City of Blaze (The Fireblade Array)

by H. O. Charles

  They had worked through fifteen of the forms by the time the sun had set. Artemi absorbed his instruction like a sponge, never making the same mistake twice. Morghiad made no assumptions that it would be this easy all the way through, especially given her temperament, but it was a promising start, nonetheless. He ordered her to repeat all fifteen forms once more, threw off his coat and sat on the armchair to observe her. First, second, third, fourth – her rhythm was good – fifth – he rose to re-adjust her elbow. “Continue.” The last forms were position-perfect. Cadets simply did not learn that quickly. His suspicions had finally been confirmed. “Good. What do you feel when you do these forms?”

  Artemi frowned a little. “Not much. A small desire to beat you across the head with the sword, but that is all.”

  Morghiad gave her no reaction. She would have to try harder than that to rouse him. “No emotion at all?”

  “Not really. I am concentrating too hard on getting them right.”

  Perhaps it was too early to establish if she needed to learn about proper methods of regulation. Clearly she could tame her spirit if she made an effort, though perhaps that was from a distantly remembered habit. The Kusuru may have done things differently, and he could not base his teaching on guesses.

  Artemi made as if to holster her weapon at her waist. “This will not do,” she mused, “Don’t they make scabbards for dresses?”

  The kahr wanted to smile at her comment but decided not to. He would stay in control. He would remain ready to raise his sword at any moment. He would keep his head clear. On a more practical note, he would have to find a way of affixing a weapon to her without it being obvious. Some of the noblewomen kept daggers under their skirts, or so Silar claimed, but that would not be substantial enough for Artemi. And fiddling around under her skirt would probably lose her valuable time in the event of an attack. It would have to be something more ingenious.

  The red-haired woman seated herself before him and studied him levelly. He couldn’t help but feel as if she were able to read every emotion he managed to suppress. Her dark eyes seemed to look right through him at times.

  “I think it is wise if we finish our lesson here. Would you like to borrow one of these books?” He waved in the direction of the shelves.

  Artemi’s face lit up in an instant. She rose from the chair and perused the volumes excitedly, but did not touch them. Her eyes came to rest on a small black book about the history of Forda. “May I take this one?” She pointed gingerly at the text.

  “Of course.” He reached across and pulled the book out for her, setting it into her hands. She looked at it almost in wonderment, certainly with more respect than she had shown the sword. That seemed the wrong way around, somehow.

  “I must do something about your bed sheets before I go.” She placed the book and the sword on top of the chest and began stripping back his bed. Morghiad went to help her; he should probably make an effort to do this in advance of their lessons so that their time could be more productive. In any case it seemed to amuse her when he did domestic work. “Will you meet me at the battlements in two days’ time?”

  “If that is what you wish. May I ask what for?” she said without looking up.

  “I must show you the faces of the other kanaala. Do you have a cloak of your own?”

  She frowned at him. “Of course.”

  “With a hood?”

  “No. But my mother’s has. I shall have to collect it from my father’s house.”

  “Good. Meet me at the eastern entrance to the city wall, three hours following sunset. Make sure your hood is up and your face well-hidden. Keep your hair covered as well.” It would be bad enough if he was seen about the town with a recognisable woman, worse if the other kanaala caught sight of her.

  Her mother’s cloak had seen better days: rough at the edges, worn in the middle and stiff from years in storage. It was not as warm as her own cloak, and certainly nowhere near the luxury of Morghiad’s. She had felt a stab of guilt each time she went to sleep in that one. Her hair was tied in a braid that fell down the back of her neck to her waist. Odd. She was unaccustomed to the feeling of cold air touching her neck and ears. Artemi kept the hood up, shading her face as Morghiad had instructed. The guards at the eastern gate apparently had not noticed her waiting there, though she felt very conspicuous out of servant’s clothing.

