by Jim Butcher
“Stupid boy,” Aldrick said, eyes cold. “Give me the dagger.”
Tavi clutched his hand on the dagger’s hilt and started worming his way back along the wall. “You killed him,” Tavi shouted, his voice hoarse. “You killed my uncle!”
“And what happened to my Odiana is your fault. I should kill you right here,” Aldrick growled. “Give up. You can’t win.”
“Go to the crows! If I don’t beat you, someone else will!”
“Have it your way,” the swordsman said. He whirled the sword in his fingers and closed toward Tavi, lifting the blade, eyes cold. “If Araris Valerian himself was here, he couldn’t beat me. And you aren’t Araris.”
The swordsman brought both hands to the hilt of the sword and struck, Tavi saw the cold, bloodied metal of the blade falling toward him and knew that he was about to die. He screamed and lifted a hand, knowing full well that it would do him no good, but he was unable to do anything else.
The sword came down in the death stroke.
And met steel in a cold, clear chime, like a bell. A cloud of silver sparks rained down where Aldrick’s blade had met the steel of the guardsman’s sword.
Fade stood over Tavi, both hands on the hilt of the short blade, his legs spread out wide, knees bent, his body relaxed. The swordsman bore down on his weapon, but Fade seemed able to hold it away from Tavi with little effort, and after a scant pair of heartbeats, Fade twisted his body. Aldrick’s blade slid to one side, and he skipped back from a counterstroke— but not fast enough. Fade’s sword whipped toward Aldrick’s face, and split the white scar there open anew, blood flowing.
Aldrick dropped back into a guard position, watching Fade, his eyes wide, his reddened face going pale. “No,” he said. “No.”
Fade took a step forward and stood between Tavi and the other two men on the wall. His voice came out quiet, low, steady. “Stay behind me, Tavi.”
Tavi stared in shock. He clutched the dagger and scooted back from the two men.
“You aren’t,” Aldrick snarled. “You can’t be. You’re dead.”
Fade said, “You talk too much.”
Then he spun forward, deftly stepping over Amara’s unmoving form, his sword gliding toward the swordsman. Aldrick parried in a shower of scarlet sparks, slid a thrust to his belly aside, and cut at the slave’s head. Fade dropped to a crouch, and the blow struck cleanly through two feet of furycrafted battlement stone. A chunk of stone the size of a big washtub slid down the wall and fell into the battle outside the fortress.
Fade rose, blade dancing, and pressed the swordsman back, down the battlements, his ragged and unkempt hair flying about his head, his scarred face set in an expression of cool detachment. When his sword struck Aldrick’s, scarlet fire rained down, and when he caught one of the swordsman’s strikes, clouds of silver-white motes flew forth in a flash.
Tavi saw Aldrick begin to panic, his movements becoming jerkier, faster, less elegant. He retreated step by step, and Fade pressed him relentlessly. The slave swept one blow at Aldrick that missed altogether, throwing up another shower of sparks as the blade cut through the stone near Aldrick’s feet, but the slave seemed to recover rapidly, and he began to push Aldrick down the wall once again.
Tavi had never seen anything so graceful, so terrifying, as the two men clashing together. Though Aldrick was the larger of the pair, Fade seemed more nimble, his movements more fluid, again and again blocking blows that might have killed him to miss by the barest margin. He leapt over one strike, ducked under another, and thrust at Aldrick’s belly once more. The swordsman parried him aside, spinning on his feet to reverse positions with Fade on the narrow battlements, so that he now stood with his back to Tavi.
Aldrick rained a pair of heavy blows down on Fade, who danced aside from one and slid the other off the guardsman’s blade. Fade countered with a volley of cuts and thrusts too swift for Tavi to follow, and Aldrick once again backed down the wall, defending himself.
Fade’s blade whipped at Aldrick’s foot and missed, slashing stone. Aldrick kicked the slave in the face with one heavy boot, and Fade’s face snapped to one side. He turned the motion into an upward slash, but that blow too missed Aldrick altogether, instead slashing through the massive merlon beside him.
Aldrick’s sword darted down to Fade’s wrist, a swift cut that drew blood and threw the sword from the slave’s hands and down into the courtyard below. Fade cried out and fell to his knees, clutching the hand to his chest.
