Suriax (13 page)

“Hey, got mine.” Another man walked up from
the back of the alley and tossed down a woman bound in rope. She
was half unconscious and had burns on her arms. “Nice,” he leered
at the girl the first man held. The girl shuddered. “Mind if I have
a go?”

“This one’s mine,” the man answered. “At
least until I’m done with her. Then I don’t care what you do with
her.”

Kern assessed the situation. There were two
targets, one standing alone and one holding a potential hostage.
The latter would need to go first. There wasn’t enough cover
between them for him to sneak up unseen. Picking up a medium sized
rock he took aim and hummed it at the man’s head. He went out like
a torch. Instead of running away as he hoped, the girl tripped over
the man’s prone body and fell to the ground. Kern ducked to avoid a
fireball shot past his head. Thanks to this new Suriaxian gift, he
would have to treat all his fights like he was facing a mage . . .
who could throw a punch, he amended when the man followed up the
fireball with his fist. Kern reached for his blade and remembered
belatedly it was peace knotted. Alerian law specified all blades
over twelve inches must be secured to one’s person to avoid ease of
access. The few seconds he spent reaching for a blade he could not
draw found him on the ground nursing a sore jaw.

The man took out his own unsecured sword and
took a swing at Kern. Kern jumped out of the way and pulled out a
small utility kukri he kept for just such situations. Fighting a
sword with a kukri was not ideal, but it gave him a weapon, and
until he could loose his own sword, it was his only good option. He
danced around the longer blade, attempting to find an opening he
could exploit. The blade came down. Kern blocked with the kukri,
grabbing the man’s arm to dissipate some of the force, and pushed
back, slashing across his abdomen. The man pulled back and grabbed
his side. With rage in his eyes, he ran at Kern, his sword coming
down with enough force to cleave a man in two. Kern dodged and
struck out with the kukri. A thin ribbon of red blossomed into a
dripping waterfall of blood on the man’s throat. He reached up to
stop the bleeding, dropping his sword in the process, but it was
too late. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

Kern took a couple of deep breaths and pulled
out a rag to wipe the blood from his blade. That could have gone
better, but he was alive, and the two women were alive and
unmolested. He looked to the young girl and paused. She stared,
unblinking, at the man’s dead body. He recognized her expression as
one of shock and horror. Her eyes followed the gathering pool of
blood. “It’s okay,” he tried to comfort her. “He can’t hurt you,
now.” She pulled back from his outstretched hand and sat hugging
herself, shaking.

The other man moaned, eliciting a shriek from
the girl. Kern kicked him back to sleep and continued to watch the
girl, baffled by her reaction. It was as though she never saw a
dead body before. Then it hit him. They were in Aleria. It was
entirely possible this was the first dead body she ever saw.

Kern tried to remember the first dead body he
saw. It was difficult to sort through them all. The early days of
Suriax were bloody, people going wild with the freedom to kill
before retribution killings brought everything back down to more
moderate levels. Frex tried to protect him at first, but that was
quickly revealed as impossible. He remembered being fascinated. One
minute a man could be walking down the street. The next, they were
dead, being carried away to bury or burn. He tried to remember how
he felt, but he was far removed from that innocent boy.

“Put down the weapon.”

Kern stifled a groan and complied. A soldier
dressed in Alerian colors walked over carefully, looking at the two
men on the ground and the two injured and frightened women. Other
soldiers followed and began tending to the women. He thought they
would arrest him, especially when they learned he was Suriaxian,
but the girl, through a series of disjointed sentences and
incoherent mumbles, filled them in on what happened. And once the
other woman was healed enough to talk, she confirmed what she
could. Thanking him for his help, but still looking at him with a
fair amount of distrust, they let him go. He considered continuing
his patrol, but the way the guards watched him leave killed that
idea. If he stayed out, they would be watching him as much as
anyone else. He would be a distraction, not a help. Feeling more
lost than ever, he returned to the palace.

