Ghost in the Storm (The Ghosts) (25 page)

“No,” said Ark. “The Istarish might be in flight, but the ashtairoi are not. And sooner or later Rezir Shahan will regain control of his men, and the stormdancers will join the battle. If we go to the Plaza of the Tower, we'll be overwhelmed.” 

“We should hold to the original plan,” said Tarver.

“Aye,” said Ark. “We make for the northern gate, and hold it until the other Legions return.” He clapped Korbulus on the shoulder. “Once Lord Commander Hiram arrives, we'll show the Istarish how men of the Empire fight.”

Korbulus grinned. “Seems we already have, blacksmith.”

Ark looked at the corpses carpeting the Avenue of Champions, most of them Istarish, and could not deny the argument. 

“Whatever we do,” said Tarver, “we should do it at once, before the Istarish and the Kyracians recover.”

Ark nodded. “The northern gate. Split the men into six groups, each lead by a reliable man. They're to take the separate routes we discussed to North Gate Plaza.” After losing so many men in Ark's ambush, Rezir Shahan and the stormsinger would send out scouts before their next move. With luck, splitting the Legionaries and having them take different streets to the Plaza would confuse the enemy. 

And that would gain more time.

“Go,” said Ark. “Converge on North Gate Plaza within the hour.”

Korbulus and Tarver went to take command of their groups. Ark watched as the Legionaries divided themselves, stepping over the corpses of their foes. The Legionaries knew their business, and the veterans had forgotten nothing of the Legion's iron discipline. And the men moved with new purpose in their stride, new determination. Before they had been beaten by the Istarish and the Kyracians at every turn. Now they had won a victory over their foes. They no longer looked like soldiers in a defeated army. 

Ark wondered how long it would last.

For they had not yet faced the stormdancers or the stormsinger. But they would. After this, the enemy would throw everything they had at Ark's men. He could expect no more easy victories. 

“Sir?” said one of the men. 

“Let's move,” said Ark.

He pointed, and led his group down one of the side streets. 

Chapter 18 - Ice Dance

Caina sprinted. 

She ran for one of the alleys branching off the Market. Her skin crawled and tingled as she felt Kylon draw upon his arcane power. She didn't look over her shoulder. It wasn't necessary. She knew Kylon would chase her, that he would kill her the minute he caught up to her. 

Unless she got away first.

If she could. Kylon would not underestimate her again.

But this time she had an advantage. Before Kylon had been able to use his sorcery to sense her emotions and her location. This time, Caina had her shadow-cloak. If she could get away from Kylon or hide herself, she could escape.

Caina flung herself around the corner of an alley, and an instant later Kylon hurtled past her, so close that she felt the deathly chill from his sword. He skidded to a stop some distance away, throwing up a thick cloud of dust.

Caina slipped between two warehouses and kept running.

###

Kylon spun and let the sorcery of water fill his muscles. 

He jumped, his power flinging him into the air, and landed upon the roof of a nearby warehouse. A quick burst of power flung him forward, and he stopped at the edge of the roof. Below he saw the Ghost running from him. He noted the shadow-cloak beneath the shirt of scale armor and the spiked helmet. Clever. Very clever.

Well, it ended now. 

He drew on his power and jumped from the roof. He hurtled through the air in an arc, his sword trailing a banner of white mist, and plunged to the earth like a thunderbolt.

In one smooth motion the Ghost threw herself to the left and rolled across the ground. 

Kylon slammed into the street, his sorcery-enhanced legs absorbing the impact, his sword sinking deep into the earth. Frost spread from his blade, covering the cobblestones in all directions for a dozen feet. 

The Ghost rolled to her feet and darted into a tenement. 

Kylon wrenched his weapon free and pursued.

###

Caina ran into the tenement. 

It was perfect. Six rickety stories above her head, and undoubtedly two levels of cellars below her feet, linking into Marsis's sewer tunnels. She could climb to the top level and escape over the surrounding rooftops. Or she could descend to the cellars and disappear into the sewers. Or, better yet, she could conceal herself in the small apartments and wait until Kylon left. Without his arcane senses, she doubted he would have the patience to search the entire building.

Caina hastened up the stairs, moving as silently as she could manage. 

###

Kylon flung himself toward the tenement.

The iron-banded door was thick, solidly built, and no match for Kylon's sorcery. He exploded through it, wooden shards and twisted iron raining around him. He came to a halt at the foot of the stairs, looking back and forth. There was no trace of the Ghost.

Kylon reached out with his arcane senses, and felt nothing. So long as the Ghost wore that shadow-cloak, she was invisible to his abilities. 

Think. He had to think the way that Ghost would think. How would Kylon fight if he faced someone stronger and faster?

He would hide. 

He would run up the stairs and hide. 

Kylon struck the staircase with a two-handed blow of his sword, sorcery driving his muscles. The entire stairwell shuddered, and Kylon struck it again.

Then he heard a grunt above him.

###

The stairs jolted beneath Caina, and she lost her footing. She managed to grab at the railing for balance, even as the stairs shook again. 

Kylon was hacking down the stairwell.

She felt the boards shuddering as they began to collapse beneath her.

She had almost reached the fourth floor. Caina jumped, and the stairs collapsed beneath her in a pile of boards, rusty nails, and dust. She caught the edge of the door, pulled with all her strength, and stumbled onto the fourth floor.

