North Star Guide Me Home (43 page)

Isidro,
the glowing writing said.
I have news. Meet me in the northwest tower. Come quickly. I’ll explain everything, I promise.

On the other leaf, a swelling design was slowly growing from a point in the lower corner, a creeping vine populated by birds and insects with brightly glowing wings. He’d seen its like before, a year ago in the frozen depths of Demon’s Spire. This was no forgery, he was sure of it.

Closing the tablet, he started for the door, but before he’d taken more than a few strides, there came a rustle of fabric behind him. ‘Issey?’ Sierra said. ‘Where are you going?’

He paused and turned, holding up the tablet. ‘Nirveli,’ he said, ‘she wants to meet.’

Sierra pursed her lips with a hiss. ‘Don’t go alone,’ she said. ‘Take … take Rasten with you. Or someone.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll take guards, but Rasten stays with you. If there’s any sign of danger, I’ll pull back, I swear.’

It was later than he’d realised — in the main chamber everyone was present, sitting down to the evening meal. Cam looked up at him and stood when Sierra emerged from the bedchamber at his heels, trailing one hand along the wall for support. ‘Ah, you’re awake. But Sirri, you shouldn’t be up. I’ll bring you some food, and Issey, we kept some back for you, too.’

‘I’ll have it later,’ Isidro said. ‘Something’s come up, Cam.’ He handed him Nirveli’s tablet, and turned towards the door. ‘Sirri will fill you in.’

With ten guardsmen for an escort, Isidro headed for the tower. He left four men at the base of it, and with the others at his heels and a dim mage-light clutched in his false hand, started up the stairs, keeping his power ready.

He could feel something up ahead, a gentle throb of power, soft and warm like the glow of a candle, but they climbed two flights of steps before he saw her — a slender figure wrapped in a heavy fur with the hood drawn over her face. With a swift step to the side Isidro put his back to the wall while the guardsmen fanned out around him, and the figure raised a hesitant hand to sweep the hood back.

The face she revealed was familiar — he’d seen her last in Demon’s Spire, but not in the wall of polished stone. Isidro hadn’t known what to expect, but he knew full well it wouldn’t be the face he’d seen drawn in light upon that wall. Nirveli’s body was long gone, a hundred years dead and buried.

The face he saw was that of Delphine’s older student, Fontaine, with pale skin and wide-set eyes, and long dark hair bound in braids. But then she cocked her head to one side and regarded him in a way Fontaine never had.

‘I’d have told you to come alone,’ she said, ‘but I knew you wouldn’t listen. I’m sorry about this, Isidro.’

There was something odd about her words — it took him a moment to work out that she’d spoken in Akharian — and by then she was already moving, raising her hand as though to toss something to him.

Isidro snapped up his shield: a wall of dead black nothingness mingled with a sooty red. He’d been working on shields ever since he regained his senses, but it seemed that nothing he could do could turn it translucent as Sierra and Rasten could. He felt rather than saw her small missile strike against it.

It was no bigger around than the tip of his finger, but to his senses it felt as big as a boulder, there was so much power bound up within it. There was no time to react, no time to do anything, but send all his power into the shield.

The blast was immense. It hit with a noise like thunder and a flash as bright as the sun. His shield was torn away, ripped to shreds and scattered, and as the blast tore through him, his wits and power both went the same way — swept away in a sudden icy gale. Isidro felt himself crumple, but his wits were flown and his mind shut down before he hit the floor.

Getting up had been a mistake. Sierra felt weak and shaky, her legs not quite up to bearing her weight. The effort of explaining the tablet was enough to leave her breathless and light-headed.

Cam could read it in her face. Rasten, too. They both moved towards her, but when Cam turned to Rasten with a warning glare, the other man fell back.

‘Sirri, you need to lie down.’

She didn’t have the breath to argue. He pulled her arm across his shoulders and steered her back towards the bedchamber. ‘I hate this,’ she rasped.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘but there’s nothing you can do except rest and heal. Are you hungry? I’ll come and eat with you, if you want company.’

He was so warm against her … she thought of Isidro, and how soothing it had felt to have him beside her. She thought she’d grown used to sleeping alone, but perhaps she’d just convinced herself of that to lessen the sting of loneliness. ‘I … I’d like that,’ she said. ‘At least until Issey gets back. I know you have a lot to do.’

‘Perhaps, but none of it more important than you, Sirri.’

They were halfway to her bed when there came a sudden sharp pain between her ribs. With a grunt Sierra faltered and pressed a hand to her chest … the pain originated a few inches to the right of the wound above her breast.

With a muttered curse, Cam wrapped his arms around her to keep her upright. ‘What’s wrong?’ He lifted his head. ‘Rasten! Here! Now!’

