by Jo Spurrier
Isidro clenched his fist in sudden anger. ‘Tigers take them!’ These men weren’t true soldiers, not yet. It had been easier to maintain discipline in the west. Now that they were home, the constant threat that had kept them knit close was gone. Still, he thought, if the Akharians already had their spies embedded, they’d find out we have Rasten one way or another. ‘Warn Sirri before you send for the whip,’ he said. ‘Don’t let her be taken by surprise.’
Ardamon nodded. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘about last night. I was out of line, what I said to Sierra. I didn’t think, after seeing Ani puffed up like a scared cat all night. I suppose I can understand why she took it the way she did.’
‘Good,’ Isidro said, ‘but if you’re trying to apologise, you’re talking to the wrong person.’
Ardamon sighed. ‘Fair enough. I wanted to thank you, all the same, for talking to her. Perhaps it’ll help.’ He shook himself. ‘That’s my report, but Mira wants to see you. She’s been interviewing our old allies from Ruhavera, and she said she was heading back to quarters.’
‘I’ll go find her now,’ Isidro said.
He reached the royal chambers just as Mira did, followed by a nursemaid carrying Cade and a servant bearing a pile of note-tablets.
‘Ah, Issey, I was about to send someone to find you. I’ve been talking to the folk Hespero brought. You were right, they were turned out of Ruhavera months ago. They were held in a kind of prison camp until about a week ago, when Hespero brought them the rest of the way.’
‘A week? So about the time we made landfall.’
‘Mm. Looks like they have a base nearby.’
‘Do Cam and Ardamon know about this?’
‘Not yet. They’re both busy getting our internal defences in place, and then there’s this business with Rasten as well … I’ve told them we’ll dine here tonight to go over everything. Tomorrow we’ll have to send scouts to follow Hespero’s path and see if we can learn where they’re based.’
‘Might be easier said than done,’ Isidro said. ‘They know if we find them Sierra will bury them.’
‘I know, but we have to chase down every lead.’
Isidro grasped the edge of the table with his steel hand. ‘Curse it, we can’t even watch for supply caravans to lead us there. They’ve had ample time to get in stores and they’ll move swiftly, before we’ve had a chance to place fresh spies.’
‘Mm,’ Mira said. Here in the privacy of their quarters, she allowed herself to look worried. ‘It’s not looking good, is it? I’m starting to think we should have chosen somewhere other than Lathayan to set up. But where? The defences here might be crumbling, but they’re worse everywhere else along the coast. It looks like the Akharians haven’t left a city with walls more than waist high.’
‘I know. I thought it was to keep the Mesentreians from retaking the settlements, but now I suspect it was to push us here, where they wanted us. Alright, did your informants have anything else to tell us?’
Mira bit her lip and nodded, reaching into the front of her jacket. ‘One more thing, though I don’t know what to make of it. One of the women gave me this. She said it turned up in one of her packs, and she swears blind that it wasn’t there yesterday.’ She gave Isidro a scrap of paper.
He unfolded the crumpled fragment and smoothed it flat. It bore a simple sketch, a leafy vine swelling to a bud at its tip. But instead of a flower bursting from the bud, it was a bird, its feathered wings drawn in delicate strokes. He’d seen drawings like this before … only they weren’t truly drawings, just the thoughts of a trapped mind taking shape on a slate of stone.
He raised his eyes to Mira’s face, and saw that she knew it as well as he did. ‘But what do you think, Issey?’
‘Nirveli,’ Isidro said. ‘It’s Nirveli.’
Chapter 15
Each day flew past so quickly it seemed to Sierra it was over before it began. There was so much to be done, so many places to be, so many calls upon her time. The weeks, however, were another matter entirely. They crawled past. The nights were the worst: in daylight hours she could throw herself into the tasks at hand, driving other thoughts from her mind, but at night there was nothing to distract her from the awful anticipation.
