by Holly Lisle
Hawkspar, Tuua, Eban, Redbird, and Aaran were between the foreguard and the rearguard. And the entry man and the kor wogan would step in before them. The rearguard would stay at the door while the foreguard cleared the room, and then whatever lay behind it.
They were, Aaran thought, as ready as they could hope to be.
And he dreaded the next step his feet took.
“Do it,” the kor wogan said.
The marine jammed lock picks back in his kit, took out a tempered steel wedge and a mallet, and with two clanging slams against the handle, had it off.
The door slammed open as the marines kicked it in and burst through into a room lit by dim gold light, filled with faint, sweet hints of incenses and perfumes, extravagant in its decor. The gold light highlighted the sheen of silks, the richness of velvets, the lush depth of tapestries, and the polished beauty of wood furniture. Which the marines kicked out of their way as they ran for the shape in the huge, elaborate bedstead.
But a naked man rolled from a wide, curved settee shoved along one side of the wall, and landed on his feet, and smiled at the marines who charged him. They froze in mid-stride.
Aaran could not see what the man had done to them. But it would have been done by Hagedwar magic.
The figure in the bedstead did not move.
“That was an expensive door you ruined,” the man said. And he yawned and stretched as elaborately as a cat. “You’ll want to pay for it, or the first diplomat will be most displeased.” He looked around at them, and smiled.
Aaran realize that he couldn’t move, either. Funny how he hadn’t noticed that before.
Hawkspar
This was what I had feared. The men around me were frozen. Something bound them—I could feel it tugging at me, too. I realized that I could move away from whatever the man before us had done; I could shake it off and step out of it. I wondered if Redbird could do the same thing, or if I could only because of the Hawkspar Eyes.
She didn’t move. But neither did I. I wanted to see what the man was going to do. While he thought he had all of us in his power, he might offer some bit of information that we would otherwise be unable to get from him. Or he might open the door to the back room, or wake the diplomat from his sleep.
So I steadied my breath, and relaxed my muscles as I had learned to do in training, and I waited.
The man before us was an odd creature. He bore scars on his skin, but these were not like the whip marks on my back or the marks of torture Aaran had described seeing on Eban. These were intentional. Someone had made cuts into his skin, and filled them with powdered metal. Gold. His entire body was decorated with curling spirals and dots of those embedded gold-dust lines.
I knew those spirals, and as memory clicked, my heart constricted. This man was the third wizard, the living monster who stalked with the two dead ones through my past, my present, and my future.
And as I could see the Hagedwar, so I could see the effect of these lines on his body. He was using them to draw and direct power into himself from whoever it was who occupied the huge bed behind him, and then to transform that power and push it toward us. He radiated like a small, pale blue sun, those lines glowing.
He’d been speaking Feegash, but looking at our group, he switched to Tonk. “You lads brought women with you,” he said, and laughed. “How thoughtful of you.”
His head angled down and he stared at Eban, who was taller and tanned, his hair bleached by the sun, his shoulders straight, his demeanor confident.
The bastard didn’t recognize him as the first diplomat’s nephew, or the Marqal diplomat’s son.
“And a child,” he said. “We simply love little Tonk children here. I have one over in the bed there.”
And he was holding our warriors frozen by killing her. I could see him sucking the life out of her to do it. I didn’t know if he had anything else useful to say, but I slid into time’s river and grabbed my moment and pushed my way through the abrupt weight of air and the cold of the sudden stillness. The light of the power he drew from the child into his body, frozen in its arc, twisted like threads and spirals of wool being spun into yarn before my blind eyes. It was all I could see in the room except for the spirals in his body that it filled.
I lunged at him, both blades out, and slashed for his throat. My blade stopped in the air before it touched him, and the light that surrounded him slowly crawled up over my blade and my hand to touch me. And though I held tight to my moment, when his light touched my skin, his head slowly began to turn toward me, and I saw his jawbone hinge open, and as he began to move faster, heard his voice in my ear.
“ … aaascinating trick you have there, my lovely. And whatever have you done to your eyes?”
I could still move. But he could move, too.
Inside the Hagedwar, studying him with every sense I had, I could see how the magic he was pulling from the dying child built its wall around him. How he used it as a shield against me.
A sword materialized in his hand. How had he done that? His Hagedwar had a different shape than Aaran’s. Two points of the tetrahedrons pushed out beyond the surface of the red cube, into the blue beyond. Did the difference in shape let him do things with it that Aaran could not?
I moved out of his way, blocking his first sword blow, stepping back as I did.
He moved toward me, and I saw something.
The arc of light, that blue glow of power that connected him to the child and my people to him, that hung in the air around him, broke away from him. He moved in time, but it did not.
And as he moved away from it, the shield around him broke. He felt it instantly, and I saw him stop, saw his head jerk around toward the power that had sustained him.
And he froze again, held in that moment in time.
I did not take chances. I cut his throat, then slashed through the spirals in his skin, and finally pulled his sword from his hand and drove it through his heart.
