Marcus almost followed when Cutter’s hand shoved him forward from behind.
“Move! Lienta and the others are right behind us.”
“The Kormanley—”
“We’ve taken care of everyone close.”
Marcus didn’t need any more prompting. He lurched to the wall and crawled over the top, allowing himself to succumb to tremors as his feet touched solid, visible stone again. He dropped the bag and clutched at the gritty reality of the building that paralleled the chasm at this point with one hand, steadying himself as he caught his breath. Cutter stalked along the wall to the north, bow ready, arrow trained forward.
“You don’t even seem short of breath,” Marcus said, wiping at his face with his other hand. He was still trembling.
“I didn’t think about it,” Cutter answered, without even glancing back.
Marcus barked a short laugh.
Lienta suddenly appeared, stepping down from the wall, as nonchalant as Cutter. His watchmen came after, spilling over the edge in various states of shock and agitation. Most were stoic, but a few were white-faced, with widened eyes. One dropped to his knees and vomited off to one side.
Artras and Marc came toward the end, Hernande thrown over Marc’s shoulder, his body limp, two watchmen behind them.
“That’s it,” one of the lieutenants said. “That’s the last of our group.”
His words were punctuated by a sudden crack of wood, followed by two more. Everyone turned northward, where three boulders the size of Marcus’ head arched out over the chasm and crashed into the Kormanley side of the Needle with shattering impacts. The catapults had begun their assault.
“What’s next?” one of the watchmen asked.
Marc and Artras settled Hernande’s body against the short wall, Marc still supporting him. The University mentor’s head hung at an odd angle, his features locked in rigid contemplation, brow slightly creased.
“How do we wake him up?” Artras asked.
Marc slapped the mentor, hard, Hernande’s head cracking into the stone wall behind him. Artras gasped, then hit Marc on the shoulder. “How dare you!”
Marc didn’t seem affected at all. “I don’t think he’s going to wake up. Not for one of us anyway.”
“He’ll come out of it on his own,” Marcus said.
“You’ll have to carry him,” Lienta said. “We aren’t waiting here.” He picked out five watchmen. “You’re on point. Head for the temple. Avoid as many people as possible, especially enforcers. Go.”
As soon as the five men left, he turned to Marcus. “We’ll keep your group in the middle until we reach the temple. Once we’ve taken the Nexus, we’ll hold the Needle while you do whatever needs to be done.”
He motioned to the rest of his men. Marc hefted Hernande up onto his shoulder like a sack of grain. “Let’s go.”
From behind the glass wall, three enforcers stood guard over five servants as they fed the rest of the University students. They’d already fed Cory, one of the servants even using a damp cloth to wash his face. He still couldn’t move, not even to swallow on his own, but his throat and lungs burned with the raw fire from the gas. He hadn’t tried to speak yet; it was too early, and he didn’t want to give the guards any reason to call for reinforcements. There’d been twice as many a short time ago, but something had happened and the other three had been pulled away.
Of the three that remained, two kept close to the door and glanced outward every few seconds, unable to keep still. The third glared at the University students as the women worked. He was older, grizzled, and kept playing with the handle of a pipe attached to his belt next to a small bag that Cory assumed contained leaf for smoking. One of the other guards had called him Trenton.
Surreptitiously, Cory attempted to move the fingers of his left hand, hidden from the others by his body. He was shocked when they twitched. He tested the glass wall again, pushed himself closer to consciousness. He tried swallowing, felt the muscles in his throat pulse.
He glanced to where three of the women were feeding Mirra, the two others finishing up with Jasom. He was running out of time.
From behind the glass wall, he reached forward on the Tapestry and encircled the hearts of all three of the enforcers. Then he squeezed.
All three dropped to the floor, dead before their bodies hit the ground.
The five servants jerked, one of them crying out, two of them standing, including the eldest, the one who’d washed them as they were fed.
“What happened?” one of them asked.
