“I know what I have to do,” Makarria said, casting her eye upon Lightbringer's Keep.
“You're sure?” Talitha asked her.
“Yes.”
“What is your plan? What can I do to help?”
“Just get us into the city,” Makarria said, “somewhere where I have a good view of those black towers.”
“You're going to tear them down?”
Makarria nodded. “I'll turn the foundation to sand and bring the whole keep tumbling down on the Emperor. It's the only way. You said yourself, it's best to attack from afar.”
“So I did,” Talitha conceded. “It could very well work, but we best wait for the cover of darkness to sneak into the city. There will be guards on the high road at the gates, and they might be looking for us.”
“We don't have time to wait,” Makarria said, determined to go now that she had made her decision. “I'm scared to think what all those soldiers will be doing to our friends if we wait.”
“Don't be foolish,” Talitha told her. “Another few hours will make little difference. We did not come this far only to be taken captive the moment we step into the city. Besides, the chances that we'll catch Guderian in his tower are better at night. Come, we'll take shelter in that copse of trees until it's dark.”
Makarria nodded sullenly and followed Talitha off the road to wait beneath the trees. The trees were barren of leaves and did little to shelter them from the rain, but they at least shielded the wind somewhat and kept Makarria and Talitha from standing in plain sight. Talitha divided what little food she had left in her pack between the two of them and they ate silently, each lost in her own thoughts.
The sunset was indiscernible behind the rain clouds, and the western horizon merely faded from gray to black as time passed. When Talitha deemed it was dark enough, she motioned for Makarria to follow her. “The city is not walled, so we will have little trouble entering unnoticed,” Talitha said, veering off the high road into the mud. “I need you to stay close beside me though. We'll be entering in the northeastern borough. There are many unsavory people there. If anyone speaks to you, just ignore them and let me do the talking. Stay focused on what you need to do with Lightbringer's Keep.”
“I will,” Makarria promised.
“And one thing more, Makarria,” Talitha said, grabbing Makarria by the shoulder and bringing her to a halt. “If things go awry, I promise you I will do all that I can to help. If Wulfram finds us, I will give him the fight of his life and try to lead him away from you. If Guderian finds us⦠I cannot hope to hurt Guderian, but if nothing else, perhaps I can distract him and give you time to do what you must. If it comes to that, you must act quickly though.”
“I understand,” Makarria answered, and the two of them continued slogging wordlessly down the hill. It was still a mile or more to the outskirts of the city, and they were slowed by the mud and rain, but time held no meaning for Makarriaâshe was not aware of her feet carrying her one step at a time closer to the city or even of the rain pelting her in the face. Her eyes were locked on Lightbringer's Keep, still visible above the city, a black shadow even in the night.
There's no other choice,
she told herself again, trying not to think about the hundreds of innocent people who would be killed when she brought those towers toppling down: the porters, the cooks, the maids, the stable hands, and then of course, all the horses and whatever other animals were kept in the keep. The very thought almost brought Makarria to tears. She pushed them away and steeled herself. She had gone over every possible tactic she could think of in her mind, and there was no other way. She had to attack the Emperor from a distance, just like Talitha had said. Otherwise, he would simply stop her magic. And that meant innocent people would have to die. To protect the lives of others.
The ground leveled out before them, and they began passing the outermost buildings of the northeastern borough. The buildings were little more than dilapidated huts and sheds made of building scraps that rattled in the wind. Most were dark and lifeless, but a few had pitiful fires at their doorsteps where groups of people sat huddled together. If any of them noticed Talitha and Makarria passing by, they said nothing. The buildings gradually grew larger and more permanent-looking, and before long they were walking on a tar-paved road. Between the buildings, Makarria could still see Lightbringer's Keep though, and her attention was focused entirely on its dark visage. She followed Talitha wordlessly, not even noticing the steam powered rickshaws, the gas lanterns lighting their way, or the increasing number of city people crowding the streets. When Talitha finally brought them to a halt, they stood at the intersection of two large streets that was absolutely bustling with people making for the center of the city.