He slammed the chamber door open just as another searing shaft of pain struck her — to the left, this time. Her legs buckled, but the first strike was fading already, dissipating through her with a warm, golden glow. She tried to speak, but there was no breath in her lungs.

Rasten took her head in his hands, peering at her face. Then he pressed a hand to her chest as the second shaft of pain mellowed to a somnolent warmth. ‘Where?’

‘The outer doors. Two men struck.’ She twisted around to meet Cam’s gaze. ‘We’re under attack.’

Cam started to speak, but a double pain at the back of her skull meant that Sierra never heard his words. She felt the
crunch
of a poniard punching through bone. A familiar sensation as Rasten had used that method in the past to swiftly finish a sacrifice that fed her too much power. The warmth spreading through her chest swiftly died away.

Rasten was already heading back to the other chamber. Cam swung her towards the nearest bed and ducked out from under her arm. ‘Stay here.’

She couldn’t, not if there was fighting. He ran for the door as well, and Sierra started after him. That brief trickle of power left her legs feeling more steady, but only by a little.

When Cam saw her following, he turned back with a scowl. ‘Sirri —’

Power pulsed around them, and in the same heartbeat, there came a massive blast from the outer chamber, a roar of shattered stone, making the floor tremble beneath them.

First came pain in a wracking wave, but somehow she kept her feet. She knew what would come next, she just had to hold out … and then it came, a great surge of power washing over her in a rising tide. It strengthened her legs and her back, quenched the ache in her chest, and filled her head with a golden song. She straightened and strode forward, catching Cam by the arm. ‘Stay back.’

‘No! Sirri, by the Black Sun, you’re wounded —’

Through the wall came the shouts and cries of wounded men. In the outer chamber everyone was on their feet and backing away from the doors, their eyes wide in fright. Delphine had caught Mira and Anoa by the arms, holding them close. Ardamon had his sword in his hand, and Rasten strode past everyone, heading for the doors. The dogs were already there, hackles up and barking.

With another pulse of power the mage-lights winked out, and Sierra cast a shield, covering herself and Cam. Delphine did the same, covering the women with a veil of violet light, and Rasten echoed it with his own cloak of flame.

The end of the chamber exploded in a hail of rubble and a rolling cloud of dust, lit up by the glow of the shields.

At first, all she could see was faint movement in the cloud of dust. The dogs, knocked down by the blast, rolled to their feet and leapt into the haze, ears flat and teeth bared, but even over the ringing in her ears, she heard the heavy
twang
of crossbows and saw the hounds fall, snarls mingled with yelps of pain, blood bright against their white fur.

Sierra gathered her power, still flowing from the wounded men in the hall beyond. Not much, by her standards. Not enough. She couldn’t strike until she saw them, and she didn’t have any power to waste. Every blow had to count.

Before the cloud cleared enough to let her see, dozens of tiny stones rained out of the haze, falling like hail. As they struck the floor around her feet, the world exploded in whiteness and silence.

Hands.

There were many hands on him, pulling him this way and that, holding him face down and pressing something cold, hard and biting against his skin.

It seemed his body had awoken before his mind, because Isidro could feel himself struggling long before his wits recovered. By then, someone had knelt on his shoulders to keep him down and their weight drove the breath from him.

They were talking. He heard voices distantly droning even before he grew sensible enough to pick out their words.

‘I still say we should cut the thing off.’

‘Then what do we tie his good hand to?’

‘He could have anything hidden in there.’

‘But it won’t do him any good.’

They were binding his hands behind his back. Isidro tried to jerk away, but there were too many of them, and the ropes were already looped.

Stop,
he told himself.
Think.
He reached for his power … but there was nothing there, and the effort made iron bands tighten around his ribs with a biting chill.

He reached for Sierra, but that was the same. He felt like he was back in the dampening room in Demon’s Spire.

They finished tying his hands, and the man kneeling across his shoulders shifted, letting Isidro breathe again, drawing deep, thirsty gulps of air.

‘Any word from the others?’

‘They’re in, sir. It’s gone according to plan, and they’re at a standoff. Not ideal, but as expected.’

‘So it worked.’ The third was Fontaine’s voice. Not Nirveli’s; it couldn’t be her. Nirveli hated the Akharians, she’d never aid them. ‘What did I tell you? Didn’t I say he’d fall for it?’

The men standing over him ignored her. ‘Get him on his feet, let’s go and tip the balance.’

Isidro began to shiver as they hauled him up. They’d stripped him to the waist and then fitted him with some kind of harness that pressed dozens of stones against his skin. Warding stones — he knew them by their cold, greasy touch, as heavy as lead. They were as powerful as the ones Kell had used to leash Sierra.

