by Matthew Ward
Josiri
A rebuke, but not without humour. At least, Viktor hoped so.
He laughed under his breath. “I deserved that. Do you know where he went?”
“Would you believe I never saw him leave?” Armund shrugged. “I can ask. Someone will know.”
What would the answer change? The war in the north brooked no delay. Josiri, of all people, would not have turned his back on it without cause. It called for trust, and in that sphere Viktor’s debts screamed fit to break the world.
“No.” He slung the claymore at his back and tightened the straps. “Josiri can look after himself, and I have a war to fight.”
Armund nodded and held out his hand. “Brenæ af Brenæ. Væga af Væga.”
“I’ll bring the fire.” Viktor clasped the thane’s hand tight. “Death, I’ll leave to others.”
Fifty-Three
“Altiris! Altiris! Wake up!”
The strike of fist on door and Sidara’s shout dragged him back to a room still heavy with night. More than night. The air’s texture – its smell – were too thick, too bitter.
He lurched groggily upright. “What is it?”
“The house is on fire!”
Sleep’s final veil parted. Fumbling on shirt, trews and boots, Altiris unbolted the door.
Firestone lanterns flickered. Black smoke already rushed about ornate cornices. Somewhere in the distance, flames crackled and spat.
Sidara, barefoot in nightdress and shawl, scowled. “Why was that locked?”
“Habit.” One learned where an unlocked door saw you robbed, or dead.
“Habit?” She grabbed his arm. “Come on!”
Lady Reveque, Hawkin and Kurkas met them at the corner, the former still in full gown and the latter in shirt and trews. Constans was a pale, wide-eyed bundle carried against the captain’s shoulder. The boy looked on the brink of tears.
“Never bloody ends, does it?” said Kurkas. “Where’s the plant pot?”
“I don’t know,” said Lady Reveque, her face taut. “Hawkin?”
The steward shook her head. “She’s not in her room.”
Kurkas’ eyepatch twitched. “Stairs! Now!”
They ran for the landing. Distant crackle billowed to a hollow roar. Smoke raced across the ceiling. Altiris spluttered, skin prickling.
Sidara lurched to a halt. “No…”
Altiris skidded against the banister. Three storeys below, drapes, panels and furniture were all ablaze, petals of flame reaching ever higher. Dark against the horrific brilliance, two kernclaws, a man and woman, the wings of their cloaks billowing. A dozen or more vranakin advanced behind. Bodies lay still and silent in their wake.
The male kernclaw let another body fall, Sergeant Heren’s craggy features recognisable even at distance. “Find them! No one escapes!”
Vranakin passed deeper into the house. Others made for the stairs. Altiris dragged Sidara from the landing’s edge.
“What do we do?” said Sidara.
“We fight our way out, hide in the grounds.” Altiris strove for confidence and fell short. “Captain Kurkas and I will draw them off.”
“Where’s your sword, lad?” said Kurkas.
Altiris put a hand to his waist and cursed. His sword – his borrowed sword – was back in the Reveque armoury. In the basement. None of them were armed.
“There are lanterns in the dark outside,” said Hawkin. “I’d bet against it being the constabulary.”
“We can’t just stay here,” snapped Altiris.
“It’s happening again,” murmured Lady Reveque. “I did this. The Crowmarket have come for my family.”
“Lady Reveque?” Kurkas lowered Constans to the ground and turned her to face him. “Lilyana. This is your house. Your home. What’s our best hope of getting out?”
Lady Reveque blinked, startled. “The east wing.” Her voice gained confidence. “The back stairs down to the old stables, and through the grounds to the abbey. It worked before.”
“So we do that. Hawkin, you know the way?”
She nodded, took two backward steps and set off.
“What about Ana?” said Sidara.
Kurkas hesitated. “We hope she can look after herself.”
The raven cloak screeched its discomfort at the flames – a discomfort Apara shared. Vengeance against Malachi Reveque was all very well, even expected. Against his family? The sins of the kith repaid in blood. But hearthguard? Servants whose only crime was to be present at the hour of vengeance?
Vranakin flocked to join the hunt. Most were young, rassophores of Erad’s nest eager to prove themselves. Elder cousins drifted behind, sedate and measured, a cold presence even among the fires.
