by Col Buchanan
Kirkus exhaled. His breath clouded the glass and obscured the world of fog beyond. For a moment he thought of Lara. He wondered where she was today, if she had gone to watch the games perhaps.
He knew that Asam and Brice would be there by now. He imagined the three of them meeting in the imperial stand, their talk made easy by their years spent in tussle and play as children together, in the quiet halls and dark dens of the Temple of Whispers – they and Kirkus. He pictured Lara's small face as they told her that Kirkus would not be coming today, that he was imprisoned in the Temple until his mother decided otherwise. The slow blink of her eyes as she heard this. Her words that changed the subject entirely, and had nothing to do with Kirkus save in the absence of any mention of him.
Lara, said his inner voice.
Kirkus pulled his forehead away from the window. He circled the room, making a conscious effort to focus his will. He stopped at one of the steaming bowls and bent to inhale deeply, feeling the rush of the narcotic coursing through his body. Strength flooded into his muscles and he straightened up. He swung the sword again. It whistled through the air.
He had been trained since youth in how to use such a weapon.
If they made it this far inside the temple, he would kill them all. Every last one of them.
*
It was oddly deserted on this uppermost floor. They stepped into a high-vaulted chamber which led through to similar chambers, all lit by low-flickering gaslights. The air was warmly oppressive. Tendrils of smoke curled across ceilings covered in decorative plaster. Doors lined the walls to left and right, muffled voices audible behind them, the occasional angry shout.
The three Rshun stayed close together as they moved through the long chamber. The floor of polished wood echoed under the fall of their boots.
A white-robed priest scurried past an archway, some fifty feet ahead. He glanced at the intruders but did not stop. They heard a door shut behind him, a key rattling in its lock. They moved through the same archway.
There were two Acolytes posted here, each guarding a single door. They drew their swords as the Rshun appeared, but did not budge from where they stood.
'Aleas,' prompted his master.
Aleas lifted his crossbow, and hesitated for only a second. Once, twice he fired and each time took an Acolyte in the chest. They both fell in gasping heaps, clawing at the embedded bolts.
'Keep moving,' suggested Ash.
As they approached the next chamber, they saw masked Acolytes fanning out with pistols in their hands. The Rshun took cover on either side of the archway leading into the chamber. Baracha tore free his robe. Aleas knelt to place his crossbow on the floor, then lit a pouch of flash powder with a carefully struck match. Something was dripping on to the floor – blood, Aleas realized, from his own cheek.
He tossed the burning bag inside the chamber beyond and drew back, ramming fingers in his ears. The instant it exploded in a bang and a searing flash, Baracha and Ash rushed into the chamber, Aleas lumbering only a few strides behind.
A dozen Acolytes reeled blindly with their hands pressed to their ears.
Ash broke the spell, running with a sudden lunge and slash. His blade sang. It seemed to miss the Acolyte who faced him, but then the man's head tilted backwards and toppled to the floor along with his hands, and the open stumps of his neck and wrists began to broadcast jets of blood which sprayed on to all of those nearby. A shot went off as Baracha cleaved a second man's belly, the puff of smoke fading into a bitter reek as the white-robes began to cast aside pistols in exchange for their swords, swinging them wildly in the general direction of their assailants. Another shot rang out, the sound lost in the chaos of the fighting.
Ash worked his way into the centre of their opponents' line, ducking and weaving, striking one and fending off another. Baracha moved behind him, covering their flanks by battering left and right. A white-robe lunged to pierce Baracha's exposed side, a crimson handprint stamped above his heart as though for the perfect target marker. Aleas shot the man spinning him to the floor. His master failed to notice.
As the fighting intensified, Aleas glanced up over the heads of the combatants and noticed a flight of steps, and at the top of these steps a female Acolyte of middle age standing tall and unmasked as she reloaded a pistol.
Coolly, Aleas took aim with his second shot and fired straight at her chest.