As they hauled him up, he found an unfamiliar Akharian gazing at him, with Fontaine at his side.

‘You see,’ she said to the man with a smirk. ‘I told you it’d work.’

‘Save your gloating,’ the fellow growled. ‘There’s a cursed long way to go yet.’ He was tall and heavy-set, with the close-cropped hair the Akharian military favoured. ‘All solid?’ the man said.

‘Seems so, sir,’ one of the others replied. ‘He was testing it before, but he’s quiet now.’

‘Good.’ His gaze roved over Isidro. ‘Get him moving.’

The first sign of what had happened around the royal quarters was the smell. The iron tang of blood hung thick in the air, along with the hot-metal reek of offensive mage-craft and the thunderstorm-scent of Sierra’s power.

The stout outer door lay torn and splintered in the hall. The air was choked with a thick haze of dust, and the attacker’s lanterns, sending orange shafts through the gloom, revealed a scene that made Isidro’s stomach clench.

The wall of the outer chamber had been blasted away, strewing the room with rubble. In the guardroom, a handful of guards lay in a spreading pool of blood: some battered and crushed by rubble, some skewered by crossbow bolts, all with their throats cut. Those still living, perhaps a dozen, had been pushed back against the wall, while mages and men with crossbows stood over them. As Isidro was brought in, he felt their eyes upon him.

Voices speaking in Akharian drifted through from the chamber beyond. As he was marched through the rubble, the first he saw was Sierra, wreathed in power with three mages stationed around her with shields raised. Two more held Cam on his knees, one twisting his arms behind his back, the other with a knife to his throat. Two men with crossbows stood over Mira, while two more mages had Delphine pinned under a shield.

Another scant handful of mages surrounded Rasten, who was leaning nonchalantly against a wall with his thumbs hooked into his belt. As he and his captors entered, Isidro felt Rasten’s gaze rove over them. ‘So, your emperor wants a pet Blood-Mage,’ Rasten was saying to one of the Akharians. ‘What’s in it for me?’

The fellow he was talking to seemed on edge and Isidro saw relief in his eyes when he turned to the newcomers. ‘Commander Pelloras.’

‘I’ll take it from here, Kasurian.’ Pelloras nodded to the men flanking Isidro, and one of them kicked the backs of his knees, forcing his legs to fold.

Pelloras slowly surveyed the scene, silent except for the crackle of Sierra’s lightning. At last, his gaze settled on Rasten. ‘Lord Rasten, I’ve heard a great deal about you. It’s good to meet in person, at last.’

Rasten blinked at him, as slow and indifferent as a cat. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am General Pelloras, and I’m here to make you an offer on the emperor’s behalf.’

‘Your lapdog already made that offer. I’ll say it again, southerner, what’s in it for me?’

Isidro couldn’t see Pelloras’ face, but the man rocked back on his heels as he looked Rasten over. ‘Some might say your life is payment enough.’

Rasten barked a laugh. ‘You think you can kill me? I could give my aid to this lot,’ he nodded to the tableau of Sierra and Cam, ‘and it might tip the balance in their favour.’

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’

‘But do you want to test it? Either way, it’ll come at a high cost. I’ve fought this girl before, general. Do you want to see how much power she has when the dying really starts?’

‘I would prefer to keep this clean, if possible,’ Pelloras said.

‘Ah, but where’s the fun in that? You’re boring me, Pelloras. I’ll ask you one last time. What’s in it for me?’

‘I can tell you what the emperor has authorised me to offer: in return for teaching us everything you know, you’ll be granted full immunity so long as you remain in the emperor’s service. You’ll be provided with an estate on the outskirts of Akhara, and a residence in the city itself, both fully staffed and serviced and with a generous stipend as well. And, given your particular talents, we are prepared to supply you with a minimum of two hundred bodies a year.’

‘Bodies? Live ones, I hope.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And they’ll be, what? Political prisoners? Folk your emperor wants to disappear? Fat old men and scrawny clerks with worn-out slaves bought cheap to make up the numbers?’

‘Naturally, enemies of the state and other undesirables will make up some of the quota, but I’m willing to stipulate that a certain proportion of the subjects be healthy specimens within a particular range of age. What do you prefer, Lord Rasten? Men, women, children?’

A twitch of disgust crossed Rasten’s face. ‘No children. They’re not worth the trouble, takes just as long to set everything up, and they die in half the time.’

‘As you wish. Men and women then. Lord Rasten, perhaps you would be willing to finalise these negotiations later, once the essential matters are dealt with.’

Rasten glanced around the room, his gaze sweeping over Sierra and Cam, over Isidro on his knees, over Delphine and Mira. Where were the others? Where were Ardamon and Anoa, Rhia and Amaya? The babes were still here — he could hear a muffled cry from the other chamber.