Storm and Steel

by Jon Sprunk

  She was standing on the gateway's threshold as the last of the staff entered past her. The guards took up positions around the entrance.

  “Go ahead, my lady,” Captain Gurita said, pointing into the tunnel with his sword. “You tend to them, and we'll hold the gate.”

  “No.”

  “My lady—”

  Alyra stopped him with a raised hand. “One moment, Captain. Harxes!”

  The steward hustled back to her. “Yes! The way is clear. But where are we to go from here?”

  “Listen carefully.”

  As she started giving him instructions on how to find the escape route, Harxes shook his head. “Your Ladyship, why are you telling me this? You lead the way, and we'll follow.”

  “No, I'm staying with the guards. We'll buy you the time to get out of the city.”

  “No!” both Harxes and the captain said at the same time.

  “Both of you listen to me! We're doing this my way. Harxes, go inside and help the others find the tunnel. Captain, I'll need a weapon. Not a sword. A spear will do better, I think.”

  She didn't give the steward a chance to continue his argument but shooed him back inside the tunnel. He didn't understand. She couldn't let these men die out here alone. This was her mission. She would see it through to the end.

  The Akeshian soldiers were a short bowshot away now. Their front rank had locked shields with pikes extended. Looking at the row of glittering steel points made Alyra feel sick, but she took her place among the defenders. The guards looked nervous, their faces slick with rain. Alyra wanted to say something to boost their spirits, but it would only be empty words. Each guardsman made some private gesture as he prepared for what was to come, whether it was a whispered prayer or touching his heart and forehead in silent genuflection. All except for the captain, who merely stood in the center of their line, his gaze on the approaching enemy.

  “How long can we hold them?” she asked.

  Gurita leaned over and spat on the bricks at their feet. Wiping off his chin, he replied, “Long enough.”

  The Akeshians launched a volley of javelins from their back ranks. Most of the missiles flew too high. Alyra ducked, though none of them came close to hitting her.

  “Steady, lads,” Captain Gurita said. “Make them come to us if they want to tangle.”

  Alyra grasped her spear with both hands. The rain made the shaft slippery. Suddenly, she needed to pee, of all things. She couldn't help herself from cringing as bestial war cries broke out in the street. She could see the eyes of the enemy under the ridged visors of their helmets.

  The enemy increased their pace to a double-time march, pikes lowered. They were only fifty paces away when a hail of darts and short spears rained down on their formation from behind. The Nisusi advance ground to a halt as commands rang out and the soldiers turned to meet this new threat.

  Alyra got up on her toes to try to see what was happening, but she didn't have the height. “What's going on?”

  “I can't quite say,” Captain Gurita said. “But it looks like we've got some help coming.”

  She didn't want to believe it, didn't want to get up her hopes only to have them dashed, but it appeared as if another force had come to their aid. The Nisusi ranks were struggling to turn around in the narrow space of the avenue. Fighting exploded on their flank as a small band of men plunged from the mouth of a side street, and Alyra finally allowed herself to smile. “These are friends, Captain. We need to help them.”

  Captain Gurita nodded. “Lads, form up on me.”

  Alyra fell in as the guards formed a triangle with their captain at the lead. Gurita lifted his blade, and they all let loose a bellowing shout. As one unit, they charged at the enemy.

  She focused on the captain's back as she ran. The distance between the two sides seemed to take forever to cross as her breaths came fast and shallow. Then a screeching clang filled the air. It took her a moment to realize they had encountered the enemy. The captain's sword rose and fell, making an awful clank with each downswing like he was beating a metal drum. Alyra blinked, and suddenly Gurita was several paces ahead of her.

  The guards pushed forward to keep up with their commander, but when Alyra hurried ahead a Nisusi appeared before her. His eyes were hard as flint as he stabbed at her with a shortsword. As she'd been taught back in Nemedia, Alyra pushed the point of her foe's attack to the side with the shaft of her weapon and responded with a forward thrust. The spear jumped in her hand as it connected. The head struck his shoulder without penetrating, but her attack spun him halfway around. One of the household guards opened a deep gash across the soldier's throat. Alyra stepped over the dying man and kept moving.

  Twice more she found herself facing an enemy, and both times she fended them off. The second time her counterthrust found a gap in a soldier's armor in his armpit and stabbed deep, crippling him for the others to finish off. The momentary victory filled her with conflicting feelings of hope and sorrow, but there wasn't time to dwell on it.

  Sooner than she expected, the fighting ended. She leaned on her spear, gulping down air as fast as her lungs could work and feeling like she'd been running for hours. Blood coated the street and mixed with the water in the gutters. Bodies lay everywhere, giving off a horrible stink that lodged itself in the back of her throat.

  Then a familiar face approached her. Jirom was covered in cuts and scratches. “You made it,” she said.

  “Sorry we're late. I had to pull Emanon's nuts out of a fire.”

  A litter came up carrying the rebel captain. “Don't listen to him,” Emanon said. “I had everything well in hand.”

  “Are you all right?” Alyra asked.

  “I'll be fine. Just tired of all this walking and thought I'd take a break. Are we ready to go?”

