The Arcanist (57 page)

Then it was finally time to turn to the hostages.

There were more of them than he'd realised. Four were seated in the chairs reserved for the court. But another half dozen were seated on the floor behind them, hooded and bound the same way.

Edouard started with the ones in the chairs, pulling the hoods off the first couple of them. And then he stopped dead in shock. Again.

“Seven hells!”

He couldn't believe it as he stood there staring at one of King Byron's sons and the treasurer. Both of them were alive when it had been assumed that they had been killed at the same time as the king. Simon himself had said that they were dead – or was it Vesar? He couldn't remember. That night seemed so long ago. And then he pulled the hoods off the next two and found himself staring at the king's other son as well.

“By the Seven! Prince Edmond! Prince Drake!”

Both sons were alive. Edouard couldn't believe it! No one would believe it. They were thinner and showed signs of having suffered some abuse. Perhaps they'd been beaten, he couldn't be sure. They had gags in their mouths and they were bound. But they were alive when they were supposed to be dead.

Edouard quickly set about freeing them, pulling out his knife and cutting the ropes that bound their wrists, and then freeing the other two as well. After that he set to work freeing the ones on the floor, wondering who else he might find.

All of them turned out to be senior members of the court. Lords and Counts. Those who had once ruled the city and the realm before everything had gone wrong. All save one as he discovered when he pulled her hood off.

“Kyriel!”

He called out her name in surprise when he saw her. She was alive too, and just when he'd been beginning to lose hope. He couldn't believe it. He didn't understand why she was sitting among the rest of the court as if she was one of them either. Nor why she was dressed not as a handmaiden but rather as some sort of warrior woman. Or for that matter why the court was here at all. Why weren't they locked up with all the others? Why in fact weren't they dead as they were supposed to be? He didn't understand any of it.

“Lord Edouard, it is good to see you again.”

Kyriel greeted him formally as if this was simply a typical meeting between peers. She appeared to have a remarkable ability to ignore the fact that she had just had her hands freed and a gag pulled out of her mouth. And that she was sitting on the floor and her feet were still bound. Even that there had just been a gun battle in the room. How calm could she be? But then she wrinkled up her nose a little. “It's not so good to smell you though!”

For a moment Edouard almost didn't believe he'd heard her say that. It seemed crazed. But then he realised she had. And he had to admit that he did smell somewhat ripe after wandering through the sewers for days.

“I'm sorry. I've been wandering through the sewers for three or four days.” Edouard didn't want to apologise, even though he knew he smelled rank. But it was only polite. Even under these conditions. Maybe he thought he'd spent too long being schooled in his manners.

“Searching for us?”

“Searching for Vesar.” He corrected her, not wanting to admit that the initial reason he had come into the city in the first place was to find her. “I was planning on killing him. Everyone thinks you and the princes are dead.”

“Oh!” She looked disappointed.

Edouard secretly hoped that that was a further sign of her feelings toward him and cursed himself for being less than truthful. Why was he such a coward when it came to these sorts of things?

Kyriel's expression grew hard. “We would be dead save that Vesar was intending to use all of us as hostages should the war be lost. We were to be his pass to freedom. I'm pleased that that bargaining chip has gone.”

“So am I!” Prince Edmond suddenly spoke up. He was the elder of the two sons and if they won the war, the next king. Just then he didn't sound very royal though. He sounded both angry and frightened. “That foul creature cannot profit from his crimes. We have to get out of here.”

“Of course Your Majesty.”

Edouard bowed, knowing that it was a royal command he had just been given even if no one had officially recognised the prince as king yet. “I'll bring you to safety right away.”

Edouard knew his duty, and rescuing the princes, especially now that one of them would be king, had to come before anything else. “If you'll grab the weapons from those soldiers we’ll be off.”

With that he headed back to the door and cautiously poked his head out of it to see if any more soldiers had shown up. They hadn't suggesting that he had been right in thinking that the castle was deserted, but he still tossed a couple of fireballs around just to make sure. After that it was simply a matter of retracing his steps to the barracks and the dungeon with the others following him at a discreet distance.