* * *

Lynnalin groaned and tried to move.
Everything was dark. A massive weight on her chest made it
difficult to breath. She coughed, but even that was painful.
“There’s someone over here,” she heard a voice say over the ringing
in her ears. The weight shifted, an elf and two dwarves were
lifting something large off her. She blinked against the light and
blood in her eyes. She realized belatedly the elven man was talking
to her, but she couldn’t focus on his words. He helped her sit up
and pressed a glass of water to her lips. “How are you feeling?”
the man she finally recognized as the fighter Zanden asked.

Before she could respond, he was called over
to the opposite side of the room. One of the dwarves held on to an
adolescent marenpaie hound barking at a pile of rubble. Several men
grabbed a side of one of the larger pieces and lifted, but the
movement sent other pieces shifting. A man screamed in panic.
“Don’t, it’s falling.”

Lynnalin pushed herself up and hobbled over,
making her way through the crowd. People were yelling suggestions
of what to do. No one paid her much attention. Gathering her focus,
she reached out a hand. “Leviedine.” The rubble lifted into the
air. While the others pulled the man out, she looked around. They
were in the lobby of the stadium, but it was barely recognizable as
such. Small fires burned. The spiral staircase that led to the
balconies was broken in two spots, the gaps charred black. Pieces
of the ceiling were missing. She could see smoke and shadows on the
levels above. Distant voices and screams of pain confirmed the
other rooms and sections of the building were in similar shape.
Purses and other personal affects were left abandoned on the floor,
coins and jewelry ignored as people walked over them to get to the
bleeding and dying. Bodies were everywhere. She wondered where all
the healers were. From the rays of sunlight pouring in through the
front door, she could see it was day, which meant many hours had
passed since the fire rained from the sky last night. She walked to
the door and saw why the clerics weren’t there. The chaos was not
restricted to the stadium. Destruction reined as far as she could
see. Charred remains littered the ground. Bodies of those
unfortunate enough to get caught in the stampede of those leaving
the stadium were crushed, piled two high in some spots in a path
from the building. A pool of blood five feet wide by ten feet long
gathered at the foot of the steps. The sky was gray with smoke. Ash
filled the air, blown around with every stray breeze.

‘“Do you have any healing potions?” one of
the dwarves asked.

Lynnalin reached absentmindedly into her
pocket and pulled back sharply, her hand covered in blood. “Damn, I
did, but they all broke.” Carefully, she picked out a shard of
glass from one of her cuts. The dwarf nodded and returned to his
work.

“Hey, can you do that levitation spell
again?” Zanden asked.

“Sure,” Lynnalin turned from the door and
joined the others, helping them free people the hound sniffed out
of the rubble.

“Ok,” one of the dwarves said. “This next one
is going to be a little tricky.” The stadium tree had many interior
rooms on the first level. While most of the rooms on the upper
levels had some kind of balcony access, there were quite a few
first level rooms with only one entry point. One such room opened
to the lobby and was currently blocked by the missing portions of
the staircase and some other debris. A flash of light shone through
the cracks. “Hey, kid,” the dwarf yelled. “I already told you to
cut it out with the fire. We’re going to get you out of there.” He
turned and spoke to them. “Stupid kid is going to make the whole
room collapse around him if he doesn’t stop. And he better not have
melted any of the money or burnt any of the bet vouchers, or I’ll
rip off his head and feed it to the hounds,” he grumbled.

She must have made a face, because the other
dwarf looked at her and chuckled. “Don’t mind my brother. He’s just
upset because half the people who bet on the fights last night
either ran or got killed.”

“Ten years,” he muttered. “It’ll be another
ten years before I can make back all those bets.”

“My name is Rand,” he continued while his
brother ranted. “That’s my brother, Larn.”

“Lynnalin,” she shook his hand. With her
spells and their brawn, it didn’t take long to make an opening they
could use. Larn was the first to go in

He disappeared into the darkness. All was
quiet at first. Then he gave a curse and a fireball came flying out
the door. She dodged to the side and lost her footing, falling over
a twisted tree root in the floor. Larn came out carrying the boy by
the back of his shirt. He dropped him unceremoniously on the floor.
“Will you calm down already before you burn us all to ashes? You
nearly caught my beard on fire.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .” the
boy blubbered. “I can’t control it.” His eyes widened in panic as
his hands erupted in fire. He began waving them frantically,
throwing off another fireball in the process.

