Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten (Order of Fire Book 1) (28 page)

31

Zar th
ought that Anza
must’ve been especially confident in Yari Thorn’s abilities, for not only was it her duty to guard Anza, she was now also charged with guarding
him
—though it was a different type of guarding entirely. Not that Zar hadn’t known that if he even looked suspicious she would bury an arrow in the back of his skull, but Anza had explicitly told her—aloud and in front of the others—to kill him quickly if he tried anything. To make matters worse, he was made to travel a good ways in front of the rest of them, and it was the first time in a long while he feared an arbitrary death from behind.

Zar had always considered himself to be a fit man and in fighting shape, but the hike up the hill to Snowstone Castle made him quickly reconsider. He was reminded that while a tyrant, Tiomot was certainly no fool, and the absence of a moat meant nothing compared to the steepness of the hill the castle was constructed on. Even when stopped to rest, just maintaining an upright position while standing on the hill was an exercise in itself, and Zar imagined that an army of fully armored soldiers would have no success at all in attempting to scale it. The Condor, however, trekked up the hill without a stop, pause, or any sign of difficulty—which made perfect sense to Zar having the seen the cliffs of their own home.

They crept under moonlight—no torches, no horses, no marching army, only three dozen Condor assassins. They were labeled as “flyers,” the lightest and most nimble of the clan, which were composed mostly of women and a few small men. Zar had seen that Condor society favored these types of people, and they were all highly skilled and agile, for Zar had seen them climb up cliffs and jump around like they weighed as little as a cotton cloth. They would be perfect for this kind of siege. The larger men, who in most other societies would serve as able soldiers and prized fighters, were commanded to stay in the City of the Clouds and protect their home. They seemed to serve as grunt soldiers and were completely disposable, even still, Anza understood their strength and ability to defend their city and had charged them with the task.

It seemed the only footsteps Zar could hear were his own. Though he was traveling with a group of nearly forty, he often had to turn and look around to make sure the Condor were still with him,. Torchlight shone in the distance from a patrolling guard, and the group fell to a knee and awaited Anza’s command, which was a quick head motion to Zar, signaling him to do the deed. He wasn’t at all surprised, and crept forward as the sentry turned and began to walk away from the group.

Zar approached the man’s back, his dagger in hand.

He stepped when the man stepped, letting the sound of his own footsteps become lost in the other’s. He had closed the distance to twenty paces when he darted up quickly and the man turned to face the noise. Zar slashed at the guard’s throat as he caught the man’s falling weight, a hand muffling his mouth as he guided the body gently to the ground.

A flicker of torch fire about thirty paces to the left danced, and Zar’s eyes focused in on the shape around the light. He dropped down at the sight of another sentry, and the guard’s eyes shot wide as he grabbed for his sword hilt and his mouth sprang open to shout. There was barely a sound as the sentry swallowed an arrow, and Yari Thorn fell to Zar’s side, whispering about how careless he was.

The outer wall could be seen ahead, and a watch tower built on the corner of its angle around the inner wall was lit at the top with a torch’s fire. Beyond the outer wall and rising far above it, the inner wall could be seen with its own towers that reached even higher. Both sets of curtain walls were octagonal in their path around the keep, with staggered corners, so that the towers that were built on each of the corners of the inside wall would fall between those of the outside wall, and thus more ground was accounted for. It was more than a bit intimidating to be there at the base of those structures, and though Zar was confident in the skill of Anza’s assassins and the cleverness of her stratagems, he knew that on a night like this, a little luck went a long way.

Finally, Anza sent a pair of Condor out in front of them. The two traveled east around the wall and disappeared, while another two threw grappling hooks over the wall and climbed over one at a time. After those four had been gone in silence for several minutes, Anza dispatched another four, heading once again two by two in opposite directions. They waited even longer than before, crouched down with the wall in sight. Anza repeated the pattern, but always waited a significantly longer amount of time between dispatchments than the time before, and after a few hours, it was only Zar, Yari Thorn, and the twins Minkus and Maza that remained.

Zar smiled at Anza’s plan, wondering if it would work. She had planned for the fact that all of the outside and inside curtain wall sentry towers were in complete view of the next tower adjacent to it on the same wall, and also of the two corresponding towers across from it on the opposite wall. This meant that every tower could be clearly seen by one tower on each side of it on the same wall, and two towers across from it on the opposite wall. So, every time a sentry was killed in his tower, there was the potential that four other men would see it—this was assuming there was only one sentry per tower. If the towers contained two men it was double the chance for discovery. If the sentries were to be killed—which they needed to be to get to the keep—they would need to be killed all at the same time. If not, the death of one would alert several others and their presence would be known. Anza was getting all of her assassins into position.

