by Shel, Mike
A rough fist struck him in the jaw as he turned back around, making it sing with pain. The woman who came at him looked like a hundred other tavern girls: a plain blouse and skirt, blond tresses bound atop her head, arms made strong from carrying platters laden with tankards of ale and plates of food. But it was the venom in her eyes, the gritted teeth, arched brows, and flushed skin, that gave him pause. It was a look one saved for the author of all suffering and pain. Auric wasn’t sure he had ever witnessed a look of such supreme hate, let alone been its target.
“What’s this about?” he shouted, blocking a second blow with the crossguard of his sword. “What has the League done to you?”
“League?” she spat, taking another swing that he avoided with a jerk of his head. “I only know that you’re here, Papa. It’s time you paid for what you did to Darla!”
The woman wasn’t much younger than him. “I am not your father, ma’am!” He blocked another punch with his forearm, wincing as the blow connected. “You are mistaken, perhaps under the influence of an enchantment! My name is Auric Manteo, and I am an agent of the Syraeic League!”
The woman brought a foot up into his groin with brutal force, the pain making him cry out and drop to one knee. “I see through this mask you wear, Papa! Your own daughter! You may as well have held the knife that she stuck in her belly! To cut out what you put there!” Another punch to his jaw, knocking him off balance and to the ground. He struggled to regain his feet, a hand on his testicles, throbbing in agony.
Beela was by his side now, shouting, trying to help him stand. But the incensed woman, Darla’s vengeful sister, kicked up at Auric’s Syraeic sister, the toe of her boot catching Beela in the stomach. Beela lost hold of her blade and it clattered to the stone floor as she doubled over. The woman’s angry eyes lit on the weapon and she lunged for it, as though Beela had discarded a golden treasure. Auric, overcome by a sudden weakness in his limbs, as though drugged, made to stand again on his own. In that instant, he took in the battle about him. Syraeic novices and the few veterans among them made a valiant effort, but the frenzied fury of these invaders was overwhelming them. Six-person clusters were broken into smaller groupings now, two or three fighting back to back as one assailant after another attacked with whatever weapon they had in hand. He heard curses, accusations, wild screams of outrage, intoxicated laughter. And still more pushed their way into the Grand Hall through the breached doors, virtuous wrath, lustful leers, or avaricious grins animating every face.
Before him now stood the tavern woman, holding Beela’s sword above her head like a holy avenger out of myth. She wore a humorless smile, broad, certain in her righteousness; the despoiler of her beloved sister would receive justice now, delivered by her own hand. If he didn’t know the truth, were he not the innocent target of her vengeance, Auric would cheer for her to strike: Now! Put that bloody bastard to the sword! He had no desire to die, but he couldn’t muster the strength to stand. Szaa’da’shaela vibrated manically at his hip. It seemed certain that, at last, Darla would be avenged.
But the sword did not descend, and the smile left the woman’s face, replaced by wide-eyed horror. Cracks formed in her flesh, like a mud puddle dried by the sun; then the skin of her cheeks parted, exposing the blood and muscle beneath. And she screamed. Her skin peeled back—it was as though she was being flayed before him by an unseen, sharp-clawed demon who tore broad strips of flesh from her skull and let them drop to the floor with a nauseating wet plop when they came free from her head. Auric felt his gorge rise. A deafening crescendo of tortured shrieks and bellows arose from the attackers in the hall as each was slowly, methodically scourged and scoured of skin by some invisible force.
The nightmare seemed to go on for an eternity, but in fact it was over in less than a minute. In that time the Grand Entry Hall of the Citadel was transformed into an enormous abattoir. The surviving novices and their instructors were rooted where they stood or had fallen, horrified by the bloody slaughter surrounding them, the butchered remains of their assailants lying in steaming crimson heaps.
“It couldn’t be helped,” said the quavering voice of a man behind him.
