“Is that it, Harzim?” said Karzon. “You're such a craven you'll attack your own countrymen instead of the enemy?”
“Don't be absurd,” said Harzim. “I...”
Karzon rushed him, and soon the two men were locked in combat. Their supporters joined the melee. In the sudden chaos, Caina was forgotten. She circled around the melee, making for the ruined merchant stall. Another few yards, and...
“Halt!”
The voice rang over the fighting, and an Immortal strode toward Caina. For a terrified instant Caina wondered if her disguise had proved inadequate, if the Immortal had discerned her true identity.
But the black-armored soldier stopped a short distance away, and bellowed again.
“Halt!”
Those watching the fight came to attention. Karzon and Harzim stopped fighting, their eyes wide with alarm.
“Miserable fools,” said the Immortal. “At the first sight of the enemy, you turn your backs and flee?”
“I didn't flee,” said Karzon. “I...”
“Silence!” said the Immortal. “If you did not flee, it is curious to find you in the Great Market.” The Immortal shook his head in disgust, blue light glimmering in the depths of the skull-masked helm. “The lot of you should be flayed alive for your cowardice. But the emir has need of you. He has commanded that the Immortals distribute themselves among the infantry and serve as your officers, to show you how true warriors fight. You will form up, and you will march to the Plaza of the Tower. Now!”
The Istarish soldiers hastened to obey, and Caina had no choice but to follow suit. If she tried to run, the Immortal would order the soldiers to kill her. Or the Immortal would simply kill her himself – she could not outrun an Immortal's alchemy-enhanced endurance.
She took her place in the rear of the formation. Karzon and Harzim stood a few ranks ahead of her, glaring daggers at each other, but neither man dared defy the commands of an Immortal.
“We march!” said the Immortal.
The soldiers started forward. They passed the ruined merchant booth, and Caina caught a brief glimpse of Nicolai, still bound and alone, forgotten in the midst of the chaos.
And then the company passed the row of booths, and he disappeared from sight.
Caina gritted her teeth. She had come so damnably close.
Plan after plan flitted through her mind, and she discarded them all as too dangerous. There were too many troops in the Great Market now, too many eyes.
The Avenue of Governors was her best chance. While the streets branching off from the Avenue of Governors were not as narrow or twisty as the alleys in the dockside district, they would still give Caina plenty of locations to hide. She squinted at the sky. It was late afternoon, the sun dipping closer to the western horizon. Soon tangled shadows would fill the streets, giving Caina the chance to use her shadow-cloak to great effect.
And with most of the Istarish troops gone from the Market, Caina could at last rescue Nicolai.
Assuming she could get away from the soldiers.
She marched in the line with the other Istarish troops, watching the others out of the corner of her eye. Other companies converged in the Avenue of Governors, led by individual Immortals, and she joined the mass of troops. Many of them looked demoralized, and Caina suspected they would have kept on fleeing had the Immortals not stopped them. She wondered what had happened. Some sort of counterattack, plainly. Since Corbould Maraeus was probably dead, someone else must have taken command of the remnants of the Nineteenth Legion. One of the surviving tribunes, perhaps?
Or had Halfdan arranged something?
The longer the Legionaries managed to keep the Istarish and the Kyracians from taking the wall, the longer Lord Hiram had to arrive. Caina wished that she had more information, that she had a better idea of what was happening in the city.
But she had her own problems.
The Istarish troops marched up the Avenue, past the equestrian statues of the Lord Governors of Marsis. Caina took a deep breath, and then another, readying herself. A side street opened on her right, lined with the modest homes of middling merchants.
“Look,” said Caina to the man next to her.
The soldier frowned. “What?”
Caina slammed her palm into his face. The soldier staggered back, crashing into the men around him, opening a hole in the ranks.
Caina darted through the opening and ran into the side street.
“Deserter!” shouted one of the Immortals. “A gold coin to whoever brings me the deserter's head!”
“Damn it,” muttered Caina.
With a yell, a half-dozen Istarish soldiers started after her, brandishing their weapons. Caina kept running, ignoring the ache in her legs and chest. Gods, but she had done a lot of running over the last two days. She looked left and right, her mind spinning out a plan. The merchant houses wouldn't do at all for what she had in mind, but...
Yes. There. A long, squat building of red brick stood at the end of the street, ringed with an arcade of square pillars and round arches. Six thick chimneys rose from the building's roof, wisps of smoke rising into the air.
It was a public bathhouse.
Perfect for what Caina hand in mind.
She dashed through the bathhouse's front door and kicked it shut behind her. The interior of the bathhouse was a long, gloomy chamber, the vaulted roof supported by dozens of thick brick pillars. A dozen pools lay scattered around the chamber, some tepid, some steaming. A braziers stood throughout the bathhouse, the sullen light of their dying coals throwing dark, twisted shadows over the floor.
