Heir Of Novron: The Riyria Revelations (81 page)

“Everyone into the dungeon!” Amilia shouted, standing on top of the wagon in the center of the courtyard as, overhead, lightning flashed and tower roofs exploded.

Only minutes before, a strike had hit something not too far behind her in the city. She felt a strange tingle on her skin and her hair rose as if lifted by dozens of invisible fingers. There was the taste of metal in her mouth; then a blinding light was followed instantly by a deafening crack. Something exploded and nearly threw her from the cart. Shaking, like a bird on a rock in the middle of a surging river, she remained on the wagon, shouting to the throng of people exiting the castle. She pointed them toward the north tower and the entrance to the old dungeon. They all had the same expression, terror imprinted over bewilderment. Poor and rich, peasant and noble, they filed out pushing and crowding, heads tilted toward the sky, cringing with each flash, screaming with each boom of thunder.

“Inside the tower! Move to your left! Don’t push!” She swept her arms to the side in frustration, as if this would somehow move the crowd where she wanted them to go.

The attack came all too suddenly. They had expected horns. They had expected drums. They had expected to see an army coming up the road. They had expected plenty of time to move the population of the city underground—they had never expected this.

At least Amilia’s family was already in the dungeon. They had all been lingering in the courtyard, having just seen Modina off to her troop address, when the storm began and the alarm sounded. But now she worried about Modina and Breckton. The empress would be gone only a short time, she knew, but Breckton would be going to the fight. She ached the moment he had left her side, and she worried for his safety all the time. Even while they were together, even when he had stood before her father asking for her hand in marriage, there was a shadow, a fear. It hovered and spoke to her of dangers that awaited him—dangers she would not be allowed to share. Fate had a way of making men like him into heroes, and heroes did not die quietly in bed while holding their wife’s hand after a long and happy life.

Crack!

She cringed as a flash blinded her. The silver necklace—an engagement gift from Sir Breckton—buzzed around her throat like a living thing and then the roof of the south tower exploded. Chips of slate rained on the ward, the tower became a flaming torch. A sea of screams surrounded her as people scattered or fell to their knees, throwing hands over their heads and wailing at the sky. Amilia watched a young boy collapse under the push of the crowd. A woman, struck in the face with a slate shingle, fell in a burst of blood.

All around the city, lightning struck as if the gods themselves made war upon them. Smoke rose and flames terrified people who struggled to reach the safety of the shelters.

“Amilia! It’s no good!” Nimbus called to her as he forced his way with a pair of soldiers against the human current, pushing out of the tower toward her. “The dungeon is filled!”

“How can that be? Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, all those refugees, we didn’t account for them. The cells and corridors are packed solid. We have to send the rest back inside.”

“Oh dear Novron,” she said, and began waving her arms over her head. “Listen to me! Listen to me. Stop and listen. You need to go back inside!”

No one responded. Maybe they could not hear her, or maybe it did not matter as they continued to be swept forward by the current. Another loud boom of thunder sounded and the people pushed all that much harder. A thick forest of bodies pressed up against the tower and the stables. She could see women and old men being crushed against the stone.

“Stop!
Stop!
” she cried, but the mob was deaf. Like a herd of mindless sheep, they pushed and shoved. A man tried to climb over the woman in front of him in an attempt to get past the mass of people. He was thrown down and did not come up again.

Bodies pressed against the sides of the cart and shook it. Amilia staggered and gripped the side in fear. A hand grabbed her wrist. “Help me!” an elderly woman with bloody scratch marks down the side of her face screamed at her.

A trumpet blared and a drum rolled. Amilia spun to look back at the courtyard’s gate. There she saw a white horse and on it was Modina in her equally white dress. She was a vision, riding straight and tall. Her hair and dress billowed behind her. Arms reached out of the swarm of bodies with fingers pointing and Amilia heard shouts of “The empress! The empress!”

“There is no more room in the dungeon,” Amilia shouted
to her, and saw Modina nod calmly as she urged her mount forward, parting the crowd.

She raised a hand. “Those of you who can hear my voice, do not fear, do not despair,” she shouted. “Return quietly to the castle. Go to the great hall and await me there.”

Amilia watched in amazement at the magical effect her words had on the mob. She could feel a collective sigh, a relief pass across the courtyard. The tide changed and the herd reversed direction, moving back into the palace, moving slower, some pausing to help others.

“You should come inside too,” Modina told Amilia, and soldiers helped the empress dismount and Amilia climb down from the wagon.

“Breckton? Is he…”

“He’s doing his job,” she said, handing her reins over to a young boy. “And we need to do ours.”

“And what is our job?”

“Right now it is to get everyone inside and keep them as calm as possible. After that, we’ll see.”

“How do you do it?” Amilia slapped her sides in frustration. “How?”

“What?” Modina asked.

“How can you remain so calm, so unaffected, when the world is coming to an end?”

Modina smirked. “I’ve already seen the world end once. Nothing is ever as impressive the second time around.”

“Do you really think it is coming to an end?” Nimbus asked as the three of them moved—far too slowly for Amilia—toward the palace doors, where the last of the crowd disappeared.

“For us, perhaps,” Amilia replied. “And just look at that sky! Have you ever seen clouds swirl like that? If they can control the weather, call down lightning, and freeze rivers, how can we hope to survive?”

“We can always hope,” Nimbus told her. “I never give up hope, and I’ve seen that spark perform miracles.”