  She caught sight of a tall, black-haired man striding through the crowds. His plain brown clothing did nothing to conceal the bearing he had, and he certainly did not blend in with the surrounding populace. Artemi supposed one could call him handsome when he moved but, when he was still, his grim face and stern manner prevented him entirely from being good-looking. If only she could work a smile onto his face, it would be so much more agreeable. Well, that or it would look unnatural.

  Morghiad walked straight past her, pressing something into her hand as he did. He proceeded through the gate and into a door that presumably led to steps inside the city wall. Artemi walked round the corner of a shop building to examine the contents of her hand. It was a rolled-up note and, inside, a key. The kahr’s elegant script instructed her to proceed through the door he had just used. She must pretend that she was there to visit a relative who was being kept in the cells.

  There were cells in the walls?

  She then had to walk to the end of the second corridor on the fifth level, and use the key in the gate at the end. It seemed straight-forward enough. She folded up the note and pushed it into the bodice of her dress, but tucked the key into the laces at the back.

  Artemi walked as confidently as she could to the wall door and opened it. Well-oiled hinges swept open silently as she stepped into the darkness beyond. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the low lamplight, revealing a cobble-lined passage that seemed to stretch into eternal blackness. She began to walk down the passage, footsteps echoing along it and back again. The construction of the tunnel indicated that it must have been equally as old as the walls themselves, perhaps several-thousand years, and the cobblestones were heavily worn. After a hundred yards she drew up before two broad-shouldered guards manning a gate. They eyed her suspiciously.

  “I’m here to see my brother,” she lied. She had always wanted an older brother.

  “Hood down, miss,” came the gruff reply of one man.

  Artemi could scarcely argue with them here. As long as it was only these two who saw her face... She took down her hood.

  The other man whistled appreciatively, “Lucky brother. Don’t get many like you down here! Hold out your hands.” He inspected them for contraband. Seeing them empty, he turned and opened the gate behind them, motioning her through. “Which level?”

  “He’s on the fifth.”

  The first guard nodded to her right. “You’ll need to take those stairs to the top. Must have been a naughty boy!” The two men chuckled and re-locked the gate.

  Artemi commenced her ascent of the stairs, but curious noises reached her ears as she ascended. She pulled the hood back over her head. The ancient stairs did indeed stop at the fifth level, but how was one to find a second corridor when she could only see one? She forged ahead until she reached a doorway to a block of cells. It was labelled ‘One.’ Next to it was another door, also numerically labelled. Artemi was going to have to walk through a block of cells. Wonderful. No doubt they were filled with murderers and thieves!

  She pushed open the second door gently. It swung open with a loud groan, instantly rousing a chorus of howls and whistles. She pulled the hood over her face, looked at the floor and walked as fast as she dared down the corridor. Hands reached out for her through small holes in each prison door, though Artemi suppressed the urge to run and kept her walk at a steady pace. The gate at the end had come into view. She pressed ahead with fervour, reaching for the back of her bodice. The key was not there!

  In a panic, she turned back to the cells she had just passed. The hands waved menacingly at her. Something glinted on the floor. The key. It had fallen just be
low one of the prison doors. She edged back down the hallway, taking care to stay right in the middle of it, farthest from any hands. Once she had drawn level with the key she knelt, but it was too far for her to reach from the middle of the hall. She would have to move closer. Slowly, she inched toward the key with her arm outstretched, but the occupant of the cell must have seen her approach, for he immediately reached down from the hole in the door and grabbed her hood.

  He pulled hard at it, slamming her shoulder into the cell door. She cried out in pain but was tethered. She could not pull the cloak from his grip! Hurriedly she untied it from her neck and picked up the key. Artemi ran to the gate and fumbled at the lock. The prisoner was waving her mother’s cloak around excitedly, but all Artemi desired was to be out of there as quickly as possible. At last the lock turned and the gate opened. She stepped through and closed it rapidly, before running down the hall beyond. There was a pool of light up ahead. A pair of crossed, booted feet rested in it. Attached to them, Morghiad was leaning nonchalantly against the wall. He stood up at her entrance. “What is the matter? Where is your cloak?”

