No innocents here. No tools, no weapons. Nothing. Her lip, twisted at one corner by the scar, spreads into a half smile.
I don’t even have a dagger. I stopped carrying it, after we burned the Sixteenth Ward. Not that it would do any good against a Melos Adept, but at least I could kill myself.
“It was a good trick, last time,” she says. Her voice is harsh, as though her throat is damaged. “I respect that.”
I ignore her, bearing down as hard as I can, trying to force my power through the enveloping fog. For a moment it almost works, the block shifting against my unexpected onslaught. Then it snaps back, as though the other adept has dug in their heels, and I’m shoved back into the confines of my own skull. Even so, I don’t stop pushing. Heat ripples and shifts across my skin.
“That’s quite enough of that.” The Immortal glows golden for a moment, a flash of Rhema speed. All at once, she’s behind me, one arm around my midsection. Before I can kick or twist to bite her, she shoves something across my face, a thick cloth with a strong, sour smell. I try to hold my breath, but I’ve already gotten a lungful, and suddenly my limbs feel like lead weights. I feel myself slumping against the woman’s armor, limp as a doll.
“That’s better,” she purrs in my ear. “Kuon Naga very much wants to see you.”
5
ISOKA
Immortals.
I slam my chair back from the table, armor coming up with a crackle. Glass sprays across the room, bouncing off me with a shower of green sparks. I hear someone scream, but I don’t have time to figure out who.
There are three of them, coming out of a crouch beneath the window, black-armored and chain-veiled. We’re on the third floor, so my guess is there’s one more below, a Tartak adept who hurled his comrades upward. And Blessed knows how many in the rest of the building. One thing at a time. Focus, Isoka.
I step sideways, in front of Meroe, shoving her backward. The Immortal opposite is extending his hands, Myrkai fire gathering in his palm, so I summon a Melos shield on my left arm and raise it just in time. The bolt of flame splashes against solid green energy and washes past us, heat running across my skin as power flows through me.
Giniva is diving for cover under the table. Sensible. Another Immortal lashes out at us with a pulse of Tartak force, only to find Zarun blocking it with one of his own, waves of pale blue colliding over the table and scattering food and plates in all directions. The third Immortal, glowing golden with Rhema, draws a short sword and circles around, flashing from position to position like a poorly drawn flipbook.
There’s the threat. “Meroe, down!”
She obeys, throwing herself flat. I block another Myrkai projectile, then turn to engage the Rhema user, bulling in with my shield to spoil her strike. She backpedals, flickering golden, ducking under my blade.
Zarun is still locked in tight against the other Tartak adept, blue projections materializing one after another, like a wrestling match with a hundred arms. At this distance, there’s no room for error, and his face is a mask of concentration. The Immortal’s must be the same, but his expression is invisible under the chain veil. He’s not watching his flank, at least, when shadows swirl and Jack steps out just behind him. Her short spear goes into the man’s side, punching through the black armor, and the Immortal staggers away, blood gouting.
The Rhema user hacks at me, and I give ground. I take most of the blows on my shield, but a few get through and tag my armor, drawing fountains of sparks and waves of heat. It’s a dangerous game for her, though, and I finally get the shot I need—she overcommits, in spite of her speed, and I sidestep and slash my blade along her arm. Melos power cuts through leather and chain, and blood wells underneath. She drops the sword, drawing a knife in her off-hand, chain veil jingling.
Zarun snarls in triumph as the other Tartak adept’s constructs fail. A bolt of Myrkai fire from the third Immortal catches him in the chest, and his armor flares bright green, but it holds. He leaps up on the table, kicking a surviving bowl aside, and summons his blades, decapitating the Myrkai user in a scissor-like sweep. The Tartak adept tries to recover, blue light flickering, but Jack jabs him again with her spear and he doubles over.
