HALEWYCK - Chapter 27

In Which Master ban Halewyck Makes His Departure

“Hold her steady now, that’s it,” I said. Madzia held the horse’s reins fearfully, as though at any second the creature might balk and throw her down. “She’s gentle, but you must be firm; very good. I shall return before long. You must wait for me here.”

“I shall,” she said, “so long as you do not tarry.”

“Believe me, I shan’t,” I said. I turned away from her and went off to the task at hand.

We stood below the south wall of Mardioc. A small wayside shrine stood along the road, fallen to ruin and overgrown with ivy and vines; I had bid Madzia wait for me there, holding the horse that Signo had given me until I should return. I had meant what I’d said – I had no wish to make her wait.

The land below the city’s walls fell away in a steep, rocky slope, overgrown with brush and weeds. A small stream tumbled along this length, issuing from the gutter out of which I’d emerged only a few days prior. Overhead, the day was turning to dusk, and as the sky faded to a pale, bleak shade of blue, the gnats and flies began to swarm around the sewer’s cool, dark mouth. I knelt beside it, swatting them, steeling myself against the grim odor that poured out of the darkness. Assuring myself that they were still there, I let a hand stray to the brace of tools that the Eridan’s master had lent me; an iron file, prybar, a candle, a hammer and chisel. May the God grant that it would be enough. I pulled a cloth over my nose and climbed into the tunnel.

As I climbed the black tunnel, I traced the lefthand wall with the tips of my fingers. Years of moss, lichen, and fungus had crept across the stonework, and though the feel of it all dismayed me, I was not willing to miss the door that Parsza had shown me.

Lichen or no, I would not have missed it. The nearer that I drew to the door, the nearer also I came to the reeking corpse of the guard that Parsza had killed. He must’ve drawn the flies; the noise of the swarm echoed down the tunnel as I advanced. Stepping over him in the darkness, I felt across the black expanse of stone until I found the hinges of the door set into the rock. I took out the iron file and set to work upon them.

As I worked, I glanced down the length of the tunnel; far away and well below, a small diamond of fading light stood like the sole star of Astra. As I worked, rasping at the small brass hinges, it became dimmer and dimmer still.

A sound came up the tunnel, moving like a wind; I thought at first that I had imagined it, but it repeated a moment later. It sounded almost like a horn, blown somewhere in the far distance. A signal within the city, perhaps? They had blown horns and trumpets on Signo’s arrival – perhaps another Duke had come to the city?

I broke the top hinge and the door leaned out of the wall. Why the horn? Duke Vliho, who had commanded Lubosz’s forces at Corrabela, was defeated – had he retreated to the city? Maybe come to swear fealty to the new Prince, I thought. It made no odds to me. I inserted the prybar above the door and pulled; the ancient, rusted hinge groaned and tore apart. I peeled the door open and, setting it aside on the floor, climbed into the opening.

The same dim hallway that Parsza had led me down days before. I lifted the freed door and set it haphazardly upon the opening; it would not withstand any close scrutiny, but I could only hope that it would not attract attention.

Candles illuminated the expanse of brickwork, but only dimly. I glanced at the floor; whatever blood the soldier had spilled, Parsza must’ve cleaned it somehow. So much the better. I raced down the hall as quietly as I could manage, clutching the tools to keep them from rattling. I kept a hand on the hilt of the messer, too.

Down the hall was the kitchen. It was late now, and I lingered beyond the doorway, pressing an ear to the wood. It was silent on the far side, so far as I could tell; the door was unlocked. Gingerly, I cracked it open and peered. The ovens were dim and the room empty. I crossed the room quickly; on the far side was the staircase that Parsza had led me down.

“Hello?” someone said. I turned; a servant had emerged from a pantry, a sack of flour in one hand, and stared at me blankly. Her expression turned slowly to fear.

“Do not—” I began to say, but before I could complete my instruction the servant dropped the flour and darted to a door. I was quicker, but only barely; I slammed the door shut in front of her and seized her by the arm. “Please!”

“Help!” she cried. “There is someone—”

I drew the messer and, in one swift movement, cracked her across the temple with the pommel. She fell as simply as had the sack of flour; she collapsed the floor, rolling, letting out a long, pained sigh.

“I am sorry,” I said, but I do not expect she heard me. I rolled her onto her stomach, snatched a ball of twine from an herb rack, and bound her hands and feet as best I could. I carried her into the pantry and sealed the door, feeling for all the world like the cutthroat she expected me to be. I lit my candle in the coals of the great oven and went out.

Then it was out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and to the cistern; all that stood beyond was utter darkness. The great black pool was skirted by a narrow boardwalk, whose aged, rotten boards were as noisy as they were precarious. I passed over them without any great event, fortunately, and went on through the corridors beyond.

Whatever purpose had mandated the construction of such tunnels was long since disappeared; at present they were a labyrinthine mess of dugouts, passages, and chambers whose relation to one another was both original and baffling. I did what I could to recall the route that Parsza had led me on, but the going was slow and confounding. At several occasions I found myself returning to the same junction, retracing my own footprints, and holding my breath at the sight of my own shadow.

At one point I heard voices from further down the passage and so tossed myself into an alcove, snuffed the candle, and held my breath. I waited silently until my heart began pounding loud in my skull, and I could feel a numbness creeping through my fingers; the voices did not abate, but nor did they draw nearer. At last, gasping for breath, I puzzled it out.

I had reached the Deep Tower.

The voices ahead, I felt certain, were the wailing complaints of the prisoners. The candle could not be revived; I went forward now in darkness, groping along the ancient stones of the walls, clutching fast to the messer on my belt.

