One man threw his halberd directly across her path, seeking to entangle her legs as he drew his sword. Aisha leapt, as more soldiers tried to block her path, dodged left as one swung, parried his companion, spinning about as she ran to defend herself, then jumped onto a broad wooden bench that ran about the circular wall. She ran along it, ran two steps up the wall to jump a swiping halberd at her legs, then jumped for a large vase on a plinth as the bench ended, and sent it crashing to the floor, guards scattering from its flying shards. She hit the floor and stumbled, rolled awkwardly back to her feet, parried and killed the first man to attack, his body crashing into the wall behind.
Two more were on her fast, their blades sure and deadly. Aisha parried, ducked and spun desperately aside, using the one advantage her small stature afforded. She defended from another direction, aware she was being driven further from her desired route, and risked keeping her back to the man who approached from that way. She barely survived a head-high swipe, deflecting it upward, then turned at the last moment to drop low, and take the man behind's leg as he cut for her back. The leg severed in a shower of blood, and she was over his body before he could scream, and racing for the hallway, severing the halberd of the man who slashed at her side. With a many-voiced yell, perhaps twenty men pursued. It might have been more.
The end to this hallway was blocked by more soldiers, so she crashed through a doorway and into a room where many children were all dressed in costume, rehearsing a play. Several were gods, in white and tinsel. Several were pretty noble ladies. One, dressed all in black, held a great farmer's sickle, and a hood pulled over his eyes. Death. Maids and tutors leapt for the children, screaming, as Aisha came dashing across the floor, bloody sword in hand, headed for a door on the far wall. A young maid dived on top of little Death and covered him with her body. In her mind, Aisha saw little Dashi crying amidst the ruins of his parents’ house, spattered with the blood of his brothers and sisters. She had to get back to him.
Aisha hit the opposing door in a shoulder charge, and it smashed open. Half stunned, she staggered onward, found a stairway and rushed down it. Halfway down, two soldiers arrived at the bottom and began to rush up. Aisha hurdled the railing from ceiling height, hit the flagstones and rolled, as the soldiers on the stairs reversed. She ran away from them, past barrels lining a limestone hall, and crates of leafy vegetables on top of those, and smelled the distinct flavour of the kitchens nearby. And near the kitchens would be…the cellar!
She turned left, nearly colliding with a smock-wearing servant who turned and ran away, and only managed to get right in her path. She dodged left, so did he, then right, as did he, with hands over his head and terrified…frustrated, Aisha kicked his heels, and he tripped and sprawled. Aisha hurdled him, and emerged into the huge, wide, kitchens-an open limestone floor and several long benches, big ovens blazing in the far wall. Most barely even noticed her as she entered, consumed with chopping and mixing and shouting, arms bare in the heat. The kitchens of a great house would pause for no calamity, and food was clearly more important than war. Aisha empathised.
She ran an aisle, tapped one cook on the shoulder and asked, “Which way to the cellar?” The cook pointed without even looking and Aisha ran off, ducking low as soldiers appeared, searching for her.
She slid out a small entrance in the wall and ran down a flight of stone steps, the way lit by oil lamps. There she arrived at a doorway, and found herself in the vast, familiar cellar, with a wood-beamed ceiling and more beam supports, surrounding which were stacked piles and piles of barrels and boxes. She ran down the stone steps to the cellar floor, sighting on her left the flight of steps she'd taken with Rhillian, Errollyn and Kiel to the isolated room where Patachi Maerler usually met his serrin guests.
There was no guard at the trapdoor-there was no need usually, as the guards at the tunnel's far end would signal if someone were coming by tugging a small cord that ran through metal loops on the tunnel's ceiling and rang a small bell that was located…somewhere. Was there a bell at the other end that could be rung from here?
She heard running footsteps coming from the kitchen and quickly undid the bolts holding the trapdoor shut. Soldiers arrived at the top of the cellar stairs as she pulled up the lid and jumped inside, letting the trapdoor slam shut behind her. Abruptly, she was plunged into blackness. There was only the occasional lamp along the tunnel, she recalled. As Sasha would say in her charming Lenay brogue-“Shit.”