Auric turned and saw him standing there: Qeelb, the broken sorcerer, no longer restrained by his witch-braces. A curl of smoke rose from the cracked black gemstone set in his forehead and his hands trembled. Dark, haunted eyes met Auric’s, eyelids fluttering. Qeelb was exhausted. Exhausted by the unspeakable necromancy he had just unleashed.
19
Rooftop
It was not until the mob had breached the doors of the Citadel that it dawned on Agnes she didn’t know how she would get down from the roof. Getting up there had been a dicey affair, involving dangling from the stone gutter and swinging herself back and forth until she caught a crouching gargoyle spout with a leg, praying all the while the fringe of the broiling mob at the south face of the building wouldn’t notice her. She would make a juicy target for improvised missiles, and the thirty-foot drop to the cobblestones below wouldn’t be kind. She surveyed the rooftop terrain in the moonlight, a confused hodge-podge of architectural styles that told the tale of the sprawling complex’s slow expansion over the centuries. She decided to give up on descending the outer walls—they were an imposing edifice all the way around without dependable purchase. She decided that the warehouse at the rear of the complex, where she had received Chalca and Qeelb, was her best bet: it had a gently sloping roof that would offer a fifteen-foot drop, less if any carts were gathered there. That would place her furthest from the mob’s assault, but it couldn’t be helped.
Agnes traversed the rooftop as quickly as she could, alternately cursing her pace as too reckless or too cautious between dangerous slips and a nagging awareness that dozens of deranged invaders were wreaking havoc in the Grand Entry Hall. She was convinced that this unprovoked attack on the Syraeic League was orchestrated by the malice of Timilis, or his accursed clergy. She observed strange behavior in the crowd below, reminding her of the assault in the alley, when she was nearly raped by two ensorcelled workmen. She shivered with revulsion at the memory of it.
Was her father part of the Citadel’s defense? She picked up speed across a gently sloping roof tiled with slate, arms out to keep her balance. A second later she was sliding down the stone shingles, having slipped on a slick patch lost in the gloom of a chimney shadow. Her feet skidded on the tiles, desperate for purchase, her fingers clawing for something to grab hold of. Her salvation came in the form of a soot-stained chimney pipe perilously close to the roof’s edge; she managed to grab it with both hands. Her feet dangled over the rain gutter in the cool night air. A pause there for a moment, two deep breaths, before slowly pulling herself up and using the iron pipe to stand.
She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of gratitude when at last she reached the flat surface past the slate shingles. When she opened them again, an incongruous cluster of treetops presented themselves, poking above the masonry: the Orchard! It was a smallish courtyard with three stout apple trees favored by novices spared duties on weekends. She approached the edge and peered over; the courtyard below was hidden by the leafy canopy of a treetop. A hoped-for fat branch she could shimmy across from the roof did not present itself. The warehouses would be another ten minutes at least. Climbing down here would save her twice as much time when doubling back.
Agnes retreated from the courtyard’s edge to give herself room for a running leap. What she was doing was supremely foolish; she knew that at every footfall of her run. But her literal and figurative leap of faith toward what she judged was the center of the tree’s mass filled her with giddy exhilaration as she flew through the night air. Giddiness quickly vanished as she penetrated the canopy of leaves, branches poking, swatting, and scratching at her as she fell. A thicker limb pitched her forward when her shins struck it painfully, and it was only by lucky chance that she managed to catch another with her right hand to break her fall to the ground.
She was bleeding from several cuts when she landed, and knew her body would be a map of ugly bruises come morning. She patted the grassy courtyard floor with a lacerated palm and grateful heart.
Agnes made to run, but instead hobbled sadly, shins throbbing, while dozens of other cuts and bruises screamed for her attention. The maze-like halls of the Citadel were empty now; certainly all able-bodied Syraeics had made their way to the Grand Hall to defend the League. An image leapt to her mind, of the Grand Hall crowded with pairs of combatants, facing off against one another. She reached for the rapier sheathed at her hip and felt an icy stab at her heart when she realized it was gone.
Damn!