I rounded a corner and there ahead of me was an island of orange light; a single guard stood beside the heavy, iron-bound door that I knew contained the prison itself. I drew nearer. Beneath the ornamentation of his helmet, I could not make out the guard’s features – were they the same one who had let me escape? Could they be reasoned with? Were they, too, a friend of Signo?

I crouched in the blackness of the tunnel, just beyond the edge of the light. In the torchlight, I could see that the door stood flush with the wall of a second passage running perpendicular to that in which I stood. As I approached, a flash of light to my left told me that a third passage, running diagonally, connected the two. I loosened the messer in its sheath.

“You there,” I called out. My voice echoed strangely down the tunnel. The guard, who had seemed on the edge of sleep previously, jolted upright, a hand on his own sword, and stepped forward carefully into the darkness.

“Who’s there?”

“A friend of Signo,” I said. “Lay down your sword and stand aside; do not try to prevent me.”

The guard pulled his sword free and seized the torch from the wall. Silently, I crept along the diagonal passage. The guard disappeared behind the wall until, moments later, I stepped into the second tunnel, now far to the guard’s left. He was none the wiser; he stepped forward, torch in hand, into the darkness ahead of him.

“Present yourself at once, you damned coward!” he called, thrusting the torch forward. Very well, then; he was no friend of Signo’s.

I drew the messer and darted forward.

As the guard turned wildly towards me, it was already over; he turned just as I thrust the tip of the messer under his arm, and as the point sank into the gap, the man groaned and sank to his knee. I twisted the blade and jerked it loose; blood poured down his breastplate and he breathed hard, groaning, his shoulders heaving in the darkness. He dropped the torch, but held fast to his sword.

I must give the man credit. Still bleeding profusely, he heaved one final time, rising almost to his feet. With all the strength left in my arms, I brought the pommel down squarely on the top of his head. He fell forward into the dust of the floor, landing hard and loud in the silent tunnels, and for a time laid perfectly still. His left leg began to shake, rattling his mail chausses, until at last he was still again.

I sheathed the messer and stood over him. My heart was racing and I felt faint. I breathed hard, trying at any length to calm myself. I clutched the wall; now was not the time for such a weakness, I thought. I took up the torch in one hand and, with the other, pawed at the dead man’s belt, until at last I produced a ring of heavy iron keys.

“I’ll say a prayer for you, before I’ve done,” I told the corpse.

There were dozens of small keys on the ring, but only one large enough for the door before me. I turned the great, heavy lock and heaved the door ajar. The cold, open darkness of the Deep Tower stood, gusting and dour, absolute and profound. I replaced the torch in its sconce and, taking hold of the corpse, dragged him noisily backwards into the chamber. Only once I had done that did I take the torch back in hand, shut the door, and descend the narrow, winding path towards the cells below.

This was a grueling, wrenching process. I had no idea where Horan was being kept, but in every cell into which I peered was another wretch, cold and squalid in the blackness, gaping at me moon-eyed from the depth of their empty, bleak soul. Some held to the bars and sneered at me, and others groped out at me as I passed.

“Guards!” someone called, far away and high above. “Someone is come! Intruder! A jailbreaker! Guards!”

Other voices rose to meet their fury.

“Shut your fucking mouth, dog! I’ll gut you, dog! I’ll chew through this stone and gut you!”

I did what I could to ignore their cries; it was not much.

At last, I found him.

He was on the third row of cells, near the furthest wall of the cavern. He sat, hunched on his meager cot, staring blankly at the floor in front of him. Really, I think he was staring far beyond that point – far beyond, and long ago. He did not turn his eyes up as I approached, but when the torchlight flooded into his cell, he turned his night-blind eyes vacantly up at me. I stood at attention.

“Captain Horan,” I said, “Third Lieutenant Lewyn ban Halewyck, reporting for service, your honor.”

When I had opened the door of the cell, I led Captain Horan gingerly forward onto the narrow path. He was haggard – bearded, gaunt, his clothes stained and worn. He came forward unsteadily, fearing the weakness of his legs and the treachery of the winding path down the wall of the cavern. I supported him as best I could, and as we went down I endeavored to explain to him what had passed since our imprisonment.

“Corrobela has fallen to the rebels; Draho’s chief general leads an army to Mardioc,” I told him. He stared at me with wide, gaping eyes; I could not tell if he understood me at all. “Lubosz is dead; Lord Biga is now prince.”

“Oh,” Horan said quietly, “I see.”

“We must get back to Estvellero,” I said. “I’ve gathered the crew; we’ll board the Eridan as soon as we return.”

Horan paused on the landing, his gaunt, crooked face vacant in the darkness. All around us, the prisoners squalled and raged.

“But what of the court-martial?”

“Please, your honor,” I said, taking him by the arm, “nevermind the court-martial; we’ll deal with it all when we return to the ship.”

“Yes, yes, you’re quite right,” he said. I looked at him in the faint light of the torch, pale and weary, and felt quite certain that he had lost his mind. Very well, I thought, prison is not for everyone. In any event, I had more need just then of his uniform than I had of his mind; a captain’s uniform would win the loyalty of the crew. I could manage the rest myself.

The cavern had grown more noisome still, and as we reached the landing beside the door the whole of the mountain seemed to groan and strain with the volume of its inmates. I flipped through the ring of keys until I found the largest of them and set it to the lock.

But it would not fit, or rather, my hand shook too badly to set it in. No, that wasn’t it either; it was the door that shook, not my hand.

It was the ground itself.

“When the world is shaken,” Draho had said, “it is shaken three times.”

“Do get down, your honor,” I said, leading Captain Horan to the floor. Uncertainly, he kneeled down beside the door.

