I wished I could believe that.
“My father keeps our weapon secure,” Lee said. “Nothing will happen to it.”
There wasn’t a weapon on the planet that could keep those golems back. Was there? But if there was, that could explain why they were moving so slowly.
“You shouldn’t be so sure,” I said. “You should be worried like I am. You should be leaning here on the battlement just like me, assessing the threat and trying to find a way out of it.”
Where were those threads of the future now when I needed to see them spin? All I saw still was that one soft spot and no way to press on it at all.
Lee chuckled. “I don’t have to, Tor Winespring. Look down at that tower.” He pointed to the figures Katalana was joining on the battlement below. “My father watches with his guard. He looks. He assesses. You think you are the only one here who cares? How like a young man! We watch. We care. Even now, my father prepares contingencies in case Eventen is wrong.”
The pattern sprung up at his words and it seemed to me as if it was brighter – thicker – more certain than before and that soft spot ... it was shrinking.
As Katlana crossed the last steps to the Castelan on the battlement, the spot grew smaller and smaller and suddenly I knew.
“Lee, your father wouldn’t happen to be the weapon, would he?”
I should have listened to my mimic. I should have killed her. But he didn’t know what I knew – that I was no murderer.
Katlana was. And if my hunch was right, she was about to do the one thing she couldn’t have done from the outside. She was about to cripple this city and destroy its defenses in one blow.
“As if I’d – ”
“Stop!” the word was wrenched from my throat, but I couldn’t possibly have screamed loudly enough or run fast enough to make a difference. “Stop her!”
Already, a green orb danced in Katlana’s hands, expanding and rising to cover her, and still expanding alike a green bubble in a world-sized swamp.
The Castelan spun, his guards running forward, his own hands springing up and lightning forming in them as he prepared his defense. Katlana’s bubble was too quick. It swallowed them and the entire top of the tower in the space of a heartbeat.
Lee was still gasping beside me – still not able to form his own words – when the bubble rippled and then a boom shook the skycity, flinging us both backward.
I flew through the air, landing hard on the stone tower top. My ears were ringing, sound upon sound. Light flared and popped in bursts across my vision. Colors and sensations rocked me.
No time, Tor! No time to be dazed.
I shoved myself to my feet, rocking dangerously. I didn’t know if it was the tower swaying under me or my own balance but there wasn’t time for that – not for any of that.
I stumbled forward, my steps splaying out like a newborn animal. I caught myself on the stone battlement and leaned forward, gripping the stone hard to avoid pitching over the side.
I needed to see. I needed to know.
The top of the tower below was gone. Dust, falling masonry and a rising cloud were all that was left where once a tower had stood.
Chapter Twelve
A wavering hand clapped onto my shoulder and I looked back to see Lee Estabis yelling something at me. I couldn’t hear him. My ears rang too hard to hear anything.
All I felt was shock just like his. What could have done that? What insane magic would tear apart a tower and the people in it in the blink of an eye?
Around the base of where the tower had stood people scrambled like ants from a kicked anthill in the orange glow of the setting sun. Some ran from the still-tumbling masonry. Some rushed forward, helping people out of the wreckage.
I felt a pull from far in the distance. I tore my eyes away from the chaos below to look for the pull. I gasped, a tight grip clenching around my chest, choking all air from me as I struggled with what I saw.
The golem army was no longer creeping forward. They sped toward us dragon-fast. Whatever they had been waiting for had happened. Castelan Estabis must have been the secret weapon. Katlana had known that. And somehow these golems knew it, too.
Fear shot up my spine, clouding my mind with a surge of clawing, desperate fear. I wanted to run. I wanted to leap off the tower onto Saboraak and fly away. I wanted to fly as far and as fast as she could go and we’d worry about what to eat or drink or what to do next when we were far, far from this army of mindless, heartless magic creations.
But where would we go? Would they not wash over city after city until there was nothing left in the Dominion but shadow cities? And then what? Would they surge south to the Lands of Haz’drazen and take the dragons next? Could even a dragon army stand up to them?
I looked back to the fallen tower. Ours swayed, still rocking from the blow to its sister tower. Katlana did that. That was her one powerful sacrifice, wasn’t it?
What would mine have to be?
Lee shook my shoulder and his words were starting to penetrate.
“Coming ... fast!”
Yeah. I noticed that, big guy. I might not be a mighty Castelan but I could see Death rushing toward us on a thousand legs as easily as the nobly born.
“You should run,” my mimic said, picking at his nails as if this was no concern to him. “You can, you know. These other poor fools are stuck here. Don’t be like Katlana. Sacrifice is for zealots. You’re no zealot.”
But Katlana was my fault. She said she had let me capture her so that I would bring her here for this exact purpose. She needed access. She needed me. And I’d played into her hands like a fool.
I ground my teeth, nodding to Lee’s gestures to follow him. I wasn’t running anywhere. This was my fault. And it was up to me to fix it.
