by Glenda Larke
“Not an Alabaster or Elmar,” Dibble said. “The barracks where the Alabasters ought to be are at the other end. The doors these fellows are battering at lead into the last of the stalls where we left the pede tack. What the frizzled hell is going on?”
“There are other bodies on the ground,” Terelle said, almost choking on her fear. She was looking directly underneath their window. Two, three—no, five bodies lay on the paving. Two were wearing Alabaster white, their blood staining the cloth, pooling along the joins between the cobbles. No one was taking any notice of them. Further away, another wounded man, a Khromatian, was seated with his back to the stable, clutching his leg.
“That’s Evert,” she said, looking at one of the Alabaster dead. “I’d know his head of hair anywhere. He was talking to me about his children only this morning…” She swallowed, afraid she was going to be sick.
“I think the remaining Alabasters must have barricaded themselves inside that stall. Terelle, we’re in trouble.”
She forced her gaze away from the dead, still trying to take everything in, to make sense of the disaster unfolding. A woman, not part of the purposeful activity around the stable door, stood further to the left, closer to the house wall. No, not a woman, a man. He was motionless, so still that he blended into the background, and she had to blink to make sure he was there at all. She was too far away to have any idea who he was. Sunlord help us, that’s probably one of the Verdigris family. Watching, waiting for the moment he could use his power to empty the Alabasters of their water.
“Where are the pedes?” She was whispering, although there was no need.
“Behind the stables. We rigged up a tether line. They’re too big to fit into these alpiner stalls. We were told a few days in the open wouldn’t hurt them.” His voice shook with rage as he added, “I have to get down there.”
“Wait—look, there’s someone flitting through the shadow. To our right. Trying to get to the back of the stables.”
He stared for a moment, then said with certainty, “Elmar. Terelle, go back to the room and bar yourself in.”
As he turned to go, his sword already drawn, she called after him, “Dibble, think. Odds are they want us all dead. Bice and his sons are either waterpainters or stormlords, probably the latter. They can kill the rainlord way.” She nodded to the window. “They might have already sensed Elmar’s water, even know who he is.”
He paused in the doorway to look back at her. “I know.” His voice was rough with fear.
“What can you do? There’s too many of them!”
“What can I do if I stay?” he asked. “Terelle, they’re our guards and they’re being killed.”
She glimpsed the misery in his eyes as he turned away. Hurriedly she said, “I’ll paint you out of there. Just stay alive long enough.” She swallowed her terror. “Please.” It’s worth the risk. It is. This time, it truly is. Otherwise they’ll die.
“Thank you. Don’t open the door except to one of us, for any reason at all.”
“I won’t. I promise.” And her promise was heartfelt. She was scared witless. “Dibble, wait. You need to take some things with you.”
“But I’ll be back—”
She grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him to her room. “You know the rule: never go anywhere without a water skin.” Hurriedly, she ransacked Elmar’s pack, then her own, and stuffed some items out of each into Dibble’s. “There, take this. And remember, I am protected. They can’t kill me. Hold onto that knowledge.”
He pulled a face, grabbed the bag and hurried to the door. “May the Sunlord’s light shine on you,” he said over his shoulder and was gone.
He’s so young, she thought, worrying, then remembered he was several cycles older than she was. How do men manage to be so withering brave?
She wanted to warn Russet, but every moment was precious and she pushed him out of her mind and not only barred the door, but moved the bed so it was wedged up against it. Turning the lamp up as far as it would go, she glanced around the room. Her paint tray—she had brought only one—was still in her baggage, but she didn’t have enough paint-powder to paint a picture that large. She cast about for something else to use.
The water ewer on the wash stand sat on a matching round dish with a raised edge. She couldn’t have asked for anything better. She moved the ewer aside and filled the dish with water. Her fingers fumbled with the ties of the paint sachets in her hurry. If she was slow—or inaccurate—she might be too late. No amount of waterpainting could bring back the dead. Even as she opened up the motley base, she was sifting through all the possibilities for her painting.
