Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Don’t bother pursuing them,” said Kylon. “The entire rampart’s going to be roused in a few moments anyway. We need to disable the catapult.” He stopped at the side of the machine, gazing at the gears and weights at the base of the throwing arm.

  Mazyan stepped forward, rolling his left hand. A blade of smokeless fire appeared in his fingers, crackling with power. Before Kylon could react, the Oath Shadow slashed the weapon through the gears. Like the blade of dark force the Red Huntress used, the sword of smokeless flame passed through the gears without noticeable resistance. The machine shuddered, and the throwing arm sagged against the base of the engine.

  “That works,” said Kylon.

  “The simple way is best,” said Mazyan, the blade dissipating, the fire glowing in his eyes again. Like the Red Huntress, he could make himself faster and stronger, or he could wield that invincible blade, but he couldn’t do both at once.

  “The next engine,” said Kylon, and Mazyan nodded. He leaped over the edge of the turret and down to the ramparts, Mazyan following a half-step behind. Below he heard the thunder of hooves as the horsemen charged the opened gate, the wailing war cries of Istarish nomads ringing in the predawn gloom. A flare of Hellfire burned further to the east, but only from one catapult. So far the war engines had not unleashed the kind of coordinated volley that had masked Erghulan Amirasku’s sortie. That gave Kylon a burst of hope. A coordinated volley could have wiped out half of the rebel army, but the longer the engines went without reacting, the better the odds for the horsemen.

  Then the turret of the second tower was within reach, and Kylon had no more time for thought.

  Already he saw the soldiers rallying to defend the turret, but they were overmatched. During Rezir Shahan’s attack upon Marsis years ago, Kylon had carved his way through the men of the Imperial Legion with ease, and those Legionaries had been far better trained that the footmen of the Istarish army. Legionaries would have formed a shield wall bristling with spears to deal. The Istarish soldiers started to form themselves into a ragged line, scimitars in hand, while a few of them fumbled with crossbows.

  It was exactly the wrong defensive tactic to deal with sorcery-enhanced warriors like Kylon and Mazyan.

  Kylon leaped, hurtling over the battlements of the turret and the heads of the warriors. The valikon flashed as he passed, the power of his momentum driving the blade through the neck of an Istarish soldier. Kylon landed and whirled, his sword snapping up to deflect the panicked swings of the terrified soldiers. One of the soldiers managed to aim a crossbow, only for Mazyan to split his skull open. Kylon ducked under a frantic swing and killed another soldier, and felt a sudden surge of arcane power.

  A man in the gold-trimmed white robes and turban of an Alchemist stood at the stairs leading to the rampart, something glittering in his hand as he drew back his arm to throw. Kylon had seen this kind of attack before, and he ducked as the vial of Hellfire shot past him to shatter against the base of the siege engine.

  An instant later a pillar of howling crimson fire erupted from the catapult, chewing into the thick wood. Kylon jumped to the side, trying to line up an attack on the Alchemist, and as he did, he saw a pair of Hellfire amphorae in the catapult’s basket. The fire was chewing into the base of the engine, and when it collapsed, the throwing arm would fall and break against the floor.

  And then Kylon would find himself standing next to two broken amphorae of Hellfire.

  “Mazyan!” shouted Kylon.

  Mazyan fought three soldiers at once in a blur of djinni-powered speed, but his eyes flicked to the burning catapult, and he snarled a curse.

  The Alchemist gestured, and Kylon sensed the sorcerous force gathering in a spell. Golden fire snarled around the Alchemist’s fingers as he cast a spell of transmutation, and Kylon raised the valikon in guard. A gout of golden fire snapped from the Alchemist’s hands and struck the valikon, shattering against the ghostsilver blade. Fingers of the golden fire touched the floor, transmuting the stone to pale blue crystal, while other shards of flame struck the burning catapult, transforming splinters of the wood to blue crystal.

  That did nothing for the structural integrity of the burning catapult, which promptly collapsed into a pile of broken beams and jagged crystal. The basket hit the floor, the Hellfire amphorae shattering, and thick, glowing red liquid seeped out the sides.

  The Alchemist barked a terrified curse, and he whirled and ran back down the stairs.

  “Mazyan!” said Kylon.

