A Dance of Chaos: Book 6 of Shadowdance

by David Dalglish

  Tarlak blinked a few times, straightened up a bit, and then spoke, his speech heavily slurred.

  “Did we win?”

  “Yeah,” Haern said, shifting the man’s weight on his shoulder to have an easier time walking. “I guess we did.”

  “Good,” Tarlak said, smiling drunkenly. “That’s good.”

  “Del, let’s go,” Haern said as they started to walk west. When she remained put, Brug slid his shoulder underneath Tarlak’s arm.

  “I got him,” Brug said.

  Haern had to speed up to a jog to catch up to Delysia, who was rushing toward one of many injured lying about.

  “Delysia, we need to get you home,” he said, grabbing her arm. “You’re hurt.”

  “They are, too,” Delysia said, spinning about. “I have to help them!”

  “You can barely stand,” Haern said, holding her and doing his best to ignore the ache in her eyes. “The priests of Ashhur will be here soon. Come home. You’re what matters now.”

  She was crying, but her resistance was meager. Haern held her firmly as she shuddered.

  “Can’t you hear them all?” she asked.

  He could. Dozens crying out in pain, their wounds bleeding, their bones broken. One nearby man was pleading for someone to bring him a drink of wine, as if that would put his intestines back into his abdomen. The little girl with raven hair had wandered to the fountain and was sitting on its edge while she shrieked, ignored by all passing by. Two soldiers behind her were struggling to help each other stand, blood seeping over their armor from knife wounds that had failed to kill. Yes, he heard them, but Haern would sacrifice every one of them to spare her, and he hardened his heart against their agony.

  “I do,” he said. “But you’re going to worry about yourself for once.”

  He put his arm about her, and thankfully she did not fight him. With her body leaning against him, Haern led her away from the remnants of battle. Tarlak’s words echoed in his mind, the question far more poignant than the addled wizard’s brain could have realized.

  Did we win?

  Hundreds dead, with several buildings on fire, huge chunks missing from the roads, and their main target, Muzien, still escaping with his life.

  “Ashhur save us from another victory such as this,” Haern whispered as he and Delysia returned home to their tower, and to safety.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Few times had Alyssa yearned for eyesight as badly as when the battle raged, and she could rely only on what Victor told her.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her as the explosions rumbled, shaking the building and making her eardrums ache. “We have this, we still have this.”

  More explosions followed, adorned by panicked cries and screams of pain. She heard horns, the marching of feet and armor, and then a near-constant chorus of ringing metal. It was all below her, for she and Victor watched and waited from the second-story window of the shop of a wealthy shoemaker, whose owner they’d bribed to let them enter. Victor had given a halfhearted argument that he should accompany his men when the battle started, but Alyssa had quickly disabused him of the notion.

  “You are my husband now,” she’d said. “I won’t let you turn me into a widow a mere day after we are wed.”

  And so they waited, and Victor watched, as the battle continued. From time to time he’d describe the ebb and flow of the battle to aid her.

  “The bastard set off an explosion using those tiles of his,” her husband said. “Magic of some sort, it has to be; it’s too big for anything else.”

  “How many were caught in the explosion?” Alyssa asked.

  “Too many,” was Victor’s grim reply.

  More screams, and a sudden heightening of the sounds of battle.

  “The Watcher’s fighting him,” Victor said. “Zusa too, they’re trying to surround him.”

  Alyssa felt her heart skip, and the seconds passed by at an agonizingly slow pace. Was it possible the two could kill the elf who had taken over their city? Or would she lose Zusa now, when she needed her most?

  Victor swore, and it took all Alyssa’s willpower not to immediately assume the worst.

  “He escaped,” Victor said, after what felt like several minutes of combat. “The elven shit escaped, but it doesn’t matter. I’d say sixty members of his guild lie dead, probably more, and all three of the Watcher’s friends survived.”

  He took Alyssa’s hand in his and squeezed it, and Alyssa squeezed back.