Feroze, Dibble and Elmar. But what about the others? What would give them all the best chance of living? With a sinking heart she knew she’d have to abandon the Alabasters who had barricaded themselves in the stable. Painting three figures in such a small bowl would take all her skill and she had no idea which Alabasters were still alive anyway. She couldn’t do everyone. Sweet water save us, sometimes there are only bad choices.
With a sob, she began to paint, afraid her desperation would wreck the only chance she had.
When Elmar left Russet’s room, he headed towards the back staircase, the way he and Dibble had been brought up to the second floor. Through his friendship with Kaneth, he knew enough about how the wealthy lived to be aware there would be another set of stairs for the more privileged of the occupants, but right then the servants’ stairs seemed a better option. The last person he wanted to meet was someone with stormlord or rainlord powers.
There was no one about. He heard nothing until he reached the ground floor, where noise issued from the kitchen: dishes being stacked, running water, chatter. He dodged that area and continued on his way, growing increasingly unhappy as he realised he had no clear idea of where to start looking for Feroze. He emerged at the back of the main entrance hall. At the far end were the huge front doors, and the bottom of the main stairs. Along the sides were doors leading to various rooms, all of them closed. Somewhere there was a murmur of conversation. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword. Which way to turn?
One of the doors opened on the right, not far from the front door. The conversation went from muffled to audible speech. Elmar dived under the sweeping curve of the staircase.
He recognised Lord Bice’s voice. He was speaking Khromatian, and Elmar wasn’t sure he understood correctly. He thought he heard, “Yes, he’s dead. Luckily. Take my arm, Hue. I’ll help you to the stairs.”
The next part he couldn’t understand, but he heard Feroze’s name and something about a knife. Hue replied, and although Elmar understood only every second or third word, it was clear he was swearing. And in pain. His voice sounded odd, as if he had a stuffed-up nose.
“Take his other arm, Jet,” Lord Bice said.
Two of his sons, Elmar thought. He’d found out their names by listening to the talk in the barracks earlier. The handsome one is missing. Rubric. Sunlord save us. Who’s dead? They wouldn’t kill Feroze, surely!
He heard the approach of footsteps and hunkered down under the lowest steps, frozen, willing himself not to make the slightest sound. Sweat broke out along his brow. They’ll sense me. Sunblast.
Bice spoke again, closer now. “Take your brother up. I’m going out to…” The rest of the sentence was once more unintelligible to him.
“What about the body?” Jet asked.
Those words hit Elmar so hard he didn’t even hear the answer, let alone comprehend it. Body? Whose body? Watergiver have mercy, please don’t let it be Feroze.
The two brothers continued on up the stairs, Hue complaining with every step, in too much pain to sense anything, Jet too focused on his brother to notice Elmar’s water. Or so he hoped.
Bice is another matter, Elmar thought and almost groaned as the man came closer. He was going to pass by the staircase and walk to the back of the hall. He’d be so close Elmar would be able to reach out and touch him; there was no way he would not notice a man crou
ched under the stair well, especially when his water was no longer masked by that of Jet and Hue.
Just then someone hammered at the front door. Bice cursed, and his footsteps turned and moved away in that direction. Elmar heard the door open, and the sound of voices. From the tone of the speaker, he guessed it was a guard making some sort of report. Hue and Jet stopped on the stair to listen. Bice said something, they continued on their way, the front door closed and there was silence in the hall. Bice had gone out.
Hue’s progress up the stairs was painfully slow. At last their footsteps faded away and Elmar was alone in the entrance hall. He let out the breath he had been holding and ran softly across to the room the men had vacated. The door opened silently when he raised the latch. He slipped into the dimness within and closed the door behind him.
For a moment he stood, stilled by terror. He didn’t know why. There was nothing moving. No soft sounds of breath or the tiny creaks caused by someone shifting their weight. The room was empty. Coals glowed in the grate, giving some light. More filtered in through the window glass from torches burning outside, enough to see the dark shapes of table and sofa, chairs, shelves. A casement window was open, which was odd because it was cold and wet outside.
