The Shadow of Tyr

by Glenda Larke

  The words hacked at him, as potentially damaging as the sword Bator Korbus was now inserting into his scabbard. Rathrox felt the cut of those words, severing success from his future. Chopping, perhaps, at his neck. Obediently he glanced out of the window, and his look was stricken, even though he had already seen all there was to see. A fountaining of water, made unnatural by the gold of Magor witchery, towering into the air over the roofs. It had been like that for half an hour, since the false dawn that morning. From the look of it, the source was the water of the channels running down either side of the Forum Publicum. A signal, he guessed. Even as he watched, the gold died and the water dropped away behind the rooftops.

  Rathrox Ligatan as the Magister Officii, no matter what else happened that day, was finished; he knew that. He uncurled his hands, and ran the sweating palms down his thighs. If rage could have killed, Ligea Gayed would never have drawn another breath.

  He looked away from the window and met Clemens’ gaze. And the blathering idiot was pitying him. He choked on his fury.

  The Exaltarch’s diatribe, venom uttered with chilling cold, continued as slaves bent to tie on his greaves. ‘You head the Brotherhood, Magister. You are supposed to save me from surprises. Yesterday you told me to expect an invasion via the river. Just now I was told that slaves killed Arbiter Matius and all his family. I sent for Legate Valorian to explain, and was told he is unavailable because he is in the thick of fighting around the barracks. With slaves? I asked. No, I was told. With soldiers from someone else’s army. Right here in my city! It seems there is everything happening except an invasion upriver. So, Rathrox, tell me what is going on? My helmet!’ This last was addressed to one of the slaves. The Exaltarch snatched the plumed headgear from the hapless helot and followed it with a backhanded slap that sent the man flying across the room. He landed at the feet of a centurion who had just entered. Clemens winced in sympathy, embarrassing Rathox. Has the man no spine?

  ‘Well, what is it?’ the Exaltarch snapped at the newcomer.

  ‘Centurion Belion, Exalted One, reporting from the Tyr Legion. We—we are being attacked at all gates. So far, our legionnaires are holding them off, but they are sorely pressed. And no reinforcements have come from the barracks. I couldn’t get near the place. There’s fighting everywhere! And armed men have secured the armoury.’

  ‘Our men?’ the Exaltarch asked.

  ‘No, no, Exalted! We don’t know who they are! They must have already been in the city, because they didn’t come in from outside. At least, I don’t think so.’

  Bator eased his head into his helmet, looked at the centurion and pointed at Rathrox. ‘Have that man taken to the Cages and imprisoned there, to await my pleasure.’ He strode out, followed by his guard.

  Clemens, appalled, flapped his hands in agitation. Rathrox glared at him and then at the slaves, who took the hint and scuttled away through the servants’ door. He turned to the centurion. ‘Tell me exactly what else you saw.’

  ‘Magister, I have to escort you to the Cages—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, you dolt. The Exaltarch was just upset. He’ll be enraged if you were really to do anything so foolish. Right now we need to find out exactly what the situation is so we can combat it.’ He tried to sound reasonable, unafraid, but he couldn’t keep the quiver out of his voice and knew he’d ended up sounding like a querulous old man. At his side, Clemens quivered like a startled hedge mouse.

  The centurion paused, half convinced. Rathrox could almost hear the man wondering who presented him with the greatest threat if he disobeyed: the Exaltarch or the Magister. ‘The Exaltarch won’t even remember this tomorrow,’ Rathrox said reasonably, ‘and he certainly won’t remember you.’

  He knew the moment he added those last words that he had made a mistake.

  The centurion drew himself up. ‘If you would just come with me, Magister—’

  Rathrox gave what he hoped was a rueful smile. ‘As you wish, Centurion. Let’s just hope my absence makes no difference to the outcome of this battle for the city.’ He looked at Clemens. ‘Clemens, you will have to get to the Magistrium and do your best to salvage the situation.’ He turned towards the door, but clapped his left hand to the centurion’s back as he went. The manoeuvre forced the man to walk alongside him, rather than behind. Clemens dithered, his mouth opening and closing in dismay. At the door, the Magister stopped, and waited for the soldier to open it.