  “Do your men give chase?” she asked.

  “They were ordered to do so,” Victor said, and she sensed him turning his attention back to the window. “Every life we take reinforces our victory. In the end it won’t matter that he escaped. We’ve made a mockery of his prideful spectacle. After today no one will dare think he’s the god he’s claimed to be.”

  Alyssa smiled, hiding the incessant pounding of her heart.

  “Good,” she said. “Very good.”

  There was a lone door leading into their small room, and Alyssa heard it open, the sound followed by a rattle of plate mail.

  “Sir,” said a voice, that of one of the two guards stationed just outside the door. “Zusa wishes to—”

  His words ended with a sudden gargle, then a rattling cacophony of plate mail striking the ground. Victor flung an arm across Alyssa’s chest, pulling her behind him, as she heard his other hand draw his sword.

  “Zusa,” he cried. “What madness is this?”

  “One of your guards was a traitor in the pocket of the Sun Guild,” Zusa said from across the room.

  “Andarin? He’s served my family for twenty years. He can’t be a traitor.”

  Alyssa could only imagine Zusa’s smile.

  “I know,” she said. “But that is what we will say when asked what happened here.”

  In a hidden pocket of her dress, Alyssa carried a dagger, and with his back still turned to her, there was nothing Victor could do. She plunged the blade into the side of his neck, then released as she felt warm blood flow across her fingers. It’d gone in deep, and if it wasn’t enough, Zusa would fix that. Retreating until her back reached a wall, she steeled herself against Victor’s weak cries of pain, which came low from the floor. He’d collapsed, Alyssa realized. Good. She heard a sword slide across the ground, a repositioning of the dead guard’s body. Moments later Zusa was before her, wiping away Victor’s blood splashed across her hands.

  “The wound is fatal,” Zusa whispered. “When his movement stops, scream for soldiers. The one outside the door is dead, but I’ll make sure others are beneath the window to hear you.”

  “Thank you,” Alyssa said. “Now hurry. Make sure others see you taking part in the chase.”

  Lips pressed against her forehead, and then Zusa was gone, vanishing down the steps. Heart still hammering, Alyssa slid to a sit, back still against the wall. Victor was across from her, and to her surprise, she heard him force out words.

  “Why?” he asked. The question came out labored, and she tried to imagine what he looked like. Did he clutch at his bleeding throat? Did he lie on his stomach, or his back? As badly as she’d wished to witness the battle outside, she felt relief at being unable to see the hurt and betrayal in Victor’s eyes.

  “Why?” she said. “Because you’re a fool, Victor. Overthrowing Edwin, declaring ourselves king and queen … it’s a fool’s dream, and shame on me for having believed it for a second.”

  “We…” Victor coughed, and she heard a splashing of liquid, followed by a scraping sound as he dragged himself closer. “We could have done it. You’re strong … strong enough for this … then for anything.”

  Alyssa looked away, despite her blindness. She kept seeing the man’s face, seeing his blue eyes. There’d been a glimmer of fanaticism when he’d come to her, there was no denying that. But he’d been a good man … hadn’t he?

  No. She couldn’t believe that.

  “You could have said no,” Victor continued. “You … you could h
ave just said no.”

  “And you’d have only betrayed me,” Alyssa said. Remember his threats, she told herself. Remember his insanity, his single-minded destructiveness. He doesn’t deserve your pity. He doesn’t!

  “I wouldn’t,” he gasped, and Alyssa found herself wishing he’d die faster. She didn’t want to hear his words. She didn’t want to answer his questions.

  “Everyone has,” she whispered. “Yoren, Arthur, Bertram, Graeven, my own mother … you would have too, Victor. It was only a matter of time.”

  The room went silent for several long seconds, and when Victor spoke again, he was disturbingly close.