I wasn’t one of those responsible people who cared for other people more than themselves, but even I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I fled right now. I had a powerful dragon while there were still kids on those streets who were just like I had been when Vanika fell – powerless and resourceless. How could I just run away and leave them here?
I gritted my teeth and chased after Lee. He was fast. Faster than you’d expect from a hulk of muscle and metal.
He ran down the steps so fast that I was certain one of us was going to trip. As soon as we hit the floor of the corridor below, he skidded into a full sprint. It was all I could do to keep up, huffing and fighting for breath as he yelled orders to servants and guards along the way.
“The city is under attack! Report to your commanders, men!” he yelled as we passed the guards.
“Gather in the kitchens!” he called to the servants, adding frustrated remarks as they tried to gather their things. “The broom won’t save you! Leave it! Hurry!”
Older servants frowned at first but leapt at his fierce calls.
We practically flew when we came to the next staircase. There were nobles here in the upper apartments. Lee was no gentler with them.
“Are we under attack, Castelan Estabis?” one of the women asked grandly, her nose held high.
“Gather in the kitchens,” he barked.
“The kitchens?” the man beside her looked outraged. There was a knot of them there, men and women, young and old, clustered in a clutch of pride and skepticism.
Lee grabbed the man by the coat, pulling him in close.
“You like living, Castelan Fabinis? Then get to the kitchens and take these others with you!”
“Our things ...” the older woman began but he cut her off.
“Can be replaced! Can your daughter be replaced?” He pointed to a pretty girl with long dark hair and slanted eyes.
Their faces firmed and they began to nod, already hurrying off to do as he’d told them.
Lee Estabis, it occurred to me, was a good leader.
Maybe he didn’t need me after all.
We hurried down the corridor, leaving people scurrying in our wake, turning to rush down the next stairway. I’d ended up in fron
t of Lee somehow. I barrelled through the corner and ran smack into Zyla.
“Tor!” her face was pale with surprise and then she threw her arms around me and kissed me.
“We’re in trouble,” I said when we broke apart.
“I thought you were dead!”
“Oh, it’s worse than that.”
Lee Estabis snorted a laugh.
“Lenora is gathering the people in the kitchens and storerooms. From there we can access the city stem and start to ferry people below to where I can guide them in the warrens,” Zyla said. “The entrance to the warrens is in the base of the city stem.”
I knew that. I’d helped the Dominar find the base of Vanika so that she could take that same journey. I seemed to remember that not everyone had survived it.
“Zyla,” I said, gripping her hand – maybe a bit too tight. She flinched. “The warrens are dangerous.”
The determined look that filled her face looked like it was chiseled from rock. “They’re the only chance we have of getting anyone out at all, Tor. How long do you think we have?”
“Hours?”
“Maybe less,” Lee said grimly.
“We need you to organize the people above. Funnel as many as you can to us in the Castel storerooms and we will take them to the warrens. We didn’t finish the evacuation plan and we’re just going to have to work with what we have. Lenora will organize them above and I will lead the expedition. She already has a squad of guards assigned to help me.”
“You’ll need more than that,” I said.
“We’ll need them as badly here,” Lee said quietly.
I swallowed. I didn’t want to think about what we were all thinking. Estabis was a big city. And it was filled with innocents. Children so small they couldn’t walk on their own. Pregnant mothers. Big-eyed children no higher than my waist. There was no way we could possibly get them all out.
“You have to go right now. We’re wasting precious seconds,” I said, kissing the top of her head. It felt physically painful to send her away – like part of me was being ripped away. “Be careful in those caverns, Zyla. You aren’t invincible, you know.”
She nodded. “Don’t die, Tor.”
I kissed her quickly, but intensely, trying to pour every bit of my desperate hope for her into one kiss.
“You, too, Zyla.”
Her last smile was glassy through tears. She squeezed my hand and then she was running past Nostar as he trotted up the stairs toward us.
“What’s the hold up here?” he asked.
People jostled by us, trying to get below, like fish around rocks in a current.
“My wing is gathering any spare dragons to fly through the city and send civilians here,” Nostar said. “The Captain of the Guard is looking for Castelan Lee Estabis. We can’t find your father.”
“My father,” Lee’s face grew tight with emotion. “My father is dead.”
Nostar nodded briskly. “Then now more than ever you are needed in the war room. Go. We will deal with alerting the civilian population and evacuating as best as we can while you prepare the defenses.”
Lee nodded and was already rushing down the stairs before Nostar could grip my forearm. “You take the north section with Saboraak. Start close and move out.”
“Shouldn’t I start at the perimeter where people have the furthest to flee?”
He shook his head.
“There’s going to be a bottleneck in the stem of the city already. They can only lower people down to the warrens so quickly. We need to keep the flow of people steady so they don’t arrive all at once. Besides,” he leaned in close. “Lenora only has so many guards to enforce her decisions.”
“Decisions?”
He looked around to be sure no one was listening, but there was no guarantee of that. The people pushing past us were thinning now that most on this level had already fled, but there were still some.
