The bandit reaches her faster than she thought. He seizes her by the throat like he did Kreston. Will she die by the same sword that killed him?
“You know where Asher Xerxes is?” he asks her.
Priscilla’s jaw quivers. She doesn’t understand the question at first. “Uh, yes. Yes!”
But he doesn’t ask where. He drags her out through the front of the Sanctuary while the other bandits light it. The benches ignite. The walls. The stairs. Priscilla thinks of the book upstairs with Kreston’s necklace and letter. She steps over his dead body when she thinks of it. The bandit holding her kicks Gabriel’s body out of the way at the entrance. Is Anna dead too? And Mabel? And Alesia?
Outside, the bandit grips Priscilla by the hair. “She knows where Xerxes is,” he says to a bandit approaching.
“And Evelyn and Caius are coming with the lord and lady, yes?”
“Yes, I think. The boys should have them in hand. A couple of us are supposed to go out and make sure they have safe passage to the Gallery. I can take this one myself, if you’d like to check on them.”
“That’s fine. Sylvia and Goldie will know what to do. And the healer is on our side now.”
“Is she? Did he finally convince her?”
“I think she’s in love with him.”
The bandit holding her laughs. “That works out nicely.”
They both turn to the main gate. Another group of dragons is lowering outside.
“Those ours?” the other bandit asks.
“I don’t know. Did Gil send for more? I thought we had enough.”
“Guess not. Now, get her back to the Gallery. That’s where they’re setting up. If she knows where Xerxes is, she needs to be back there immediately. I’ll go check on the others.”
The bandit gives Priscilla’s hair a sharp tug. “Sounds good. Come on, wench.”
Priscilla lets him drag her down the main street. Toward the Gallery. Toward death.
Chapter 36
Embers
Evelyn grips Caius’ arm as he orders the dragons to the ground in front of the gates. He’s so solid on the back of a dragon. The bumping and swaying of a live beast does nothing to unbalance him.
“Everyone, off!” he shouts. He gives the dragons some long speech before letting them go.
“What was that about?” Evelyn asks as the dragons lift again into the grey sky.
He wipes sweat from his brow. The brief rainstorm didn’t cut the humidity enough. He must be so terribly hot.
“I instructed them not to destroy the city,” he says, “but to persuade their fellow beasts to return to the mountains. If the others do not listen, they must be destroyed. Also, they must only listen to my voice. It would be chaos if our own dragons turned against us.”
Evelyn looks behind him at the winged creatures swooping down into the city. Terrified screams fill the air. Other dragons drop behind the walls, backs bent with the weight of bandit soldiers. Evelyn takes out her sword, very ready to bloody it and finish this awful war.
Others from the holds trade items and tools. They pull tight straps on their armour, tuck their heads into helmets. Evelyn herself receives a bow and arrows from a Ralik man. Asher, a new helmet. One man trades a large spiked flail for a single healing potion from Caius, perhaps as a thanks for bringing them safely and not dropping them out of the sky.
“The three of us should stay together,” Caius says.
“And the rest?” Evelyn asks.
Asher glances over the group. “You should all enter as clumps. Form wide groups and move in as one. Separate to allow bandits to trickle in, but enclose them. That way, we can overwhelm them with numbers.”
Evelyn smirks to herself, reminded of that first battle when he ordered the exact opposite.
Caius says, “We don’t want any front men slaughtered. Move fast. Take cover from the fire. Spread out when the dragons swoop.”
The farmers exchange nervous glances at the sight of the other dragons, the flames, the bandits.
“Caius,” Evelyn whispers, taking his arm, “perhaps you could give them a quick training lesson?”
“Now? Teach them to fight with a little speech?”
Evelyn shrugs. “Something. The basics of defending themselves.”
Caius looks up at them. “As you engage, be sure to watch your opponent’s eyes. He’ll look where he strikes before he strikes it.”
As he gives a brief lesson on defensive stances and largest pain points, Evelyn watches him, heart full of love and awe. She remembers him telling her those same things when she was in training. Plant your feet. Slide, don’t step.
