Tau-se bounded forward, towering bodies armored in blue and gold, manes bright with the metallic glitter of fortune coins. Their long-bladed spears and khopesh wreaked havoc among those who defended the ruins. Avān warriors trembled in the face of their deafening roars. What few Fenlings were present were cut down, their fallen bodies fought over by their cannibalistic brethren.
Brede sped forward. Her blade seemed to fly into her hand. She gestured once. Two of the Tau-se crumbled to their knees as blood erupted from their noses and mouths. She sprang, seemed to remain in the air for longer than was possible. As she landed her blade flickered like lightning. Blood geysered. Hands, feet, blade, and elbows dealt horrific damage when they struck. She shouted, and Tau-se were flung high into the air like stuffed toys. Everything she did killed. She became carnage incarnate.
Wolfram slammed the butt of his stave into the ground. Dark words poured from between his lips. Pieces of broken masonry, dust, and gravel rose into the air. He pointed his stave in the direction of the Tau-se and his apprentice. The debris quivered, then flew down the alleyway like bolts from a hundred crossbows. Brede dropped to one knee, an angry red corona burning around her. Though the debris did not touch Brede, it scourged any of the Tau-se who did not take cover.
Brede rejoined her fellows as they plunged through dark laneways, across sheltered courtyard gardens, to where the wind-skiff was moored. Arrows fell. Bolts from a storm-rifle ricocheted from the stone. One gouged Corajidin’s leg. He swore with pain as he limped forward. Corajidin looked back down the narrow lane they had traversed. Three of the Anlūki urged Wolfram’s ruined body to a greater speed, while Brede looked adoringly at her master.
They scrambled aboard. A rain of arrows fell. There came the sharp crack of impact, like hail on a metal roof, as more arrows and bolts struck the wind-skiff. The Anlūki stood about Corajidin to make a wall of their scarred shields.
Corajidin breathed a sigh of relief, breath stuttering from the pain in his leg. He extended his hands in an open gesture for Brede to hand him the casque, like a father who wanted to hold his child for the first time. Her expression was bland as she reached for the shoulder straps.
Just then, the wind-skiff careened sideways, as if slapped by a giant hand.
Eyes wide, Corajidin saw Indris leap, improbably high, over the rails. He swept two of the Anlūki aside with a gesture of his hand. The armored men slid across the deck, bodies twitching. Indris’s left eye burned with orange-and-yellow fire. Corajidin felt the heat of it even from the distance where he crouched.
Belamandris rose from the pilot’s chair, Tragedy rasping from its sheath. He stepped toward Indris.
“No!” Corajidin yelled at his son. He pointed at the pilot’s chair. “You need to fly us away from here!”
Swearing, Belamandris returned to his seat, hands and feet manipulating the array of levers and pedals. The wind-skiff began to turn about.
Brede surged forward, sword low in a vicious cut. Indris parried, blade snarling. Wolfram bared his teeth in feral glee, hands white-knuckled around his staff. With disbelieving eyes Corajidin watched as Indris’s blade changed. Both blade and hilt stretched within spiraling fractals of mother-of-pearl light. The weapon seemed to sing as it lengthened, its serpentine shape stretched into a pole arm more than two meters in length. Corajidin had read of such weapons used by the mightiest Sēq Knights of the Awakened Empire, but had thought them lost to history.
Wolfram and his apprentice attacked Indris. The Sēq sidestepped Wolfram, the heat from his eye causing the witch’s hair and robe to singe. He slammed the ancient witch against the rail. Wolfram grunted with the pain as the rail bit into the small of his back. Brede’s blade licked the air mere moments after Indris had passed by, the butt of his weapon slamming into the deck where her feet had been.
Serill shards buzzed through the air, taking some of the Anlūki in the eye or the throat. Corajidin swore at Indris’s Seethe comrade, balanced precariously on an outcropping of stone. Her hands moved rhythmically, the blue-tinted blades seeming to appear wherever her hands were at the time. At one point it seemed as if there were knives tumbling in the air about her. She would snatch one and hurl it with deadly accuracy. An elderly man in tasseled deerskins knelt at her side, his storm-rifle peppering the Anlūki with bolts.
