Then the sailor pitched forward. His foot caught in the barricade and he sprawled down over it, head hanging, arms limp, hands trailing on the ground.
A sword had cut open the man’s back from shoulder to hip.
Borund gasped, jerked away, bile rising in the back of his throat. He stood there, trembling, his mouth working but no sound coming out. Sweat broke out over his entire body, and the pounding of his heart in his veins escalated, drowned out the sounds of battle, the screams and clash of swords. He felt suddenly cold.
He stood shaking for a long moment, the world reduced to nothing but the bloody gash on the sailor’s back and the thunder of his heart.
Then he dropped his own sword as if it had caught fire . . . and he ran.
I felt a momentary flash of anger, almost reached out from the Fire and seized control of him, forced him to pick up the sword, to charge onto the dock as William had done.
But then the anger died.
I let Borund go, watched him flee into the streets behind the wharf in panic. I couldn’t stay here and force him to fight; Amenkor needed me for other things. Fighting was Borund’s choice.
I pulled back from the docks, scanned down the length of the wharf at the twelve Chorl ships and the pitched battles going on everywhere.
A horn sounded. A heavy, deep, sonorous note that held and held, then faded.
I glanced up and frowned at the horizon, where the sun was just beginning to rise.
None of our signals were horns.
Then I froze, my gut clenching. The stench of Borund’s panic filled my nostrils as I sucked in a deep breath, but I fought the sensation back.
At the entrance to the harbor, where twin towers of smoke rose into the sky against the dawn from the smoldering watchtowers, more ships were gliding into the bay. A massive ship, half again as large as one of Borund’s trading ships, led the group, other smaller ships fanning out behind it. These ships were not as sleek as the initial attack ships, but they were definitely Chorl. Hulls painted black, decks packed with blue-skinned warriors, the smaller ships began to edge out in front of the lead ship, sails billowing out in the breeze coming from the sea. The lead ship’s sails were white, some type of spiny shell painted on the largest in yellows and golds.
A man dressed in yellow robes on the lead ship raised another shell to his mouth and the horn sounded again, echoing across the water, throbbing in my ears. A woman stood next to him, dressed in iridescent blues this time, her ears ringed with gold.
The Ochean.
Deep inside, I felt the Fire pulse, its warning flames licking upward. I shivered at their frigid touch.
On the dock below, the Chorl renewed their attack in a frenzy. Our lines were pushed back. Someone called for a retreat and the Amenkor men scrambled back behind the barricade and attempted to hold there.
I rose higher into the dawn, despair washing over me as I watched the Ochean’s second wave of ships flooding into the harbor, spreading like oil on water. The battle between the trading ships and the first Chorl ships in the middle of the bay had thinned, at least half of the ships on both sides burning. Debris floated on the surface, bobbing in the waves. And bodies. Dozens of bodies. Some clinging to flotsam, others simply floating, empty faces turned to the lightening sky.
The Ochean’s ship reached the remains of the ships and slowed, edging through the wreckage. The conch-shell horn continued to sound at steady intervals, like a death knell. Some of the survivors in the water shouted out to the passing ships, but they were ignored, Chorl and Amenkor alike. The fighting on the decks of the remaining ships paused as the fleet slid past, the faces of the men exhausted, hope dying in the Amenkor men’s eyes as they were surrounded.
I sped back to the wharf, saw the men at the barricade falter as the new wave of ships came into view, hidden before by the smoke and fire and ships of the first wave and their battle. The Chorl pressed harder, broke through the barricade to the south, near the half completed warehouse district, blue-skinned men spilling through the gap and onto the wharf and the streets beyond like ink, Amenkor men racing toward the walls of the palace before them. And with that one break, the entire barricade began to crumble.
I watched as the new Chorl ships drew up to the remains of the docks and the wharf, watched as planks were lowered and more of the Chorl warriors disembarked, flooding the wharf with men. And with them came the Chorl Servants, dressed in pale greens, shell necklaces around their necks, gold earrings glinting in the early morning sunlight. The Ochean strode down onto the wharf surrounded by Servants and surveyed the barricade, still loosely held in a few locations.
She motioned to a few of the Servants, who broke off with warrior escorts of their own and spread out along the barricade and the pockets of resistance that remained.
Once in place, they raised their arms and I felt the river gathering, felt it being manipulated.
William, I thought with horror, my gut wrenching. I didn’t know if he was still down there, or if he’d fled when the line began to break. I couldn’t find him either. He hadn’t been one of those tagged with the Fire.
I wanted to close my eyes as the pressure on the river built, wanted to lash out. But I knew it was useless. I couldn’t stop all of the Servants, couldn’t hope to hold them back. And there was no one close who’d been tagged with the White Fire in any case. I couldn’t manipulate the river when Reaching unless I worked through the Fire.
Save your strength, the voices of the throne whispered.
I cried out when the Servants released the pressure—in despair, in frustration.
Amenkor was dying. I could see it. I could feel it.
Fire exploded from the hands of the Servants, rushing forward to slam into the barricades, enveloping Chorl warriors and Amenkor defenders alike. Fresh screams rose into the air with the scent of burned flesh and oily smoke.
