by Spurrier, Jo
First, Isidro felt for the failing warding-stone and snapped the cord with a yank. He threw it across the room, then scooped Delphine up and slung her over his shoulder. When he realised how slight she was, with her warm, soft body draped against his, he was even more ashamed of what he’d done. No time for that now, he told himself. To Sierra, he said, ‘Find something to tie her hands.’
She snatched up Delphine’s sash and followed him down the tightly spiralled stairs. More lights came on as they descended, and the passage opened into a long hall with chambers opening up off each side.
Sierra ran ahead, ducking into each of the rooms to find the chamber they sought. Isidro knew the moment she found it, because as she ducked through one doorway she backed out again immediately with a nervous flare of power.
Isidro brushed past her to get inside, and the moment he crossed the threshold he felt it, too. The air within felt stale and dead, heavy and lifeless. At once it seemed he couldn’t breathe; he felt such an overwhelming sense of dread it took all his will to force himself inside and lay Delphine on the bare floor.
Sierra slunk in after him, as reluctant as a cat going out into the rain. She tore the sash into strips and rolled Delphine onto her belly to tie her hands and feet.
Delphine’s scalp had split where her head struck the wall, and Isidro felt a fresh wave of guilt at the sight of the blood matting her hair. There was no other way.
Once she was secured, they bolted the door to seal her inside. Unlike the other chambers opening off the hall, the door to the dampening room was stoutly bound, with three bolts to secure it to the frame. So, Vasant needed a prison that could hold a mage, Isidro thought as Sierra threw the bolts. She glanced at Isidro. ‘I need to make contact with Rasten. He’ll know by now that something’s up —’
‘Bring me in on it, too,’ Isidro said, and Sierra turned to him with a frown.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Do it, Sirri, please.’
She made the contact with a sudden thrum of power that reverberated through his body, rippling along every fibre of his flesh. Rasten? She threw the thought out into the darkness. We’re on.
Rasten, Cam and the rest of the men were armed and waiting in the tunnels, only a few dozen paces back from the cavern. Before they could come any closer, the watchmen on the ledge must be dealt with.
Back in Nirveli’s chamber, Sierra pulled on her coat with shaking hands. ‘Let me see to the guards,’ she said to Isidro. ‘I can drop them without a sound.’
He hung back as she went on ahead, shivering a little from the sudden drop in temperature as she stepped into the cavern. The sentries turned to her at once.
‘Why, hello,’ one of them said, lazily pushing himself off the stone to stroll her way. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Madame sent me out,’ she said with a shrug.
The two men laughed. ‘I’d heard the rumours,’ one of them said to the other, ‘but I never thought that stuck-up bitch would take it from a slave.’ To Sierra, he said, ‘So she sent you out here for a little privacy, did she? It’s a shame we’ve got none to speak of.’
The other guard followed him over and slowly circled around behind her. ‘You know, there’s a sheltered spot behind the tents just down below. What do you say, pretty one? Do you want to take a little walk?’
‘Just one of you?’ she asked. ‘Or both together?’ Then she grabbed the men by one arm each and dropped them with a surge of raw power.
Isidro came to help her drag the sentries back into the mouth of the tunnel, and she reached for Rasten. Sentries on top are dealt with. Once I start the diversion you’ll be clear to come in.
We’re on our way, Rasten replied, and through his eyes she saw the men waiting, Cam among them, with weapons drawn and eyes grim.
‘What now?’ she asked Isidro.
‘The slaves will be vulnerable. Once the Akharians realise what they’re facing they’ll try to use them as hostages. If we can free them they might have a fighting chance.’
Sierra nodded. ‘The slave-masters use mage-crafted locks that won’t seize in the cold. They wear key-stones on cords around their wrists.’
‘Alright, I can manage that.’
‘But you don’t have a weapon … Issey are you sure?’
He nodded. ‘Trust me.’
She forced herself to go slowly down the cascade — it would be a disaster to rush now and slip on the wet stones.