After a notable time of complete silence, aside from some scraping noises coming from the twins who had moved themselves about thirty paces back behind them, the two came forward with Maza now bearing a small lit torch. Zar watched as Yari moved towards them, clutching three arrows in her hand, waving their tips over the flame until they caught fire. It was clear the shafts had been prepared with pitch, and Zar grinned as he realized what they were for.

The woman fired the arrows into the air in fluid succession, pulling the next shaft from her crowded left hand which also held her bow as soon as an arrow was released. Three flaming arrows whizzed into the sky, each into a slightly different direction over the wall, as if to make certain every Condor saw the signal no matter their position or which part of the wall they were hiding near.

Zar looked at Anza as they stood in silence. Not a sound could be heard through the darkness, but the woman looked confident, as if she knew that over that wall Tiomot’s guards were dying. She turned to Zar. “Now we go.”

Minkus approached the wall and threw over a grappling hook. He pulled back on the rope until it stretched taught, gave it another quick yank, then lifted his feet onto the wall and climbed up. No sooner than a second after he had disappeared over the top of the wall, his sister Maza climbed up. Zar was instructed to go next.

Zar couldn’t remember the last time he had used a grappling hook, but as soon as he grabbed the rope memories of a raid in Cyana came to mind. It was the first time he had made the long and hot journey to the south, nearly ten years ago. There was still no sound to be heard as Zar neared the top of the wall, which was certainly a good thing since it likely meant everything was going as planned. He came to the top of the wall and looked down to see the twins standing below, both motioning him to climb down from another rope they had secured. When Zar’s feet hit the ground he immediately looked about at the sentry towers on the corners of the inside curtain wall that rose in front of them. They were quiet, torches still burning inside as if nothing was awry. It appeared the Condor had all done their jobs. Though the inside wall was higher than the one they had just climbed, the twins were already securing a grappling hook over it. By the time Yari and Anza came over the first wall, Minkus and Maza had already ascended the second, and Zar followed them up and over with Yari and Anza coming after him.

The five stood still in silence and stared at the keep ahead. Nothing looked amiss in the courtyard, no bodies could be seen, and the towers on the wall’s perimeter looked completely vacant aside from the torches that burned within. Shadowy figures danced towards them as the company of Condor approached from their places of hiding, some coming out of the sentry towers and others scurrying from dark places in the distance.

A woman’s voice whispered, “It is done, Anza. We’ve hidden the bodies in the towers. Only the gatehouse remains. It’s quiet. Half of them are probably asleep.”

Anza turned to Zar. “Hardly seems like they’re preparing for an attack,” she said.

Yari Thorn drew an arrow in what seemed like an impossible fraction of time. “Should I kill him now, Anza?”

“Not yet,” replied Anza, turning back to the other she had been speaking to. “Take the gatehouse. Our friend, Zar, will storm the keep with us. After you, Zar.”

°

Tharid rolled his head over in his mother’s lap, lying on her bed as she sat combing out a braid that twisted intricately through her hair like embroidery.

“I think real strength comes from honed ability,” said the prince. “Not from
that.
”

“You are right, of course,” Thae agreed. “But would you never consider it?”

Tharid rolled his face back towards his mother’s and looked up at her. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Are you saying you want me to? You would have me be like
him
?
”

“You’ll never be like your father, thank the gods,” said the queen. “I would have you safe—alive and safe—always.” She grabbed her hair in both hands and swept it over her right shoulder until it ran over the edge of the bed and down to the floor. She then took her son’s face in her freed hands. “I would have you safe.”

“And I will be, Mother,” Tharid assured. “But not that way.”

A shout of alarm rang up to the room and the prince jumped to his feet. He rushed to the chamber door and swung it open to be met by two guards and the sound of commotion coming from below. “We’re under attack,” one said. “They’re in the castle!”

Tharid drew his sword. “Who? Cyana?”

“We do not know,” the other called, the sound of trampling on the staircase drawing his attention.

“Stay here, Mother. Bar the door! Don’t let anyone in!”

“No,” a guard called, “they’re already in the keep! We have to get you both out!”