The matron shook her head. “Go find the other guards.”
“Don’t,” Cory said. The word came out as a dry croak, barely audible, but it caught the matron’s attention. She stepped toward him.
“Did you do this?”
“Yes. I can do the same . . . to all of you . . . if any of you . . . step out of this room.”
For emphasis, he gave the matron’s heart a tweak. She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth, her hand rising to clutch at her chest. The women behind her cried out or shrank back.
“We’ve fed you, washed you, kept you alive!” the matron said in reproach.
“You’ve kept us sedated!” Cory croaked. He was regaining his voice, even though it hurt to speak. “Imprisoned!”
“Because Father demanded it. You’re dangerous. As you’ve demonstrated.”
“I won’t hurt you unless you force me to.” Cory tilted his chin toward the open door. “Close the door.”
The matron glanced toward the opening, then back toward him, clearly considering escape. But she pointed to one of the others. “Close it. Don’t do anything stupid.”
The girl, no more than twelve, hesitantly approached the door, then closed it and ran back to the others.
The matron turned back to Cory. “Now what?”
“Now you help me get the others awake and mobile. I’ve had enough of your Father. We’re leaving.”
“Commander! The ley wall has collapsed!”
“I can see that,” Darius snapped as he reached the top of the Needle’s outer wall and strode to its edge. He placed his hands against the stone parapet and gazed out at the battlefield, where Baron Devin’s men from Erenthrall and the Gorrani from the south were pummeling each other, the ground already littered with bodies and soaked with blood. Dust raised from the fighting obscured most of the details, but it was obvious that neither side had made a significant advance toward victory. They were evenly matched. But it was difficult to tell, regardless. There were no lines, no obvious strategies at play. The crater of the Needle had become a melee.
As yet, only a few of those outside the walls had noticed that the ley wall had fallen. That wouldn’t last for long.
“We have to hold the gates,” he said, turning to face the enforcers that lined the wall. “If either the Gorrani or Baron Devin breach the wall before Iscivius has a chance to rest—”
He choked on the words as a freshet of blood arched across his face. He tasted blood as the throat of the lieutenant to whom he’d been speaking gaped wide, slit from behind. The man’s eyes were opened in shock. Darius’ entire body went numb as the lieutenant toppled to the side, revealing another man, one Darius didn’t recognize. He held a small dagger in one hand, tilted downward, blood dripping from its edge. There were streaks of blood across the man’s clothing. Even so, he was hard to see. Darius’ eyes kept sliding away from him, the man fading in and out of sight.
“What—?”
“I’ve been inside for days,” the man said. He didn’t move, kept his eyes locked on Darius. “I’ve been waiting for the ley wall to fall. It didn’t make any sense to open the gate with the ley wall still up.”
Darius stopped trying to discern the man’s features—his face a blur of mouth, nose, dark hair like a mustache—and took in the rest of the near wall. All the m
en who’d been stationed there were dead, their bodies slumped where they’d fallen, crumpled to the stone floor or draped over the parapet. Close to twenty men, all taken out without a sound.
He faced the man in sudden horror, took a step back as he reached for his sword. His back came up against the edge of the parapet. “You’re a Hound.”
The man looked out at the battle below. “Where’s Father?”
Darius drew his blade, the knot of terror in his gut twisting into anger. “You won’t make it off this wall.”
“You won’t stop me.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re already dead.”
Darius started to draw a breath to laugh, to protest, perhaps both, but suddenly the Hound stood in front of him, the man’s motion a mere blur. Something punched into his chest and shoved him back against the stone edge behind him. With a scrape of leather armor against stone, he tumbled through the crenellation and over the wall.
Wind and the flapping of his clothes muffled all other sounds as he fell. He had time to notice a knife had sprouted in the center of his chest, that it somehow constricted his breathing, that his chest felt tight.
