Chains of Blood

by M. L. Spencer

A broad streak of fire hurled across the sky like a comet, its tail a shimmering iridescence that was somehow oddly beautiful. It slammed into a nearby neighborhood with a horrendous explosion that jarred the earth and unleashed flames hundreds of feet into the air. Gil dove to the ground, summoning a shield to cover both Ashra and himself, to protect them from debris. A powerful wind raced over them toward the firestorm, feeding the flames and provoking them higher, until the unnatural night was chewed up and swallowed by their hellish glow.

  Within moments, the inferno devolved into a billowing thunderhead of smoke. Gil dropped his shield and struggled to his feet. He stood gasping as an eerie silence gripped the neighborhood around them. For seconds, the silence held, its reign absolute.

  And then the screams began.

  Fleeing civilians spilled into the streets, their faces contorted with horror. Gripping Ashra’s hand, Gil struggled against the current of frantic bodies hurling mindlessly past them. Shaken and jostled, he guided Ashra to the side of the street, where they used the protection of a building to help fight their way against the current of bodies.

  Another thundering rumble shook the air. The ground beneath their feet convulsed, rattling Gil’s insides. Ashra’s grip on his hand tightened painfully. He willed his feet faster, dodging a stampede of fleeing civilians desperate to escape the bombardment.

  A screaming woman ran past them with a bloody child in her arms. A man trailed behind her, carrying two more—one child in each arm. Gil shouted after them, but they’d already disappeared into the panicked crowd. He cursed.

  Ahead, the sounds of battle rang through the quarter: bellowing shouts and the fierce clanging of weapons against armor. Within minutes, the tide of civilians stemmed, and the streets stood empty. Sounds rang hollowly off the walls of the buildings, and the air stank of smoke and blood. The sounds of the fighting grew louder. Up ahead, soldiers wearing the green and black uniforms of the city guard spilled into the streets, driven back by a vicious mob of leather-clad invaders who fought like devils. Gil stepped in front of Ashra and opened himself to the magic field, ready to strike. But there was nothing he could strike at. The fighting ahead was too chaotic, the participants too intermixed. He couldn’t attack enemy soldiers without killing the men he was trying to save.

  “Stay here!” he ordered Ashra and turned back toward the thick of the fighting. Drawing deeply on the magic field, he pulled in as much as he could handle, saturating himself until magical energies bled from his body, forming a glowing mist about him. Weaving a shield around himself, he strode into the melee.

  A man clad in leather armor saw him and tried to drive a war hammer through his skull. Without thinking, Gil struck out with a blast of air, sending the man flying into the wall of a building across the street. Immediately, another soldier broke off from the fight and rushed toward him, swinging at him with his buckler. Gil dodged aside, hurling the man to the ground.

  Seeing the color of his cloak, more men converged on him, picking him out as a high-value target. Gil drew power from the magic field and diverted the energy into the surrounding air. All around him, soldiers erupted in flames. Some dropped directly to the ground, rolling and thrashing. Others made it halfway across the street, lit up like blazing torches, before finally succumbing to the flames.

  “Gil!” Ashra called from behind him.

  He whirled around just in time to see a man coming at him with a sword. He lashed out with a razor-sharp gust of air, carving the man in half, both halves collapsing to the street. He looked up in shock, his eyes fixing on Ashra, as it occurred to him that she had just saved his life. He sprinted toward her.

  “Come on!” he shouted, grabbing her arm. The street behind them was infested with enemy soldiers who were swiftly overwhelming the few defenders who remained. The command to retreat was raised, bellowed out over the chaos of screams and the crackling roar of flames. Clutching Ashra’s hand, Gil led her toward an alleyway between courtyards, away from the thick of the fighting.

  “Father!” she shouted, jerking her hand out of his grasp.

  Gil looked up and found himself staring into the Sultan’s bearded face. Sayeed’s skin was blackened with soot and grime, his hair wet with sweat and plastered against his head. At the sight of his daughter, he strode toward Ashra and caught her up in a crushing embrace.