The smell. The smell was all wrong. A battlefield smell. Intense, disgusting. Human waste and fresh blood—that horrible stink of violent death he knew too well from the skirmishes and battles of his lifetime. But more than that too, for there was also the stench of burned cloth and paper.
Cautiously he walked further into the room, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. Grit crunched under his feet as he went. As he rounded the sofa, moving towards the window to look outside, he stumbled over something on the floor. He saved himself by grabbing an armrest but still half fell, one knee dropping down into a pool of something wet. Shocked, he grappled with the horror of what he saw. A white-haired, white-skinned, white-clad Alabaster; even in the dim light, he could tell that much. And he was kneeling in the man’s spilled and congealing blood.
He swore, every foul word he could bring to mind, then his initial shock melted into a more considered wariness. And a ferocious anger, a coiled-up desire to smash someone. He pushed the sofa over to block the door. Next, using the fire tongs, he took a coal and lit the lamp on the table. He returned to the body with the light.
Feroze.
You murdering bastard, Bice. In your own home. The man wasn’t even wearing a sword.
He knelt again, to examine the body. A dagger blade had broken off in his back. A Khromatian knife. He’d been killed from behind.
Those bleeding bastards, he thought. Those wilted, shrivelled-souled bastards. I hope they rot in a waterless hell.
He went cold at the implications. Bice and his sons had murdered a guest in their own house, which boded ill for the rest of their “guests.” Once thing was certain: Feroze had not started this fight. He was not a warrior at heart, preferring consensus and reconciliation to violence. A gentle, kindly, generous man… This was pure murder, nasty and sudden.
Ever practical, he patted Feroze down, found his purse in the pocket of the robe and dropped it into his own money pouch. There was nothing else. When he rose to his feet, his only certainty was that he had to get out of there—fast.
As he stepped away from the body, more grit crunched underfoot. He bent to pick a little up in his fingers: a piece of charcoal. A glance around the room told him there was spent charcoal everywhere. It hadn’t done much damage to the stone floor, but books had been charred and a hole burned in the sofa.
I’ll be sunblighted, he thought, then muttered affectionately, “You almost did for the whole blasted house. I’ll miss your salted carcass, Feroze. I hope you found the God you were looking for somewhere.”
He gave a grim smile and returned to the fire. Using the shovel from the poker set, he tossed live coals onto the sofa and in amongst the books on the shelves. When he was sure he had the beginnings of what would be a future conflagration, he turned to go.
And that was when the screaming started. He jerked his head up to listen. A door slammed above somewhere, there were questioning voices, yelled orders, feet running on the stairs and across the hall. He ran for the open window and climbed out. From there he raced for the barracks, knowing then that he was already too late.
The Alabaster guards had been betrayed. The screams were those of a man dying in agony.
The manor house was large, and even though he raced around it, the worst was already over by the time he arrived. Flattening himself in the shadow of the house wall where two corners met, he watched and assembled an idea of the situation. The Alabasters had probably been surprised in the barracks, but those who still survived were now barricaded in part of the stables, where Bice’s men were attempting to batter down the door. Fortunately the planks were thick and stout. He guessed the Alabasters were prepared to sell themselves dearly, hoping, perhaps, that their sacrifice would enable the rest of the party to escape.
He’d come to know them on the journey: good men, every one of them, but men who took orders. It had been Feroze who led them, Feroze’s example they followed. Which means it’s up to me to rescue them—or abandon them, and get Terelle to safety. No, wait. Terelle’s the only one who’s safe for the time being. Maybe Dibble can get her down to the pede while I try to extract the Alabasters from this mess. At least they’ll have a better chance then.