The pain ripped through him a moment before he struck the ground. Bones in his body cracked. His sword clanged against stone and jolted from his grip. He bounced slightly, but settled, his body arched over a boulder to the left of the gates, arms and legs at odd angles, head tilted to one side. But he was still alive. He exhaled, the breath leaving him in a gurgling moan. Blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. He could taste it, thick and syrupy, draining from him in a thin stream. He thought some dripped from his nose, but he couldn’t be certain. A dull throb had begun in the base of his skull, had begun to crescendo. Most of his body was numb, nothing but vague twinges of pain or phantom twitches, but he knew the building throb was pain. He braced himself for the agony.
But then a sound caught his attention: the clank of the gate mechanism, then the clangor of its chains as the massive doors began to open.
He tried to bellow in fury, but all that came out was a weak gargle and a bubble of blood from his nose. It burst, splattering him with a spray of droplets.
Then the Hound stepped out of the door and raised a horn to his lips.
The peal of the horn calling Baron Devin and his dogs to the Needle’s doors was deep and hollow and beautiful.
It was the last thing Darius heard before choking to death on his own blood.
“Where is everyone?” Lienta asked as they ran through the mostly deserted streets toward the temple. The few people they saw moved quickly into doorways and niches, those in the buildings closing shutters and bolting doors. Many of them were elderly, or mothers or teenagers who were guarding children.
They passed a cross street and a sudden roar echoed down its length.
“There!” Artras shouted, pointing with one hand.
The group ground to a halt. At the far end of the cross street they could see a crowd of people gathered in an open plaza, hands raised to the heavens. Another wave of sound rolled toward them, what sounded like a chant.
Marcus swore. “It’s Father. He’s holding another one of his sermons, probably to keep the people of the Needle calm.”
“Let him,” Lienta said. “It will help us gain access to the temple.”
He whistled and the group broke back into a trot, five men still out in front on point, Marcus and the rest in the middle. They cut toward the temple’s side entrances, parallel to the plaza before the temple, slowing as they drew nearer. Marc was gasping under Hernande’s weight by the time Lienta motioned them to a halt. They huddled up against one of the buildings. Artras helped Marc set Hernande’s body on the ground, the bulky guardsman wiping sweat from his face.
“He’s heavier than he looks.”
Marcus edged forward with Cutter until they were at the edge of the building, and he could see why Lienta had called a halt. They were at the edge of the temple, the first tier rising above them, lit with midmorning sunlight, its steps glowing. Some of the stone was marred with burn marks where the Kormanley bombs had gone off during the coup. Some stone debris still lay in the street, especially around the entrance. It was obvious a bomb had gone off here, probably to keep some of Kara’s people from escaping.
A half dozen guards surrounded the damaged doorway, all of them casting occasional glances to the northeast, agitated.
“Something’s changed,” Lienta said when he noticed Marcus behind him.
“What do you mean?”
“Listen.”
Marcus paused. He could still hear the chanting from the sermon, muffled by the buildings, and beyond that the fighting outside the walls. Nothing sounded different. “I don’t—”
“The fighting,” Cutter said, cutting him off. “It’s closer.”
“That’s why the enforcers look so anxious,” Lienta said. “They can see the ley wall is down and those outside have noticed.”
Marcus strained his hearing, filtering out the chanting. “The fighting sounds closer than the outer walls, though.”
At the same moment, a horn blared to the northwest, picked up by at least three other horns at various points around the wall on all sides, all Kormanley signals. Lienta perked up when a Temerite horn joined them, listening intently.
His expression turned grim. “The gates in the outer wall are already open. Baron Devin and his men have already secured them and are beginning to fight their way through the tent city toward the temple.”
“What about the Gorrani?”
“No word. I assume they’re attacking the Baron from outside. With Devin at the walls, we need to take the Nexus before he reaches the temple. No more time for subtlety.” He gestured at the archers. “Take out the enforcers. Everyone else, get ready to run. Be ready for whatever we might encounter once we’re inside the temple.”