“Something's not right,” Talitha muttered. “There are never this many people in the streets of Col Sargoth.”
Makarria tore her eyes away from Lightbringer's Keep and took in her surroundings. She'd not been in enough cities to know what was normal or not. “Maybe it's because of the war. Could the Emperor be forcing people into his army?”
“He doesn't need them,” Talitha said, shaking her head. She waved at an old woman passing by. “Excuse me, what's all the excitement about tonight?”
“Haven't you heard?” the old woman replied. “There's a public execution in the city square. The Emperor is killing the King and Queen of Valaróz.”
“That's impossible,” Talitha said, shaking her head. “We were told the Pallma line was killed off years ago.”
“So we were. So we were. I guess we were told wrong.”
“Wait,” Makarria said. “My grandfatherâ”
“Hush now,” Talitha interrupted, covering Makarria's mouth and waving the old woman away. “Thank you, Ma'am.”
Makarria pushed Talitha's hand aside, annoyed she was being treated like a child. “Don't do that. What if it's my grandfather the Emperor has?”
“I don't see how that's possible. The last we heard, he was in Kal Pyrthin, preparing to sail for Valaróz. In all likelihood this is all just a ruse.”
Makarria didn't believe it. The moment she had heard the old woman utter the word Valaróz, she knew something was wrong. She couldn't shake the feeling that her grandfather was in trouble. “I have to find out if it's him.”
“Don't be rash,” Talitha said, but Makarria was hearing none of it. She dashed off into the crowd of people and began making her way toward the center of the city. “Wait!” Talitha yelled, hurrying after her, but it was hopeless. Makarria was swallowed up by the crowd, and being shorter than most of the city people, she was impossible to spot. Still, Talitha forged her way forward, frantically looking for her.
A good distance ahead, Makarria wormed her way through the slow-moving crowd. When the street finally opened up into the city square, the crowd dispersed somewhat, and Makarria saw before her thousands of people mobbed around a huge platform in the middle of the square. She sprinted forward, and as she got closer she could see that two people were being held captive on the platform in pillories. By the time she got close enough to make out their faces, she was in the midst of the crowd and could see nothing. She shoved her way forward, frantically looking for a break in the mass of people. She spotted to her right a statue in the near distance and changed course toward it. Once there, she scrambled up onto the base platform of the statue and pivoted around to finally look upon the prisoners on the platform.
It was not her grandfather she saw.
She didn't know how or why her parents could be there, but it was them in the pillories, their hands and heads protruding from the cruel wooden framework, both of them badly beaten and shivering in the cold rain. Galen's face was hardly recognizable it was so bruised and swollen, and Prisca's nose was bleeding, her clothes tattered and sodden with blood. The crowd was jeering them with curses and insults, and those close enough threw rotten food and garbage at them or spat on their faces. As Makarria watched stunned, a man pulled himself onto the platform and grabbed one of Prisca's hands where it protruded from the large wood beam. He guffawed at the crowd, then yanked her fingers back with a savage twist, mangling her fingers into a broken mess. Prisca screamed out in pain, and at the base of the statue Makarria screamed. Both screams were lost in the yells of the crowd. Makarria tried to jump clear of the statue, but hundreds more people had crowded in around her, trapping her where she was. The man on the platform sauntered to where Galen was held, backhanded him across the face, and Makarria could take no more.
She closed her eyes and envisioned the pillories. She imagined them turning to sawdust and a great whirlwind blowing the dust into the crowd to chase everyone off. She felt the resistance in her core as she pushed the dream toward becoming reality. In her periphery, she heard her name and faltered for a moment.
Makarria, no. It's a trap.
Still in a trance, Makarria opened her eyes and saw Talitha there, trying to pull her away. Beyond Talitha, Makarria could still see her parents in the stockades, being kicked and spat upon. Again, she envisioned the pillories turning to sawdustâ¦
A sudden gut-wrenching pain ripped the image from Makarria's mind. She opened her mouth to breathe but could not. The wind had been knocked out of her, and rough hands were pulling her from the statue. Someone smacked her across the face, and she was dragged to the ground to lie on her hands and knees. When air finally returned to her lungs and the tears cleared from eyes, she saw that she was surrounded by soldiers. Six of them surrounded Talitha, the tips of their pikes held inches from her throat.