She noted then the tear in her pants and the absence of her belt from which the rapier hung: she must have lost the sword in her descent through the tree branches. She looked about frantically for something to employ as a weapon. A heavy brass candlestick sitting on a hall table presented itself. She blew out the burning wick and dropped the candle to the floor, feeling the weight of the metal in her grip. Better than nothing. But she felt a proper fool.
At last she reached the Grand Hall and picked up her pace, despite the pain. Sounds of a furious fight echoed down the broad corridor. She forced herself to ignore the fresco portraits that lined the walls; she never failed to get lost a bit in daydreaming when she walked this place, wondering if she, too, would one day find her likeness painted on the walls with other luminaries. Such conceits seemed vapid and childish now. The very survival of the League was at stake. The symphony of battle grew louder.
And then a hideous cacophony of screams came at her like a hungry flash fire, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. She picked up speed, willing herself to bear the throbbing pain in her legs, the sting of the cuts on her face and hands, the dull aches of bruised flesh. As she came around a curve, he appeared: a man bathed in blood from head to foot, the whites of his wide eyes two punctuation marks of horror. He staggered forward, his steps jerky and halting, his arms stiff at his sides, a gore-drenched short sword in his hand. Agnes stopped when she reached him.
“Are you injured?”
His wide eyes looked at her without any sign he recognized her as a fellow member of the human race. He was young, that much she could tell, and he wore an old leather cuirass from the practice yard—he was a Syraeic novice for certain, though she didn’t know his name. He muttered something.
“What? What did you say, brother?”
“N-not my b-blood.”
Agnes became aware of the unnatural silence—no cries, no clash of swords on shields, nothing. She dropped the brass candlestick and wrested the bloody short sword from the lad’s grasp and continued down the hall, sickened by both the weapon’s sticky pommel and the ominous quiet. When she finally came upon the site of the battle, she stopped in her tracks, bringing a hand up to her gaping mouth. It was a scene from some mad slaughterhouse: bloody, unrecognizable carcasses lying scattered around the Grand Hall, glistening crimson. Injured brothers and sisters of the League were interspersed throughout the carnage, some standing motionless, others sitting on the blood-slick floor. When she saw her father sitting by two others, her heart sang and she ran to him.
“Papa! Are you hurt? What happened here?”
For a moment it was as though he didn’t know who she was. She held her breath, wondering if he had once again lost his reason. But then recognition lit up in his eyes and he embraced her. “Agnes! What happened to you?”
Agnes shook her head. “Nothing. I let a tree break my fall. What happened here?”
“Qeelb,” he answered, glancing over at a robed figure sitting nearby, head bowed. “Qeelb happened. He came upon the fight, saw it was going badly for us…and acted.”
“He did all this?”
“With a flick of the wrist, I imagine.”
Agnes turned to look at the broken sorcerer, motionless on the floor. He was slouched over, his back to her. As if aware of her scrutiny, his head turned slowly. “If you had any understanding of what was required to achieve this effect, you wouldn’t speak so. It cost me far more than you can possibly imagine.”
“Not as steep a price as these poor sods paid, surely,” said her father, waving a casual hand at the dead about him, shorn of skin.
“Debatable,” said the sorcerer, and turned his head back around.
“We can’t take him to Gnexes,” her father whispered, gently touching a scratch across her cheek. “And we need to get those goddamned braces back on him. Now.”
But the face of her godmother’s disembodied head swam into Agnes’s mind’s eye, along with part of her admonition: Qeelb was capable of terrible things, terrible things they would require. She took her father’s face in her hands.
“Father, he must accompany us. This is the kind of might we need if we are to face off against a god. What he did here was hideous, but without him, would the Syraeics have prevailed?”
Auric frowned sourly. “No.”
“I don’t know why, but I trust him. He is our ally, and the Aerican put him into our hands for a purpose.”
Her father stared at her; she could see his fatigue…and something else she couldn’t name. He pursed his lips. “A purpose like this? I don’t approve of his methods.”
“Papa…”
“But you’re right. No telling what Timilis will lay in our path. The truth is, we need to get the hell out of Boudun and on our way. I don’t know what the fallout will be from this…horror show. And the longer we linger, the more the Cult of Timilis resident in the city can work its mischief against us.”