  “I’m fine,” she gasped as he squeezed her tighter. “I’m fine, Baba.”

  Sayeed released her and stepped back, glaring at Gil.

  “What is she doing here?” he demanded. “We have lost this quarter!” When Gil opened his mouth to respond, the Sultan motioned him to silence. “Come with us!”

  Clenching his daughter’s hand, he started forward. “Let’s go!” he shouted back to his men.

  Swords bared, his guards started forward, falling in around them. They made their way down a narrow, cobbled street as burning embers drifted down around them like glowing snow. Smoke rolled over the city, saturating the air. Gil drew the fabric of his cloak over his face, but even that did little to cut the sting of the smoke in his throat.

  True night had fallen by the time they reached the Canal Road. The sounds of fighting still rattled the air behind them, along with constant shouts and screams. They fought their way through crowds of civilians fleeing the North City, until they came to the bridges spanning the canal. With dismay, Gil saw that all of the bridges connecting the northern and southern halves of the city had become deadly bottlenecks. Hundreds of people clogged the bridge right in front of them, struggling to press forward. Others, forsaking the bridge entirely, were hurling themselves into the canal in an attempt to swim across.

  Gil stood dry-mouthed, knowing that he was looking at a massacre waiting to happen. All it would take was one of those fire-bombs to kill every one of the hundreds of civilians struggling to cross the bridge. He glanced at Sayeed and saw his concerns mirrored in the eyes of the Sultan. He jogged over to him and gestured ahead at the milling turmoil.

  “We can’t get through that!” he shouted.

  “We can,” the Sultan insisted. He mopped the sweat from his brow with his scarf, then started winding the cloth around his head, pulling it across his face so that only his eyes showed. Which was smart, Gil figured. With this many people packed in so close, the last thing they needed was someone recognizing him.

  “We’ll go together,” he announced, pulling his daughter close to him. He turned to his senior officer. “When we reach the other side, I charge you with guarding the crossing as long as you can.” He turned to Gil and said, “Remain with them.”

  Astonished, Gil spread his hands. “What good do you think I can do?”

  “Whatever good you can do,” Sayeed snapped. “My men are too few, and we cannot hold all the approaches. We must stop them at the Waterfront. If we cannot, then the rest of the city will fall!”

  For a moment, Gil could only look at him, too flabbergasted to respond. He was just one mage. What miracles did the Sultan believe he could accomplish? He glanced back at the fires raging in the quarter behind them. Dozens of streets emptied out of the neighborhoods onto the Promenade that ran the length of the canal, and their enemy would soon be spilling out of those streets to set upon them.

  “Stop them?” he finally managed to echo, glancing from teeming intersection to teeming intersection.

  The Sultan nodded, his stare penetrating. “Yes. Stop them.”

  Gil looked up and down the length of the canal. His stomach went sour as he realized that the only way to seal off the North City was to collapse the bridges leading out of it. A cold sweat broke out on his brow as he stared ahead at the crowded bridge that bore the weight of hundreds of civilians.

  Reluctantly, he took a step toward the first bridge, wondering what it would take to bring it down. The bridge was made of a series of consecutive arches constructed of stone masonry, the roots of its thick pillars sunk deep into the bed of the canal. It wouldn’t be enough to just collapse one of the arches. The engine
ers of the enemy would just shore it up again within hours. He would have to tear down all the arches and the pillars supporting them, all the way across.

  “We could destroy the bridges,” he said at last, although he really had no idea how.

  The Sultan nodded. “Yes. That is the best way.”

  Feeling nauseous, Gil ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “If I do that, then anyone left north of the canal will be trapped. They’ll be as good as dead!”

  The Sultan raised a heavy eyebrow. “Do you know of a better way?”

  Gil scowled in frustration. “No. I don’t.”

  Sayeed waved his hand, motioning his guards forward. “We will cross together. Once on the other side, I’ll order my officers to station companies of bowmen along the Waterfront. That way, we can protect the crossing. You collapse the bridges. I will send my men with you.”