No one said anything as they travelled through the castle. Not even when they passed the field of heads on poles. They all knew that silence was their friend. But Edouard could only imagine the anger that must be flowing through them as they saw the heads of their friends and maybe even their loved ones sticking on poles. More so than even he had felt. He had always stayed out of the court. He barely knew most of the dead.

After that came the long, slow trudge through the sewers where at least they could talk more freely. But most of that conversation was Edouard's as he told them what had been happening in the wider world while they'd been locked away. The conversation on their part by contrast centred around the smell of the sewer and the precise nature of just what they were wading through. None of these people had ever been in a sewer before. After three or four days of wandering through them however, Edouard was almost inured to it. He barely even noticed the stench.

Eventually they reached the outflow and the conversation came to an end. It was time for the prisoners to finally be free. And they were all in a hurry. All save Edouard that was. He still had a task to complete. A Cabal wizard to kill. And so he explained that to them as they prepared to dive under the foetid water and swim into the arms of the waiting soldiers. There no doubt, the princes would create quite a stir. Their survival might also encourage the soldiers. Marcus was always talking about how important it was that the soldiers be encouraged.

“There really is something wrong with you Lord Edouard, isn't there?” Kyriel rounded on Edouard unexpectedly as he was helping the first of them to dive under the water. “You are absolutely opposed to the idea of living through this war, aren't you?”

“What –?!” Edouard spluttered helplessly as he tried to think of something to say. Nothing came though.

“Is it a moral position or have you simply been hit on the head once too often?”

Edouard tried to answer her, but his mouth just opened and closed as he couldn't think of anything to say. But it did seem a bitterly unfair thing to accuse him of. Besides, he'd rescued her! Surely he deserved just a modicum of respect for that?

“I'm not the idiot who portalled into a ruined shrine in the middle of a city occupied by rock gnomes!” Finally he defended himself, and then hated himself for it.

“It should have been safe! I was just unlucky that the soldiers were so close by.”

“Well it's safe in the encampment. So stick that pretty little head of yours under the water and start swimming.”

“And leave you here on your own to get yourself killed? April would never forgive me!” She snorted at Edouard as if he'd said something completely foolish. “But thank you for the compliment.”

“What?” Edouard was confused. But then he was somewhere beyond tired and his brain wasn't working as it normally did. He wasn't really sure it was working at all.

“I will go with you and I will have your back, but do not imagine that this in any way bodes well for the future.” To prove her words she grabbed a pistol and a musket from the others and then stood there as if she was being forced into something.

“I don't need your help Kyriel. I can kill Vesar on my own.”

“That may be Lord Edouard.” She stared at him evenly, like a school mistress staring at a wayward child. “But I somehow doubt you can find him on your own.” And with that she started marching back down the sewers, obviously expecting him to follow.

Edouard just stood there with the others, wondering what was happening. It seemed that they too had no better understanding than he did of what was happening, judging by the confused looks in their eyes. Several though appeared to be hiding smiles, just as they dove beneath the water and swam to freedom. They were laughing at him! And maybe they were right to he decided as the last one disappeared from his sight only to reappear a few seconds later in the river beyond. What sort of a man had to follow a woman into battle?

Yet that was exactly what he had to do he knew as he hurried after her, splashing the foul water in all directions. He was a lord, a technologist and a man gifted with a spark of magic. He was a man by the Seven! Yet here he was hurrying into battle after a woman. It just didn't seem right.

Kyriel didn't care though!

Chapter Fifty Eight

Brook Street. It had been a long time since Edouard had last been there. Mostly when he had need of the services of the upholsterers or the furniture makers who called the street home, he had a servant act as his intermediary for him. Especially when it came to visiting tanneries. They tended to smell somewhat rank. Actually, between the sickening smell of rotting flesh scraped off the inside of the hides and the pungent odour of the chemicals they used to harden the leather and dye it, the smell was enough to make a man sick.

