Storm of Chaos

by Andy Peloquin

  That slowed her pace but also meant that the rioters tended to steer clear. She preferred to take the less-congested route even if she couldn’t run at a dead sprint. Fighting would waste far more than she’d expend skirting ankle-thick mud.

  She wanted to trust that the Earaqi wouldn’t attack their own, but the Fifty-Day Revolt had taught her that no one was safe from a mob whipped into a frenzy. She forced herself not to think what would happen if the chaos reached her grandparents’ house—worry would only slow her down.

  Her gut tightened as she reached the Path of Sepulture and found it thick with people. With only a moment’s hesitation, she dove into the crush and shoved her way down toward the Artisan’s Tier. Beyond the Artificer’s Courseway, the crowds thinned enough that she could run unobstructed.

  The chants of “Bring on the Final Destruction!” grew fainter behind her as she approached the Cultivator’s Tier. There were fewer Earaqi down here—most had settled for taking their anger out on the Zadii and Intaji—but bareheaded Kabili and Mahjuri with coarse black headbands roamed the streets. Anger darkened their eyes and their fanatical chants rang off the walls of the simple stone houses around her.

  But the Cultivator’s Tier had been Issa’s home for seventeen years. She knew all the quickest ways to reach her grandparents’ home without using Commoner’s Row. A good thing, too. Bands of Earaqi hundreds-strong moved along the broad avenue like a herd of stampeding cattle. Like all those on the Artisan’s Tier, it seemed they had lost their senses to the madness. Looters raced out of homes, leaving screaming mothers, crying children, and bleeding fathers in their wake.

  Chaos and death gripped her home. Issa’s heart broke as she saw her people suffering.

  Furett, a strong-willed teamster that worked in the fields, drove a dagger into the heart of Mosir, the man he’d worked beside for the better part of a decade. Kindly Poltuma the washerwoman lay silent, her open eyes staring sightless into the darkened sky, crimson staining the front of her simple kalasiris from a gash in her chest. Behind her, Sheldra, just a few years older than Issa, ransacked her house and emerged carrying a bloodstained sword in one hand and the washerwoman’s only treasure, a necklace of blue ceramic beads. A worthless trinket, yet the man had killed for it!

  All around her, the people she’d known her entire life turned their pent-up hatred and rage on each other. Men and women that had lived peaceful lives filled with back-breaking labor and servitude now sought to cast off their yokes through violence. Yet their actions did nothing but harm fellow sufferers—the true culprits, the Keeper’s Council, would never feel their wrath.

  Anger burned in Issa’s gut with the heat and intensity of Dalmisa’s volcano. She could understand their hate, their enmity. She felt it toward the Necroseti, the ones who clad themselves in priestly robes yet sought to achieve their own ends. They had fanned the flames of the people’s anger. They had condemned Aterallis to death based on falsified evidence—evidence they had likely planted. They had instructed the Ybrazhe to spark the riots.

  They deserved to suffer, not her people.

  And I will make certain they do! Issa gritted her teeth and spurred herself to run faster. By the Faces of Justice and Vengeance, I swear it.

  A wall of shouting Mahjuri swarmed the streets ahead, blocking the way to her grandparents’ home. Issa ducked down a side alley and cut between two houses. The door to Skelmos’ house stood ajar, and the shouts of Raksey the farmer echoed from within his neighbor’s abode. The two had hated each other for decades and now that enmity—over some nonsensical slight long forgotten—boiled to the surface.

  Issa burst into the alleyway beyond, only to find herself confronted by a group of five men emerging from the house of Notan the carter. All five wore black rope headbands and ragged Mahjuri tunics. Blood stained their fists and splattered their gaunt, haggard faces. Two of the men passed Notan’s prized leather wineskin back and forth, while the other three split one of the flatbread loaves for which Notan’s wife, Enasa, was renowned.

  Before she could flee, the Mahjuri spotted her. They fanned out quickly, surrounding her with leering eyes and snarling grins.

  “You’re not getting away from us that easily, Earaqi!” snarled the largest of the group. The other four licked their lips as they moved closer, yet they shot a glance at the speaker, clearly the leader of the pack.