Rocks began to crack away and fall from the ceiling of the cavern. They cascaded down the wall of the Deep Tower, thundering as they shattered about the limestone walls, breaking away new pieces until an avalanche of dust and stone poured down the cavern. A great, dry wind blew up from further below as the mass of stone collided to the floor, and as it passed the torch flared and nearly guttered. As the tremor of the collision shook the cavern, more rocks followed down in their way; stalactites centuries old came plunging down like arrows, and at the far side of the chamber, a portion of the wall gave way. Like stars hidden behind clouds, a dozen cells were snuffed out in a torrent of dust and rock. The screams of their inmates vanished with them.

“Wait here, captain,” I said, standing.

I ran down from the door, bounding down the narrow path, until I came to the first cell I chanced upon. The inmate was silent as I rattled through the keys; there were fewer than a dozen keys on the ring, so I did not doubt that each fit a number of the cells. I need only find the right one.

At last I had it; as I threw the lock open, I glanced up into the cell. The occupant was a sallow, lean man, tucked and curled into the far corner of the room. He quivered as I drew nearer with the torchlight.

“Wait – I know you,” I said, kneeling beside him. “You brought the news of Kanemurso to Prince Lubosz.”

The old man – he had been an estimable Noble, as I recalled – shivered at the mention of the name.

“I love my Prince,” he said quietly. “I love my Prince. I meant no insult.”

“The Prince is dead,” I said. Very slowly, he turned around. “You were a great Noble, were you not?”

“I was Lord of Mlipaso,” he said. In that voice, the faintest hint of dignity remained.

Beyond the cell, the ground thunder and shook once more. I heard more stones tumbling down from the heights.

“My friend, you must recall the dignity of your house,” I said. “You must stand now, and honor your ancestors – will you do this?”

“The House of Mlipaso has stood for centuries,” he said candidly.

“Let it stand for centuries more,” I said. I pulled open the ring of keys and rolled half of them into my hand. “There is little time, my lord, and I need your help to set your compatriots free.”

The Lord of Mlipaso stared at me blankly. I urged the keys forward; he shivered anew.

“I love the Prince,” he said weakly.

I took his hand and placed the keys within it.

“The Prince is dead.”

As the Deep Tower collapsed over our heads, the Lord of Mlipaso and I raced, in our ways, down the cliffside path to each cell that we came across. Each of the keys, it seemed, answered to a row of the cells. The responses of the prisoners as they were liberated was mixed. Some kissed my hands, others made at first to tear my throat. Whenever one among them seemed more or less sane – the more recent inmates – I handed them a key and set them to work freeing their peers.

“We must flee!” the Lord of Mlipaso cried. It was true; a great crack had shot up on the far side of the cavern, and with each passing moment, more and more stone fell away from its mouth. The lord stood at the end of the path and called at me, waving to me to join him and the others. “The tower falls! We must flee!”

“Few remain,” I called back. “We must loose them too!”

“There is no time!”

“Go on!” I called. I turned down the path; five cells remained ahead of me. “I will join soon! Go on!”

The Lord of Mlipaso hesitated – but the others needed no further encouragement. They seized the torches, stole the sword from the soldier’s body, and fled down the labyrinthine halls.

I threw open the next door; the inmate did not move.

“Lieutenant!” Horan called, his hoarse voice wavering in the echoing air. “Lieutenant, come down here now!”

“A moment!” I cried. I darted into the room, shaking the sorry prisoner by the shoulder. It did not answer; she remained motionless upon her cot. “Answer, you must flee!”

I rolled her over onto her back. A shard of flint lay in her hand, and her throat was bloody and opened.

“Ah,” I said. I leapt from the room.

Only four cells remained unopened. The inmates were screaming now; boulders as large as wains crashed down from the ceiling, and every other minute the ground below our feet trembled so terribly that I had to cling to the bars of the nearest cell or risk plummeting into the devouring blackness below. Another lock opened and the grisly inmate barreled past me, scampering away down the path. Three more.

“Lieutenant ban Halewyck, come down here at once!” Horan roared. He was climbing the path behind me now. “That’s an order!”

“So much for the court-martial,” I muttered. I turned to the last three cells—

—and like a ship striking a bar, the world ground against itself. The path beneath my feet gave way like so much sand. I clung fast to the bars of the cell; over my head, gravel poured down from the wall and ceiling, and as it fell, the path below my feet went with it. To my left, the iron bars of the last three cells groaned and bent, screeching as the earth around them turned to dust. There was a tremendous vibration that went shuddering through the Deep Tower. The rock before – and the cells carved within it – sank slowly downwards, fracturing away from the others, and then stopped. A fissure some six feet across had emerged between them and the rest of the path; if I leapt, I thought, I could reach the next cell – perhaps even the one beyond that…

“Ban Halewyck!” Horan roared. I turned; he was just at hand now.

“Go back down, it isn’t safe here!”

“Damn you, lieutenant, take my hand!” he shouted, reaching across the gulf from the falling trail.

“I can reach the next one!” I said. “A moment, sir, a moment!”

“Clap on, you whoreson! Clap on!” he shouted.

I turned between them. In that moment, to my left did not stand the three inmates of the Deep Tower; there stood all the prisoners of the Eridan and the Everspring – Donnick, Jack, Eurick, Olia. If I could just reach further, I could seize the bars of the next cell and pull myself over. I could see their hands reaching out from between the bars, reaching out to me. If I could just reach them…

A tremor ran through the stone as though a bomb had burst far away. I felt the bars buzzing within my grasp. Across the fracture, those hands which reached out through the bars so close beside me instead grasped hold of the bars, and the voice cried out unintelligibly.

Then the stone gave way, and the cells crumbled away, falling down into the darkness.

