Cyron turned the wheeled chair toward the massive map spread over the center of the tower’s floor. Cyron’s grandfather had credited his penchant for playing with toy soldiers as the source of his military acumen. Toys had been painted to represent the various units stationed throughout the city and placed appropriately on the map.
“Highness, we must assume that the units at the gates are gone or soon will be gone. Likely our second line of defense as well. We can already see people coming over the bridges.”
Cyron glanced back south. The nine bridges were choked with refugees. Here and there a cart was pitched over the side. Occasionally a body fell from the spans.
“Perhaps we should have evacuated everyone.”
The count’s voice came in a firm whisper. “We could not have anticipated Nelesquin’s weapons. He did not have them at Tsatol Deraelkun. He did not have them five days ago.”
Cyron shook his head. “But we knew he was coming.”
“It does not matter. It would have been wrong to evacuate everyone.”
“How can you say that?”
“Prince Cyron, I lived my entire life in a fortress. My sole reason for living has been to kill the enemy. Those who lived with me knew no quarter would be asked or given. Had Tsatol Deraelkun fallen, survivors would have been slaughtered. To assume it would be any less here is folly.”
The Prince frowned. “Because everyone is at risk, we shouldn’t make them safe?”
“No. We are at war. To allow any segment of the population to pretend it is safe is dangerous. It makes defending the nation a task for warriors alone. People come to regard them as they might gardeners or other servants. They allow themselves to become insulated from the reality facing them. Either a people is united behind a leader to guarantee the destruction of its enemies, or its effort is futile. If anyone is allowed to think he is exempted from involvement, the war is lost.”
Cyron regarded the sharp-eyed man trapped in a dying body. “There are a lot of children out there.”
“And we shall mourn every single dead child. Our job is to determine how we can best prevent the enemy from killing them.”
Cyron nodded and turned back to the window. He gazed out at the city. He saw it less as a collection of stones piled one on the other than as a web. To the south, strands were fraying and snapping. The city took on a glow—at least the parts of it his forces still controlled—and the disease that was Nelesquin’s invasion darkened the edges.
The bridges over the Gold River, the high arches with their blue gyanrigot lights, they glowed the strongest.
“People produce that glow.”
“Did you say something, Highness?”
“Thinking out loud.” He returned to the map. “We have no choice. We recall our third and fourth lines across the river, then we cut all the bridges save one: the Dragon Bridge.”
Count Derael closed his eyes. “We will get as many people across as we can first, but you are right, this must be done.”
“And so it shall be.” Cyron sighed and waved a clerk forward. “We’ll cut the bridges and anyone caught on the far side, may Grija be kind when he welcomes them into the Underworld.”
Through the book, Keles measured the enemy advance. He clutched the oversized folio against his chest and waved his cousins from the tower. They ran with arms full of charts and maps and diagrams. As long as Keles had his Secret Atlas, he could re-create anything that was lost.
And make sure nothing that has been created will be lost.
His cousins had worked tirelessly. In three days they had largely completed the world atlas. The pages came to him swiftly, and it seemed that each cartographer had pushed to make his chart better than any other. They worked together, adding illustrations and bold legends. Some of the youngest clerks wrote out notes from Jorim’s adventures, and even Qiro’s, which were bound into the atlas in the right places.
Keles had mentioned the project in passing to his mother, and she noted that it was a pity that they’d not done the work on paper made from plant fibers native to the appropriate places. She had some of the plants in the tower garden—the portion of it not yet overrun with tzaden—so they pressed petals between sheets and used some oils to provide scents.
He had to make the world of the book as real as possible. He needed everything—sight, scent, texture, folktales, all the things that gave a place its unique identity. As the pages came in, he studied them and bound them himself. Only he knew all that the book contained, but his cousins were certain they could reproduce their pages. It was this task they were set upon completing when the enemy hit the walls, and the horns and drums from the north sounded a general retreat.
Keles hurried the last of his cousins out of the tower, then shut and locked the golden gate. Tyressa found him there, her armor on and spear in hand. “We have to get going, Keles.”
“Have you seen my mother? She was going to get xunling root for one of the maps. She thought she had it in her workshop or might have to dig it up from the garden.”
“I haven’t seen her.” Tyressa pointed to the stairs. “Go. Check the garden. I’ll check her workshop.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“No, keep going. I’ll catch up. Kojai Bridge. If you get over it, go to Shirikun. You’ll see your mother there again, I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” He reached a hand toward her face.
She stiffened, then smiled. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “Get going. Hurry.”
Keles took the stairs two at a time, then leaped to the landing. He raced out into the garden, bursting through a green tangle of tzaden vines. He fought through, but a few still clung to him.
He stopped. “Mother?”
At the base of the garden steps, a silver skeletal monster held his mother’s broken body. One tentacle wrapped her throat, the other encircled her thighs. Her neck was bent unnaturally.
Behind him a large leathery-winged creature nibbled fruit from a naranji tree.
The monster let his mother’s body spin to the ground. “She wouldn’t tell me where you were. Now it doesn’t matter.” The creature stalked forward and slid a scabbarded sword free of the harness on its back.
