The Way Into Chaos

by Harry Connolly

  “Great Way,” Treygar prayed, his voice tight, “protect the prince. Keep him on your path.”

  Doctor Warpoole’s dart flew with surprising speed, but it struck the creature low on the back, practically on its hip. Cazia did her best to lead with her own spell, just the way she had to lead the hoops during Doctor Twofin’s lessons. She struck the beast on its high back below the neck. It sprawled on the tiles and tumbled down the steep roof slope.

  Cazia started another spell right away. A second creature appeared at the top of the southernmost chimney. The clerk fired another dart, striking the brick just below the creature’s furred hind hand. At least she was getting closer.

  Cazia wasn’t going to finish her spell in time, and Doctor Warpoole hadn’t even started a new one yet. Lar had a quiver of his own, of course, but his back was turned. Cazia kept her hands moving, her mind falling into the necessary state, despite the fact that she knew it was futile. The only way she could avoid this awful grief would be if the creature hesitated.

  It didn’t. It leaped from the chimney at the prince. Cazia could feel tragedy flying at her like a volley of arrows.

  Timush shouted and dove forward, throwing his shoulder into the monster’s leg while it was still in mid-leap. The beast fell heavily on top of Timush. It roared in frustration, almost drowning out Timu’s cry of pain, then they rolled over and slid toward the gutter. Timush kicked at the monster’s broad back, trying to put some distance between them.

  Col shouted, “Lar, save the princess!” before diving down the side of the roof, sliding on his belly after his friend. Cazia finished her spell, launching her dart directly into the left side of the monster’s chest. Doctor Warpoole fired off a shot a moment later, stabbing through its forearm. Col caught hold of Timush’s collar and clutched at the roof tiles, desperately trying to stop their momentum.

  The monster braced itself against the gutter below and spun suddenly, lunging awkwardly toward the two of them. Col shouted, “NO!” and threw himself across Timush’s body.

  The creature bit down on Colchua’s forearm.

  Cazia’s concentration broke and she felt a sudden flush of shame and anger as she started her spell again. Ciriam fired a dart, but she was so worried about hitting Col and Timush that she went low of the mark, skipping off the wall below the eaves. Timush kicked, hard, and the gutter broke away. The injured creature fell into the alley below, and the force of Timu’s kick stole most of the momentum from his slide.

  Clutching the tiles at the peak of the roof, Lar reached toward Col and Timu. Treygar leaned over the rail, muttering, “Into the cart. Into the cart,” as though he could will the prince to flee, but the prince was not going to abandon his friends.

  Timush struggled to get his feet under him--his face was horribly pale and his shoulder looked crooked. Col cradled his injured forearm but he was still moving quickly, helping Lar drag Timush toward the tether.

  “Help the princess,” Stoneface snapped, startling Cazia out of her follow-up spell. Fire and Fury, Cazia knew she would be useless if she let every sharp word break her concentration! The princess’s hands had appeared on the railing. Bittler jumped up as though woken from a trance, took hold of the little girl, and hauled her over the edge.

  The cart had floated away from the roof, too slowly to be immediately noticeable, but it was happening. Maybe Farrabell didn’t even realize he was doing it. Cazia turned toward Stoneface and said, “We should move closer to them.”

  Treygar jabbed him lightly to catch his attention. “Turn the cart so the tether line is near the prince.”

  To his credit, the driver did so immediately. “Lower!” Lar called from below. “I need more slack.”

  The driver did so, fear sweat pouring down his face. Cazia leaned out over the rail and saw the prince loop the end of the tether around Timush’s waist, then press Col against him. “Embrace your cousin,” Lar said. “Your love will save you both.” There were no more of the creatures in sight.

  Col threw himself against Timush and let Lar wrap the rope around them both. “Bad enough I have to stick my arm in a monster’s mouth for him. Don’t make me kiss him, too.” The prince grinned as he tied the knot.

  Ciriam cast another dart, and this time she struck a beast on the hand as it climbed the chimney. A beast Cazia had not noticed until that moment. It lost its grip, falling out of sight.

  Cazia turned to her. “How does it feel to finally hit one?” The clerk burst into tears.

