“If we can hear them from across this wretched sty of a place, how many ovens does that fat swine Ulvan need?” said the first Immortal
“You saw his belly,” said the second Immortal.
“Aye,” said the first, “and I’d love to cut off his fingers, make him eat them one by one, and watch him sob like a girl as he did.”
Both Immortals laughed as if at a great joke, but their laughter came to a sudden stop.
“The fire is here, brother!” said the second Immortal. “Look!”
Caina shot a quick glance over her shoulder and saw smoke billowing from the doors of the guest rooms.
“Damnation!” roared the first Immortal, and armored boots clanged as the two soldiers sprinted forward.
Caina had once chance to get this right.
She sidestepped as the Immortals charged, circling to keep the massive windlass between them. The Immortals ran past without looking back, and did not notice the shadow-cloaked shape lurking behind the pulleys. The black-armored soldiers kicked down the first door and staggered back as a thick plume of black smoke rolled out.
Smoke rose from the floor of the great hall far below, from the corridor leading to the kitchen.
Caina dashed forward, moving as fast as she could without making noise, and reached the door to Ulvan’s apartment. She slipped through and closed it behind her, engaging the lock. That would not hold the Immortals for long once they realized that they had been tricked.
She looked around the room. It was a study and a library, dominated by a massive desk, books and scrolls lining the shelves. Smaller writing desks stood before the large desk, no doubt where Ulvan’s scribes took dictation. A pair of heavy ornamental scimitars adorned the wall. Caina grabbed both of the swords and jammed them against the door. Hopefully that would give her a few more moments when the Immortals forced their way inside.
A thick, heavy ledger upon the desk caught her eye. Caina ran to the desk and flipped the book open. It was Ulvan’s own ledger, recording his sales and purchases of slaves. Caina grabbed the ledger, along with a stack of letters next to it, and shoved them into her satchel. If she lived through this, she could examine them later.
“What is that?” Ulvan’s voice came through a half-opened door on the far side of the library. “Who is in there? Answer me!”
Caina glided forward, drawing a throwing knife. Ulvan might have been wise enough to sleep with a weapon.
“You!” said Ulvan. “Go see what is happening!”
The door swung fully open, and a naked woman stumbled into the study, her red hair disheveled. She was beautiful, with flawless skin and bright green eyes. If Ulvan had bought her as a slave, she would have commanded a huge price upon the market.
The woman froze when she saw Caina, her eyes growing wide with horror. She would not have seen Caina, not really. She saw instead a masked and hooded figure clad in black, the shadows wrapped around her like a living thing.
“You’re one of the Demon Princes of old,” whispered the concubine, “come for me, please, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me…”
“What is happening?” roared Ulvan. “Tell me!”
Caina pointed with the knife. “Hide under the desk. Now.” She spoke in the disguised, rasping voice Theodosia had taught her, the voice she used when clad as a Ghost nightfighter. “Remain there until you see the fire. When you do, run as fast as you can. Go!”
The woman hastened to obey.
“What is it?” said Ulvan. Caina heard him moving around in the next room. “I demand that you tell me!”
She took a deep breath and darted through the door.
Ulvan’s bedchamber was palatial. His bed could have held a dozen occupants, and rich carpets covered the floor. A brazier filled with glowing coals stood near the bed, sweet incense rising from its smoke. A small table was next to the brazier, holding a number of documents, along with Ulvan’s steel brand and an iron ring bristling with large keys.
Including, Caina was sure, the key to the slave quarters.
Ulvan stood before his bed, as naked as his slave, his huge body glistening with sweat. In his hands he clutched a heavy crossbow, the light from the brazier glinting off the razor-edged quarrel.
Unlike Damla’s crossbow, this one was properly loaded.
“Assassins!” he roared. “To me! Guards! Assassins…” He saw Caina, and his eyes widened. “By the Living Flame!” Like the slave girl, he did not see Caina, he did not see a terrified and sweating young woman in a black jacket. He saw a hooded shadow, a terrible wraith with a gleaming steel in its right hand.
“Die!” shrieked Ulvan, leveling his crossbow.
