The Price of Valor

by Django Wexler

  Marcus watched her fight with something like awe. In the army, personal close-quarters fighting skill had never been a priority, and those officers who had trained extensively with a sword had done so in the elaborately formal styles of official dueling. He’d seen Sothe fight once before, in the confusion at Ohnlei, but he hadn’t fully appreciated her skill. She didn’t fight the seedies so much as dismantle them, twisting and cutting through the press, moving on before her victims had time to topple. It was like watching a master craftsman at work, every motion neat and efficient, with no wasted energy or missed opportunities.

  It wasn’t long before the seedies became aware of this new threat to their rear by the screams of the men Sothe left in her wake. A few turned to confront her, and were duly dispatched in showers of gore. The rest of them broke, scattering back from the terrifying assault and the continued efforts of the Leatherbacks. A ragged cheer went up from Marcus’ troops, who waved their makeshift weapons in the air and shouted curses at the retreating backs of the militia.

  Sothe flicked each blade once, painting patterns of blood in the dirt, and returned them to their sheaths. She looked a little singed, and blisters were rising on one side of her face, but if they pained her she gave no sign as she nodded to Marcus.

  “Apologies for the delay,” she said. “The stairs caught fire.”

  “You—” Marcus’ throat was dry. “That was . . .”

  Sothe tensed, hands dropping back to the hilts of her weapons. A crackling roar of flames drowned out the cheers of victory, and Marcus felt a hot rush of air against his back. He spun to find the flames of the bonfire rising high into the air, with a dark silhouette in the center of them, her arms spread as though in benediction. Coils of fire outlined a dark, skeletal mass that might once have been a large man. Then the woman slashed her hand, and the flaming tendrils pulled in opposite directions, tearing the charred flesh in two and scattering blazing bones across the dirt.

  The cheers turned rapidly to screams. This was too much, even for the staunchest of the Leatherbacks. Marcus shouted to be heard over them, voice ragged.

  “Grenadiers! Go after her! Everyone else take cover!”

  He wasn’t certain how many heard, or how many were left after the confusion of the melee. As whips of flame came down, igniting everyone they touched, the Leatherbacks ran for the protection of the buildings on either side of the street. Men and women screamed as they blazed up like effigies, flailing until the fire consumed them. Here and there, a stray grenade exploded with a roar.

  “This way,” Sothe said, and Marcus followed her back toward the Silver Eagle building. He ducked as a fiery lash scythed overhead, touching a middle-aged woman who was headed down the street with her arms pumping determinedly. She must have been one of the grenadiers, because she exploded violently at the kiss of the fire, scattering the dirt with shards of metal and bits of gore. Marcus dove through one of the smashed windows and huddled behind the wall, Sothe vaulting past balletically to land beside him.

  “Someone has to get word to Andy,” Marcus said. “The grenades aren’t going to be able to stop that thing.”

  “I sent someone on my way down,” Sothe said. “She should be on her way.”

  Marcus watched the twisting fire demon and felt his certainty draining away. Saints and martyrs. I’m not sure anything can stop that thing. No Leatherbacks remained standing in the open, but Marcus could see a few who’d taken cover in the buildings or amid fallen debris. The demon seemed to be taking its time now, pausing for a few moments before sending a lance of flame punching against a window frame. Screams rose from the other side.

  “It’ll just pick us off,” he muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Back door’s open,” Sothe said. “We could retreat.”

  Then all this will have been for nothing, and thousands of men will burn. “We’ll have to hope Andy’s team will be enough. But they’ll need cover to get set up.”

  Sothe nodded. “I’ll do what I can.” She looked down at him, for once meeting his eyes. Marcus wasn’t sure what it was he was seeing in her impassive face. Resignation? Regret? “If I don’t make it, Raesinia is your responsibility.”

  “I—”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Sothe vaulted the shattered window frame, cartwheeled, and came up with a knife in hand, whipping it into the heart of the bonfire. The fire spiraled inward, like a closing flower, all the tendrils feeding a ball of blue-white heat that screamed like a kettle about to burst. Something flashed at the center of it, and Marcus saw that at least part of the knife had struck home, leaving a long cut across the old woman’s withered cheek.

