The Straits of Galahesh loa-2

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  When she looked up she saw the woman staring at it. Yalessa… Her name was Yalessa.

  Atiana palmed the stone-making it clear it was something not to be questioned-and took Yalessa’s hand to step with shaking legs from the pool. As she did it registered with her how broken this building was. She knew this place. It was the very same building where she’d first seen Ushai in the Shattering.

  Another boom shook the building. Atiana allowed Yalessa to put Atiana’s thick winter coat around her shoulders, and then she walked toward the open doorway. The streltsi held their muskets and berdische axes at the ready. They bowed their heads as Atiana approached and stepped outside ahead of her, both with their muskets resting at the top of their axes, ready to set them down and fire should the need arise.

  “My Lady,” Yalessa said, “don’t go outside!”

  “Wake them,” Atiana replied calmly. “It’s time we leave.”

  Yalessa seemed relieved by this. She bowed and moved to comply as Atiana stepped outside and into the adjoining courtyard. Within it were withered trees and a disused garden. Above, there was gray sky, the monotony broken only by the dark forms of windships sliding below the clouds. A dozen circled about one another. Almost directly overhead, cannon smoke belched from the side of one of them. Windwood flew from the hull of the ship it had targeted, the sound of the blast falling upon her moments later.

  Debris rained down over the courtyard, and the streltsi pushed her back beneath the overhang.

  As chunks of wood pattered onto the stones, Atiana remembered the events she’d seen from within the aether.

  Father.

  The ceremony at the Spar.

  Dozens of her countrymen had been there along with the Kamarisi and his courtiers. Father… Father was dead, but what about the rest? Had they all been killed?

  Six streltsi came running into the courtyard, boots stomping, bandoliers rattling in time. Two stopped at the archway that led to the streets of the Shattering. The remaining four continued with Irkadiy at their lead.

  “My Lady Princess, we must go. Now.”

  “The others aren’t ready.”

  “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

  Atiana turned and found Ishkyna standing in the shadow of the doorway. Ushai was there as well. Both of them looked as if they hadn’t slept in days.

  “My Lady,” Yalessa said, holding Atiana’s clothes and motioning to the interior.

  No sooner had Atiana nodded her head than musket fire broke out from the archway.

  The leg of one of the streltsi standing there buckled. He grunted in pain, aiming and firing his musket. Blood stained his pant leg where it was tucked into his tall leather boot, and then it began to spurt.

  “The Kamarisi’s men have come, My Lady.” Irkadiy’s face was hard, but as he glanced toward his man, she saw the pain and worry that roiled just below the surface.

  Atiana took time only to pull her boots on. The coat would have to do for now. She pulled it tight around her and cinched the belt and they were off, running toward the courtyard’s other exit.

  As they ran into the Shattering, Atiana looked back and saw a dozen janissaries dressed in the red turbans and the black coats of the Kamarisi’s personal guard. One of the soldiers spotted their escape, but he did not shout. He merely whistled and pointed, and his comrades ran up the street, half of them peeling away, heading southward to cut them off.

  Irkadiy led them into a round building, a scriptorium. They took the stairs that were just inside the foyer and went up three levels. Shelves were built into the walls, and were visible in many other rooms they saw as they ran. The shelves were largely empty, but every so often she would see a thick book, dusty with mold, and she wondered distantly why those particular books had been abandoned, why they had survived the scavenging that had taken place over the course of generations.

  At last they reached the highest level. A wooden ladder stood at the ready, one that had been prepared three days before. Irkadiy and one other strelet climbed the ladder first.

  Yalessa, eyes wide and movements rushed, made to follow them, but one of the streltsi put himself between her and the ladder. “They will make sure it’s safe,” he said.

  Five of the streltsi lined the balcony and brought their muskets to their shoulders, aiming their weapons down to the foyer below.

  Sounds came from the entrance three stories down.

  Two quick shots came from the streltsi, the sound of it deafening in the enclosed space. The other three fired shortly after, and they heard moaning and a cry of pain cut short by the musket fire.

