Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue (The First Sword Chronicles Book 2)

by Frances Smith

  Many other folk would weep as hard before Miranda was done.

  "I will kill you, when all of this is over," Miranda said.

  "I have no doubt, Filia," Quirian replied. "And when it is over I will die content."

  Stone giants marched down the street and Valeria fled from them. Behind her she could hear the screams of her neighbours, the stomping of the giants' feet upon the ground, the cracking and smashing as they tore down any house that had escaped the fire or rocks from the sky. Valeria's red skirt flapped behind her as she ran with the stone giants on her heels. What were they? Why were they after her? Why were they after anyone?

  Valeria shook her head as she ran, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She couldn't think about pointless questions now, couldn't think about what she'd seen them do to Iulus or anyone else. She just had to get away from them. She had to stay alive. She wanted to stay alive.

  She ran past the Dog and Partridge, the door open, the street strewn with the wreckage of a hasty exit. She tripped on an upturned chair and went flying, her hands scraping along the paving stones as Valeria yelled in pain. Quick as she could, she scrambled to her feet. The entrance to Magpie Lane was in front of her, a narrow passage between the public house and the barber's next door. Valeria ran for it, fearing to hear the stomping of stone feet behind her at any moment. She ran into the alleyway, her skirt brushing against the walls. Valeria felt safer now, there was no way one of those things would be able to follow her down this crevice-like way, and she could follow it all the way to Saturninus Street.

  The walls. She had to get to the walls. There'd be guards there, and catapults in those tall towers. They would let her in, they'd have to. She'd be safe up there.

  Valeria skidded to a halt as one of those stone monsters crossed the mouth of Magpie Lane where it briefly opened up onto the Lucullan Way, its shadow blocking out the dying sunlight before it walked past. Valeria put her hands to her mouth to stifle any noise as three more went marching by.

  She leaned against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. This was a nightmare, it had to be. This was Eternal Pantheia, stuff like this didn't happen here, wake up, Valeria, wake up.

  Valeria decided that she would wait there. This would all go away soon, everything would be all right. It was Eternal Pantheia, things would go back to normal, they had to.

  All she had to do was make sure they didn't find her.

  The wall beside her exploded outwards, knocking Valeria to the ground and showering her in debris. She looked up, wiping blonde locks out her face, as one of the stone monsters strode through the dust and rubble to loom over her. It had a face like a man, but there was no expression there as it stared down at her.

  "Please," Valeria begged. "Please don't hurt me. I've never done nothing, I promise. Please."

  It's expression did not change. Valeria got up, turned to run-

  The wall in front of her shattered and a second monster emerged to block her path. They both advanced upon her.

  And Valeria screamed.

  Aebutia knelt beside the body of her son; his head caved in by a rock from the sky, and wept.

  Her other son tugged at her arm, all around her people were fleeing in terror, fire was descending from the clouds, but Aebutia did nothing but kneel beside her dead Marcus and sob.

  Blood was everywhere, on the street, on her hands, on the stone, pooling around Lucius' feet as he pulled upon her fruitlessly. Blood was all that remained of Marcus' face, such a handsome face.

  A shadow fell across her. Aebutia looked up and saw, through teary eyes, some kind of stone man looming over her, fist raised.

  Aebutia said nothing; she just kept on crying as the fist came down.

  Gaius huddled close to his mother as the monsters walked past their window, the two of them hiding together under the kitchen table.

  As the pounding feet made the room shake, Gaius prayed for something to make the monsters go away.

  But nothing did. They just kept on walking, without a care in the world.

  And then one of them stopped. His mother, with her back to the window, sobbed. The stone man turned to face them. Its eyes were some kind of rock, but Gaius knew that it saw them just the same.

  The broom dropped from Elissa's trembling fingers as the first fireball roared overhead to land no less than a dozen feet away in the middle of the street. It sat there, smouldering on the paving stones, while Elissa stared at it in horrified fascination.

