‘You have one of my people. I’ve come to get him back. I want no fight with you. The Apposans are my friends.’
The guard beckoned to two others, both powerful, stocky ulas, and sauntered towards her. He spat to the side.
‘Tuali? And you don’t want a fight? Should have told that to your brothers and sisters last night. We’ve eight dead and twenty injured. Still. Only three of you this time.’
He hefted his blades and moved up. Tulan and Ephran moved to her flanks. She made a calming gesture and walked a pace ahead of them.
‘Your fight is not with the Al-Arynaar,’ she said.
‘Wrong,’ said the Apposan.
He ran the last couple of paces and swept both his blades out to in, chopping towards her neck. Pelyn stepped inside the strikes, blocked both his arms with hers, and straight-kicked with her left leg into his gut. The Apposan doubled over. Pelyn smacked the heel of her palm into his forehead as he came up, knocking him onto his back. She dropped to his side, her sword from her scabbard and at his throat.
‘I have had a very bad night,’ she said. ‘I am tired and my temper is short. Give me Methian. Alive.’
The Apposan’s hands were off his weapons and in front of his face, palms out to her, pleading. Tulan and Ephran were in front of the other two guards. All other action had stopped. Children stared, their games forgotten. Pelyn bounced to her feet and held a hand out to him.
‘I am not your enemy.’
After a pause, the guard took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled upright.
‘Methian?’ he said, almost bleeding gratitude. ‘He’s inside. He’s very much alive, I promise you.’
‘Good. Then lead on.’
Pelyn tried and failed to hide her relief. The guard, with Pelyn uncomfortably close to him, led them inside the yard. It was busy. A big central fire was burning and various pots and trays hung on tripods or on Y-staves over the embers at its edge. Ula and iad were busy making spears and crude arrows.
With Tulan and Ephran walking with the other two gate guards, the small party approached a ring of around forty Apposans, standing and seated, listening to a single voice. Their arrival brought an abrupt end to the story. Faces turned, weapons were drawn and the ring opened.
There sat Methian on a log with his cloak for a cushion and a steaming mug in his hand. He wore leather trousers, a thick wool shirt and a short leather coat. Tree farmer’s clothing. He was barefoot, but a pair of battered boots stood next to the log on which he sat.
Pelyn smiled and shook her head.
‘They were supposed to murder you,’ she said.
‘Ah, but Llyron doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does. Three of my daughters partnered Apposans. One of my grand-children made me this infusion. Guarana and clove. Lovely, it is.’
‘Only you could be that lucky,’ said Pelyn. ‘You could have told me last night.’
‘Shorth has ears everywhere,’ said Methian.
Around them the Apposans were relaxing. Methian helped them out.
‘My friends, this is Pelyn, Arch of the Al-Arynaar and defender of us all from ourselves. And these are Tulan and Ephran.’ Methian stared at them but chose to say nothing more. ‘Lower your weapons, please. This is cause for celebration. What happened to you, by the way? The Tuali weren’t there or something? Or did you escape by hopping very quickly?’
The Apposans laughed. Weapons were lowered. Pelyn sheathed her sword. The gate guard pushed past her and marched back towards his post.
‘They have other things on their minds right now,’ she said. ‘And anyway, unlooked-for help came my way.’ Pelyn raised her eyebrows.
Methian nodded. ‘Nice clothes,’ he said.
‘You too. What have you told them?’
‘The truth. We know men are coming. The Apposans are heading into the forest.’
‘Good,’ said Pelyn. ‘Who’s in charge?’
‘I am, for what it’s worth. I am Boltha. ’
An old ula stepped forward. His face was a mass of wrinkles and his eyes sagged along with the tips of his large ears. His hair was thick and grey except at the crown, where it was thinning. Pelyn had seen him around the city. He was a financier or a banker, she thought. He probably owned half the yards here.
‘I’m honoured to meet you,’ she said. ‘Everything Methian will have told you is true. Men are rampaging through the city and are in the pay of Llyron and Aryndeneth priests. They’ll pick this city apart bit by bit. Stay in the forest. Don’t be tempted back until I or the TaiGethen come for you. You’re heading to Katura Falls?’