  With that, he gripped Ashra’s arm and waded into the crowd of people waiting to cross the bridge. Gil moved to follow him, deferring to the guards who rushed ahead, wrestling a path through the crowd on the bridge. There were only about a dozen of them. And even though each one of Sayeed’s men was worth ten soldiers of the Kingdoms, he doubted they’d be enough protection, should the enemy become serious about bringing them down.

  It took half an hour to cross the bridge, which was packed so tight with people that forward motion was nearly impossible. When they reached the other side, Gil followed the Sultan to a tree-lined walkway near the shore. With a curt gesture, Sayeed waved Gil forward and, nodding toward the bridge they had just crossed, growled, “Tear it down.”

  Gil stared at the bridge, wishing it was an order he could disobey. There were still thousands of people left north of the canal. But the Sultan was right; if they lost the Waterfront, they’d lose the entire city. Running his sleeve across his brow, he turned and started back the way they’d come, the Sultan’s guards accompanying him.

  He let the soldiers walk ahead of him as they made their way back against the current of civilians. Looking back across the water, he considered the congested stream of people moving onto the bridge. He turned to Sayeed’s men and ordered them forward with a nod of his head.

  “Clear the bridge!”

  With grave expressions, the men jogged forward and, swords drawn, began pressing the throng of people back toward the center of the span, shouting and waving their weapons and, when that failed, beating people back. Gil waited until they had a small section of bridge cleared. Then he opened himself to the magic field and drew it in until he was full. He swept out with his hand.

  A plume of flames erupted on the bridge and trailed ahead of the guards. Seeing the fire burning toward them, the crowd panicked and started pushing back the way they had come. Soon the entire bridge was empty and ablaze, waves of heat roiling the air above it.

  Gil waited for the soldiers to return. Then, when he was sure the bridge was clear of people, he closed his eyes and filled himself with every drop of energy he could muster, until his head throbbed in pain. The air around him glowed with charged power, a halo of crackling energy. Concentrating as hard as he could, Gil reached deep inside the nearest pillar, all the way to its very core. He wrenched the pillar with his mind, twisting it violently on its foundation.

  There was a terrible grinding sound, and then the pillar crumbled, raining stone into the water. Walking forward, Gil clenched his jaw and attacked the second pillar. Stone and concrete burst, and the arch gave, crumbling away. He sent his mind out to the next pillar, and then the next, collapsing one after another until the bridge was reduced to a dam of rubble clogging the bed of the canal.

  Gil surveyed the devastation, licking his parched lips. His head throbbed more with every heartbeat. At last, he gave a grim nod. “Come on,” he called to the soldiers. “There’s four more just like it.”

  The soldiers stared at him with startled eyes, faces troubled. But they set out ahead of him, clearing a path.

  The next bridge came down more easily, and the next was easier still. Instead of straining to wrest each pillar from its footings, all he had to do was locate the weakest joints and apply force. Inevitably, they gave. By the last bridge, the strain was starting to wear on him. His head throbbed terribly, a result of his overuse of magic.

  When he had the Promenade sealed off, Gil swung around to observe the scene of desperation on the other side of the water. Caught between the water and an advancing army, the masses of panicked civilians had started flooding into the canal. He doubted many knew how to swim. Gil swore a curse, feeling physically ill. He stood there for a time, shoulders slumped, trembling in despair and weariness. He didn’t look up until he heard the sound of footsteps approaching him from behind. A hand gripped his shoulder

  “That will buy us time,” the Sultan said, drawing up beside him. “We can only hope it will be enough.”

  Horrific screams traveled toward them over the water.

  “Let’s go.” Sayeed motioned his men forward.

  Ashra dropped back to walk at Gil’s side. Her face was pale, her expression glassy. He took her by the arm and said reassuringly, “We’ll make it through this. It’s going to be fine.”

  She jerked her arm away and turned to glare at him in fury. “It is not going to be fine!” She motioned behind them. “Do you know how many people you just sentenced to death?”