Captain Horan seized me by the shirt then, and I clasped his arm with both hands as he pulled me back to the trail. We went stumbling down the path to the door; the Lord of Mlipaso waited there beside it, a torch in hand, ushering us forward. I found that I wept as I ran.

“This way, my friends, this way!” the lord cried, waving us down the right-hand passage. “This way to the courtyard!”

“We do not go to the courtyard,” I said. “The kitchen – there is another way.”

The Lord of Mlipaso looked at me askance, shook his hand, and handed over the torch.

“May Fortune lead you home,” he said, before running off into the absolute darkness ahead.

“What did he say?” Horan asked.

“He wished us well on our journey,” I said. “Bear a hand, sir – we’ve a long way to go.”

So we went down the darkened passages. Dust spouted from the ceiling at every pace, and great tremors passed through the very bones of the world.

“Another earthquake,” Horan muttered, limping beside me.

“Yes,” I said, “though I fear it may be more than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think Gorasz may have reached the city,” I said. “The battle may be well underway.”

Horan’s eyes widened in the torchlight, but he said nothing.

We reached the cistern. Very carefully, I led Captain Horan along the boardwalk to the far side. There stood the staircase which descended to the kitchen; hearing voices from down below, I bid the captain wait. Pressing myself flat beside the wall, I bent my hearing towards the kitchen below.

Down the stairs, voices called out in the kitchen. There was a great deal of shouting going on – I could make out little of it. I stood and leaned out to look down the passage.

A trio of soldiers were thundering up the stairs.

“There!” one cried. “There!”

“The other side,” I shrieked at Horan, “quickly!”

He stood and, feeling along the wall in the darkness, went carefully to the far side.

“Quickly, damn it!” I said. I turned back; the soldiers had reached the top of the stairs and were coming forward along the boardwalk now. “The Hell with it!”

In the torchlight, the steel of the messer flashed as I tore it from the sheath.

As Captain Horan took his sweet time, the leading soldier lunged forward. With one hand bearing the torch, I could do little to harm him – but it would be enough to keep him back. I lunged and cut and parried as well as the space allowed, and with his comrades behind him he could not retreat very far at all. He kept his sword raised, cutting away my strokes as they fell about his head, but with the wall so close beside him he could do nothing to return the offensive.

“Come on, Halewyck!” Horan shouted. I cut at the soldier and glanced behind me; Horan stood in the mouth of the passage. The soldier before me saw his chance and seized it. The instant I turned my head, he threw himself, blade-first, forward upon me. I flew backwards, parrying wildly, lashing out with the torch. I regained my footing – only barely – but the soldier did not hesitate to press the attack. He had found a way into my defense and had no wish to release it. It was all that I could do to keep him at bay; behind him, his comrades shouted encouragement, waved their swords wildly, and awaited their turn at the fray should their companion fall.

The soldier advanced savagely; I let him come. I backed away, stepping across the boardwalk as gracefully as I could, until I could sense Horan near behind me.

The soldier lunged forward, a brutal thrust of his sword that, had it come a moment sooner, would have pierced my heart.

I flattened myself against the wall and, with a clean stroke that would have warmed the heart of old Master Lautrec, sliced upwards through the air. The sword did not find the soldier before me.

It did, however, find the rope that secured the boardwalk. The rope parted cleanly. As it did, boardwalk, soldiers, and torches all went crashing down into the water below. Narrowly, I clung to the lip of the passage, Horan grabbing me by the shoulders.

“Is there another way?” Horan asked.

“There had damn well better be.”

-

Then, it was back into the tunnels. We turned down the corridors at random, running headlong into black tunnels and endless winding stairs. All we needed to be damned forever was the collapse of one tunnel, and the endless tons of stone overhead would fall down upon us and finish the whole affair. We could hear such collapses happening elsewhere, echoing through the miles of tunnels, and on occasion we would round a corner to find our route blocked off by a talus of debris and dust.

At last we found a staircase that ran up, up, up. Behind me, I could hear Horan faltering, heaving grievously at the exertion.

“Only a little further, your honor,” I said. “We’re nearly there – I see a light ahead.”

It was a lie, of course – only blackness at the top of the stair – but I could not spare the fee of honesty at that moment.

“Just a little rest, and I’ll be right,” he said. “Just…just a little rest.”

“There’s no time, sir,” I said, alarmed at the urgency in my own voice. “Listen to me, captain: it’ll be a long, sweet sail back to Baronet – but we must reach the Eridan first. It’s only a little further ‘til we’re out of the palace, and I’ve a swift horse waiting to bring us to Estvellero. Only a little further, sir, I promise.”

Far down the staircase, a cloud of dust began to rise.

“Alright,” Horan said, dragging himself to his feet, “alright.”

At the top of the stairs, we burst through another doorway into a dim, smoky courtyard. The air was sour with the smell of ash and burning powder, but I could just perceive the pinpricks of stars high beyond the tumult. Horan tumbled out of the passage behind me, leaning on the wall, coughing and choking. I whirled around searching for any landmark, trying desperately to orient myself in the sprawling palace grounds

Around the parapets of the palace, soldiers ran shouting. Horns and trumpets rang out across the city, and far away I thought I could hear the screams of horses and warriors alike. Finally I perceived the shape of a tower, dark against the smoky sky – the Opal Tower. Lord Averness’s tower.

I turned back to drag Horan forward, and at the same moment, a great gate on the far side of the courtyard heaved open, and a company of soldiers poured in. Their captain road at their head, roaring out orders, waving his sword. The soldiers filled into the space, bound for a high tower just beside us.

“Stop there!” the captain bellowed, lowering the point of her sword toward the captain and myself. “Stand and deliver! Who are you?”

“We are sailors,” I said, “Lairiskers! We go to Lord Averness!”