He sneaked back into the deserted barracks. Four men lay dead in there, three of them Alabasters. Weeping shit, with the bodies he’d seen outside, that meant there were only five still alive, and odds were some of those were wounded. He snatched up all the spears and cloaks and water skins he could find, plus two swords abandoned on the floor, then topped up the pile with a few blankets and shoved them out of the back window of the barracks, letting them fall to the ground. He climbed out after them and looked around.
No one was looking his way. The only people visible were two men with their backs to him. They were watching the rear of the stables, at a guess in case the Alabasters broke out through the roof, there being neither door nor window at the back.
He picked up the bundle of clothes and weapons and headed away from the buildings, half expecting one of the men to yell at him, asking what the salted hells he was doing. To his relief, he reached the pede lines about fifty paces from the stables without being questioned. Several sets of the panniers were still there, upended on the ground, and he blessed the carelessness of the men who had not put them under cover. He loaded up his pede, then extracted four of the spears and stuck three of them in the soft ground. He hefted the fourth in his hand, sighted along the shaft at one of the men, and prepared to launch the weapon. The Khromatian guards still had their backs to him.
“Need some help?” a soft voice asked from the other side of the pede.
Elmar almost impaled himself under the chin.
“Only me,” Dibble said in a cheerful undertone. He came forward to pick up one of the spears. Weighing it in his hand, he asked. “Where’s Feroze?”
“Murdered.”
“Watergiver be damned! Are you sure?”
“Yes. Where’s Terelle?”
Dibble swallowed.
Elmar gave him a moment to gather his wits.
“Locked in her room doing a painting of us getting out of here alive,” Dibble said at last. “I don’t know about Russet. You want these fellows dead?”
“For a start. You take the one on the left.”
Together they hoisted their spears.
The two Khromatians died together, side by side. If they called out in their death throes, the sound was lost in the yelling and battering of the stable door on the other side of the building.
Elmar plucked the two unused spears out of the ground and gave them to Dibble. “Keep these handy. Select a pede to ride. Fashion the tether as a temporary rein and we’ll each put a pede on a leading rein as well. We’re going to ride those bastards down, halt for a moment in front o
f the stable to get the others out of there—there’ll be five of them, I hope—and then ride for our lives.” He handed over the extra sword he’d taken from the barracks.
Dibble followed his lead and began untying his mount, feeling his way in the dark to loosen the tether knot. “Terelle?”
“We’re leaving her behind, at least for now. And that bastard Russet.”
“You can’t be serious! She’s the reason we’re here.” Dibble gaped at him in disbelieving shock.
“Dibble, she wouldn’t come with us anyway. We can’t take her to where she needs to go. Russet has to do that. And we can’t go with them, because these armsmen will kill us. We’ll follow her later, I promise. Now fix that leading rein and let’s be gone from this stink heap.”
Unhappily, Dibble did as he was told. “Bice is out there. He just arrived as I snuck by. Talking to one of his sons. The youngest, I think. Rubric, is it? If they’re rainlords, they can take our water. I gave ’em a real wide berth, but they may have sensed me.”
“Ah. Guess we’ll have to hope Terelle gets that painting done. I don’t suppose you know exactly what she was portraying? It wouldn’t have been a fire, would it?”
“She hadn’t even started when I left.”
“Hmm. All right. You pull up immediately in front of the stable door. Poke your beast and get him thoroughly riled so he’s flinging his feelers around. I’ll go after Bice if he’s still there. Forget about what I’m doing; just concentrate on getting the Alabasters out of that blighted stable and onto the pedes. Then head for the river, not the bridge. I figure our pedes will cross water better than them silly alpiner things.”
“These animals have never seen water like that,” Dibble protested, bridling the myriapede he was to lead as best he could, then tying the other end of the rope to one of the saddle handles of his own mount. “They might panic.”
“But they won’t drown. Jasper once told me he saw one swimming in a rush down a drywash. Hey, don’t make that knot too difficult to undo,” Elmar warned as he mounted. “One of the Alabasters might prefer to ride it than to sit behind you. Ready?”