But Caina was still in motion, her arm snapping like a whip to fling her knife even as she dodged. The crossbow went off, the quarrel burying itself in the door. Her throw was hasty, but Ulvan made a large target. The blade ripped across his right arm, and Ulvan dropped his crossbow with a screech. Caina rolled back to her feet, her hand dipping into a pouch in her belt.
To a thick cloth pad, wet with an elixir she had prepared in the Sanctuary.
Her right boot slammed into Ulvan’s knee, and the Master Slaver staggered. As he drew breath, Caina slapped the wet pad over his mouth and nose. His eyes bulged as he inhaled the elixir, and then rolled back into his head. He slumped against the bed, wheezing. The effect would not last for long, not with his size, but it would last long enough for her to take his keys, tie her rope to the balcony railing, and make her escape.
She started to turn, and saw the chain. Forty feet long, it lay in an untidy heap at the food of the bed. She wondered why anyone would have a chain in their private rooms, and then she remembered Ulvan’s occupation.
How many slaves had he tortured with that chain? Had he made the concubine wear it as Mardos marched her to the bedchamber? How many lives had he ruined and blighted, the way he had ruined the lives of Damla and her sons?
Her fear and anger fused together into icy clarity, and suddenly she knew just how to create an even bigger distraction for her escape.
She grabbed the documents and the keys from the table and shoved them into the satchel. There was also a leather pouch that looked as if it held coins, and she took that as well. With her other hand she grabbed the brand and thrust it into the hot coals. Then she took the chain and sprinted to the balcony, tying one end around the marble railing.
The other end went tight around Ulvan’s right ankle, the links sinking into his flesh.
Caina knotted off the chain and straightened up, and as she did, she heard the pounding on the library door. Caina raced back across the bedroom door, shut it, and locked it. That would not slow the Immortals for long, but it would gain her a few more moments.
Ulvan groaned, his eyelids fluttering as the elixir cleared from his brain.
Caina seized the end of the brand and lifted it from the fire, the sigil glowing sullenly. She kicked over the brazier, the coals spilling across the carpet, which caught flame at once.
Ulvan blinked again, tried to stand, and sagged against the bed.
Caina jammed the end of the brand against his face. The metal disk covered his right cheek and jaw, and a sizzling sound filled Caina’s ears, the stench of burning meat and hair flooding her nostrils.
Ulvan’s eyes popped open wide, and he staggered to his feet with a hideous shriek, the brand bouncing from Caina’s hand. He reached for her, but Caina sidestepped, her heel slamming into the back of his knee. Ulvan stumbled, the links of the chain rattling, and Caina seized his right arm and twisted it behind his back. His arm was thick, but more fat than muscle, and he was unable to break away. She bent his arm back at a painful angle, forcing him forward until he stumbled onto the balcony and slammed into the stone railing.
“What do you want?” bellowed Ulvan. “Money? Gems? Slaves? Anything, I’ll give you anything, just let me go!”
“Did your victims beg,” snarled Caina in her disguised voice, “the way you are begging now? Did you ever show
them any mercy?”
Ulvan tried to look at her, his eyes wide with fear. “Who are you?”
Again Caina’s rage hardened into icy clarity. She remembered flinging Rezir Shahan’s head into his horrified soldiers, remembered how the Szalds had whispered of her after that, how the legend of the Balarigar had grown after Amirzid’s failed rebellion and Sinan’s ghastly transformation. They had had whispered of their old legends, the heroes of ancient times. The liberators. The hunters of sorcerers. The slayers of demons.
“I,” spat Caina, “am the Balarigar.”
Ulvan shrieked.
She twisted his arm with such force that the bones creaked, and Ulvan lost his balance. Caina drove her boot into the small of his back with all of her strength. Ulvan wavered upon the railing for a moment, but his bulk pulled him forward, and he topped forward with an awful scream.
An instant later the chain snapped taut, and Caina heard the terrible sound of snapping bone and ripping muscle, accompanied by another ghastly shriek from Ulvan. The Master Slaver swung upside down from the chain, gibbering and wailing, while a crowd of stunned slaves and bodyguards watched from below. Smoke billowed from the balcony doors behind Caina as the flames devoured Ulvan’s bedroom. If the Immortals went through the door, they would find a warm welcome.