The captain spat.

“You go no such place,” she said. “Lord Averness is dead. If it is your wish to join her—”

But before she could complete her witticism, another cry broke into the courtyard. On the opposite side of the tower, a door sprang opened, and pouring out from it was all the savage inmates of the Deep Tower. They flooded out into the courtyard, screaming like devils and just as bloodthirsty. Some wielded torches, some cruel clubs, a handful bore swords. They fell upon the company of soldiers like buzzards, swinging and chopping and hurling themselves upon the points of spears. At the back of the crowd, last out of the door, I saw the Lord of Mlipaso.

“Have at them!” he cried. “Cut them down, o dogs of war! For the House of Mlipaso! Mlipaso!”

The captain’s horse whinnied and reared as one of the prisoners, a tower of a man, charged forward towards the animal. The captain brought her sword down upon the prisoner’s shoulder, and though it sank into the flesh it availed her nothing; the prisoner had seized the horse by the bridle and, heaving with all his might, threw the animal down onto its side. So dismounted, the captain was swallowed up in the press of the fighting.

“This way, sir,” I said, taking Horan by the arm once more.

-

All around us, the palace was beginning to churn with violence. Upon the towers and walls, pots of fire were beginning to glow. War-machines had been constructed at the strong places, great long-armed catapults loaded with tremendous stones. From somewhere far away I heard the deep, resonant report of a cannon – one of the few recovered from Vishello, I did not doubt. Gorasz had indeed brought his strength – and the remnants of Draho’s – down upon Mardioc. The sound of the battle beyond the walls was becoming clearer and clearer, while pillars of smoke rose high and dreadful over the walls.

Amid the destruction of the attack lay also the devastation of the earthquake. Great segments of the palace walls had been undone, and several of the smaller towers had fallen athwart the courtyards below. While we ran, I charted our course in my mind. There was no way to get beyond the walls now, save for the passage through the sewer; that much was clear. But how to reach that corridor – that was another question altogether. It would not do to run around opening doors at random. The tunnels underneath the palace were endless and, at present, prone to sudden and catastrophic collapse.

I heard a scattering of voices ahead, and so dragged Horan and myself behind an overturned wagon. We waited, gathering our breath, until the voices drew nearer and nearer. But it was not another company of soldiers that appeared – they were lean, skulking figures, and they carried no swords but long, cruel knives.

Beyond the walls, a tremendous explosion erupted. The sound was deafening, and for an instant, light filled the courtyard. The figures ahead staggered and turned. I crept out from beyond the wagon.

“Parsza!” I called, waving him over. “Parsza!”

In the blast of light, I had just made him out. The group that crossed the courtyard then was not one of soldiers, but slaves – and the long knives they bore were dark and slick with blood. Parsza, who brought up the rear of the group, turned to me uncertainly. A trumpet blew from the walls nearby, and the cry of a captain’s voice rang out. The pack of slaves ran off to a passage on the far side, while Parsza and I returned to our place behind the wagon.

“What are you doing here?” Parsza rasped, clearly furious.

“I returned for my captain,” I said. “I could not abandon him.”

“You are a fool,” Parsza said bitterly, “and an ungrateful fool at that.”

“So I am told,” I said. “Someone said that Lord Averness was dead – is this so?”

In the darkness of the courtyard, Parsza glanced down at the curt, bloody saber in his left hand.

“It is.”

For a moment, I said nothing.

“Listen to me, Parsza: my captain and I must escape the palace, but I do not know the way.”

“Indeed you must,” he said. “The palace is no place for Lairiskers now.”

For a moment, a tremor in his voice suggested that, for having undone his great favor to me, I had lost Parsza’s favor. I felt the hilt of the messer, cool in its place at my belt.

“There is a passage beyond that tower there,” he said at last. I released the messer. “That will take you to the corridor where the soldier was slain.”

“Thank you, Parsza,” I said. “I owe you my life.”

“You owe your life to Draho Son-of-God,” Parsza said, “as do we all. Go now. Do not be discovered.”

“Good luck,” I said, “and may the God keep you, friend. Now, captain – we must go.”

-

When we reached the sewer tunnel, I had to lower Captain Horan down into it by hand. He was weak with fatigue, and unless he rested soon, I feared the worst for him.

“Only a little way, sir,” I said, “just down there.”

Horan said nothing, but gripped my arm fiercely and nodded. I led him carefully over the soldier’s festering corpse and we descended the sewer, splashing through the murky water, while the scent of the smoke-filled night grew nearer and nearer – until at last, we emerged from the tunnel.

Even from our meager vantage below the walls of the palace, I could just see the southern walls of the city in the distance – and beyond it, brilliant and dark as the night sky, was the vast array of lights burning in the camp of Gorasz’s army. The better part of the fighting had engulfed the lower city. Fires burned along every wall and vast columns of smoke rose from among the many houses. Occasionally, a great crash would resound from among the press of the city, and a new cloud of dust would come rising up – buoyed aloft by echoing screams.

The siege of Mardioc was well underway.

As he emerged from the sewage into the smoke, Horan fell to his knees in the brush, hacking and spitting into the weeds. I descended a few paces down the scree, calling out into the night.

“Madzia!” I shouted. “Madzia, we’re here!”

There was no response – only the sound of Horan’s sickness spilling onto the stones behind me. Scanning the hillside – seeing nothing – I turned back to the captain, raising him gently to his feet. The rush of activity had dulled my sense of my own fear; now, with freedom so near at hand, it came all at once. Horan felt faint under my hands, but now I feared that I myself would collapse at any second.

“Come now, captain, take heart,” I said, my teeth chattering in the warm summer night. “I’ve left some water with the horse – you’ll be alright soon. Madzia, damn you! We’re here!”