But Aisha remembered the stairs well enough, and recalled them to be uniformly even. She walked down at first, dragging her toes to feel out the length and shape of the steps. That done, she began to accelerate her descent. In total blackness, it was difficult to judge, but Aisha was trained in the svaalverd like all talmaad, and both footing and balance were intimate to her. She could balance on a fence rail in bare feet in the rain, she'd jumped from stone to stone across a stream from memory alone whilst blindfolded, and she'd been able to perform all the basic svaalverd stances since the age of eight. Running down stairs in the dark wasn't so hard after that.
To be sure, she removed a cloth she used for cleaning her blade from a pocket, wrapped it around her left fingers, and trailed them along the rough limestone wall. Behind her, the trapdoor opened, but then the stairs switched back on themselves and she was around the corner. Those men would think twice before following a serrin into the dark. They'd stop and find a lamp first. She used the burst of light from the trapdoor to locate and cut the warning cord that ran along the ceiling. Soon she found some light in the tunnel and descended all the faster, her feet a rapid patter on the stone. The more rhythm she found, the easier it became, even when the tunnel became black once more, around several more corners. Her soft boots made only a little sound.
Finally, she reached what she fancied was the last stretch of stairs-she had come down far enough and there was a lamp burning at the bottom. Had a warning reached the guards at the bottom of the stairs? There was no way of telling, and no way to make her descent safer. The stairs were a straight line with no cover. If one had a crossbow and she were caught halfway down…well.
She put the cloth back in her pocket, shifted her sword to her left hand and pulled a knife with her right. Then she began her descent as quietly as she could. Halfway down, she could see the rusted iron gates that led out to Dockside, dimly illuminated by the lamp above the guard's chamber. Just a few more steps and she'd be within knife range. Just a few…but then a man with a crossbow stepped from the guard's chamber, and Aisha knew the fates for frauds.
She hurled her knife anyhow, aiming high to make the distance-it hit the ceiling and bounced with a ringing crack…the crossbowman fired, and Aisha leapt, and felt her left leg kick away from under her. She fell crashing down the steps, somehow contriving to twist her small frame into a tight bundle and not decapitate herself on her own blade. The guard dropped his crossbow and pulled his sword. Aisha braced her arms and leg to stop her roll just short…her left leg screamed agony, her intended brace-stance collapsed and she barely managed to raise her blade in time to catch the full weight of the guard's blow. With no semblance of technique, it smashed her into the wall. Her head hit the stone, knocking her insensible, but her hands were moving of their own accord, her left hand snatching the second knife from her belt as she spun sideways to stab the man backhanded through the shoulder.
He screamed, and Aisha saw through blurred eyes a second guard in the guard room, his crossbow levelled at her chest. She sprawled forward, grabbing the wounded first guard, keeping him between her and the crossbow. The first guard swung around, trying to grab her. Aisha swung with him, ripping her sword across his leg. He screamed again, falling, Aisha catching his weight, or trying to, as her own leg gave way and her head spun, and she threw her sword in final desperation. It was a poor throw, and the second guard deflected it off his crossbow. He tried to re-aim, but Aisha tore the knife from the wounded man's shoulder, slicing her hand in the process, and threw that too. It was a wo
rse throw, but the crossbowman ducked back behind his doorway.
The man at Aisha's feet grabbed her wounded leg and she screamed in agony, falling on top of the first abandoned crossbow. She grabbed it and swung arm-point first at the wounded man's head. It smashed into his helm, and his grip released. Aisha grabbed up his fallen sword, staggering to her feet, threw the crossbow at the emerging crossbowman who ducked back, and charged. Or tried to, as again her leg nearly folded.
The crossbowman fired in panic as she came through the guard chamber entrance, and Aisha felt a blaze of pain across her ribs, and a yank on her jacket that nearly turned her around. She swung in blind fury, but her hand was agony and her leg gave no balance, and he blocked the blow with his crossbow, then swung it at her head. Aisha tried to defend in the confined space, but her blade entangled with a wall, so she ducked instead and caught the full weight of the weapon on her shoulder, and a glancing blow off the head. She fell hard, face first on the stone and suddenly her mouth was bloody. The crossbowman was drawing his sword, backing around to the doorway for safety. Aisha rolled hard and slashed at his leg, and he leapt back, catching the tip across his shin.