The crossbow string snapped just as it released the bolt, the ends of the string flapping backwards as the bolt clattered futilely against the stone wall behind his target. She looked up, and flashed him a smile with a mouthful of dyed-red teeth.
Aleas struggled to reload the crossbow with the last remaining string, and followed, from his peripheral vision, the motions of the woman raising her pistol to fire at him.
He saw smoke then flame, and was struck on the side of the head, and staggered backwards, and fell. Blood gushed from his scalp. Lying shakily on his back, half stunned, air hissing through his teeth, Aleas still fumbled to reload.
The Acolytes, as if regaining their senses, converged on Ash and Baracha in a concerted counter-attack. Ash moved too fast to be surrounded; Baracha had a more difficult time, his blade being much heavier. He took a slash across the back which opened up his leather jerkin, and the skin immediately beneath it.
Baracha cried something in Alhazii and swung his sword around without looking, staving in his attacker's ribs – where the blade stuck, forcing Baracha to pause in order to free it. The big man's head flicked up, just in time to see another Acolyte's sword sweeping down from above. It chopped through Baracha's left wrist before striking the wooden floor and sticking fast.
Aleas wiped his eyes clear as he finally slotted the trembling string into place. His master was hollering in a great gust of rage and pain while his eyes fixed on his severed hand lying on the floor. Baracha hefted his sword with his other hand, and opened the Acolyte's throat with it.
He went into a frenzy after that.
'Aeos, Toomes, bullshorns,' shouted the woman, still fumbling to reload her own weapon. 'Flank and take the young one.'
Two Acolytes broke off from their engagements and headed towards him.
Aleas, still on the floor, pushed himself backwards as he hurried to place a bolt against the now-drawn string. He launched it into the stomach of his nearest attacker. The second jumped forward, and then Aleas was suddenly in his own battle, fending off blows with the unloaded crossbow. For a moment he panicked, as a slash knocked the weapon from his hands. Aleas rolled clear. He struggled to his feet, his load of equipment slowing him, and his balance all wrong. He drew his sword.
The Acolyte was good, but then so was Aleas. It was instinct that made him duck beneath one unexpected sweep; he came up with the point of his blade lunging at the man's neck, which the Acolyte barely avoided. They were both panting hard, one in armour and the other weighted with equipment. Aleas was fitter, though. He swiped aside a riposte and stepped forward, cali style, his outstroke taking the man in the side. He twisted the blade. Slipped it out. Allowed the man to fall to the floor.
He glanced up to see the fight was theirs. Only two Acolytes remained on their feet, both confronting Ash. Baracha was striding towards the woman who stood upon the steps, bellowing words whose sense was drowned by their own volume.
The woman fired her pistol but missed. She tossed it aside and drew her blade, assuming a wide-footed stance on the topmost step.
'Come then, you big bastard,' she declared.
Baracha climbed six steps then flicked the stump of his arm at her. Blood lashed across her eyes.
His next move drove his blade cleanly through her abdomen. He dragged her, impaled, from the top step to stand beside him. He used his foot to push her free of the blade. She clattered down the steps and lay still.
A sense of calm fell upon the scene. The last Acolytes had fallen. Moans, coughs and retching echoed against the high ceiling above them.
Baracha sagged to one knee. 'Aleas,'
he groaned.
Aleas wove his way through the carnage and went to the aid of his master.
Baracha looked to the top of the stairs, where a heavy vault door blocked the way. 'To the top, boy. Take me to the top.'
Together they struggled upwards. It was a slippery business, though, since Baracha was losing blood fast. Aleas helped to lower him to the floor, propping his back against the door. They had a clear vantage point from there, difficult for anyone to surprise them.
'Tourniquet,' his master rasped. He had turned bone-white, and his teeth were beginning to chatter. With haste, Aleas threw open the medico and set to work.
Ash stumbled up the steps and collapsed against the door beside Baracha. He was covered from toe to scalp in blood, though fortunately most of it appeared not to be his own.
'How are you?' he gasped.
Baracha looked down at his stump. With the tourniquet in place, the flow of blood had decreased, though it was still looking bad.