  As the man reached for the handle, Rathrox reached under his robe for his dagger. The centurion did not even see the blow coming. Rathrox angled the tip of the blade upwards to slip between the scales of the man’s armour, and rammed it home into his back. The soldier staggered, and opened his mouth to scream. But instead of sound, blood spilled out. His fingers scrabbled blindly, looking for his sword. Then he fell forward against the door, gasping, desperately seeking what was left of his life. Rathrox eased his blade out as the dying man fought to stay upright.

  ‘Oh, gods,’ Clemens squeaked.

  ‘Sorry about that, Centurion,’ Rathrox said softly in the wounded man’s ear. ‘If you had been more sensible, this need not have happened.’ He wrenched the top of the man’s helmet backwards from behind, forcing his head up so that his throat was exposed. The centurion struggled, but he was choking on his own blood. The dagger blade sliced deep across his neck.

  Rathrox dropped the man and stepped back to avoid the swathe of blood that splattered across the door and pooled on the carpet. You poor fool, he thought.

  He dropped the knife and opened the door, only to find two soldiers on guard duty on the other side. ‘Men,’ he said calmly, stepping over the centurion and pointing back at Clemens, ‘that man there just killed the centurion. Arrest him and have him taken to the Cages.’

  The expression on Clemens’ face made every moment Rathrox had spent in the company of that pathetic idiot worthwhile.

  Midmorning. The sun was already high in the sky. The burning air of the desert-season raised heat shimmers from the stone of the streets, and clouds of insects from the fields beyond the walls.

  Ligea paused at a fountain to wash her face and rinse the grime away. Her wig was tucked in her bag, the sword and baldric out of sight under the folds of her shawl. She glanced at the dusty hem of her white gown, and cursed. She would have done anything to be wearing an anoudain right then. Well, almost anything. But she might need her goddess persona yet, and no one was going to believe Ligea was a goddess without the trappings. She was tall enough for the part, but little else.

  She still had power left in her cabochon, but she herself was exhausted. She hadn’t slept for two days, and she had been constantly on the move. There was so much to coordinate, so many things to think of, so many separate parts to fit together. And so little she could delegate, because she was the only Magoroth around.

  Ah, Temellin, I wish you could have sent me help.

  She sat for a moment on the edge of the fountain and, while she rested, ran through her chaotic memories of the last twelve hours.

  Overnight, she’d built a long ward to stop the soldiers posted down at the booms from returning into the city in the morning once they heard of the attack. She’d followed that by eating an enormous meal of roast chicken and stuffed swan in an attempt to replace her dwindling energy. Then, some time after midnight, she’d warded the entire off-duty Imperial Guard inside their barracks. They were still there, as far as she knew, unable to fight.

  At first light, after starting the fountain of water as the prearranged signal for attack, she’d eaten a large breakfast at a shop in the marketplace and then hurried across the Tyr Bridge to the West Gate. This gate had been the destination of those of her men from Second Farm. They were supposed to arrive in squads of ten during the night. Each squad had its leader, and they were to have crossed the whole of Tyrans on their Quyriot ponies, taking dozens of different tracks and roads, disguised as anything but what they were: ex-slaves, aching for a battle that would legitimise their freedom.
A battle that would make them men in the eyes of the Law, not speaking tools to be rewarded or disposed of on a whim.

  By the time she’d arrived at the gate, there was a midden of bodies—a mess of unfulfilled dreams—waiting to burden her with guilt.

  As planned, the legionnaires on guard duty had been attacked at dawn by some of Gevenan’s men already in the city. Also as planned, the gate had been opened to admit the invaders. By the time Ligea arrived, however, legionnaires spending the night in a nearby military brothel had heard the sounds of battle and rushed to reinforce the guards, surrounding the first wave of attackers inside the walls and shutting the gate on the rest. Those trapped inside had been systematically killed.

  Their bodies piled high, leaking fluids, already swelling in the morning heat—they’d saluted Ligea with the stink of death and the accusing eyes of the slaughtered.