Apara shifted her gaze from a footman’s glassy stare and up through the seething smoke. The fires she and Erad set had already reached the first floor, ushered on by the quiet sorcery of alchemist’s powder. Soon, their wrath would shine clear across the city. A beacon, Krastin had said, and Erad had obliged. He’d always been ambitious.
“This is your chance, cousin,” said Erad. “Your last chance. The daughter will be Athariss’ bride of the grave. The others burn.”
Easy for him to say. He’d not yet found himself in Sidara Reveque’s path. But he was right. It was her chance, and she lucky to have even that.
A flicker of movement on the upper landing, scarcely visible through the smoke.
Apara’s hated shadow urged her to silence. Erad hadn’t seen. He didn’t have to know.
She swallowed and extended a hand. “There.”
Halfway along the corridor, four masked vranakin emerged from the back stairwell. For a heartbeat, they froze, as startled as their prey. Swords gleamed. Kurkas’ night, already his worst for fifteen years, edged further down the rankings. Confined space? No weapon to hand? Children on the brink of panic? Oh yes, and the building was ablaze.
No life for an honest soldier.
A vranakin launched into a run. A vase crashed to the floor as Kurkas hoisted a small table from beneath the window. It broke cleanly across the vranakin’s face and neck, and he dropped like a stone. His sword skidded back across the carpet, too close to his fellows to risk claiming.
Easy come, easy go.
“Back up!” Kurkas hurled a useless, splintered table leg at the oncoming vranakin. “We can’t fight them here!”
Hawkin stumbled back along the corridor. Altiris was close behind, his pace steady, his back to the group and his eyes towards the enemy, daring them to close the distance.
Good lad. He’d come a long way in a few short days.
“They’re behind us!” shouted Lady Reveque.
A weary glance confirmed the words. Three ahead, and at least four behind. Kurkas kicked open the nearest door. “Inside! Now!”
“No!” said Lady Reveque. “Here!”
She flung open a pair of double doors and vanished inside, Sidara on her heels. Stifling a curse, Kurkas followed. Sparing the plushly upholstered room the briefest of glances, he slammed the doors.
“Sidara, watch over your brother!” Shoving Constans towards his sister, Kurkas grabbed Altiris by the arm. “Right, you and me. First crow-born comes through that door gets the worst day of his damn life. We get his weapons, clear a path. Whatever it takes, and I mean whatever.”
The boy, pale and sheened with sweat, nodded. Kurkas clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good lad. Do me proud, now.” Eye on the door, he raised his voice, rising heat from the fire prickling at his lungs. “Don’t suppose there’s something climbable beyond that window? Drainpipe, ivy, that kind of thing?”
“No,” Lady Reveque replied. “Nothing like that.”
“Then what’s so bloody special about this room? Begging your pardon?”
“It was my grandfather’s study. He was obsessed with Hadari weaponry.”
Lady Reveque clambered down from a chair, bereft wall brackets behind her, and swords clutched close. The slight curve and the double-ed
ge to the blade marked shadowthorn heritage as plainly as the tasselled silk at the grip. But steel was steel. She gave one to Altiris, kept another for herself, and tossed the third to Kurkas. He caught it clumsily, the sluggishness an unwelcome reminder he’d not come out of the mists as whole as he’d gone in.
The doors burst open.
The first vranakin died with Kurkas’ blade between his ribs. A second to a perfect fencer’s lunge from Lady Reveque. A cudgel drove Altiris’ sword aside, and the wielder bore the lad to the ground. Kurkas booted the vranakin clear. Others crowded the doorway.
“What are you waiting for?” he roared.
The vranakin surged, and Kurkas gave himself to the wrath of battle. He fought on as the floor smouldered, blinded by sweat and the air thick in his lungs. No thought. No fear. Just instinct and the bite of the blade; the strike of boot and elbow. He spat soot-flecked defiance with every thrust, let the pain of a missed parry and sliced flesh carry him deeper into the red.
Hawkin cried out. A flash of light vied with the first flicker of flame to hurl a vranakin against bookshelves. Loose pages fluttered, charring in the quickening fire. Distracted, Kurkas parried too late. A vranakin’s blade grazed his leg, and he fell to one knee.