Good.
Caina pulled off her shirt of steel scales and dropped it, the armor clattering. Then she removed the spiked helmet, set it atop the armor, and pulled her black mask in place. The weightless shadow-cloak billowed free behind her, blending and blurring with the shadows.
Caina ducked behind one of the thick pillars and waited.
It was not a long wait. Five Istarish soldiers burst into the bathhouse, weapons in hand. They paused at the entrance, looking over the rippling pools and the flickering braziers.
“This is madness,” said one of the soldiers. “You've heard the stories about that hooded shadow. I'm not going in here.”
“Don't be a coward,” said another Istarish footman. “I saw the deserter come in here, and I want that gold coin for his head.”
“The dead have no use for gold,” said the first soldier, and left.
“Idiot,” said the second soldier. “Spread out and find the deserter!”
The four men spread out.
Caina settled against the pillar to wait, her ghostsilver dagger in hand.
A few moments later one of the soldiers walked past, peering into the nearby pool.
Caina straightened up, clamped a gloved hand over the man's mouth, and opened his throat. She waited until his struggles ceased, and then pushed him into the pool. There was a loud splash, and the man sank, pulled down by the weight of his armor.
The water darkened with blood.
One down.
Caina ducked around the other side of the brick pillar.
The splash drew another of the soldiers, who hurried to the blood-clouded pool.
“What the devil?” the man started to say, until Caina killed him, too, and sent him to join his comrade in the waters.
Two down.
A shout rang out, and the remaining two soldiers ran at her. Caina snatched a throwing knife from her belt and flung the knife, her entire body snapping like a bowstring. The blade caught the soldier in the shoulder, and the man went to one knee with a scream.
Caina buried her next throwing knife in his left eye.
Three down.
The final soldier backed away, terror on his face. For a blank moment Caina wondered what had frightened him so badly. She was alone, and exhausted. But he didn't see a tired young woman, her wrists trembling with fatigue. He saw a hooded and masked shadow, a thing that had slain three of his comr
ades in a matter of moments.
“You...you are the Balarigar,” said the soldier, his voice a moan of terror. “Oh, gods of the desert. I had heard the slaves speak of the Balarigar. But slaves always tell such stories.” The man kept backing away, eyes wide with horror. “I had not thought...oh, gods, I am sorry. Please, please, spare me. I...”
Caina lifted her ghostsilver dagger, blood trickling down the gleaming blade.
“Run,” she said in the rasping voice Theodosia had taught her.
The soldier turned and fled.
Caina watched him go. Part of her wondered if she shouldn't have killed him. Another part suspected it was better to let him go. The man would tell anyone who listened of the hooded shadow. The jumpier the Istarish soldiers were, the better.
And some part of her was tired of killing. She felt no guilt over killing the Istarish soldiers. They had invaded Marsis, killing and burning. They had taken women and children captive, intending to sell them on slave blocks far from their homes. She would kill as many of them as it took to get Nicolai back.
But she was nonetheless tired of killing.
Caina slipped out the back door of the bathhouse. It was only an hour or so until sunset. If she waited until dark, she could enter the Great Market with ease and at last retrieve Nicolai.
Then she could return to Halfdan and decide what to do about Andromache and the Tomb of Scorikhon.
Caina settled in an archway to wait.
At least, she hoped she could enter the Plaza unseen. If there were too many Istarish soldiers there, she would have to think up a distraction.
A big one.
Chapter 21 - Treachery
Kylon's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.
Chaos ruled the Plaza of the Tower. The wreckage of the improvised fortifications still stood, and no one had yet bothered to move the corpses of the slain Legionaries. Bands of Istarish footmen converged on the Plaza, driven by the threats of the Immortals. The Istarish soldiers looked half-panicked, and more than one cast predatory glances in Andromache's direction.
Kylon glared back at them. If they dared to lift a finger against his sister, he would kill them on the spot.
Unless Andromache blasted them to ashes first.
Andromache ignored the stares, her face serene. She strode past the ashtairoi, who waited at the eastern end of the Plaza. Unlike the Istarish soldiers, the ashtairoi remained in formation, and did not have the beaten look of the Istarish soldiers. Unlike the Istarish footmen, Kylon’s countrymen had conducted themselves well in the battle.
Unlike the Istarish, the Kyracians had not bothered chaining women and children as spoils.
They found Rezir Shahan and Kleistheon waiting near the crucified men.
Nine crosses stood in a straight line atop the Legion's improvised earthworks, built from timbers taken from the nearby buildings. A naked Istarish soldier dangled from each cross, steel spikes driven through their wrists and ankles. A few of the men sobbed and begged for mercy, while others simply screamed.
A horrid way to die.
Andromache stopped before Rezir Shahan. “Are we so short of foes, my lord emir, that you must kill your own soldiers to sate your lust for blood?”