And then I released my moment and sagged to the floor, and the light that had run from the child to him flickered and was gone, leaving me in darkness again. Blessed darkness.
In the darkness, men surrounded me, and voices raised, and I heard a child scream.
The pain was whipping in on me, tangling around me.
Redbird was at my side, her arms around me, holding me up. “Live,” she whispered. “Live. For me.” The Moonstone Daaryi reached me next, and put her hands over my Eyes, taking some of my pain into herself; I heard her whimper once, and then she steadied and I steadied, and she and Redbird pulled me to my feet.
Aaran was at my side. “What happened?”
“I stepped into a moment, he pulled himself in with me somehow, we fought. And then he lost the source of his power, and I killed him.”
“I mean, what happened to you?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m fine now. Keep moving. We’re not done with all that’s dangerous in here.”
He pulled back from me, hurt.
I was going to hurt him much more, I knew. I felt myself getting stranger and stranger on the inside. I felt the currents of time always around me, I reached into them and pulled deaths and lives and despair and hope in endless quantities from the never-ending flood. My own life was falling away from me in pieces and shards, my own grasp of self being washed from me as if I were nothing but another bank in the river to be cut and eroded and worn to nothing.
I would not always be me. Aaran would, however, always be him. And whatever part of me remained would ache for him.
The rearguard marines and the Moonstone kept the child, a battered little girl, with them, behind their guard. The rest of us moved forward, following the same procedure, breaching the massive metal-bound door in the same manner that we had the previous one.
In this room, nothing smelled of incense.
Instead, I smelled death. Decay.
My skin raised in chill bumps and I had to fight to get my feet to move forward.
Here, th
ough, no powerful wizard stepped out to greet us.
Instead, a man dressed in robes elegantly cut and embroidered over with thread of gold turned to us, and in a voice almost heartbroken, said, “She is dead. I kept her for so long, but suddenly—in an instant—I lost her. She was alive. My best specimen. I’ve kept her for fifteen years and she was perfect. Perfect. And now … now look at her.”
He did not seem to register that we were the enemy. His back was to us, I realized, and he was staring at a body that hung suspended from his ceiling by thin wires. She wore a medallion around her neck.
He was staring at Aashka. Or at what was left of her.
She had been alive. Had died in an instant.
Had died in the instant that I had killed the wizard to save the little girl.
I had killed her.
Aaran whispered, “Aashka,” and drew his blade, and pushed through the marines that held the diplomat at swordpoint, though the diplomat did not seem to be aware of them.
“Aashka!” Aaran shouted, and the last of the marines stepped aside, and he swung the sword two-handed in an overhand stroke, straight down onto the diplomat’s head. Through it. The diplomat stood for a moment, his head split in twain, a sword wedged into the base of his neck, and then his knees buckled and he dropped. Soundlessly.
Barely able to get words out of his throat, Aaran said, “Cut her down.”
Her body was falling apart before us. The smell of decay was getting stronger.
My fault, my fault. And still I could not find anything I could have done differently. I stood behind Aaran, wanting to touch him and offer comfort, and I could not bring myself to do it. She would have known he’d come for her if not for me. He would have seen her alive once more if not for me. I hung my head and tears ran down my cheeks, and I wrapped my arms around myself.
I heard him say, “Get me something to wrap her in,” and one of the men ran back to the outer chamber and dragged the bedcover back in.
The marines handled her gently. They wrapped her carefully, and Aaran crouched down and picked her up. My back turned to him, I could still watch him. He cradled what was left of her in his arms, his head down. Then he said, “Greton fire in this room, against the back. Greton fire in the next chamber. Leave the doors blocked—the bastard’s loyal soldiers and servants are back there. If they find other ways out, we’ll deal with them. If they don’t, the fire will.” He turned and walked toward the door to the outer chamber.
“You can’t burn the left corridor,” Eban said.
His head snapped in Eban’s direction. “Why not?”
“His concubines and wives and children are there. Some of my … brothers and sisters … may be back there.”
Aaran snarled, “Hold the fire,” and carried his sister out through the outer chamber and into that vast arched central room. He laid her body on one of the remaining couches, and said, “How do you know this, Eban? How do you know where the concubines and children and wives are?”
Eban, trembling, answered in a whisper, “I was here … on loan. Once.” And then his voice got even softer. “I’m glad you killed him. I’m glad you killed them both.”
We had managed to forget, somehow, that all of this had been Eban’s life before his father transported his household to Marqal and the child escaped to join us. We had not realized how very close to Eban’s nightmares we had come until just then.
Aaran picked the boy up and gave him a hug. “Let’s go find your people if we can,” he said. “We’ll save someone from this hellhole.”
We went through the door as before, protecting all sides and with guards posted in the rear. Every man in the column covered an area the men before him were not. We cleared rooms one at a time—a horrible task, for some of them were torture chambers with victims in place, waiting the return of their torturers, and some were rooms where someone was dissecting the dead. Some were crowded, filthy quarters where women and children were kept. We passed bathing chambers and dressing rooms, too, and discovered a few rooms that were elegantly appointed, but empty. Eban said those were the rooms where diplomatic guests came to be entertained by their choices of wives or concubines or children.