Boltha shook his head. ‘Not so far as that. We aren’t running; we’re waiting on opportunity, if you see what I mean. We’ll hole up at the Olbeck Rise.’
‘Good. And can we call upon you if we need to?’
Boltha smiled. ‘An axe can fell a man easier than a tree.’
‘Appos and Yniss protect you. I won’t forget this.’ Pelyn turned back to Methian. ‘Jakyn.’
Methian nodded. ‘He’ll be fine. He’s smart and the Gyalans are less embittered than Llyron believes.’
‘We need him.’
‘I know where they’ll be,’ said Methian.
He stooped to put on his boots. But Jakyn wasn’t fine.
The entrance to the museum of Hausolis was characterised by an ornate wooden arch, under which a stone footpath ran to the wide stairs that led up to the doors of the building built in the likeness of the keep of Tul-Kenerit. The Gyalans had chosen it as their base, standing as it did in the heart of their district.
Jakyn was bound to the arch by his arms. Above him hung crossed flags depicting rainfall on upturned palms. Jakyn’s naked body glistened with his blood. Gyalan guards stood either side of him, paying him no heed. But Jakyn was long past begging if indeed he ever had. Pelyn could see the method of his torture and murder.
Cuts. Hundreds of them. Covering every part of his body. From mere scratches to deep gashes. His nose had been cut off, as had both of his ears. His lips had been slit along their lengths. He had been castrated. His nipples and eyelids had been removed. Every humiliation had been visited upon his body. His eyes being put out would have been the last abuse.
The Gyalan way. Or it had been. As they approached, Methian walked ahead. He strode up to the two guards.
‘Welcome, brother,’ said one. ‘Though I can’t extend the same greeting to your others.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Methian. ‘A true ceremonial klosil. Proud of it, are you?’
The guard smiled up at Jakyn’s body.
‘Pity you weren’t here. He squirmed and screamed. Called for his god. Not loud enough, eh? I put that one across his forehead. A second smile, right?’
‘Mind if I add my own?’ asked Methian.
Pelyn tensed. The guard grinned.
‘Always room for more.’
Methian drew the Apposan blade on his left hip with his right hand. In the same movement, he carved it up through the guard’s body, the tip tearing through his shirt, slicing up through his chest and thudding up to split his lower jaw and tear his throat apart.
The guard stared at Methian for one stunned moment before clutching at his neck and falling back to writhe until death. Methian had his blade at the other guard’s neck before he could bring his makeshift spear to the ready.
‘Gyal wreaks revenge on such as you. Shorth hears her and your soul is already promised purgatory. This elf. This fine young Cefan ula that you murdered in agony, was a friend of mine. Cut him down. Gently and with respect and reverence. And if you drop him, I’ll drop you.’
Chapter 25
There is beauty in a kill worked by the hands of the TaiGethen warrior. ‘Enough fire,’ said Sildaan, coming to Garan’s shoulder.
The man looked round at her, a smile on his face. The attack on Ysundeneth had advanced incredibly fast. Not a blow had been struck by steel. Elves ran in fear of the magic of men. Over five hundred mercenary soldiers and mag
es had disembarked. They were well organised, powerful and ruthless.
They were advancing on three fronts, spreading in a wide arc across the north of the city and tracking south. Some of the mages were flying – in defiance of all Sildaan knew or could readily accept – and they provided a simply massive advantage. Able to overfly every thread base, every pocket of potential resistance and direct mage fire with stunning accuracy.
‘They need to know we can’t be stopped. We want them to run before us, don’t we?’
‘I want them subdued not panicked. And I want enough of the city left standing to reallocate. Call off the mage attack. Round up prisoners. We need this quarter sealed then move on to the Gardaryn. When we take that, we all but have the city in our grasp.’
‘Whatever you say, boss.’
Garan raised his eyebrows, a measure of dissent Sildaan just about tolerated. The man shouted orders in the ugly speech of the north. Mages started falling back behind the line of mercenary blades. A unit of a hundred, led by a bilious lieutenant with a massive scar right down the centre of his face, ran on ahead of the main force. Mages flew above them.
