Empress of the Fall
Page 65
‘The healers are doing sterling work, everyone says so,’ Sedina Waycross answered, plaiting her long flaxen hair. ‘The poor get riverreek all the time.’
Geni, embroidering in the corner, was silent.
Lyra couldn’t muster the energy to join the depressing conversation. She was wondering where Ril was – he and Basia de Sirou had gone somewhere, so a young female mage named Ascella was standing in as her bodyguard. She was outside her doors with the guardsmen right now. Dirklan Setallius was off somewhere too. She would have liked to have asked him about the hunt for Cordan and Coramore.
Why do I feel like everything is unravelling tonight? Then she saw an orange glow, some miles southwest across the Aerflus, at the foot of Emtori Heights. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing. ‘It looks like fire.’
Hilta joined her, her soft hair catching the candlelight. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ she replied. ‘Fire can be awful in the poorer areas: it’s so hard to contain.’
Sedina joined them at the window, her face filled with vague concern. ‘That’s the Surrid docklands. My family have their House on the Emtori Heights. The docks are dirty and lawless,’ she added. ‘Better they burn.’
‘Sedina,’ Hilta reproved, ‘the poor can’t help their station.’
‘All honest, hardworking men can improve their station,’ Sedina sniffed. ‘The poor are just lazy. Everyone knows this. I see them from my carriage – people sleeping through the day when they should be working.’
‘My family give alms, and not just on Holy Days,’ Hilta announced in her “I’m a better person” voice. ‘Poverty is a failing, but they can be helped. I bet you’ve never even met a poor person.’
‘Ha! I have servants – I know all about what lazy wretches poor people are—’
‘Be quiet, all of you,’ Lyra said. She liked Hilta and Sedina most of the time, but they could be such condescending snobs. She’d really seen poverty, in the convent, and she was determined she’d never forget what it looked like. She almost dismissed them both, even though it was only early evening. I’d rather be alone than listen to them prattle. Then she cradled her belly. I’m never alone now, am I? She smiled.
Geni joined them at the rail of the balcony. ‘My family are from Surrid,’ she said quietly, then she gasped. ‘Look, another fire’ – she pointed ‘and another—!’
She was right: more fires were breaking out in Emtori. Then something caught Lyra’s eye: much closer, in the alleys inside the Bastion’s wall: not a movement, but an absence of movement in a place which was always bustling with people hurrying to and fro. Beneath a night-lamp was a person, a hundred yards away or more, who seemed to be staring straight at her. She was sure it was a child.
Then Hilta exclaimed, ‘Look!’ and pointed out another fire in Surrid. For an instant – no more, she was certain – Lyra took her eyes from the person below, and when she looked back, the child was gone. But the sense of being watched persisted.
Her feelings of vulnerability intensified. I wish Ril were here.
The fires were definitely spreading. There were more guards than usual on the battlements below, all pointing towards the distant spectacle – then an Imperial windskiff soared by, heading towards Emtori.
Hilta waved encouragement. ‘See, Majesty? Our Fire-magi, off to save the day!’
‘I hope it doesn’t spread to the Heights where our people live,’ Sedina remarked.
Lyra glanced back at Geni, whose mouth was a thin line. Sedina is so thoughtless. I must speak to her. But as she glanced back down, hearing a guard captain barking orders to the men on the wall, her thoughts froze.
In the shadow of the tall corner tower was a small figure in a hooded fawn cloak, looking up at her. She could have sworn it was the same person she’d seen far below. How did they get there so quickly? Then, Cordan and Coramore had fawn cloaks . . .
She turned to the woman beside her. ‘Hilta—’
But when she looked back, the figure beside the tower was gone. The shadows were dense and the moonless sky only emphasised the distant chill of the stars. She shuddered and took a step backwards.
‘Majesty?’ Hilta asked, her matronly face puzzled. ‘Are you well? Have you caught a chill?’
‘Look, there goes another skiff,’ Sedina said, oblivious.
‘I don’t feel . . .’ Lyra almost said ‘safe’, but hesitated. Am I jumping at shadows? Why would Cordan or Coramore be wandering outside, anyway?