  Mazyan was already moving, killing the last soldier and dashing towards the stairs. Kylon followed him, scrambling down the stairs, and an instant later they ran onto the rampart, sprinting the larger towers that marked the gate.

  About two seconds later the Hellfire ignited.

  The blast ripped apart the turret in a roiling fireball of broken stone and flaming rubble. For a moment it looked as if a sun of blood-colored fire rose from the top of the watch tower, bathing the ramparts in bloody light. In the radiant glow, Kylon glimpsed the horsemen galloping towards the gate, saw two pillars of fire burning below the wall where the catapults had thrown amphorae of Hellfire at the rebels.

  Then the gale of hot air slammed Kylon to the floor, and he threw his arm over his face, trying to shield himself from the rain of hot pebbles that fell around him.

  Gods of storm and brine and sea, but he was sick of Hellfire!

  “Stormdancer!” barked Mazyan. “Quickly!”

  Kylon heaved himself to his feet, the hot wind still blowing from the burning turret. He hoped none of the debris had fallen upon the tenements of the Anshani Quarter. Some of those tenements would go up like kindling if set ablaze. Mazyan beckoned, and Kylon looked past him to the western tower of the gatehouse. Both of the gatehouse’s towers had siege engines turned towards the charging horsemen, and one well-placed amphora of Hellfire would cause their charge to collapse as the terrified horses fled from the flames.

  “The western tower, then the eastern!” said Mazyan. “Hasten!”

  Kylon sprinted after Mazyan. The Oath Shadow leaped, soaring to the turret of the western tower, and Kylon followed him. Mazyan landed like a thunderbolt amidst the soldiers manning the catapult, and his scimitar flashed right and left, dealing death with every blow. Kylon landed a half-second later, killing one of the soldiers, and soon found himself under attack. The valikon flashed around Kylon in a silvery blur, deflecting the thrusts and swings of the soldiers.

  “The gears!” said Kylon, moving to defend Mazyan.

  The Oath Shadow blurred forward, slowing as the blade of smokeless flame flashed into his hand. The burning swords sheared through the iron gears at the catapult’s heart, and the throwing arm shuddering, sinking towards the ground.

  “The eastern tower!” said Mazyan, running for the edge of the ramparts.

  Kylon cursed. Withdrawing from the battle was easier said than done. He parried two swings from a soldier’s scimitar, jumped back to avoid a thrust, and whirled, drawing upon all his power for a burst of speed. He avoided the blows that would have killed him by a half-step and leaped over the battlements to follow Mazyan. The Oath Shadow ran along the rampart over the gate itself, and Kylon followed as Mazyan jumped to the turret of the eastern tower.

  They landed a half-second apart, and four black-armored Immortals came at Mazyan.

  Kylon just had time to snarl a curse and then charged into the fray. He had an instant before the Immortals reacted to his presence, and he used that instant to hammer the valikon’s heavy pommel against the side of an Immortal’s head with all his strength. The blow knocked the Immortal to his knees, and Kylon killed him with a blow to the back of his head.

  A second Immortal came at him, a chain whip blurring in his hand. Kylon snapped up his left arm, drawing on the sorcery of water, and the chain lash coiled around his forearm. The sheer weight of the blow should have broken his arm, but the sorcery of water gave him strength enough to resist the strike, though it still hurt. Kylon y
anked his left arm back, pulling the Immortal off-balance, and struck with the valikon. The skull-masked helm deflected the blade, but the blow rocked the Immortal, and Kylon ripped free of the chain whip and attacked again, driving his sword into the gap below the helmet. The Immortal shuddered and collapsed, and Kylon turned, intending to aid Mazyan.

  But Mazyan had already cut down the remaining two Immortals and ran towards the catapult. The sword of smokeless flame flashed in his hand once more, and he slashed through the iron gears, disabling the war engine.

  Kylon paused, trying to catch his breath, and as he did, the first of the Istarish nomads howled through the gate and into the Bazaar of the Southern Road. He glimpsed Tibraim, the headman bellowing like a madman, and the nomads split up, scattering into the alleyways. The defenders had assembled in a hasty line before the gate, but the nomads steered around them, loosing arrows as they did.

