had never suspected. From Kurtch’s stunned gaze, neither had the beta.

  He suddenly had a greater appreciation for Lienta’s concern over any kind of evacuation. Moving the Matriarch through the embassy and down to the tunnels, then through the devastated streets of Erenthrall, would present considerable challenges.

  Lienta merely nodded. “Take the Matriarch to the first floor receiving room for now, while I arrange a better escort.”

  Janote and the guards nodded and began rolling her toward the hall. Lienta exited before them, pulling Allan and Kurtch along with him, his expression troubled.

  “If the Hound wasn’t after the Matriarch,” he said, “then where would he have gone?”

  “My guess would be—”

  A horn suddenly sounded, plaintive and desperate, the low, drawn out note suddenly breaking with a ragged splutter.

  “—the gates,” Allan finished.

  Lienta grabbed his shoulder and sprinted down the hall, footsteps pounding up the stairs from below. They met more of the Temerite guardsmen at the landing overlooking the foyer.

  “The northern gate—” the lead lieutenant shouted.

  “I heard,” Lienta snapped, cutting him off. “Take someone to the roof with a spyglass. Have them report immediately.” The man snatched at another guardsman behind him, both of them running down the hall in the direction of the rooms Allan and the others had been given. Allan saw Gaven and the others from the Needle heading toward them, the family they’d rescued from the shard trailing behind. He motioned them forward as Lienta descended to the foyer below, shouting more orders about the Matriarch’s escort and rousing the rest of the guard and the populace housed inside the walls. Dylan and the rest of Kurtch’s enforcers stood to one side of the foyer below, keeping out of the way.

  “What’s going on?” Gaven asked.

  “We think there’s a Hound loose in the enclave. He may be at the northern gates.”

  Janote arrived with the Matriarch; with an efficiency that indicated they’d done this a hundred times, the guards of her escort lifted her out of the chair in a seated position and descended, Janote coming behind with the chair, the wheels thumping down step by step. Gaven watched with mild surprise, turning to Allan with a questioning look.

  “I didn’t know either,” Allan said.

  The main doors flew open below and more Temerite guards poured in, some of them immediately surrounding the Matriarch. Lienta sent some of them down the passage leading to the tunnel, others back out into the square and the streets beyond. The door remained open, and Allan could hear an escalation of activity out on the square and, further distant, the sound of fighting.

  He turned to Gaven and the others. “Go get our packs. I have a strong feeling we aren’t going to be staying here much longer.”

  Gaven and his four helpers scrambled back down the hall where the satchels were stacked outside their rooms. They began throwing them over their shoulders, two or three packs per person. Charles’ family ducked into their own room, Charles’ brother urging the
m to hurry, the wife speaking softly to the two children.

  Allan descended the stairs into the chaos of the foyer, winding his way toward Lienta. Kurtch followed him, signaling the rest of the enforcers and Dylan to wait.

  “Lienta!” Allan called out, the captain turning, although he didn’t stop listening to reports and handing out orders in return. He motioned Allan closer. Allan shoved through the crush of guardsmen surrounding him and said over the noise, “If the gate has fallen to the Hound, you need to send everyone through the tunnel!”

  “We could still push them back. But I haven’t heard about the northern gate yet. All I know is that there’s a fight going on somewhere. It could be on the top of the wall.”

  “Or Devin and his men could already be in the streets. If they are, then the Hound is likely on his way to one of the other gates, to let in the Rats or the Butcher.”

  Lienta didn’t answer, stalling as he issued a few more orders. To a young man, no more than fourteen, although he was dressed in an ill-fitting Temerite guardsman’s uniform, he said, “Tell the lieutenant in charge of the commoners to hold for now,” then patted the youth on the shoulder as he darted away. Then he turned to face Allan.

  “Think of the Matriarch,” Allan said.

  Lienta flinched, gaze flicking toward where the Matriarch sat in her wheeled chair to one side, watching without comment, although her sharp gaze followed every movement in the room. She held his eyes a moment, then nodded slightly.

  Allan didn’t understand what had passed between them, but Lienta suddenly pointed toward the youth he’d just spoken to, nearly at the door, and said loudly, “Belay that order!”

  Someone snatched at the young man, catching him before he could run out the door. The room quieted for a moment, all eyes on Lienta.

  He bowed his head, then raised his chin and spoke to the youth, although his voice was directed toward the entire room. “There’s been a change of plans. Tell the lieutenant to send the commoners here. We’re abandoning the enclave.”

  The youth nodded and fled out the door. Allan caught a glimpse of him threading through the guardsmen milling around outside before he vanished.

  Inside, the tenor of the room had changed. Lienta was issuing new orders, a contingent already converging on the Matriarch. They led her into the hallway leading to the back stairs and the vaults and ley tunnel. Servants left, returning with packs not unlike those Gaven and the others carried, loaded with supplies. They’d obviously been readied ahead of time. More and more people began funneling down the hallway toward the stairs.

  Lienta suddenly appeared at Allan’s side. “Your group should head down to the tunnel, since you’re already here. The rest of our people will be arriving shortly. Have them follow the Matriarch’s guard to the ley station in Eld. After that, we’ll have to ascend back to the city streets.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll stay here to see that our people make it into the tunnels.”

  “How many people do you have here?”

  “Not as many as you might think. Close to three hundred, half of those Temerite guards or those that took up the uniform since the Shattering.”

  Lienta was right. Based on what he and the others from the Hollow had seen on their excursions to Erenthrall before the distortion collapsed, he’d have guessed there were maybe twice that many people in the Temerite enclave. He wondered if there had been at one point and they’d simply been whittled away by the events since the Shattering, but he didn’t ask.