  “UP!” the prince called from below.

  “Gently,” Stoneface added, holding the point of the spike close to the driver’s belly. The man moved the lever slowly but smoothly.

  Cazia leaned over the rail again. Col and Timu dangled from within a knotted loop. Lar clung to the rope above them, his foot wedged into the knot. Treygar added, “Very good, Wimnel. Now take us over the wall. I want you to pick up speed without jarring the prince below.”

  Cazia felt a sudden pointed elbow in her kidneys. The foreign princess squeezed between her and Doctor Warpoole, moving toward Stoneface. “Man, my rescuers are not yet safe. Set down on a flat roof so we can bring them aboard.”

  “I am not your man,” Treygar snapped at her. “And we will not be setting down anywhere inside the walls. Now please sit down. You do not command here.”

  “How dare you!” The girl’s voice was high and strident. “My line goes back forty-six generations to the Chieftains of the Forty Valleys! My people—”

  Cazia caught the girl by the arm. “Vilavivianna, isn’t it?” The girl’s name came to her at the same moment she spoke it. “Princess Vilavivianna of Goldgrass Hill? We met last midwinter at Lar’s party. Do you remember me?” Cazia lowered her voice. “Let me speak honestly with you: we are not your subjects and you are twelve years old. No one is going to follow your orders. Now please let us do what we have to.”

  The little princess looked as if she was about to fly into a rage, but instead, she clenched her jaw and turned her back. Cazia thanked The Child for small favors, then leaned over the railing.

  They floated high over the wall, beyond the mudflat hovels that clung to the city wall. Screams and panic had already reached here, and Cazia saw a large creature leap from the top of the wall onto a muddy street, then dash into the nearest building. A half dozen muddy children burst screaming through the doors, and she saw the monster knock one down and sink its teeth into the back of her thigh, then leap at another. It occurred to her that the monsters were the same color as Pagesh’s lilacs and, for some absurd reason, that made everything even more terribly unfair.

  “They’re tasting us,” Cazia said. “They bite, but since we left the palace, I haven’t yet seen anyone actually eaten.”

  “Some creatures prefer to drag their food to a protected place to eat,” Doctor Warpoole said. “In fact, it’s possible that their bites are envenomed.”

  Horrified, Cazia spun toward the doctor. Was she suggesting Col had been poisoned and was as good as dead?

  The older woman met her gaze with an expression as flat and blank as a serpent’s.

  On a high plaza between the mudflat slums and the Circle Way, soldiers had formed two squares. They were dressed in black and red, their spears extending far beyond their shield walls, and their cuirasses and greaves gleamed in the gentle rain.

  Treygar blurted out, “That’s Third Splashtown!” as though they might save the entire city. The name didn’t mean anything to Cazia, but she made note of their banner, a red waterfall on a black background. The unmistakable note of hope in Stoneface’s voice gave her hope as well.

  Behind them, a fleet squad of unarmored soldiers ran with bows and spears, moving to line up at an angle to the two squares. Cazia noted that many of them were women, and she wished she had been permitted to practice with a spear or a bow. They were going to fight the invader, and she flushed with shame that she could not be down there, too.

  “SHOCK LINE!” Treygar yelled down to them. “SHOCK LI
NE!”

  After a moment’s confusion at who was shouting at them, a man with a long brush along the top of his helmet--the commander, clearly--began barking orders, and the front line of spearmen braced the butts of their weapons in the cracks of the paving stones.

  The cart flew over them, picking up speed. “How much farther?” Lar called from below. Cazia leaned far out and saw the prince clinging to the rope with the crook of his elbow. Her stupid, awful imagination suddenly pictured him losing his grip and falling away--pictured his expression—and she had to look away. “Timush doesn’t look good,” he added.

  It was true. Timush was conscious but his skin was pasty. Cazia had never seen anyone go into shock, but she knew it could be as deadly as the point of a knife.

  “Yes, my prince.” Treygar turned to Wimnel. “Find a place to set down. We have to get those injured men off the rope and we can’t drag them.”