  “I dropped the key - one of the prisoners caught hold of it. I had to -”

  Morghiad was looking at her with his usual stern face. She could almost see him thinking how much of a pigeon-brained, pathetic idiot she was. His only response was a grunt. She looked down at the floor, hoping he would not launch into a barrage of criticism over her poor performance. She hated herself for feeling so subservient around the man.

  Instead, the kahr strode past her and back down the hall she had run through. “Follow,” he commanded. She did so tentatively, some thirty feet behind him, and yet her footfalls reverberated around the tunnel while his did not. How did such a tall man walk with no sound at all? There must be something special about his boots, she decided. They reached the gate and he invited her to give him the key. He must have found a different way into that passage, though she had observed no other doors or corridors leading from it. Morghiad took the key from her hand, sending the usual flow of sparks and flame through her limbs. She still had not quite become accustomed to it, and was increasingly frustrated at Morghiad’s utter lack of reaction.

  “Stay.” He held his hand up at her and then proceeded through the gate. She could see through its iron rails that he was making straight for the cloak, now dangling limply from the cell door. Suddenly the cloak shuddered and waved. It was still being held tightly by the prisoner, evidently proud of his prize and unable to pull it through the hole in the door. With startling speed, Morghiad snatched the prisoner’s arm and thrust it downwards. From beyond the cell door the arm’s owner screamed and released the cloak, which Morghiad caught neatly. The prisoner withdrew his arm into the cell door and whimpered as Morghiad returned to Artemi with the reclaimed cloak.

  “Thank you,” she uttered. Then, “Did you break his arm?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

  “Probably. You’d better hope they don’t talk.” He locked the gate, gave her the key and walked on. The man was inhuman! Did he have no sensibilities at all? What was to stop him from snapping her neck if she angered him? She decided to keep a little more distance behind him.

  The pair followed the tunnel round a shallow arc, which by Artemi’s calculation, had to follow the inner circumference of the city wall. Eventually they came upon a small store room with a curiously solid door that must have been ten inches in thickness, and Morghiad opened it to motion her inside. The room was bare save for a few empty flour sacks, beer bottles and tankards. The stubs of a couple of red leaf cigars lay at the bottom of a tall, narrow slit in the wall. Through it Artemi could just see the lights of the city and hear some of the louder noises of horse traffic. What could Morghiad hope to achieve in this place? She kept her silence as the kahr went to stand to the side of the narrow window. He reached inside the upper of his brown suede coat and pulled something tubular out. He shook it once, releasing a sequence of bronze-lined, gradually smaller tubes from its lower end.

  Artemi moved closer to afford a better view of it. It seemed to be lined in embossed leather and strewn with engravings. Whatever it was, it looked expensive. The kahr turned the narrow end to his eye and pointed the wider end at the window. Perhaps it was some sort of weapon and he intended for her to wield through it, killing every commoner that displeased him. Or perhaps he would just beat her over the head with it instead. An expensive-looking bludgeon. She couldn’t stop a small smile from surfacing on her lips. Morghiad dropped the instrument from his eye and signalled for her to stand next to him. She took a step forward.

  “Here.” He pulled her by the arm and arranged her in a position in front of the wall’s slit, which cause his chest to brush against her shoulder blades. He really was uncomfortably close, and Artemi did not appreciate being manhandled. The sword lessons had been bad enough, but now was hardly the time to use her as his puppet. He stooped to bring his head level with hers and pointed through the window. “Do you see the tall, thin building with the blue flag hanging out of the window?”

  Artemi followed his indication to a wealthy-looking abode some distance away. “The flag has a golden symbol on it,” she said.

  “That’s it,” he said, “Now look at the window diagonally up and to the right. In a few minutes every kanaala in Cadra will convene there for a meeting which I have organised. I will have to join them later, but until then we can spy on them as they arrive.”