Other Anlūki tried to interfere, without success. Indris moved between them so they could not strike at him without possibly harming their own. Brede had no such consideration. If an Anlūki got in her way, she cut the warrior down.
Wolfram steadied himself. Carnelian light spun like a tiny star in the cage of his fingers. The witch hurled it forward. Indris caught the ball of flame with his weapon, which pealed in protest. Sweat beaded the scholar’s brow as he flung the fireball into the prow of the ship, where it exploded, igniting the wood in a gush of red flame and black smoke. Soldiers scrambled from the blaze, clothes smoldering.
Teeth bared in a snarl, Wolfram leaped forward. Corajidin was surprised to see the old witch so quick in his calipers. He twirled his staff about him as expertly as any warrior Corajidin had ever seen. Brede joined the attack on Indris, her own blade a blur humming through the air. Nacreous light flickered from all three weapons as they struck and parried. Indris danced back and forth, used both haft and blade to keep his assailants at bay. Despite his skill, Indris was driven, step by step, toward the burning prow.
Indris spun, kicked Wolfram hard in the face. The witch teetered, then fell into the incendiary ruin of the prow, shrieking in pain. Brede snarled. Her blade cascaded with arcs of black lighting, which she flung at Indris with a flick of her wrists. The lightning enveloped Indris. Lifted him from the deck and hurled him overboard amid spiraled pillars of smoke from below. Brede went to the rail.
Corajidin yelled with joy. He dashed forward to relieve Brede of the Spirit Casque. There was nothing more he wanted than to hold it in his arms. He reached out to Brede, who turned to face him.
He felt the warm, wet spray and spatter across his face. A salty tang on his tongue. Brede’s expression went blank. A red hole marred her forehead.
She pitched overboard, the Spirit Casque still strapped to her back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Blow, wind, if it please you. Autumn is upon me, the tall flowers are gone, and I wait for winter.”—from The Long Walk of the Spirit’s Path, by Näsarat fa Amonindris, 492nd Year of the Shrīanese Federation
Day 325 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
Indris watched the wind-skiff careen away. Smoke trailed from its burning hull, though he had little doubt those on board would manage to douse the flames. Changeling murmured faint deprecations in his hand, frustrations and opinions more impressions than words.
“Sorry I couldn’t shoot Brede earlier. I didn’t want to hit you, and you was moving a mite quick over there,” Hayden murmured sadly. The old drover had scrambled down from his vantage point, storm-rifle clutched in bloodied hands. Shar joined them. A squad of Tau-se gathered, their weapons notched. Blood was spattered across their armor, clotted in their manes. “That was quite a fall you took.”
Indris looked down at the scorch marks on his skin, courtesy of Brede’s formulae. It was not something the Sēq taught. His muscles still twitched, though the burns and abrasions of his most recent encounter had already started to vanish. He whispered to Changeling. She twisted in his hand as she shortened her shape back to a long-hilted sword. He was thankful to the blade for the trickle of disentropy she fed him, which offset the worst of the mindstorm and entropic fever he knew would otherwise have come from his heavy use of the ahmsah.
“Let’s find the others.” Indris rested his hand on the rifleman’s shoulder.
Around them the battle dwindled. With their finely tuned senses, it had not taken the Tau-se long to locate the Fenling nests where they wound, labyrinthine and fetid, beneath the Time Master ruins. The Tau-se had gone still when they had seen Fenlings wearing armor scavenged fro
m Lion Guard bodies. Some of the rat-folk had worn Tau-see manes as headdresses or necklaces of fangs and claws. Lion-man skins had been strung on frames as a hunter would tan hides.
Their rage had been a silent, smoldering thing that made Indris very nervous. Yet they had acted like the elite soldiers they were. Ekko and Mauntro had led their forces in a devastating attack on those appointed to guard the ruins. Indris tried not to think about the fates of those who boasted a trophy from a fallen Tau-se. He had no doubt it would have proven to be a short-lived error in judgment.
Those Fenlings who fought had been cut down. The entrances to their nests were collapsed. Avān and Human prisoners had been taken, marched without further harm to holding areas. All the while Tau-se anger had simmered, seen in the widening of their eyes and the angling of their ears.