My own opponent charges, desperate or enraged. I take her shield-on, her dagger skittering and scraping against Melos power, and jam my blade into her stomach. The tip emerges between her shoulders, blood smoking away from the crackling energy. I let the blade vanish and straighten up; she staggers sideways, hits the wall, and slides down it, leaving a streak of gore. Looking across the table, I catch Zarun finishing off the fallen Tartak user.
Meroe. I turn. She’s already on her feet, face streaked with blood, a damp patch on her side binding her shirt to her skin. I rush to her, but she waves me off, shaking her head.
“I’ll be all right,” she says. “Just a few cuts from the glass. Everyone else okay?”
“Gonna have some ’burn in the morning, but I’ll live,” Zarun snarls.
“Mighty Jack is unscathed,” Jack says, bending under the table. “And Jack believes Giniva to be unharmed as well.”
“I’m fine,” Giniva says, brushing glass from her clothes. She has a cut on her forehead, blood trickling down her cheek. “We have to find Tori. It’s her they’re here for.”
Oh, rot and ruin. “You’re sure?”
“The last time the Immortals came,” she says through gritted teeth, “they came for her. Follow me.”
She opens the door. There’s a short corridor, then a large clear area, centered on the stairway. By the time we emerge, it’s already a pandemonium of screams, flames, and the crackle and crunch of magic.
All the accessible furniture—a couple of sofas, three tables, and assorted chairs—has been yanked into a barricade by Tartak force. A half-dozen Immortals crouch behind it, defending a semi-circular perimeter that blocks the stairs. One more black-armored figure lies still, pinioned by a pair of crossbow bolts, but the floor outside the barricade is a carpet of rebel dead. Red-sashed bodies lie in heaps, or crawl desperately away from the fighting. Some, living and dead, are still on fire, and flames lick at the walls.
More rebels have converged, gathering in the doorways around the open space, where they have a modicum of cover. A rain of crossbow bolts rattles down on the Immortals, intercepted by a Tartak user who throws up barricades of pale blue force. Three Myrkai users return fire, hurling bolts of flames that shatter against the walls with a roar or catch an incautious rebel with a whoosh and a scream.
“Rot!” Giniva flattens herself against the wall before she attracts a bolt.
“They can’t hold there long,” Zarun says. “Anyone coming up the stairs will be behind them.”
“Tori’s downstairs, isn’t she?” I say. When Giniva gives a grim nod, I curse. “They’re buying time. Once they’ve got her, they’ll pull out.”
“Then we have to break through,” Meroe says.
“I have a really bad idea,” I say. “And I don’t think we have time for a better one. I’ll draw their fire, get close as soon as you can.”
Jack gives a nod and vanishes in a swirl of shadow. I turn to Zarun.
“Throw me over the barricade.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Unless you have a better plan after all?”
“Nope.” Pale blue bands of force materialize around me, taking hold of my wrists and ankles. “Here goes.” I lift, jerkily, into the air.
It’s less of a throw and more of a controlled flight, for which I’m thankful. Zarun lets go when I’m near the ceiling, on a trajectory that will bring me down amidst the Immortals. I push my shield out as large as it will go and try to fit my body behind it. A Myrkai bolt explodes against it, then another, and then I hit the ground in a confusion of black armor and glowing sorcery.
I jump to my feet as the Immortals turn on me, blocking another firebolt with my shield. Tartak force grabs my sword arm, and I shift the shield back to a blade long enough to cut the Tar
tak constructs apart. The Tartak user, a heavyset woman, tries again, but this time I dodge and spin, closing with her. A steel blade licks my shoulder, drawing a flare of power from my armor, and another blast of flame explodes against my back. I feel the wash of heat, rapidly going from uncomfortable to excruciating, but I push forward and cut down their Tartak adept with a quick slash. Behind her, a young man hurls a knife at my eye—he must have Sahzim—and I flinch backward automatically. The blade hits my armor, heat flashing across my face, and skitters away.