  The driver glanced nervously back toward the city. “My tyr, we must find a road—”

  “We can’t fly all the way to Fort Samsit with the prince hanging by his fingers—”

  “My tyr—”

  “--And two men who risked their lives for him dying at the end of a rope like common murderers!” Cazia was startled by the note of desperation in Stoneface’s voice. For a moment, he seemed to be concerned about Col and Timu.

  “My tyr, trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to set down here.” He nodded toward the marshy grasslands around them. “The cart wheels will get stuck in the mud and the disk wouldn’t be able to pull us out. We’d have to lift the cart free physically, then hover low while everyone loads on, and if we dipped too far down, we’d touch the mud and have to start again. It’s something the scholars don’t yet understand about this Gift, but we must set down on dry ground to take off again. I swear by Song and Monument this is the truth, Fire take me if it’s not.”

  Cazia believed him, and by the way Tyr Treygar grimaced, she could see he did, too. A chill ran down her back. If Old Stoneface couldn’t keep his stoicism, what hope did they have to preserve anything? “We’ll all be Fire-taken if we don’t find a safe place to set down,” Treygar said.

  The Eastern Way would have been a safe place to put down, but it was behind them. By the time they circled back to it, they might find it overrun by beasts. Still, Doctor Warpoole began to insist they turn about, while Tyr Treygar refused to listen.

  Typical of Stoneface and the others to be arguing over who should be in charge when they should have been searching for a safe place to set down. Cazia looked out over the tall yellow grass, letting her vision go unfocused as she looked at everything and nothing. She’d always had strong eyesight, and her habit of watching the palace staff and guards without seeming to had taught her the trick of spotting the thing that doesn’t fit.

  The grasslands were marshy and wet, yes, but there was dry ground out there, too, if you knew how to spot it.

  “We have to turn back to the south,” Doctor Warpoole said again. “The flat stones of the Eastern Way—”

  “There!” Cazia called, pointing to the north a bit. “Do you see the fringe of grass?”

  “No,” Treygar said, but he gestured toward Wimnel, ordering him to head in that direction. He leaned over the rail and called down, “A bit farther, my prince.”

  The fringe of grass did not mark a road, but it did hide a broken stone foundation. Wimnel looked over of the rail at it and nodded. He could set down here.

  He lowered the cart gently and deftly at the edge of the foundation, laying the prince and his two friends on the stony slope outside the foundation. Then he rotated and slowly settled the cart inside the shattered walls. Cazia studied the way he handled the controls.

  Treygar clutched at his injured shoulder. “Doctor Warpoole, please help them inside.” Bittler climbed over the rail to help.

  “What is this place?” the princess asked. Her accent made her sound as though she was talking with her mouth full.

  “An old storm house,” Ciriam answered. “Once the grasslands were dotted with storm houses, but people don’t drive okshim herds through the mud any more. At least, not on this side of the Barrier.”

  Lar and Bittler carried Timush into the cart, then laid him in the front. Just behind them came Doctor Warpoole and Col.

  Timush looked like a waxen doll. The sight of him shocked Cazia so deeply, it felt like pain. Had tragedy managed to strike after all?

  “Make room at the front!” she shouted, using her voice to relieve her tension while she elbowed Ciriam out of the way. “Squeeze in.” She helped Timush settle painfully on the rough wooden floor.

  “We must raise his feet,” Vilavivianna said, “to get the blood back to his face.”

  Of course. Cazia gave the girl a grateful look, then ordered Bittler to sit at the front of the cart and allow Timush’s legs to rest in his lap. He did it.

  Col settled against the rail. “By your command, o Caz,” he said, not unkindly. Cazia felt herself flush anyway and clamped her mouth shut. There were tingles all over her back and arms as she watched her brother, injured but alive, smile at her. Then she moved toward the back of the cart where the driver stood. Col and Timush, resting on the floor, took up a quarter of the available space.

  “We are overburdened,” the princess declared. “This one is not highborn or necessary, is she?”

  Vilavivianna pointed at Ciriam, and she had a point. Not only was the clerk an Enemy, she had taken Cazia’s quiver. Still, the thought of pitching her over the rail into the unprotected grassland made Cazia a little sick.