In the calm that followed, Indris led the way to where Brede’s broken body lay among shattered debris. A quick check confirmed the woman was dead. A familiar sense of disentropic chop assailed his senses. His gorge rose along with a wave of revulsion.
“Hayden?” Indris asked as he stepped away from Brede’s corpse.
“I know you don’t approve of it, Indris, but salt-forged steel does have its uses.”
“What’s done is done. Leave the bolt where it is, though. We want to make sure she stays dead. I’ve no idea what new tricks she learned at the knees of the Angothic Witches and am not inclined to take any chances.” He gestured to two of the Tau-se. “Would you please bring her?”
The group waded through the dirty water of a flooded street. They climbed a small set of moss-covered stairs, then trekked through an untended park of wildflowers and jacarandas. After several minutes they came to the round building that held the plaza of the Star Clock.
Ekko and almost twenty Tau-se congregated there. Indris could tell by the way they knelt on the hard stone, the way they rubbed the fortune coins in their manes, something was wrong. He dashed forward to where Ekko knelt in the wide round doorway of a tall building. Indris could hear the sonorous tick, creak, and groan of gears and wheels from inside. The giant Tau-se bowed his head to Indris, his expression mournful.
Two bodies lay on the ground, covered by the blue-and-gold over-robes of Lion Guardsmen. Four of the Lion Guard stood over the bodies, weapons and shields worn with much use.
With a trembling hand, Indris pulled back the robe covering the nearest corpse. He swallowed a curse when he saw the body had been beheaded. But he knew the lotus crest tattooed below the collarbone. Indris saw Daniush had been beaten before he died. He pulled the robe up to cover the body once more, then turned to the other. The breath stuttered out of him.
“I am sorry we could not arrive in time to save him, Amonindris,” Ekko rumbled. Indris craned his neck to look at the Tau-se champion, whose eyes were wide. “I failed him, my friend.”
It was then Indris noticed the Sepulchre Mirror. Indris had seen a few of the eternity prisons over the years, though never outside the Forbidden City of Qahavel. This one had likely been found by tomb raiders in a ruin somewhere. Indris touched it. It was cold. The mirror was inactive.
“Ariskander is dead,” Indris murmured. “Far-ad-din will not return to Amnon. I fear all our plans will come to nothing.”
There was a commotion at the doorway. The battered Tau-se who carried Brede’s corpse lowered it to the ground. The cloth of her doublet and breeches was poor, the scorched and bloody fabric scented with incense, sweat, and musk. Brede would have been beautiful once, but her pale face was now gaunt, the dead skin sallow beneath a snarl of dirty blonde hair.
“There’s naught much better than a dead Angoth.” Hayden’s tone was satisfied. He nudged her body with his boot.
One of the Tau-se came forward with a leather pack. “I found this near her body.”
Indris opened the pack to reveal the Spirit Casque. The diamond glittered in the gloom, a pool of radiance lighting the faces of those around. Traceries of honeyed light flickered across the amber, echoes of Ariskander’s features in the moment of his death. Indris closed his eyes against the sight of his uncle’s screaming face, the frozen eyes and mouth wide with terror.
“Something must’ve happened to Omen for this thing to be here.” Indris clenched his fists in frustration.
“But what?” Hayden asked. “Omen wouldn’t have gone down easily.”
“I aim to find out as soon as I can, Hayden.”
With great care Indris placed the Angothic Spirit Casque back in its pack. It had become more precious now that it contained Ariskander’s soul.
Indris rubbed his eyes. His uncle’s soul must be released. His spirit given a few moments to tell its story before it Awakened the new Rahn-Näsarat, then traveled to the Well of Souls. There was no doubt Ariskander would have things to say, last wishes to be enacted. Indris doubted, given Vashne’s revelation of a change of heir, whether Nehrun was the most appropriate person to give the Spirit Casque to. Without a better understanding of what Ariskander would have wanted after his death, Indris was faced with the task of asking the spirit itself. Only an ahmsah adept would be able to release Ariskander from his prison. Not here though. Some places were better than others for such an undertaking, and almost all were better than the disentropy-whorled ruins of a Rōm city, infested by Fenlings who would no doubt seek vengeance for the deaths of their own.
