Ghost in the Storm (The Ghosts) (11 page)

He heard a click.

Radast stepped next to him, muttering numbers, and lifted his black crossbow. The weapon shuddered, and one of the Immortals collapsed, a quarrel sprouting from the eye hole of his skull helmet. Radast snatched up his second crossbow and squeezed the trigger, even as Jiri raised her own weapon. Two more Istarish soldiers fell dead, and the attack faltered, the Istarish thrown off-guard. 

Ark charged.

He crashed into the Istarish footmen, the war cry of the Legions upon his lips. A blow from his shield sent an Istarish soldier falling to the ground. A slash from his broadsword ripped halfway through a soldier's neck. Behind him Halfdan attacked, his short sword stabbing. Even Zorgi fought, wielding a stout oaken cudgel, his blows denting spiked helmets and cracking the skulls beneath them. 

Then the remaining Immortal stood before Ark. 

The Immortal swung his whip of black chain, and Ark managed to block with his shield. The blow rocked him, sent wood chips flying from his shield. Gods, but the Immortal was strong! Ark darted forward, hoping to strike while the Immortal readied another blow, but the elite soldier was simply too fast. He circled the Immortal, looking for an opening, while the chain whip snapped and hissed at his shield. 

Then the Immortal jerked, as if punched in the back. Ark saw the fletching of a heavy quarrel rising from the Immortal's armored hip.

Radast had reloaded his crossbow.

Ark seized the opening, his shield smashing across the Immortal’s grinning skull mask. The Immortal fell to his knees, and Ark brought his broadsword around with all of his strength behind it. The heavy blade crunched through the mail protecting the Immortal's neck, and the man fell, blood pooling beneath his black armor. 

Ark wrenched his sword free, looking around for his next foe, and saw that the fight was over. With the two Immortals slain, the surviving Istarish footmen fled to the Avenue of Governors. No one had been hurt, saved for the dead soldiers upon the cobblestones of the Plaza. Radast reloaded his crossbows, as did Jiri, Zorgi wiped sweat from his brow, while Halfdan fell to one knee, hand clutching his side...

Ark cursed and hurried over. 

"It's not bad," said Halfdan, face white with pain. Blood trickled down his leg. "It's..."

He toppled face first onto the ground.

"Move!" said Katerine, pushing aside Ark. She tore a strip from her sleeve, yanked open Halfdan's leather armor, and began bandaging the wound. 

“Will he live?” said Ark. He had seen men die from violence many times. Men often recovered from wounds like Halfdan’s…but sometimes they did not.

“I do not know,” said Katerine. “He has lost too much blood. If we can get him someplace quiet where I can stitch this up, then yes, he should live. But if we cannot, he will die.” 

“What do we do now?” said Tanya.

Ark opened his mouth to answer, and realized that he did not know.

He turned to Jiri. She was the circlemaster of Marsis, and she answered to Halfdan. Yet her face was tight and brittle with strain. Why was she so shocked? She had seen violence before. 

Ah. But she had never seen war before, had she?

Radast was brilliant, but he could barely manage himself, let alone others. Zorgi was an innkeeper, not a soldier or even a spy. Ark realized that while most of his companions had seen violence, none of them had ever seen war. None of them had ever stood in the battle line, heart pounding, sweat pouring down their faces, braced to receive the charge of the enemy.

But he had. He had served sixteen years in the Eighteenth Legion, fighting the barbarian nations north of the Imperial Pale. He had risen to the rank of first spear centurion, commanding the Eighteenth’s prestigious first cohort. He had grown weary of war, and left when his term of service expired, intending to leave that life behind.

But that life had found him again.

He took one final look at the others. The Istarish and the Kyracians were coming, and if anyone was going to take charge, it was going to have to be him.

“Katerine, Zorgi,” said Ark. “Carry Halfdan. Get as many of your maids to help as you need.” He looked at Radast. “You have arms and armor. Run and get them, and give everyone a weapon. There’s going to be fighting, and we’ll have a better chance if everyone is armed.”