  The single point of fire burst apart, a hundred bolts of flame lashing the ground where Sothe had been standing. She was already on the move, running a zigzag pattern across the packed, bloody earth of the square, one step ahead of the fire that left smoking craters in her wake.

  I can’t just watch this. Sothe was fast, but she’d slip eventually. Marcus searched among the bodies lying where Leatherbacks and seedies had met until he found one that wore a grenadiers’ brown satchel. He gauged the distance, tensed, and hurled himself back through the broken window just as Sothe let another knife fly. This time, the ball of flame formed farther from the Penitent Damned, and molten, broken fragments of blade flew apart in all direction, like tiny shooting stars. Whips of flame lashed out at Sothe, a blazing squid trying to swat an elusive fly.

  Marcus reached the dead grenadier and rolled her over, pulling two battered tin spheres out of the brown satchel. He left one on the ground and hefted the other, winding up and putting all his weight into the throw to reach the old woman where she floated in the heart of the bonfire. It flew a bit wide, but a bolt of flame lashed out at it in what seemed like an automatic reaction, and the blast of the powder blew chunks of liquid fire across the square. The other tendrils paused in the pursuit of Sothe long enough for the assassin to throw a pair of knives at once, which caused the bonfire itself to dim as the flame gathered into a single ball big enough to intercept both.

  She can’t attack and defend herself at the same time, Marcus realized. He grabbed the second grenade and started running, an instant before a long whip of flame slammed down where he’d been standing. There was the hiss of charring meat, and weak screams from the wounded nearby. Marcus pounded up toward the corner of the Silver Eagle building, keeping one eye on the old woman. When she’d gathered herself for another strike, he hurled the grenade, a wild throw that her tentacles nonetheless snapped out of the air.

  Up ahead, Marcus heard a shout and the clatter of something on wheels. Moments later, Andy and her team came into view, dragging what looked like a handcart with a pair of tubes and a handle mounted on top.

  It had been Cora who located the firefighting engine, moldering in some forgotten warehouse. It was a simple thing, really—just two canvas hoses, and a long-handled pump between them with space for four men to work it. Marcus suspected it dated back to the construction of Newtown—the Rationalists had loved engines and machines of all kinds—which made it more than eighty years old. But it worked, or at least it worked once they’d cleaned and oiled it and chiseled off some of the rust.

  Some of Andy’s team were doubtless taken aback by the rearing, roaring fire demon, but they’d practiced too many times to let it shake them. One of the young women jumped off the little cart and grabbed the end of a hose, running north to the foot of the Grand Span. The riverbank was only a few feet below, and she threw the weighted nozzle as far as she could. It went into the water with a splash, the hose going taut as the current dragged it downstream.

  Two teenage boys took the other hose out of its tight coil, dumped it on the dirt, and got the nozzle ready. The rest of the crew, with Andy looking on, got on the pump and started working it furiously back and forth.

  It would take time, of course. Marcus looked for another dead gren
adier, and spotted one lying against the Silver Eagle building, back the way he’d come. He reversed direction, narrowly avoiding a tendril whipping down to swat him like an insect, and scrambled back away from Andy’s team with a spray of bloody dirt from his boots. Sothe threw another knife—to think I wondered if she was bringing too many—and the old woman blocked it with another teakettle screech. She slammed one tentacle down to the left of Sothe, missing her by yards, but the assassin had to skid to a stop as the flame blazed upward, elongating into a wall of white-hot fury. Sothe turned to run the other way, but a second tendril cut her off, trapping her against one wall of a building between two blazing infernos. Two more tendrils rose above the bonfires, ready to come down and smash this elusive opponent once and for all.