The lightning storm that ripped through the city stopped. Even the wind paused, as if holding its breath. Renwick stood on the battlement of the southern gate between Captain Everton and Sir Breckton at the center of a line of men with armor glinting in shafts of light that moved across the wall. They stood bravely with grim faces, holding shields and swords, waiting.

“Look at them, lad,” Sir Breckton told him, nodding down the length of the wall. “They are all here because of you. Every man on this wall is prepared because of your warning.” His hand came down on Renwick’s shoulder. “No matter what else you do today, remember that—remember you are already a hero who has given us a fighting chance.”

Renwick looked beyond the battlements to the hills and fields. In his left hand, he held on to a bit of wax he picked off a candle at breakfast, which at that moment felt like a month earlier. He played with it between his fingers, squeezing it, molding it. He could still taste the liquor on his tongue, still smell it, but the warmth was gone.

Outside the city the world was melting. The road was dark brown even though the hills remained white. In the stillness, he could hear the drizzle of water. Streaks of wetness teared down the face of the stone and soaked into the earth. Water streamed in the low places, gurgling in a friendly, playful manner. On the trees, buds grew large on the tips of branches. Spring was coming, warmer days, grass, flowers, rain. In another month or so, they would welcome the first caravans to visit the city bringing fresh faces and new stories. A few weeks
after that, vendors would open their street stands in the squares and farmers would plow the fields. The smell of manure would blow in, pungent and earthy. Girls would cast aside their heavy cloaks and walk the streets once more in bright-colored dresses. People would speak of coming fairs, the new fashions, and the need for more workers to clear the remains of winter’s debris. Renwick found it strange that he had not realized until that moment just how much he loved spring.

He did not want to die that day, not while the promise of so much lay before him. He looked at the line of men again.

Are we all thinking the same thing?

He felt comfort in their numbers, a consolation in knowing he was not alone. If they failed, farmers would not plow their fields, girls would not sing in the streets, and there would be no more fairs. Spring might still come but only for the flowers and trees. Everything else, all that he loved, would be gone.

He thought of Elbright, Brand, Mince, and Kine back under the holly tree in the Hovel.

Do they wonder what happened to me? What will they do once Aquesta is gone? When I’m gone with it? Will they remember me?

Movement to the south broke his thoughts and Renwick looked out along the road. A column of riders approached slowly like a parade—no, a funeral procession. He spotted only glimpses of them through the shutter of dark trees and gray stones, blue and gold on white horses. Accompanying them was the sound of music.

“Wax your ears!” Breckton shouted.

The command relayed down the line and everyone, including Renwick, stuffed the soft substance in his ears. Breckton turned to him, nodded, and smiled, sharing their secret.

Renwick smiled back.

The troop of elves came into full view and fanned out in the field before the southern wall. Mince had been right about them. The elves were dazzling. Each rider wore a golden helm in the shape of a wolf’s head and carried a golden spear. The foremost riders bore streaming silver banners. They wore strange armor—shirts of leafed metal that looked light and flexible and greaves that seemed no more than soft satin, all of which shone brilliantly beneath a column of sunlight that followed them.

They sat on animals that Renwick called horses because he had no other word, but they were unlike any he had seen before. These noble creatures pranced rather than walked. They moved in unison with such grace as to mesmerize and bewitch. They wore bridles and caparisons of gold and silk that glistened as if made of water and ice. They formed up and waited with only their banners moving in the breeze and Renwick wondered if they made the wind for just that purpose.

Renwick counted a hundred, no more. A hundred in light armor could be defeated.

Perhaps they won all their other battles by putting their enemies to sleep.

Renwick’s heart leapt at the possibility, but as he watched, trying to look into their eyes, he saw more movement on the road. Another column was coming, foot soldiers with heavier banded mail, large curved shields as bright as mirrors, and long spears with strange hooked blades. Their helms were the faces of bears. These troops moved in perfect unison. Like a school of fish or a flock of birds, they banked and turned. Their movements were graceful beyond anything Renwick had ever seen of men. They formed up in rows, and once in position, not one shifted or so much as adjusted a helm or coughed. Three deep they stood in a line that ran the length of the wall, and still more came. These new troops, in light armor like the cav
alry’s, wore bows with tips that swirled like the tendrils of ivy, and strings that glimmered blue when the sunlight touched them. Their helms were in the shape of hawks’ faces.

Still more issued into sight, and even with waxed ears, Renwick could feel the march of these new elements drum against his chest. Great beasts the likes of which he had never seen approached. Powerful animals twice the size of any bull or ox, with horns on their heads. They hauled great devices two and three stories tall, built of poles and levers of white, silver, and green. Ten such devices emerged from the brown bristle tops of barren trees to take position at the rear.

When the last troop was in place, there were at least two thousand elves waiting before the wall. Then more riders appeared. There were no more than twenty and yet to Renwick they were the most frightening yet. They rode black horses, wore no armor, and were dressed only in shimmering robes that appeared to change color. On their heads were masks of spiders. Behind them came twenty more riders. These wore chest plates of gold and long sweeping capes of rich purple. Their helms were the heads of lions.

As Renwick watched, those on the black horses raised their arms in unison and all made identical motions of a complicated pattern that seemed like a dance of arms and hands. He stood fascinated by the fluid gestures. The dance abruptly ended as the twenty clapped their hands, and even through the wax Renwick heard the
boom
.