Someone grabs me from behind. One of the Myrkai adepts, grimacing as my armor sparks and flares against him, but working his hand around to press against my chest. Fire glows white-hot in his palm. Ahdron tried this trick on me, a lifetime ago, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. I go limp in his grip, and he overbalances for a moment, long enough for me to twist and ram the Melos blade into his guts. His fire grazes my shoulder as he goes down, though, and my armor flares to match it. I fight a scream as I feel my skin blister.
By now, though, I’ve bought enough time. With the Tartak adept dead, the rebel crossbowmen have a chance, picking off another of the Myrkai users. Giniva is launching firebolts, too—I didn’t know she was a mage-blood—and Zarun charges across the open space, ducking under a shot and leaping the barricade. The boy with the knives backs up, toward the stairway, and Jack materializes behind him, his chain-veil jingling as she slashes his throat. A few seconds more, and all the Immortals are down.
I’m breathing hard, teeth gritted. Zarun reaches my side, and whistles at the sight of my shoulder.
“That’s going to hurt in the morning,” he says.
“It rotting hurts now,” I snap. “Come on. We have to get to Tori.”
Jack leads the way down the stairs, with the two of us close behind, followed by Giniva and a squad of Red Sashes. The stairway switchbacks into another open room, similarly strewn with dead. Two Immortals guard the stairs farther down, hurling bolts of flame at more rebels on the first floor. Another, a frail-looking woman, stands motionless in the center of the room. And, by the window—
“Tori!” I level my blade. She’s slung over the shoulder of yet another Immortal. This one has her chain veil pulled aside, revealing a face with the characteristic bubbling scar left by Myrkai fire. Tori hangs mostly limp, but her legs are still kicking weakly. She’s alive.
The Immortal is at the window, which is already shattered. She looks at me for a moment, hesitates, then throws herself through the opening, taking Tori with her. I sprint after her, not wasting time or breath on a scream. Behind me, I’m barely aware of firebolts slamming into the walls and the zip of crossbows as the rebels rush the remaining Immortals.
The window looks out the back of the barracks, into a small courtyard between the main building and a wooden stable. Behind the stable is the ward wall, dividing the Eighth Ward from the Sixth, with the tops of several large apartment buildings visible beyond it. The scarred woman’s jump has turned into an upward flight, Tartak constructs gripping her and hurling her skyward much as Zarun had thrown me at the Immortal barricade. She’s soaring over the wall, and as I watch she lands with a thump on a rooftop beyond it. A glow forms around her, twisted auras of Rhema gold and Melos green, and she takes off at a pace faster than a normal human could attempt, easily making the jump between one building and the next.
She’s getting away. She’s taking Tori and there’s nothing I can do—
Now I scream.
TORI
My body lies awkwardly across the scarred woman’s shoulder, her armor pressing uncomfortably into my stomach, but all I can do is squirm. I can feel my mind dissolving under the influence of whatever chemical was in that rag, my eyelids horribly heavy. I fight back as hard as I can, trying to move, to see.
I catch a glimpse of green light, people coming down the stairs. Isoka!
Then we’re flying, falling. My captor’s boots hit the roof hard, and the shock is enough to make me bite my tongue. The taste of blood fills my mouth, but for a moment the pain revives me. I want to scream, but there’s no breath in my lungs.
Then the veil around my mind lifts, shredding as though it were merely a cloud in truth. I throw all my power at the scarred woman, but the drug still has me in its grip, and I can’t muster the energy to do more than pry feebly at the edges of her mind. She’s already moving again, running toward the next building, and I can feel the minds in the rebel headquarters getting farther away. Giniva, Isoka, the others—my Blues—
The Blues. With the last of my strength, I push a message into the ether, through the interlocking network that is the Blues’ minds. It’s the last thought I can manage before the drug’s darkness closes in around me.
ISOKA
Zarun is standing over the body of the frail Immortal woman, looking at her with a frown.
“She was doing something,” he says, touching his forehead. “I felt her … trying to talk to me.”
“Kindre.” My voice comes out in a croak. “The Well of Mind.”
Zarun shudders, then looks up at me. “Are you—”
“One of them got away,” I tell him. “She took Tori.”
