We were running again, out of the tunnel into the lighter darkness of the keep, and now the great round tower rose above us. Its monstrous gates were barred and, in line in front of them was a company of crossbowmen.
I shouted 'Down,' and we were flat, just as we'd trained so long in our mock-charges, and Xia thudded down beside me as the crossbow strings twanged as loudly as slashed ship-cables and the bolts whined overhead, catching only one or two of Cholla Yi's men who'd never learned to duck.
Five yards from me, Dica leapt to her feet. 'Come on! Before they've time to reload,' and was running, sword high, no one else on her feet, and before I had a chance to shout warning the front row of crossbowmen knelt and the second rank fired, and Dica contorted, hurling her blade high into the night sky, and then she fell.
The night was sudden red, not the red of fire but of blood as the Guard came up and charged, screaming rage, and poured across the courtyard like quicksilver, like lightning. Ismet was beside me, snarling like a jungle cat for her once-lover as she ran, and we were among the crossbowmen with sword and axe before any of them had time to cock their pieces, and so they died to a man where they stood. Guardswomen went down with them - in that fierce moment of slaughter Neustria and Jacara went to the Seeker along with others.
I had a mere second to mourn Dica. Of course she'd erred in rushing the bowmen before she realized they hadn't shot their course, but she died bravely and she died at the head of her troops. I wondered how many Guardswomen might've hesitated before charging, given that front rank time to reload and died if it hadn't been for Dica's unknowing sacrifice. That's the way all too many of my best have met the Seeker, and why the Maranon Guard has buried as many officers as privates.
The huge gates into the keep were barred, but our sudden bloody rush had left the soldiers without time to close their small sally
-
port, and before anyone within could move, we were inside.
Polillo somehow had got in front of me, and there were three soldiers coming at her. I suppose to them, she was a blur, a killing engine, but to me her movements were very precise, very slow, and exact as she used the head of her axe to shove one man back into another, then while they stumbled, recovering, to change her thrust and lunge, as if the axe were a halberd and bury its curved head in the third man's throat. Without changing stance, she recovered, her enormous strength pulling the axehead free as the other two came at her. She batted the first man's sword out of line like a kitten with a stick, and with the backswing used the bill to hook and snap the neck of the second man. The first man shrieked and tried to flee, but Polillo, still moving as carefully as if she were demonstrating the Art of the Axe to awe-stricken recruits, sent it crashing into the back of his spine and the man flopped away like a gaffed fish.
A man lunged with a long bill, and Xia slashed through the weapon's wooden shaft and the man's arm as well. Spouting gore, he shrieked and fell.
In that instant I 'felt' the spell Gamelan had cast vanish, and knew I stood naked to the gaze of the Archon. I 'heard' a scream of surprised rage, and we all felt the stone flags under our feet grind and rumble, as if we were in an earthquake, but I knew it was just another sign of the Archon's shock at having been fooled, as he realized I yet lived.
I shouted the charge again, and we dashed down a long, twisting corridor. Squads of soldiers came out of doorways, and arrows flashed past or found a target, spears clattered against stone walls as The Sarzana's guard tried to stop us, tried to rally, but couldn't, and the men died, were driven back into their cuddies or they died. Then the corridor ended, and the roof rose high, and we were in The Sarzana's throne room. The domed ceiling was a hundred feet above, the chamber was two hundred feet or more in diameter. The walls were hung with tapestries or
battle
standards, and there were flaring torches on the walls and a huge fire guttering down at one wall.
The room was empty save for my soldiers and, on a high-raised dais in the centre of the room, The Sarzana. That is all any of my women, or Cholla Yi and the handful of men who'd followed us down the corridor saw.
I saw more.
Standing above The Sarzana, looming like a puppeteer bestrides his marionettes, was the Archon! He was huge, maybe thirty feet, and I could see the stories of the far wall through his only partially-material body. His arms were coming up, to strike at me.
