There were more Raptors than she’d hoped, nearly three times the number of Passerines. Well, enough, she told herself, it would be even less likely that anyone should spot the cuckoos in the mix.
“Followers of the Secret Path.”
Seraph stiffened at the whiff of magic that accompanied the words so that they rang out and appeared louder than they really were.
The room quieted. Brewydd softened her voice to a murmur, but continued comparing the benefits of growing tomatoes in various soils.
It had been Raven magic that gave power to the words the black-robed man standing in front of the curtained stage had said. Why hadn’t he used the Bardic Order? A Bard would have done more than just overpower the talking of the crowd: he could have caught the attention of everyone, even tomato zealots like Brewydd’s conversation partner, and held it.
Perhaps they didn’t know that, or maybe they just preferred to work with more familiar powers. A solsenti mage, she thought, would be used to having magic work a certain way—like Raven or even Cormorant. They wanted the Orders for power, but even Volis had had no use for subtlety.
“When you come to our Eyrie you take vows,” said the wizard. “First, never reveal to anyone what we do here. Second, to attend the Eyrie at least three evenings a week. Third, to obey the Raptors and the Masters over and above all other oaths. One of you has broken the last two of these rules. We are here today to discipline him—not in hope of reformation, because he will never again be welcome to our Eyrie.”
“Telleridge sure knows how to capture his audience, doesn’t he,” marveled the Raptor talking to Brewydd, his voice shaking with age, but he returned to his favorite subject with more ado. “I find that the tomatoes I grow in the orangery—”
“But that is not all we are here for.” The Master’s voice dipped into sorrow, but Seraph thought he overdid it a bit. “In recent weeks it has come to our attention that our Passerines have been led astray by the magic of our Traveler guest. The magic that keeps his at bay, here in our halls, is dependent upon your resistance. If you want to be his follower, his servant, there is nothing our magic can do to protect you. So we have to take more stringent measures with him.”
They had Tier. Was he alive?
“There is a third problem that has held our attention these past few years. Our Empire, founded by heroes, built by men of vision, men of intelligence is, even now, presided over by a drunken sot. Bored with the available women and wealth, he has decided to interfere with the men who try to preserve the Empire. Who is to save us when our frivolous Emperor chooses to change the ancient boundaries of the Septs? Who? We shall save ourselves.”
He raised both hands and the great curtains behind him creaked and squealed as they slowly opened to the Master’s magic.
On the stage was a frightened young man, naked and chained by his wrists to a ring in the floor of the stage. In the center position was the Emperor. They hadn’t stripped him—too worried about arousing the wrong emotion in the crowd, judged Seraph—but he was wearing the same robes he’d been in last night, and they looked the worse for wear. But it was the third man, Tier, her eyes found and locked on.
He was alive, she thought with a rush of relief; she could see his ribs move as he breathed. Like the Passerine he’d been so worried about, he’d been stripped naked and chained, but he lay curled up and still, his skin red and black from beating.
Rage rose up in Seraph like a red tide. She stared at the Master who orchestrated this mess and took what her magic could tell her. He was a solsenti wizard of moderate power, aided by two Raven rings—one of them very old.
“We deal first with the greatest offense. Phoran the Twenty-Sixth, we, the Followers of the Secret Path, judge you unfit to rule our Empire!” The Master turned to the audience and gave the signal for a response of some kind. A roar of approval perhaps?
But it never came, because Phoran spoke.
“Actually,” he said with dignity that caught at the heart of every person in the room, “it’s Phoran the Twenty-Seventh. I’ve always felt that since the old farmer started the Empire, he ought to get credit for it.”
Even Brewydd’s new friend quit speaking.
Seraph felt a relieved grin tug at her lips. Tier was doing better than he appeared if he could give Phoran’s mundane words that much power.
Phoran looked a little taken aback by the response his quip had drawn. Go, Tier, thought Seraph fiercely. She glanced at Telleridge, but even with the partial immunity the Raven rings he wore gave him, he was too close to Phoran to do anything except listen.
Phoran was not at a loss for more than a breath. “Some of what Telleridge has said is correct. I have not been the best of emperors, but I didn’t realize that anyone needed me to be that. Like you, I thought that the Council of Septs—ruled by people like Telleridge here—were far more capable than I ever could be. That should have been true.”
He was taking too long, thought Seraph, watching Telleridge struggle against the Bardic touch. Tier couldn’t possibly maintain his hold on the whole room for very long, not in the condition he was in.
She stepped away from the wall and began making her way down toward the auditorium. If she could get to him, she could help.
“They are intelligent men, and well-trained to their office. If they chose to rule justly, they could surely do so. But they rule instead for personal gain. Some of you were encouraged to work a little mischief in the street of the weavers last year. Did you know that the council leader’s riches increased by half after that incident because the weavers now pay him for the right to sell their goods in their own craft stalls? Gorrish is one of the Raptors who sent you out to attack the weavers—did any of you gain from that?”
Phoran took a deep breath, and Seraph felt the crowd stir as the Bardic touch faded momentarily and then strengthened again. With the shifting of the crowd, her only path to the stage closed up.