Rezir’s anger rippled against Kylon’s senses. “These men showed their back to the enemy and fled. I ordered them crucified as an example to the others. I do not tolerate cowardice.”
“So I see,” said Andromache, face impassive. “I see also that you have suffered a...setback.”
“The Nineteenth Legion was broken!” said Rezir, his rage growing hotter. “They should not have been able to mount a counterattack.”
“Yet they did,” said Kleistheon. “High Seat, we were marching to the northern gate. Then the Legionaries attacked the Istarish column on the Avenue of Champions, striking from multiple side streets.”
Kylon nodded. An audacious attack, but it had succeeded. Whoever now commanded the remnants of the Nineteenth Legion knew how to handle his men.
“Lord Corbould must still be alive,” said Kylon.
Rezir shook his head. “He's not, I'm sure of it. Besides, he wasn't leading the attack. My Immortals reported that a centurion was in command.”
Kleistheon snorted. “Perhaps that centurion ought to be the Lord Commander of a Legion, given easily he thrashed your men.”
Rezir glared. “We were not prepared for that manner of attack. And had your men bothered to bestir themselves, we would have the northern...”
“Enough,” said Andromache. “Kleistheon, exactly what happened?”
“The Legionaries inflicted heavy casualties on the Istarish,” said Kleistheon, “and their column collapsed. They fled so quickly that many of them wound up in the Great Market, and the emir has only now gotten his men under control. Since I did not have enough information, I withdrew the ashtairoi here to wait your commands.”
“You did well,” said Andromache.
“Well indeed,” said Rezir, voice dripping with contempt. “Had you not withdrawn your men, the city would be ours. Your cowardice cost us the northern gate! If we do not move quickly, we will not secure that gate before the Legions return from the north.”
Kleistheon's sneer mirrored Rezir's own. “It is not cowardice to recognize the reality of war. Your men had been routed by a force of unknown size. To charge blindly to your aid would be folly. Especially since the ashtairoi are superior in discipline and training, and wasting them to save your rabble would be an even greater folly. Ten Istarish footmen are worth one Kyracian ashtairoi.”
“Are you in the pay of the Empire, or merely stupid?” said Rezir. “The men attacking my soldiers were clearly the Nineteenth Legion, and there's not much left of the Nineteenth. Had you managed to rouse your precious ashtairoi, we could have rolled up the enemy and taken the walls!”
Kleistheon scoffed. “Do not lecture me on strategy, boy. I held my first sword while your mother was still spreading her legs for sailors and thieves.”
Rezir spat. “And how many decades ago was that? Long ago, plainly, for I see the years have taken both your courage and your manhood, while your wits have vanished into the mists of senility...”
“Impudent dog!” roared Kleistheon, and he drew his sword, and Rezir did the same, and it would have come to violence had not Andromache stepped between them.
“Cease this folly!” said Andromache. “We have foes enough without fighting each other.”
Kylon stepped to Andromache's side, ready to defend her should either Rezir or Kleistheon attack. He did not think Kleistheon would lift his hand against a High Seat. But the gods only knew what someone like Rezir would do.
“Yes,” said Kleistheon. “Forgive me, High Seat, if I spoke out of turn.”
Rezir let out a long breath, but his sense remained hot with rage. “It would indeed be...folly to argue now, before the victory is won.”
“So,” said Andromache. “Let us ensure there is a victory. What is your plan?”
“We must mass all our forces and assault the northern gate,” said Rezir. “The other two Legions of Marsis's garrison could return at any moment. If they can march into the city unopposed, we are finished.”
Andromache nodded. “Your reasoning is sound.”
“Your ashtairoi will have to spearhead the attack,” said Rezir. He scowled. “My men have taken too many losses, especially after the ambush on the Avenue of Champions. My only reliable force is the Immortals, and I do not have enough of them.”
“Kyracian valor and Kyracian steel,” said Kleistheon, glancing at Rezir, “shall accomplish this victory, High Seat.”
Rezir's sword hand curled into a fist, but he said nothing.
“Our scouts report,” said Rezir, “that the remaining men of the Nineteenth, led by this enterprising centurion, have fortified themselves in North Gate Plaza. Digging them out will be a difficult challenge.”
“A flanking attack,” said Kleistheon. “Your men can lead the main attack up t
he Avenue of Champions. The ashtairoi will attack from the side streets and the ramparts themselves.”
“And what of this clever centurion?” said Kylon, voice quiet. “I'm sure he'll have made preparations.”
Kleistheon snorted. “I will find the man and kill him myself. Once he is dead, his soldiers will flee. Men lose faith when their commanders are slain, and the Legionaries know they cannot stand against a stormdancer. Once I kill this centurion, his men will break.”
The Ghosts Omnibus: The Kyracian War Page 23