  Marcus hurled his grenade in a low arc, as though he were bowling on a lawn. It bounced across the dirt and directly into one of the walls of flames, where it exploded with a roar and a blossom of smoke. As before, the blast of the bomb seemed to scatter the supernatural fire of the Penitent Damned like water. Sothe reacted fast, flipping sideways through the smoke of the grenade and across the remnants of the wall of flame. She came out the other side, smoke clinging to her, her black silks smoldering. But she was still on her feet, twisting to throw yet another blade at the old woman in the center of the bonfire.

  A trickle had begun to leak from the end of the hose, expanding rapidly into a steady stream of river water. One of the boys tightened the valve, squeezing the stream into a high-pressure spray, while the other struggled to direct it upward. It hit the base of the bonfire with a hiss like hot metal quenching, throwing up a vast cloud of steam.

  The old woman screamed, or the fire screamed—at this point, it was hard to tell the difference. All her flames contracted again and lashed out at the firefighting engine. The lance of fire hit the boy manning the hose and punched through him, leaving him pinioned for a moment on a spear of white-hot energy. It twisted up from there to slash across the women operating the pump, who dove for cover. One wasn’t fast enough, and the fire hit her with a physical impact, tossing her into the air like a blazing, shrieking meteor.

  The single fire tendril, shedding the flame corpse of the boy, reared up to smash the engine itself to flinders. A knife whipped out of the darkness and struck home, burying itself to the hilt in the Penitent Damned’s back, but she didn’t appear to notice. Marcus, with a shout, hurled another grenade, aiming for where the great tendril joined the bonfire. When it detonated, the flames scattered, raining down across Andy and her crew like a sudden squall from the depths of hell.

  “Andy, hit her again!” Marcus hefted his last grenade as the tendril re-formed.

  Andy ran to grab the head of the hose, now drooling water into the dirt, and the young women returned to the pump. Marcus was amazed at the fortitude of the refugees, not even professional soldiers, confronting something they couldn’t understand and willing to stand to their posts. The stream gained pressure again, raining down on the bonfire, the hiss of steam rising to a roar.

  The tendril of flame licked out again, but not toward the firefighting engine. Instead it came directly at Marcus, determined to finish off this interference before dealing with the real threat. Reflexively, Marcus hurled his weapon, and the blazing whip intercepted it only a few feet away from him. He managed to squeeze his eyes shut before the world went white, and the roar of the bomb drowned out even the scream and crackle of the fire.

  * * *

  He never quite passed out, but several moments went by before he was entirely aware of himself again, lying in the glass and rubble in front of the Silver Eagle building. Even through closed eyelids, the bomb had left glowing afterimages, and he blinked them away and struggled to sit upright.

  The bonfire was dying, shrinking and melting like an ice sculpture in the desert sun. Strands of fire curved inward, struggling to form the white-hot ball of flame, but they hissed into steam as soon as they met the powerful torrent of river water. Andy played the hose over the Penitent Damned, the fire below her, and the scorched earth that surrounding them, creating a muddy lake in the center of the crossroads. In a few moments, the once-towering inferno was reduced to a nimbus of flame surrounding the old woman, who sank, blackened and smoking, among the wrecked logs that had started the flames. Andy kept the water on her until the last flickers died.

  Marcus tried to stand, failed, and sat back down heavily. He was surprised to find himself in a quite extraordinary amount of pain. Looking down, he saw a six-inch-wide chunk of tin plating—part of the shell of one of the grenades—embedded in the meat of his left thigh, blood soaking a widening black circle in his uniform trousers. He tested the shard with a finger, and the slightest pressure on it brought stars to the edges of his vision and involuntary tears to his eyes.

  Marcus had been wounded before, sometimes seriously. But he had never had a foreign object sticking out of him like this, and just the sight of it made his gorge rise. He looked up, swallowing hard, and found Andy and Sothe hurrying in his direction. All around the crossroads, Leatherbacks were picking themselves up and stumbling numbly toward the remains of the fire. Wounded men and women of both sides were praying, swearing, and shouting for help.

  “Marcus!” Andy said. “Are you—oh, saints and fucking martyrs.”

  “I was . . . a little too close to that last one.” Marcus tried for a sardonic smile, but the pain made it tight around the edges. His breath came fast. “The demon. Dead?”