“Prince Nelesquin sends his regards, Keles Anturasi. He begs you to come visit him.” The monster grinned. “He has a conflict with your grandfather, and believes you to be the solution to that particular problem.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
30th day, Month of the Eagle, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Moriande, Nalenyr
I glanced left. “Dunos, escort that woman and her children north.”
“No, Master, I am staying with you.”
“Dunos, do as I ask.”
Count Vroan waved dismissively. “Go, child, you will be safe. I shall send a runner with you.”
Dunos thrust out his chin defiantly. “I’m not a coward.”
“So says the blood dripping from your weapons.” The count bowed briefly in his direction. “But you must obey your master. Go.”
I nodded. “Yes, Dunos, go. We must all obey our masters. The count obeys his, and will pay a fearful price for it.”
“Then may I hope, Moraven Tolo, that you will obey your master.”
The voice came softly, yet surprisingly strong, from a small, ancient man huddled beneath an old blanket and a conical straw hat. He moved slowly, supporting himself on an oaken staff taller than he was. He could have been any old man out wandering, save that gauntlets encased his hands.
I started toward him. “Master!”
Vroan laughed. “This is your master? If you learned to fight from this thing, Prince Nelesquin has no reason to fear you.”
Phoyn Jatan laughed with that dry rattle so common among the ancient. “Has my lord never understood that looks can be deceiving?”
“How
am I deceived? You are three. I have many. You might think me deceived, but I have no fear of your killing me.”
My master, small and shrunken, shook his head. “You are not deceived, for I did not come to kill you.” He pointed his staff at the wooden gyanrigot. “I came to kill them.”
I reached his side. “Master, you don’t need to do this.”
He looked up and his hat slipped back. He smiled, his eyes youthful despite his craggy face. “Will you tell me to obey my master?”
“You have none, Phoyn Jatan.”
“But I acknowledge one. You denied me a chance to fight for our empress long ago. Will you do so now?”
A lump caught in my throat. I shook my head.
He unlaced his hat and handed it to me, then shrugged off his blanket. Beneath he wore brilliant golden robes with a coiled dragon in black. Below it rested the Imperial crown. A side from the gauntlets, however, he wore no armor, and he bore no swords.
“You cannot go into combat without arms and armor.”
He raised his voice, directing his comment at the enemy. “Were I fighting Men, I would be dressed as a warrior. These are wooden soldiers, thus I shall be a woodcutter.”
Count Vroan raised a hand, forestalling the gyanrigot advance. “You realize your valor will not save your student?”
“I have no fear for the welfare of my students.” Phoyn smiled at me. “Do you think this courtyard enough of a circle?”
“Yes, Master.” I backed away. A few of Vroan’s men likewise moved back. Word spread through the army, and they withdrew to the courtyard’s edge. They all wanted to watch a Mystic battle the war machines, but none wanted to be caught in the magic.
I handed the hat and blanket to Dunos. “Keep the women and children close. You’ll guide them to the bridge when the time comes.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”
Phoyn Jatan kept the fountain at his back. One of the wooden mantises came forward to oppose him. My master did him the honor of assuming the fourth mantis position, raising the staff to shoulder height and grasping it in both hands.
The wooden machine dwarfed him, mandibles clacking. Its arms ended in the insect’s crushing claws. Limbs had been sharpened and festooned with spikes that could easily impale a man.
Phoyn Jatan remained undaunted. He bowed to his foe, took a mandible-clack as a suitable reply, and began slowly spinning the staff. The motion began clumsily, as one would expect of an old man with stiff joints and atrophied muscles, but as the staff moved more quickly, the motion became fluid. The golden-hued staff blurred into a circle. The air hummed. A golden nimbus surrounded my master. Jaedun surged.
The mantis drew back a half step, almost crushing a hapless Ixunite, then stabbed a claw forward. Phoyn shifted the spin, angling the staff up, as if to parry. The idea that he could succeed defied logic—the staff was a twig deflecting a battering ram. Staff struck claw with a terrible crack. Splinters flew. Two huge chunks of claw bounced past me. My master stood unaffected as the small sawdust cloud settled in a open circle around him.
The mantis pulled back and examined its arm. The ragged stump gave the warrior pause for a heartbeat, then it struck again. It raised the stump as a club and swung hard, intending to pound my master into paste.
Cobblestones shattered under the assault. Count Vroan fell. I went to a knee. Master Jatan did not falter. He leaped forward. The staff whirled left, then shot out to its full length. The knob hit the mantis’ elbow.
Gold fire surged. The limb exploded like a lightning-struck tree. Ixunite warriors reeled away, bristling with splinters. The forearm bounced free, crushing two others.
Master Jatan stepped forward, moving almost too swiftly. Golden flame wreathed him. The staff lashed out to the right, then left. The mantis’ legs disintegrated. More lethal splinters flew.
The mantis, unbalanced and broken, flopped onto its belly. The impact knocked me flying. Its left arm flicked out, crushing the fountain’s basin. Water gushed like blood.
Master Jatan whirled and raised his staff for an overhand blow. He smashed the stick down, catching the mantis at the base of its spine.