Scouts combed the hills inland of the city, but they’d found nothing beyond a handful of frightened folk who’d been living rough since the Akharians took the city. Isidro’s system of zones and checkpoints had resulted in a handful of tripped alarms in the first few days, but even after close investigation it couldn’t be proven if they’d been set off by enemy mage-craft. Delphine had tried to explain what they were doing, but it made little sense to Sierra when the realm of enchantments and devices remained a closed book to her.
Another shriek outside cut through the temple’s perfumed air, bringing Sierra back to the present and making her wince. She was used to the wailing of babes, what with two infants in her household and since she was the eldest of her lost siblings, but this child had been crying incessantly since she’d arrived in the temple and apparently for a long time before that. The babe’s throat was raw, the sound it made a hoarse and horrible cry. It triggered a deep unease in her, an entirely instinctual sense of dread. She’d heard it too many times in Kell’s dungeon, as his sacrifices screamed themselves hoarse before they died.
When the next supplicant hobbled to stand before her, Sierra raised her hands to stall him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the fellow, who’d lined up for several days for a vicious gash to his foot from a clumsy swing with an axe. ‘Do you mind if I deal with that poor babe first?’
‘My lady,’ the fellow said, ‘I’d count it a favour. The poor woman’s been walking her back and forth for hours. Folk keep trying to send her in ahead, but she insists she’ll wait until we’re done. She seems scared to me, my lady, I think she might be one of the hill folk. They don’t know you like those of us who came from the east.’
‘If what they know of mages is Kell and the Slavers, I can’t blame them,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’ She slipped off her cushioned bench, a guard falling into step by her side. She was stiff from sitting for so long, and rolled her shoulders as she padded into the covered courtyard.
The woman was walking back and forth with a short and weary stride, carrying the bundled baby in her arms. ‘Hello?’ Sierra called to her, and the woman glanced around, her face fearful. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were sunken. She stopped her pacing, but she came no closer. Sierra went to her, and as she drew near, she saw the woman’s face was filthy, with tracks of tears cutting clean streaks across her cheeks.
‘That little one sounds like she’s been crying for days,’ Sierra said. ‘Is she injured, or just sick? Have the physicians seen her?’
‘They have, my lady,’ the woman said, looking down. ‘They can’t find nothing wrong with her.’
‘Will you let me see?’ She could feel something from the child, but it was hard to separate from the flood of power around her.
The woman took a half-step back and glanced along the line of supplicants. ‘No … not yet. These other folk should have their turn first.’
‘They don’t mind waiting,’ Sierra said. ‘No one likes to hear a babe in pain. I can’t heal her, but if I can work out what’s wrong, perhaps the physicians can help.’
The woman glanced around the courtyard again. She bit her lip, hard enough to turn it white, and passed the babe into Sierra’s arms.
The baby was still crying its wretched, hoarse bleat, and Sierra bounced it in her arms as she tried to focus on the sensation echoing from the tiny body. The child was older than the two of her household, but how much was hard to say. The child was so small and so weak that the flow from the crowd made it difficult to pick anything out. Perhaps a shield would help — Sierra began to gather her power to cast it when she caught a flash of bright steel and a sudden movement from the corner of her eye.
The woman lunged at her with a knife in her right hand.
S
ierra tried to block as Cam had taught her, but the weight and bulk of the babe had put her off balance, and then she felt the squirming bundle slip from her arms. With a curse, her guard lunged for the woman, but she’d moved so that Sierra stood between her and the armoured man. Her face loomed close, and there was terror in her eyes, and fear and dread and a kind of hopeless despair.
Something stung her chest — it felt like a glancing blow, but that needle-stab of pain awakened her instincts with a flash of fury and power. The baby was falling, but there was nothing she could do — she stumbled back against the guardsman, caught between the woman and the hard steel of the guard’s cuirass as he tried to reach her attacker.