“Those Raptors among you will know that almost half the Passerines who are here will die mysteriously shortly after they graduate to being Raptors. Some of you know that it is not so mysterious, because you aided in those men’s deaths. Why kill so many? Because some of you are already outgrowing the trappings of childhood. Some of you realize that it is not necessary to prove who you are by how much destruction you can cause—you are the first ones they will kill. Like this young man beside me who was targeted only because he loves old instruments more than he loves tormenting the younger Passerines.”
“I haven’t been much of an emperor,” Phoran said. “I’ve disappointed people who cared about me all of my life—just as you have. Mostly, my failures have been passive failures—things not done rather than great and terrible acts. Just as yours have been, until today. If you harm men whose only crime is to fall afoul of a power-mad politician, then you take a step that cannot be undone.”
Tier crooked his neck and peered out of his one good eye to see how Phoran was holding up. Something, he thought, something had walked close to the Emperor. It leaned nearer as if it were whispering something in Phoran’s ear, then faded from Tier’s view.
Jes, he thought. Anxiously, Tier looked at the audience, but they didn’t seem to have seen that nebulous shape.
Phoran took a breath. “You have a choice tonight. You can hold to the oaths you made to the Masters of the Path. Realize that they have not given you an oath in return—as I did when I became emperor. I owe you fair hearing in disputes, I owe you a place in our society, and I owe you an emperor worth serving in return. You must choose now.” He looked up, scanning the crowd. When he saw what he sought he nodded once. Then he began speaking rapidly. “Choose who you fight carefully, because this is a battle for the soul of the Empire.”
He swung one of his chained wrists to indicate the wall of the Eyrie and, as if he’d wielded the magic himself, the wall disintegrated into so much plaster dust and splintered wood. The noise and magical backwash distracted Tier, and he lost his tenuous hold on his own mag
ic.
The failure of his control hit Tier like a blow to the head. It awakened every inch of the screaming flesh the Masters had abused. He cried out, and his vision blackened. The sounds of battle erupted around him, and half-dazed as he was, he couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing here without a sword.
The destruction of the wall caught Seraph by surprise. She had been supposed to help bring it down, but, unable to see over the crowd, she must have missed the signal—or Hennea had used an opportune moment in the Emperor’s speech.
Irritably, Seraph poked the tall, bulky Raptor who stood in front of her. Since she’d used a touch of magic, he jumped aside with a yelp, pushing several other men over and briefly clearing a visual path for Seraph just as Avar’s men and the Travelers began pouring into the room with a war-cry that was even more effective in a room designed as a theater than it would have been on an open battlefield.
The astonishment of such strangeness held the Followers of the Path oddly still until the first of Avar’s men gutted the nearest Raptor.
A man near Seraph drew his sword, but he was looking toward the far side of the room for his enemy, so he never even noticed Seraph until her knife intersected his belly. A young blue-robed boy drew his sword and finished the job—but gave her white robes a wary look.
“I’m Tier’s wife,” she said, tossing back her hood.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, grunting the last as he used his sword to catch the blade of a Raptor who was a bit quicker than most to realize that the Passerines were as much a threat as the fighting men who’d come through the wall. “I’m Kissel.”
She had to get to Tier. Discarding the robes both because they got in her way and because they might get her killed by one of Tier’s Passerines, she aimed for the most direct path to Tier, whom she still couldn’t see.
The fighting was widespread by now, and the heaviest fighting lay between her and the stage. Seraph called her magic to her.
Blindly, instinctively, Tier tried to rise to his feet, since a down man on a battlefield was a dead man, but something held his wrists and he couldn’t call any strength to his muscles.
“It’s all right, sir,” said Toarsen’s familiar voice. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“The Emperor,” managed Tier, falling back to his damaged knees and biting back a moan. Screams were for people who weren’t as weary as he was.
There was a series of clanking sounds, battle sounds that ended in a grunt and a thunk. Toarsen, panting a bit, said, “Kissel’s with him, and someone cut him loose and gave him a sword. I never knew that Phoran knew how to fight. Never thought”—another thunk and gasp—“someone as fat as he is could move that fast.”
“The Masters?” asked Tier. Seated and calmer, he found that his vision was coming back a bit, but not well enough to sort through the chaos of battle. He wiped his good eye with the back of his hand. His hand came away wet, but he could see again.
“I don’t see ’em,” Toarsen said. “I was watching Avar and his men boil into the room. When I looked back, this place was covered in fighters and I thought I might come up here and bear you company a bit. We’ve a nice view of the fighting up here—those two boys of yours can surely fight.”
Someone in white blundered into the small area of stage that Toarsen was guarding, and he sent the Raptor on his way with a kick that impaled him on a sword held by a man with moon-pale hair.
“Gessa,” said the man.
“Anytime,” said Toarsen.
“Collarn?” asked Tier, his returning vision allowing him to see that the boy’s place was empty.
“Naked as a newborn,” said Toarsen cheerfully. “You’re not able to get high enough to enjoy the sight, but I can see him from here. Remember all those times you told him that he carries his guard too high?”
“Yes?”
“You should have made him fight naked.”
Tier laughed, one short bark, then held his breath and his ribs. “No joking right now,” he managed.