“Fall back!” someone bellowed—the captain from the initial attack, still alive, blood covering one eye from a cut across his forehead. “Fall back to the second barricade!”
The Amenkor resistance held a moment more . . . and then lurched back, the men retreating slowly at first, then breaking into a run as the Servants released more fire.
I shifted, glared down at the Ochean as she climbed over the remains of the barricade accompanied on the left by a man I didn’t recognize dressed in yellow robes, holding some type of reed scepter, his face twisted into a scowl. They were surrounded completely by blue-skinned warriors.
I did recognize the warrior to the Ochean’s right. Circular tattoos on his cheeks; a ragged half ear.
He was the one who’d led the attack on The Maiden, the one who’d met with Alendor in the cove and taken our food.
I spun, flashed past the Chorl as they entered the lower streets beyond the wharf, searched the lower city for flares of the White Fire, for a particular flame . . . and found it.
I dove down, seized control of Captain Westen’s body where he watched the wharf from the rooftop of a building. A group of twelve Seekers, both young and old, surrounded him.
I turned to them, eyes flashing. “This is the Mistress. The Chorl have broken through the barricade on the wharf and entered the lower city. They have their Servants with them, dressed in green. They’ll be heading this way. I want you to target the Servants. Take out as many as you can before they reach the marketplace.”
The Seekers nodded, faces settling into the same dark, dangerous look I’d seen on Erick’s face so often beyond the Dredge. These men and women didn’t radiate fear. They were strangely empty of emotion, all of it crushed.
Erick had never felt as depthless to me as most of the Seekers did now. But perhaps I had simply known him better, longer. Perhaps the emotions were there, just hidden deeper than usual.
The Seekers scattered, descending from the rooftop and spreading out in the streets below. I followe
d their movements for a moment through Captain Westen’s eyes, then released him, lingering behind in the Fire.
Westen shuddered, closed his eyes and bowed his head, breathing in deeply.
When he’d recovered, his mouth twisted in a tiny smile. “Well,” he murmured. “That was certainly strange.”
Then he shifted, all thought centering on the hunt. He reached down into the shadows of the roofline at his feet and drew forth a crossbow and a pouch containing steel bolts. Slinging the pouch over one shoulder, so that the opening rested on his hip, within easy reach, he sprinted in a low crouch along the edge of the roof to a corner, scanned in the direction of the wharf, where thick columns of smoke now rose into the lightening sky from the burning barricade. Hooking the crossbow to his belt, he slid over the edge of the roof, holding onto the stone abutment, then climbed down the brick wall like a spider.
He jumped the last few feet, crouched down in the alley’s entrance, then darted across the street, heading toward the wharf.
A moment later, he heard running footsteps and ducked into the shadows of a doorway, absolutely still as a group of Amenkor guardsmen tore by, mingled with a few random citizens, all bloody, some wounded. The sounds of the battle were growing nearer.
Once they’d passed, Westen took a quick look out into the street, then to the door at his back. He eyed it carefully, then stepped back a pace and kicked the door in.
He moved into the interior rooms as the piercing cries of the Chorl rose on the street behind him. Without turning, he strode into the back rooms, found the stairs to an upper floor and sprinted up those, noticing that the stairs continued to the roof before moving again to the front of the building.
Sidling up to a window, he glared down onto the street, watched ranks of Chorl move past, wincing at their harsh, barked commands. None entered any of the buildings, continuing on down the street, in pursuit of the fleeing guardsmen.
Westen grunted, settled down next to the window so that he’d be hidden in the shadow of the room, then reached out and swung the window outward.
The breeze brought with it smoke and blood as well as the taint of sea salt.
Westen ignored it all, pulled out his crossbow, and proceeded to load a bolt.
He scanned the room—a bed, two dressers, a wardrobe, a table with a jewelry box and a chair. Reaching out, he dragged the chair closer to the window and sat, angling the crossbow down to cover the street.
He began to wait.
His mind flickered through numerous images as he listened to the sounds coming from the street. Foremost was a woman, her hair a light brown and her eyes green, smiling as she held out a sheathed dagger. A child clutched her leg and she ruffled the boy’s hair. Concern bled through Westen’s cold Seeker reserve as he thought about them, and I suddenly realized it was his wife and child. I hadn’t known he had a family, found it surprising that any of the Seekers had families.
More images of the two flashed by, mixed with worry that they’d made it to the palace in time. Then he shoved those thoughts aside and concentrated on the sounds in the street. They were getting closer. He could hear explosions in the distance, wondered how the other Seekers were faring.
Smoke drifted down the street and he tensed, leaned forward, and shifted the crossbow.
Shouts, in the strange language of the Chorl, and then the street was flooded with Chorl warriors, this batch moving slowly, swords drawn, escorting—
Westen didn’t smile, didn’t react in any way, but all thoughts of his family, of the other Seekers, of everything but the street below faded away. His vision seemed to narrow as he concentrated, as my vision narrowed on the river, but without the strange textures of the river that told me so much. He edged the crossbow to the left, then down, sighted on the flash of green among the blues and browns of the Chorl warriors. The Servant’s face came into focus, the skin smooth, tinted the palest of blues, the lips a much darker blue. Her eyes flashed left and right as the group moved, her jaw set in a stern line. Three gold earrings glittered in each ear, and there was a trace of a tattoo at the edge of her throat, hidden beneath the iridescent green dress.
