The Earaqi youths, however, straightened at the sight of him. The low mutters and urgent whispers fell silent and a reverent hush descended over the crowd.
“Brothers and sisters in Hallar,” the man intoned, his tone a match for his solemn expression, “today marks a new day in Shalandra! The day of reckoning for the Dhukari, and the beginning of the return to the old ways, the ways of Hallar.”
A jubilant cheer erupted in the room.
“Yes!” cried the man. “Raise your voices! Roar to the heavens, and let all hear your defiance of those that have oppressed us for too long. Let it be the signal that we will no longer sit silent as they crush us beneath their heels. Shout your anger against the Pharus who demands your blood, sweat, and tears and gives you nothing but starvation and death in return!”
Issa felt the emotions surging through the crowd. Acid twisted in her stomach—this man’s words stirred up the youths, bringing out the anger simmering beneath the surface.
“Today is the day!” The man raised his arms. Bloodstained bandages encircled his forearms, somehow enhancing the air of menace he emanated. “Today, we witnessed the true measure of our foes, and we can abide it no longer. The Child of Gold came to save us, and what did they do? They chopped off his head like a common criminal!”
This time, Issa’s own anger swelled to life as the Earaqi roared their rage and defiance into the warehouse. The Keeper’s Council had condemned an innocent man to death. She hadn’t just accepted it; she had helped lead him to his execution.
Triumph shone in the man’s eyes. “Yet his death was foretold in the prophecy! In silencing his voice, they have given us the signal to raise ours in warning, to shout the news of what is to come. And what is to come?”
“The Final Destruction!” roared the people.
“The Final Destruction!” the man echoed. “The end of the Pharus and the cruelty of his rule.”
Delighted cheers and roars of “Down with the Pharus!” met this declaration.
“A return to the ways of Hallar, where the people ruled Shalandra!” He thrust a finger at the crowd. “The Pharus will not give you the power to rule, so we, the people, must take it for ourselves. What say you?” His dark eyes scanned the crowd. “Do you wish to see an end to your hunger and thirst?”
“YES!” The shout set the warehouse’s stone walls rattling.
Issa’s heart clenched—this was her greatest fear, that the Earaqi would be incited to violence. She had to act now before they rioted. There would be no stopping it once they unleashed their anger and resentment on the city.
She pushed through the crowd, careful not to jostle anyone too hard, yet determined to reach the platform. I’ve got to stop him before he sets them loose!
“Do you wish to take back the power stolen from you centuries ago by the Pharus?”
“YES!” came the echo again. Issa’s ears rang, her head aching from the intensity of their cries, but she forced herself to keep moving.
“Then let us go forth and send a message that Shalandra will never forget!” the man shouted. “Let this be the day that the people of our great city stood up against the tyranny of the Pharus and took back what belonged to us. For Hallar!”
“For Hallar,” the throng shouted.
A knot of young men blocked her path. She thrust her way through, earning angry scowls.
“For the Earaqi!”
The crowd echoed his words again. Issa pushed harder. She was so close to the front. Just five people stood between her and the man whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
“For Shalandra!” the man cried.
“For Shalandra!” the crowd echoed.
Come on!
“For—”
Issa burst free of the front rank and hurled herself at the speaker. Her arms wrapped around his knees and she shoved hard, bringing him down to the stone floor. She rolled as she fell and sprang to her feet, snapping a kick at the man’s head. If she could silence him, she might be able to calm the crowd.
Her boot struck empty air. The man dodged the kick, leaping to his feet as quickly as she did. He dropped into a fighting crouch facing her, his eyes narrowed.
“How dare you?” the man snarled.
Anger flared hot and bright in Issa’s gut. “No, how dare you? Your words are nothing but trouble, trouble that will get all of us killed!”
“We are all willing to sacrifice our lives!” The man gestured to the crowd. “For the sake of a better Shalandra.”
“A Shalandra we will never see.” She turned her head toward the crowd. “A Shalandra you won’t live long enough—”
Her words cut off as the man’s thugs charged her. They had been caught off-guard by the suddenness of her attack, yet now drew clubs and daggers and lashed out at her head. She leapt backward, evading their blows, only to hear the rush of feet from behind. The speaker had drawn a sword and charged her from the rear, intending to cut her down.