Though for the most part the captives in these rooms were controlled by locked doors, there were a few guards. Some of these fought. Others threw down their weapons and begged mercy. The Tonk granted those who asked it mercy, until one man picked his sword up and tried to stab a marine in the back with it.
After that, there was no more mercy.
When the whole corridor was cleared, we worked our way back, setting the captives free—men and women, boys and girls, and infants in arms. Two marines, with Eban as their translator, detailed the servants to tend to the torture victims once they were removed from their restraints.
And then we stood, undecided.
“Is there anyone in the other corridor who should be saved?”
Eban shook his head slowly.
Aaran went back to the couch where his sister’s body lay. “Burn this place down then. Burn every bit of it that will burn.” He scooped her into his arms again, and we marched back through the servants’ area, while he told everyone to get out.
Behind, the marines were tossing Greton fire down the corridor and into the chambers, closing the doors behind themselves as they retreated. When the servants were clear, they set fire to the huge central chamber, and then cleared out of the building down the servants’ section. We got to the back of the grounds. And then I realized that I could hear fighting in the streets. Aaran laid his sister’s body on the path, and told two marines, “Guard her, and keep order in here.” Eban and Tuua stayed behind, and the Moonstone, who was doing what she could for the torture victims.
The rest of us formed up, drew weapons, and moved into the street.
Our marines, plus civilians armed with clubs made from broken chairs, boards with nails sticking out, farm implements, and even hammers and mallets, fought hand-to-hand with the elite Ba’afeegash mercs, the best-known mercenary fighters in all of Korre.
Ba’afeegash had more professional soldiers than any other nation in the world. Most of them, however, were serving overseas, pushing the Feegash agenda. The Feegash controlled their own people by making sure they had nothing to fight with. They kept the weapons in the hands of their enforcers, and so held their population captive to their every whim.
After being so long without challenges against them, the Feegash evidently believed that no one would dare carry the battle to them in their own land. Armed men and women stood side-by-side with Feegash slaves, who had risen up and were giving their support, fighting with whatever they could. And the outnumbered mercs were dying in the streets.
The effect on the mercs was astonishing. Some had stripped off uniforms and fled, others had turned against those who were killing their own people and were fighting with our men.
The result was chaos. Pandemonium. The grand mansions of the Diplomate were burning, the official buildings were burning, the bodies of diplomats and wizards were being strung from poles and trees and roof posts. As the mercs fell back and fled and drained away, the commotion in the streets turned to cheering.
I did not know how long I fought—how long any of us fought. Some of our people died, and many more fighting civilians lay where they had fallen. But through the tears, through the grief, still the dancing and the cheering and the celebrating went on.
People wandered through the streets, looking from face to face for loved ones who had been taken from them, and each time a mother found a child or a brother found a sister or a friend found a friend, I watched embraces and laughter and weeping all at once. And I envied them.
I would have given anything to be one of those people, to have had the chance to find my own brothers and sisters, my own mother or father. Yet, for all my envy, I rejoiced with them, too. They had paid so much, and for so long, for these moments of happiness.
I wondered what would happen to them when we were gone.<
br />
The diplomats in Ba’afeegash were dead or dying. The mercs within the walls of the great city-state were disbanded, scattered, or dead. Those who had held positions of power mostly hung in the streets, and the citizens of Ba’afeegash were looting swords and armor from fallen mercs and going after those who had managed to bar their doors and hide within their homes.
Over the coming days, we would clear out those who remained.
But we had not come to stay. We would be leaving, and unlike most city-states, Ba’afeegash had a presence that was felt everywhere. Most of its mercenaries were in the field; most of its diplomats in foreign posts, whispering in the ears of kings and potentates and warrior chiefs.
We had cut off the head of our enemy, but if we did not deal with it, the body that remained could grow a new head. We had to that keep from happening.
The downfall of Ba’afeegash, long claimed to be impossible, we had accomplished. But the destruction of the Feegash elite had only just begun.
47
Aaran
Aaran stood in the central Ba’afeegash square, in front of what had once been the Ba’afeegash law council building, but which had become a pile of stones and broken glass.
His men had scavenged the city for wood and built funeral pyres for the fallen marines, sailors, and Ossalenes.
What little remained of his sister lay atop the pyre beside him, and his men gathered around him to send her to Ethebet and Jostfar.
A few of them had spoken words of sympathy and hope, words of regret that they had not had the chance to meet her.
Tuua had finished his words of remembrance, for the child she once had been.
And then, to Aaran’s surprise, Hawkspar stepped out and turned to face the men.
“I slept, and just before I woke today, I dreamed. I was in a broad meadow, in low, rolling hills, and the sky above me was blue and fair, and the meadow around me was full of flowers—red and yellow, blue and gold, pink and purple. Horses ran free, their hooves thundering in this distance like a coming storm.