  She frowned. “How will I know their faces? My eyesight is good but not that good!”

  “That is why we have this.” He lifted the curious tube before her. “Put this to your eye and look through it.” Morghiad handed her the object and straightened.

  The instrument was heavy, surprisingly so given that it could concertina inside itself. She held it up to one eye as the kahr had done, aiming it out of the window. A face appeared not more than twenty yards from her, almost sending her back into Morghiad. She lowered the tube and stared at it with admiration. “It’s a far-scope. I read about one once... never thought I’d actually get to use one.”

  They only waited for two minutes before the first man arrived, lighting up their target window. Artemi raised the far-scope to her eye and assessed him.

  “Describe him to me,” Morghiad ordered.

  “Dark hair, grim face, broad-shouldered – like you!” She grinned. “Perhaps a little overweight though.”

  The kahr sniffed. He was useless at dealing with jokes. “That would be Master Corvid Hordreda. He will not think anything of killing you and would probably delight in torturing you, too. Corvid is one of the... less considerate of us.”

  Artemi suppressed a shiver. Morghiad was colder than a blizzard in Kemen, but he claimed be a kitten in comparison to these men? She worked hard at memorising Corvid’s face. Another man joined Corvid, this time walking past the window and into a neighbouring courtyard. “This one is taller, mousy-haired and wiry. He looks like he’s sneering...”

  “Jarynd Farpike. His face is scarred from a battle two-hundred years ago. The cut runs from his mouth to his right eye. He may be more sympathetic to you, but I wouldn’t depend upon it.”

  Wounds tended to scar badly if they were inflicted with pinh-covered blades, Artemi knew. She wondered if any wielders had injured him in the past, or if he’d want to attack her with a poison-dipped knife.

  Three more men came to join the party and had their faces memorised. They chatted away about things that Artemi could only imagine were bawdy or frivolous. They did not look especially different from any other men. All wore the green and black uniforms of the army and all exhibited the usual range of expressions, unlike Kahr Statue behind her. Three times he ordered her to name each man and describe them in turn. She felt as if their names and faces had been burned into the very fabric of her soul. On completion of her task, Morghiad announced that he was content with her achievements. “You should stay here a while longer with the far-scope. I must go and join them now. Will
you meet me again in my chambers tomorrow morning?”

  “Of course. I suppose you’ll want this back?” She waved the scope gently.

  The tall man nodded. He hesitated, drawing breath, and then said, “Have you ever played will-die?”

  What peculiar manners the man had. “With my father, all the time.”

  Morghiad simply nodded to himself and then made his exit. He was a very odd man indeed.

  Artemi waited in deep reflection for some time before she returned to the window for another gawp at her would-be murderers. The kahr was there, seeming to tower over them in his usual, bleak manner. He would have had to come up with a good reason for their meeting, and she hoped it was not the planned torture and execution of a rogue wielder.

  After a time, she grew bored of staring at them and moved the far-scope across to a neighbouring building. Through one window she spied a family stuffing their faces with some delectable meal. They looked very content with their evening. The next window revealed to her an empty reception room, but for a lonely looking woman. She was very pretty: dark-skinned and black-haired, probably a noblewoman. In a smaller building below she caught sight of a naked couple kissing. Artemi chastised herself and then giggled; she was getting into some very bad habits. She moved the scope to study the streets.

  Men and women still thronged along them noisily, enjoying the evening air. In this area of the town most were richly dressed nobles or smartly attired servants. Some hard-working merchants still walked the streets, attempting to sell leftover wares on foot. A small coterie of Cadran guards paced down the centre of the main thoroughfare, most likely going to relieve members of their company. Artemi focused on their faces and, somewhat mischievously, their bodies. They did have very excellent shoulders, all of them - and good arms too. Well, if she wasn’t allowed to have a man at least she was allowed to think of it.