Issa spun, twisting out of the path of his thrust, and drove her open palm into the base of his nose. Fire flared along her side as his strike opened a gash, but cartilage crunched beneath her blow. Blood gushed from the man’s nose and he dropped, hands clapped to his face.
“—long enough to see!” Issa finished her shout, and whirled on the crowd. “Listen to what he’s telling you!”
“To take back our power!” came the shout from the crowd.
“Is power what you truly want?” She dodged a descending club strike and drove her fist into the thug’s gut, doubling him over. She snapped off a kick that knocked the second brute’s dagger wide, right into his companion’s chest. Her next kick cracked into the underside of the man’s chin. His head snapped back and he sagged, hitting the ground with a loud thump.
Issa rounded on the crowd. “Or are you just sick and tired of being disrespected and brutalized?” She thrust a finger toward the man. “Just as he was doing.”
Surprise shone in the hundreds of faces before her, yet not all remained silent. “Hallar’s Warriors serve the Earaqi!” someone shouted. “They serve all the people who suffer beneath the rule of cruelty.”
“How could anyone causing you to take up weapons against others be serving you?” Issa fixed them with a glare. “You, Dessia!” She thrust a finger toward a woman two years older than her. “What do you know about fighting?”
Dessia, the daughter of one of Savta’s fellow servants, cringed back, color rising to her cheeks.
“And you, Ellric!” Issa rounded on another young man, one who worked the fields beside her Saba. “Have you ever held a sword?”
Just then, the door burst open behind her, and more thick-necked thugs spilled into the room. Issa managed to fling aside her cloak and draw her weapons just in time to deflect a vicious club strike aimed at her head. The foremost attacker fell with Issa’s dagger driven into his gut, tearing the weapon from her hand. She lashed out with the short sword—a heavy blade with a vicious edge, effective despite its diminutive length. Her horizontal slash opened the next thug’s arm to the bone and the man fell back with a cry, blood gushing from the severed artery.
“See them!” Issa shouted and blocked a flurry of blows from the men that rushed her. “They are not Earaqi!”
Earaqi that trained at the Institutes of the Seven Faces fought with cunning and trickery, not the brute force taught to the Mahjuri.
A loud roar echoed from behind her as Etai leapt from the crowd, sword drawn. Nysin, Enyera, and more of her trainees followed hot on the Blade’s heels. They clashed with the thugs pouring from the room. Within seconds, all ten of Issa’s Indomitables had joined her in battle. Fifteen brutes clashed with twelve young Blades and Indomitables. The fight ended in seconds.
Issa whirled toward the crowd. Stunned silence rooted the Earaqi youths in place.
“Look at them!” she thrust her blade, still dripping blood, at the nearest corpse. “They are no Earaqi, earning their living through the sweat of their brows. They serve the Syndicate, taking
from you to enrich themselves, just as they say the Dhukari do. But they are worse!” She swung the bloodied sword around to face the throng. “They would send you to your deaths, facing the Indomitables with nothing more than your anger and a few pathetic weapons.”
Hesitation cracked the anger and hostility in the faces arrayed before her. Hope sprang to Issa’s breast. I’m getting through to them!
“And what of your families?” Issa shouted. She singled out a few familiar faces. “Your mother, Trastin. Your two little sisters, Kelves. Your crippled Saba, Rayale. What will happen to them when you are dead and the Ybrazhe claim the Cultivator’s Tier, our home, for themselves? What suffering awaits them?”
“What do you know of suffering?” came a wrathful cry. “You don’t look hungry or sick like the rest of us!”
“Some of you know me, but for those who do not, let me tell you my name.” Issa straightened and spread her arms wide. “I am Issa of the Earaqi, chosen of the Long Keeper, granddaughter of Nytano and Aleema. I have run the Commoner’s Way beside you, watched my Saba’s back stoop beneath hard labor in the fields, and suffered hunger and thirst just as you have.”