Lynnalin looked down at her own hands. She
remembered people being struck down by blue fire from the sky the
previous night. She remembered trying to find a way out of the
stadium. Everything was a little cloudy after that. “We can all do
it,” Zanden confirmed. “Or at least, all Suriaxians. Tourists
weren’t affected.” He motioned over to a group of people huddling
by a wall. The women were crying and shaking. The men stared
forward with blank, haunted expressions.

“What happened?” She stood and dusted off her
pants.

“No one knows,” Rand answered. “The
prevailing theory is that someone made a bargain with
Venerith.”

“Well,” Larn interrupted, “We’ve done about
as much as we can here. Let’s move on to the next level. There are
still plenty of people trapped and hiding.”

“Are things this bad everywhere in the city?”
Lynnalin asked.

“For the most part,” Rand confirmed. “I went
out earlier to get the hound to sniff out people in the rubble. It
took me the entire morning to get to the stables and back.” That
was twice the time it should have taken. The stables were a fair
distance away, but they were a relatively straight shot.

She looked at the sun dropping in the sky and
did some quick calculations. “I have to go. I have some friends I
want to check on, and I’ll need to leave now if I hope to make it
before dark.”

Rand handed the hound’s leash to his brother.
“I’ll go with you.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“You haven’t seen what it’s like out
there.”

“I can take care of myself,” she argued.”

“Look, you’re fourth decade, right?” he
asked, indicating her burgundy cloak, standard issue for students
entering their final decade of study.

Lynnalin nodded. A mage in Suriax went
through twenty years of basic magic classes followed by another
thirty years of advanced studies. Suriaxians took their education
seriously. All children were sent to early learning academies at
the age of fifteen. It was there they were administered a series of
aptitude tests to determine their ideal placement in specialized
academies. Of course the ultimate choice of which school to attend
was left up to the families. Suriaxians were strong believers in a
person’s ability to succeed out of sheer willpower and would never
underestimate someone who chose to attempt a vocation the tests
showed a low aptitude for. Because of this focus on willpower and a
drive to succeed, their schools were some of the best on the entire
continent. Everyone knew it and praised Suriax for its skilled
craftsmen, but you would not find many from outside the city in
attendance. Suriaxians were highly competitive and ruthless. It was
not uncommon for the top ranks of the class to not live to
graduation. Eliminating the competition was something all
Suriaxians excelled at. Although cheating was a punishable offense,
it was more out of an effort to teach the students the benefits of
not getting caught than out of any moral imperative. In Suriax you
were taught it was not enough to be smart. You must also survive. A
wise student learned to sit somewhere just behind the leaders
instead of sticking out as the best. Lynnalin was fifth in her
class.”

“Have you ever been in a war?” She shook her
head. “Well, that’s what it’s like out there. It’s a war zone.
Imagine a class full of first year mage students given access to
your kind of power.” She shuddered. “Exactly.”

Now she was even more worried about Bryce and
Marcy. While Suriaxians could be ruthless and heartless in the
pursuit of their goals, they were fiercely loyal to those they
called friend. Lynnalin headed for the door, Rand behind her. The
smell of death and decay were stronger now that the corpses had
been lying in the sun all day. Men clothed in cloaks with collars
made of feathers and masks in the shape of birds, huddled in small
groups over the bodies. They wore armor and jewelry made of bones
and their legs were bound by strips of leather, invoking the
appearance of bird legs. While most of their bone apparel was clean
and white, there were a few sporting newer bones still covered in
bits of bloody flesh. Silently, they ripped off pieces of meat from
the bodies, eating it raw. Almost as one, they looked up at her as
she approached, but after a few jerky head movements eerily
reminiscent of the avians they dressed as, they paid her no further
attention. Holding her cloak up and to the side, she slid down the
banister to the ground. Rand walked down the steps, pushing bodies
out of his way with his foot. He gave the bird men a wide berth.
“Damned birds give me the creeps,” he muttered once they were out
of earshot.