A crash from within the walls halts the short session.
Asher raises a fist. “Don’t just fight with your hands. Fight with your hearts. After all, it is your families and mine that will pay the price should we give up.”
“Herus guide and protect you all,” Evelyn shouts. “Trust him, and you shall have peace should your lives be taken this day.”
“Praise Herus!” one man shouts.
“For Prynveil!” says another.
“For Vestar!”
“For Ralik!”
Evelyn turns to the gate with Caius and Asher next to her. “For Lockmire!” she shouts.
The mass moves in. Angry. Ready.
The gates are already opening. Guards on top of the walls must have seen and heard them. Heat from the fires boils the air. The burn of it combined with the summer humidity and the coming dark brings Evelyn back to the night her village burned. It even smells the same.
But that night she ran. Today, she fights.
She tightens the grip on her sword as they move in. Two dragons rip each other apart down the main road. Brilliant yellow flames illuminate their undersides. They wrestle against entire buildings, writhing and snarling and spitting flame like creatures of Hades.
Asher turns and stops dead. “Gods, no.”
Evelyn follows his gaze to the Sanctuary, now a column of fire and smoke next to the stone Shrine of the Seven.
She touches his arm. “Perhaps they found shelter.”
He points silently at the bodies holding open the remnants of the door. Dozens of them litter the room inside.
“Asher, we must continue,” says Caius. “This city needs us.”
Asher turns to the fiery road with eyes ablaze. “Those bandits will suffer Hades this night.”
“Then let us give it to them,” Caius agrees.
Evelyn pulls out her bow at the sight of a bandit group torching a building in front of them. Her arrow barely misses a bandit head. Caius and Asher move forward with their melee weapons drawn. Caius brandishing that spiked flail sends two of the bandits running.
Evelyn aims again for the cowards while he, Asher, and a host of fighters behind take care of the others. She hits one in the leg and sends him to the ground. She charges after the other, her loose armour jostling against her small frame. Leaping onto a cart for a better shot, she fires again. One arrow finds the man’s thigh; the other pierces his back.
Evelyn finishes the first coward off, then joins Asher and Caius again, but they’ve taken out the others. The three move through the street, blocks of their comrades behind parting through different alleys. The dragons battling here earlier are gone now. A dragon circles overhead, waiting, perhaps, on orders to dive.
A cluster of shiny armour appears around the next building. Evelyn raises her bow at once, but lowers it once she recognizes Tarreth’s crest on their breastplates.
“We’ve brought allies from the other holds,” Asher tells them. “Spread yourselves among them to strengthen the troops. You’re good, trained men. You’ll support them well.”
Hope ignites in their faces. One guard asks, “How did you get reinforcements here so quickly?”
Asher looks at Caius. “By using all of our resources. Now get to it. The bandits are spreading through the city as we speak.”
The guards nod quickly. “They’ve reached the Gallery
already.”
“The Gallery?” Caius repeats.
Bandits spill off a dragon in front of them. The beast hurls a tunnel of flame at the fountain, blowing water out of it. Water sizzles like burning oil. The dragon paws at the pillar in the centre until it crumbles.
Twenty at least. No, thirty. Thirty bandits in front of them. Evelyn stares for a moment before she, Caius, and Asher run forward, the guards at their sides, the hardy troops behind them. Evelyn crashes her sword into a bandit’s. One of her comrades charges into him from the side, throwing him over. Evelyn stabs him in the side of the head.
Asher sidesteps a bandit’s thrust and parries the tip away when it slices up toward him. He swipes his sword through the bandit’s side, opening his armour, making him scream in pain. Asher leaps forward and finishes him with a powerful stab into his torso.
Caius cuts down two men before he reaches the fountain. He jumps onto the edge, clashes his flail with the head of the bandit following him, and dodges the snap of the dragon nearby. In one motion, he bows to scoop a large rock from the fountain and flings it into the group of bandits. The opening guides him toward the side of the dragon without nearing its jaws. With a running jump, he mounts it.
