Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 (38 page)

The beast battered the standing wall. Another section of roofing fell away. Stones clattered to the alleyway below and a great cloud of dust billowed up. Dorin backed up nearly to the mage. ‘But I thought we were
in
shadow. Isn’t that what this place is called?’

He gripped and re-gripped his knives. If he could leap on to the thing’s back . . . More howls rose then, brassy and eager, from the twisted ways of the surrounding city. Dorin raised his eyes to the smoky opalescent sky. Wonderful. More of them.

‘I didn’t call it that,’ Wu answered, sounding maddeningly calm. Then he jerked to his feet, suddenly animated. ‘Shadow. Could that be the answer? It is broken, shattered. But it is all shadow? One aspect?’

Both almost fell, tottering, as the beast threw itself against another wall and the roof canted. Stones crashed and tumbled. They were left with hardly enough room to stand.

‘Do whatever you must now!’ Dorin yelled.

‘Very well. I will open a way but we must jump blind. I have no idea if it will work or not . . .’

Dorin scuttled up the slope of the roof on his hands and knees. ‘Never mind! Do it.’

‘It is done.’ Dorin turned; the mage was standing on the very lip of the roof, pointing out to the gap beyond. Peering past Dorin’s shoulder, his eyes suddenly widened in terrified amazement. Dorin spared one glance back to see the monstrous hound’s glaring eyes and slathering muzzle levered up above the roof, its forepaws scrabbling. The roof rocked even more steeply beneath its massive weight. Stones cracked and gave under their feet in a series of explosions. Dorin launched himself forward, taking hold of the mage’s loose flapping shirting and jacket as he went.

The two arced outwards over nothing as with a buckling roar the remaining walls and ledge of roof collapsed completely. Dorin landed with a grunt and felt the sharp blows of falling broken stones. He held his head, stars in his eyes, and bit his lip to keep from bellowing out his pain.

Blinking back tears, he peered about. He almost stood in astonishment but caught himself in time: it was night and he was back – but not in the city. Outside its walls. He sat in a dried pigsty, covered in dust and caked mud, amid the litter of fallen stone. A groan and a stirring amid the mud betrayed that he was not alone.

‘Where—’ Wu began, before Dorin clamped a hand to his mouth.

‘South of the city,’ he hissed. ‘In the Kanese lines.’

The mage’s greying brows rose above Dorin’s hand, and he nodded his understanding. Dorin removed his hand. ‘Told you I could do it,’ the mage whispered. Dorin just shot him a look of disbelief. He helped the wounded mage to his feet and together they limped to the cover of a hedgerow. Dorin led them northeast.

They passed by encampments of the besieging Kanese soldiery. They stilled as patrols marched past, then continued on. Dorin was puzzled by the ease with which they eluded detection until he noticed how the shadows seemed to cluster so very thickly about them; how the night appeared more monochromatic and dulled to his vision than ever before. It was as if he were peering out at the world through thick cloth. Then he noticed that while the mage clutched at him for support, his other hand was weaving and curling as if manipulating some unseen matter, and his lips moved silently in constant incantation.

One hilltop stood between them and the river. The burned ruins of a collapsed tower topped it. Pickets occupied the position, but they snaked between them. Here Dorin paused as the modest highland offered a view of the plains to the west. Campfires dotted the dark fields, along with countless tents. One gigantic multi-poled tent dominated the ground south of the lines. It glowed golden with many inner lights. The field command and residence of King Chulalorn the Third, he assumed.

On an impulse, he whispered to the mage, ‘Could you get us in there – into Chulalorn’s quarters?’

Wu did not even glance in that direction. ‘Of course,’ he answered, waving a hand dismissively. ‘I have already done it.’ He motioned to Heng’s gigantic walls which cut off the view to the north in a great broad swath of darkness. ‘What worries me is how we can possibly get into the city.’

Dorin did not answer. He continued to study the king’s pavilion and its satellites of surrounding lesser tents – quarters for functionaries, bureaucrats, officers and guards, he assumed. It was like an entire mobile city, ringed and guarded by hundreds, no doubt.

An indisputable prize.

Wu was tugging at him. ‘I said,’ he hissed, ‘how will we get into the city?’

‘Can’t you just magic us in?’

The mage rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘I can’t walk through walls.’

‘But we’re outside the walls now . . .’