He looked up as more of the Tau-se gathered. Most were spattered with blood, both their own and that of their enemies. Shar was perched, hawklike, on the edge of a clogged fountain. Her gale-sculpted features were sharp, and her skin shone with the vestiges of battle rage. Her pupils were little more than black pinheads on yellow gems. Her fair quills, fine as hair and streaked with the colors of the dawn, were damp from where she had rinsed away blood and brains. A net of fine twine, chips of polished ceramic, and feathers took shape in her hands as she chanted in her breathy voice.
“You well?” He crouched before her.
“As can be expected.” She held up her Sorrow Net, into which she would sing the anguish of battle. Indris had seen her do it more times than he cared to recount. Each strand represented the death of a comrade, their losses woven together as one connected whole as they had been in life. She pointed with her chin to where a handful of Tau-se stood guard around kneeling prisoners. “Brought you a present.”
Indris caught sight of Mauntro. The lion-man sat on a black stone bench as two of his squad helped cut the thick shafts of crossbow bolts from his armored chest.
“You are supposed to cut them out of the air, Mauntro, not catch them with your body,” Ekko observed.
“I will remember that for next time,” Mauntro replied blithely, the only sign of his pain the hiss of breath from between clenched teeth. “I see you managed to escape without a scratch once again. One day you will actually need to get involved in a fight, you know.” The Tau-se narrowed their eyes in good humor.
“Where did you find the prisoners?” Ekko asked. Shar unfolded herself from her perch to join them.
“Here and there.” She hung the Sorrow Net in the sun, where it began to spin and sway in the wind. “Some were wounded Anlūki, others are soldiers employed by the Erebus, and more are nahdi freebooters. There were quite a few trying to load their plunder onto a privateer at the dock.”
Indris gestured for the others to follow to where the prisoners knelt. The men and women had been stripped to their tunics, hands bound. All of them had been wounded in battle, though the Tau-se had given them rudimentary care.
“Who’s the senior officer among you?” Indris said flatly. His left eye felt as if it burned in its socket. The prisoners averted their gazes. Those closest to him shied away as best they could. “Cooperate and none of you will be harmed.”
One of the soldiers, a woman of middle years with a narrow, pinched face and wide brown eyes under a high brow, knelt as upright as she could. “I am Knight-Lieutenant Parvin of the Anlūki.” She had the gravelly voice of a woman who had been smokin
g and drinking since her early years.
“I want to know what you’ve already taken from this place. I also want to know the fate of Sassomon-Omen, the Wraith Knight who was in possession of the Spirit Casque.”
Parvin sat back on her knees. Indris could see she wrestled with some inner conflict. He hoped she chose wisdom over pride. “We’ve done nothing illegal—”
“Far-ad-din passed laws against the trade of relics from the Rōmarq.” Ekko folded his arms across his broad chest. “You are all criminals.”
“We don’t recognize the authority of any Seethe,” she sneered. “Nor does an Avān bow to a Tau-se.”
“Doesn’t sende demand you bow before one of the scholar caste?” Indris loomed over her. He could feel the heat in his left eye. His field of vision was tinted with sepia. “Under sende I could kill you now and no arbiter would find me guilty. Or I could peel your mind open like a fruit and pick through the pieces. I’ve not the time to play with you, so answer swiftly and honestly.”
Parvin’s smile was scornful. “I’ll tell you what you want to know once my comrades have been set free, their armor and weapons returned, and we’re given safe passage to our boats. I also demand all the relics we’ve found—”
“You don’t sound as if you’re cooperating.” Shar grabbed the woman’s chin, held her head up so she could stare into her eyes. “For your sake, tell my friend what he wants to know. Otherwise, he’ll have to…” She left the sentence hanging as she turned Parvin’s stare to meet Indris’s burning eye.
“Give me what I ask for,” Parvin said with foolish bravado. “Until then I’ve nothing to say.”
“Mistake.” Indris chanted the words of the True Confession. They were deceptively quiet, though the words seemed to fall from his lips with the weight of sins remembered. Of secrets to be revealed. They rolled around the square, gaining echoes as they passed until his coercion seemed to come from everywhere.
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