'I lost my hand,' was all he could say.
Aleas stopped his master from further chatter by shoving a strip of leather between his teeth. He tore open one of the bags of flash powder, sprinkled some on to the stump without warning. Baracha bit down on the strip in his mouth; the leather he wore creaked. Aleas fumbled with lighting a match, then held it against the stump. The powder went up in a flash, instantly cauterizing the wound. Baracha rolled his eyes upwards and passed out, whereupon Aleas set about wrapping a bandage around it.
Beside them, Ash was fumbling through the medico. He took out the pot of rush oil and dabbed more of the white cream against his tongue. He shook his head to clear it.
'We're in bad shape, Master Ash.'
'Hoh,' exclaimed the old man. 'I did not expect us to make it even this far.'
Aleas motioned to the door. 'Well, we go no further. Even with blackpowder, I doubt we'd make it through this door.'
'Nonsense,' said the old man. 'We still have our wits.'
Without standing, Ash reached up and hammered the hilt of his blade against the iron door. He waited, then he hammered some more.
'They are finished!' he shouted through it. 'It is safe to come out!'
Aleas frowned, spoke quietly: 'You really expect them to be so foolish?'
'Always expect foolishness,' Ash answered just as quietly, 'when minds are scattered by fear.'
As if to prove his assertion, a muffled voice replied through the door. 'Who speaks this?'
'Toomes!' Ash responded without a pause.
There was no reply. They waited for some minutes but nothing happened.
Aleas wondered how they would ever find Nico now, in their current condition. They didn't even know where he was being held. It seemed hopeless.
A clunk sounded through the door. Then another. It began to open.
Ash leaned on his sword and rose swaying to his feet. He met the old priest's face with a toothy grin.
Before the priest could react, Ash shoved past him. A woman stood just within the doorway, hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes gaping.
'Do nothing,' Ash instructed them. 'Aleas,' he called over his shoulder. Aleas was checking his master's pulse which was proving difficult to find. There… a faint beat against his finger. Well, he supposed, there was nothing more he could do for him now, anyway.
He followed the old farlander inside.
*
Birds sang from silver cages. The air reeked so thickly of narcotics that Aleas felt giddy with it. He suppressed an impulse to giggle.
The chamber was bright compared to the dimness they had just left, a result of the high windows that ran entirely around its perimeter. The sky was blue out there above the fog, the sun too bright to look at.
'Kirkus!' demanded Ash.
The old priest lowered his head. The woman, a servant of some kind, glanced for a mere instant up towards the raised section above.
They passed a crackling fire in the centre of the room, moved swiftly up the wooden steps that led to sleeping quarters separated by walls of thin panelling. Each of the four rooms there was empty.
Ash stood for a moment. He raised his nose in the air, sniffed.
He spun around, then returned to the bedroom they had just checked.
Ash ducked beneath the massive bed, snaking a hand under it. He began to pull, till a leg emerged, then naked buttocks, then an entire body.
It was a young priest, his lower lip pierced with golden spikes.
'Kirkus,' announced Ash triumphantly to the terrified, drugged eyes of the young man, who held up his hands like a boy shielding his eyes from the morning light.
'Nico. Where is he?' demanded Ash.
Kirkus blinked, finding focus at last on the face of the Rshun. Ash shook him with a snarl.
'Gone,' Kirkus panted, a hand casually gesturing at the air. 'To the Shay Madi.'
He told the truth. Aleas could see it in his eyes.
Their hung heads, on hearing this, seemed to lend the young priest strength. He dropped his arms, used his palms to raise himself up. 'You're too late,' he announced. 'He's well broken, as you will be, too, if you cause me harm.'
'Finish him,' said Aleas, with ice in his voice. 'There might still be time to save Nico.'
Ash shifted his stance and set his blade against Kirkus' white throat.
'Hold!' wailed the young priest. 'You do this for gold, yes? Well I have gold, more gold than you could spend in a lifetime.'