At the foot they met a patrol, making a circuit of the cavern for warmth rather than in any real expectation of attack. Its leader barked at them to halt and sauntered over with a lantern. ‘Here,’ he said, peering up at Isidro’s face. ‘Aren’t you that academic’s slave? Does your mistress know where you are, boy?’
‘Yes, sir, she sent me to fetch something from her tent …’ Isidro gestured up to the top of the platform, where the doorway to the installation was faintly visible as a patch of absolute darkness in the gloom. As the man glanced up to follow his gesture, Sierra loosed her power.
It rose up from the stone in a forest of writhing tendrils that wrapped around the patrolling soldiers’ legs and trunks and sent tap-roots biting deep into their flesh. The first touch returned such a rush of power that Sierra gasped and shivered with the heat of it. The golden wave hit her so hard that she barely heard the screams, and for a moment she forgot about Isidro. By the time she remembered, he was off and running through the camp, before the screams brought the Akharians stumbling out of their furs.
Isidro skidded to a stop in front of Delphine’s tent and fumbled for the cord fastening the doors. After a moment a set of small cold fingers pushed his hand aside and loosed the tie; the doors parted, and Lucia peered out. Behind her, Harwin and the girls were stirring from their furs in shifting silhouettes. Harwin would not let the slaves come to harm if he could help it, but if ordered to hand them over, he would obey. ‘Get Mira and come to the slaves’ quarters,’ he told Lucia. ‘If anyone orders you to stop, ignore them. Get there as quickly as you can, alright?’
She nodded and vanished into the darkness of the tent.
Isidro strode quickly through to the slave-quarters, dodging past men pulling on coats and boots and fumbling for their swords as they stumbled from the tents. If he ran now it would only draw attention, so he kept his head down and checked his stride.
At the far end of the cavern, men screamed as Sierra tore through them. The roar of her power was an awful noise, echoing off the walls as though the mother of all storms had spawned beneath the mountain. Men shouted in confusion while officers bellowed orders, and Isidro felt power flaring all around him in controlled, measured bursts as the Battle-Mages prepared to fight. When a flare of red light danced along the walls and the roof, Isidro ducked instinctively and stumbled, glancing back to see a wall of flame spreading across the chamber. He took a deep breath and willed himself to calm, fighting the panic that rose at the sight of Rasten’s power. Everything is going according to plan.
Isidro sidled behind the slave tents, intending to stay clear of the one where the slave-masters slept, but as he rounded the guy-ropes he came face to face with a Slaver emerging from the women’s tent.
The slave-master took one look at Isidro’s Ricalani features and swung a fist at him. Isidro dodged to the side and then darted in to strike back at the Slaver’s face, but despite his improved strength he was simply not as fast or nimble as he used to be. The slave-master jerked away from his fist, turning the punch into a glancing blow. He was big for an Akharian, with broad shoulders and a brawler’s build, and he came after Isidro swinging a powerful right hook.
There was no time to think. Isidro blocked with his left arm, and then drove the point of his elbow into the crook of the Slaver’s arm. He stepped in close and reached over the man’s shoulder to take a grip on his belt, then twisted on the spot so that the fellow was at his back and pulled off balance. Isidro bunched his muscles and threw the Akharian over his hip, dropping to his knees as
the man fell to slam his head into the stone floor. At once, the bulky body went limp, but the shock of the impact sent a ripple of pain through Isidro’s arm.
He shrugged the heavy body aside and got to his feet, staggering a little as he realised the wave of pain had affected him more than he’d thought.
Remembering the key-stone, Isidro fumbled for the leather cord and cut it loose with the Slaver’s belt-knife. Once the thong was dangling from his fingers, he peered around the edge of the tent to see the rest of the slave-masters stumbling out of their quarters. He ducked back out of sight with a muttered curse.
The hide of the tent beside him rippled and heaved as someone pressed against it from within. Isidro lifted the edge of the cloth, and pale and worried faces peered out at him, while beyond he heard the Slavers heading his way.
‘Here’s the key,’ Isidro said, and a cold and filthy hand snatched it from his fingers. A moment later he heard the rattle of chains coming loose.