  “Move,” Issa growled. She had no time for this nonsense. The sun was rising; she had to reach her grandparents and get them to safety while she still had the cover of darkness.

  “I don’t think so.” The man’s face split into a grin. “You might be too big to be proper pretty, but a well-fed Earaqi like you ought to know a thing or two about—”

  Issa cut off his words with a clenched fist to his throat. Gristle crunched beneath her blow and the man dropped, gagging, struggling to breathe. She snapped out a kick that drove her boot straight into his nose. He didn’t even cry out—he simply slumped like a sack of dropped shite.

  Shocked surprise registered on four Mahjuri faces. They stared wide-eyed at their leader, at Issa, then back at the fallen man.

  Issa didn’t give them time to think. She drove a right-handed punch into one’s jaw and whipped her club free with her left. The cudgel slammed into another man’s skull, dropping him to the ground atop his senseless leader. Wood thumped against flesh and shattered bone as Issa lashed out at a third’s arm. She drove the blunt tip of the club into the fourth’s stomach and, when the man doubled over, brought it crashing onto his head. Even as the first body struck the stones, she finished off the last man with a clubbing blow to the temple.

  Four remained silent, the fifth lay whimpering on the ground, his broken arm clutched to his chest. Issa wanted to scream her rage, to beat the last man senseless, but she couldn’t afford the delay. Even just a few seconds could mean the difference between life and death.

  I’m coming, Saba and Savta!

  Issa raced the last three streets toward her grandparents’ house. The crowds milling on Commoner’s Row paid her little heed, and the Mahjuri rampaging through the back alleys were far too busy looting and stealing to give her a second glance.

  Ice slithered through Issa’s veins as she rounded the corner and caught sight of her grandparents’ house. The back door hung ajar, its upper hinge shattered. Two bareheaded Kabili lay on the ground before the door, crimson staining their clothing from deep gashes in their chests and stomachs. A pair of gaunt legs covered in blue, crusted blisters filled the doorway.

  “No!” The shout burst from her lips, an animal cry of fear and horror.

  Issa covered the remaining distance to the back door in ten long strides. The Mahjuri to whom the legs belonged lay sprawled in the entrance, blood pooling around his head.

  She leapt over the body, her boots splashing the still-drying blood, but the sight within stopped her cold.

  A dead silence hung thick in her grandparents’ house. The simple wooden table had been overturned beside the doorway, the chairs a shattered mess of splinters. Clothes lay strewn across the dusty floor, stained by blood and muddy footprints.

  But she had eyes only for the two figures in the center of the sparse hut. Issa’s pulse pounded in her ears. She felt as if someone had driven a dagger into her gut, and cry of terror burst from her lips. A man and woman, both with silvery-white hair, wearing red Earaqi headbands and simple clothing, lay silent and unmoving on the floor.

  Our young heroes’ journey continues in

  Secrets of Blood (Heirs of Destiny Book 4)

  Chapter One

  Issa’s breath froze in her lungs as her eyes fixed on the two white-haired corpses on the floor. Blood pooled in a gruesome puddle beneath the silent, still bodies. Age-gnarled hands reached for each other, fingers interlaced. Her grandparents entwined even in death.

  Strength fled Issa’s limbs and she collapsed, her knees striking the ground with jarring force. Yet she felt no pain, only the cold numbness of horror seeping
into her limbs. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The shouts, screams, and turmoil of destruction faded around her. Her anger at the looters and rioters dissipated in the face of horror.

  No! Her mind refused to accept the evidence of her eyes. No, no, no!

  They couldn’t be dead, not her Saba and Savta. She blinked hard, trying to erase the sight before her. It had to be a mistake.

  Yet when her eyes opened, the bodies remained. The two figures on the floor would never rise or draw breath.

  Fists of iron crushed Issa’s chest; her lungs struggled in vain to draw breath. A wild cry of pain, raw and ragged, burst from her throat.

  “NO!”

  Her mind flashed to her late night visit. Aleema had been sitting at the table—now a mess of splinters in the small kitchen—her tone comforting, encouraging, yet edged with the cold steel of determination. Her grandmother’s words had been the only thing that stopped her from quitting her training to become a Keeper’s Blade. The love and reassurance in Savta’s dark eyes had restored Issa’s willpower.