“Keeper’s Blade!” Anger flared to life on faces that had been a heartbeat away from finding sense.
“Traitor!”
“I am a Keeper’s Blade,” Issa shouted back. “but I am no traitor. I will not stand by and watch my people—you, my fellow Earaqi, and all the Mahjuri and Kabili in the Slave’s Tier—caught up in this. For down this path lies only death.”
A Mahjuri at the front of the crowd spoke up. “How is death worse than what we already endure? Starvation, thirst, disease, and abuse at the hands of you Indomitables.”
“Can you truly say that your families would be better off with you dead?” Issa snarled. “Your mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers, friends. How would your deaths make their lives any easier?” She narrowed her eyes at the crowd. “Or would they all wind up suffering because of your actions here, right now?”
That drove Issa’s point home. They had all witnessed the executions held in Murder Square. Traitors never died alone; the heads of their husbands, wives, children, and loved ones all adorned spikes beside them. The Necroseti had always made clear the consequences for those who raised a hand against the ruling caste.
She opened her mouth but never got a chance to speak. Roars, shouts, and chanting filled the air outside the warehouse. All eyes turned to face the door.
The clamor grew louder, until everyone in the warehouse could hear the cries.
“Death to the Pharus!” raged the crowd. “Bring on the Final Destruction that was foretold!”
Torches and lanterns shone in the darkness beyond. Hundreds of young Earaqi men and women marched along, their voices raised in the angry chant.
In that instant, hatred and decades of mounting resentment triumphed over common sense. The crowd’s passions reignited and the faces of a hundred Earaqi turned to face Issa, eyes dark with rage.
“Death to the Keeper’s Blade!” they shouted, raising their crude weapons. “Death to the traitors!”
Issa nearly wept. “Please!” She had no desire to kill her own people. “Don’t do this!”
Her words fell on deaf ears. The foremost Earaqi surged toward her, faces twisted and made monstrous by hate.
Issa tried one last time. “Don’t let—”
A strong hand closed around her tunic and hauled her backward. Off-balance, she staggered and would have fallen if not for Etai’s arm snagging her around the waist. Her fellow Blade dragged her through the door and slammed it behind her. Nysin dropped the heavy bolt into its cradle. Just in time. A loud boom echoed as the crowd beyond crashed into the door.
“No!” A frustrated roar tore from Issa’s lips. “No, no, no!” She whirled on Etai and the Indomitable trainees. “What in the bloody hell was that? I almost had them, but what happened?”
“I don’t know.” Etai shook her head. “But we—”
The loud thud came again, accompanied by the cracking of wood. The door shuddered beneath the assault.
“—need to get out of here!”
I had them! Sorrow flared within Issa. They were listening to reason. “But—”
“Now, Issa!” Etai shouted, an unmistakable note of command in her voice. “I’ll order Nysin and Viddan to drag you out of here if I have to.”
Ten pale young faces stared at her. The sight of her terrified Indomitables pushed back her despair. She was responsible for them, for keeping them alive. She could grieve for the Earaqi later. Survival first.
She swallowed the surging emotions. “That way!” She thrust a finger toward the back of the small chamber. This had been Omurn’s office before his death. She’d been hauled in here when the stern-faced Earaqi caught her sneaking out of his warehouse with a bundle of apricots tucked in her shirt. “Omurn had a rear door.”
She hurried toward the back exit and had just flung the door open when a cry of pain echoed in the alley beyond. The sounds of a scuffle and a quiet grunt set her shoulders in knots.
Stepping out into the dark night, she braced herself for an attack from the surging crowd. Yet shock froze her in place as she recognized the lone figure standing in the narrow alley.
“Evren? What are you—?” Her words trailed off as she caught sight of the unconscious man at his feet. It was the speaker from within. Somehow, he’d gotten around her and her Indomitables. Now, however, he lay senseless, blood trickling from his nose and his right wrist twisted at an awkward angle.