  She couldn't take her eyes off the flickering yellow flame. It held her fast, chained her feet to the ground as it chained her eyes to the fire; it was so alien, so foreign to anything she had known. It was as though another world had landed in the Metics' Quarter.

  More fireballs began to drop from the angry clouds. Elissa could hear yelling from the other streets.

  "Elissa!" Sophoniba grabbed her sister and wrenched her around by the shoulders. The spell was broken as Elissa stared into Sophoniba's big green eyes. "What are you standing here for like an idiot? Get inside before you get killed."

  "Look around, Sophoniba," Elissa said, gazing upwards in a kind of frightened awe. "Do you really think a roof is going to keep us safe?"

  Sophoniba didn't answer, but the heavens did as a fireball flew down to hit the potter's workshop three doors down. The single floor exploded from the inside out, the roof shattering under the impact and the door and windows blasting outwards into the street. Within the blackened stone shell, the building burned with a raging intensity.

  Elissa and Sophoniba shrank from the blaze.

  "Oh, gods," Sophoniba whimpered, clutching at Elissa. "Do you think there was anyone in there?"

  Elissa shook her head tremulously. "I hope not," she whispered. The people who worked there had been good people, always nice to her. She prayed that they'd been somewhere else.

  Sophoniba's grip tightened. "What's going on, Elissa?"

  "I don't know," Elissa said. "But we can't hide in the house."

  "Mother says we'll be safe in there."

  "We won't be safe in there, we've never been safe in there," Elissa said loudly, letting go of Sophoniba and walking away before wheeling back to face her sister. "We weren't safe from the soldiers when they came to get Jason and we certainly aren't safe from this."

  Sophoniba pursed her lips together, hugging herself tight as a burning man rushed past the mouth of the street, howling in pain. "Maybe, but...where else have we got? Is anywhere safe, from this?"

  Elissa kept her eyes up, looking towards the sky. "A temple, do you think? Perhaps the gods will protect us there."

  Sophoniba laughed bitterly. "Is there a temple that would take us in?"

  "The Old Gods," Elissa suggested, though she doubted that the little Temple of the Eldar on Tyronia Avenue was big enough for everyone in Mother's house. "Do you think they're all right, Jason and his friends?"

  "I hope so," Sophoniba whispered. "Listen, Elissa, I'm sorry. For...well, everything. I do love you, you know."

  "Really?"

  "Yes," Sophoniba insisted. "I just...I'm sorry."

  The two sisters embraced as the world burned around them.

  Jun let the sounds of argument wash over her. All the girls and boys who worked for Dido had gathered in the atrium to talk about whether to stay or go. Most of them just listened, but a few talked enough for all the rest.

  "We can't stay here, mother," Elissa insisted. "The walls aren't strong enough, the roof isn't sturdy enough, and if something hits us we could all die. Just look outside if you don't believe me."

  "She's right," Sophoniba murmured. Jun found the only really surprising thing in all this was that Sophoniba was agreeing with her sister, not her mother. "We'll go the way of Andriscus’ place if we stay here."

  Dido shook her head. "What if we do go and somebody robs the place? I'm too old to start again from nothing."

  "You're too young to die, mum, please," Elissa said. "It's not worth it; nothing here is worth
risking your life for, or anyone else's life."

  A strike that sounded uncomfortably close made the building shake. Amata's baby - the fact that she had been allowed to keep it was just one of the things that set Dido apart from the usual run of pimps and madams - began to cry even as his mother tried to shush him, eventually resorting to sticking her breast in his mouth.

  "I don't want to die," Amata said, her voice quiet but desperate. "I don't want my baby to die. I don't want to stay here and burn."

  "Where would we go?" Paris asked. "Where's safe for people like us?"

  "Where is safe for anyone?" Calypso replied, twisting the whip in her hands and pulling it taut. "We all know that this isn't caused by men. The gods are punishing this city, and they won't stop until everyone is dead."

  "Then we leave the city," Elissa said.

  "Everyone will have that idea, you'd be better off trying to climb the wall as get out the gates," Hector muttered.