The prince grabbed the man’s leather jerkin by the collar. “I lead,” he commanded. “And you’ll protect my mother with your lives!”

Both men nodded and helped the queen out of her chamber. She was wide-eyed, yet looked determined, her face solemn and lips pressed thin. Tharid marched down the stairs first and the two guards escorted his mother behind him. They had trampled down two floors to the floor of the king’s grand chamber when they were met with intruders on the way up. The staircase was narrow and ran down counter-clockwise, so that those coming up could only wield a sword in their left hand without being obstructed by the wall on the right, while those coming down could wield normally in their right hands. But the figure that Tharid saw coming up to meet him gripped a spear that barely fit in the tight stairwell.

It was a man with ruddy colored skin, wearing studded leather armor, gripping his spear in his left hand as the long pole knocked against the stone stairs. Tharid cut down, and the man darted back on the stairs, then shot his spear forward as fast as lightning, almost catching Tharid in the face. Tharid could hear others behind the man, and turned to make his way back up, urging the guards who were escorting his mother to hurry to the nearest floor. The party scurried from the stairs into the floor’s hall, and Tharid rushed the figured that emerged after them, not knowing how many followed and not wanting to allow them out of the narrow stairwell and into the room.

The spearman threw himself to the side, slamming into the wall to avoid Tharid’s blade, and thrust his weapon forward into Tharid’s chest, pushing the prince back. From what Tharid could feel the spear’s point hadn’t pierced too far through his chainmail, but the blow was forceful enough to throw him back, allowing the man and the others who followed him to make it into the room. A woman followed the man, also with a spear, and Tharid glanced quickly to the other side of the hall where a corresponding staircase was situated. Others trampled up that side as well.

When Tharid saw Zar enter from the opposite stairwell with two tall women warriors behind him, he shouted, “Protect your queen,” and the two castle guards rushed forward to meet them.

Tharid chopped at the spearman’s pole, attempting to split the weapon so he could move in close enough to kill the man, but the man kept his arms loose, deflecting the blade at angles. The pole splintered a bit after a sound downward cut from Tharid, but before he could lift his sword back up he was struck by the pole in the head, a blow that made him wobble and stumble backward.

The woman who followed, also bearing a spear, came forward, but turned back to the staircase as another ascended. Tharid saw the bleary image of Krin, captain of the guard, coming onto the floor. Time was escaping. It seemed only a second ago he was struck in the head by the spearman’s shaft, but now an arrow had sunk deep in his back, and he looked over his shoulder at one of the women who had followed Zar up the staircase.

He went from dazed to dizzy in mere moments. The last thing he saw before falling to the floor was the door of his father’s grand chamber swinging open and his father running around the skirmish to get to the stairs. When he struck the floor his eyes stayed fixed on the stairs, and he watched the king scurry down as Zar followed close behind.

32

Tiomot pulle
d a torch
from a wall sconce before shuffling down the stone stairs that descended in the far east corner of the great hall. Zar followed, entering a place that was darker than a moonless night. Ahead he could see the waving fire of the torch that the king carried as he raced ahead through the darkness. That darkness was short-lived. Soon the place was brightened by a fire in the center of the room where the torch Tiomot once held had been placed, the wooden branch sticking out from the pyre as Tiomot stood beside it with a smile.

The fire in the center cast a shadow to all corners of the room, and as the light shone on the king’s yellow grin, Zar saw through the shadow the likenesses of immobile figures scattered across the basement’s perimeter. He was wary of the unmoving figures as he moved in closer to the fire, his eyes searching to figure out what they were while keeping adequate attention on the king. He didn’t know what tricks the man might play, especially with those curiosities adorning the room. Tiomot had not fled to that basement randomly. There was a reason for it.

Zar half expected, as he crept in closer, that the figures around the room, looking tall and ghastly in the room’s poorly lit corners, might jump out and attack him, but as he drew closer to the light, and as the king back-stepped away from the fire with his sword raised and a smile still showing, Zar saw that the shapes he had seen in the darkness that looked giant and ghoulish had only looked so because he couldn’t identify what they were. He now saw they were nothing more than lifeless bodies tied high onto poles. Or
were
they lifeless?