Evren bared his teeth in a snarl. “He was trying to escape! Not a bloody chance I’m letting that happen.” He thrust a finger down at the insensate figure. “He’s the Keeper-damned Blackfinger!”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Evren reached for his daggers as the heavy-set brute accosted Issa in the alley, but breathed a silent sigh of relief when he heard her answers—good for you, thinking quickly. He tracked Issa’s movements as she followed the thick-necked man toward the warehouse doors.
Worry hummed within him at the sight of the crowd within. That could turn into a mob any minute.
Yet something about the hulk that had found Issa seemed…off.
He slithered toward the side door and slipped his dagger between the door and frame, popping the latch with ease. The shadows on the eastern side of the warehouse provided ample cover, and the noise of the crowd drowned out any sound of his movement as he darted behind a pile of crushed and broken crates.
His eyes scanned the crowd until he found the man he sought. The man wore a red Earaqi headband, knee-length shendyt, and sleeveless tunic, but the muscles rippling on his arms and shoulders couldn’t possibly be the result of working the fields. And he also lacked the dark cloak and fanatical zeal of the men he’d spotted in the tunnels.
Is he Ybrazhe?
It seemed a stretch—he’d come hunting Hallar’s Warriors, the militants he’d been all but certain were hiding out in the Cultivator’s Tier. Issa’s directions had led him here.
But had he made a mistake?
A door at the far end of the warehouse opened and a man strode into the light.
Evren’s jaw dropped. No!
The man had exchanged his tailored garments for simple Earaqi clothing, yet there was no mistaking the confidence in his posture, the sonorous timbre of his voice. The sight of bloodstained bandages on his forearms confirmed it.
Blackfinger!
Horror twisted Evren’s gut into knots. He’d found the wrong place. He wasn’t going to stop Hallar’s Warriors.
He wanted to race back out into the night, to keep hunting the militants that threatened to incite bloodshed and riots in the city. Yet the sight of the Blackfinger held Evren rooted to the spot. Ice slithered down his spine as the man began to speak. What is the leader of the Ybrazhe doing here? And why is he giving them a speech like this?
Blackfinger’s flowery words of “taking the power” and “the people ruling Shala
ndra” made no sense. The Syndicate thrived on control and fear, using brute force and violence to control the masses. Putting power in the hands of the Mahjuri, Earaqi, and Kabili would only hinder their ultimate ends.
Acid surged to his throat as realization dawned. He’s whipping them into a frenzy so they’ll rile up the crowd.
Since the first time he’d encountered the Ybrazhe, Evren had understood that the Syndicate wanted to stir up chaos, chaos that they’d use to their own ends. Yet this was far more than just unrest and protests—Blackfinger spoke of a full-scale revolution.
All along the three lower tiers, tens of thousands of people sat in silent protest over the death of their Child of Gold. Yet Blackfinger’s impassioned speech was the match and these Earaqi the kindling that set Shalandra ablaze. The peaceful demonstration would turn violent as the incited youths marched through the crowd, their angry words stirring up the resentment that had simmered beneath the surface for so long. A shudder ran down Evren’s spine at the mental image of tens of thousands of angry Shalandrans rampaging through the city. The violence perpetrated by the Indomitables the previous night would pale in comparison to an infuriated, leaderless mob.
Yet as he listened to Blackfinger’s words, he suddenly understood the intention behind the man’s actions. He’s pointing them toward the Pharus, but not at the real culprits: the Keeper’s Council.
His mind raced as he unraveled the threads.
According to Hykos, the Keeper’s Council had overridden the Pharus’ wishes and Lady Callista’s protests to order the execution of Aterallis, the “Child of Gold”. Yet the Ybrazhe laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Pharus, using their indignation to stage an uprising. It all but confirmed what Evren, Kodyn, and Killian had uncovered: the Ybrazhe and the Keeper’s Council were in league.
Overthrowing the Pharus would place even more power in the hands of the Keeper’s Council. An uprising would give the Syndicate an excuse to muscle in on the Artisan’s Tier while the Indomitables were busy dealing with the Earaqi, Kabili, and Mahjuri. Perhaps the Necroseti had even promised Blackfinger greater freedom to rule his corner of Shalandra.
Storm of Chaos Page 33