“Not everyone can go, Tor. There isn’t time.”
I gritted my teeth. That was going to get ugly. I could see what he meant. If there was a choice between sending a man who could fight or a child down below, Lenora would send the child. There would be families torn apart and single men furious at being forced to stay. It would be ... heartbreaking. And violent.
I nodded, but the horror of the day was already filling me, echoing through my bones like the explosion Katlana had caused that changed everything. All of this – and all that would come. It was all my fault.
I followed Nostar silently to the nearest balcony. Our dragons were on their way and then the grim work of this night would soon begin.
Chapter Thirteen
I didn’t see Nostar again until hours later.
I clung to Saboraak’s saddle as the press of bodies rushed against me.
“Slowly!” I called through a raw throat. “Slowly and orderly or you will trample people to death! Flaming –!”
I cut the curse off only by almost biting my own tongue. I was sweaty and exhausted and Saboraak couldn’t stop shifting with nerves at every rush of wind.
I worry that Tachril will fall before I see him again.
I rolled my eyes. Tachril would be fine. He was thousands of pounds of dragon and able to take flight at any moment. Unlike the people who passed me clinging to the few possessions they could scoop up on the way.
None of this feels right, Tor.
Of course it wasn’t right. Even my belly felt sick and knotted.
“It will be okay,” I said aloud, rubbing the scales of her neck.
I wiped my brow with my sleeve. I didn’t even bother to cover the bright markings on my face. The eyes of every new person I met widened the moment they saw them, but the moment I started speaking and explaining what was on the horizon, all thought about my looks vanished in the desperate dash for survival.
Perhaps the markings even added weight to a stranger’s words. After all, if the end had come, wouldn’t strange beings come with it to announce the need to flee?
Or maybe I was just hallucinating from exhaustion. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’d thought I’d seen Eventen duck into a guardhouse three cross-streets away a few hours ago. And then I thought I’d seen him again flying his dragon in the skies high above. I was certainly hallucinating.
Guilt hammered at me every time a wailing child was carried past or a wide-eyed parent asked if there would be time to flee.
There wouldn’t be. Not for everyone.
I already knew that, but I couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t accept it.
“You should be gone already.” As my strength weakened, the mimic’s strength seemed to grow. He dogged my path now, speaking doubt into every minute. “It’s common sense. You’ve done your best here. And someone needs to fly out and warn the surrounding cities.”
Lee Estabis would see to that. I’d already seen two purples leave the city. Likely, he’d sent them out to warn the neighboring cities. Purples were fast. Their riders used to carrying urgent messages. They would do the job.
I rubbed my brow again.
“Make space there! There’s no point carrying all that. You’ll be exhausted before you reach the Castel. Drop it to the side and move on!” My voice wasn’t made for barking, but bark it did.
I’d been working my way out from the center and I was nearly at the perimeter. Most of the traffic traveled against me, but every so often Saboraak had to leap aside as a line of men went past. There were men armed and armored, and then when they ran out there were groups armed more haphazardly, and then as those ran out there were men sent out armed only with work implements – crowbars, shovels, axes, blacksmith hammers, pitchforks. They pushed past me to the places they’d been stationed by Estabis’ commanders.
They knew what they were doing – whatever that was. Hardened officers nodded to me on their way past. There was only one or two with each group of commandeered civilians. They would have to do – though what use would they be against golems?
They had buckets of tar and tor
ches. Perhaps they planned to set them alight.
I watched them, simply glad not to be the one to lead these men to their deaths. That was a dirty business. Leading fathers and sons to slaughter. I felt ill just thinking about it.
Instead, I was leading women and children to their deaths – or that’s how it felt. How many of those I warned would see safety?
I gritted my teeth at the thought and forced aside the almost overwhelming feeling of helplessness that came whenever I thought of it. Zyla wouldn’t be thinking like that. She was already down in caverns beneath the earth in the dark and cold, leading a dangerous escape through a terrifying underground world. And she was probably standing at the head of the procession like a conquering hero, face alight with hope and hands raised high with courage.
I held onto that thought of her. If nothing else, her bold plan had accomplished one thing that I hadn’t realized I needed until now – it had kept her from what was coming.
Be safe, Zyla. Be bright and courageous somewhere far from here.
I could feel the golems closing in. They were at the stem of the city waiting. I didn’t know what they were waiting for, but I knew that with every delay we lost the chance for one more civilian to be safe.
I found the last row of houses against my assigned portion of the perimeter and I stood high in the stirrups, cupping my hands around my mouth.
“Any citizens of Estabis in these dwellings are ordered to take shelter in the Castel. Attack is imminent!” It was the same thing I’d shouted on every street along the way, ringing the bell I’d found at a butcher’s shop every time to get attention. My throat was raw and painful from shouting and my voice creaked from wear and tension.
I rang the bell, but there were few people left. Even at night, news travels. People had seen the commotion. They’d heard the soldiers rushing past and the commandeered men jangling with unfamiliar equipment. There were few left.
Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 9-12 Page 5