Power rose up around her spine with a roar. It shot down her arm in a shaft of fire, and then burst from her palm, a thick, crackling strand that caught the woman full on the chest and hurled her back. There was noise, people shouting and screaming, but it was very dim and distant. The world seemed to slow down as the woman drifted through the air that had turned as thick as water. She struck one of the posts that supported the roof, hitting it hard enough to bring a rain of dust and debris. Then the woman fell to the flagstones and lay still.
Sierra stooped to the baby at her feet now squalling with fresh outrage. She tried to scoop up the bundle, but her left arm had gone unaccountably weak. The left side of her chest hurt with a deep, pinching kind of pain, throbbing fresh with every panting breath.
Then there were people around her. Someone took the wailing child away, and two guardsmen stood over the woman, swords in hand. More hands closed around Sierra herself, and she felt as though they were trying to pull her in different directions. She tried to wave them away, but she felt so strange, so shivery and weak that all she could do was bat at them ineffectually. Her head spinning, she felt as though she was about to faint, and so she let her legs fold beneath her, sitting heavily on the flagstones, still feeling that deep pinch with every breath.
Something dark and wet gleamed on the flagstones in front of her, little droplets that shone like rubies.
It was only then, looking down, that she saw the hilt of the knife jutting from above her left breast.
‘What we need is a long-range communication device,’ Delphine said. ‘Something non-mages can use.’
Alameda pursed her lips. ‘It’s not possible, madame.’
‘Not true. Issey, didn’t Cam have a stone he used to talk to Sierra when she was posing as a slave?’
Isidro studied the stones spread out on the desk. ‘That was Blood Magic,’ he said. ‘The enchantment was fed off his life-force.’
‘Oh,’ Delphine said, and frowned. ‘But … just because it uses Blood Magic, does that necessarily mean it’s harmful? I mean, look at you. Just because your power is tainted, it doesn’t mean you do bad things with it. Surely how it’s used matters more than what is used.’
He idly grasped the edge of the desk with his false hand, feeling the tension in the cord as the claws closed around the wood. ‘That’s a question for the philosophers, Delphi. I’ve been thinking on it for half a year, and I still don’t have an answer.’
She picked up a stone, rolling it between her fingers, while Lavani silently slipped into the room and placed a note-tablet on the corner of Isidro’s desk. He acknowledged her with a nod while Delphine went on. ‘Do you suppose I could ask Rasten about it? He wouldn’t have risked harming Cam while he was still trying to win Sierra over.’
‘Rasten has a different definition of harm than normal folk.’ He released the false hand. ‘I don’t think he’d tell you, anyway. He swore he’d never pass on Kell’s teachings.’
Delphine pulled a face. ‘Well, maybe Sierra can give me a clue as to where to start.’
‘But what if the working can only be done by a Blood-Mage?’
‘It’s possible … but I’m not going to give up on the idea without trying.’
He started to reach for the tablet when a sudden sharp pain struck through his chest. With a wince, he pressed his hand over his ribs. It made no difference to the deep and tearing ache.
‘Isidro?’ Delphine said. ‘What’s wrong? All the colour just drained from your face.’
He squeezed his eyes shut and caught a flash of vision — blue lightning and the dark silhouette of a person hurtling through the air. His chest ached with a deep, searing pain.
He reached for Sierra, but there was no reply — just radiating pain.
He straightened with a shake of his head, and stood. ‘Something’s wrong. Something’s happened to Sirri.’
He strode from the room without looking back, Delphine and Alameda hurrying after him.
He felt strangely weak, as though his legs ought to be trembling beneath him, but at the same time, his mind told him they were as strong and sound as they’d ever been.
Then something shifted in his mind. Isidro? Rasten’s voice echoed through his head.
That was Sierra. I think she’s hurt. His feet were already taking him towards the entry-hall. After a few heartbeats that sense of weakness and confusion vanished, evaporating like water on hot stone.
She passed out, Rasten said. What’s happening?
I’m going to find out.
I can’t feel her, I can’t … Fires Below, I hope she’s just passed out, Rasten said, and through the words Isidro caught a flash of him standing in the middle of his cell, tense as a bowstring.