‘We travelled through that other realm, didn’t we? Through . . . Shadow itself. Do you wish to return?’

Dorin shuddered at the thought of confronting those beasts again. ‘No.’

Wu nodded, fierce. ‘Wise decision. So?’

Dorin motioned him onward and down to the riverbank. ‘Tell me, son of the hot Dal Hon plains . . . can you swim?’

IKO WAS DEEP
into a practice duel – part of her daily effort to exhaust herself mentally and physically – and so she did not notice the beginning of the commotion over by their compound’s main doors.

When she and Sareh broke off from one another, both panting, their chests working, the noise and pleas finally reached through to Iko’s consciousness and she glanced over. A crowd of her Sword-Dancer sisters blocked the entrance, all talking at once.

Without setting down the wooden practice blade she headed over and pushed her way to the front. Here she found tall Yuna gripping an old man, one of the palace servants. The girl was holding him by the neck just as one might squeeze a goose. The daily food delivery lay scattered on the stone floor – rice, bread, and some sort of boiled vegetable.

‘What is this?’ Iko asked.

‘A damned insult is what this is,’ Yuna growled, and she shook the man once again. The retainer’s eyes bulged and he gurgled as he pulled at her clenched grip.

‘Release him,’ Iko said, and made it a request by sounding tired of the display.

Yuna’s thin lips tightened as her mouth drew down, and she studied Iko carefully, obviously weighing whether or not this was worth a possible challenge. Grunting, she let him go and he stumbled back, bowing and rubbing his neck. She waved him off. ‘Go back to your wretched masters and tell them we’ll not tolerate this shit.’ The gathered sisters all added their loud support to the demand. The servant ran out the doors.

Iko eyed the trampled food. ‘And how does this help our hunger?’

Yuna gestured to the mess. ‘This is all it deserves. Wormy rice, stale bread, and old tasteless roots. An insult! We are guards to kings! They dare offer us such filth?’

‘The city’s besieged, Yuna,’ Iko observed. Unfortunately, she failed to keep all the sarcasm from her voice and the woman’s gaze flared in anger.

She stepped close, leaning over Iko, and whispered, low, ‘Do not think you’ll dispense with me as easily as you dealt with Torral.’

Iko spent a fraction of an instant considering her options. Like Torral, Yuna respected strength. Any apologies or yielding now would be taken as a sign of fear and weakness. Even if she didn’t want a confrontation, it was too late. So she crossed her arms, arched an eyebrow, and said, ‘Don’t make me go to all the effort now that you’ve ruined dinner.’

Yuna continued to study her, waiting for any betraying sign of fear, a tremble or a flinch, and with none forthcoming she leaned away, letting go a light snort. Brushing past, she commented, ‘Who put you in charge?’

Iko bit back any hint of the fact that Hallens herself had made her second in command. Hallens did not want it divulged, and Iko would respect her wishes. She supposed it was a less than subtle hint that Iko would have to earn the respect of her sisters, almost all of whom far exceeded her in their length of service. She went to find her commander.

Directions from a few of the Sword-Dancers brought her out to the far westerly gardens of the palace grounds that were open to them. Here she found the woman standing meditatively, her hands clasped behind her back, staring off to the west. Iko approached and a change in the tension of Hallens’ back told her that the captain was aware of her, probably even knew who it was.

‘The natives are restless,’ Iko murmured as she stepped up next to her.

The woman cast her a glance. A small smile played on her lips. ‘I heard.’

‘We can’t take this much longer.’

‘I know.’

‘There will be blood next time.’

‘Very probably.’

‘Then why—’ Iko clamped her lips shut against her own complaint; she knew full why: the king’s orders. She said instead, ‘We will lose our effectiveness.’

‘Yes.’ The woman reached out to a limp dead flower sagging on its brown stem and broke it off. ‘A killing frost. I hear the local servants complaining of this cold. Very unusual.’

Iko had been shivering, but then she always did now when venturing outside to exercise. ‘Yes? What of it?’

Hallens glanced to her and for an instant Iko thought her dark eyes looked haunted before she turned away. ‘Word has come,’ she said, the old familiar iron in her voice.

A thrill of tension shot up Iko’s back. ‘Yes?’

‘It will be soon. We will be asked to take and hold a position in the city. The moment we hear where, we must move.’