  "Trust me," Jun remarked. "If your gods were trying to kill you then you'd know. And we'd all be dead already."

  Silence greeted her intervention.

  "Juno?" Elissa murmured. "What do you mean?"

  Jun's hazel eyes darted around the room, taking in the fear and confusion she saw in all of them. None of them had seen anything like this before. None of them had been so thoroughly helpless before something they could not understand in their lives. That was what growing up in a land where the gods were absent and their heralds all dead did for you. But then, that was why she had come to Pelarius in the first place, wasn't it? That was why she had boarded the Imperial tea clipper bound for Sutia, to escape the wrath of heaven. "My gods decided to burn my home to the ground when I was a girl. They were much more efficient about it than this." She could not remember what her village had done to anger the celestial lords; had it been tribute, or conscription? No matter, she remembered their wrath well enough. She remembered the sound of their wings beating, the flames consuming whole rows of houses at a time, the roaring and the screaming of those trapped inside. The screams of her parents. "If the gods want you dead, they don't miss. Whatever this is, and I can't explain it, it isn't divine." Jun got to her feet. "All the same, I'm still leaving."

  "Why?" Dido asked.

  "Because burning alive is the worst kind of death," Jun said sharply, the screaming sounds echoing in her ears, the memories drawn to the surface by the crisis. "I won't wait here to burn."

  There was a silence. Then Calypso rose, six feet of Mavenorian prowess towering over everyone else in the room. "I'll go with you. We should all go."

  Others murmured their assent.

  "All right, go if we must, but go where?" demanded Dido.

  Anywhere," Jun said. "At least on the street we can dodge."

  "Do you see anything yet?" Vergillia called up.

  Xanthe, standing on top of one of the columns that surrounded Andronicus' Square, flinched as a lightning bolt shot out of the clouds very close by. "It's hard to concentrate in these conditions you know!"

  Vergillia folded her arms across her chest. "Stop being such a baby and tell me what you see."

  "It's easy for you to say, you're fire proof," Xanthe yelled down.

  Vergillia scowled. It wasn't her fault that Xanthe was better at climbing than she was. She would have gone up herself if she could. Besides, just because the fireballs might not kill her didn’t mean that she was safe from the lightning and the rocks. "What do you see up there?"

  Xanthe turned in place, looking in all directions. "It's like you thought, it's all over the city. I can't see what's causing it though."

  "Were you expecting to see a giant monster or something?" Vergillia asked. "If there was something like that around we'd have seen it from the ground."

  "Well, if you didn't expect to see anything like that what did you send me up here for?" Xanthe shouted.

  "To see what was going on, obviously," Vergillia replied, rolling her eyes. "Is there anything else?"

  "No. Now if you don't mind I'm going to get down from here before I-" Xanthe came to a dead stop mid-flow.

  "Xanthe? Xanthe, are you okay?" Vergillia asked, worry beginning to seep into her tone.

  "I can something moving in the streets. They're coming out the palace and heading...everywhere. They look like statues."

  "Statues?"

  "Big, ugly, walking statues," Xanthe confirmed. "They're...gods above I think they're killing people! Aulo's tits, they are, they're killing people!" Thunder rolled in the sky above.

  "Get down from there, now!" Vergillia yelled. "We're going to the hospital."

  Hopefully they'd get there before it was too late.

  "I should have gone to Dervalut," Ascanius muttered to himself as he watched the last company of golems march out of the palace gates and into the Imperial City. In his hand his sword was stained with blood, around him the palace gardens were desecrated with the blood of guards, equestrians, the freedmen of Prince Antiochus' household. Those who had encouraged the prince in his ambitions, those who had been swept along by their tide, they had all died just the same.

  Most had, anyway. Gellius of Helenia knelt at Ascanius feet, tears in his eyes and running down his face, his gilded toga stained with the blood of his friends and companions, his whole body shaking as he clasped at Ascanius' knees in supplication.

