Blackdog (29 page)

The bell echoed and re-echoed.

“It's our fault,” Attavaia said under her breath, still watching that hanging cloud, growing browner and more clearly dust as the dawn brightened. “He knows.” Her knees felt weak, and bile rose in her throat. She swallowed and wished for tea.

“He can't know we're here,” Enneas said sharply. “He doesn't know we exist.”

“Not that we're here. He knows the weapons came from here. Ishkul's weapons.”

“I think we're quite capable of upsetting the Lake-Lord on our own,” Master Mooshka said. “Don't get a swollen head.”

He headed down the dark stairs himself, calling orders to his household folk. Tea. Breakfast. This one to ride east, that one to ride west, without delay, to contact sept-chiefs. The servants who had slept on the roof followed him. In the yard below, dogs barked, camels groaned, horses whinnied, humans shouted, all woken untimely. The caravaneers emerged from their quarters on the far side of the square, demanding of anyone they could see, mostly one another, what the fuss was.

“Do we stay or go?” Enneas asked.

“We go,” Attavaia said. Without them, there was no one who could hold the free temple together, no one who knew where all the weapons were hidden. By the same argument, they could not risk either of them falling into the wizard's hands.

But running, when their allies were attacked, felt like cowardice. Like betrayal.

Someone had told the caravan-mistress the reason for the alarm. Her haste to rouse her people and load her camels made Master Baruni's departure the last time they had fled Serakallash look leisurely. Attavaia fastened the toggles of her cameleer's coat, slung the Northron sax over her shoulder, and headed down the several flights of narrow stairs to the ground floor of Mooshka's house.

A boy was fastening heavy bars across the little back door. The same woman as before was packing up the account rolls again. Mooshka met them as they stepped out under the gallery.

“We think we'd better get out of town, Master,” Attavaia said. “I'm sorry.”

“Wait till the damned caravan goes to give you some cover, anyway,” he said distractedly. “I don't need you caught leaving my house.” He turned to shout across the yard at someone about spears stored in the east corner room. “Yes, yes,” he said, turning back. “You might be safer staying.”

“We can't get caught here. We're needed in the mountains.”

“Go on, then. We'll open the doors to let the gang out as soon as they're loaded. The mistress thinks she's better off in the desert, and she might be right.”

“Tell Treyan—Jerusha took the new turquoise for safekeeping, tell him we'll trust him for a fair accounting of it.”

“Yes, yes, you can trust Treyan to the end of the world, don't worry about that, and if it's in Jerusha's strongbox, the wizard himself won't find it, not if he pulls the place brick from brick. Cold hells! Isn't she back yet?” he shouted to someone else, and hurried off into the chaos of the yard.

The distant bell stopped with a jangling clash.

Enneas and Attavaia looked at one another.

“How close were they?” Enneas asked.

“Hard to tell by a dust cloud.”

“Is someone going to go—”

The big gates were barred, and the white-haired caravan-mistress was still overseeing the loading of her beasts.

Some of Mooshka's household were up on the roof with bows, and others, clutching spears and sabres, were clustered near the gate. Few of them looked like they had more than a nodding acquaintance with their weapons. Townsfolk, commoners, expected their sept-chiefs’ warriors to protect them.

“Those won't be any help to Jerusha if they do go out,” Enneas said. “I know it's a bad idea, but we owe them. I'll go find her. Tamghat's folk can't be far into town yet.”

One man, trying to carry his spear nonchalantly over his shoulder, turned suddenly and sliced another's face. Yells and accusations; the second man, bleeding, helped away by a woman. Master Mooshka darted off that way, then back to the caravan.

“I'll be safer in the streets,” Enneas said, wide-eyed. “Attalissa, they're fools.”

“They're grooms and cooks and labourers,” Attavaia said. “We'll both go. Chances are we'll meet her on the way back, anyway. Never mind the gate, it'll just mean arguing.” She caught Enneas's arm. “The back door. Quickly.”

“Wish we had armour.”

“Wish we had a couple of dormitories of sisters.”

Two youngsters, looking like brother and sister, guarded the back door now.

“Open it,” Attavaia ordered. “We're going to make sure Jerusha gets back.”

“Yes, lady,” the girl stammered, and started throwing the bars and bolts back.