He yelled, and hopped, and Aisha crawled for a desperate lunge, and stabbed one-handed through his thigh. He screamed and fell. Aisha was on him fast, as he collapsed on his back in the doorway, and she angled the blade across his throat. He got a hand on the blade's edge to try and stop its progress, but the steel was blunt on the reverse side and Aisha had a good, painless pressure with her left hand on the steel, while her right anchored the hilt. Blood flowed from the guardsman's hand. He sobbed and looked terrified. Humans were so dangerous when terrified. Aisha knew. She'd seen the ruins, the burned corpses, the strange fruit hanging from the courtyard tree. One shouldn't feel sorry for terrified humans. One couldn't.
She killed him, arterial blood spurting, drenching her face, an unspeakable horror on her victim's. Aisha left him dying on the floor, and crawled to reclaim her sword from where it had fallen alongside the guards’ bunks. Then she sat and considered her leg properly. There was a crossbow bolt straight through her calf, just missing the shinbone. The pain was horrible, and there was a lot of blood. Her hand was cut, her head swam and throbbed, and her shoulder felt like maybe something was broken, where the crossbow had hit her. The man she'd killed was still kicking. He wasn't dead yet. Death wasn't fair. Death never was.
Somehow she hauled herself up and staggered to the iron gate. The wounded man there had found her first knife, the one she'd thrown. He sat propped against the gate, the knife held hopelessly before him, his hand trembling. Clearly he had no idea how to throw it, nor was in any condition to do so. His leg was bleeding badly, and his right shoulder was bloody. She shouldn't leave him that knife, with its serrin steel edge. Nor the other one that she'd thrown at the dead man. But she'd forgotten that one, and taking this one off a second terrified, wounded man seemed too much effort. She had to get out.
“Move,” she said hoarsely. “Get away from the gate.” He moved, struggling, trying to keep pressure on his bloody leg with one hand, while shuffling with the knife hand. Aisha lifted the gate's heavy bar with difficulty and slammed the bolts open. The gate opened soundlessly as she pulled, its hinges well oiled. She limped out into the thicket of redberry bushes that obscured the entrance. Above, the high yellow cliff of Sharptooth soared toward the grey sky. Opposite, beyond the bushes, dark walls loomed, windows barred and bricked up.
Aisha limped past the bushes, then collapsed on the narrow, paved lane between wall and cliff as her head spun and her balance failed. She rolled on her back, and found that the pavings were wet, and a light rain fell onto her face. The tug in her heart did not pull so strongly, now. Perhaps, she thought, if she lay here long enough, the rain would wash her back into the sea, where the currents would carry her all the way to Enora eventually. She wished it so, more than anything she'd ever wished in her life. In the distance, above the gentle patter of rain and the cry of a gull, she could hear the sounds of battle.
“We're coming over!” Rhillian yelled. “We're coming over, and you'll have to fight us if you want to stop us!” She stood atop a ladder at the rear wall of Palopy House, yelling at Patachi Vailor. Patachi Vailor stood likewise atop a ladder on his side, glaring at her between the tall metal spikes that lined the wall. Patachi Vailor was an older man, white-haired and bearded, and on those occasions Rhillian had met him previously, of gruff and taciturn demeanour. Now he glared, and his nostrils flared outrage, but there was fear in his eyes.
“You lead that mob into my house,” he shouted, “and my family will all die!” The air was thick with smoke, even as the rain tumbled down. Screams and yells were fainter, but only because the crackling roar of flames drowned them out.
“You swore allegiance to Patachi Maerler!” Rhillian shouted furiously. “You are Maerler's man, and I have allegiance to Maerler, and you will let me over or…”
“Or you'll what?” Vailor snarled. “I never swore any allegiance with Saalshen! I never swore to protect demon pagans and cripples with the blood of my sons! Saalshen's time is finished, and I'll not sacrifice my family on the altar of a lost cause!”
