City of Lies

by Sam Hawke

  SYMPTOMS: In small doses, loquaciousness, excessive sharing of thoughts, lowered inhibitions similar to drunkenness; in larger doses, drowsiness, slurring of speech, coma.

  PROOFING CUES: Mild “furry tongue” sensation increasing with dose, slight discoloration of liquids.

  31

  Jovan

  “We’re hauling them up safely,” Chen told us as we arrived at the base of the southeast wall. Her urgent message had been the best possible kind; good news, for once. She had filled us in as we made our way to the wall where—it almost seemed impossible—soldiers from Aven’s army had reached us at last. We raced up the steps behind Chen and she led us out onto the battlements, where two women in army uniforms leaned against the stone, talking quietly.

  When they saw Tain, both visibly startled, and one blurted out, “Honored Heir! You’re alive!” The other merely stared as we approached.

  “Yes,” Tain said, greeting each soldier with a grip of the shoulders, and smiling through his tired face. “You thought otherwise?”

  “We had a messenger,” the taller of the two said, looking Tain over and over as if he might be a hallucination. I jolted. One of our messengers had made it after all? Marco had faked the heads but I hadn’t dared hope they had made it through the rebel army. But then why had it taken so long for them to return? She wiped sweat from her face with the back of her hand. “We were told the city had been attacked and you and the Chancellor had been murdered.”

  “I fear it’s true about my uncle,” Tain said. “But I was luckier. And now, thanks to you, the city might yet endure.”

  But I had almost stopped listening. My heart felt like it stopped and then started again at ten times its usual pace. A messenger who thought both Tain and Caslav were dead? Not one of our original messengers, then. There had only been one person who had tried to leave the city after Tain’s poisoning. “The messenger,” I blurted, words struggling to escape my dry mouth. “Who was the messenger?”

  Tain looked at me, catching up, my hope reflected in a rush of color to his face and the sudden clenching of his fists.

  “I don’t know, Honored Heir—I mean, Honored Chancellor,” the soldier said. “A woman, I believe.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to breathe for the rush of elation that passed through me. She made it?

  “I think she caught the deep-cold,” the other soldier offered, oblivious to our reaction. “She swam out of the city, or something? The Warrior-Guilder was worried for her health.”

  I froze. Fortunes, don’t give me this hope and then take it away. Kalina’s health generally and her lungs specifically had always been poor. If she had the deep-cold, and she was stuck out in some tent in the open instead of being cared for in a warm hospital … But despite the fear, hope thrummed inside me still. No part of me had dared think she might have made it.

  Tain took one of my hands and squeezed it. “She’s safe with Aven now, Jov. No matter what happens here, we’ll have her back soon.” His optimism was catching; I returned his grin. “But we need to stop the attack,” he said, turning back to the soldiers. “We need to get a message to the Warrior-Guilder to hold off the attack, and force a surrender.”

  The soldiers shifted, looking uncomfortable. “But, Honored Chancellor,” one said, “the army is keen to defend the city and avenge its Chancellor. They won’t want to hold back.”

  “Listen to me,” Tain said, his frustration showing. “Those people on the other side of the lake? They’re our people. too. My uncle was their Chancellor, and they had nothing to do with his death. They are as much victims in this as we are—if not more so. I want everyone to walk away from this alive, do you understand? You have to make the Warrior-Guilder understand that.”

  The shorter soldier nodded. “We will tell her, Honored Chancellor.” After a moment, her compatriot nodded, too, though she frowned as she did, and I wondered how well that message would go down with the troops.

  “I’m sorry to ask you to do this, but I need you to deliver the message now,” Tain said. “Every moment we delay…” He shook his head, looking back out over the lake, where the thick mist still rolled over the panicking rebels guarding their side of the bridge.

  “Yes, Honored Chancellor,” the taller soldier said. “But our boats are miles up the river. It will take us some time to get back across and reach the army.”

  “Then you’d best go, and my thanks and the fortunes with you,” Tain said.

  We stayed on the wall long enough to see them safely down the ropes again.

  “Will they make it in time?” I asked.