‘It’s too cold out here,’ Hilta fussed, ‘especially for a mother to be – let’s get you inside.’ Herding Lyra towards the doors, she added, ‘Geni, get tea – at once.’
Lyra let herself be ushered inside, but Sedina stayed on the balcony. ‘There goes a third skiff,’ she called. ‘I’m going to watch.’
There was a sensation Lyra got while in her Winter Garden sometimes: a feeling of awareness, and she’d mutter to herself, Aradea is awake. She had that feeling now. Sometimes it was a feeling of comfort, of being nurtured.
Tonight, it was a warning.
‘Sedina,’ she called, ‘come inside!’
‘But it’s all happening!’ Sedina shouted back.
‘I said come inside!’
The willowy blonde woman blinked at the sudden crack of authority in Lyra’s voice. She hesitated, then bowed her head and began to walk back towards the door—
—just as a skinny white arm reached over the balcony, a cowled head appeared – and then a girl in a fawn cloak was standing on the balcony behind her. Lyra and Hilta choked as the hood dropped.
‘Coramore—’
Coramore Sacrecour’s face was ravaged by riverreek. Her eyes were red, her nose bloody and streaming; her drooling mouth was all scab and weeping sores. She stood there like the spectre of disease, staring at Lyra. Then she bared gleaming white teeth which looked somehow elongated, sharpened. Predator teeth.
Lyra and Hilta and Geni all gaped. Sedina stared at them, a question forming on her lips, then she realised they were looking behind her. She turned, her body blocking Coramore from Lyra’s sight . . .
38
The Heart of the Storm
The Draken
The draken is a chthonic beast: one that arises from the earth. The adoption of such beasts as a patron-spirit is usually an attempt by a ruler to lay claim to the land – and, of course, to associate the ferocity and power of the draken with their own myth. Such was the reasoning of Korestane Felz, who took the name ‘Sarkany’ – the Mollach word for draken – when he took the throne of Mollachia in 826
ATTIUS LEX, HISTORIAN, AUGENHEIM, 871
Magas Gorge, Mollachia
Junesse 935
Kyrik Sarkany had a good sword arm, but not good enough: Sacrista could feel the tide turning her way, and her confidence grew. Kyrik had reach on her, and good technique, but she had the upper hand, and the rabble of natives and weird tribesfolk Kyrik was leading were starting to break.
If I take down their leader, this will be my victory. She fuelled her blade and arm with more energy, compensating for her smaller build, and surged forward. Their blades crashed together, carving sparkling gouges in each other’s shields, and he gave ground again, his face taut and bleak.
He reacted with a foolish lunge and her riposte almost took his right eye. He staggered back, tripped over a thorn bush and went sprawling. When he tried to rise, she smashed kinetic-gnosis down on him, leaving him winded, threw a burst of light into his eyes to blind him and closed in.
Then Fressyn appeared alongside her, his sword lifted in a killing blow. ‘He’s mine!’ she warned the battle-mage, but he launched a double-handed overhead blow at the fallen Mollach—
—just as a boulder hurtled out of the gloom and flattened him with a wet crunch. Fressyn was so intent on his moment of glory he’d barely shielded – and he’d paid the price. When the boulder
rolled on, all that was left was a boneless, bloody smear.
‘No, Bitch, he’s mine,’ said a female voice in awkward Rondian, and Sacrista looked up in surprise to see a woman step into view from over the ridgeline.
The woman – a Sydian savage, with face and arms streaked with blue – was panting, as if she’d been running hard to get here. A cloud of black hair surrounded an ageing face; her solid body was clad only in a short leather smock. But she had an amber periapt, and pale shields woven about her. Four more like her, male and female, were standing along the ridgeline. Gnosis-light flared, the remaining defenders rallied, and the advancing legionaries recoiled uncertainly.
Sacrista realised her duel with Kyrik had isolated her a little. She gripped her blade and spun it casually: the picture of utter capability. She could kill Sarkany, right now – but she wanted him alive. I need to use him to induce his brother’s surrender and end this rebellion once and for all.