Corais was beside me, and her bow came up and was full drawn, broadhead against wood, her fingers holding steady beside her ear. She was as firm and calm as if she were at the butts, and then she loosed and the arrow sped true, straight for The Sarzana. His hand came out, and I swear it was moving as slowly as a fly in honey, but he plucked her shaft from midair, and snapped it between two fingers. As he did, I heard a
crack
and Corais's bow, the one that had been made so lovingly so long ago cracked like a twig or like the arrow The Sarzana now tossed aside.
We broke into a run, a desperate charge towards the dais as The Sarzana's right hand lifted, fingers curled like a snakehead, and green fire like I'd seen on the ship's masts during a storm flickered, and then gathered into a ball and flashed towards us. It sent Corais spinning. I thought she was dead, but then she rolled to her feet, her face bloodied as if she'd been beaten. Green fire flickered again on The Sarzana's hand, just as Corais drew her dagger, brushed its blade over the bit of robe she'd tied to her arm and threw. Corais was no magician, nor claimed any powers of the Evocator
, but perhaps that talisman had
gathered some of the hate she felt for being nearly shamed by The Sarzana.
Her cast was true, and thudded into The Sarzana's chest, just below his ribs. He screamed, a wailing agony like a gutted roebuck, then his scream became a cry of joy, a screech of Tm free!'
In that instant I felt the Archon depart.
The Sarzana plucked the dagger from his body and spun it away, back at Corais. The blade darted back towards us like a striking serpent, and took her in the chest. I don't know if The Sarzana was already dead, or if his great magical powers meant Corais's strike was but a flesh wound, nor did it matter. I was on the dais, sword slashing with all my rage and pain behind it. It struck The Sarzana full on the shoulder, beside his neck, and clove him nearly to the breastbone. Blood fountained, and he fell limply as I yanked my sword free.
But I took no chances, and as Ismet had, slashed and slashed once more and then cast his dripping heart into the dying fireplace. Perhaps I should've saved it for an icon but couldn't. Not with Corais's life still clinging to it. The flames took the wizard's heart and roared up and out, as if a barrel of oil had been poured on them. The room shimmered, as if seen in summer's heat, and once more the earth shuddered under my boots, and I heard a far-distant wailing as demons took The Sarzana's soul, or what had been a soul once, and this world would never know him again.
But I wasn't thinking that then, but was going to where Corais lay, her head pillowed on Polillo's knees.
Surprisingly, she still lived, although I could tell the Seeker would embrace her in minutes. She looked at me, tried to smile, but couldn't.
'I would've made a
...
shitty
...
old lady, anyway,' she said, then blood runnelled from her lips and she was gone.
Polillo looked at me. 'Magic killed her,' she said in a whisper only I could hear. 'Just as it shall take me.'
I got to my feet. Xia was beside me, but I didn't want any comfort from her at that moment.
I know we all have to die, and Corais, when she chose a soldier's life, chose a soldier's fate as well. And she had brought down The Sarzana. But just then I would've traded him, and everyone else in those damned Konyan islands, for Corais's return.
Twenty-Two
On Homeward Winds
I
n most lands
the god of victory is gloriously winged, its face an image of fierce nobility. But the idol of victory ought to be a direwolf howling over its gutted prey. In
battle
, I've never found victory noble, much less sweet. Oh, there might be joy for a time - drunken boasting to one's mates about how you tricked and overcame a particularly canny enemy. But a soldier's joy soon rings hollow when she fully realizes it was only luck that left her standing; and how many of her comrades were deserted by luck that day.
There'd been other deaths, besides my Guardswomen. Phocas had been killed by an arrow launched by an unseen sniper as Cholla Yi's galley swept through the canals. Others included Captain Meduduth of our own force; Captain Yezo; Nor, who I prayed found some release in death; and many hundred Konyan soldiers and sailors whose names I didn't know. It would be many a year before this victory lost its mourning banners.
