The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (41 page)

But he could feel Tiffenal before them, could feel that they were gaining on him, narrowing the gap, and so he made no comment; he wanted revenge almost as much as she did, and he’d be damned if he let his brother slip away unscathed.

They began to pass strange things – huge mushrooms, patches of glowing algae, creatures with empty eye sockets that scurried away from the light. They found pieces of wood in the walls, petrified and hard as the rocks from which they protruded.

Something skittered away across the floor in the dark, and they both turned but saw nothing. Hearts pounding in their throats, they continued on, hugging the center of the path.

They turned another bend and saw before them the remains of what had once been an enormous house. How it had ended up here, Raven could not even guess, but it filled the tunnel from floor to ceiling. Without stopping, Leah ran forward and kicked in the door, which explode under her boot into a million particles of dust. They passed through the house, full of nothing but mounds of dirt and a bed of moss and fungus, and came out the other side to find themselves on the edge of a deep, underground lake. The other side was hidden in shadows, and the water looked black and ominous.

“Where is he?” Leah asked, voice flat and monotone.

“Across somewhere,” Raven said.

Without waiting, Leah stepped forward – and hit the trip wire.

They stood frozen for a moment, both looking down at the gossamer strand of thread that spanned the door, and then they heard something behind them, something falling in the upper levels of the house, followed by the smell of smoke.

Flames burst into life all around them, and without time to think, they ran from the raging inferno behind them straight into the underground lake ahead.

As they crashed into the water, Raven felt every inch of his skin seize up and bunch into little balls – the cold was so intense that it was like a physical force, as if someone had simultaneously slapped and compressed every part of his body. He could barely breath – the blood that rushed to his head made the world spin – he resurfaced, gasping violently, and turned to look behind him. He was just in time to see the fire rush through the door.

The form of the Exile girl rose in front of him, unaware of what was happening.

“LEAH!”

He took an inhuman leap forward, drawing deeply on the Ox, and reached her just in time to carry them both into the depths.

The cold was so mind-numbing that for a moment he lost all recollection of who and where he was. He felt Leah struggling against him, her slender body twisting and turning, not realizing that he’d pulled her under the water to save her.

He looked up, his eyes burning, barely able to focus, and saw the huge gout of flame go roaring past, lighting up the underwater world in which they had taken refuge, showing swirling weed-like plants and fish darting off, scared by the suddenly light.

He couldn’t hold his breath much longer, and Leah’s struggles were becoming weaker. The cold was creeping into his brain, making him gasp and gag even through his closed mouth – his lungs were on fire, his stomach caving in on itself, trying to force any last bit of breath out of his lungs and into his body – and then the fire was gone.

He kicked for the surface, pulling and dragging Leah along behind him. They burst out of the water, sputtering and shaking. Leah hadn’t been able to take a full breath before Raven had dragged her under, and as they staggered back she began to hack and vomit water.

They made it to the rocky shore, gasping and shivering, coming to rest next to the door. The house was still, remarkably, intact, and Raven supposed briefly it was because the wood had turned to stone long ago. The fire had been a Bloodmagic trap – Tiffenal had brought Mages with him, at least initially.

He turned to Leah and saw that she had caught her breath and was staring out across the lake, eyes flickering back and forth, scanning for danger.

“He wants us to follow him,” Raven said through chattering teeth.

“Then let’s oblige,” Leah growled. She strode forward, took a few quick, fortifying breaths, then dove forward into the waters of the lake and began to swim with powerful strokes toward what Raven hoped was a distant shore.

He hesitated a brief second before following. Maybe it was the cold water that had finally brought him back to his senses, or maybe this whole time he’d slowly been realizing that something was wrong. But some sixth sense, some part of him that knew his brother just a little too well, was telling him that anywhere the Fox wanted them to go was not a place that they wanted to be.

The water grew even colder as they continued on, and soon they began to see ice floating around them. Leah swam forward, powering through it, driven by rage, and Raven followed using the strength of Tomaz and the Ox Talisman to keep up with her Spellblade-enhanced strokes.