  “I hope so.” Tain’s fingers twitched, and we both stared down toward the lake, as if we could see through the ground to what waited below. The maddest of long shots, putting our hope in something that hadn’t been used in hundreds of years. Yet what else did we have, if the army attacked before we could warn Aven to hold off?

  We found Eliska directing repairs to the tower, one arm bandaged and her hair caked with dirt and blood, but otherwise unhurt. She followed us without argument back up the bank and listened as Tain outlined our plan, such as it was. She read the journal entries herself, mumbling under her breath, sometimes sounding incredulous and other times admiring.

  “Is it even possible?” Tain asked, a boy again in his hopefulness.

  Eliska opened her mouth, then shut it and shook her head, spreading her hands. “I just don’t know,” she said. “Tresa writes that this was probably the greatest feat of engineering in the known world. But they kept it a secret from half the new Council. It was a brilliant, cruel plan, and—”

  She broke off and we jerked our heads back to the lower city at the sudden sound. Distant but powerful, the thunderous roar chilled me. We looked at each other. “They’ve attacked,” Eliska said, sounding hollow.

  And before we could even react, another sound came, this one closer, and it took a moment to register what had happened. Then Tain’s whole body jolted and his eyes went wild. “No!” he shouted. “Stop!” He scrambled to his feet and took off down the slope.

  “Tain!” I followed him, swearing.

  As the horn faded, our soldiers poured through the remains of the Finger and across the bridge, swarming to engage the rebels from this side as well, trapping them between two fronts. Before he could get caught up in the crowd, I lunged with a desperate burst and caught Tain’s arm. “Stop,” I yelled, hauling him back out of the stream. “I’ll deal with this. You go with Eliska—you need two people. If the Os-Woorin room is ever going to help us, now has to be the time and it has to be you. Go.”

  His face worked and his eyes darted between the bridge and me and back again, then he slumped and nodded. “You stop this,” he said to me, as much a prayer as an order. Then he turned and ran back up the hill.

  I let myself be carried as far as the tower, then threw myself up the stairs instead of streaming through onto the bridge with the rest of them. I burst out onto the roof.

  Our peace flag lay trampled in a corner; in its place, the bright red of full attack billowed in the cold morning air. From here I could see above the mist to the chaos on the west shore. Our people were still outnumbered, even against the reduced force left to defend this side, but the suddenness and ferocity of our attack had put the rebels on the back foot. I tore down the red flag with clumsy fingers and fumbled with the heavy fabric of the green. “Who took this down?” I demanded, looking around at the frightened faces. Two children, not more than ten or eleven, raised their hands like scared schoolchildren. “On whose orders?”

  “Cr … Credo Bradomir’s.” A fat lad with wild curls held aloft the horn with shaking hands, his eyes downcast. “He gave the attack order. We sounded the horn like he said.”

  I thrust the green fabric at the children. “Get this back up,” I said. “You signal a retreat, and don’t you stop blowing that horn until every man and woman is back over this bridge, or you run out of air, do you hear me?” He gave a quivery nod but I’d al
ready run to the other side of the tower, taking care near the edge where a catapult strike had smashed the corner off. Behind me, the boys signaled the retreat as I craned, trying to see Bradomir’s bright armor and cloak. How long will it take this bloody mist to rise? I spotted an Order Guard yelling commands from an arrow perch on the half-crumpled wall below me. “No one interferes with that flag,” I told the group on the roof before I went back down the stairs. “Chancellor’s orders.”

  I counted steps in my head on the descent and leaped off the landing, taking the two stairs at once, then skidded around, swearing, as the count finished uneven. Just ignore it. But that had never worked before, and whatever part of my brain governed my damn compulsions cared not for the urgency of the situation. I froze. A panicked sweat broke out over my face and neck. In the end it was easier to just go with it than to fight a pointless battle, so I hopped up the last two stairs on my right leg, then took the last two back down, one at a time.