'Then what good would it be to us?' replied Ash, and with an almost gentle motion flicked the tip of his blade across the young man's throat.
Kirkus goggled. His tongue emerged from his gaping mouth. He reached a hand to his throat, trying to fix it. A dark crimson appeared suddenly between his fingers. As it spurted, he slowly choked to death.
They watched until the Matriarch's son lay lifeless.
When they returned to him, Baracha was conscious and trying to get to his feet. Aleas marvelled at the man's resilience.
'Is it done?' he asked, as Aleas helped him up. Aleas nodded.
'What of the boy?'
'The Shay Madi,' said Aleas grimly.
'Perhaps he lied,' the Alhazii offered, more to Ash than to his apprentice. But Ash ignored him, and descended the steps.
They rode the climbing box back down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A Day for Rejoicing Bahn was glad of the incense that drifted through the dim atmosphere of the inner temple. He stood beneath the high windowless domed roof of the building, in a silence permeated by the low murmurs of the Daoist monks performing their ritual, swaying only slightly in the armour he had been wearing for twelve hours altogether, and which by now weighed like an extra man upon him. The rigid, contoured plates and sheaths were coated in a fine grey dust streaked with sweat, and it itched where the leather insides pressed against his tacky skin. He was aware of how badly he must smell to those around him, but he was almost glad of that, too. It would help to mask any lingering scents of sex.
His wife seemed glad merely that he had made it at last, even if their daughter's naming ceremony had already begun in his absence. Marlee knew to appreciate these chances Bahn snatched of returning home from the Shield, not least because it signified a lull in the fighting.
Part of Kharnost's Wall had collapsed during the previous week, heralding another round of infantry assaults from the Mannians as they attempted to exploit this sudden weakness in the city's defences. The Khosians, in return, had struggled to hold the invaders off long enough to repair the breach as best they could. Bahn himself had so far not fought during the week-long defence of the wall. He had been there merely in his usual capacity as General Creed's aide, his role to observe and to stand back from the fighting. When the Mannians had attacked again last night, Bahn had been stationed with the field-command team on the second wall, from where he had watched through the long darkness as the battle ebbed and flowed around the latest breach and upon the far parapet. He had perceived only dimly the fight
ing taking place in the flame-lit darkness, and in sudden spells of brightness made stark by shadow and light as flares had drifted from the sky, like a dream he had once had of burning misshapes of men tumbling from the stars.
Bahn had done nothing all night except for this silent watching and the regular despatch of runners to the Ministry of War with reports relating to the ongoing defence. Occasionally he had replied to one of the comments of the command team, or had shown his acknowledgement of some black joke they had made in their attempts at relieving the tension. Still, it was the sixth prolonged assault in as many nights, and Bahn was exhausted from it. As the sun had risen in the east, across their left shoulders and over the skirting wall that protected the coast of the Lansway on that side, the enemy had withdrawn, bearing their wounded with them, and the assault had at last, and with sweet mercy, faded away.
A new landscape emerged in the aftermath of withdrawal: a broken and twisted one with movement dotted all about it, though movement ragged and spent and without much direction. Bahn observed the city's men staggering around with comrades, as though drunk – most likely they were – or sagging to their knees in the mud or on the blood-slick stones of the parapet. Some called out to the dawn sky, or called out to others, or laughed, simply laughed. With the din of battle now gone, Bahn felt as though a harsh wind had been battering his flesh all these long hours of darkness and vigilance, and then had suddenly vanished. He listened to distant gulls cry out in their eternal hunger. He looked at the other haggard faces of the command team, and returned their hollow gazes with his own.
Cold without and numb within, Bahn had climbed the Mount of Truth to report to General Creed, the old man awake in his Ministry chambers with the curtains still drawn, oil lamps flickering in the corners, looking as though he had not slept. The enemy had been repulsed at the cost of sixty-one defenders dead, Bahn informed him. Some were still unaccounted for. Countless more had been wounded. Repairs on the breached wall were now resuming, though it was still doubtful they could seal it in any way save for a makeshift one.