Lehr rolled onto the stage and then bounced up and ran over. “Good to see that you’re alive, Papa. But I think I speak for us all when I tell you that I’d rather not worry about you again for a while. Parents are supposed to worry about their children, not vice versa. Let me get a look at those chains.”
He held the manacles in his hands and closed his eyes. After a moment, the locks clicked open. Lehr grinned at his father’s expression.
“I don’t know how opening locks ties in with being a Hunter either, though Brewydd explained it to me a dozen times.” He sounded pleased with himself. He looked at Toarsen.
“Go ahead,” said Toarsen. “I’ll stay here.”
“Thanks,” said Lehr, and he leaped off the edge of the stage.
Having completed the task Hennea had given him, the Guardian took a quick glance around the room. Lehr was fighting at Avar’s side and accounting for himself quite well. Just as his gaze found Seraph, she raised her hands and tossed a half dozen men into the air. Obviously she was in no need of immediate protection.
He turned to go to his father, but the Sept of Leheigh’s brother was standing over Papa’s crumpled form and seemed to be having no trouble fending off attackers. The wizards, who posed more of a threat, had other things on their minds than hurting his father. A double handful of Passerines were doing their best to get onto the stage and attack the Masters—too many of them to allow the wizards’ magic to be an effective weapon. The Guardian knew—remembered from other battles fought long ago, before Jes’s father’s father had been born—that keeping the Passerines away would soon weaken the solsenti wizards too much for them to be a danger to Tier.
Satisfied that they were all safe for the moment, the Guardian jumped off the stage to return to Hennea’s side, slipping between fighters who mostly moved out of his way without ever looking at him directly.
The noise of swords clashing and men screaming excited him almost as much as the smell of blood.
A man bumped his arm and the Guardian turned on him with a snarl and a flash of fangs. If the man hadn’t retreated, falling backwards over a body on the floor, even Jes could not have held the Guardian back.
Hennea stood alone near the fallen wall. He couldn’t tell if her spells to avoid being seen were working on everyone else, or if they were just smart enough to stay away. Mother had told him that spells usually didn’t work right on him.
There were two men attacking a boy who was stepping back rapidly to avoid being overrun. The Guardian could see that the boy wouldn’t stay away from their blades for much longer. He glanced at Hennea, but she was all right. The Guardian dropped the sword he held and reached for the form of the great cat—he wanted to taste blood, not feel flesh part against steel.
He picked the nearest Raptor and leaped onto his shoulders, driving him down to the floor. As his claws sank deep into meat, the man’s pain and fear washed through Jes. The Guardian reveled in the searing sensations, which only raised his bloodlust further.
The other antagonist paused to stare, but the Passerine recovered a little faster and killed his opponent before beating a rapid retreat. Death and the boy’s fear fed the battle rage and Jes turned his attention to the man who lay beneath him.
“Jes!”
The great cat halted, his mouth already opened to still the struggles of his prey.
“Jes, come back. I need you!” Hennea sounded frantic.
Her hand touched his tense back. “Jes,” she said.
Trembling, fighting, Jes forced the Guardian to step away from the downed man even as the beast roared its thwarted rage.
“What?” he managed, the emotions and pain of the battle raging around him raw without the Guardian’s protection.
Hennea smoothed her hands over him and the worst of the clamor faded until it was manageable. The Guardian would have been better, but Jes couldn’t let him loose until he had a moment to calm down.
“Look on the stage,” Hennea whispered. �
��What do you see?”
There had been wizards on the stage when he’d carried Hennea’s message to the Emperor. Five stood in plain view, but the other held to the shadows. When his father had lost control of them, they, like Hennea, had stood back from the battle and aided their people as they could.
Now four wizards lay crumpled on the ground, and something—something that caused the Guardian to take control again—fed on the fifth.
“What is that?” asked the Guardian.
“A Raven’s Memory,” she said. “A vengeful ghost—though I’ve never seen one so substantial. It’s almost alive.”
The sixth wizard, anonymous in his robes, slipped off the stage and toward the destroyed wall. No one looked at him, though he passed a few men quite closely.
“One of the wizards is getting away,” the Guardian observed to Hennea, calm again.
“Where?” she asked, but when he pointed, she didn’t see him.
“I’ll follow him,” he decided and Jes, anxious to get away from the battle, agreed with the Guardian’s decision. Neither of them listened to Hennea’s protest as the great cat leaped over a heap of rubble to follow the escaping man.
Seraph blew her hair out of her eyes wearily and kept moving forward. The large young man who had been so helpful in dispatching that first Raptor had stayed by her side as she used whatever means necessary to push through the battle.
There was a limit to her magic, and after the first blast won her only a few yards before the fighting spread into the cleared area she’d made, she decided that she was going to have to use more subtlety and less power. With a sword she scavenged from the floor, she used magic to lend force to her blows until the blade slid through bone as if it were water. She’d taken the time to add her own see-me-not spell to Hennea’s efforts. Blood covered her from the elbows down, weighting down her clothes with more than physical burden—but she wasn’t here to fight fair. She needed to get to Tier.
Raven's Shadow rd-1 Page 35