“Lewyn!” cried a voice. I ran to the edge of the hill

Far below in the darkness, I could just make out the shape of the wayside shrine where I had left her. Standing there beside it was Madzia, waving her hands frantically.

“Come here, help me with the captain!”

A moment later, she had climbed up through the brush, and we both took an arm and lowered Horan down. He was in a bad way, now, gasping and muttering, spittle running down his chin.

“Mara,” he kept saying, “you must tell Mara…You must tell her…”

“I’ll tell her nothing, sir,” I said, “not a damn word that you do not tell her yourself.”

“Some soldiers came by while you were within – I had to hide,” Madzia said. “It is just down there.”

We descended past the shrine to a small culvert formed by the creek. Signo’s silver horse – altogether oblivious, it seemed, to the onslaught happening less than a mile away – stood drinking from the water.

“Help me get him up, Madzia,” I said. Together, we raised Horan by his arms and sloughed him across the saddle. He listed terribly, and as I secured him in the seat I could feel him shivering horribly.

“Not so far now, shipmate,” I said. “Climb up with him, Madzia, hold him steady.”

She did as I asked, and seated herself in the saddle behind Horan, gripping him by the waist. I gathered up what things we’d left behind and, taking the reins in my hand, led the horse down the hill to the road.

We had not been walking more than five minutes before I saw torches flying up the road towards us. I scanned the brush to either side; waist-high bracken by the acre, and not a scrap of wood or stone behind which we could hide. I pulled the horse over to the ditch beside the road and stepped out into the middle of the path. The torches were coming nearer and nearer.

I pulled the messer free, threw off my belt, and stood my ground.

“When I give the word,” I said, “you must right like a demon.”

The torches came upon us.

There were five riders in the company, bearing torches and lances and spears. They were wild, hard-living warriors. They wore sheep-hide clothes, their helms streaming with ribbons and horse-hair, and their faces were gaunt and weathered. As they came upon us, the lead rider reared his horse and called the others to stop. I knew that I could not kill the riders – but the horses…

“Who goes there?” their captain barked. His voice was high and clear, but his accent was thick and foreign.

“Lairiskers,” I said. The captain hefted his spear, and spurred his horses a few paces closer. “Prisoners of the dead Prince.”

The captain brought his horse to a stop.

“What do you say?”

“We were at Vishello,” I said, speaking only by the full exertion of my will. “Lubosz put us in irons because we refused to fire on the town.”

“There is not time, Qagal,” one of the other riders said. “Cut him down.”

“But you did fire on the town,” their leader – Qagal – said venomously.

“Yes,” I said. “But it was not us. That I live at all now is due only to the mercy of Draho, Son-of-God.”

The air fell still and silent. Far away, the thunder of cannons drummed over the city.

Without another word, Qagal spurred his horse forward. He wheeled around me and, the others following him, rode hard up the hill. Blood pounding in my head, I watched them disappear into the darkness around the city’s walls.

“Lewyn,” Madzia said quietly. I forced myself to breathe.

“We had better hurry,” I said.

-

On the road to Estvellero, we passed company after company of soldiers – ill-equipped and marching at the end of a whip – racing up the hills towards the capital. They eyed us with bewilderment, but our existence laying beyond the scope of their orders, they did not disturb us. Horan wheezed and sighed, until all that he could speak was that name – Mara. It was a short journey from Mardioc to Estvellero, but all the same, I stopped every few minutes to assure myself that he had not died in the interim. Eventually, we came to the city by the harbor.

If the second earthquake had rattled the city, the third had all but destroyed it.

As we crested the hill above Estvellero, we saw a scattered mess of fire and ruin. All those homes which had survived before lay about now in toppled piles, and through the chaos and rubble, companies of soldiers and militia were being gathered and ordered about. Elsewhere, looters carried their plunder brazenly down the winding avenues.

When we reached the gate of the inn, I tied off the horse and began to remove Horan from the saddle. I could see the other Eridans milling about the door, and heard them cry out and point as we arrived. I took Horan by the shoulders and shook him gently.

“We’re here, sir,” I said.

He did not move.

There was Lem and the master coming down across the courtyard, rucksacks slung over their shoulder. I shook him harder, but still, he would not move.

“Captain Horan, sir,” I said, now more forceful, “we’re here! Rouse yourself, sir!”

He gave a long, wheezing breath – but he did not move.

“Is all well with the captain, sir?” the master said, approaching the horse warily.

I shook my head.

“Fetch a stretcher, if you please,” I said, and the words had not escaped my lips before she was running back to the inn. “Lem – did you manage to muster the barber?”

“I did, sir,” he said.

“Go and fetch him, if you can.”

A moment later, borne on a canvas stretcher, the captain’s own barge-crew carried him across the courtyard and into the inn. It was dark inside, the place having been deserted by all save the Eridan’s crew, but in the darkness of the room I could still tell that all the Eridans who had come to our side were gathered around the tables.

“Let’s have some light, eh?” the barber said. A handful of candles were lit and, as though we had already gathered for his funeral, they were laid around the captain’s head. He looked like a stone carving, chiseled upon the tomb of a saint. His features, which in life had been strange and distorted, seemed now statuesque – the bones, I thought, of a martyr.

“Lem,” I said, sidling over to the back of the crowd, “how do things stand? Did you get any more?”

“We have fifty now, sir, by my count,” he whispered. “We had more, only the captain – ban Karsten, I mean, sir – sent out some of the hands with a muster-order. Said we’re to gather on the harbor and head off for Mardioc first thing, soon as the guns are unshipped. Some of the others went with them, said they loved Horan but they didn’t want to hang for no dead man.”