The crack came as crisp as that of a well-seasoned log caught beneath a woodsman’s ax. The wood parted just as easily, splitting from pelvis to crown. What had previously been a seamless wooden construct collapsed into a collection of boards and pegs.
And somewhere within its midst, the warrior who had piloted it was crushed by the weight.
The second mantis darted forward, snatching Phoyn Jatan up in its right claw, plucking the staff away with the left. Contemptuously, it snapped the staff, then raised my master toward the sky. The claw contracted, all but cutting Phoyn Jatan in two.
Even his death did not matter. The fire of jaedun gushed down along the wooden arm. It splashed over the body. Droplets spattered thighs and feet. The wooden war machine smoldered for a moment, then exploded in fire. It burned brilliantly for a heartbeat, then imploded into a cloud of fine black ash that choked the courtyard.
And, swords bared, I strode into that cloud.
Keles backed away from the monster. “You expect me to serve a man who condones my mother’s murder?”
“You’re a grown man. You’re well rid of your mother.” The monster smiled. “You will be compensated.”
Keles’ eyes blazed. “You murdered my mother! How could anything compensate for her death?”
“Get away from him, Keles!” Tyressa burst through the tzaden vines and drove at the monster. Her spear whirled in a great arc. The monster tried to parry, but she slipped the head beneath his sheathed sword and brought it up in a slice. The blade quivered and carved metal from its pelvis. Had the monster been anything but a living skeleton, that single blow would have left him kneeling in his own intestines.
The monster’s tentacles lashed out. She ducked one, but the other caught her right ankle. The monster yanked, pulling her down before the spearhead swept through the tentacle. It parted with a ping. Metal rings flew. Tyressa leaped back, kicking the tentacle from her ankle.
The monster bared both of his swords and bore in on her. Tyressa dodged right and left, letting the swords strike sparks from statuary and paving stones. She lunged, snapping a rib, then ducked beneath a tentacle. She favored her right ankle, but moved quickly enough that the monster couldn’t touch her.
“Keles, go. Flee.”
“No, Tyressa, get away from him.” Keles’ flesh had already begun to tingle from the magic pouring from them. He focused on that, working past the shock of his mother’s death. “Go! I will save you.”
The monster’s tentacle snaked out and snapped against Tyressa’s left thigh. It dented the armor plates and knocked her back. She planted her right foot to steady herself, but her ankle broke. The Keru went down awkwardly, her right ankle twisted beneath her. Her spear came up to bat away one sword.
But the other blade passed beneath her desperate parry. Nelesquin’s monster stabbed straight down, piercing the breastplate and punching out past her spine. The blow drove her back hard against the ground and the blade sank to a third of its length in the earth.
“Tyressa!” Keles crashed to his knees. He couldn’t breathe. Tyressa writhed around the sword and pain twisted through his guts. She can’t die. She can’t.
The monster turned, his face a snarl. “No more games, Keles Anturasi, you’re coming with me.”
The black cloud parted. I stood above Count Linel Vroan. The family crest had bubbled and peeled off his armor. The same thing had happened with much of his face. The fire had blinded him, but he didn’t need eyes to know who I was.
He held a hand up. “Let me stand so I can die like a man.”
“To die like a man, you once had to be one.” I took his head in one stroke. It rolled away. I kicked his body for good measure, then I stalked forward, looking for more men to kill.
A few of them came, imagining themselves to be br
aver than their master. This does not say much for them. Those were the stupid ones, and they died easily. The smartest had run when my master had engaged the war machines.
I quickly exhausted my foes, but there were screams and the sounds of combat to the northeast. I sprinted over, straight into the ass end of a Ixunite formation. Though the Ixunites were grown men and trained as soldiers, a small group of students drove them back. With their master slain, the students of Serrian Jatan had no reason to grant mercy.
Nor did I. A thrust here, a slash there, and men went down screaming. Suddenly aware of an assault from the rear, the last of Vroan’s soldiers panicked and fled.
“Serrdin of Serrian Jatan, join me.” I pointed a bloody sword north. “We must cross the river.”
Their leader, Eron Jatan, saluted me and sent his charges toward where Dunos waited. Beyond them lay Ixunite corpses and a few wounded, each feathered by Deshiel Tolo’s archers. I noticed an arrow stuck in a building further along. “Follow those arrows north.”
I ran with the others through streets strewn with the debris of war. Wounded people limped along, sometimes helped by friends and strangers. Others, mostly the elderly, sat beside buildings, heads tucked between their knees, their hands wrapped over their heads, sobbing. Dogs ran free, forming the packs that would feast on the dead. One mongrel even raced past me with Vroan’s head held by an ear.
Things became worse the closer we got to the span of the Tiger Bridge. The Wolf span, parts of which were visible around a shallow curve in the river, wavered and twisted. I couldn’t tell why, but the reason was soon apparent. The whole bridge collapsed much as the first wooden mantis had.
The crowd wailed at the bridge’s failure. People shouted. Fistfights broke out. Men knocked aside children, old women, and pregnant girls. A gang lifted one cart and threw it over the River Road South wall. People surged into the opening, but the crowd barely moved any further.
“Dunos, Eron, with me. We’re going to the bridge.”
The New World Page 28