“Ah,” murmured Enneas. “The voice of command. And you know, that's why they all do what you say in the end. It's not respect for your uncle at all, despite what you think. It's just that after a while you get so fed up with debating that you take that tone of voice, the one that only Spear Ladies learn. Then it's all over.”

“Were they from the caravan?” the boy asked his sister as the door slammed shut again behind them.

Attavaia drew a deep breath. No sound of battle. The narrow alley was still and silent, almost night-dark.

“What tone of voice? I don't have a tone of voice, not one you need to talk about in that tone of voice.”

“Really?” Enneas led the way up the alley towards the street, stopped just before it opened out, hand on her sword.

Attavaia joined her and they waited, while a man who looked like a caravan-mercenary ran past, coming from the direction of the town. Someone sent to find out what was happening? The gate of a caravanserai further along opened a crack to admit him.

“No Jerusha.”

“No.”

They set off towards the market square, jogging. Passing another caravanserai, they had to slow down and keep to the side of the street to avoid an emerging caravan.

“Have you heard what's happening?” Attavaia asked one of the riders.

The desert-tattooed woman shrugged. “Don't know. Fighting, I guess. The boss decided we'd better pull out. I'd stay away from it if I were you.”

Attavaia ignored that, resumed her trotting pace. Once they were away from the clanking bells and protests of camels, new noises began to seep through the twisting lanes: human cries, the shrill squeal of angry horses, and dogs barking, muffled, behind the mud-dun walls of the houses and their courtyards. And the clash of metal, not so different from the camel-bells.

People, mostly men but a few women among them, were leaving their houses, hurrying into the town.

“Is it fire?” one man asked.

“It's the Lake-Lord,” Attavaia said. She didn't believe anything else. “Go home, if you're not armed.”

But most of them seemed to have come to that conclusion on their own; they carried sabres and spears and even hatchets and forks, all heading towards the market. From the babble she picked up different theories—desert raiders, some of the outlying septs attacking the Rostvadim and Sevani, the Sevani and Rostvadim fighting one another, how this or that one had woken from sleep just knowing something was wrong…

The fools were going to block the streets, run straight into whatever was happening, and get themselves killed.

“Where are the sept-warriors?” someone asked, and that seemed a good question. The crowd began to thin out, many of the cautious or the merely curious dropping back as the uproar grew.

There was fighting in the market, and a rough barricade of some of the handcarts and barrows of early-arriving vendors had been erected across the end of the street, a scatter of melons, broken underfoot, attracting wasps.

“Serakallashi,” Enneas said, and there was relief in her voice. Serakallashi fighting Serakallashi, sept-warriors, a snarled knot of them before one of the big compounds that bordered the market. Some defending the gate, some trying to break through. At two of the other streets into the market, more clustered tangles of battle, Serakallashi horsemen scattered among them. How they told friend from enemy…Attavaia saw Jerusha, then. She had taken a sword from someone and, bareback on a bright bay stallion, was trying to break away from another horseman and two on foot, who had her pinned back against a wall.

They went over the barricade together, swords drawn, dodging the scattered battles.

“Grasslanders,” Attavaia said. “There.” She pointed to the broadest street.

“And coming in from the west, not the mountains. Attalissa keep us. I'll take the fat one.”

“He's not that fat.” ’Vaia turned a little to the side, watched for the stouter of the two afoot to catch Enneas in the corner of his eye and turn to leave her a clear path—he never did, oblivious to his danger. Enneas slashed him low across his leather-clad legs, hacked at the side of his head as he fell. Attavaia stepped in towards the other man on foot as he looked over his shoulder at her, gawping when he should have been moving. Her blade turned on iron plates reinforcing a leather jerkin, but the man stumbled and she kicked him in the back of the knee. He collapsed and his comrade's swerving horse kicked him in the face with a horrible crunching noise. She blocked the horseman's sabre as he swung round to her. As he backed his horse away from Jerusha's harsh cry and swinging blows, Enneas dropped her sword, grabbed his leg, and flung herself backwards, hauling him from the saddle. Slashing weapon or not, Attavaia hammered the tip of her blade into his throat along the edge of his high collar.

Jerusha slumped, shaking. She was cut badly on her left arm and hip, bleeding.