Lady Reveque stepped between them. The vranakin froze, eyes wide beneath the mask, as her blade plunged hilt-deep into his chest. Twisting her sword free, she let the body drop and tore away her blood-spattered veil.
“Can you stand?”
Kurkas accepted her hand and stood tall among the dead. A flash of pain trembled his wounded leg, but it held. “I’ll live. Anyone else?”
“Hawkin’s hurt,” said Sidara.
The steward shook her head, her left arm cradled close by her right. “I’m fine.”
“I can feel a simarka in the streets nearby.” Sidara pinched her eyes shut. What little colour she’d regained since returning to Abbeyfields was in full retreat. “But I can’t reach it. I can’t make it listen.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Kurkas. “You did good.”
The flash of light, twin to the one that had hurled Altiris into the river. Sidara Reveque would never be without a weapon. Anastacia had been right to teach her.
Anastacia. Where was she? Fire couldn’t settle her. Wouldn’t be right.
“Constans!” Lady Reveque spun on her heel, panic touching her voice. “Where’s Constans?”
“Here.” Altiris staggered to his feet, the cut on his cheek bleeding again. “He’s over here.”
The boy stood staring down at a dead vranakin. A rose-hilted dagger protruded from the corpse’s bloody eye.
“He was going to kill my sister,” murmured Constans.
“It’s all right.” Lady Reveque held him close, arms wrapped tight. “It’s all right.”
“We can’t stay here,” said Kurkas.
Lady Reveque nodded, and led Constans to the corridor. Kurkas limped after her. Flame spewed from the back landing, a gout of hot, black smoke rushing to join that streaming along the ceiling. Coughing and spluttering, Kurkas ducked into the clearer air below.
“Heads down!” he gasped. “Don’t breathe it in. Back the way we came.”
Grey robes gathered at the head of the main landing. Memories of the Westernport warehouse surfaced beside old fears. Kurkas glanced back at his filthy, weary company.
“Altiris? Remember what I said before, lad?”
The lad swallowed, but stepped forward. “Whatever it takes.”
“That’s the one. Raven’s Eyes, but it’s been a horrible few days.”
Kurkas set off along the corridor, injured leg threatening to buckle with every step. Filthy air shimmered. Beyond the elder cousin, the landing brightened with hungry, rippling flame. The elder cousin hissed and quickened its pace, a cloud of tattered grave-clothes with hands outstretched.
“Draw it left, lad,” said Kurkas. “We keep its eyes on us, and the others can slip past.”
The elder cousin jerked. Its shape stiffened in consternation. Then, with a crash of breaking glass, it was gone, hurled into the night by a charred, petite figure close behind. Anastacia’s dress, borrowed only hours before, was little more than a burnt and patchy covering to grimy, smeared porcelain.
“Fine time to oversleep,” said Kurkas.
[[I don’t sleep. I was in the west annex. Someone locked a number of doors to keep me there.]]
“The west annex?” asked Sidara.
[[Your father has… had… a wonderful library. Reading is one of the few pleasures I have left. I hope you weren’t wanting to use the stairs. They’re nothing but ash.]]
“The south wing,” said Lady Reveque. “There’s a lumber room above the ballroom. Even if the stairs are gone, we can get out onto the summerhouse roof and jump to the river.”
Kurkas winked tears from a streaming eye. Skin crawled beneath a sweat-sodden shirt. Each breath laboured harder for lesser gain. Vranakin, flames and poisonous air. A coin’s toss to which killed them first.
“Go!” He sent Sidara staggering on.
They set off again, less fugitives running for their lives than a blind, coughing work-shift come clambering out of the mines. Constans stumbled. Anastacia gathered him beneath head and knees without missing a beat.
[[I have him! Keep going!]]
Vranakin came spluttering out of the smoke as they crossed the landing. Altiris ran one through. Kurkas grabbed the other by the throat. He dashed her skull against the wall and collapsed, slim reserves spent. Sidara pulled him onwards, though the girl’s weaving gait spoke of her own struggles.
Smoke danced like desert zaifîrs about the lumber room’s eaves. Sheet-draped furnishings crackled. An uneven floor spoke to the inferno raging in the ballroom below. At the far end, a filthy window, glass crazed by the heat, promised salvation.