Sildaan shook her head. ‘And what did you order them to do?’
‘Exactly what you asked. We’ll force those seeking shelter ahead left, back onto the dockside and into one of the least damaged warehouses. I’m sending archers and swordsmen ahead to do house to house up in the… What do you call it? Never mind, anyway up the Path of Yniss a way. And we have our right flank moving in on your friend’s group. We just need his confirmation.’
‘Helias is not my friend.’
‘Tell him that. That’s him, isn’t it?’
A small group of elves had walked into the Path of Yniss, the wide and winding tree-lined avenue that crossed the city north to south, broken by buildings and monuments in places but nevertheless the spine of Ysundeneth. Helias led them, five in all.
‘Let them approach,’ called Sildaan. Garan repeated the order in his own language. ‘Helias. You’ve brought guests.’
Helias spread his arms. ‘A little personal security, my priest. The streets are dangerous.’
‘But getting less so by the moment. Who are these?’
‘Advisers, guards.’
‘Fine, and not necessary now.’ She waved a hand at Garan. ‘Move them somewhere, would you?’
‘Helias, I must protest,’ said one, a haughty iad with a long knife pushed through her belt. ‘This Ynissul cannot-’
‘I think you’ll find I can do anything I want, Tuali.’
The iad snatched her knife out. Garan stepped up and cracked a fist into her chin, knocking her cold.
‘The rest of you be quiet,’ he said. ‘Where do you want them?’
‘Do I look like I care overmuch? You’re in charge of holding pens.’
Garan signalled and six of his warriors came over. A few more words and they moved to Helias’s people.
‘You won’t be hurt,’ said Helias. ‘It’s for your own safety.’
They were led away muttering curses at him and Sildaan.
‘You know that might not actually be a lie,’ said Sildaan.
‘What should I do?’ asked Helias.
‘Your people are in the agreed location?’ she asked.
‘Naturally.’
‘And Llyron’s athletic little gift?’
Helias smiled, a thoroughly unpleasant event for any iad to witness. ‘She awaits my pleasure. Just tell your muscle to leave the houses around the park undamaged.’
‘Good, then you can go where you please. Go back and do what you want to her or, if I were you, I’d save that for another day and get to Shorth. Llyron will keep you safe enough.’
Helias blustered. ‘I’m not walking alone that sort of distance.’
‘Then walk with us. Just keep out of my way; I have work to do.’
‘Don’t treat me as some sort of lower-thread minion.’
‘How else would you have an Ynissul priest treat a Tuali?’ returned Sildaan. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your rewards and your position. Until then, I’d…’ Sildaan touched a finger to her lips.
‘You need me,’ Helias said. ‘Don’t forget that.’
‘You are as inevitable and irritating as blisters in new boots. Run along.’
Helias shot her a glance that Garan noted with raised eyebrows before shouldering his way through the mercenaries on his way to the gods knew where and cared even less.
‘Someone else to keep your eye on,’ Garan said.
‘He is nothing. Alone, he has no strength to fight. No courage. Let’s move on. I want to set one particularly large fire before the rains come back.’ Pelyn watched the men flying in the sky on what looked like wings made of nothing but smoke and shadow. She’d seen them dive and climb. They could fly at some speed too. Very agile and yet totally corrupt by all the laws of every elven god. And they presented a huge problem.
They’d returned to the house at the side of the Park of Tual. Hundreds of Tualis were gathered in the park. They stood in groups, talking, sharpening weapons and waiting, she presumed, for Helias. They were going to get something quite different, and Pelyn wanted to be there to witness it. Tulan had planned an escape route and he and Ephran were waiting downstairs.
Pelyn turned to Methian. The old Gyalan’s face still held the anger from Jakyn and the museum arch.
‘You did exactly the right thing,’ she said.
He looked up, his eyes boring into her face. ‘It isn’t that. Those two Gyalan animals deserved to die like the dogs they were. I just wish we’d fired the museum. None of them deserve life. Not after what they did.’