We limped back to Isolde, heroes all. Ships and small boats sailed out to greet us from every island we passed. Trumpets and horns hailed us. Hilltops were alive with Konyans cheering our return. But below-decks the wounded groaned; and on the decks the Evocators blessed corpse after corpse, and put a coin on their tongues to bribe mercy from the Seeker when he carried them to his lair. I spoke to no one, not even Gamelan, not even Xia; but only huddled in my bed mourning Corais and all the women I'd fed to the demons of war. There were fifty of us now. Fifty! Out of all the hundreds I'd set out with when we marched on Lycanth. I did not weep; I was too frozen with grief. When I awoke in the morning I waited long moments before I opened my eyes - praying that when I did, another nightmare would have passed and Corais would be looking down on me with that sardonic grin. I missed her. I miss her still. If there is life after this place, I pray we can march together again under the same banner.
Two nights out of Isolde, Xia crept into my arms. Our love-making was slow and bittersweet. Afterwards, we half-dozed in one another's arms listening to the booming seas. Just before dawn Xia turned to me and looked deep into my eyes. They'd aged - there was pain there, there was knowledge won at much cost.
'I love you, Rali,' she said. Before I could answer, she was gone.
I arose - not fresh, or even particularly cheerful - but I did feel somewhat healed. Also, mourning had been replaced by worry. A feeling of dread nagged at me, but of what, I couldn't say.
Gamelan was waiting for me in his cabin. 'I was about to send for you, Rali,' he said. 'I have need of you.'
'It's the Archon, isn't it?' I said, guessing immediately what was in his thoughts. 'He's not done with us, yet. Or we with him.'
'I'm not certain,' the wizard said. 'I've cast spells in every direction, and he doesn't seem to be about. Admittedly, my conjuring abilities are far from healed. Still, each spell I cast was blocked. No, not blocked - that would be like a wall. This was more like encountering a locked door. That in itself makes me worry.'
'How may I help?' I asked, setding by his side. 'What can I do that you cannot?'
'I believe there was - or is - a bond between you and the Archon,' he said. 'It's a bond of hate, to be sure; but there are no stronger chains than can be forged on those fires. Perhaps that bond began when your brother defied the Archons. There were all sorts of black spells about in those days, what with Greycloak and Raveline
and
the Archons burrowing into places few have dared to approach since the Ancients. Unwilling though he was, Amalric was at the centre of it. Then you came along, and once again an Antero is about when great forces are at work. I knew at Lycanth when Jinnah could not hold, much less cast the bones it was you, and only you to whom they spoke. Then you slew one of them, confirming the Archons' worst fears about the Anteros. Finally, when the last Archon cursed you with his dying breath - and then managed to defy death by fleeing into the ethers - that curse forged the strongest link of all.
'So, to answer your question, my friend - there is much you can do that I cannot. At least, I pray that is so. Perhaps it is Rali Emilie Antero who holds the key to that barred portal.'
'What would you have me do?' I asked.
'Find the Archon,' he said. He drew out the box containing the talisman heart.
I didn't argue, but the dread increased to heavy, throbbing pressure as I took the box from his hands.
'Hold it between your palms,' he said. 'Send your thoughts into it. You must focus as hard as you can. Do not speak, or cast about for words for a spell. I will say them for you.'
I swallowed, then said, 'Give me a moment to prepare myself.'
I breathed deeply, emptying my mind as best I could. I rolled my shoulders to loosen them, turned my head from side to side to stretch the muscles. Then I grasped the box firmly between my palms and drew in one last long breath. I whooshed it out.
'I'm ready,' I said.
And Gamelan began:
Cast wide the net
Mother Fate;
Haul in the catch
Thy daughter seeks;
East to the portals
Where the Old Gods wait;
And sit in judgment
Of he who hates.
I heard a thunderclap and the room darkened. The air became heavy and hot. I smelled sandalwood - my mother's scent. It was stronger than ever before. I heard a voice whisper: 'Rali.' It was my mother's voice and I wanted to weep, I loved her so, missed her so. Again she whispered my name and I felt her breath at my ear, delicate as a butterfly's wing. I shivered.