“Just a little further,” gasped Lady Reveque.
Timber shrieked high above. A flame-wreathed beam slipped its moorings and plunged through the smoke, roof tiles spilling all around.
“Look out!” Rousing to one last effort, Kurkas hurled himself at Lady Reveque and flung her clear. The falling beam hurled him into darkness.
To Altiris, Kurkas’ warning and the fall of the beam came too close to think, much less act. Not so Anastacia.
[[Vladama!]]
She dropped Constans and threw herself forward, taking the beam across neck and shoulders. The impact that should have crushed Kurkas’ skull instead struck him cold to the smouldering floor. The web of rafters and purlins shuddered. An ear-splitting squeal, and half the roof gave way.
Anastacia shuddered beneath the beam and the wreckage pressing down upon it, legs braced wide. An empty, angry howl from immobile lips challenged the cacophony of the roof’s demise.
Her efforts held a precious circle free of burning timber while all else drowned in fire. Beyond, a portion of the floor fell away. Smoke spiralled away through gaping roof, clawing towards the moon. Flames fed anew by night air roared in triumph.
Skin blistering, Altiris pulled Sidara deeper into shelter. A weeping Constans clung to Hawkin. No room to stand. Barely even to kneel. Every breath sucked cinders into ravaged lungs.
“Mother!” shouted Sidara. “Mother, where are you?”
“I’m here! I’m all right!”
Through watering eyes, Altiris glimpsed Lady Reveque, blackened but hale, beyond the circle of flame.
Anastacia’s pained howl shuddered upward in pitch. Her left foot skidded in ash. An ominous rumble ground out above. [[Sidara! Help me!]]
“How?” said Sidara. “I can’t—”
Pieces clicked together in Altiris’ mind. “Like throwing me into the river. Just heavier.”
She clenched her fists. Her eyes stuttered gold, then blue, then gold again. Light gathered about the beam and sparked along the adjoining timbers. The descent arrested. Sliver by sliver, it reversed.
“I don’t believe it,” said Hawkin.
Darkness gathered beyond the
fire. The air filled with the screech of crow voices. Steel shone, grasped tight by two kernclaws drawing nearer through the smoke.
Lady Reveque faced it, sword shaking in her hand.
“Mother!”
Sunlight dissipated, hurled at the kernclaws by a daughter’s fear. It threw the woman against the ruins of the east wall. The man staggered, driven to his knees.
Freed, the wreckage shuddered lower. Anastacia’s shoulders dipped. Constans buried his face in Hawkin’s shoulder. On Kurkas’ brow, blood glistened beneath a crust of soot. Altiris looked on, helpless.
[[Sidara!]]
The male kernclaw sprang to his feet and braced against another burst of golden light. He barely staggered.
[[I can’t do this alone!]]
Sidara dropped to one elbow, breath rasping. “But my mother!”
Lady Reveque drew close enough to the flames that frayed skirts smouldered. “Sidara? Look at me. Look at me. I was wrong to hide you.” She smiled, eyes and brow atremble with contradictory emotion. “I’m so very proud.”
She turned to face the kernclaw, the sword in her hand steady as stone.
“No!”
Sidara’s cry dragged Apara back to her senses just as Lady Reveque threw herself at Erad, sword agleam with reflected firelight. Beyond, golden light crackled into being about the collapsing roof, but the girl’s eyes never left her mother.
Head still spinning and her body one vast, vocal bruise, Apara clambered upright.
Steel shrieked as Erad’s talons flickered to a parry. Once. Twice.
On the third lunge, Erad gave himself to his raven cloak. Lady Reveque struck out blindly, the storm of claws and beaks tearing at flesh and cloth. She never saw him coalesce behind. Then his talons were in her back, and it was too late for anything.
Lady Reveque toppled sideways. Her sword hit the ground a heartbeat before she did, skidding away in the leaping flames of the ballroom below. Her scream was joined by others. A daughter’s. A son’s. A young man with ragged voice. And something older by far.
[[I’ll break every bone in your body, little crow!]]
Erad spat into the flames and turned his back. “Apara! She’s still alive. Finish it. Prove yourself. Apara!”