‘I understand, but you can’t afford to think that way. Eventually, there will have to be forgiveness. Yniss save me, I’m probably going to have to forgive Helias. That ula is elusive as a taipan and has more life than an Ynissul, I swear it.’
Once the Gyalan guard had laid poor Jakyn on the ground, Pelyn had seen something she never thought to see. Methian lost control of himself. Pelyn had half expected him to slap the guard on the rump with the flat of his blade, tell him to take a warning back to the others. But he had punched the guard in the stomach as he straightened, slammed the pommel of his sword into the Gyalan’s neck to knock him down, kicked him over onto his back and buried his blade in his chest.
Only then had he broken down in tears. Tulan and Ephran had moved Jakyn’s body into shade and Tulan had laid his cloak across the boy’s ruined body. They planned to collect him later and take him into the rainforest. The temple of Shorth was out of bounds.
‘I’ll think on it. But I’m old, Pelyn. Getting old, anyway. And I never thought to see this. The violence is frightening. My violence frightens me.’ Methian’s hands were shaking. ‘I should have gone into the forest with the Apposans.’
‘You still can. That’s not desertion, it’s retirement.’
Methian managed a smile. ‘Thank you, Pelyn. But I think I have to see this through. Find out who we are as a race of people. I don’t want to turn my back and not know what I’ve left behind.’
Pelyn looked away across the Park of Tual. There was movement all around its periphery. More further up the Ash too.
‘Tulan. Men are coming.’
‘We’re ready,’ said Tulan’s voice from the bottom of the stairs.
Pelyn took a pace away from the window, hiding herself more firmly in shadow.
‘I think we’ve been foolhardy coming back here,’ she said
‘We needed to get a picture of the city. Something to plan by.’
Pelyn chuckled. ‘I saw the look on your face when you heard me suggest it, old ula. And I saw you look over towards the Hausolis Playhouse.’
Methian got up from the end of the bed he’d been sitting on and joined her.
‘Well, I did wonder. No thought of a little malicious enjoyment watching the Tuali run?’
‘You know me too well. But still, be ready to run yourself. No doubt Helias told them to l
eave the houses untouched, but these are men we’re talking about here. Paid thugs. Trust them?’
‘Like I trust a piranha.’ Nillis saw the movement, thought it had to be the perimeter guard, looked again and was equally certain that it was not. He tightened his grip on the sharpened stave he’d fashioned while sitting about waiting for Helias to come back, then tapped Ulakan on the shoulder.
‘What is it?’
Ulakan was bored. Nillis could see it in his eyes. Privately, he thought Ulakan had gone too far, got too violent in the raids last night. But the ula, barely out of education like himself, seemed to revel in it. Like his parents, who were also here, he was not slow in saying that this had been coming for a long, long time.
Plenty of other Tuali had seen what were presumably enemies gathering on the borders of the park, still mainly hidden by fence, wall and tree. Voices were raised in warning and the group, maybe three hundred strong, began to spread in anticipation of combat.
‘Come on, cowards!’ called Ulakan. ‘Show yourselves. Take us on if you think you’re able.’
Ulakan’s taunts were picked up across the crowd. Laughter followed. Fists and weapons punched the air. But what emerged from the brush and climbed over or broke down the ornamental fencing were not Ixii or Beethans or Cefans. Voices quietened. Tualis started backing anyway though the enemy was coming in from all sides.
Bravado died in throats. Weapon tips dropped. Nervous elves glanced around, their eyes flickering over the faces of those beside them, looking for comfort. There was none to be had. Nillis guessed there had to be a hundred of them. Most armed but some of them not. Men.
Fear spread through the Tuali. They were just civilians in the main. Big and brave when running and fighting other civilians. But coming at them now were professional soldiers walking with cool purpose, keen edges drawn and ready. They wore stiff leather and steel-capped boots. They were tall, powerful and brutal. Scarred and bearded. Cold-eyed.
Walking just ahead of them were unarmoured men. They’d all heard men were here and that something called magic had been used to murder Lorius. Nillis knew that those men in common clothes were the wielders of it, whatever it really was. Nillis felt Ulakan near him.
Once walked with Gods e-1 Page 23