  “Never,” he gasped. “I … never…”

  There was no doubt in her mind that he believed he told the truth. She felt his hand touch her leg, and she held back a shiver. Despite all her insistence that her actions were necessary, all her mental berating for entertaining such weakness, she still felt tears running from her glass eyes, and she reached down to hold that hand clutching her with dying strength.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, a lump growing in her throat. “But I can’t believe that. I can’t … not of anyone. Not anymore. I’m sorry, Victor. I’m so sorry.”

  Into the city he’d come, banner held high, and as Alyssa cried, she heard him gasp his last breath, dying betrayed and alone at the hands of his wife. At that moment she felt only hatred for the cruel, miserable world, and all the things it would demand she do to secure a future for herself and her son.

  Alyssa crawled along the floor, blood smearing across her fingers and seeping into her dress. Arms sweeping, she continued until she found the body of the guard, which Zusa had moved deeper into the room and then laid on its stomach. Still holding her dagger, she felt along his neck until she located the wound, then jammed her blade into it. More blood spilled, and she made sure it got across her hands. Finished, she crawled back to Victor.

  Let them think he died in my arms, she thought. It’s true enough.

  His body was starting to stiffen, but she lifted it enough that she could place his arm over her legs, then knelt over him. Blind, bloodied, she knew she must look a pathetic sight. It was exactly what she was hoping for.

  “Guards!” she screamed. “Guards, help! Help!”

  Distant shouts came from the window, followed by her men rushing into the building. Alyssa waited, staring down at Victor’s face. His eyes, she wondered. Were they as glassy and lifeless as her own? She thought to close them, but her hand trembled too much, and she feared she would miss.

  More shouts, curses as heavy footsteps reached the stairs and the dead guard. The door burst open, mercenaries pouring in like stampeding cattle.

  “What happened?” asked one of the soldiers.

  “He killed him,” Alyssa said, needing little effort to summon fresh tears, or to add a quiver to her voice. “One of the men, I heard him draw his sword, and then Victor started screaming in pain. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just took my dagger…”

  She let her voice trail off. The blood from the guard’s neck, and all over Alyssa’s clothes, would tell the rest of the story. Who would think a blind woman responsible for the murder? They might have guessed Zusa’s involvement, but she’d been seen by dozens fighting Muzien’s men in the battle outside, and her slip inside the shoemaker’s had lasted mere moments during the chaotic aftermath.

  No—the blood, the bodies, it’d all tell a story they’d seen countless times before. They began searching the guard’s body, and she heard a rattle. One of them had found the coin purse Alyssa had given Zusa to plant on him.

  “Fucking traitor,” the soldier said.

  “We need to get her somewhere safe,” said another voice.

  “Take me to my mansion,” Alyssa said, gently removing Victor’s arm from her leg so she could stand. “I need to be with my son. If there are traitors here, they may be elsewhere as well.”

  “What do we do with … you know?”

  Victor’s body, of course. Many of the men in that room had never pledged allegiance to her, only to Victor. They didn’t know how to respond, what sort of protocol to follow. As a gloved hand took hers, Alyssa straightened up, showing the resolve they all expected of her, fostered by her bloody years of ruling her household.

  “Wrap him and bring him with us,” she said. “He was a Gemcroft, and he’ll be buried with every privilege that deserves.”

  Her escort led her down the stairs as she heard men behind them discussing ways to carry the body. Despite Muzien’s failure, despite her inheriting control of all of Victor’s men, despite her telling herself again and again today had been a good day, her walk to her mansion felt like the long, suffocating procession of a funeral, one where the body inside the coffin was not Victor’s, but hers.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Tarlak was mostly himself again by the time they reached the tower, which meant Haern had to endure a lengthy tirade of curses the final few minutes of walking.

  “I’ll turn him into a frog,” said the wizard. “No, a toad, a gods-damn wart-covered toad I can hang by its legs from a tree until the vultures come for an easy meal.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Haern said, Delysia still in his arms. “If I catch the son of a bitch, I’ll try to leave him alive so you can do just that.”

  Tarlak cocked an eyebrow his way.

  “I’m half-drugged, naked, and pissed off. Please tell me you aren’t mocking me.”