  Gevenan’s voice in her head: This, the whim of your vengeance.

  She blasted the gate open, accepting that she might kill some of her own men on the other side. Accepting the guilt that went with that knowledge. Her soldiers poured in, swinging long-handled hammers with crushing force that dented helmets, broke ribs even through armour, and shattered the bones of arms and legs. Nothing heroic here. No god of battle to honour a brave man, no goddess to bestow her favour on a champion as in the stories of old. This was just brutal death and vicious, unimaginable pain.

  She remembered leaning against a wall to catch her breath. To watch what she had put into unstoppable motion. A hammer in the hands of a Janussian becoming a weapon that crushed and battered. A terrified legionnaire, little more than a boy, trying to run from a battle he knew they could not win. The screams of men beyond agony. The sound of blows and blades on metal. The stench. Voided bowels. The sickliness of blood. The stink of a slaughterhouse.

  She’d turned away then, knowing that here she had won. And yet not wanting to see the victory.

  Making her way back towards the barracks to find out if Gevenan needed help, she’d discovered more she hadn’t wanted to see. Slaves rampaged down the Via Conedea, a street of well-to-do merchants. They had no leaders, and many were bent on settling old scores. Marauding gangs of men—women too, sometimes—hunted prey, battering down doors, intent on looting and vengeance and rape. They’d even turned their fury on the inanimate—toppling statues, setting fire to anything that would burn. Ligea, fuelled by her own fury at needless slaughter and destruction, rounded on them with a minimum of mercy. Group after group ended up grovelling, brought to her feet by the power of her sword, crippled by pain until they swore to leave the streets. Some she’d left encased in a cage of warding as a warning to others.

  In the streets behind the palace, fires were more of a problem and putting them out drained more of her power. She’d used whirlwinds to pick up water from the river and dump it on burning buildings, gradually working her way through the backstreets towards the barracks.

  And now she sat on the edge of the fountain, shoring up her strength of purpose. Accepting the memories. Accepting that it was still only midmorning, and there was so much more left to be done. She sighed and rose to her feet.

  By the time Ligea arrived at the barracks, Gevenan had already left. The building was in the hands of some of his men, most of them nursing wounds.

  ‘Last I heard,’ the man in charge told her, ‘there was fighting in the Forum Publicum.’ A sword slash had opened up his cheek from the corner of his eye to his chin. It was no longer bleeding, and he appeared to be ignoring it.

  She nodded her thanks and jogged over to the Forum in front of the palace. There, the fighting was already over. Gevenan was standing on the front steps, giving orders to his men. He saw Ligea, and nodded brusquely. ‘The Exaltarch’s not here,’ he told her. ‘He left before I arrived. I gather he took the Imperial Guard and personally led them to the North Gate. I think the major battle is now down there somewhere, along the Via Pecunia. The merchants have brought out their personal guards to reinforce the legionnaires and Valorian’s city guards. I’ve got to get down there.’

  While he was speaking she laid a hand on his right arm, where a long gash, inadequately tied with part of someone’s tunic, seeped blood. She started the healing process.

  He didn’t seem to notice. ‘It’s going well, Ligea. I’ve heard from the Quyriots: they routed the men at the East Gate and they are holding that part of the city. They are all still on horseback, would you believe? I heard there are a helluva lot of decapitated legionnaires over that way, and people are so terrified of the Quyriots they are staying inside their houses. That keeps the looting to the minimum.’

  ‘Where’s Legate Valorian? Did you kill him?’

  ‘No such luck. For all his bloody perfumes and curls, he’s a damned fine commander. Done a competent job of rallying his men and making some sense out of the chaos. He’s down along the Via Pecunia somewhere, with his emperor. They have contained our men near the gate, I think.’

  ‘Right. What about Rathrox?’

  ‘One of the guards here said the Magister Officii left the palace earlier this morning. Very early. No one has seen him since. Oh, and one interesting thing. He ordered the Brotherhood not to fight. He ordered them to report to the Magistrium.’