  Glancing back, he saw that much of the North City was on fire. The sight of the flames made his soul feel like rot. Around them, the Waterfront was strangely empty, with only scattered bodies telling the tale of the stampede that had passed through only moments before. A lone white dog trotted toward them but grew skittish at the smell of blood and fled. Gil looked to Sayeed, wondering what the Sultan’s next command would be. If it was up to him, he would order the city evacuated. But somehow, he doubted the man would concede so easily.

  As they walked, an unnerving silence settled over the city. The glows of the fires faded, and darkness descended around them.

  15

  A Cup of Poison

  Rylan awoke in a cage.

  Blinking groggily, he sat up and gazed around his prison. The cage was square, only slightly larger than he was tall, with thick iron bars on all sides. It sat in the middle of a long room with rock walls and a floor made of polished wood slats. The same slats made up a ceiling supported by many load-bearing posts. High up on the walls, small windows admitted only the wan glow of moonlight. Other than the cage and a few lanterns, the room was empty. It smelled overwhelmingly of lamp oil and green wood.

  He sat on a thin straw pallet. There wasn’t much in the cage with him; just a wood bucket for waste. Looking around at his strange and stark prison, Rylan couldn’t help wondering where he’d been taken. And how he had gotten there.

  He sat on the pallet, staring at the cage bars, and continued to wonder.

  Minutes wore by.

  Then hours.

  The room was cold, and his silk shirt was too thin to keep the chill out. Shivering, Rylan curled up on the pallet, hugging himself for warmth, and waited for sleep to take him. It didn’t. He was too cold, and his mind was too restless. Again and again, his son’s image came to mind, and with it the relentless pangs of guilt and grief. He thought of his daughter. Was she in a similar cage somewhere? Was she even still alive? Imprisoned, he would never find her. He rubbed his eyes with a trembling hand and rolled over.

  He started, flinching back.

  A woman was kneeling on the floor, just outside his cage. He hadn’t heard her enter. Rylan stood and clutched the iron bars. In the dim light, it took him a moment to recognize her. It was the same woman who had stabbed the Word of Command into his heart. She was wearing a pink silk robe patterned with flowers, curly brown hair spiraling past her shoulders. Her mouth was small, even dainty. So was the rest of her. Her eyes were the color of burnished copper. She sat silently observing him, fingering a stone pendant that hung from a gold chain around her neck.

  Anger stirred deep wi
thin him. No matter how beautiful or exotic this woman was, she had almost killed him on two occasions. People she was associated with had murdered his son and stolen his daughter. She was his enemy. Far more so than any soldier he had ever confronted on the battlefield.

  “What do you want?” Rylan growled.

  The woman stared at him, unblinking. And unanswering. Her expression didn’t change; it was as though she hadn’t heard him. She was choosing to ignore him.

  His rage smoldering, Rylan asked, “You’re the one who tried to kill me. Aren’t you?”

  She continued to stare at him.

  He gripped the bars tighter. “Aren’t you?”

  When she said nothing, his anger swelled.

  “You are,” he growled. “Why?”

  No response.

  “What’s your name?”

  Nothing.

  “What is your name?”

  Still nothing.

  “Why won’t you say anything?”

  Snarling, he let go of the bars and spun away, turning his back on her. He paced away a few feet, wrestling with his anger. The anger won. He whirled back to her.

  “Where’s my daughter?”

  No response.

  “What have you done with her?”

  Silence.

  “Where is she?”

  The woman didn’t blink.

  Rylan surged toward her, catching the cage bars and shaking them violently. He let out an enraged growl. “Why did you kill my son? What do you want from me? Where is my daughter?” Tears of frustration blurred his vision. “Speak, godsdamn you! What do you want?”

  With a frustrated cry, he spun away and sat down on the pallet with his back to her, bringing his hands up to cover his face. He remained like that for minutes, hearing nothing but the sound of his own breathing. He focused on that noise, pinning his concentration on it until his heart slowed its furious pace.

  He heard her footsteps walking away.

  Then, moments later, the sound of the same footsteps returning.