Agnes’s heart fluttered. “This siege feels like the men who attacked me when I ran after the woman who stabbed Kennah. The people who attacked us had a similar enchantment upon them.”
“Yes. A grandmother with a rolling pin accused me of raping her granddaughter, and another woman thought I was the father who had despoiled her sister. Well, they’re all dead now. Perhaps we should lay the blame at the great god’s feet. I fear this is just the beginning of the casualty list.”
Auric made to stand, and Agnes noticed a tall young novice at her father’s side, bending over to assist him. She was lanky and fair-skinned, a nasty cut across her left cheek, with curly red hair and more freckles than Agnes had herself. “Beela, is it?” she inquired.
The girl’s face brightened with the recognition. “Yes, Miss Manteo. Beela Wynther, of Sethwick. I’ve seen you in the practice yard. I’m in the Winter Novitiate.”
“She’d be a fine one to take under your wing, Agnes,” said her father, managing a smile. “She has your grit and instincts in a fight.” The girl looked to the ground to hide a broad grin. Agnes gave the girl a perfunctory smile. The last thing she wanted now was a novice tagging along like a puppy.
Other survivors were stirring now, attending wounded comrades or surveying the bloody tableau. Agnes noticed Lictor Beckerlin then, gingerly touching a nasty contusion on his head. She grabbed her father’s hand. “We need to get Qeelb out of here, Father, to Lictor Rae. Lictor Beckerlin will make things more difficult if we linger.”
Auric glanced at the lictor, moving slowly, and nodded. Agnes let Beela help her father and went to the sorcerer, still sitting on the stone floor. She roused him with as much deference as she could muster. “Qeelb, we have to leave. Now.” He looked up at her and she froze: his eyes were full black. It was as though she stared deep into a well of poison.
When they arrived, Pallas Rae was propped up in her bed, eyes closed, looking as feeble and frail as Agnes had ever seen her. Her father delivered a report of the siege and their necromantic salvation. The lictor’s aged face showed no signs of emotion; Agnes wondered if she had even heard it. Then came the lictor’s questions, to the point, stated in Rae’s hoarse voice of weary calm. She listened to the answers with a grimace and a nod.
“You must leave Boudun as soon as possible a
nd head to Ironwound and the Oracle. The palace is sending a package in the morning, including royal script for expenses. You’ll also have a naval vessel at your disposal. The Blue Cathedral is resisting the request for Sira Edjani. I’m afraid Archbishop Hanadis is unhappy the queen hasn’t seen fit to explain the nature of the expedition to her. She came to me, tried to wheedle it out. It seemed unwise to reveal the truth to her, and that may have cost us some chits with the Blue Cathedral. Regardless, I believe Miss Edjani will be here in the morning; the clergy like to make gestures of independence, but the throne will crack the whip in this case and Belu’s best will fall into line.”
Agnes recalled the queen’s feral red eyes in that moment.
“I’ll have someone fetch Kennah from the shrine in whose care you left him, Sir Auric,” Rae continued, opening her eyes now and looking at Agnes’s father. “Any convalescing he still requires can be conducted en route.” The last word of her sentence was punctuated by a coughing fit. Agnes moved to her bedside and poured Rae a cup of water from a pitcher on her night table. The lictor waved it off with a wrinkled, bony hand.
“I spoke with the antiquarians you threw onto Gnexes earlier tonight,” said Agnes’s father when the lictor had recovered. “We were interrupted by the siege, so I’m not sure how much more they might know, but what they did tell me is rather threadbare. Though I count myself better informed as to the fate of a Warwedi historian of the empire’s sixth century.”
Wiping spittle from her chin, Rae smiled weakly. “Arbena and Sulo have the disease common to their kind. I find them by turns delightful and tedious. But they’re two of our finest. What we have in our libraries will be in their report, no matter how much sleep and missed meals it costs them. It will be ready for you tomorrow as well.”