  I pushed through the clumps of men and women who had been heading out onto the bridge but who now milled about, confused, as the sound of the retreat horn penetrated. I sprang onto an empty weapons chest and bellowed at the crowd piling into the room. “Chancellor’s orders! Get back and assist the wounded, all of you!” I pulled a burly woman up next to me. “You stay here,” I said. “No one goes through in this direction, even if Credo Bradomir or anyone else challenges it. Call people back from the bridge and send anyone trying to go back to the field to help the hospital staff.”

  I peered past her out at the wide stone bridge. How long would Tain and Eliska take down under there? Would the machine even work? About to cross the bridge, I hesitated. I was wearing nothing but a filthy, damp tunic; I had no armor and no distinguishing clothing that would grant me attention from a distance. I needed help from someone with visible authority.

  At the arrow perches on the wall, I hollered at the Order Guard. “Can’t you hear the signal? Order the retreat!”

  He looked down at me, frowning. “What? But we have them!”

  “I need you on the other side of that bridge to get our people back. Chancellor’s orders!”

  He looked back over the bridge, one hand half-rising as if to point. Then he looked at me more carefully and dropped it. “Yes, Credo Jovan,” he said, and he scrambled down the ruined wall to follow me. His distinctive bright uniform made him easy to spot, and he carried a small horn around his neck and a proper decorated shield over his back.

  “We’re going to need to sound that horn once we get over there,” I said. “The people on the other side can’t hear it from here.”

  “Yes, Credo,” he replied, but shot me sidelong looks as he rebuckled his shield and unsheathed his sword. I took the horn and seized a shortsword from a passing man as we went back into the tower, heading for the smashed gate. Once there, I heard a familiar voice and anger raced through my veins.

  “Wait here,” I told the Guard, and stepped back outside.

  Bradomir stood on the steps, cloak fluttering in the breeze, arms raised, yelling out to the people I’d just sent away. “Full attack!” he cried. “You cowards, we need to attack! Get back over there!”

  I stepped down behind him and kicked hard into the back of his knee. Bradomir crumpled like paper and fell forward down the steps with a noisy cry and crash. He stared up at me, pain and fury twisting his handsome face. No remorse or pity tinged the contempt coursing through me. “Get up.”

  Torn between the indignity of lying at the base of the stairs and a clear desire not to do anything I said, Bradomir’s moustache worked for a moment before he stood, wincing, and pulled off his helmet. He smoothed his hair and raised a shaking finger to point at me.

  “You—” he began.

  “You ordered the attack,” I said. It wasn’t a question, and he knew it; he regarded me with narrow eyes and a curl of the lip, but said nothing. “Against the Chancellor’s direct instructions.”

  “Now is the time to strike,” Bradomir said. “Tain is a green boy, swayed by emotion.”

  “That’s your Chancellor you’re speaking about,” I reminded him, anger making me shake. “And he’s trying to stop a bloodbath of our own people!”

  “Rebels who killed his uncle and destroyed half our city,” Bradomir countered with a sneer. “And you’d have them just walk away from here? But then you, Credo, you’re swayed by something much baser, aren’t you? You’ve forsaken your honor for some pathetic Darfri slut.”

  If he thought to wound me with a mention of Hadrea, it couldn’t have been less successful. Instead, I thought of how much better, how much fairer and purer her concept of honor was than ours. I laughed and stepped down so we were nose-to-nose. I could smell the perfumed oil he’d still found time to wear. “I’m not sure you really understand what that word means. Anyway, you’re about to get the chance to show just how honorable you are.” I glanced back at the Order Guard, who stood, shifting between his feet, just behind me. “Help Credo Bradomir along. He’s coming over the bridge to help us get our people back.”

  “Don’t you lay one finger on me!” Bradomir spat at the Guard. “I am a Councilor and head of one of the most respected Families in this country. If you dare touch me…”

  The Order Guard hesitated, then looked at me. Compared to Bradomir in his untouched armor, I must have looked a pathetic sight indeed; practically a boy next to the older Credo, filthy, sweating, holding a sword I barely knew how to use. The guard looked between us, then, with a grin and a sly salute, he raised his sword and poked Bradomir in the chest with it. “You heard the Credo,” he said. “Get a march on.”