  Acid swirled in her stomach at the memory of her last words to Saba. Angry, harsh words, tinged with resentment. She’d hated that grandfather, Nytano, hadn’t seen her acceptance into the Keeper’s Blade as a triumph. Yet at that moment, she felt only guilt for lashing out at the man who had done nothing but show her affection and care her entire life. Those couldn’t be the last words she’d ever say to him.

  Tears flowed now, fast and hot, burning their way down Issa’s cheeks and blurring her vision. She clawed her way forward, her limbs heavy and numb.

  The Long Keeper, god of death, had claimed her mother and father shortly after her birth. How was it fair that he’d taken her grandparents, too? What had she done, what sin had she committed, to earn such anguish?

  Blood splashed beneath her hands and knees as she crawled toward the white-haired corpses. One agonizing heartbeat at a time, closer to the bodies of the only people that had ever loved her.

  Hands trembling, Issa reached for the woman first. A fresh wave of horror washed over Issa as her fingers touched her Savta’s shoulder. Her grandmother’s skin hadn’t yet cooled. She’d been dead for an hour, maybe two. If only Issa had hurried, she might have been here in time to save them.

  It took every shred of strength to turn the body over. Seeing her Savta’s lifeless face would be the hardest thing she’d ever have to do—perhaps the grief and pain would kill her, sending her to the Long Keeper’s arms to join her family. At that moment, with her world crumbling before her, she welcomed it. Better kill me than—

  She sucked in a breath, the thought dying half-formed. The face that stared up at her bore the lines and wrinkles of age but didn’t belong to her grandmother.

  With frantic, desperate movements, she scrambled toward the old man and turned him over. A sob burst from Issa’s throat and she nearly collapsed atop the body. The slack, pale features lacked the strength of her grandfather’s jaw, nose, and brow.

  She wept freely, her shoulders shaking, but relief surged through her horror and drove back the numbness. A fraction of sorrow remained—the corpses belonged to Issumo and Poltana, their next-door neighbors, kindly people that had been like Issa’s aunt and uncle—but relief bathed her like a cool breeze, brought tears to her eyes.

  A single thought pounded through her brain over and over. My grandparents are alive!

  She could suddenly breathe, the grip on her chest loosening. Her limbs moved slowly but warmth and strength returned with every thundering beat of her heart. Sanity reasserted itself as she repeated the blessed words.

  My grandparents are alive!

  She fell backward and slumped against the hard stone wall, drawing in deep, ragged gasps. With the return of air came clarity of thought. Scrubbing the tears from her eyes, she scanned the small single-room house that she had shared with her grandparents for the last seventeen years of her life. Her mind struggled to piece together what had happened.

  The front door hung ajar, its upper and middle hinge shattered, the outer handle snapped off. Heavy boots had splintered the wood as the rioters rampaging through the Cultivator’s Tier invaded her grandparents’ home. The shattered remnants of the table, chairs, and bed—the only furniture her Saba and Savta had owned—told a vivid tale. Mahjuri had come to ransack, loot, and kill. Issumo and Poltana had died in the turmoil.

  That thought led to another question. So where are Saba and Savta?

  The two elderly neighbors had fallen, yet she found no sign of her grandparents. Had they somehow managed to escape before the violence began? That seemed unlikely—their neighbors wouldn’t come over uninvited. The presence of Issumo and Poltana indicated that Saba and Savta had also been present when the rioters broke in.

  Confusion twisted in Issa’s stomach. She climbed to her feet, eyes narrowed at the corpses slumped across the rear doorway. The door had also been broken open, but the invaders had died where they stood. Crouching over the bodies, Issa stared down at the wounds that had laid them low. Deep, long slashes, gaping wounds, and gashes that laid open their flesh and muscle to the bone. Wounds from a sharp, heavy weapon.

  How is that possible? Her grandparents possessed only three knives—a butcher’s cleaver, a small paring knife, and the larger blade her Saba used in the fields—none large enough to wreak this massive damage. One of the looters carried a rusted, notched short sword. The stout blade could account for a few of the injuries, but the rest were too large and deep to have been made by anything so small. Even if her Saba had somehow managed to wrest away one of the other men’s weapons, he was a farmer, a laborer in the southern farmlands, not a warrior. The damage done to these men pointed to skill and training.