  Irkadiy returned, waving them up. “Quickly now,” he whispered.

  As Yalessa took the ladder up, a musket shot struck the stone ceiling. Yalessa screamed as the shot scattered powder and bits of rock everywhere.

  Below, bootsteps could be heard running along the scriptorium halls, and then along the stone stairs leading to the second level.

  “Hurry,” Irkadiy called.

  Ishkyna gained the roof quickly, as did Ushai.

  As Atiana made her way up, another shot came from the streltsi behind her. And another. They were staggering their shots, delaying the chase. When she reached the roof at last, the streltsi came quickly behind her. Just as the last of them reached the top of the ladder, a shot rang out from below. The strelet arched back, his face twisted in pain. He was hit by another shot before the others could pull him to safety.

  They pulled the ladder up immediately and dropped two heavy boards into place over the hole. A shot tore into the wood, followed quickly by two more.

  She watched as the men helped the wounded soldier away and checked his wounds.

  “ Nyet,” he said, waving them away. “Leave me my musket and one other.”

  He was young, younger than Atiana. Irkadiy glanced ahead, to the building they were headed toward, and then he slipped his musket over his shoulder and gave it to the wounded man. After kissing his cheeks tenderly, Irkadiy said, “Go well.”

  “Go well,” the young man replied.

  They padded over the tiles of the roof to an adjoining building, one whose roof was only a short drop from the scriptorium’s. It was the first in a connected series of buildings that had once been part of a grand estate.

  Atiana silently thanked the ancestors for Irkadiy.

  He and his men had blockaded all of the entrances, all except the rooftop garden-which they reached in short order-and three others, leaving them several choices of escape routes.

  They entered the building, blockading the garden entrance behind them. They found themselves in a long, marble hallway.

  “Which way?” Atiana asked, her breath coming heavily. She removed her belt and motioned for Ishkyna to hold it up so that she could change.

  The men turned away, several of them reloading their muskets with quick efficiency.

  “They will expect us to run west,” Irkadiy said, “toward the bulk of the Shattering.”

  “And so you plan to go south.” Warmth was beginning to return to Atiana’s extremities, but this only served to make her aware of how cold she truly was. She began to shiver fiercely as she allowed the coat to drop and pulled a shirt over her naked frame.

  “ Da,” Irkadiy replied. “We’ll be able to see them pass along the grounds. Once they do, we will make our way and-”

  “ Nyet,” Atiana said. “We will head north.”

  “My Lady,” Irkadiy said, lowering his voice, “that way lies the city.”

  “I must see what became of the Spar.”

  “We will be trapped.”

  “My Father, your Lord, was there on that bridge, Irkadiy.” She accepted the leggings from Yalessa and pulled them on quickly. “We will see what became of it.”

  “My Lady-”

  “They will have the ground from here to Svoya covered,” Atiana continued, “both by land and by air. Our only real choice at this point is to head south by sea.”

  “You may be right, but to
go there now would be foolish. We might as well give ourselves up to the Kamarisi’s guard.”

  She slipped back into the coat and belted it, feeling more herself than she had in quite some time. “We go, Irkadiy, and we go now.”

  “Forgive me, but we will not.”

  Atiana stepped up to him. “Who gave you your orders, Irkadiy, son of Adienko?”

  “Your father, the Grand Duke himself.”

  “The Grand Duke is dead, Irkadiy. He died on the Spar. Beheaded by the Kamarisi.”

  Irkadiy’s nostrils flared, and he swallowed reflexively. He snapped his heels and bowed his head to Atiana. “I’m sorry, My Lady Princess.” He turned to Ishkyna and snapped his heels again. “Most sorry.”

  Atiana sent an apologetic glance at Ishkyna. She hadn’t wanted her to find out this way, but she needed to shake Irkadiy’s resolve. Ishkyna seemed rigid as she met Atiana’s gaze. She’d seen. She’d seen in the aether, but she’d only just now remembered.