  Dignity forgotten, Bradomir fought and yelled as we dragged him into the tower. We went through the smashed gate, past my new gatekeeper, and ran out onto the bridge. Rebel catapult fire had damaged the stone in multiple places, and wide cracks and ragged holes zigzagged under our feet as we ran. Though I’d passed over Trickster’s Bridge thousands of times, now its height above the water seemed precarious, and I found myself staring at the misty depths below.

  “Down, Credo!” the guard yelled suddenly. He yanked me hard and I stumbled to my knees behind him as he knelt, propping up his shield. I pulled Bradomir down with me, and only a breath later, the shield shook as something pounded into it from the other side. To my right, another arrow hurtled into the ground and stuck in the crack between the stones. Heart pounding, I ran faster across the length, Bradomir forgetting to struggle or threaten me as he cowered behind his own small shield. I felt naked without any kind of shield or armor, running in a kind of partial crouch, ever aware that the arrow fire could take us down at any time.

  We made it off the bridge and into the thick of it, and with shaking hands I raised the horn and blew the retreat signal as we joined the fighting.

  The horn sounded pitiful in the roar of the battle on this side. I could barely differentiate between city people and the rebel force in the sweaty crush. I blew again. This time I saw some response; nearby Silastians looked over their shoulders at the bridge.

  Slowly, the signal registered. More and more people backed away or even ran back toward the bridge. I felt a kernel of hope; maybe we could turn this around.

  “We need to get back!” the Order Guard yelled in my ear. I looked back over toward the bridge, and the hope disappeared into a burst of fear.

  The rebels had closed in behind us, cutting us off from the bridge.

  Bradomir saw it, too; he stopped trying to lunge away and instead pressed back with the two of us, forming a tight little triangle. “What have you done?” he yelled, eyes wild. I’d never seen him without the veneer of calm, and it made him seem older.

  I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. What had I done? I supposed I’d just consigned the remaining parts of our force to slaughter—I might have stopped the rebels being penned in but I’d done that exact thing to our own. At least I could see no Darfri Speakers among the force before us; it seemed less frightening, somehow, to be killed by natur
al rather than supernatural means.

  As our scattered forces came together to form a rough circle, I blocked a spear strike, barely, and found myself thinking of Hadrea. I grabbed the end of the spear within my reach and yanked, and the man wielding it stumbled forward, losing his weapon. I kneed him between the legs, and tried to remember what I’d last said to her. Stay safe? Be safe? Stay at the hospital? Nothing profound to remember me by. I had barely any supplies left, but I sprayed some stingbark powder into the man’s face and whirled around to face the next one. I knew what I should have said to Hadrea, and now I’d never get to say it at all.

  The next strike was too fast, and though my hasty block deflected the sword, it cut into my other arm, a hammer of fiery pain in my forearm. My muscles already protested the action. All those soft years, and here I was expecting my body to put up with repeated fights on top of inadequate food, injuries, and general exhaustion. It wouldn’t last much longer. I wouldn’t last much longer.

  Then a gong rang out, and another, and the rebels closing in around us began looking over their shoulders. The ferocity dropped out of their attack. It took some time before we realized what was happening; by then, the crowd had thickened and the surrounding rebels had ceased their fevered targeting of our group and were focused instead on the flood of people from the streets, retreating to the docks and riverbank to form one consolidated force.

  Aven’s army had broken through into the lower city. This was now a full battle, not a siege.

  “Get to our army!” Bradomir cried. “We’ll be saved!”

  Off the docks and up into the buildings, we saw the first of them arrive, their uniforms and armor bright and matching, rendering the rest of us a childish mob. Relief and dismay warred within me. We might well be saved, but the rebels would be finished. This was not how it was supposed to go.

  Then another sound penetrated the cries and clashes of weaponry.

  A ghostly sound, but loud, so loud, and building with every moment; it reminded me of the longhorn at the Chancellor’s funeral, but higher and colder. It rattled my ears, filling the air around us. Beneath our feet, the very ground seemed to shake. Men and women paused in their fighting, craning about. Fear and uncertainty bled through the rage. The sound was like a physical thing, seizing us all. Weapons ceased clashing and slowly the sound swallowed all others.