How much longer will it last?

And then the other shore was in sight. Wearily, they pulled themselves the rest of the way forward and climbed up onto the stony shore next to a small boat that bobbed nearby. A cold wind was rushing in over them, though thin and distant, coming from the tunnel ahead.

Are we all the way through to the other side?

Leah must have had the same thought – she ran forward, ignoring the cold, and blindly turned the corner ahead. Raven cursed and followed, and they found themselves at the exit to the long tunnel, lit with more flaming torches.

He’s congratulating us for getting this far.

They rounded the last corner and found themselves looking out into the heart of a blizzard. The storm had built since they had entered the tunnel, and it was absolutely savage now.

“Which way did he go?” Leah cried over the howling wind.

“That way!” Raven pointed, into the blizzard.

They strode forward – and then a dagger flew through the dark and cut a line of fire across Raven’s cheek.

“ARGH!” He cried out in both fear and pain, and stumbled backward. He dropped to one knee and Leah rolled, taking cover.

A shape flew over them, and then two short, thin swords, glowing gold in the light of the flickering tunnel torches, lanced out at him.

Raven rolled to the side, desperate, only just evading the strike, and then he heard an insane laugh fill the air, and knew it was his brother. Leah raced forward and raked her daggers toward Tiffenal, but she was too late and the Fox had already dodged away. She cursed and spun after him. He laughed and jumped back, just out of her reach.

Leah lunged again and caught the Fox’s cloak with her dagger, but as she did Tiffenal spun, and the luck of his Talisman kicked in; Leah took one step in the wrong direction and Tiffenal’s elbow crashed into her chest. All of the air rushed out of her lungs and she crumpled to her knees, gasping and heaving. Tiffenal laughed, a high and howling keen, and skewered a sword through her side.

“NO!”

Tiffenal ignored him, and ripped a claw-like hand up the front of her black Midwinter dress, tearing the fabric and scrapping away skin before connecting with her jaw and knocking back her head in a wicked jerk. She fell to the snow-covered ground and didn’t move.

Raven ran forward, seeing his brother through a red haze of hatred; but just as he took the first step, his borrowed strength left him. His legs turned to jelly, falling out from under him and depositing him in the deep snow. Fatigue rolled over him; his body was exhausted, tired beyond belief, and he was unable to do anything but breathe, and even that was like trying to move a mountain with his bare hands.

He watched, helpless, as the Fox moved through the falling snow to a horse tied to the entrance to the cave. He realized that the world was somehow brighter – and even with the light and strength of Tomaz’s Talisman gone, he could still see through the flurries of windblown snow … how was that possible?

And then the Fox, riding his horse, came up to him and thrust an arm out, down the mountain, like a conjurer at the end of his act. Raven turned to look where he was pointing, and saw a holocaust before him.

Roarke was burning.

The entire castle and the whole outer ring of buildings were engulfed in flame; it burned furiously, the noise of it so loud it reached them even here on the distant mountainside.

“There is nothing you can take that we cannot take back!” Tiffenal called out over the noise of the inferno and the storm. “There is no move you can make in this game that we can not turn to our advantage. Give up now brother! Your side will lose. Your side
must
lose!”

He held up the dagger, the
sambolin,
he’d taken from Elder Goldwyn, shining its strange opal light even in the gray-orange world of snow and fire. He turned and spurred his horse down the mountainside, tucking the dagger away in a bag at his side.

Raven, his hands and feet freezing in the snow, with no strength left in his body, and no hope left in his heart, could only stare at the distant flames, lost in the inevitability of what he’d always known was coming.

Leah moved, and something rekindled in his battered chest. Bleeding and nearly frozen to death, he crawled toward her, pulled her close, and held her, trying to share his body heat. He pulled her to her feet, ripping off part of his cloak and binding her side, not taking the time to look at the wound, knowing there was nothing he could do now but stop the bleeding as best he could. She was able to stand, though she still clung to him for support.