Aldrick stood over Fade, panting, white around the eyes, and drew his sword slowly up behind him. “Over,” he said. “Finally over. You lose.”
Fade said, “Look where you’re standing.”
Tavi looked down at Aldrick’s feet, at the deep slashes in the battlements where Fade’s sword had cut through the stone.
Aldrick looked down, and his face went white.
The merlon beside him slid to one side along the upward-sweeping line Fade had cut in it, the stone falling with a ponderous grace to the weakened floor of the battlement, It struck, and the two slashes Fade had made in the stone became a sudden myriad of crumbling cracks. Aldrick tried to step back, but the stone beneath his feet gave way like a rotten board, and with a howl Aldrick ex Gladius and a thousand pounds of stone went crashing down to the courtyard below.
Fade closed his eyes for a moment, panting, then looked up at Tavi.
The boy stared at him. “How?”
Fade moved one shoulder in a shrug. “Aldrick has always thought in lines. So I thought in curves.”
Tavi saw a movement behind Fade and shouted, “Fade! Look out!”
The slave whirled, but not before Fidelias, holding the rope they had used to climb to the wall, had tossed a loop of it over Fade’s head. Fidelias jerked on the rope, and it tightened. Then the man planted his feet and hauled.
Fade struggled, but he had no leverage. The rope hauled him off the battlement. Fidelias let go of the rope, and Fade fell out of sight. The end of the rope had been tied off to one of the crenellations, and the rope tightened with a sudden, snapping jerk.
“No,” Tavi breathed.
Fidelias turned toward Tavi.
“No!” The boy rose to his feet and threw himself at the man on the wall, brandishing the dagger. He leapt at Fidelias, knife extended.
Fidelias caught Tavi by his shirt, and without any effort spun him around and threw him to the stones of the battlement. Tavi felt the rock hit his back with an impact that stole his breath and turned the steady, hot sting of his wounded arm into a raging fire.
He let out a weak sound of pain and tried to struggle away from Fidelias, but within a few inches he felt the crumbling edge of the shattered battlement behind him. He looked back and down on a drop into the hard, jagged rubble of the fallen section of wall, where Marat and beasts fought in savage efficiency, killing.
He turned back to Fidelias, clutching the dagger.
“Give me the knife,” Fidelias said, his voice quiet, his eyes dead. “Give me the knife, or I’ll kill you.”
“No,” Tavi wheezed.
“You don’t have to die, boy.”
Tavi swallowed. He squirmed out as far as he could on the broken battlements and heard the stones begin to crackle and groan beneath him. “Stay away from me.”
Fidelias’s face twisted in anger, and he jerked his hand in a sudden gesture. The stone rippled, as if it had been a sheet snapped by a holdwife, and threw Tavi a few feet toward Fidelias, stunning the boy.
Fidelias reached for the knife. Tavi swept it at him in a desperate cut. Fidelias clutched the boy’s throat, and Tavi felt his breath cut off with a sudden jerk.
“Just as well,” Fidelias said. “No witnesses.”
Tavi’s vision began to dim. He felt his grip on the dagger begin to loosen.
Fidelias shook his head, and the pressure on Tavi’s throat began to increase. “You should have given me the knife.”
Tavi struggled uselessly, until his arms and legs seemed to
forget how to move. He stared up into Fidelias’s hard eyes and felt his body going limp.
And so it was that he saw Amara weakly stir and lift her head. He saw her writhe, lifting one knee beneath her, and reaching back to draw a short, small knife from her boot. She clenched her jaw and shoved her broken arm beneath her, her forearm across the floor, lifting her body.
Then, in one motion, she drew back the knife and flicked it at Fidelias’s back. A sudden jet of wind propelled the knife toward him.
Tavi saw the man jerk suddenly, startled surprise on his features. He stiffened, fingers loosening from Tavi’s throat, and reached a hand up toward his back, his expression twisting with sudden agony.
“You wanted a knife, Fidelias,” Amara hissed. “There’s the one I took from you.”
Fidelias, his face blank, frightened, turned back to Tavi and clutched at his hand, at the dagger.
