“Maybe you should be afraid!” shouted a soldier. “You've got your Immortals, but there are more of us than there are of them.”
Rezir sneered. “You have seen me in battle. You know steel cannot harm me!”
“Aye,” said the soldier, “but we can still tie you up and leave you as a gift for the Imperials.”
“Idiots,” said Rezir. “Do you think the Imperials would reward you? That they would pay you a bounty and send you on your way with grateful thanks? If we lose this battle, they will kill you all without mercy.”
Caina paused, ducking behind a ruined wagon. She was halfway to the ruined stall. No one had seen her. Even the captives were watching the argument among the Istarish. Just a little further...
“Follow me,” said Rezir, “and Marsis will be yours. Its treasures will be yours. Its women will be yours. The western Empire shall be ours, its lands divided among us. All this will be yours.” The anger in his voice rose. “But only if you find the courage to defeat the enemy!”
“How are we to defeat such foes?” said another soldier. “They killed one of the stormdancers!”
Caina blinked in surprise, wondering if Kylon had been slain.
“Even without the stormdancer, you still outnumber the foe five to one,” said Rezir. “Are you so unmanned that you cannot face a beaten enemy?” Scorn dripped from his voice. “Shall the world say that the Kyracians are bolder men than the Istarish? For the Kyracians have not quailed from the fight.”
“Then why are you here,” said another soldier, “looking for the Kyracian storm witch?”
Caina slid around the ruined wagon. Only ten yards left. The ruined merchant stall loomed before her. Just a little further...
“Balarigar!”
Caina froze.
A captive woman sat twenty feet away, her bound hands outstretched. To judge from her ragged clothes, she had been the cook of a prosperous merchant or minor noble. Two children huddled around her, pale and terrified.
“Do not forsake me, I beg of you!” said the woman. “I heard from the Szalds how you threw down the great demon. Please do not leave my children! Please!”
Caina looked around, fearing that the woman’s cries would draw attention. Yet Rezir and his soldiers still shouted at each other, their confrontation on the verge of turning into a small battle. Caina couldn't stop to help this woman. She had to save Nicolai. She owned Ark and Tanya that, she...
“Balarigar,” moaned the woman, “please.”
Caina could no more leave this woman in chains than she could Nicolai.
Besides, if Caina did not act quickly, the captive woman and her children would make enough noise to draw the soldiers’ attention.
“Quiet,” hissed Caina. She hurried to the woman and her children. Thick, tough ropes bound their wrists, the sort slavers bought to save on the cost of chains.
But the ropes proved no match for Caina's ghostsilver dagger.
“Go,” rasped Caina. “Quietly. Don't draw attention to...”
The woman seized her children and ran. The Istarish didn't notice.
But the other captives did.
Hundreds of eyes turned in Caina's direction. A murmur started among the slaves. She heard the word “Balarigar” repeated, over and over again.
At first a murmur.
And then thousands of voices shouting it at once, like a prayer or a battle cry.
That got the attention of the Istarish.
###
Rezir stopped speaking, his scowl deepening.
Bad enough that Andromache had betrayed him. But that his own troops would revolt against him was intolerable! That he had to negotiate with his own soldiers was an egregious insult. The ungrateful wretches! Once he took Marsis, he would bring in more reliable troops and crucify every last one of the traitors.
Then the noise from the slaves caught his attention.
He stopped in mid-sentence, frowning. The slaves were shouting something, and at first he thought that they were screaming in fear.
Then he realized the slaves were not screaming, but shouting.
“Balarigar!” The cry rang over the Market. “Balarigar! Balarigar! Balarigar!”
A ripple of fear went through the Istarish soldiers. Even the Immortals shifted, skull-faced helms turning back and forth.
“You superstitious cowards!” said Rezir. The Balarigar? His soldiers had whispered about a hooded shadow prowling the dockside streets, hunting and killing. It was nonsense, of course. “Balarigar” was only the Szaldic word for “demonslayer”, and the Szalds were a barbarous people, fit only to be slaves. “The Balarigar? Do you fear that goblins will snatch you from your beds at night? Bah! That I should have been cursed with such...”
“My lord emir!” said one of the Immortals, pointing. “Look!”
Rezir’s eyes grew wide with surprise.
A hooded shape ran through the rows of the slaves, a dagger glittering in its right hand. The figure's cloak looked as if it had been woven from shadow itself, flowing and merging with the darkness around it. For a moment fear squeezed Rezir's heart. Devils of the desert, the stories were true!
Then his mind reasserted itself, and suddenly all his misfortunes made sense.
This “Balarigar” was obviously a Ghost nightfighter. No doubt the Ghost woman who had eluded Kylon had passed information on to the nightfighter. Or perhaps Andromache had been allied with the Ghosts all along, and plotted Rezir's ruin from the beginning. Either way, that nightfighter had been prowling through Marsis, sabotaging Rezir's efforts and undermining his plans.
And now his rage had a target.
“Kill him!” said Rezir. “A gold coin to the man who brings me his head.”
None of his troops moved.
Rezir gritted his teeth. “One hundred gold coins to the man who brings me the Balarigar's head! Kill him now!”