For a moment, Westen hesitated.
But the image of his wife and child resurfaced, followed by a flood of hatred for these invaders.
He pulled the crossbow’s trigger.
He was moving before the bolt struck the Servant in the chest, flinging her backward, her arms flailing outward, her face startled. A roar erupted from the Chorl in the street. He heard them entering the building below, furniture crashing to the floor as it was thrust aside, and then he was at the stairs leading to the roof, sprinting up them two at a time. He burst out through the trapdoor to the rooftop, hauled himself up into a roll, then slammed the trapdoor back down into place and dashed across to the roof’s edge.
In the street below, he caught a brief image of Chorl surrounding the fallen Servant in a rough circle, their faces enraged as they searched for the culprit. The Servant’s face was slack, her green dress stained a dark, grisly black-red, the bolt sticking out just above her left breast, directly over her heart.
Then Westen leaped from the roof, thudding down hard onto the roof next door, rolling back up into a sprint.
Just before I withdrew from Westen, I felt a surge of satisfaction from him at the Servant’s death.
I lifted up, surveyed the scene in the lower city, saw buildings on fire in three different locations, saw two other Seekers streaking across rooftops or edging through the back streets, all of them retreating slowly to the marketplace and the second line of barricades as the Chorl advanced. But the Seekers were slowing the Chorl down. Their groups weren’t running from street to street anymore, the Servants held back as the Chorl warriors sent out advance parties to flush out the Seekers before they struck. As I watched, one Seeker’s bolt took a Servant in the shoulder, too high for a killing stroke, and the Servant lashed out, the flare of pain and fury as she unleashed the fireball like a slap in the face. The fireball exploded on the second floor of the house, heat searing upward, the blast so powerful the windows burst outward, glass shards flying down into the street. But the Seeker was already sprinting away through a back narrow, cursing himself under his breath.
Closer to Amenkor’s River, the Chorl had almost made it to the second barricade.
I sped toward the marketplace, found Captain Catrell, slid into the Fire at his core.
They’re almost here, I said.
He grunted in surprise at my voice, those men nearest him frowning. “Mistress?”
Westen and the Seekers have slowed them down, but they’re going to reach the second barricade any moment. You won’t be able to hold it long. The Ochean’s Servants will break through it.
“Then we’d better prepare our own Servants for some defense,” he said under his breath. He barked orders and three page boys took off at a run. One came back almost immediately, Marielle in tow, her white Servant robes discarded and replaced with ordinary breeches and a brown shirt. The white robes would have been too easy to target. I’d wanted my own Servants to meld into the fray.
To be gray.
The guardsmen surrounding Catrell parted as Marielle stepped forward. She was shaking, her face a mask of terror. I thought of Borund, my heart dropping.
“You’ll be fine,” Catrell said.
Marielle snorted, but I reached out on the river and touched her through the Fire, abandoning Catrell, saying, Catrell is right, you’ll be fine.
Marielle relaxed instantly, keeping her voice low. “I didn’t want to go on the ship.”
I frowned. What?
“The ship. The Maiden. I thought, in your chambers when you were tagging Erick, I thought you were going to put me on the ship, too. I was terrified. But Laurren went instead, and I was so relieved.” I felt her gut twist with pain and grief. “And look what happened to her! I shoul
d have gone instead! She should be here, defending the city, not me!”
But she isn’t here, I said. You are.
“Here they come,” Catrell said quietly, his voice grim, no sign that he thought Marielle conversing with herself was strange entering his voice. Then he bellowed out orders, men shifting up to the edge of the barricade on all sides.
Marielle’s terror had returned, supplanting her grief.
You know what you have to do, I said.
She shuddered, then shook herself. Her shoulders straightened, and she glared out at the empty marketplace before the barricade.
Chorl began pouring from the streets into the square. Marielle closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath to steady herself—
And I felt the river shift, felt it gather in a wall before the barricade. An invisible shield centered at Catrell’s position and extending in both directions for at least twenty feet.
I grunted.
“A Chorl Servant,” Catrell said, motioning with his sword.
I glanced in that direction, frowned as the woman emerged from the side street, thankful there was only one. The Chorl warriors around her halted, leaving a wide open space between her and the barricade.
She raised her arms, the green of her sleeves flapping in the breeze. I felt the river gather, heard Marielle whimper.
And then fire exploded toward the barricade.
The men cried out, lurched back, and ducked behind the makeshift barrier, but Catrell held steady, his face grim, his jaw clenching.
The fire struck Marielle’s wall, and she gasped, wincing. I resisted the urge to help her, bit back a sharp sickening memory of Laurren, of feeling her burn to death. But Marielle held the wall tight, shunting the fire upward as she’d been taught so that it shot harmlessly into the air over the heads of those behind the barricade, heat radiating downward in palpable waves.
The Throne of Amenkor Page 67