There was a frantic moment of scrambling, and Fidelias let out a gasping cry of pain. Tavi felt a hand around his wrist, a sudden pressure, heard the crack of breaking bones. Agony roared over him, and he saw his hand dangle uselessly.
Fidelias reached for the dagger and grabbed its hilt.
Tavi seized Fidelias’s belt and hauled with all of his strength and weight.
Fidelias overbalanced, let out a harsh croak and fell from the battlements, to the sharp-edged rubble of the gap in the wall. Tavi turned and looked down, saw the man land on the stones, with his feet under him. Tavi thought he heard bones break.
Fidelias fell to the ground, and a tide of Marat washed over him.
Tavi stared, panting, exhausted, in more pain than he thought could exist in the entire world. Uncle Bernard. Fade. The tears welled up, and he couldn’t stop them, couldn’t stop himself from sobbing, letting out ugly, harsh little sounds. He laid his cheek down on the stone and cried.
He felt Amara crawl to him a few moments later. The Cursor dragged a shield with her. She lay down beside Tavi and used the shield to cover them both.
He couldn’t stop sobbing. He felt her hand pat clumsily at his back. “It’s all right, Tavi. It’s all right.” She leaned her cheek against his hair. “Shhhh. You’re going to be all right. It’s over.”
Over.
Tavi cried quietly, until the darkness swallowed him.
CHAPTER 44
Isana watched the battle on the shattered battlements with her heart in her teeth, trapped on the second floor of a barracks building in the east courtyard, and helpless to do anything to influence its outcome.
She saw her brother fall from the walls and, through a haze of tears, saw the Cursor dropped to the battlements as well. She screamed when Tavi took up the fallen sword and faced the enormous swordsman, and again when Fade took up the old weapon and fought the man up and down the battlements. She watched, careless of the occasional buzz of a flying arrow, as Fade was hanged and thrown off the walls, as Tavi fought for the dagger, and as the traitor Cursor fell from sight.
She watched as Tavi collapsed and as the wounded Amara dragged her shield over both of them—then went still.
“Tavi,” she heard herself say. “Tavi, no. Oh, furies.” She turned and ran out of the room, down the stairs to the first level of the barracks, a common room for the soldiers living there. Heavy iron shutters had been closed over the window, but the iron bars that could be fastened shut over the door had been torn away from their hinges only moments before, along with the heavy wooden door, and now the doorway had been blocked with a pair of heavy tables, leaving the upper half of the doorway open.
Frederic stood in the doorway, a Legion shield strapped onto his left arm, his dented spade clutched in his right hand. One of the women of Garrison stood with him, a stout, stern-looking matron with bare feet and a bloodied spear gripped in her hands. The young gargant herder’s hair hung around his face, damp with sweat, and he bore a cut that would leave a long white scar leading from his jawline to his ear, but his eyes were determined, hard.
As Isana came down the stairs, another Marat threw himself at the barricade, stone-headed hatchets in either hand. The Marat swung the first at Frederic, but the herder lifted his shield and the head of the hatchet shattered upon it. The woman standing with him drove her spear viciously into the Marat’s thigh, and the warrior dropped his second hatchet in a blow aimed at the spear’s haft.
Frederic shouted and thrust his spade at the Marat, the steel blade of the tool gouging roughly into the Marat’s chest. Frederic jerked the spade back to him and with a roar leaned back and kicked the stunned Marat in the belly. The warrior went flying away from the fury-assisted blow, landing in a heap upon the stones of the embattled courtyard.
Isana rushed to the doorway. “Frederic. I’ve seen Tavi and Bernard. They’re hurt, and I’ve got to help them.”
Frederic turned to her, panting, his handsome face speckled with droplets of blood, “But Mistress Isana! There’s Marat running around everywhere out there.”
“And they’re lying wounded in it. I need you to help me carry them out of the fight.”
The woman with the spear nodded to Isana. “Go on. We can hold the door for a while.”
Frederic frowned, his expression torn. “You’re sure?”
“Thank you,” Isana said, and clasped the woman’s arm. Then she grabbed Frederic’s. “They’re near the gate, on the broken section of wall.”