They all stared at him. They were all used to him remaining silent and carrying out Halfdan’s orders, or Caina’s. Everyone looked surprised. Save for Tanya, for some reason.

“Get moving!” he bellowed, in the voice he had once used to give stubborn Legionaries one final chance to obey before earning a flogging. “You can either sit here and become slaves, or move!”

They hastened to obey. Radast and Jiri hurried up the stairs to his workshop, while Zorgi and Katerine tended to Halfdan’s wound. Peter smashed the window to the tailor shop, and some of the maids began improvising a litter from the bolts of cloth. 

Tanya walked to his side.

“Where will we go now?” said his wife, voice low.

“We cannot go straightaway to the northern gate,” said Ark. “If Rezir Shahan has an ounce of sense, he’ll send out screening patrols through the side streets, to watch for any ambushes. One of those patrols finds us, we’re finished.” He scratched his jaw, thinking. “We need to get Halfdan and the women to a place of safety. The foundry, I think, on the northern side of the Citadel’s crag.” Hiram Palaegus had taken Ark on a tour of the foundry, and he knew it well. “It’s built like a fortress, to keep any fires from accidentally spreading. The women will be safe enough there.”

“What if the Istarish attack the foundries?” said Tanya.

“They won’t,” said Ark. “Rezir has to take the city’s gates. Otherwise the Legions will return and drive him from the city. He’ll only bother with enemies inside the city once he has secured the walls and the Citadel.” 

“And once we’ve got Halfdan safe?” said Tanya.

Ark took a deep breath. “And then we go to the northern gate and make sure it stays open.”

He would go by himself, or with Radast, and he would not take Tanya or Jiri with him. The women and Zorgi’s family should be safe enough in the foundry. Ark had not spent five years searching for his wife only to see her killed in front of him, or taken captive by Istarish slavers. 

As might have already happened to his son. 

He pushed aside the thought. Once the gate was secured and the Legions had returned, he would find Nicolai. Caina would keep him safe. She had to.

She had to.

Tanya gazed at him for a moment, her blue eyes full of such sadness that Ark wanted to take her in his arms. Then the familiar steel returned to her face, the resolve that had let her survive five years in the Moroaica’s captivity.

Tanya had been in hopeless situations before. 

“We will do,” she said, “what we must.”

Ark nodded.

A few moments later they left the Plaza of the Tower, circling around the rear of Radast’s building. Zorgi, Katerine, Tanya, and Peter carried Halfdan’s litter. Ark walked in front, sword in hand and shield ready, while Radast and Jiri followed behind, crossbows loaded. 

And from the south, they heard the sounds of the Istarish and the Kyracians rampaging through Marsis. 

Chapter 9 - Disciple of the Moroaica

Kylon frowned. 

He stood beneath the damaged warehouse and its watchtower, watching the Istarish infantry, the Immortals, and the ashtairoi form up to launch the next phase of the attack. Rezir Shahan sat atop his black war horse, barking orders to a steady stream of messengers. Andromache waited nearby with Kleistheon, planning the upcoming assault on the Magisterium chapterhouse. 

Kylon looked over the warehouse.

Something was wrong. He could feel it. He just didn’t know what, not yet. 

One of the Istarish scouts approached. “I report, my lord emir.”  

Rezir inclined his head. “Speak.”

“Some of the surviving Legion centuries have gathered in the Plaza of the Tower,” said the scout. 

Rezir nodded. “As I expected. Dispatch scouts to screen the side streets along the Avenue of Governors. I wish no ambushes.”

“I obey.” The scout ran off.

Kylon’s frown deepened as emotion washed over his arcane senses. Fear, rage, pain. They filled the stricken city, as he expected. Yet he felt something sharper, something nearby.

He looked around, expecting to see a fight erupt among the troops.

Andromache glided to his side, flanked by Kleistheon and her ashtairoi bodyguards. “Brother. Is something amiss?”

“I do not know,” said Kylon. “I sense a fight nearby, I’m sure of it.”