‘I understand.’

Her commander eyed her once more, let out an uneasy breath. ‘The messenger was unusual . . . it was a very low-ranked Nightblade. And his manner was almost . . . fearful. I believe the Nightblades have been enduring punishing losses here in the city. The one I saw acted almost as if he were being hunted.’

Iko let out a snort of disbelief. ‘Impossible.’

‘In the south, yes. None there that can rival the Nightblades. But we are closer to the homeland of our old Talian overlords here. The servants of the Iron Crown kept all in line for decades.’

Iko shuddered at the mention of the assassins who slew at the command of the old hegemony. ‘They were destroyed in the uprisings.’

‘Perhaps. In any case, we must be careful.’

Though puzzled, and quite troubled, by her commander’s manner, Iko nodded. ‘Of course.’

Hallens hugged herself. ‘It is very cold.’ She glanced to Iko. ‘You were not with us at the fall of Fedal, were you?’

That had been one of the most storied, and bloody, of all the subjugations of the city states of the south. Iko shook her head. ‘No. That was before I was given permission to join a field command.’

‘I see.’ The woman paused, as if she had been about to go on but had reconsidered. Her mouth tightened and she nodded, curtly. She gestured, inviting Iko to return with her to their quarters. ‘Well . . . not long now.’

As they walked in silence, Iko uncomfortable, Hallens distracted, Iko considered her commander’s last question. The fall of Fedal. Few had witnessed the death of the old ruling family in that ancient fortress. But Iko had heard strange stories and hushed whispered rumours. Sorcery had accomplished what the ranks of Chulalorn’s soldiers could not. The stories were that the defence, up to that point so unassailable, had collapsed in one night. And that the few soldiers who had entered the private quarters of the ruling family before they were sealed off reported unbelievable sights. Whispers were of entire rooms engulfed in hoarfrost, with men and women sitting at table, frozen solid in the act of eating dinner.

Outrageous. But Hallens’ concern over escalation came to mind, and Iko cast her a worried glance. So, with the stalemate in the field would the battle now shift to new ground? To where all their vaunted skills and training may prove useless? She recalled her disgust that Chulalorn should stoop to sending his Nightblades against the Protectress; with that failure he may be pressed to even more dangerous and desperate means.

The possibility troubled her just as much as it obviously troubled her commander. Oddly enough, her first concern was for Chulalorn himself. She was worried that he would stain his hands with such tools. It was unworthy of him, of his dynasty, that he should compromise so much to conquer.

She let out a long sigh. Yet perhaps this was all nothing more than a warrior’s distaste for the ways of sorcery. She did not understand it; and so she was suspicious of it.

She glanced up to see the captain’s eyes upon her, and there was an uncharacteristic softness and care in that gaze that made her realize that for all her own anxieties, Hallens was burdened far more by the terrible weight of fear for all the sisters under her command.

* * *

When Silk walked the palace halls and found them utterly deserted, he was rather put out. He was on his way to confer with Shalmanat. The inner palace guards still stood their posts, of course, but the usual messengers, pages, and bureaucratic functionaries were missing. Also absent was the usual crowd of city notables and aristocrats who gathered daily at court to see and be seen, and to gossip and make deals. It struck him that over the last month or so the day to day workings of the city had inexorably ground to a halt. Perhaps many of these paper-pushers were sick, weak, or too frightened to leave their families alone. The few functionaries he did pass hardly raised their eyes as they walked the halls listlessly, papers pressed to their chests, looking sadly dishevelled. Nothing, it appeared, was getting done.

Everyone’s acting as if we’ve lost, he decided. And we haven’t. At least not yet. But we will if this malaise takes hold.

He nodded to the guards before the Inner Sanctum, and entered. Within, as the heavy door swung shut behind, he halted, shocked and surprised. The room was completely empty. By the gods – surely not Shalmanat as well?

Then he mentally shook himself and walked on towards the chamber’s centre. No, of course not. He was simply used to finding her here, if she was not out walking the private grounds. Before coming here he’d made certain she was not in the gardens, nor in her private apartments. Where else then could she be?

He reached the simple seat of power at the exact centre of the domed chamber – the camp stool of worn leather and wood – and stood peering down at it, a hand at his chin. Worry touched him then. The ruler of a city at siege, seemingly gone missing . . .