He only had a second to consider the thought when Tiomot rushed him, pushing aggressively forward after their blades met and hooking his right heel behind Zar’s left ankle. Zar was surprised at the move—surprised it had almost worked—and stumbled a bit towards a corner of the room while holding his blade up to fill the space between him and the king. If Zar wasn’t slowed by the ambiance of the place, the dark corners and the bodies that lurked there, he may have reacted appropriately and made Tiomot pay for the brash maneuver. But something wasn’t right in that basement, and he was unnerved by it.

He had fought before the sun arose in the morning, in the peak of day, and in the black of night. He had fought by and in water, on mountains and cliffs, in the darkest caves and in the wildest woods, but never had he felt so out of his element as he did now. It was the air of the castle basement, the crazed look in Tiomot’s eyes, and most of all, those awkward bodies tied high onto poles, which Zar finally decided weren’t dead as he saw the foot of one mounted beside him twitch and tremble briefly.

Zar jumped away from the body, away from Tiomot’s sword, silently commanding himself to get his mind in order and focus on the fight. If those bodies wished to come alive and climb down from the poles they were lashed onto, he would address them when they did so. For now, there was only Tiomot, and the man’s attacks had shown Zar that he was either far more fearless than his son when it came to the sword or far less skillful. When Zar dueled Tharid, he had found the man to be calm yet strong, with a deadly precision and refinement that made Zar uncomfortable. A duel with Tharid was such that he felt the nearness of death with every swing of his sword, and was forced to fight his hardest and smartest—and even then one wrong move could earn him an open throat. But Tiomot was wild and brash, predictable, and though he was strong and handled a sword well, he did not have the grace or skill of his son. Zar wagered that if they were in a normal setting, in no strange basement with strange bodies hiding in strange shadows, he would already have the man slain. Or was he wrong? Was this Tiomot’s strategy?

Zar knew how much confidence meant in a fight, and the fact that Tiomot was oozing with it—the way he smiled, the excited and assured look in his eyes as he charged forward rather uncontrolled—made Zar wonder if he was just another fool. There was no fear to be seen in the king, and no caution.

“I would keep my eyes
here
if I were you, boy,” Tiomot snarled. “Don’t worry about
them.
”

Zar hadn’t bothered trying to hide the fact that he was concerned about the bodies, and every time he had space and an extra second where Tiomot wasn’t swinging steel in his face, he glanced about his surroundings and took in as much as he could.

They were women mounted on the poles, some clothed and some not. All of their faces were pointed eerily upward to the ceiling. He couldn’t see their eyes. He thought he had seen a similar scene somewhere, but he couldn’t imagine where, and Tiomot didn’t give him a moment to ponder it any further.

The king’s blade crashed into Zar’s, and Tiomot pushed forward harshly. Zar pivoted to the right a bit, steering the blade away as Tiomot recovered himself from Zar’s parry. Zar aimed to counter, but Tiomot was quick on the recovery and caught Zar’s steel with his own. When the swords met, both men pushed forward briefly before the king kicked his right leg forward. Zar side-stepped out of the way. He danced right back in on Tiomot, sword high and in both hands, but the king blocked again.

Tiomot pushed forward on the block, Zar’s steel sliding across his sword and over his shoulder as he lunged forward and hammered him with the pommel. Zar’s head jerked back at the cold, steel knob that struck him above the eye. His vision shook and blurred, but he could still see the cloudy image of the king charging forward, shouting crazily. Zar prepared for a strong block, squinting to focus his vision. The king’s blade hit Zar’s and just as soon as it did, he jumped forward and hit Zar with his shoulder, making him stumble back a few feet. Zar hadn’t fully regained his balance when Tiomot slashed again, wild and hard. Zar moved his sword in the way, but without good footing Tiomot’s sword pushed Zar’s over his shoulder and bit down through the chainmail on his upper arm, finding a fair amount of flesh.

Zar swatted the blade off and sliced back. Tiomot blocked the strike and pushed hard on Zar’s sword, powering forward. Zar shuffled back quickly to avoid being knocked over, holding his blade out against the king’s as the man charged, pushing Zar into a wall between two of the pillars where women were mounted. Zar’s back hit hard, but he held the block, and a moment after he struck hard against the wall, he slipped his left hand off his sword hilt, pulled his belt dagger and thrust it forward. Zar moved his head to the right, his right arm not enough to stop Tiomot’s blade from pushing through, and the king’s sword slid over Zar’s shoulder and struck the wall as his body plunged forward into the dagger.