  Sothe knelt beside him, pushing his hands away and gently touching the flesh around the wound. Even this made Marcus want to scream, and he averted his eyes and stared up and Andy, who was making a similar effort to focus only on his face.

  “It—she—is dead,” Andy said. “Yes. There was nothing left in the ashes but a skeleton.”

  “Did you—”

  “I pulled its skull off and crushed it,” Sothe said. “Just to be sure.”

  “How many of ours—aaaah, damn it!”

  “Sorry.” Sothe shook her head. “The good news is you’re not going to bleed to death right away. The bad news is this needs a cutter, or else you will bleed to death if we try to pull it out.”

  “I have to . . .” Marcus closed his eyes, then opened them hurriedly when darkness threatened to close in on him. “Janus. Have to tell Janus they have Raesinia.”

  “We shouldn’t move him,” Sothe said, her voice ringing and distant.

  “How about just into the building?” Andy said. “If we get the worst of the wounded in there, we can hunker down and wait. The Patriots are planning to fall back past here, so Janus’ troops should be right behind them.”

  “Anyone who can still walk should get out of the way,” Sothe said. “Just in case.”

  “Right.” Andy stood. “I’ll find a couple more volunteers to move people, and we’ll start with him. Just stay calm, Marcus. We’ll take care of you.”

  Andy ran off, shouting at someone nearby. Sothe stayed where she was, looking down at Marcus.

  “You saved my life,” she said eventually.

  “I did?” Marcus was having trouble remembering. “Yeah. I guess I did. But you’ve saved mine, more than once. We’re hardly even.”

  “I . . .” Sothe shook her head. “No. I suppose we’re not even.”

  “I would . . . very much like to pass out now,” Marcus said.

  Something that was nearly a smile crossed Sothe’s face. “We’ll take care of things here. Don’t worry.”

  Marcus nodded and closed his eyes. He was aware of someone catching him as he slumped backward, and then unconsciousness rolled over him like a numbing blanket.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  RAESINIA

  There were no proper cells in the Hotel Ancerre, so at first they’d locked Raesinia in a wine cupboard. Empty racks lined the walls, with just about enough room between them for her to sit cross-legged. She
’d done that for a while, concentrating on her breathing and the feeling of the binding tidying up the last of her wounds. The front of her shirt was still heavy with drying blood, and she smelled like a butcher shop.

  Eventually, a couple of Patriot Guards opened the door and grabbed her roughly by the arms. They dragged her into the corridor, where Ionkovo was waiting, a thin smile on his face. Under his watchful gaze, the Patriots frog-marched Raesinia through the halls to the door of what looked like a guest room, which had been hastily fitted with an iron bar and a padlock. Inside, it was spartan, with a single bed, a table, and a high window too small to fit through. Probably intended for a guest’s servant, Raesinia guessed. There was a basin full of water, though, and she filled a cup from it and drank greedily.

  “You’ll remain here for a little while,” Ionkovo said. “Until we can arrange safe passage out of the city. Then you’ll be coming with me to visit His Eminence the Pontifex of the Black.”

  “Mmm.” Raesinia held up one hand as she finished gulping her water. “I’m sure that will be edifying for everyone.”

  The Penitent stared at her for a moment. “You’ve lost, you know.”

  “Probably.” Raesinia set the glass down and looked back at him steadily.

  “Your general’s army will burn in the streets. Even if Maurisk falls, the mob will tear down whoever puts himself in his place, eventually. We will recover the Thousand Names, and you will be our guest at Elysium for the remainder of your days.”

  “I hope you’re prepared to put up with me for quite some time, then.”

  “Was it worth it? You could have spared Vordan all of this.”

  “By becoming Orlanko’s puppet? Marrying some Borel?”

  Ionkovo shrugged. “You’d hardly be the first monarch not to interest herself in affairs of state, nor even the first Orboan. Certainly not the first to despise her spouse. Would that have been such a bad life, in the end? You claim to love your countrymen, but all you’ve brought them is chaos and death.”