I know where she is, Isidro said as he strode out into the daylight.
I can come —
No. Stay where you are. He paused then, before adding, I’ll call you if I need you.
He collared one of the guards by the door. ‘Go find Lord Ardamon, tell him to bring a detachment of guards to the temple, fast. Run!’
The guard ripped off a salute and bolted away, startling a messenger bringing a horse around from the stables.
‘I need your horse,’ Isidro said to the girl.
The lass must have recognised him, for she tossed the reins over the horse’s head without argument. The stirrups were too short, but he ignored them as he kicked the horse into a gallop.
It was dangerous to ride at speed through busy streets, and more dangerous still to send a shod horse careening down a steep cobbled road, but somehow the beast kept its feet while townsfolk scrambled from its path. The streets around the temple were so crowded that Isidro was forced to rein in, and bellowed over their heads to clear a path in the name of the king.
By the time he pushed through the temple gates and into the courtyard, Sierra was surrounded by priests and guardsmen. Lying on her back on the damp stone, her skin seemed deathly pale next to her black hair. A clot of rags had been packed around the knife jutting from her chest, and Rhia knelt beside her, pressing her ear to Sierra’s chest.
Isidro reached her side as two attendants brought a litter. Somewhere nearby, a baby wailed with a piteous, broken cry.
Rhia gave him a brief glance before turning back to her patient. ‘She lives, but she is very cold. Bring that litter here!’
Isidro turned to the guards. ‘What happened?’
‘Woman attacked her using a sick babe to get close, sir.’
‘Where is she?’
The guard jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Dead.’
‘Was she alone?’
‘No accomplices found yet, sir.’
Isidro turned back to Rhia. ‘Is she strong enough to be taken up to the fort?’
Rhia screwed up her face. ‘I can treat her here —’
‘This place isn’t secure. We can protect her better in the palace.’
Pursing her lips, Rhia leant over Sierra once again to peek under the rags. ‘She has time. The bleeding is slow. But she is very cold …’
Isidro turned on his heel. ‘I need a coat —’
Before he’d finished speaking, at least half a dozen were offered to him. Isidro took the nearest and thrust it into the hands of one of the attendants, who spread it over Sierra’s still form.
> Ardamon and his men arrived only moments later, and he had four of his men pick up the litter while the rest formed up around them. One of Sierra’s hands slipped off its edge, but the nearest guardsman tucked it tenderly back beneath the coat.
Isidro turned to reclaim his horse, and, once mounted, called to Rhia, offering his false hand behind his back. She slipped her foot into the dangling stirrup and caught his metal hand to settle behind the saddle. ‘Ride close,’ she said.
Ardamon’s guards cleared the road, but the pace was slow. The men didn’t dare jog the litter. The crowd was quiet and still, some folks raising their voices in prayer. The journey seemed to take an age, and when at last they reached the palace steps, Isidro helped Rhia scramble down before dismounting. ‘Take her up to our chambers. I’ll meet you there.’
She nodded and hurried away, leaving Isidro to clench his jaw and set out for the northeastern tower.
The guards at the door of Rasten’s chamber were on edge. ‘Is something amiss, sir?’ one of them said as he saluted. ‘There’s a cursed lot of fuss out there.’
Isidro ignored the question. He could see in his mind’s eye the knife sticking from her chest. He’d watched men and beasts die from wounds like those, drowning in blood. ‘Just unbar the door.’
Inside, Rasten was waiting. ‘Come with me,’ Isidro said.
Rasten asked no questions, but merely fell into step at Isidro’s heels. Once it would have set his skin crawling to have his old enemy at his back. Now it just felt strange, very strange, that his presence could bring such a sense of relief. He thought of Sierra full of power and fury in Demon’s Spire, or curled against his chest in her tiny tent. She’d blown into his life like a storm, and that was how he’d always thought of her — a force of nature, not a woman of flesh and blood who could fall to an assassin’s blade. I’m a cursed fool, Isidro said to himself.