Nevertheless that was where Kyriel had led him, via a somewhat circuitous route through the sewers. And now, directly opposite them was the Brook Street Tannery. It was there according to Simon where Vesar had had his secret temple. Or beneath it actually. And it was there that Kyriel claimed Vesar would be.

It didn't look much like a place where an enemy commander or black priest would be found. It wasn't a castle or a fort. And if it was truly a temple of some sort there was little evidence of it. Instead it was just a big wooden building. Little more than a smelly warehouse with a scrub filled front yard. Most of the buildings in this part of the city were the same. Built quickly and without care, then left to slowly rot as their maintenance was forgotten.

This was the cheaper industrial sector of Theria. It was where the less glamorous trades were carried out. Fat rendering to make soap. Wool scouring. Skinning and paint making. The cheaper carpentry workshops and metal shops could be found in these streets. And of course there were warehouses almost without end. If a trade was messy, smelly or otherwise offensive, then this was where the Court would dictate that it had to be located. As far away from the more affluent parts of the city as possible. Far from where the nobility would be found.

But what the place looked like or smelled like didn’t matter. Edouard only cared that this was apparently the end of their quest. He also cared that he didn't understand how it could be.

“The tannery? Why would Vesar be in there? Simon said his people had destroyed it.” Yet still he was staring at the old building from the warehouse across the way because this was where she claimed the Cabal wizard would be.

“How should I know why?” Kyriel shrugged. “All I know is that Vesar mentioned it several times while we were locked away, and he's spent most of every day here.”

“He spoke of this in front of you? Doesn't that seem a little too convenient?” Cold chills ran down Edouard’s spine at the implication. Kyriel evidently had also thought along similar lines.

“He didn't expect us to live I suppose. He didn't care what we heard. We were only ever a final ace to play.”

Edouard would have said something more but then decided better. Instead he continued to study the tannery, hunting for any sign that it was some sort of military structure or a trap. Or that it had any significance at all. But there was nothing. No soldiers patrolled its grounds. No faces peered out of the cheap glass windows. There was no sign at all that anyone was inside. It looked like what it surely was; abandoned.

Then he tested his magic. Because if there was one thing he was certain of it was that wherever Vesar was he would be surrounded by something to protect him from those with magic. And sure enough, he soon found evidence of that. It wasn't blocking him completely. But it was definitely making it more difficult to cast. That he thought had to count as evidence in favour of her theory – and a problem.

“There's a stone of silence somewhere nearby.” He told her the bad news before she had to find it out the hard way when he was unable to cast a single fireball in battle.

Kyriel shrugged. “It was to be expected,” she nodded, seemingly unconcerned. She should be though. From here on it would have to be swords and pistols.

At least they were armed. Kyriel had helped herself to the weapons from the fallen they'd come across and now had four pistols and a sabre. He guessed she would be extremely good with the latter. She'd also picked up a small cuirass from an armourer’s store. Meanwhile Edouard had grabbed a small keg of black powder from one of the fortified positions. He thought it might come in useful. The three veiled soldiers watching over it had been crouched behind a small nibbed stone wall waiting for Marcus and his army to come riding through. They'd never thought to look behind them.

“So now we cross the road?”

What she really meant Edouard knew, was how did they cross the road? Without being seen? Up until then their entire journey had been safe if smelly. They'd had the sewers to themselves. But now they had to cross a road in broad daylight when just a hundred yards further up they could see a large detachment of veiled soldiers in position behind their barricades. He estimated there were fifty men at least, and any one of them could spot them as they walked across the road to the tannery. All they had to do was look behind them. But they couldn't go through the sewers. There looked to be no sewer entrance into it.

Then things became unexpectedly worse. Edouard had been about to tell her that he had no idea and that they might simply have to run for it and hope, when a new sound intruded on his thoughts – silence. The cannon suddenly stopped firing.