‘To me!’ she shouted, and was answered by a clarion of trumpets. A glance backwards revealed that her men were still coming up the slope, and her heart sang as Robear’s mental voice filled her head.
‘Rescue’ be damned. But she smiled her most evil smile at the Sydian woman. ‘“Bitch”, is it? You have no idea.’
*
Kyrik’s vision was doubly blurred, by the hammer-blow of kinesis and the blood pouring from the cut above his eye. There was no air in his lungs, but he inhaled desperately as he heard a voice he desperately didn’t want to hear, not here.
No, Hajya! He rammed the heels of his hands into his eye-sockets, trying to counter Sacrista’s blinding spell, while around him boots crunched, weapons clashed and people cried out, praying, and venting their pain. But all he cared was that the woman he loved was facing someone well beyond her—
He got his eyes open, just in time . . .
*
Sacrista advanced swiftly up the slope, closing the distance, as the Sydian woman’s whole shape blurred into an impressively swift shape-change. Sacrista realised she wasn’t trying to alter herself fully, but to enhance her fighting prowess: her chest swelled and her spine lengthened, her legs stretched and then snapped as the joints reversed and reconfigured, thin fur crawled like a shadow over her skin as her nose and mouth became a snout, and then a maw of teeth.
Sacrista lunged, and the woman’s left arm flailed sideways, striking the side of her blade and battering it away, then her right raked and Sacrista, stunned at the speed of the riposte, barely managed to arch her back away. Then the woman was leaping at her, claws raking at her shields as she staggered back. The woman’s face – still hairless, but contorted into a wolf-visage – split open and yellow teeth snapped at her.
But Sacrista’s shields held . . . and she was a half-blood mage trained for war.
She slammed her right hand up, hammering kinesis-force into the Sydian witch and sending her hurling backwards. Then she followed up the blow by leaping to land over the woman as she tried to rise and smashed an overhanded blow at her shoulder. Though the witch blocked with shields, the force of the blow was enough to break the woman’s left arm at the elbow and crush her to the ground.
‘Who’s the bitch now?’ she snarled, sweeping another sideways blow at the woman that almost severed her right claw. She followed by stepping in and ramming the hilt, infused with gnosis-energy, into the side of the woman’s head. The witch’s shields stripped her blade of gnostic fire but the blow still struck her temple with bone-crunching force, dropping her in a heap. She spun her blade and raised it above the woman’s breast to finish the job—
—as Kyrik howled in despair and erupted from the ground, his face transcendent with rage, power bursting from him and hammering into her. She was battered backwards, hurled down the slope. She crunched against a boulder, losing her blade – she’d have broken her back, too, if she’d not been able to keep her shields together. The legionaries who tried to stand against him were scattered as Kyrik blasted mage-fire at them, then again at her, anger lending him a speed and ferocity she could only defend against – and then he was on her, before she’d been able to retrieve her blade. She blocked with shielding, but blocking steel with kinesis was a fool’s game. She tried to elude him, feinted left, darted right—
—and howled silently as his sword plunged through her right thigh, his weight pushing in behind. They fell together, his blade pinning her to the ground, her vision became a tunnel: one face, one man—
—then trumpets blasted, so close she was deafened, and Robear stormed up the slope on horseback, his steed’s hooves borne by Air-gnosis, riding the air, and his sword swiped around, taking Kyrik Sarkany in the side. The big Mollachian spun and toppled, landing on top of her in a horrific jolt that pushed the wind from her lungs.
They clutched blindly at each other in a blaze of convulsive agony, their faces inches apart, eyes glazed and draining of life, recognition fading as they tumbled into the waiting void.
*
The White Stag rode the winds with Valdyr clinging to its back as they plummeted down cliffs and crashed through forests, leaving splintered timber behind. They ripped along valleys like a mountain storm, clouds of snow-dust boiling in their wake, the stag a projectile of horn and fur, impossibly swift.
But his ears heard further than that: they heard the tumult of battle, and his brother’s fierce need.