Zar left the dagger in the king’s heart and kicked him away. He saw a flicker of movement in the side of his vision and turned to the body that was mounted there. The woman’s head had dropped from the obscure position of looking upwards to hanging down lifelessly. Tiomot picked himself up from the ground just as quickly as he had fallen—very much alive.

Zar circled away from the man, away from the wall where the woman mounted on the pillar had changed her posture, eyes darting and searching the room for a clue to what was happening. He stumbled into another one of the poles, his shoulder striking against the wood as he spun away from the place he had stabbed Tiomot, where the mounted body had moved. As Zar hit the pole he glanced up at it—it was the same as the others in the room except for the one whose head had dropped. The body was still, head back against the pole and looking up; but this time Zar could see the eyes. They were wide open and unblinking—just like the girl Ramla had shown him.

Tiomot rushed Zar again and Zar met the blade, but all the while he thought about the body that had fallen limp, neck rolling forward over her shoulders as her head hung down. If Zar had assessed the situation correctly he had killed that woman.
The art of vessels
. When Ramla attempted the craft it had been experimental and harmless, and she had made it clear that the way she used it was not the way it was meant to be used. Zar had stood amazed as he witnessed things done to Ramla show through her vessel, a woman tied to a stake that looked to be in a silent trance. While Ramla looked to be fresh and bright-eyed from their rigorous time in the sheets, it was her vessel that breathed heavily, had a faint smile of satisfaction on her lips and was even wet between the legs.

Zar knocked away Tiomot’s blade, evaded his wild attacks as he eyed the fire in the center of the room. He could almost feel Ramla’s lips against his cheek as he remembered her whispering in his ear,
“Only while th
e fire burns.”

Zar knew at once what he must do. He wasted no time, fighting his way to the pyre, the great iron bowl in the middle of the room where a bonfire now blazed. It had been, without a doubt, stuffed with sticks and tinder so it could be easily lit on short notice, and Tiomot had rushed over to it as soon as he descended into the basement and threw his torch in to light it. He must’ve kept the vessels tied down there, their foreheads already marked with his blood so he could activate the bond in moments, and the way it was all set up it looked as if he had been practicing the art for a lifetime.

Zar knocked Tiomot back and darted up to the pyre, attempting to kick it over. The king roared and scrambled after him. After failing to kick over the heavy iron bowl, Zar parried another reckless attack from Tiomot and kicked the man back again. Zar dropped his sword and grabbed the bowl, its hot iron edges singeing through his leather gloves and burning his palms as he lifted it up and pushed it over. He could feel the desperation in Tiomot’s roars, his twisted face, and his worried eyes as Zar trampled the burning remnants of the pyre under his boots.

Tiomot no longer smiled.

The king charged desperately, not giving Zar a chance to pick up his sword. Zar swayed out of the way of a wild attack, grabbing for the dagger hilt that still stuck out from the man’s body and yanked out his blade. He threw his left arm over Tiomot’s right shoulder, hooked under the man’s armpit to wrap up his sword arm, and stabbed the dagger under the man’s chin, pushing it up through his face.

King Tiomot fell back, gasped, and spit up blood. He stumbled around on his feet awhile until Zar picked up his sword and cut off his head. It rolled until it hit the base of a pillar, its visage facing Zar as if to look at him. The king’s eyes were wide and his face twisted, looking afraid.

Zar smiled at the thought of Tiomot dying in fear, knowing his spell of seeming invincibility had been broken and the next well placed blow would be his end. It seemed a small measure of recompense for the man’s many evils.

A thundering of footsteps sounded from above, and Zar sighed in relief at the noise of what sounded like ten- thousand boots marching over the yard. It had to be Dandil and his army of fire-crowned Cyanans, for the Condor didn’t have those numbers. Zar smiled.
Just i
n time.

The fact that Anza’s decision to have him cooperate in their siege had shaken things up a bit and created a slight deviation to their plan no longer mattered. The end result was the same. The victor of the Condor against the Snowguards would be broken down enough to be beaten easily by the Cyanans. Nothing had changed by Zar being there except his life being in the Condor’s hands, but if the noise he heard from above was indeed Tuskin with Dandil’s army, he no longer had to worry about being killed by the cliff folk once they decided he had lied to them. So, after he had freed every living woman from the pillars, and the lot had gathered around him hugging him, thanking him, and looking up to him as if he were a god, Zar explained the situation to them before creeping up the basement stairs. They followed him to the great hall with not another word spoken, wide eyes looking scared and grateful.