The stairs crumbled behind her, collapsing into a pile of broken boards.

Caina was trapped on the fourth floor.

She kept running.

###

Kylon saw the Ghost vanish into the hallway. She was trapped. Though amusingly enough, with the stairs ruined she would be safe from almost any pursuer.

But not from Kylon. 

His sorcery-fueled leap carried him to the fourth floor. 

He started after the Ghost. 

###

Caina staggered into the apartment, hoping that it would have a balcony. If it did, she could hook the rope and grapnel from her belt to the railing and rappel down to the street.

Inside the apartment she saw old furniture, a sagging table, and dozens of emptied wine jars. 

And no balcony. 

There was a window, though.

Caina heard the groan of stressed wood as Kylon jumped onto the landing. 

She ran to the window, looked out. It was fifty feet to the narrow, dark alley below. But a copper drainpipe ran down the brick wall, terminating in a wooden rain barrel in the alley.

She heard the creak as Kylon walked down the hall.

Caina swung out the window, seized the copper drainpipe, and began skidding down the wall. The copper pipe was slick, but the brick wall was rough, and provided excellent traction. Once her boots slipped, but she seized the pipe, and managed to land in the alley below without killing herself. 

No need to kill herself when Kylon would do it for her. 

The barrel of rainwater caught her eye. It was almost full. 

Water...

A mad idea came to her.

Kylon would never stop hunting her. And even if she escaped him, he would use his powers against the Legions, carving through their ranks with ease. Andromache would use him to butcher more innocents, just as she had murdered those women at the inn. 

Unless Caina stopped him. 

And she was tired of running, tired of hiding. 

She shoved at the heavy barrel, her weary muscles straining, as Kylon appeared in the window above.

###

Kylon burst into the empty apartment, saw the window shutters standing open. Had she jumped out the window to escape him? No – she must have used a rope.

He crossed to the window and saw the Ghost below, wrestling with a barrel. Perhaps her cloak had gotten caught on it, or she had twisted her ankle during her descent.

Regardless of the reason, it was time to end this. 

He jumped from the window, sword angled for the kill.

###

Caina shoved with all her strength, and the rain barrel fell over. Filthy water splashed over the uneven surface of the alley.

Kylon shot from the window overhead, a blur of gray and white.

Caina threw herself to the side, clawing at the wall as Kylon hurtled toward her.

###

Kylon fell like a thunderbolt, his sword trailing white mist.

Again the Ghost flung herself to the side, as if trying to climb up the tenement wall, and in Kylon knew he would miss. But it didn't matter. The Ghost could change direction faster than Kylon, but the alley was too long and too narrow. He could run her down with ease. 

He slammed into the ground, his sword plunging into the earth.

Into the layer of water from the barrel.

And Kylon realized that he had been tricked.

###

Caina grabbed the wall and heaved herself an inch or two off the ground just as Kylon landed.

As before, his sword sank into the earth. But this time the sloshing water from the rain barrel covered the alley.

And freezing mist wreathed Kylon's sword.

The water turned to ice the instant his blade touched it. The ice trapped Kylon's sword and reached up to his ankles, freezing his boots to the ground.

For a just a moment, he was pinned in place.

Caina wrenched her ghostsilver dagger from its sheath and sprang upon him.

###

The ice froze around Kylon's feet. The cold did not discomfort him – his sorcery protected him from that – but it did hold him in place. And it held his sword stuck in the ground.

The Ghost flung herself at him, a blade glittering in her right hand. 

Once again, she hadn't been trying to escape from him. She had been trying to kill him.

And she was going to do it, unless he did something.

There was no time for thought, only action. Kylon wrenched his sword free from the ice and swung in it in a blind arc. The Ghost dodged, but her boot skidded on the ice, and she lost her balance and crashed into him. Her left hand seized his right bicep, even as his sword came up for her neck and her dagger flashed for his throat.

Kylon caught her right wrist in his left hand, her dagger coming to rest against his neck. She started to press the dagger against his throat, but he pushed his sword's edge toward her neck, and she stopped.

He gripped the wrist of her dagger hand, staring into those cold blue eyes. He could try pushing her away, but that curved silver dagger would open the veins of his neck in the process. Or he could push his sword into her neck, but she would cut his throat before he killed her. His sorcery-enhanced strength could crush her wrist, but he doubted he could do it before she killed him.

Stalemate.

###

Caina stared at Kylon, her heart hammering, her mind racing through her options.

No matter what she did, that terrible freezing sword of his would kill her. She felt the cold radiating against her face and skin like an icy wind. If she killed him, if she took him with her, it would be worth the sacrifice of her life.

But if she died, who would rescue Nicolai?

Suddenly Kylon chuckled, the grim sound of a man laughing at the gallows. 

“The ice,” he said in Kyracian. “That was clever.”

Caina started to shrug, and stopped when she realized it might get both of them killed. “Not clever enough. Since you're still breathing.” 

“We appear,” he said, “to have arrived at a stalemate.”

“So we have,” said Caina.

She felt the muscles of his arm flex beneath her fingers. He was strong, even without his sorcery.

“How shall we resolve it?” said Kylon.

“Perhaps we should kill each other and get it over with,” said Caina, “rather than bother with all this tedious discussion.”

“I never did like to talk,” said Kylon. “Though I confess I do not wish to kill you.”