“You will regret this!” she hissed. “Do not sleep too soundly at night, Patachi Vailor, for Saalshen's arm is long and her footsteps silent!”
She slid back down the ladder before the patachi could reply, and raced toward the house. Palopy was aflame. The entire western side of the upper floor facing the cliff, now burned like a bonfire on a happy Sadisi. Smoke billowed from the lower floors as the ceilings began collapsing, and the flames spread. The rear garden was filled with Palopy staff-humans all, men and women comforting each other, tending the wounded, covering their faces against the filthy smoke. Some dunked cloth in the courtyard fountain amidst the grass and flower gardens, and wrapped those about their lower faces.
Rhillian ran up a garden path and looked at the wall of Family Gelodi to the east. The spiked wall rose tall, and there was even less hope of escape that way for Gelodi were sworn to Steiner. Ahead, near what was left of the front garden, she could see serrin with bows and oil-shot pouches taken from the ballista, now abandoned upstairs as the smoke became intolerable indoors. Arele and Calia had brought the oil and leather pouches downstairs, where talmaad threw them by hand, to keep the fire burning where the wall had been breached. Artillery fire sailed in at regular intervals, not as accurate as the ballista, but accurate enough. The front of Palopy House was burning in places too, and the gardens were a flaming wreck. Most fire had been trained on the front wall, which had collapsed in two places, but the flames were so intense, none of the screaming mob had made it through. Some had managed to scale the wall with ladders or rope, and been shot. The others waited, chanting, for the fires to die.
There was not enough oil left to keep the fire at the gate burning for long. Arele had divided the oil and ammunition into two, one to the east side, and one to the west. Calia had been on the west side when an artillery shot had hit nearby, killing her and wounding two others horribly. Humans might have found someone to put them out of their misery, but serrin were very bad at that sort of thing. Master Deani had smothered their screams with cloths soaked in solution to make them sleep, and they'd been dragged to the rear garden and left to die. Nothing more could be done. Calia's oil had burned too, when the artillery hit, and that fireball had set much of the west wall on fire. Calia had had the fortune to be standing close. For her, it was quick.
Kiel approached Rhillian, strangely unhurried as stones cracked and bounced behind him-there were no archers atop Palopy's roof now, and the mob filled the street beyond, hurling rocks and firing the occasional arrow through the breach. Serrin fired back, and killed many, but the window of attack was small and the mob was vast. Some serrin had taken to firing almost straight up, to let the arrows fall sharply on the other side of the wall. It had some effect, but there was a wind blowing now, and rain falling, and a vertical arrow was
no sure chance of a kill.
“Patachi Vailor?” Kiel asked her. His grey eyes were as calm and cool as ever. Rhillian shook her head. “Shall we attack him?”
“He has a hundred men and many archers,” said Rhillian. “We'll be killed coming over the wall.”
“We'll be killed here anyway.”
“Make a suggestion,” Rhillian said darkly, “or do something useful.”
“We could leave the humans here,” said Kiel. “Serrin alone and unburdened might stand a better chance. If we moved stealthily across the Gelodi wall instead of the Vailor, they might not be expecting us, and then-”
“You're joking!” said Rhillian.
“I'm not. You asked for a suggestion.”
“Make another!”
“Rhillian, I merely suggest that-” An artillery shot erupted with a thud and rush of flame at the front of the house. Rhillian shielded her sensitive eyes. Kiel gestured back over his shoulder, with perhaps the first trace of real frustration that Rhillian had ever seen from him. “They're going to kill us, Rhillian. If I must die for Saalshen then I die gladly, but you in particular are important, and-”
“And our staff are not?” There was a desperation building in her. Had she caused this? Had she been wrong and Errollyn right? How could she be responsible for something so horrible? All her poor human friends with their families’ long decades of loyal service to Saalshen…why had she not thought of them in her plans to save Saalshen's presence in Petrodor? What were a few buildings besides their lives? “Kiel, I don't understand you! How can you not feel for them?”
“I feel for them very much, just as much as you do. But they are not-”
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