  "Please," he moaned. "Please, I beg of you. Don't kill me. I am worth a rich ransom. Yes, very rich. My father will make you a wealthy man if you spare my life and take me prisoner. You can sell me back to my father-"

  "Your father isn't here, and he couldn't protect me from Lord Quirian and Filia Miranda even if he wanted to," Ascanius said. "And I can't worry about gold or silver right now; at times like this a man does what he must to survive."

  He did it quickly, driving his sword into the back of Gellius' neck. There was a snap, a squelching sound, and then the young Helenian flopped sideways onto his flank, his half-severed head lolling on one of the flowerbeds.

  Ascanius closed his eyes for a moment, sighed deeply, and then turned his attention to the last surviving member of the late Prince Antiochus' entourage.

  Aula of Arginusa, his cupbearer.

  The girl was sprawled on the ground, her golden ringlets falling around her face, her blue eyes wide with fright as she gazed at the bloody sword in Ascanius' hands.

  "I don't understand," she whispered.

  "Your father backed the wrong chariot in the race," Ascanius said. "And bet his daughter on the outcome, what's worse." He advanced upon her, his grip on the blade tightening in his hand as he raised it up to strike. "Sorry about this."

  "No! Ascanius, don't do it!" Julian shouted, grabbing on Ascanius' arm and hauling it back as he threw himself between Ascanius and the girl. "For gods' sake, she's a child."

  "And I've got my orders," Ascanius said. "Everyone dies, that's what Quirian said. That's what Miranda said as well."

  "Look up and tell me that Miranda is in her right mind at the moment," Julian snapped.

  Ascanius looked up. Overhead the sky was black, and fire, ice and lightning all descended from the rolling clouds to wreak their havoc on the city beneath. He could just about see Miranda upon the roof, seeming to almost dance in revelry at the destruction she was causing.

  "I really should have gone to Dervalut," Ascanius said.

  "Hang Dervalut," Julian shouted. "Are you really just going to kill a little girl? Didn't we have our bellyful of that in Oretar?"

  "And why did we do it in Oretar, eh?" Ascanius demanded. "We knew it was wrong, we hated it at the time, but we got on with it just the same, and why? Because we had orders, that's why, and because we knew that it would only take a word of protest for Captain Gideon Commenae to see us hang by our necks for mutiny. And I tell you, a slow swing will be a mercy compared to what will happen if Quirian or Miranda find out we crossed them, the mood they're in."

  "So that's it?" Julian demanded. "We're back there again? No. Not again. I won't d
o it. I won't let you do it either. Come on, Ascanius, do you think anyone's going to notice one body amidst this butcher's yard?"

  "Why should I die for her?" Ascanius demanded. "She's never had to work a day in her life, what makes her worth more than me?"

  "It's not about her," Julian said. "It's about the fact that you know this is wrong."

  Ascanius scowled. "Damn you. Bugger off, girl. Go hide somewhere, if there's anywhere left to hide."

  Aula didn't stop to say anything; she simply took off into the gardens at a run.

  Ascanius shook his head. "If we get killed I'm blaming you."

  "I deserve to be blamed for worse," Julian said. "We're a pair of cowards aren't we? At least the Sergeant-Major had the balls to die for what he believed in."

  "The Sergeant-Major was mad as a box of frogs, I'm glad I'm not like him," Ascanius muttered. "So what do we do now? Look for someone older that we can kill with a clean conscience?"

  "Look up into that sky again and tell me that you think this is right," Julian said. "Tell me this is what you listed for."

  Ascanius didn't bother looking up. "That would be a lie. I mean I've no aversion to lying, but not when it's so blatant it isn't even funny."

  "I'm tired," Julian said. "I'm tired of watching while terrible things happen, I'm tired of following orders, and I’m tired of standing by. I'm tired of being a coward. We have to stop this."

  "How?" Ascanius asked. "Kill Miranda?"

  "We've killed for less," Julian said. Then he shook his head. "But I couldn't do that, she...this isn't her fault."

  "Tell that to the poor buggers getting fire rained down on them," Ascanius said. "So what do you think we should do?"