  Lar said, “Betrothed, we are saving everyone we can. Everyone. Sit up close to Jagia and the doctors. We’ll be uncomfortable, but—”

  The sound of distant screaming came through the grasses. Everyone in the cart was silent as they heard the voices of men and women raised in terror and pain. The little princess turned to look up at the clerk’s face, then looked down at the floor.

  “My tyr?” Wimnel said.

  Old Stoneface stared into the grasses as though he could see the dying soldiers through them. “Take us away from here.”

  Chapter 7

  Something moved through the tall grasses as they slowly rose into the air. Everyone was panicky for a few moments--the Freewell girl held her hands in the first position to cast a spout of flame, and both the Witt boy and the clerk squeezed their eyes shut and muttered prayers for Great Way to clear their path--but nothing happened. Tejohn slid the spike he was holding into his waistcoat pocket, wishing it was reinforced with canvas instead of just a decorative touch to please the Evening People, and took hold of the rail with his good left hand. They’d gotten away. He had done his duty.

  Leaning over the rail, he looked back toward the line of spears and the fleet squad. The soldiers they’d passed was Third Splashtown, the unit he’d served in when he’d broken the guard at Pinch Hall. His unit. They’d lost so many people they’d almost been disbanded, but Tejohn himself had entreated the king to preserve their name and banner; they’d been stationed at Beddalin Hole--guard duty for Peradain, essentially--because they had earned a place of safety and prestige.

  Tejohn couldn’t see the black field with the blurry red smear that could only be the Splashtown waterfall banner against the yellow-green of the surrounding grasses. In fact, he couldn’t see any sign of black and red. Had they already moved out? “Mister Farrabell, start toward the northeast.”

  “We’re not going to Fort Samsit,” Lar said. “Not yet.”

  “My prince,” Tejohn said, “there’s no room for anyone else.”

  “That isn’t my plan,” Lar said. “I can cast the Sixth Gift, and so can Caz.” The Freewell girl jumped as if startled, then nodded. “And so can Doctor Warpoole and Doctor...”

  “Eelhook, my prince,” Ciriam said.

  “You can cast that spell, can’t you?”

  Doctor Warpoole wore a icy expression. “It’s been a while, but I’m sure we can manage.”
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  Below, a spear of the fleet squad broke through a stand of tall grass and sprinted in their direction. Moments later, one of the beasts raced into the open and ran him down as easily as a parent catching a disobedient toddler. Tejohn could do nothing but watch the way one smear of color overtook the other and listen to the sounds they made. The Freewell girl fumbled at her pocket for one of her darts, but Doctor Warpoole stopped her with a gentle hand on the girl’s wrist.

  It was already too late. The beast dragged the man out of sight into the grasses. The screams made Tejohn’s blood run cold.

  The cart picked up speed as they headed back toward the city wall. “Higher,” Tejohn said.

  “Yes, my tyr,” the driver said gratefully.

  There were more screams as they approached the city. “My prince,” Tejohn said, “what is your plan?”

  Lar seemed reluctant to look away from the city ahead. “We get high, very high above the palace. We four cast the Sixth Gift in the air above the portal, dropping stone blocks onto the dais beside it. We heap the stone until no more of these things can get through!”

  The Freewell girl gasped. “Yes,” Doctor Warpoole said. “Yes, of course! We can do that.”

  Tejohn noticed a flash of red fabric on the ground below and leaned over the side.

  Third Splashtown had been destroyed. He couldn’t see them clearly, not from this distance, but he could see smudges of colors motionless in the yellow grasses. Six... no, seven of them were the purple color of the beast men, but everywhere he looked he could see black and red, motionless. The shock line had been smashed.

  Even the screams were fading. Tejohn felt a familiar companion reappear within him. It had been a long time since he’d felt the rage, despair, and grief that came in the wake of an invading army, but there it was again. The queen’s remarks about revisiting his pain had piqued them, but now they piled up within him like a thunderhead. Third Splashtown had been his. He wore their colors in the gym every day, and he was proud to be part of their history. Now they had been Fire-taken.