That got his soldiers to move, even the mutinous ones.
###
The Istarish soldiers moved toward Caina, shields raised, swords drawn back. They were obviously afraid, but that wouldn't last. Once they realized the terrible Balarigar was simply a woman in a shadow-cloak, their fear would vanish.
Caina would not live long after that.
She needed to find a distraction.
The slaves. Caina hesitated, unsure. Some of them might very well die. On the other hand, if she did nothing, they would almost certainly die of thirst and starvation in the Market. Or if the Istarish and the Kyracians took the city, they would die toiling in chains far from their homes.
Better to die trying to escape.
Caina sprinted, the ghostsilver dagger glittering in her hand. She swung as she ran, the blade shearing through the ropes binding a group of slaves. They gaped at her in shocked surprise, fear on their faces.
“Run!” said Caina.
Then she ran to the next group.
And to the next group.
There were no more than a hundred Istarish soldiers in the market. Yet within moments she had cut lose hundreds of slaves. Some fled. But other stopped to free additional slaves.
The Market dissolved into chaos as the fleeing slaves tripped over each other and the confused Istarish soldiers. Some of the soldiers chased after the slaves, while others ran after Caina.
And she kept running, cutting the slaves free from their ropes.
###
“Kill him!” shouted Rezir.
The nightfighter was only one man in a strange cloak. Yet somehow he stayed ahead of Rezir's soldiers, cutting slaves free from their ropes. The soldiers were useless.
If Rezir wanted the nightfighter dead, he would have to do it himself.
“Follow me,” he commanded the Immortals, and put spurs to his horse.
###
Caina dodged past a band of charging Istarish soldiers and slashed the ropes binding another group of slaves. The situation in the Market had spiraled out of control. Hundreds of captives now ran back and forth in the Market, s
ome running for the side streets, others helping the sick and injured to their feet. The Istarish soldiers found themselves overwhelmed, and could neither catch her nor deal with so many freed captives.
Then Rezir and his guard of Immortals started toward her.
Only twenty Immortals surrounded Rezir, but they kept formation. Rezir himself sat atop his black horse, and trampled or cut down anyone who got in his way. Even as Caina watched, a girl of fifteen or sixteen darted in front of Rezir, and he rode her down without a thought.
The girl screamed, once.
Caina hissed in rage behind her mask. He would pay for that, if she could find a way to make him pay. The black ring upon his right hand protected him from steel, so a throwing knife to the throat would not even annoy him. Ghostsilver was proof against sorcery – could her ghostsilver dagger wound him?
She would get the chance to find out very soon.
Or not. Rezir had twenty Immortals with him. Caina had barely defeated one Immortal in a straight fight. Trying to take on twenty would be a quick death.
She had to find a way to level the odds.
Caina raced away from the Great Market. Ahead she saw the damaged warehouse where she had fought Sicarion, the warehouse that stored casks of whiskey. The banners of New Kyre and Istarinmul still flew from its damaged watchtower. She had burned several of the casks when fighting Sicarion's mercenaries.
Caina sprinted for the warehouse, the shadow-cloak billowing behind her.
###
“After him!” said Rezir, spurring his horse to a gallop.
He grinned as he thundered towards the fleeing Ghost nightfighter. The Ghosts were cockroaches. Shine a light upon them and they scuttled back into the shadows.
There was only one way to deal with cockroaches.
Rezir raised his sword arm for a swing. He had outpaced his bodyguard, but no matter. One solid blow and he would be rid of the Balarigar forever.
###
Caina heard the thunder of hooves, and glanced over her shoulder.
Rezir bore down on her, his scimitar gleaming in the light of the torches.
Caina stopped, whirled, and flung a throwing knife. Rezir's necromantic ring rendered him immune to normal steel.
His horse had no such protection.
The blade sank into the horse's neck. The poor beast screamed in pain, rearing up on its hind legs. Rezir roared in fury, lashing at Caina, but he lost his balance and fell hard to the ground.
For a moment Caina considered stabbing him. If her ghostsilver dagger could pierce the protection of his necromantic ring, she could end this fight now. But even if her blade penetrated the sorcerous protection, the ring might have the power to regenerate the wound. And if Rezir got a grip on her, she doubted she could break away.
She still had the bruises he had left on her neck.
Besides, if she killed him, his Immortals would only cut her down anyway.
Caina ran for the warehouse.
###
Rezir clawed back to his feet.
That damnable Ghost! He was the author of all his misfortunes, him and Andromache. He would make them both pay.
Starting with the Ghost.
Rezir ran after the fleeing nightfighter, ignoring the calls of his Immortals.
###
Caina hurried through the warehouse door.
The same massive wooden shelves still supported dozens of casks. Several of the shelves bore noticeable charring, and she saw bloodstains here and there. Yet there was no trace of the mercenaries she had killed. Sicarion must have removed the bodies for some reason.
Perhaps he had taken them for spare parts.
She ran past the whiskey casks, yanking out the stoppers as she did so, and a fresh stream of liquor splashed across the warped floorboards. She stopped at the base of the watchtower and waited, throwing knives in hand. She would have to be careful setting the whiskey on fire. When she had faced Sicarion here, she had not carried two flasks of Radast’s explosive elixir in her belt…
A new idea came to her.