Kleistheon scoffed. “You’re jumping at shadows.” 

“No,” said Kylon, “there’s…”

A blue glow flickered within the ruined warehouse.

Rezir spun his massive horse around, sword in his hand. 

“What is that? Some sort of sorcery?”

Kylon shook his head. “No. I don’t sense any arcane power. I don’t know what…”

Kleistheon burst out laughing.

“That’s an alcohol fire,” said the older stormdancer. “That warehouse held whiskey, I suspect. A spark must have set one of the kegs ablaze. That was what you sensed, lord stormdancer.” He laughed again. “Perhaps you need a drink?”

Andromache did not laugh. “Your vigilance is commendable, brother.” 

Kleistheon’s smirk vanished when Sicarion returned with two of his pet thugs, dragging a captive between them.

###

Sicarion’s mercenaries pulled Caina into the Great Market.

An army filled the Market. 

Caina counted at least five thousand Istarish footmen, their spiked helmets making their ranks look like row after row of knives. She saw thousands of ashtairoi in their gleaming cuirasses and plumed helmets. The Kyracians relied upon the power of their fleets and stormsingers to defend New Kyre, but their small army was skilled and well-trained. 

It was more than a match for the scattered cohorts of a single Legion.

Sicarion and his men steered Caina to the base of the burned watchtower. Rezir Shahan sat atop his horse, giving orders to his men. Caina saw the black ring upon his right hand, the green gem flickering, and even at this distance she felt the cold, crawling power of necromantic sorcery. 

And the presence of other sorcery, just as potent.

Three Kyracians waited near Rezir, guarded by a troop of ashtairoi. Two were men, and wore the dark gray leather of stormdancers, sorcerers who used the sorcery of wind and wave to enhance their skill in battle. One the stormdancers was older, with a shaved head and a craggy face heavy with arrogance. The second was younger and slimmer, no more than five years Caina's senior, and watched her with keen brown eyes. 

The woman held Caina's attention.

She stood as tall as the men, clad in red gown with black sleeves. Her long black hair hung in a thick braid, and her brown eyes were calm, even serene. Brown eyes identical to those of the younger stormdancer. The woman was his older sister.

And she had power.

The crawling presence of sorcery grew sharper as the mercenaries dragged Caina closer, until it felt like tiny needles digging into her skin. The woman was a Kyracian stormsinger. She was not as strong as Maglarion or Jadriga had been, but she nevertheless a sorceress of great power. 

Powerful enough to summon the wind that carried the Kyracian fleet into the harbor, and powerful enough to conjure the lightning bolts that blasted the siege engines from the walls of the Citadel. 

And as the stormsinger looked down at her, Caina felt the presence of necromancy. A master of storm sorcery the woman might have been...but she had used necromancy. Caina was sure of it.

Caina had sensed it before, more often than she cared to remember. 

Sicarion bowed before the stormsinger. "As you commanded. Here is the one you sought."

###

Kylon gazed at the woman between the mercenaries with disquiet. 

She was a woman, even though she wore the garb and armor of an Istarish soldier. Had she been cleaner, much cleaner, and dressed in proper clothing, she would have been pretty enough.

Her emotional sense, though...Kylon had never quite sensed anyone like her.

To his arcane senses, her emotions felt like...ice. Cold and sharp. He sensed fear in her, but the fear did not dominate her. Even as she stood captive and helpless, her mind still worked, still turned and observed and plotted. Yet beneath the cold he sensed fire. Rage burned in this woman's heart, like lava bubbling beneath a glacier. That sort of rage, years of compressed fury, would give her the strength to keep fighting long after another woman would have yielded. 

And her arcane aura was...mangled. Scarred. As if she had been injured by potent sorcery in her past, yet had somehow survived the attack. 

This woman, whoever she was, was dangerous. 

Rezir's voice was quiet. "That...is her?"

Andromache gave the woman a flat look, and then turned her attention to Sicarion. "I know what the Moroaica looks like, assassin."