“Damn Siyd Rostvadim,” she said, stammering. “Sh-she knew your Lake-Lord was coming. S-sent her warriors to stop the bell and they attacked everyone else who came to answer the alarm. Got away from them,” she added proudly. “Got to Firebird and got this f-far.”

“Don't you dare faint,” Attavaia snapped, as ‘Rusha, pale under her tattoos, swayed and clutched at her horse's mane, head bowed to breast. “Enni, get up and hold her on.” Keeping her own back to the wall, she gave Enneas a boost up with difficulty, as the horse stamped and sidled away. She handed Enneas's sax up, slapped the horse's rump. “Go. I'll follow you.”

The other horse had wheeled away. No time to chase it. With a roar of triumph, Tamghat's mercenaries poured into the square through the two south-leading streets.

And the wind roared out of the north in answer, lifting dust, flapping the coats and scarves of the fallen so that they seemed to struggle to rise. Red sand beat on her skin like the piercing of a thousand needles. Attavaia, eyes shut, struggled to pull her scarf over her face, stumbling blind into the wind. Worse than a blizzard. With her eyes open the narrowest slit, she could see little better. Shadows. Something big and dark whirled past and smashed. A door torn loose. She stumbled over a fallen body, which yelped.

Any street leading north, towards the desert and away from Tamghat's army, and then she could find a doorway, an alley, something to shelter behind. She came into the lee of a building, crowded with Serakallashi warriors and townsfolk, all keeping some truce.
Sera
, some whispered, not so much in prayer as in awe. She blinked until her tearing eyes could see again. Out in the red, dark, glass-edged fog of sand, a figure towered, dimly shaped, solid as a flock of blackbirds or a swarm of bees, arms spread. Even through the roar of the wind, and the sand like a river on rocks, she heard screaming.

Siyd Rostvadim, Elaxi Rostvadim, Narkim Sevani, Hashim Sevani, Bellova Sevani, I curse you as traitors to my folk. You have sold them to the wizard. I name you outcasts and godless, and with you those who followed you, if they do not stand against Tamghat
now.

From the looks on the faces around her, every man and woman there had heard that deep whisper in the mind. But the goddess's sand-shadowed form was wavering. Something, like the weight of a thunderstorm, pressed on them from the south. Small red lightnings crackled into the wind, flushing the square with a sickening dried-blood colour.

The goddess screamed aloud, a sound that felled everyone in the crowd still standing. Most cowered with their hands over their ears, praying or weeping. The force of the wind dropped to a mere dust-carrying breeze. Time to flee.

Attavaia recognized the building: it was the one with the bell-tower, and she had somehow passed the street she wanted. On her hands and knees she scrambled over prostrate Serakallashi.

“Get up!” she snarled at one, who blocked her way. “Tamghat's here. Stand and fight for your goddess or tomorrow you'll be no better than a slave!”

The man swung a shaky fist at her and she found her feet, stumbled away. Her ears still rang from Sera's shriek of terror.

She saw the wizard, Tamghat himself. His horse stood placid as if sleepwalking, with its forefeet atop a small dune of red sand and white—Great Gods, it was a lattice of scoured bones that held the sand. An arc of mounted
noekar
and mercenaries formed up behind him, and more mercenaries—no, they were all young Lissavakaili men, his conscripts formed into one company of archers—waited beyond, afoot.

He would have left many to hold the mountains, but still, there had to be a lot more of his warriors somewhere. Likely the herding septs were already fighting their own battles.

A gate opened from the compound where the civil fighting had concentrated and a cluster of well-dressed Serakallashi stepped hesitantly out, their own guards close around them. They all looked grey-faced, shaken, as they crossed the square to Tamghat.

“Lord Tamghat,” the leading woman said, pitching her voice to carry, to make her point to the onlookers. “Thank you for your help with the rebels. If you could have your people camp on the horse-fair grounds by the mountain road—”

Tamghat ignored her, riding towards the house over the drift that held the bones of his own men and women. His
noekar
followed and the sept-chief scurried after him.

The man Attavaia had snarled at had found his feet, leaning on a pitchfork. No sept-warrior but someone's stablehand.

“Get up,” he urged those around him. “You going to let Silly Siyd hand us over to a foreign wizard?”