“Let them march to Mardioc, for all I care,” I said. “Who’s he left on the ship?”

“Far as I can tell, Salders, the boatswain, a handful of the marines,” he said. “The rest he’s making ready to go to the city.”

“Can we handle the ship with so few?”

In the darkness of the room, I saw Lem shrug.

“Well, sir,” he said, “I don’t see as we have much a choice.”

“Quite right,” I said. “Did you get the boats?”

“The captain’s barge and two others – tied up at the end of the quay, like ye said, sir.”

“Lem,” I said, taking him by the shoulders and kissing his forehead, “I think you might just be an Angel.”

I pushed through the crowd to the barber who, leaning over Horan’s chest, had his ear pressed against the skin. I took the barber by the arm and led him just outside the inn. “Is he dead?”

“No, I don’t think,” he said, stammering painfully. “He breathes – a little, but he breathes. He might make it, but I don’t think we should move him.”

“We can’t bloody well leave him here,” I said sharply.

“No, sir, no, I know that, it’s just…” he said, trailing off. “I don’t know that he’ll survive any kind of a journey.”

“If he stays here, he’ll die,” I said. “Shipping him’s our only chance. Get the stretcher ready.”

“Aye, sir,” he said, and we went back into the inn.

“Shipmates,” I said, sitting on the table beside Horan’s limp, shuddering body. “We’re almost there. That bastard ban Karsten is mustering his dogs to go off to Mardioc, where Gorasz the Hawk will cut them down into chum. But shipmates: we’re not going to Mardioc.”

“Lord Averness is dead, shipmates. Our fight here is long since over.” I looked around the room in the dimness of the candlelight; they were good sailors all, and more importantly, loyal. They loved Horan as though he’d been their liege lord in days gone by. I thought he looked like a saint in repose; very well. The crew may love their martyr. “I’ll level with you, shipmates: Captain Horan might die. I can’t say for certain. But with the God as my witness, and all of you, I shall not let him die on this foreign shore. I say, let him die on the Eridan. Let him die on the sea. That’s his home, not this shabby place – and if we should be so lucky, shipmates, let us all do the same. Better to die on the sea than live another minute here.”

There was a resounding cheer. At the barber’s urging, four of the stoutest Eridans heaved the captain onto the stretcher and carried him out of the room.

“To the boats, shipmates, to the boats! The end of the quay – make way!”

With that, the crew took up their things – arms, possessions, provisions – and flooded out of the darkened inn. I watched them go – when they had gone, I turned at last to Madzia.

“Have you made up your mind?”

“I have,” she said. “Iraphos is my home. It is all that I have ever known. It is not safe, but…”

“Madzia…If you stay, they may very well kill you,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “You did not allow me to finish.”

I bowed.

“The Iraphos that I know is dead,” she said firmly. “It died with Duke Signo. This place that is born now…I do not know it.”

She turned towards the window of the room, beheld the fires and the ruin that lay beyond it.

“I will go with you,” she said.

“Good,” I said, taking her hand and pressing it. “Then you had better hurry.”

-

As she raced to join the others, I gathered up my things where they had been left and went out of the inn. I went to the horse, tied at the fence, and unbound the reins from the rail. I bent down and unclasped the girth and, heaving it forward, threw the saddle to the ground. Sensing the loosed weight, the horse stamped and stepped away from the fence. I raised my hand to its nose and, stroking it once, took it away. The horse turned away from me and began to ran.

I watched it as it went. In the light of the burning city, its hide was silver and gold. Dust went up in its wake and it ran, pure and ghostly, a perfect soul in a ruined world.

And then it was gone.

-

“Lower him down last, you lubbers!” the master cried. The crew was filing into the boats now, there at the end of the quay. They rocked uneasily in the churning water. I threw my rucksack down to be stowed and left the master to it.

Far across the harbor stood the Eridan. If Horan had been in better condition, it would have been one thing; I do not think any officer, even those won over by ban Karsten’s ferocity, would have refused to follow Horan once he’d been brought aboard. But even if he survived the long pull across the harbor, he was in no shape to command. When we reached the Eridan, the officers left aboard might resist us. That would be trouble. We might outnumber them, but they had every other advantage – height, cover, arms, firepower. Hell, they could weigh anchor before we ever reached them; under full sail, we’d never catch up. In any case, it would take some doing.

“Captain,” someone behind me said. I twitched; Horan was still laying perfectly still on his cot, eyes fluttering behind closed lids, shivering beneath a thin canvas blanket. Who was addressing him? Didn’t they know he couldn’t hear them?

“Captain, sir,” the voice insisted. Now I was angry; could they not leave the man alone? I wheeled around to scold them and found, instead, the master, staring expectantly – at me.

“Captain, sir,” the master said, “that’s the last of it stowed away.”

“Very good,” I said. A gunshot burst from the far end of the quay. The bullet struck the master in the jaw and she tumbled at once, clutching her face. The crew pressed to the ground. I knelt, taking the master in my arms, while blood streaming out between her fingers. A second shot rang out, and I heard it cut the air just over my head. I turned down the quay.

At the far end, where the earthen rampart met the end of the harbor, a small crowd had gathered. From their ranks emerged a tall, shadowed figure. As they carried on down the length of the quay, the fire from a burning boat illuminated him.

Ban Karsten.

“RAT!” he cried.

He tossed the two pistols aside and continued forward. That crowd at the end of the quay must be his followers, I thought. They looked pretty thin to me.

“COME FORWARD, RAT!

Some of the Eridans were climbing up out of the boat now.

“Get Horan into the boat,” I said, “and take the master down, too.”

The barge-crew carried Horan gingerly down, and Lem and Madzia came to lower the master, sputtering, into the boat.