  “I’d never dream of it.”

  Once inside the tower, Haern collapsed beside the fire, which Tarlak reignited with a snap of his fingers. The other three climbed the stairs, to their rooms to dress and clean themselves. Finally given a moment of respite, Haern closed his eyes and tried to massage away his growing headache. He’d hardly had any rest, for when he’d come home from a long day of tormenting the Sun Guild and scrawling the symbol of the Watcher alongside Thren’s spider, he’d found the note left for him by Zusa telling him to come find answers at the Gemcroft mansion. When he’d scoured the tower, finding the rest of his friends gone, he’d immediately rushed over. Now that they were safe, he wanted nothing more than to lie down, close his eyes, and sleep. Sadly, it seemed it would be hours before he would have such a chance.

  Tarlak was the first to come down, a drink already in his hand. Brug followed, the squat man taking a seat in a rocking chair while Tarlak plopped down onto their couch facing the fire. As he sank into the cushions, the wizard let out a groan of appreciation.

  “Bastards kept us tied up all night,” he said. “Feel like every single muscle got pulled and twisted a totally wrong direction.”

  “Least you were out of it because of whatever they made you drink,” Brug grumbled. “Me and Del, however…”

  He trailed off, and Haern had to repress a shudder. The three had been dragged naked through the streets of Veldaren to their intended execution. Mocked. Humiliated. Whatever remnants of exhaustion Haern felt faded away under a fresh wave of fury.

  When Delysia came down from her room a few minutes later, changed into a comfortable white robe, she assured them her wounds were not serious.

  “Just bruises,” she said as she sat down next to her brother. “You revealed yourself before … before there was too much.”

  Haern clenched his jaw tight, fighting away the horrible image of her screaming as the rocks were placed upon her one by one. It seemed that every passing moment, his need for vengeance grew.

  “Did you get a look at how Victor’s men fared?” Tarlak asked, rubbing at his eyes as he had often over the past half hour.

  “They were hit hard,” Haern said, thinking on what little he’d seen; his attention had been so heavily focused on Muzien. “When those tiles exploded, I think the bulk of his forces were either directly on them or just beyond.”

  “Those tiles,” Tarlak said, and he shook his head. “That confirms it. They must be under the elf’s control. Even with far superior numbers, he had a solution ready. Giv
en what happened today, we might need to consider the very real possibility he turns all of Veldaren into a giant smoking crater.”

  “It’s always been a possibility,” Haern said, holding his head in his hands as he sat on the floor.

  “Except we figured if the city was in Muzien’s hands, he had no reason to blow it up,” Tarlak argued. “Well, today’s ass-kicking may make him reconsider just how securely that crown sits upon his head.”

  “Then what do we do about it?” Haern asked, exasperated. “We can’t move them. We can’t break the magic in them. If Muzien’s holding the key, he’s still out there, and most likely furious. What solution is there beyond evacuating the whole damn city? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but this tower isn’t big enough to hold hundreds of thousands of people.”

  “No, but we can handle one more,” Tarlak said, voice rising. “Bring the king here if that’s what it takes to convince him he’ll be safe. Even given how cowardly that little shit is, he’d be insane to ignore something this ridiculous. For Ashhur’s sake, we’re fighting a war within a stone’s throw of his throne. He has to act. I don’t care if every soldier in the entire realm of Neldar must be housed in these walls, it’s time to bring Muzien down for good!”

  “If armies arrive, Muzien may declare this all a lost cause,” Delysia said, shrinking into the cushions. “He doesn’t seem the sort to leave without one last grand act, and we all know what it’d be.”

  Her soft statement quieted them all. Letting out a sigh, Haern said good-bye to any chance for rest within the next few hours.

  “I’m tired of letting our fears guide our actions,” he said, rising to his feet. “Despite the risks, we have to start countering Muzien with everything we have. If there’s anything we’ve learned today, it’s that our only hope of peace comes with his death.”