One of the slave-masters spotted his fallen comrade around the side of the tent and raised a shout of alarm. Isidro glanced at the short-bladed knife and dismissed it at once, pulling the stout Slavers’ club from the man’s belt instead.
Three of them rushed to meet him, none as tall or as heavy as the last, but it made little difference when he was outnumbered and had only one good hand.
Issey! Sierra’s voice crackled in his head, and he caught a glimpse of vision through her eyes, distracting him further. The Battle-Mages had erected a shield-wall against Rasten’s attack, not realising that Sierra was behind their lines. While Rasten held their attention, Sierra cut a swathe through the defenders, funnelling power from them into Rasten’s attack. Dead and wounded littered the cavern floor, and Sierra’s power ran so high that some of it bled through into him.
He had no time to reply — in the time it took him to clear the vision, the Slavers had surrounded him, clubs already swinging down. The power within him surged in instinctive response and sprang up in a shield, a shifting veil of light that flickered with lightning.
The Slavers recoiled in confusion, except for one, who collapsed face-first with the back of his head caved in.
Isidro couldn’t hold the power for long, and as the shield faltered and died, light played over the face of the one who’d felled the Slaver — a dark-haired woman Isidro knew he’d seen before, although he couldn’t place her. In one hand she held a heavy black frying-pan, wet with blood from the slave-master’s crushed skull.
The nearest man turned to her, swinging his club, and she raised the pan as a shield as Mira darted behind him and drove a knife into the small of his back. He stiffened with a cry of pain, and the woman slammed her pan down on the crown of his head. He dropped like a stone. It was only then Isidro realised the woman was pregnant, her swollen belly big enough to disrupt the line of her clothes. He recalled her now — she was the slave-girl belonging to Delphine’s cousin, Torren.
There was one Slaver left standing, and as three armed slaves converged on him, he backed away, then turned tail and fled as the women, freed from their chains, began to spill from the tent.
‘The key!’ Isidro said. ‘Who’s got the key? Go and free the others, quickly!’ One of the women ran for the nearest tent, while the others fell upon the fallen Slavers, searching for the stones they carried.
‘All of you pick up any weapons you can find, but stay back here.’ Mira’s voice rang out as the first of the male slaves stumbled out of their quarters. ‘If you charge out there armed with nothing but clubs, you’ll be slaughtered!’ She turned to Isidro, scraping her hair back from her face. ‘What’s happening out there?’
‘I’ll try to find out,’ he replied.
The Akharian shield-wall bowed and shattered, and the rock beneath them trembled under the force of the discharged energy. As the wall collapsed in a roiling wave of power, all the mage-lights winked out; for a moment the only light was Rasten’s ruddy glow and Sierra, shining like a new star. Light clung to her like mist, and with every movement she trailed sparks and lightning that hissed and crackled in the air.
‘Form up!’ Cam shouted, his voice already hoarse from bellowing over the noise, and the men assigned to his squad closed in around them.
Sierra led them back into the Akharian camp. They had tempted the Akharians into committing to a defence and, having broken through, they had a moment of opportunity before the defenders formed a new plan. By separating from Rasten, they were forcing the Akharians to divide their attention in order to face both incursions.
The Akharian lanterns slowly blinked into life again, revealing confusion and disarray. A number of the academics had abandoned the camp and were milling on the open ground, the tunnels at their backs gaping like empty black maws.
‘Sirri, the exits!’ Cam called as Sierra cut down a knot of men. Their task now was to prevent the Akharians from escaping. General Boreas in particular would make a valuable bargaining chip, but in this chaos, the constant shifting of light and shadow and the terrified faces of men fighting for their lives, she wasn’t sure she could pick him out. Already the Akharians retreated towards the tunnel, preparing to escape.
Sierra reached for her power, and for once it did not fight her, swelling sweetly to her fingertips. She had never before felt this incredible state of flow — it was as if she was poised at the top of a cliff with gravity pulling her down as a great blast of wind bore her up from below, as though a thousand different forces had somehow come into balance. The closest she’d come to this was when she faced Rasten on the riverbank and set her power loose, but the fear and hate she’d held for him had poisoned that moment.