  Her heart lurched. The idea of entering that building again made her feel ill. ‘I’d better check it out. Your arm should feel better now, and I’ve stopped the bleeding, but just because it doesn’t hurt doesn’t mean that it’s healed. Nurse it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said with a sardonic grin. ‘With me right-handed and all. And off to fight another battle, too. I’m heading towards the North Gate and Bator Korbus. I’ll try to keep the bastard alive for you.’ He signalled to two of his men. ‘Go with the Domina,’ he ordered.

  Without asking me if I wanted company, she thought in annoyance as she headed for the Magistrium. That man is never going to change.

  Still, the thought of being in the Brotherhood building again sent shudders of unpleasant memories through her mind. And so did the idea of meeting Rathrox. Perhaps she might even need those two soldiers now trailing behind her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Foran set up a place for the wounded, just outside the North Gate on the dirt track to the side of the paveway. He rigged the canvas covers from the farmers’ carts to provide shade, and did his best to bind wounds, relieve pain and set the healing process in motion. It wasn’t long before he was overwhelmed as more and more wounded arrived from the city when the word spread about what he was doing.

  All Arrant could do was watch. His frustration ran deep. The Illuser could have keyed the ward to Arrant’s body, thus allowing him to come and go as he pleased, but he hadn’t trusted his pupil enough to do that. The invisible cage of the warding was solid to Arrant’s touch. One part of him wanted to be out there, part of the battle, being what a Mirager-heir should be. Inwardly, however, he was glad enough to stay where he was. It felt safe. And he didn’t really want to be involved in the fighting. Or the healing. He didn’t like feeling the anguish. He didn’t like the eddies of fear and shock and despair that wafted his way in uneven, unpredictable waves. He tried to shut it all out, the way a Magoroth ought to be able to do, but—as usual— he had no control over any of it. Emotions and other people’s fear came and went as they chose.

  He sighed. He’d wanted to come closer in order to see better, but he had ended up not seeing anything at all of the fighting, just lots of the gore and nasty aftermath.

  Midmorning, though, things changed. The Exaltarch and his elite Imperial Guards arrived at the gate, mounted on gorclaks in an attempt to drive the invaders out. The fighting just inside the walls became more ferocious and more intense. Arrant could hear it. He could feel it. At least sometimes. When he couldn’t, when his sensing failed, then it was even worse. Like going suddenly blind.

  After fifteen minutes, the fighting spilled through the open gate. Men from Ligea’s legions were retreating, fighting every inch of the wa
y with desperate, futile courage. The legionnaires used their huge beasts as battering rams to mow down the foot soldiers. Foran glanced up at the gateway and then ignored what was happening as one of the wounded under his care began to scream with pain.

  Arrant had always hated gorclaks, ever since the day Timnius had died. Their black hides as thick as metal armour, their small, beady eyes loathing all they looked at, their spurs and horns ripping open men’s bodies like crow beaks cracking eggshells—if any animal could be thought of as evil, they could.

  Arrant stood, his hands against the wall of his warding as he watched, his nose flat to its hard transparency. Only it wasn’t that hard any more. In fact, it was sort of squashy.

  Is it supposed to be like that? he wondered. His mother’s wards could last for days, he knew, but she often used a sword to make them. Foran was only an Illuser. He didn’t have a Magor sword, and his cabochon had less power. And then Arrant, absorbed in the battle, ceased to think about it.

  Ligea’s men panicked. Unable to prevail against riders on such well-armoured beasts, they turned and fled, running in all directions. And the legionnaires followed, whirling their slings, spurring their mounts to a lumbering run. And over a short distance they could be fast, those immense beasts. Rip-discs flew with a high-pitched whine that continued until they buried themselves in their victim. And a fleeing man’s back, especially when many wore only leather, made such a suitable target.

  Arrant watched, beating his fists against the warding, screaming unheard warnings. Soldier after soldier fell, flesh ripped or spine broken. And Foran, busy with his doctoring, did not look up.

  ‘Foran!’ he yelled, pounding on the ward. ‘Look out!’

  Finally Foran looked up and took in the scene, his jaw clenching as he realised how close the legionnaires were. His shock penetrated the ward to burst inside Arrant’s mind, leaving him reeling.