The creature first bucks at its unknown rider until Caius speaks to it. First, it hesitates, eyes darting about like Caius is telling it an important secret. Then, all at once, it stomps at the remaining bandits, throws Caius off, and springs from the ground, sweeping up a cloud of dust and debris as it disappears.
Another dragon screeches above, louder than anything Evelyn has ever heard. She drops to the ground instinctively and covers her ears. She can feel someone over her, covering her body with their own. There’s a flash of light and the deep boom of a collision among crackling flames. But Evelyn is not on fire.
She rises. Glances for Caius in the screaming frenzy. He was just thrown from that dragon. Where is he?
Asher is next to her. “Come on, that fire will reach us.”
She didn’t even notice the house next to her engulfed in flames. “Where is Caius?”
“I think over there. We have to keep moving.”
A pair of bandits cut down an ally from Ralik. Asher takes down one bandit in a single hard swing. The other stares at Evelyn.
“You’re Goldie’s child, aren’t you?” he says.
In his moment of hesitation, Evelyn pulls him onto her sword.
“Don’t remind me,” she says.
He rasps for breath, gripping her blade with both hands. His limp body falls to the ground. Evelyn follows Asher around the wreckage of a destroyed shop. Caius is there, leaning over a dead bandit. He straightens.
“They are at the Gallery,” Caius says. “That one just told me they’re looking for us.”
“Us? Why?” Asher asks.
“Don’t know. But they have Priscilla.”
Asher’s face looks white despite the darkening night around them. “What?”
“They spared her because she knew where you were, supposedly.”
“But what do they want with us?” Evelyn asks.
Caius picks a chunk of flesh from a spike on his flail. “I don’t know, but your mother is here, for certain. They may want to take information from us.”
Evelyn grips her sword tighter. “Well, it won’t come easily.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Bandits pour off a dragon down the narrow street. Another swoops down, spraying fire in their direction as it screams. Asher ducks and covers his head.
“I thought you said your dragons would convince these ones to stop!” he shouts over the screech.
“I hoped they would,” Caius says.
Caius swings his flail through two approaching bandits, tearing flesh from bone with one swipe. Asher and Evelyn position themselves on the other side of the enemy. Asher tries to keep his back to nearby houses to avoid any strikes from behind. Some of these bandits are skilled, but their power drains from their never-depleted fury rather than training.
Asher ducks a clumsy lateral swing and rolls. He slices one man’s leg so he’ll lower his shield, then bends the shield away with a knock at his waist. He springs forward to stab him in the stomach, shoving him into the crowd.
“There are too many,” Evelyn shouts at Caius as she battles a large fellow with incredible stamina.
“Ignis jumen—” Caius screams, but someone bashes their elbow into his face. Men overwhelm him until he’s out of sight. Asher pushes his way toward him.
“Caius!” Evelyn shouts. He glances back at her. The large man is down, so she’s safe for now.
Hands shove Asher back. He slashes his sword, stabs at faces, arms, chests—it doesn’t matter. He must get to Caius. He shoulders someone out of his way. Throws one man’s head against the others.
Caius is on the ground. Black liquid covers the stones beneath him. When a flash of fire shoots past them, black turns to deep red. Caius’ face is white even in the darkness. Bandits jostle Asher until he stumbles. He bashes a face with his sword hilt. Whips the blade around and stabs a throat. Something hard hits his cheek. He stumbles again, losing his sword. There are too many. Too many.
“Where’s Evelyn?” Caius shouts over the mob. “Asher, where’s Evelyn?”
A bandit standing over him steps on Caius’ hand.
“Caius, hang on!” Asher struggles from the crowd that overtakes him, searching for Evelyn in the fray. “She was just there…”
“That’s who you are,” says the bandit over Caius. “I’ve been struggling to remember. You were the one who killed Lyle years ago, back at the Peaks. You’re the famous man with fists of iron, as they said. Your fists don’t look very strong now.”