  Chaos whirled in her mind. What in the Keeper’s name happened, then?

  Had the Indomitables arrived in time to save her Saba and Savta? Had the black-armored Alqati slaughtered the rampaging Mahjuri and Kabili, hauling her grandparents away to safety?

  Hope surged within her. That has to be it! The Indomitables carried sickle-shaped khopeshes, blades more than heavy enough to inflict such grievous wounds on the looters.

  Strength returned to her limbs as warmth flooded to the core of her being. If the Indomitables did have her grandparents someplace safe, she had a chance of finding them.

  Her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out where the Indomitables would have taken them. She thought back to the map she had seen spread out on the table in the War Room that Lady Callista and the Elders of the Blade had set up on the Defender’s Tier. The map had showed the positions of the Indomitables spread out through the three lowest tiers, but that had been before the riots and chaos began. Any soldiers not fighting to restore order would be digging into fortified positions or trying to retreat to the safety of the upper tiers.

  That’s it!

  The Defender’s Tier, reserved for the Indomitables and their families, offered the most defensible position. A single gate led in and out, and the soldiers would die to hold that position. If the mob got past them, their husbands, wives, children, and parents would be in danger.

  The Indomitables had to have taken them up to the Defender’s Tier, then. That’s where I’ll find them.

  Grim resolve hardened in her gut. The Mahjuri and Kabili from the Slaves’ Tier had risen up in violent protest, lending their fists and fury to the outraged Earaqi. If even a quarter of those that lived on the lowest of Shalandra’s tiers had joined in the riot, close to fifty thousand angry men and women stood between her and her grandparents.

  But at that moment, it didn’t matter if a million raging protestors flooded the Cultivator’s Tier. Nothing would stop her from making certain her Saba and Savta were safe.

  Issa tucked her club into her belt and, stooping, retrieved the rusted short sword. Facing so many enemies, she needed all the weapons she could get. Without hesitation, she raced out into the streets of the Cultivator’s Tier, heavy blades gripped tight. If anyone got in her way, she�
��d cut them down in a heartbeat.

  On she ran, her legs and arms pumping, her boots pounding on the solid stone of the narrow side streets. All hint of fatigue faded, driven back by a desperate hope that her grandparents still lived.

  Her mind worked in time with her flying feet. The smartest, safest, and likely fastest route would be through the secret network of Serenii-built tunnels beneath the city. She, Kodyn, Evren, and Aisha had made the descent from the Palace of Golden Eternity to the Artisan’s Tier in a little over half the time it would have taken them above ground. The tunnels would enable her to bypass the crowds and looters altogether.

  But she had no idea how to find the tunnels, or how to trigger whatever hidden mechanisms opened them. She’d seen Evren do it twice, yet his explanation to Kodyn slipped her mind. With no knowledge of the secret paths, she could spend an eternity wandering in the near-darkness of the gemstone-lit tunnels.

  I’d be an idiot to go that way, she decided.

  That left her with two routes to take: Death Row, the main avenue that traveled from the Eastern Gate in the Slaves’ Tier all the way up to the Palace of Golden Eternity, or the pathways within the Keeper’s Crypts.

  Death Row would be clogged with rioters; not just looters taking advantage of the chaos, but those angry enough to take up weapons against the Indomitables. The Mahjuri, Kabili, and Earaqi had suffered at the hands of the soldiers for years, punished and abused simply because of their low caste. It had taken only a few precise nudges to push them over the edge.

  She had heard the speech given by Blackfinger, the leader of the Ybrazhe Syndicate. He had spoken of ripping power from the clutches of the Pharus and restoring it to the people. Those words had held only a fraction of truth—he, along with his allies in the Keeper’s Council, wanted to overthrow Pharus Amhoset Nephelcheres and claim the rule for themselves.

  But the Ybrazhe thugs weren’t the only ones desirous of chaos. Hallar’s Warriors, a group of young, idealistic Earaqi that spoke of ‘restoring Shalandra to the days of Hallar’, had riled up the lower castes as well. Through the chaos and discord, they sought to rip the power of rule from the Pharus and place it in the hands of the people.