He dug his fingers into the stag’s fur, tears icing up on his cheeks, his hair streaming out behind him. They triggered avalanches from the highest slopes of Watcher’s Peak in their passing, sending snow and rocks tumbling into the forests of Feher Szarvasfeld thousands of feet below. A surging wave of black clouds followed behind them; white fingers of death cracked the tree trunks and splintered stone as they came. He felt like more than a man: he was an arrow carved from the branches of the Elétfa, the Tree of Life, and loosed upon the land.
Then he felt Kyrik cry out, and fear and rage flared brighter again inside his chest.
‘Onwards!’ he shouted, and the stag’s massive limbs pounded harder and faster, and the world became a white blur.
*
Robear Delestre dismounted as the native scum finally realised they were beaten and fell back, rallying to a brown-bearded man brandishing a wolf’s-head hilt and reforming in a ragged line near the top of the cliffs. His own men were scattered, so Robear paused to regroup them. He wanted this done properly. There’d be no gaps in the lines: he would hem these peasants in and hurl them all from the cliffs.
Kyrik Sarkany had landed on his sister, which offended him. He threw the Mollach carelessly aside and saw to Sacrista. Thankfully, she’d only blacked out, and the sword spearing her thigh had missed the bone. She’d live, thank Kore! Despite her imperfections, he couldn’t imagine life without her. He removed the sword and quickly sealed the wound. He had an affinity to healing, although he didn’t often utilise it – knights were warriors, not healers. But he had to admit, at times it was damned handy.
Kyrik Sarkany was still living as well. ‘Take him, Chain him and put him in irons,’ he told the nearest battle-mage. ‘We’ll work out what to do with him later.’
Then the crowd of merchants’ and bankers’ sons galloped up, looking flushed with exertion and excitement. ‘I hope we’re not too late,’ they called.
Robear indicated the surviving enemy, silhouetted against the cliff-tops. ‘The last few dozen are trapped – but our scouts reckon there are masses more in the gorge below, so once we command the heights, it’ll be slaughter.’
‘Lovely. I do enjoy a good slaughter,’ one of the bankers chuckled.
‘I say,’ another said, ‘your sister looks in bad shape. Best to keep girls from the battlefield, eh?’
Robear laughed as if it were a splendid jest. Then he saw her eyelids flutter open and she woke. He bent over her, whispering, ‘Sister dear, the scrapes you get into!’
‘Go to Hel,’ she groaned. She’d be limping for weeks an
d she’d have the scar for life, but she’d recover, he decided. ‘Thanks, Arsehole,’ she added grudgingly.
‘You’re welcome, Bitch.’ He pulled her into a quick hug.
‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘I showed her who’s the bitch. Get me my sword back, Rob.’
He looked around and spotted her distinctive blade lying beside a corpse up the slope. He sauntered over, swept up Sacrista’s blade and glanced at the female savage lying there. She looked halfway through some kind of shape-change – or maybe these savages are just that ugly? It’ll be a boon to the world to end her. He lifted Sacrista’s blade to finish her as an icy gust of wind rolled over them, making him shiver. He glanced up and realised the lower slopes had vanished and the valley to the east was somehow filling up with darkness. Lightning flashed through the mountains to the north – then thunder suddenly cracked and rolled, stunningly loud.
He turned back . . . and found the she-savage had crawled away to the feet of a giant with a bow. They stared at each other, he and the young tribesman, and he smiled to see that the ignorant savage was unafraid.
He’s probably never even seen a mage-knight fight.
He kindled mage-fire in his left hand and was about to advance when one of his battle-magi approached. ‘Milord, our scouts say when the clouds cover the lower slopes, you’ve got less than twenty minutes to find shelter,’ he said.
Robear watched the way the storm was flowing straight along the valley towards him and decided the advice was sound. Who cares if a few natives get away? He didn’t wish to get wet on such a cold night – and more importantly, Sacrista was in no shape for a night in the open.
‘Agreed. Let’s get under cover,’ he said. ‘We’ll complete the mopping-up in the morning.’ He threw the young giant a mocking salute; the young man returned the gesture—