She vaulted over the railing and scrambled down the chain, ignoring Ulvan’s wails. The balcony only jutted a few feet from the wall, and the windows of the bedrooms below Ulvan’s chambers were just out of reach. Ulvan thrashed, his motion sending the chain swinging back and forth. Caina took a moment to assess the arc, nodded, to herself, and jumped.
She sprang from the chain, fifty feet of nothingness below her, and slammed into the window. Her scrabbling boots found purchase upon the sill, and she caught her balance, ripped open the shutters, and climbed into a deserted bedroom.
Then she ran with all the speed she could muster, cloak billowing behind her, satchel bouncing off her hip. The time for stealth had passed. The fires and Ulvan’s predicament would hold the attention of the slaves and the Immortals for a few moments.
Now Caina needed haste.
She dashed down five flights of stairs and burst back into the great hall. A harsh glow came from the highest balcony, the chandeliers gleaming through a thick blanket of smoke. The fires were spreading faster than she had expected. The corridor leading to the kitchen was full of flames. The kitchen fire had expanded – she had known that flour could burn explosively, but apparently mixing it with cooking oil was especially potent.
Which meant the corridor, and the exit through the kitchen, was blocked off.
Fortunately, Caina had other options.
She ducked into one of the sitting rooms and smashed a window. Glass shards fell as the lead shutters popped open, and Caina clambered over the broken glass and dropped the four feet to the ground, back into the ring of bushes and trees she had used to conceal herself earlier. The gardens were empty, the festivities over, but shouts and screams rang from the house as the slaves fled the burning palace, their cries of alarm mingling with the hoarse roars of the Immortals.
And over it all Caina heard Ulvan’s bellows of pain and fury.
She sprinted around the corner and returned to the slave entrance. The doors stood open, and Caina hurried into the brick hall. Flames billowed from the kitchen door, but the door to the slave cells stood closed. Caina yanked out Ulvan’s keys and started trying them in the locks.
On the third key, the lock released, and Caina pulled open the heavy doors with a grunt. A wide set of stone steps descended into the earth, lit only by a few gloomy glass globes. The stairs ended in a long, wide corridor, divided by iron bars into large cells. Each cell held a dozen slaves, divided by men and women. Right now chaos reigned in the cells as the prisoners shouted at each other.
“What is happening?” shouted a man. “I smell smoke! Is…”
Then they saw Caina, and a stunned silence spread through the corridor. Caina glimpsed Bayram and Bahad in one of the cells, Bayram standing protectively before his younger brother. The slaves were not chained individually. That was good – it would have taken too long to open every individual lock.
“By the Living Flame, it’s a devil!” said a woman.
“No,” said a man. “No! It’s a djinn from the desert, a djinn of shadows.”
“The Balarigar of the Szalds!” shouted a tall, thin man, and Caina looked at him in surprise. “I was at Marsis! I saw the Balarigar kill the emir! That’s him! That’s him!”
They all started talking at once.
“Silence!” roared Caina in her disguised voice, and the captives stopped talking. She ran to the first door, found the key, and opened the lock.
“What…what are you doing?” said the tall man, eyes wide.
“The way is clear,” said Caina. “Go now, through the back. Run as fast as you can! Go. Go!”
They took the hint, rushed from the cell, and raced up the stairs.
She hurried from cell to cell, opening the doors and releasing the slaves. Most of them sprinted for the stairs. A few paused to thank Caina, and she urged them on. At last she came to the cell holding Bayram and Bahad. The men tumbled out, and the boys followed.
“You two,” rasped Caina. “Go to your mother’s coffeehouse. As fast as you can. Run!”
Bayram nodded, grabbed Bahad’s hand, and pulled his younger brother along.
Soon the cells were empty. Caina hesitated for a moment, and then dropped the keys upon the floor. If Ulvan didn’t die of his injuries, he would be furious, and even if he perished, the Slavers’ Brotherhood would try to discover what had happened. Nerina Strake was a strange, peculiar woman, but Caina liked her, and she would prefer that Nerina not receive the blame for Ulvan’s sudden downfall.