“Hells and rot.” He shakes his head and runs to the window. “If we get after her—”
“She has Rhema and Melos,” I say. “Jumping between rooftops. No way we can catch her now.”
“Maybe the rebels can do something,” he says, but I hear the despair in his voice. It matches the feeling running through my veins.
They took her. Naga took her, just like he said he would. It was possible, of course, that the Immortals wanted Tori only in her capacity as leader of this rebellion, and that they didn’t even know I was here. That doesn’t sound like Naga, though. We pushed our luck too far, stayed too long. If she’d rotting come with me when we got here—
I’m only vaguely aware of the room filling up with rebels, men and women in red sashes searching the buildings and gathering the bodies. All I can see is Naga, telling me what will happen to Tori if I don’t do what he wants—beaten, sold to a brothel, tortured—
“Isoka!” Meroe’s voice. I blink, and her face swims into focus.
“They took Tori,” I say. It comes out as a whisper.
“I know.” Meroe stands on her toes to press her forehead against mine. “We’re going to get her back, you understand? We’ve come this far. We will get her back.”
She squeezes my shoulders. This is probably meant to be reassuring, but since one of them is badly burned from the Immortal’s attack, I double over in agony. Meroe gives a startled shriek, and starts trying to apologize, but I feel weirdly grateful for the pain. It’s … clarifying.
We’ll get her back. The task is still the same as it ever was. If I have to go through every Immortal Naga has, we’ll get her back. Four of us, against an empire. So rotting what?
I straighten up, eyes brimming with tears, and grab Meroe’s hands.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “As usual.”
A commotion is rising, and it crests when Hasaka—the bearded ex–Ward Guard—arrives with an escort of more Red Sashes and a couple of Blues. He’s accompanied by a young man I haven’t seen before, with long hair pulled forward to partly conceal horrific burns on his face. Hasaka raises his hands for quiet, and gradually gets it, everyone in the room turning to look at him. Giniva pushes through the crowd to join him.
“We killed a Tartak adept in the courtyard,” he says. “That’s how they got in, and how one of them managed to get away. The building seems to be clear, otherwise. I want double patrols and perimeter guards, until we have a chance to rework security—”
I bark a bitter laugh. “A little late.”
“I admit we weren’t expecting this,” Hasaka says, glaring at me. “I don’t understand how the rest of their team was supposed to get away, but obviously it didn’t go according to plan.”
“It went exactly according to plan,” Giniva says. “This was a suicide mission
, except for the one woman whose task was to get Tori out. Naga clearly thinks taking her alive is worth the sacrifice of a dozen Immortals.”
“That…” Hasaka shakes his head. “That may be. We underestimated him. But as to what we do now—”
“I have a message from Miss Gelmei.”
Everyone pauses. The voice belongs to one of the Blues, standing quiet by Hasaka’s side until now.
“A message?” Hasaka says. “How—”
“Shh.” Giniva cuts him off. “Tell us.”
“The message is: I am alive. Until I return, my sister Isoka is granted command of the Blues. Isoka, please help us, if you can. I will find a way out, and—” The Blue stops abruptly, then clarifies, “Message ends.”
* * *
Eventually, I escape from the bedlam by brandishing my wounded shoulder and threatening to pass out if they don’t leave me alone. Giniva finds a spare bedroom for me and Meroe, and promises to make sure Zarun and Jack are looked after. I sit down on the thin mat, my back to the wall, suddenly acutely aware that I haven’t had any sleep in more than a day.
Meroe crouches opposite me, poking my shoulder with one finger. I wince, and she frowns.
“Shirt off,” she says. “Let me have a look.”
Jack wouldn’t let that pass without a lewd comment, but I’m too tired to joke. I tug my rough traveling shirt over my head, gritting my teeth as it pulls away from the burned skin, and toss it in a wad in the corner. Meroe hisses at the sight of the wound.
“That’s not just powerburn,” she says.
Siege of Rage and Ruin Page 8