  Atiana turned back to Irkadiy, waiting until he calmed himself. “Who would you take orders from now?”

  He measured her, and then Ishkyna. No doubt his orders had been to protect them at all costs, but so much had changed.

  “We go to the Spar,” Atiana continued, “as secretly as we may. If you deem it too risky to take a cage down to the sea, so be it. We will hide in the city until we’re able to make plans to reach Svoya another way.”

  He paused another moment, his men looking to him, ready to act however he decided. The silence was lengthening, and then, in the distance behind them, they heard the report of a musket. It was followed quickly by another. And then there was shouting and several more shots in tight sequence.

  Irkadiy looked back the way they’d come.

  “ Kozyol! ” he breathed to himself. “Come.”

  And they were off again, heading through the connected buildings until they reached a half-ruined wall in a grand entryway to the north of the estate.

  “Ancients,” Irkadiy said as he came to a stop.

  The others stopped as well, all of them staring up through a massive hole in the wall before them.

  When Atiana reached their side, she felt the blood drain from her face. She could feel her heartbeat pulsing in her neck, pounding as the scene over the city came clear.

  A column of smoke, wide and thick, rose up from beyond the city’s center-certainly somewhere close to the Spar. But this was not what had shocked her. It was the scores of ships she saw heading south across the straits. Some were small ships-yachts and the like. Others were larger barques. But there were at least two dozen massive galleons flying with them. And none of them seemed to have any trouble at all with the straits even though they were passing directly over it.

  “How many?” Ishkyna asked.

  Irkadiy glanced back at her. “With the others I saw earlier, perhaps fifty or sixty.”

  Atiana was shaking her head. That matched the ships they had available in the south. But only thirty or so were ready to come quickly to their aid. With this many ships heading toward Vostroma, her homeland would be overwhelmed in days, perhaps less.

  “Did you warn them?” Atiana asked.

  Ishkyna looked to her, angry at hearing the accusation in her voice. “Did you?”

  “I was-”

  She wasn’t able to finish the thought, for just then a meaty thump struck Yalessa in the chest. Her young handmaid spun and fell as the sound of the musket-fire reached them.

  It had come from outside.

  Their pursuers had found them. They hadn’t been fooled at all. They’d either guessed where they’d been headed or there were enough of them that they could cover all of the exits from this massive estate-Atiana wasn’t sure which scared her more.

  Atiana dropped to Yalessa’s side as Irkadiy and the others fanned out and moved to the holes where windows once stood. Yalessa gasped wetly for breath. The wound bubbled red. She stared up at the ceiling blinking rapidly as Atiana held her hand and called her name.

  No one on the islands was a stranger to battle. Atiana knew what this wound meant for Yalessa. She leaned forward, kissed her forehead, and whispered into her ear. “Your story will be told.”

  She didn’t know if Yalessa had heard, for by the time she straightened, Yalessa’s eyes had gone lifeless and the blood had stopped pumping so fiercely from her wound.

  The streltsi had positioned themselves and were just then peering around the corners.

  They pulled back just in time.

  A handful of shots came whizzing in, several striking the stone window frames.

  They returned fire, and immediately another of the streltsi was felled.

  He did not scream, for the shot had caught him in the throat.

  He lay there on the dirty marble floor, staring up at Atiana, holding his neck as bright red blood coursed from between his fingers. His eyes were scared. As the firefight continued, she smiled, trying to console him, but the fear never left him, not until he slumped to one side.

  Atiana took up his musket and moved to another window. She looked out carefully and saw, standing behind a low stone wall not thirty paces away, two dozen soldiers.

  “They may not kill you if we lay down arms, My Lady,” Irkadiy called.

  Atiana was already sighting down the barrel of the musket, training it on a man near the center. She knew what Irkadiy said was true, but the two of them-two princesses of Vostroma-would only give the Kamarisi another tool to use against the Grand Duchy.

  She swallowed hard. She could not allow herself or Ishkyna to be used this way.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  The pan flashed and the musket bucked like a skittish colt.