Frederic swallowed and nodded. “So we just go to the other courtyard, right?”
“Yes.”
Frederic settled his grip on his spade’s handle and nodded. “All right, then.”
Isana clutched tightly to Frederic’s shoulder, as he leaned forward, took a quick look around the courtyard, and padded swiftly toward the other side of Garrison, keeping near to the wall. The carnage in the courtyard was like some kind of nightmarish slaughterhouse. The Marat roamed everywhere, attacking buildings, fighting with one another and with the Aleran defenders.
A shrill scream cut across the courtyard, terror filled. In the doorway of the barracks building across the courtyard from them, a pair of herdbanes appeared. They dragged a wounded legionare out into the courtyard, one on either arm, and tossed him to the ground between them.
Even as Isana watched, the legionare’s helmet tumbled off, revealing Warner’s bald head and exhausted face beneath.
“Warner!” Isana cried.
Warner looked up, his face ashen, and tried to sweep his sword at the nearest bird, but the movement was listless, as though he barely had the strength to move. The terrible birds began to wrench the Steadholder apart, shrieking. Two Marat, their hair bedecked with dark herdbane feathers, watched until Warner had been savaged and lay still upon the earth. Then one of them stepped forward with a knife in hand and, after a moment’s consideration, removed the Steadholder’s ears. He said something to his companion that drew a rough laugh, and then as the birds continued worrying the corpse, the pair of them rose and walked into the barracks Warner had been defending.
The cries within Garrison were joined by others — the screams of terrified children.
“Someone’s going to help them,” Frederic breathed. “Right, Mistress Isana? Someone’s going to go help, aren’t they?”
Isana looked between the far courtyard and the barracks, while children screamed. She came to her decision in the space of a breath. For while Tavi might be hurt, he at least had a chance of survival. If she did nothing, those children would have none.
“We are,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Frederic swallowed and nodded. He shook her hand off of his shoulder and stalked forward, sweeping his spade nervously in his hand. Isana followed him.
Neither of the herdbanes took note of them until Frederic swept his spade in a broad arc that ended at the neck of the larger one, which broke with a brittle snap. The bird went down immediately, while the second turned toward Frederic and lunged, snapping at the gargant herder’s face. Frederic shuffled back, and the bird followed him.
Inside
the barracks, the children continued screaming. Isana waited until the remaining herdbane had stalked another few paces away from the door and then she darted inside.
“Mistress Isana!” Frederic called. “Wait!”
Isana slipped inside the barracks to find the two Marat facing a dozen children who hid behind several trunks and bunks knocked over and formed into a crude barricade. Some of the older children carried Legion spears and thrust them viciously at the Marat whenever they came close. The Marat spoke to one another in low voices, evidently deciding how best to dig the children out from behind their barricade.
Isana moved silently to the nearest Marat, reached out, and touched his neck, calling to Rill as she did.
The Marat jerked and let out a hoarse scream that wound down into a gurgle, as water frothed from his nose, his mouth. The second Marat spun, one hard-knuckled fist lashing out as he did. Isana felt it hit her high on the cheekbone and throw her to the ground.
She tried to scramble away, but the Marat caught her by the ankle and dragged her back. She kicked at him, but the warrior slashed at her leg with his knife, a sudden line of screaming fire across her calf. She felt him move, felt his weight come down atop her, and a rough hand tangled in her hair, jerking her head back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glitter of a glossy stone dagger, diving toward her throat.
She lifted an arm, gasping, and blocked the Marat’s forearm with her own, halting the blade a scant inch from her throat. The Marat grunted and bore down, and she felt her arm forced to give way under the warrior’s greater strength.
Isana twisted, gasping, calling for Rill once again, hoping that the first Marat would remain incapacitated when she called Rill from him. Her fury came flowing into her, and Isana drew Rill in, even as she sank the nails of her free hand into the Marat’s forearm. Blood welled from the tears in the pale skin, and Isana sent Rill flowing through those rents.
The Marat gasped, shuddering, and the power of his arms began to wane. He jerked and twisted and abruptly released both Isana and the knife. His body bucked, and he fell back from Isana, back arched into a bow, clutching at his chest.