There’s an impact and Caius’ grunt of pain.
Asher knees one man between the legs as hard as he can. He presses his thumbs into the eyes of another and shoves him aside. Come on. Keep him talking, Caius.
Caius chokes again.
“That doesn’t look very comfortable,” the bandit above him says.
Asher yells, furious but grateful that the crowd is more focused on getting through the streets than on killing him. He swipes his sword from the stones and finally spots Evelyn aside from the mob again, watching them. For now, it seems she is untargeted, so he can focus on Caius.
He tackles the larger bandit to the ground. Caius staggers to his feet. He yanks Asher up by the collar of his armour, disentangling them from the crowd.
“Evelyn?” he asks, once they’ve made it further into the street, away from the mob.
Asher points to her nearby, then realizes with a sinking emptiness that it isn’t her at all. It’s Goldie.
She stops before them. “There you are,” she says.
“Where’s Evelyn?” asks Caius.
“You don’t look so good. Why don’t you let my boys take care of you?”
Someone kicks behind Asher’s knees, sending him to the ground hard. He grits his teeth as his arms are twisted backward. The bandits get Caius to his knees fairly easily because of his injuries which, in the light of a burning house nearby, are much worse than Asher had thought. His dirty cheek is already blossoming with deep purple. It is most certainly going to swell his eye shut. But the deep gashes in his side, cutting his flesh right open, could kill him. Even still, he fights the arms of the bandits trying to hold him as if the injuries don’t even exist.
“Where is Evelyn?” Caius asks again, shouting now.
“I’d worry more about yourself,” Goldie says, crossing her arms. “Someone far angrier than me requested to see you especially. This way, boys.” She wiggles a finger as she walks down the street.
The bandit behind Asher jerks him up by the hair. He falls in step behind Caius, who shakes visibly, whether from pain or anger, Asher doesn’t know.
They are dragged the rest of the way to the Gallery. Debris and corpses litter the streets Asher played in as a boy. Buildings on every side burn high into the evening sky. Shops Asher once frequented. H
omes of friends and neighbours. Establishments he passed every day on his way to the market, to guard duty, and, lately, to the Sanctuary. Asher stares at his boots. He walks by a burnt shoe small enough for a child. The bandit behind kicks it out of the way.
Goldie shoves both Gallery doors open at once. Yellow light shines off the sandstone tile floor and ribbed columns before getting lost in the vaulted ceiling. A group of bandits stand around the throne at the end of the hall. They turn to look as Asher and Caius enter.
“Gentlemen,” says a man behind the others. He steps between those in front. “It’s been too long.”
Caius spits a curse as Asher slowly recognizes him.
“Leo,” Asher says. “What are you doing? Why are you part of this?”
“You can kill her now,” Goldie says behind Asher. “She was no help to us anyway.”
Asher glances to where she spoke and sees Priscilla, held by the throat from a bandit behind her. A blade shimmers in the torchlight beneath her jaw.
“No!” Asher shouts.
Goldie raises a hand. The blade at Priscilla’s throat stops.
“Please don’t,” Asher pleads. “Just let her go. I’ll give you every copper my family has if you let her go. Please. Just let her go, and it’s all yours. I swear it on my life.”
Goldie studies him with narrowed eyes. Shockingly, she nods at the bandit, who shoves Priscilla toward the door.
“Go,” Asher tells her.
She hesitates. Her face is tear-stained. Tortured. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to leave them.
“Get out,” Goldie snaps, “before I change my mind.”
Priscilla races out, disappearing from Asher’s view. He hears the door slam somewhere behind him and breathes a small sigh of relief. At least she’s safe for now. He can’t even begin to consider where Alesia might be.
“That was very generous of you,” Goldie says. “Lucky for you, I’m feeling gracious today. But your money will be very useful when we rebuild this place.”
Caius wrenches at the hands gripping his arms. “Where is Evelyn?”
Leo glances at Goldie with uncertainty. “Didn’t you capture her, too?”
Of Embers Page 34