  “Where's Horace?” Jirom asked.

  “I'm not sure,” Alyra answered. “We ran into some trouble, too, and split up. But I was hoping he'd be here by now.”

  Jirom looked back toward the palace. “I'll find him. Where did you last see him?”

  “Jirom…,” Emanon said in a low whisper.

  “No,” Alyra said. “We can't afford to lose anyone. We have to leave and hope that he catches up.”

  Jirom looked her in the eyes, surprising her with the depth of his caring. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Now get everyone inside the stadium.”

  They worked together to get the wounded fighters into the tunnel. As the darkness closed around her, reminding Alyra of the catacombs under the palace, she hoped Horace was on his way.

  His head ached like it was about to split open as Horace staggered down the empty street. The air reeked of ozone and death, a mélange that followed him with every step along with the terrible pain.

  He had awoken in a pile of rubble, hurting all over and not sure how he had gotten there. Something had hit him like a kick to the face. Sounds of fighting echoed through the streets, but the plaza had been empty when he came to—except for the numerous dead—and he'd decided it was time to get out of the city. He couldn't stop what was happening here. It had been a fool's errand from the start. He didn't know how many Nisusi had gotten inside the walls, but he was spent. Even if he could think of trying to grasp the zoana without flinching, he was tired of fighting. I've played my role in this disaster. So be it. I'll make my peace with that.

  As he stumbled past scorched and broken buildings, he thought of Alyra. If hope could be trusted, she was already gone from the city. Yet he knew her better than that. She would wait for him, no matter what the danger to herself. He turned north, past shuttered windows and dark empty doorways, following the vague map of the city in his head. He knew the old chariot track was in the northwest quadrant, but he'd never been there in person, so he was relying on Alyra's directions, which he only half-remembered. The sounds of battle grew fainter as he put more distance between himself and the plaza.

  The storm made it more difficult to find his bearings. The streets were flo
oding as gutters overflowed. He could only imagine how much damage would ensue if the Typhon broke free of its embankments.

  Horace passed by a park, its tall trees bending to the wind behind stone walls. Just as he got to the end of the greensward, the ground shook. He staggered into the wall as sharp slivers of pain radiated through his chest. He closed his eyes and waited.

  When the tremor was over, the pain abated. He pushed off from the wall. Around the corner to the west he spotted a gigantic stone structure above the rooftops of gated manor houses. Gaps showed along the upper edge of the building where bits had fallen away, and the entire outer shell was marred by cracks and creeping vines. This had to be the place.

  As he hurried toward the stadium, he crossed another wide avenue where stands of cypress and cedar trees separated the huge houses. The rush of the wind through their branches distracted him for a moment as he listened to the sounds of the storm. Then another quake jarred the street out from under his feet. He fell hard and landed on his elbow. This tremor lasted longer than the first, spanning several seconds before the ground quieted.

  Horace's insides were churning as he climbed to his knees. He had to force his arms and legs to move, inch by inch, until he was back on his feet. He was close now. He couldn't give up.

  He managed to travel the rest of the block without falling on his face. As he passed beyond the last house and its bulwark of secluding trees, the stadium emerged before him again. A row of broken columns surrounded the lowest tier, their bases eroded down to dingy yellow nubs. Then he saw the dozens of bodies. Mostly Nisusi soldiers, judging by their armor, but among them were men and women with no uniform. A couple wore iron collars.

  Jirom's rebels.

  Horace found the entry to the stadium. A man in a bronze breastplate lay at the threshold, still holding his spear. Horace couldn't help from looking down at the man's face, and wished he hadn't. It was one of his house guards. Horace struggled to remember the man's name, but couldn't come up with it. Damn me, I never made the effort to know his name or anything about him. He was a stranger who died here.

  Horace glanced around. Why was this man here?

  He was about to enter the tunnel leading into the stadium when icy claws scraped down his backbone, filling him with dread. Seconds later, a massive explosion ignited somewhere to the south, but still inside the city.

  He flinched as a fireball rocketed from the city center. Trailing smoke, it arced across the leaden sky before falling back to earth. Horace imagined that burning missile was heading straight for him, but it landed several blocks to the east. The impact caused the ground to tremble for a third time, and he feared this episode would never end. Trees bent over sideways, their boles cracked in half, limbs flying away. Stones ground against each other along the stadium wall, expanding the network of cracks and fissures that nature had begun. The uppermost tier sagged outward above his head.

  With a desperate lunge, Horace dove into the tunnel. Masonry crashed behind him, throwing stones and gravel after him.

  Coughing and spitting out grit, he picked himself up. The rockslide had plunged him into darkness. He staggered down the tunnel with his hands out in front of him. His feet encountered small pieces of what felt like rock or debris, but not enough to impede him.

  About forty feet later, he emerged into the rain again. What little light came down from the gloomy sky showed him the inside of the stadium. Tiers of stone seats rose all around him, reminding him of the Grand Arena, although longer and narrower. Most of the track had collapsed to reveal a complex of chambers underneath. Only the long stone island around which the chariots had once raced remained, rising from the ruins like the prow of a great ship.