The crowd, which moments before had been filling the city square with shouting, had gone completely silent.
In the silence, Makarria heard heavy footsteps approaching. She pulled herself to her feet and blinked the tears back from her eyes, as a giant of a man strode forward bearing a sword that was taller than Makarria. The very sight of him made Makarria's skin prickle with fear.
It's him,
she realized.
“Welcome to my fair city, Dreamwielder,” Emperor Guderian said, coming to a halt before Makarria. “You've arrived right on time and saved your parents further public humiliation. They'll be happy, I'm sure, to return to the safety of the dungeon.” The Emperor smiled thinly and winked at her. “I trust that you will be a polite guest during your time here. You and your sorceress friend, both. If either of you try any sort of magic again, you will be killed on the spot and I'll have your parents disemboweled then stoned to death to suffer for your crimes. Are we understood?”
Makarria could only stare at him in stunned silence.
Caile rubbed the weariness from his eyes and looked over the Pyrthinian troops digging ground fortifications in the fields at the western edge of Lepig. “Can you do it or not?” he asked the guild master of the carpenters who walked at his side.
“I cannot get a tank that size fifty feet up in the air,” the stout, mustachioed man replied, shaking his head. “Thirty feet is the best I can do, and even then I can't promise the tower I build will hold the weight once that tank is filled.”
Caile pictured the contraption he had conceived the night before. He wasn't certain that thirty feet would provide the pressure he was after, but it would have to do. “Do it,” he told the carpenter. “You have two days, and it better hold. I have every barrel of naphtha from here to Makady on its way. That tank holds near five thousand gallons and I want it full.”
“Two days?” the carpenter balked.
“Work day and night,” Caile told him. “Get whatever men you need, and promise them whatever pay you must. If we succeed, I'll gladly pay it. If we fail, well, it won't matter much anywayâ”
The color drained from the carpenter's face, and his mouth clamped shut. All he could do was nod that he would do it. Caile sent him on his way and turned back to the city to see to the coppersmiths who were making the long, tapered pipe and nozzle he would need. He had taken his idea from the miners in the mountains north of Sol Valaróz who used creeks and streams to create water cannons to strip down the sides of hills and unearth silver. Caile's contraption wasn't meant to hose down the hillside though. It was meant to douse the Emperor's war machines in naphtha once they got stuck in the trenches the Pyrthinian soldiers were digging at the edge of the city.
I just hope that the same principles apply to naphtha as well as water, and that thirty feet is high enough,
Caile fretted.
“Your Highness,” a soldier called out to him, disrupting his thoughts.
Caile stopped in the middle of the road to see that it was one of the men assigned to protect Taera. “Yes, soldier, what is it?”
“Your sister has sent me to tell you that she has left.”
“What do you mean left? Left where?”
“She did not say, Your Highness. She said to tell you that she had a vision and that she would be back with help if she could. She took off on her horse to the south.”
“Damn it all, man,” Caile swore. “You're supposed to be with her at all times. Go get her and bring her back!”
The soldier coughed uncomfortably. “She said that you would say that, Your Highness. She said to remind you that she is the heir to the throne, not you, and that she's in charge.”
Caile glared at the man but said nothing. By Pyrthin tradition and law, she was right. Still, Caile was angry she had gone off without at least consulting him first.
Damn that girl,
he swore to himself.
She better hurry, whatever she's doing. We have three days at best before we're under siege.
Emperor Thedric Guderian sat hunched forward in his throne, wearing his black leather jack and trousers with plate armor at the forearms and shins. Held before him in both hands was his massive claymore, its point resting on the floor between his feet. At his side stood King Lorimer of Golier, a wiry, gaunt looking man with stringy blond hair. And filling the throne room were an assortment of dignitaries, Sargothian aristocrats, and thirty soldiers from the Imperial Guard who stood at the ready around the perimeter of the room with long pole-axes in hand and short swords at their waists.