“Now,” I said, turning to the barge crew, “pull like good’uns, and don’t stop ‘til you reach the ship.”

“Where are you goin’, sir?” Lem asked.

I didn’t answer him.

I stood from the edge of the quay and loosened my sword-belt.

“Here I am,” I called. Ban Karsten came forward, nearer and nearer.

“Sir!” Lem cried out. He started up the side of the quay.

“Get out here, you damned fool!” I said. With one foot, I shoved him back down into the boat and turned away.

I tore the messer free of its scabbard. Keen and hungry, light and lithe, the blade felt like a living thing in my hand. I felt my heart pounding, a hideous strength flooding my arms. “Here I am, you son of a bitch.”

“Going after my ship, are you?” he sneered. He pulled a sword free from his belt. A few paces more, and I could reach him. “They won’t reach it, I can assure you. I’ve given the captain of marines orders to fire on anyone who approaches without the proper signal.”

“Not everyone,” I said, “is so eager to fire on their own friends.”

“All I do,” ban Karsten growled, “I do for the Service.”

“Is that why you beat Caleda?”

He stopped. In blackness of the night, I could see his jaw grinding.

“She’s dead,” he said. “You might want to know that. I went back to her squalid little slum, and I cut her throat.”

“You’re lying.”

“Why should I?” he said. “Why would I do that?”

I strode forwards towards him.

“Because it’s your nature,” I said, “you blackhearted fucking dog.”

With that, I lunged.

At the end of the quay, we danced and wheeled. In the dark, salty air, messer met cutlass, and the sparks flew away and winked out over the water. He cut at my head and I lashed at his throat; he struck me across the jaw, and I sliced his left wrist.

Beyond the quay, the city burned. Smoke rose into the cloudless sky, and as it floated higher, the bottom of was lit from beneath by the smoldering ruins. Bells tolled far away. Cannons echoed from the heights. The city burned. All of Iraphos burned, and the holy Azhua itself ran thick with blood.

Ban Karsten thrust his blade forth, and I batted it aside; I swept the messer around and cut down brutally towards his head. He stepped back and the cut went wide. He brought the sword up, and I stepped past it and sliced for his eye. The messer went low and opened his cheek. He stumbled back, cursing, and lashed out in such a powerful rage that he struck across my ear and I fell to my knees.

I didn’t even feel the tip of the sword as it passed between my ribs. It felt like another blow, dull and forceful, and it wasn’t until I tried to stand that I felt the blood running down into my boot. My ears rang. He brought the blade down again and I staggered to the side; the tip of the sword clattered against the stones, and the pointed end of the blade chipped off. Holding fast to one of the wooden posts of the quay, I staggered to my feet.

Against the fires of the harbor, ban Karsten came forward as a shadow.

My whole torso had melted into one pain. I couldn’t breathe – it did not pain me to do so, I simply could not do it. I was dying, I realized. I felt very hot, and then very cold. Ban Karsten hefted his broken sword. Even as I stood there, I was dying. The boats would have reached the Eridan by now – had I heard any gunfire? I could not see so far in the darkness. I could not take my eyes off of ban Karsten. Had they reached the ship?

Ban Karsten came forward.

I raised the messer over my head. My strength was failing. My body was failing. My life was draining out from between my ribs. My arms faltered; the blade of the messer quavered in the air.

All I saw of ban Karsten’s blade as it swung towards my throat was the reflection it held of the city burning across the water. I brought the messer down as quickly as I could.

The messer caught the blade of the cutlass. Grinding against one another until their guards locked, sparks burned in the air. I put my left foot forward and stepped. Still locked together, I brought the messer up, driving it forward with both hands, and threw behind it the full weight of my body.

The blade of the messer bent as its tip sunk into ban Karsten’s eye.

He fell backwards as the steel crashed against his skull, staggering so violently that it pulled the blade free. He reeled back, clutching his ruined eye, blood pouring noisily onto the stones of the quay. He rocked from foot to foot, gasping.

“What have you done?” he said. “Why – what have you done?”

I stepped forward, then collapsed to one knee. I couldn’t breathe. The lights of the burning city had blurred together into a nightmare of orange and black. The captain, mad with bloodloss, danced through it, a specter of violence and death. I felt my body reeling. I was dead.

Then I was on my feet. The captain was looking at me. His mouth moved in the darkness, but I heard nothing of it.

I brought the messer up in a smooth arc and cut his throat open. His mouth kept moving. He fell forward, tumbling off the quay, and into the black water below.

I did not feel the stones of the quay as I myself fell upon them.

and the bull danced across the burning sand the sunlight white shining diamonds within its sweat and he huffed as he bled and leaped and bled, the crowd so loud that it was silent, the bull bleating and screaming and cursing them all by name, blood flying through the air, and Sarja beside me and the day hot and Norskatar covered in smoke and cannonfire in the mountains and Astiria on fire and the wide, the wide, the endless sea. I felt warm hands upon me in the darkness and a swift motion through the cold, open world. Whither was I borne and whence and wherefore? Why never knowing? Then lowering, rocking, cold. Voices in the black of first night. “Brother,” said Enry, “brother you are dying, but so too must we all. Only die on your feet, if you can, and live the while within sight of home.”

The barge rocked beneath me as they lowered me down. Someone called out far away and we shoved off. Lem pressed something to my stomach.

“You’ll be alright, sir,” he said. “By the God, sir, you’ll be alright.”

The barge-crew dug the oars into the black water and the launch swam forward.

“Take heart, sir,” Lem said, “take heart. I can see the ship now!”

The ship, I thought. By the God, the ship. The ship, and the vast, the endless ocean.

And beyond it, the burning shore.

END