One could not blame a locksmith over a stolen key.
Caina ran up the stairs, and darted back into the palace gardens. The captives fled for the back gate, vanishing into the darkened streets of the Masters’ Quarter. More shouts rang from the gardens. The Immortals had noticed the fleeing captives, and some of the elite soldiers moved to stop them.
Caina intended to give them a more compelling target.
She whirled and ran the length of the palace, making no effort to conceal herself. The pale glow of the Immortals’ eyes loomed in the fire-lit gloom, and she felt the weight of their gaze as she ran past them, her cloak billowing. She sprinted around the corner, and saw the mob of house slaves standing before the doors to the great hall, gazing up in astonishment as their master dangled upside down, shrieking and sobbing. Mardos stood in their midst, shouting for a ladder, but no one heeded him.
“It’s him!” howled Ulvan, pointing. “The Balarigar! Stop him. Stop him!”
The slaves took one look at Caina and hastened to get out of her way. The Immortals pursued her, shouting as they called for their comrades. They were fast, but Caina had a head start, and the slaves got in their way. The gate was the obvious place to escape, so Caina ignored it and ran for the wall. It was nine feet tall, and she took a flying leap at it. Her gloved hands slapped against its lip, and she heaved herself up, rolled over the wall, and landed in the avenue outside of Ulvan’s grounds, her legs collapsing beneath her to absorb the shock.
Caina risked a glance back. Smoke billowed from the windows of Ulvan’s private rooms, and even from this distance she still heard him screaming, heard the shouts of the Immortals. His palace was in chaos, and Ulvan’s Immortals would hunt her for the rest of the night.
And that, she hoped, would give Ulvan’s captives all the time they needed to escape.
Caina sprinted into the night as the Immortals burst from the gate.
Chapter 12 - Liberator
The eastern sky started to brighten by the time Caina returned to the House of Agabyzus.
She had led the Immortals on a merry chase through the Masters’ Quarter before vanishing into the alleys of Istarinmul’s poorer quarters. The city watch had swa
rmed over the Masters’ Quarter, sealing it off, but by then Caina was already long gone.
She stepped towards the dry fountain, breathing hard, her clothing soaked with sweat, her legs throbbing. It had been a long night, and she could not even guess how many miles she had run.
Best not to go back to the coffeehouse. Caina suspected she had made a clean escape, but she had been wrong before. The Teskilati would undoubtedly investigate, and they might trace Caina to the House of Agabyzus. If they caught her, she wanted Damla and her family to remain clear of the backlash.
Still, she thought Damla and her sons would be safe, along with the other captives. Ulvan had forged his Writs of Captivity, and his records had gone up in smoke when the fire had spread to his study. Plus, she had his ledger in her satchel. He couldn’t prove anything – and from what she had learned of Istarish politics, no magistrate would support a Master Slaver so egregiously incompetent to allow all his slaves to escape.
She stopped next to one of the ruined windows and listened. Inside the coffeehouse she heard excited voices, heard Bayram and Bahad telling their story to their mother, heard Damla laughing and weeping all at once.
Caina smiled behind her mask and returned to the empty square behind the coffeehouse. It was deserted, and she opened the secret entrance beneath the dry fountain.
The Sanctuary looked unchanged, the enspelled glass globes throwing back the gloom. Caina dropped her satchel on the floor, removed her shadow-cloak, and peeled off her sweat-soaked clothing. If the Teskilati knew of Sanctuary, this might not be the safest place to stay. Perhaps it would be better to find a different hiding place.
Still, she would rest here for now, just for a little while. If someone forced their way inside, the noise would wake her, and she could escape through the sewers. She found some blankets, made herself a bedroll in a dark corner, and lay down with a sigh. Gods, but she was tired.
She would have expected nightmares, but no dreams of any kind troubled her.
###
Much later, Caina awoke and rolled over with a sigh, reaching for Corvalis. He wasn’t there. Well, he was a light sleeper, and likely had already risen to practice with his sword and dagger. Caina would rise and practice the unarmed forms herself, and once she had finished, they would take the coach to the House of Kularus and see if any messages had come…
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