  Horace looked around, suppressing his wonder as he tried to find some sign that Alyra had been here. He knew her escape route was inside the stadium, but nothing more than that. I hope she didn't try to go back to the house.

  He started making his way down to what remained of the track floor when someone called his name. It echoed eerily through the massive stadium. Alyra waved from a dark tunnel mouth on the other side. A weight lifted from his chest as he hurried along the walkway at the bottom of the stands. She met him halfway with a look of relief that echoed what he was feeling.

  “You had us worried,” she said.

  “Things got ugly.” He glanced around the stadium. They appeared to be alone. “Us?”

  “Jirom and his crew showed up just before you. Also, I had to go back to the house to pick up some things.” He felt himself start to frown, and she hurried on. “Well, I couldn't leave them there alone. It wasn't safe.”

  “The staff?”

  “And a few others.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Touching her sent electric currents up his arm. “You did the right thing. So where are they?”

  “I sent them along. In case you haven't realized, the city is falling apart.”

  Seeing the concern on her face, Horace realized one of the things he loved most about her was that endless compassion for others. It was heartwarming, and a little frightening at the same time. What did the world ever do to deserve such sympathy?

  Alyra led him to the far tunnel where the floor sloped down sharply into the darkness. “Be careful,” she said. “Some of these bricks are loose.”

  Side by side, they descended into the depths, and Horace tried not to think about what might happen if another tremor struck while they were underground.

  Twenty minutes later, he finally began to breathe a little easier. They emerged from a brush-choked opening so narrow they had to turn sideways to squeeze through it one at a time. The roots of an ancient olive tree perched above partially obscured the exit.

  They were in a long ravine. The red stone walls rose above the uneven floor. Rain puddles filled the depressions and made the walls appear as if they were dripping blood.

  Behind them, the tops of the city walls could be seen above the rim of the ravine. Thunder continued to roll amid the black clouds above, but he hadn't seen any lightning since his battle. He hoped people were finding other ways out, but he had a sick feeling in his stomach that they had left thousands to die. So what do we do now?

  A call echoed down the canyon. Horace clenched his teeth as he tried to reach for his zoana. Sharp pains erupted inside him like the burning ache of an overworked muscle. Yet the power came, easing the pain as it flowed through him.

  But the man stepping out from behind a boulder fifty feet down the ravine floor appeared to be alone. Alyra waved as if she knew him, and the man waved back as he trotted up to them. He was short and thin with golden skin and quick, dark eyes.

  “You're Seng, right?” Alyra asked.

  “I am. Lieutenant Jirom told me to wait for you. The rest have moved on.”

  Alyra took Horace's hand and pulled him along. Amused, and a little excited, he followed along. She glanced over and caught him staring. “What?”

  “Nothing. I was just…I was thinking I'm very lucky to know you. That's all. This is the second time you've saved my life.”

  “Third. But who's counting?”

  The ravine snaked across the landscape for about a quarter mile before it ended at a drainage ditch between two farms. They tracked through fields of wheat and barley and waist-high squash vines growing out of the dark soil. The storm's intensity lessened the farther they got from the city. After half a mile, the sky cleared, and they were inflicted with nothing more than a drizzling rain as the afternoon dwindled into twilight.

  They left the fields to enter a flat, barren stretch of ground. The plains north of the city were broken with defiles and natural arroyos. Horace tried to remember what lay beyond them but soon gave up. He simply didn't care. Whatever lay before them, it was better than the fate that awaited Erugash. He couldn't see the city any longer, but he felt the power pulsing at its heart.

  Seng led them along a narrow path, down a rocky path into another canyon. A mass of people were below, standing
or sitting on the stony ground. Hundreds of them.

  Horace stopped in his tracks. “All these people! Where did they all—?”

  “The slave pits,” Alyra answered. “The rebels freed them on their way out.”

  “There's so many….”

  “I'm only sorry we left so many behind.”

  Jirom and his friend, Emanon, waited at the bottom of the trail. Emanon was wrapped in bandages and looked a little pale, but otherwise he seemed in good spirits.

  Jirom clapped Horace on the side of the neck. “I'm glad to see you made it.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  Alyra winked. “Well, you do have a penchant for getting yourself in trouble.”

  Horace gestured to the people camped out along the floor of the canyon. “It looks like you brought your own private army.”

  “We'll need them,” Emanon muttered.

  Jirom glanced back at the refugees. “Most of them left with only the clothes on their backs. We'll need food and shelter, a source of fresh water.”

  “Don't forget weapons,” Emanon said. “Shields and helmets, and something more protective than old rags.”

  “We should keep moving. We're not safe here.”

  “To where?” Alyra asked.

  “This band won't last a minute if we're caught out in the open by a regiment of cavalry,” Emanon countered.

  “We'll travel at night,” Jirom said. “And use the terrain to con—”

  “Gentlemen!” Alyra shouted. Faces looked over to see the commotion. “Where do you intend to take these people?”

  “Into the desert,” Emanon answered.

  Jirom gave the other man a glance that looked as if he wanted to argue but said nothing.

  “Fine,” Horace said. “Choose wherever you want, but get them moving.”