  She’d been trained long ago, and she’d been a fairly good shot, but she had forgotten just how powerful these weapons could be.

  Her shot missed.

  She pulled back as a musket shot struck the wall outside her window.

  She reloaded as quickly as she was able, and when she brought the weapon up again, she saw that several men were running low toward the base of the wide marble stairs that led to the entrance.

  She aimed and squeezed.

  The musket kicked again. This time a man fell.

  And then she heard the bootsteps coming from behind. There were many, coming from the hall they’d run down only a short while ago. The soldiers that had chased them from the scriptorium had found their way here at last.

  Atiana was in the midst of reloading when seven of them reached the bannister overlooking the entrance hall.

  Irkadiy turned and raised his musket.

  But he was too late. One of the janissaries fired and struck Irkadiy in the shoulder.

  He crumpled to the ground.

  “Irkadiy!”

  Two more shots came in, one striking the marble floor near Irkadiy’s head, the other missing another of the streltsi.

  “Lower your weapons,” said one of the Kamarisi’s men. He was the same one Atiana had seen earlier, the one that had spotted them as they ran from the courtyard.

  There were tense moments as the streltsi neither fired nor lowered their weapons.

  Atiana was nearly ready to tell them to comply when a trickle of water came down from the ceiling above the soldiers. The trickle increased to a stream, and then a deluge. No sooner had the men looked up than a section of the roof collapsed.

  It crashed down on them, stone and ancient wood crumbling, wounding one of them and causing several others to back away. This did them little good, however, for the water was slithering over the floor like a snake.

  One of the soldiers fired his musket at the twisting column of water, which did little but spray water in a wide fan. A moment later, the water had wrapped around his legs, then his chest, and then it drove against his face, entering his mouth and nose. He reared back, flailing his arms, trying to bat the water away.

  Atiana looked to Ushai. She wore a circlet with a stone of azurite, which glowed dully. It seemed str
ange for the gem to shine so little. As hungrily as the jalahezhan was taking the lives of the soldiers on the balcony above, it felt as though it should be as bright as the sun, not idly glowing like a bedside candle.

  Two of the Kamarisi’s guard drew their kilij swords-blades with a sharp bend halfway down their length-and used them to cut at the twisting jalahezhan. Another drew a pistol and aimed it at Ushai.

  Before he could draw the trigger, the snake flicked its head, and a tendril of water splashed across the pistol. When the guardsman squeezed the trigger, the weapon merely clicked, the powder wet.

  Three shots came in quick succession against the heavy wooden door. The door was stout, but the wood was brittle. A moment later, it crashed inward, bringing three men with it.

  One was felled by a point blank shot from Ishkyna.

  Three of the streltsi charged, screaming the names of their fathers and bringing their berdische axes arcing downward. Both of the Kamarisi’s men were felled, but more came in after-five, then six, with more rushing forward now that the door had been breached.

  Atiana watched only for a moment. It was going to be a slaughter unless she did something.

  She raised her hands, but before she could shout their surrender, she heard the sounds of a renewed firefight. A handful of musket shots fired. Then more, and more, until it seemed that an entire war was being fought outside the doors. She could see outside the windows several dozen men advancing quickly across the estate grounds from the west. The men they were attacking-the Kamarisi’s guard-had been positioned to defend against fire from the estate. They weren’t at all prepared for an attack along their flank.

  “Hold!” Atiana called. “Hold, for help has arrived.”

  More gunfire rained in near the entrance, and several shots flew in through the nearby window. She could see men in dark garb and ivory-colored turbans.

  “Pull back!” the leader of the Kamarisi’s guard called.

  His men obeyed, retreating quickly up the stairs. Another of them dropped from gunfire, but the rest reached the second level and retreated down the hallway from which they’d come.

  The men in dark garb rushed in through the open doorway, firing at the retreating men. They saw Atiana and the streltsi, and one of them with a thick moustache and black beard waved to her. “Come quickly,” he said in thick Anuskayan.