  An instant later the heavy horsemen of the emirs’ guard crashed into the line of soldiers, axes and swords rising and falling.

  “Come!” said Mazyan. “We have breached the gate! We must secure our foothold!”

  Kylon hesitated.

  The gate was opened, and the Ghosts had opened it. He sensed the emotions of battle, rage and despair and terror, rising from the Bazaar of the Southern Road…but some of them also came from the rampart below the gate towers.

  Someone was fighting for their lives within the gatehouse itself.

  Caina’s Ghosts? Were they still alive?

  “I will join you shortly,” said Kylon, and he raced for the door in the side of the eastern gate tower.

  Chapter 17: She Needed A Warrior

  Damla jammed another bolt into her crossbow, winding the weapon as quickly as she could.

  Her hands were rock-steady, which was so strange. She was going to die. In fact, a quick death was the best she could hope to enjoy right now. If the soldiers took her alive, no doubt they would subject her to all manner of torments before they got around to killing her. Yet she felt a peculiar, glassy calm.

  Had her husband felt this way before he died in Marsis?

  Damla didn’t know.

  Maybe she could ask him in person in a few moments.

  The eastern door to the windlass room had held beneath the pounding of the soldiers. The western door had not, perhaps because the first men in the room had axes. Damla and Nerina had shot down the first men through the doors, along with Agabyzus, who had produced a crossbow from somewhere. For a giddy moment Damla thought they could win free, but then more soldiers had rushed through the door.

  The fighting began in earnest then.

  Azaces, Malcolm, and Tomazain fought alongside each other before the door, weapons red with blood. Of the three men, Azaces was by far the most effective fighter, and he wielded that huge two-handed scimitar with deadly skill, sand-colored robes flying around him as he lopped off hands and arms and heads. Tomazain fought with skill as well, using his heavy shield to cover the other two men, his broadsword darting past his shield with surprising speed to strike blows whenever an opening presented itself. Malcolm was not as skilled as the other two, but he made up for it in raw power, his massive hammer smashing shields and helmets and cuirasses. Whenever a foe threatened Malcolm, Nerina shot her husband’s attacker. She held her shots, her eerie blue eyes unblinking as her lips moved in silent calculation, but whenever she raised her crossbow and pulled the trigger, she never missed.

  Nerina Strake might have been mad, but she was a very good shot.

  Unfortunately, there were too many soldiers for that to make a difference, and step by step Azaces, Tomazain, and Malcolm were forced back.

  It was absurd, really. Once the soldiers killed Damla and the other Ghosts, they would not be able to repair the gate before Tanzir’s army stormed into the city. Yet the soldiers did not care, and Damla and the others would die for nothing.

  She aimed her crossbow, waiting for a target.

  No, they wouldn’t die for nothing. Tanzir’s men would seize the Golden Palace, and they would force Grand Master Callatas to abandon his plans. Perhaps they would even kill Callatas and free Istarinmul from his wraithblood and his sorcery at last.

  And Damla’s sons would be free to live their lives in peace.

  She wished she could have seen them again, wished she could have found them wives and held her grandchildren one day.

  One of the soldiers attacked, driving back Tomazain with several blows of his scimitar, and Damla squeezed the trigger of her crossbow. The bolt struck the soldier in the shoulder, deflecting from his chain mail, but the impact staggered him. That gave Malcolm the opening he needed to bring his hammer crashing down upon the soldier’s head. There was a hideous crunching noise, and the soldier fell, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.

  By the Living Flame, there was so much blood.

  Damla had been in several dangerous situations over the last two years, but she had never been in a proper battle before, and she did not like it at all.

  At least if she was going to die, she would never have to do this again.

  Malcolm stepped back, recovering his balance from his massive hammer swing, and Nerina raised her crossbow and pulled the trigger. Her bolt sailed through the doorway and landed in the throat of another soldier, sending the man to the floor. Azaces, Tomazain, and Malcolm all stepped back, ready to strike again, but for the moment, no further men emerged from the armory, and Damla could saw no other soldiers beyond the door.

  No living soldiers, anyway.

  Surely they could not have killed them all.

  “What are they waiting for?” said Damla, reloading her crossbow.