Over the previous days the sounds of the cannon had been an almost continuous thunder as they broke down the walls. He'd grown used to it. So used to the sound that he barely heard it. But he noticed its absence immediately. They both did. And they knew what it meant. The attack was about to start.

That though, after their first few moments of shock, proved useful. Immediately the veiled soldiers heard the silence they formed up. The waiting was over and the battle about to commence. And so the veiled soldiers turned their faces to the distant, broken wall, poked their muskets over the tops of the barricades, and waited. All of their attention was focussed on what was on the other side of the barricades they'd built and what would soon be charging towards them. Not a one of them looked back.

That was their chance.

Edouard looked at Kyriel and the handmaiden in turn looked back at him and then in a moment of shared madness they made a desperate twenty five yard dash across the cobbled street, before finally diving into the tannery yard.

After that, their hearts beating wildly, they peeked back at the soldiers through the hedge they were sheltering behind were relieved to find that none of them were looking back at them. No one was pointing at them. No one was shouting. They'd made it.

No one was staring at them from inside the tannery either. No one was coming for them. No one was shouting. There was only silence. Either they hadn't been seen or it was actually abandoned – just as it appeared to be.

“We have cover all the way to the goods entrance.” With that Kyriel took off, creeping quickly along the path behind the scraggy hedge to the door and forcing Edouard to follow.

When had she become the leader of this raid he grumbled to himself? Why was he suddenly following her? Still, he had no choice but to follow. Calling out to her to stop would only draw attention to them, especially now that the cannon had stopped firing. And he couldn't let her go in alone.

Edouard entered through the huge barn doors and stopped just inside to look around. Kyriel did the same. Neither of them was game to simply go rushing blindly into an enemy lair. Especially when they realised that things weren't as they should be. Even a blind man could have seen that the building was now something other than a tannery. Not only were all the racks of furs and leathers missing and the whole place empty, but someone had placed little piles of metal parts on the floor. Hundreds of them.

Edouard's blood chilled when he saw them, because he knew what they were. Simon's descriptions of the way the wind demon had risen from a pile of parts on the ground was only too vivid in his memories. These were they, just waiting to be raised from the inanimate. He did a quick calculation of their numbers and his blood chilled a little more. The floor was completely covered with them. Fifteen piles ran across the building's width and thirty two piles along its length forming a rectangle of the golems just waiting to be animated. They were looking at nearly five hundred of the demons. Wind demons, war dogs, and others he didn't recognise from the shape of their plates. This was an army ten times the size of the largest one they'd encountered.

Obviously when the typhoon gate had been destroyed this had become Vesar's backup plan. He must have been working on it ever since then. Putting every effort and every artisan he had into constructing them. No wonder he'd been here so often.

“We can't let him raise these demons.” Kyriel whispered at him.

Wordlessly Edouard agreed with her. Killing Vesar was a luxury. A bonus. But above all else they had to stop this army. So he pulled his keg of black powder out from the carry bag and unstoppered it. It was only a thirty pound barrel, but it would have to be enough. Then he started laying down a trail of the powder right through to the centre of the room before placing the keg on it. His thought was that if he could blow the place up, and especially if he could start a fire that would heat and cool the metal plates, the metal would distort at least a little. That might in turn destroy the enchantments. But even if it didn't if he could burn the tannery to the ground then no one would be able to enter it and carry out the enchantments in the first place.

As for Vesar, if he was in here somewhere, then hopefully he would be killed in the explosion. Either then or when the rest of the building collapsed on him.

It only took a minute to get everything ready, and then to carefully walk backwards to the start of the trail and draw his pistol. He didn't know if he could access enough of his magic to light the powder in here, but a spark from the weapon should work just as well.

“This will be quick. We should get back to the door and get ready to run.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                               

“Really.” A man's voice caught him by surprise. A voice he remembered only too well from that terrible night in the throne room. “Why would you want to run?”