  “That’s still a good number of people to move.”

  “We’ve had this plan in place from before the sinking of the city,” Lienta said, “even when ley did flow through the tunnel. Everyone knows what they must do.”

  Before Allan could answer, the two guardsmen Lienta had sent to the roof suddenly reappeared, their pounding tread announcing their approach moments before they burst onto the landing above the foyer, the lieutenant gasping, “The northern gates have been opened! The Baron’s men there are already in the streets, working their way here. Lieutenant Boskell is doing his best to hold them back, but there are too many of them. The western gates also opened a short time ago, letting the Rats in. The two forces are converging on the main living quarters northwest of the square.”

  “Are the people retreating from that area yet?”

  “Not yet, although we saw increased movement on the streets.”

  “Very well.”

  “Captain,” the lieutenant added, still breathing hard from his dash down from the roof, “there’s also a large auroral storm headed into the city, coming from the northeast.”

  “Is it going to hit us?”

  “Hard to say.”

  Lienta grimaced. “Return to the roof. Report any change in either the storm or the Baron’s forces immediately.”

  The two vanished again, Lienta staring at the floor in grim thought. Allan wondered what had happened to Bryce, but called Kurtch and Gaven forward.

  “Take your men and the family we rescued from the shard down to the tunnels and follow the Matriarch’s escort to the ley station in Eld.”

  “What about you?” Gaven asked.

  “And Bryce?” Kurtch added.

  “I’ll stay here with Lienta to wait for Bryce and help out where I can.”

  Kurtch nodded, already turning toward the enforcers.

  Gaven hesitated. “Don’t wait too long. I don’t want to have to tell Morrell or Kara that I lost you. They both made me promise I’d bring you back alive.”

  Allan grinned to hide the flinch of guilt he felt over leaving his daughter yet again to come to Erenthrall. She’d protested when he’d brought it up, but not as forcefully as she had before, a sign she was growing up far faster than Allan liked. “I’d hate for you to feel my daughter’s wrath, let alone Kara’s. I won’t stay long.”

  Then Allan returned his attention to Lienta. “The western gate fell too soon after the northern one. Not even a Hound could have covered that distance in that short a time.”

  “I thought the same. Which means either someone else came in with the Hound and took care of the second gate—”

  “Or there’s more than one Hound,” Allan finished. He thought for a moment, recalling what he knew of the Hounds from his time as a Dog. “Hounds follow the orders of their alpha—who’s either Devin or the Hound with Devin. They don’t often extrapolate from those orders, unless given leeway to do so. But if I were Devin, I’d have given them secondary targets once they were inside the walls.”

  “The eastern gate. And possibly the Matriarch.”

  “Or at least the embassy, if they’re aware of it.”

  “There’s not much more we can do about either of those possibilities that we haven’t already done.”

  Unfortunately, Allan agreed.

  Gaven and the others left, Kurtch bringing up the rear. Allan was forced to revise his opinion of the enforcer—who had obviously been a Dog before the Shattering. He still reminded Allan uncomfortably of Hagger and his cohorts, but he tried to shrug that aside. So far, Kurtch had done nothing to warrant Allan’s apprehensions.

  The first of the Temerite enclave’s commoners not already in the embassy appeared, filtering through the doorway and hastily being herded down the embassy’s hall toward the tunnel by the guards. Allan and Lienta stood to one side of the foyer as the men, women, and children were urged to move faster. A few of them were sobbing in terror, or clutching at loved ones being dragged along, but most were surprisingly resolute and determined, faces hardened. Many of them were Temerite, with the thin faces and lanky bodies common to the easterners, but there were others scattered amongst them.

  A short time later, Bryce appeared with a contingent of Temerite guardsmen. The Dog caught sight of Allan from outside and forced his way through the crowd, expression twisted in annoyance.

/>   He was cursing beneath his breath when he finally made it to Allan’s side. Allan noted his clothes were dirtier than that morning, with a few stains that looked suspiciously like blood. A rent appeared across his shoulder, obviously made with a blade.

  “What happened at the gates?” Lienta demanded. “Where’s Lieutenant Boskell?”

  “The bastard stayed behind,” Bryce said, voice a mixture of contempt and respect that Allan had heard only from fellow Dogs before the Shattering. “He ordered me to warn the men protecting the rabble once it became obvious that we weren’t going to be able to hold the gates. Then he stayed behind to keep the Baron and his men at bay for as long as possible.”

  “How did the gates fall?” Allan prodded.

  “It was another Hound—not the one who’s been at Devin’s side since they arrived, a different one. No one saw him until at least three of those guarding the gates were dead, and then no one could get close to him. He held everyone off until he managed to get the gates opened, and then he began an indiscriminate slaughter as the Baron and his forces poured in. He must have taken out a dozen men in those first few minutes, and no one managed to get a single hit on him. I lost track of him once Devin attacked. Then Boskell sent me away.”

  He turned to Lienta. “He’s retreating street by street, but he’s not going to be able to hold them off long.”

  “He likely has even less time than he thinks,” Lienta said. “The western gates were breached, and we think the Hounds are headed to the eastern ones as well.”

  “Hounds?”

  “We think there’s more than one already inside the walls,” Allan said. “The western gates fell too quickly after the northern ones for it to have been the same Hound, especially after what you’ve told us.”

  “How did they get in?”

  “Through the same tunnel we’re using to escape,” Lienta said tightly. His attention had shifted, and as he stepped forward, Allan glanced up to the second-floor landing to see the men who’d been watching the roof return. “Report, Lieutenant.”