  “I do not know,” said Agabyzus, tending to his own weapon. “That door serves as an excellent bottleneck. It’s too narrow, and they can only come through it one at a time.”

  “Useful, that,” said Tomazain, wiping sweat from his forehead.

  “Maybe they’re trying to lure us out so they can kill us on the stairs,” said Malcolm.

  Agabyzus shook his head. “They don’t dare. They have to close the gate, or the city is lost. It…”

  Golden light pulsed through the room, shining from the eastern door.

  Damla whirled, raising her crossbow, and saw the eastern door glowing with radiant golden fire. For an instant, she thought someone had set the door aflame, but no natural fire looked like that, and neither did Hellfire.

  Someone was casting a spell at the door.

  The golden fire flashed once more, and then the door, the doorframe, and a portion of the surrounding stone wall changed into white sand. The sand collapsed, leaving a large hole carved into the wall, and through that hole, Damla saw an older man in a gold-trimmed white robe and turban, the robes of an Alchemist of the College. That was alarming enough, but the six black-armored forms standing with the Alchemist sent a chill of fresh fear down Damla’s spine.

  Six Immortals charged through the ruined door and into the windlass chamber, blue light glimmering in the eyeholes of their skull-like masks.

  Nerina raised her crossbow and pulled the trigger, and her bolt slammed into the neck of the first Immortal. The black-armored warrior groaned and fell to his knees, pawing at the bolt, but the other five rushed into the chamber, scimitars in hand. Damla released her own crossbow. Her bolt slammed into the cuirass of the next Immortal, but it bounced off the heavy black armor to clatter against the floor.

  Azaces, Tomazain, and Malcolm rushed to meet the Immortals, and Agabyzus discarded his crossbow and drew his scimitar. For a moment they held against the Immortals as steel rang upon steel, and then the top third of Tomazain’s heavy shield shattered beneath the blow of a scimitar. Tomazain stumbled to the side, catching a swing on the remnants of his shield, and the impact knocked him back.

  The Immortal headed right for Damla. She had gotten her crossbow reloaded by then, and she fired it at point-blank range, but the weapon simply didn’t have the power to punch through the black armor. The Immor
tal swung his scimitar at her head, and in sheer panicked reflex, Damla raised her crossbow to block. The crossbow shattered in her hand, and she stumbled backward and hit the wall. Agabyzus lunged at the Immortal, but the black-armored warrior twisted, deflected the scimitar, and drove his boot into Agabyzus’s hip. Damla’s brother fell to the floor with a pained grunt.

  The Immortal turned and seized Damla by the neck, lifting her one-handed from the floor as his iron fingers sank into her throat. She would have screamed, but she could not draw breath, and she clawed at his arm, but her fingers skidded off the black armor. Through her panic and pain, she wondered why the Immortal hadn’t simply gutted her. The Immortals loved cruelty, and perhaps the thought of strangling a woman was simply too enjoyable to pass up.

  Darkness flooded her vision, and then the grip on her throat relaxed.

  Damla hit the ground and slumped against the wall, coughing and wheezing. Her vision cleared just in time to see Tomazain drive the jagged wreckage of his shield into the Immortal’s neck once more. The Immortal jerked, clawing at the air, and then collapsed to the floor with a clang of armor.

  She met Tomazain’s eyes.

  “Come on, on your feet,” said Tomazain, helping her to stand. “Let’s get you home to your boys, aye?”

  It was a fine thought, but not a promise he could keep.

  More Immortals strode through the broken door, and the Alchemist followed, fresh golden flame dancing around his fingers as he began another spell, and Damla saw her death in those fires.

  ###

  Kylon sprinted into the eastern tower of the gate, scrambling down the stairs. Around him he sensed the emotional storm of the gathering battle, even as he heard screams and shouts rising from the Bazaar of the Southern Road. Some of the siege ladders of the infantry must have reached the walls, allowing them to storm the ramparts and siege control of the Hellfire catapults. Kylon was not sure, but he suspected the battle was going the way of the rebel army. Towers and walls and catapults were vital weapons of war, but morale was just as important, and the morale of the defenders must have suffered a terrific shock when the gates had been opened and the Istarish nomads had swept into the city. The entire defense might collapse, the soldiers falling back to the Golden Palace or fleeing for their own lives.