Sirri, the tunnels … Rasten said inside her head.
I’m on it, she told him, already reaching for the stone. She was enjoying working with another mage, feeling the steady play of power between them and the information that could be gathered from two — no, three — sets of eyes and ears. For the first time since her escape, her dread of Rasten eased and she found herself remembering the camaraderie they’d shared in Kell’s dungeons, before she’d glimpsed the full range of his cruelty. All his strength turned against her was terrifying, but being linked like this, fighting for a common goal, was electrifying.
Just admitting to the thought felt like the most hideous disloyalty, but she couldn’t deny it. It felt right, somehow, to share her power with another, and there was no denying that it turned the vicious beast within her tractable and tame. When she turned her attention to the tunnels, all she had to do was think the command, and her quicksilver power leapt to obey. She felt the rock dissolve as it dripped down through the tunnels, growing into spears of stone that steadily thickened until the passage was sealed.
As their escape route closed behind them, the Akharians began to panic. One man bellowed orders at the milling crowd, words Sierra couldn’t make out with her rough grasp of their tongue, but they steadied the men. The man fit the description Isidro had given — a stocky, balding fellow, built as solid as a blacksmith.
‘Cam!’ Sierra shouted, pointing him out. ‘The general —’ Her words choked off just as another voice crackled inside her head.
Sirri, where are you? We need help. Isidro was breathing hard. He had a club in his left hand, and when he felt her attention on him he made a slow sweep of the scene before him to show her what they faced. The freed slaves were crammed against the wall of the cavern, hemmed in by a squad of soldiers. The slaves outnumbered them, but with no armour and only the rough weapons they had salvaged from the Slavers’ tents, they were hopelessly outmatched.
Sierra turned on her heel, trying to work out just where he was. ‘Issey and Mira are in trouble! This way, Cam!’
With a word Cam ordered the men to fall in behind her; she blasted men and tents aside to clear a path to that corner of the cavern.
As she turned away from the general and the tunnels, Sierra felt Rasten’s attention on her. She braced herself for his anger, but he made no attempt to sto
p her. All he said was, I’ll try to hold them. Be quick.
The Akharians attacking the slaves were only ordinary soldiers — the mages must have been drawn out to face her and Rasten — and when she cut across the cavern she’d separated them from the rest of the Akharian forces. Taking the slaves hostage must have seemed their only hope for survival.
At the sight of Sierra heading their way, the Akharians charged the huddled slaves, but Cam and his men were already running, shouting Ricalani battle-cries to let the pinned slaves know they were there. With answering shouts, the cowed and frightened slaves rose to meet them, turning from a cowering mass to a baying mob.
Sierra cut down a few Slavers who broke and ran, but she didn’t dare unleash her power when their enemies were mingled so closely with the folk they were trying to save.
They hardly needed her help. Cam and his men shifted the balance of the battle, trapping the Akharians between hard steel on one side and the baying mob on the other. Within a few moments, the Akharian men were down and bleeding under the clubs and boots and even the bare hands of those they had enslaved.
Then Isidro was shoving his way through the crowd towards her. He met Cam’s eyes across the mass of blood and bodies, but before there was a chance to speak a blast from the tunnels reverberated around the cavern and made the lights dim and flicker once again.
Sirri, they’re breaking through! Rasten barked in her ear.
She turned and ran for the tunnels, only vaguely aware of the warriors following on her heels.
The Akharians had thrown the last of their strength into one desperate attempt to clear an escape route. The Battle-Mages had made a relay-shield against Rasten’s harrying attacks — he broke through one after another, but as each shield failed, the mages built yet another at the back of the stack. Rasten’s onslaught was slowly forcing them backwards, but at the rear, more mages attacked the wall, blasting the stone away.
Sierra reached to strengthen the barrier, but the Akharian mages reacted and adapted at once. Sierra could sense the power clearly, along with those who wielded it: the one at the heart of the attack was only a girl, the younger of Delphine’s students. As quickly as Sierra poured stone in to block their path, the girl deflected it, leaving the centre clear.