###
Rezir stormed into the warehouse.
There was no reason to worry about his safety. The Ghost nightfighter possessed no weapons that could harm him.
The warehouse, to his surprise, stored casks of Caerish whiskey. Vile swill fit only for slaves. The stoppers had been removed from several of the casks, whiskey spilling on the blackened floorboards.
He spotted the Ghost standing on the far side of the puddle, throwing knives in either gloved hand.
Rezir lifted his scimitar, and the Ghost flung the knives.
One blurred past the left side of his face, opening a gash across his jaw. The second buried itself in his throat. Neither wound hurt much, thanks to the power of his black ring. Instead he only felt a sharp tightness, as if he had struck himself with a blunted knife.
Rezir pulled out the throwing knife.
“Foolish Ghost,” he said, his voice rasping as the ring’s power repaired his throat. “You cannot harm me.”
The Ghost produced another pair of knives and struck a spark between them.
The pool of whiskey erupted into ghostly blue flames, the wave of heat striking Rezir in the face like a slap. He took a step back, and the Ghost vanished up the stairs to the watchtower.
He laughed, long and loud. The flames would hurt him, but they could not kill him. They could not even seriously harm him. No doubt the Ghost planned to escape through the watchtower, while Rezir and his Immortals watched helplessly.
Well, the Balarigar was in for a surprise.
The first of the Immortals ran into the warehouse, weapons raised.
“My lord emir?” said the Immortal, looking at the fire.
“Stay here,” said Rezir. “I will return in a moment.”
He tossed aside his cloak and strode around the edges of the flames. No sense inflicting more pain upon himself than necessary. The fire heated his armor, pain spreading through his legs, but he ignored it.
Then he was on the other side, the Immortals staring at him in awe.
Just as well. Once he slew the Balarigar, the tale would spread through the soldiers like wildfire. Then he would regain control of his men and take Marsis.
He need only kill this Ghost first.
Smiling, Rezir walked to the base of the watchtower.
###
Caina crouched on the burned steps. The watchtower was a stone shell, a wooden stairwell spiraling up to its broken crown. One of Andromache's deflected lightning bolts had blasted away the roof. The heavy boards of the stairs had survived, and Caina thought they could hold her weight.
She hoped.
She tugged off her shadow-cloak, her mask slipping free. With any luck, she could have the cloak back on before Sicarion sensed her.
###
Kylon turned, frowning.
They stood at the base of the Citadel's crag. Yet Sicarion had stopped, his face lifted to the air. He looked like a hunting hound catching the scent of its prey.
“What is it?” said Kylon.
“Ah,” murmured Sicarion. “So that's where she went.”
And before Kylon could say another word, Sicarion and his mercenaries, living and dead, vanished.
###
Rezir stepped into the burned watchtower.
The roof was gone, destroyed by one of Andromache's lightning bolts. A wooden staircase encircled the interior wall. Rezir grinned to himself. The Ghost expected him to charge blindly up the stairs and into an ambush.
He paused, craning his neck.
There. A shadow on the stairs, lurking directly above him. Once he stepped into the open, the Ghost would fall upon him, dagger aimed for his heart.
A fringe of the shadow-cloak hung over the railing.
Rezir shifted his scimitar to his left hand. He would yank the Ghost down, spearing the nightfighter upon his scimitar. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. Then he sprang forward, seized the edge of the cloak in hi
s right hand, and pulled.
The empty cloak fluttered down.
Rezir blinked. What kind of trick was this?
An almost empty cloak.
A flask struck his right hand.
###
The explosion shook the tower.
Caina huddled atop the stairs, the boards shaking beneath her. The roar thundered in her ears, but not loud enough to drown out Rezir's horrified scream, and she felt the heat of the blast wash over her.
After a moment she uncurled and stood up.
Rezir lay slumped against the wall, his armor scorched and his hair burned away. His right arm ended in jagged stump of blackened bone and charred flesh. Rezir's remaining eye twitched to face her as she approached.
“You,” he whispered. “Kylon’s spy. That's...not possible.”
“It is,” said Caina. “Do you remember the slaves you took?”
Rezir gazed at her in fear and pain.
“They send their regards,” said Caina, and she drove her ghostsilver dagger into his neck.
###
A moment later, Caina donned her shadow-cloak and mask and climbed to the top of the tower, something dangling from her right hand.
Armor clanged and clattered as the Immortals climbed over the dying whiskey fire.
She perched on the tower's ruined top, her shadow-cloak billowing behind her. She saw the ruined Great Market beneath her, the slaves fleeing in all directions, the Istarish soldiers moving about uncertainly.
“Behold!” thundered Caina, using the stage voice Theodosia had taught her.
She felt the sudden weight of thousands of eyes turned in her direction, and she lifted the head of Rezir Shahan upward.
“Rezir Shahan is slain!” she shouted, and flung the head.
Theodosia and Halfdan both had taught her the value of a dramatic gesture.
The Ghosts Omnibus: The Kyracian War Page 26