Marcus and Cutter headed back to Marc and Artras, passing on the orders. Cutter strung his bow and made certain his sword was ready to draw once they were inside. Marc did the same, although he wouldn’t be able to fight while carrying Hernande.
“Why don’t you just”—the enforcer waved with one hand—“with the ley?”
“Because it may draw attention,” Artras said, her wicked dagger appearing in her hand. She tested the sharpness of its blade with her thumb.
Marc’s eyes went wide.
“I’ll save the ley for when we’re inside,” Marcus added. “If we need it at all. I don’t want to exhaust myself getting to the Nexus and then not have enough strength to do whatever Kara needs me to do when she’s ready.”
“Lienta is ready,” Cutter said.
“Right.”
Marc hefted Hernande back onto his shoulder with a tight groan, and the small group joined the Temerites. At a signal, the archers stepped out from the behind the edge of the building and fired.
The rest ran. Four of the six guards fell in the first volley, one arrow missing its target entirely, the other embedding itself in the guard’s arm. The man grunted and stared down at the shaft in surprise, then looked toward Lienta. He drew breath to shout, arm already reaching for his sword, but an arrow took him in the eye, his head snapping back. As he fell, two more arrows took out the last guard.
Then Lienta was at the entrance. Without a word, he jerked the door open and four Temerite watchmen ducked inside, a terse “Clear!” coming a breath later. Lienta began ushering the rest of them inside. “Move, move, move!”
Marcus dashed in behind the last of the Temerite front guard, the darkness within blinding him for a moment. He blinked rapidly, eyes adjusting to the ley- and torch-lit interior corridors with their oddly slanted walls. Shouts broke out ahead, punctuated by the clang of swords on metal and stone, but the Temerites didn’t slow. Twenty paces farther on, he stumbled over a body, a servant, then an enforcer, blood still sp
urting from a neck wound.
They passed two corridors, turned right, past more shouts and fighting, then the Temerites ahead of Marcus suddenly halted. He could hear arguing, loud even though they were trying to be quiet. Blood pounded in Marcus’ ears, and his breath came in tight gasps.
From behind, Lienta shouted, “What’s the holdup?”
“We don’t know the way to the Nexus!”
Marcus cursed and began shoving forward. “Let me through!” The Temerites backed into the sides of the corridor, opening a path. He came up on a cross-corridor, three dead enforcers at the intersection. After a quick look around, he said, “This way.”
The lieutenant in charge nodded. “We’ll lead, but stay close.”
They began moving again and ran into four servants, the lieutenant pushing them into a room to one side and jamming a knife into the lock. Marcus called out directions as they moved deeper into the temple, toward its center, where the Needle rose into the sky. The corridors widened and narrowed until they spilled out into one of the main corridors that could hold four abreast.
“This way!” Marcus charged down the corridor toward the double doors at the end, which led to the stellae garden surrounding the Needle and the node beneath.
When they were twenty paces distant, a group of twenty enforcers emerged from a side corridor. Both groups halted abruptly, the enforcers obviously caught off guard.
Before either group could react, there was a muffled explosion from somewhere else in the temple.
“What in hells?” the enforcer’s leader said, looking upward as if trying to pinpoint where the explosion had come from. Then his face hardened, and he pointed with his sword. “Kill them.”
An arrow shot by Marcus’ head close enough it tugged at his hair, and one of the enforcers went down. By then, the two groups had collided, Marcus dragged forward with the Temerites as they charged. A knot of grappling men formed in the corridor, Marcus shoving his way toward the doors. Another explosion echoed over the clamor of the fight, and then Marcus was able to stumble free from the main knot of guardsmen. He headed toward the node, but halted when he heard Artras call his name. She and Cutter were protecting Marc, fending off random attacks that slipped by the Temerites. Marc attempted to keep Hernande’s body as far from the flailing blades as possible. They were all pressed up close to the corridor wall, but they’d made it most of the way through the fray.
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