They began to make their way down the mountain, one grueling step at a time, headed toward the distant glow of the city of Roarke. It would be their only place of refuge – they couldn’t retreat to the cave, where they would freeze to death, if not fall victim to another one of Tiffenal’s traps. No, their only chance was to find people who’d made it out of the fire.

If anyone had.

Soon, Raven could barely feel his feet, and his toes had long since gone numb; for all he knew they were just frostbitten stumps by now. His fingers weren’t responding when he tried to open and close them – they were locked in place around Leah’s shivering body.

“Why didn’t you keep f-f-f-following him?” Leah whispered in his ear as she clung to him, stumbling along with him as best she could. He wondered how bad her wound was – how deep had the blade gone?

“I didn’t have the strength,” Raven said. “The connection to the Ox Talisman broke.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure,” Raven gasped back. “The only thing I can think of is that distance might affect the transfer. I just hope Tomaz is all right…”

“He is,” she said vehemently. “He’s fine.”

Raven looked into her face and saw that she was battling with herself, fighting to keep control, to keep the grief that had settled in her heart like a leaden weight from creeping into her mind and clouding her focus. He took a deep breath and did the same thing inside himself, pushing down his emotions, putting them out of the way.

They doubled their pace down the mountain, nearly breaking their necks more times than they cared to count, goading each other on, pulling each other forward, until finally they found the road – the road that led from the Pass to Roarke. It eased their passage, though they were still moving far too slow.

Leah stopped.

“What is it?” Raven asked quickly.

“My Anchor,” she said, raising a hand to her chest. “My Anchor is gone. It – it must have fallen off somewhere. It’s a rose, with briars around it. Help me look, I have to get it –”

They both turned to look behind them and saw that already their footprints were fading into the snow. The blizzard howled around them, and even with the light of the burning city at their backs, the world seemed no more than a black and gray patchwork of frozen air. There was no way they’d be able to find anything at all.

“It’s gone Leah,” Raven said firmly. “We can’t spend time looking. We have to keep moving – we need to get to the city. It’s our only chance.”

She nodded and tore her eyes away from their backtrail as they continued on again, once more silent.

When they finally reached the city, the fire was so intense that they could feel it from nearly a hundred yards away as it consumed the outer city walls. The stone was still standing, but the wooden top of the gate had burned away and the guard towers had crumbled and left embers along the tops of the walkways, burning away staircases and supports, making the whole huge structure lean and tilt drunkenly; it looked ready to fall at the slightest touch.

“Do you think they made it out?”

“I think Autmaran is still in there,” she said grimly. “If there’s anyone left, he’ll have stayed to help get them out.”

“I don’t know how much help we’ll be,” Raven said. “But if he’s still in there we have to find him – we have to help him and anyone else we can.”

They exchanged a glance, and took deep breaths. She detached herself from him and gave him a stern look.

“Follow me,” she said. “
Exactly
.”

And she was off, moving with speed and grace despite her wound, dodging gouts of flame and falling debris. Raven followed her, stepping exactly where she stepped as flaming embers fell around them. They made it through the gate to find the other side of the wall engulfed in flames as buildings burned inside them.

“Something’s wrong!” Raven said, speaking loudly to be heard over the conflagration. “This fire didn’t start inside the city, it was set along the walls – coming down the mountain it looked like the whole perimeter was on fire!”

“You think Tiffenal set it to burn from the inside out?” Leah asked.

“Those traps in the tunnel were set my Bloodmages,” Raven said. “If he had enough of them with him, he could have positioned them to set the entire perimeter on fire before they retreated north.”

“Then if Autmaran and Scipio are still in control of the city,” Leah said, “they’ll have drawn the people away from the walls – they’ll be closer to the center.”

“Then that’s where we go!”

They turned and started to make their way down the main street of Roarke, passing as quickly as they could past the first ring of burning buildings – burning homes.

Shadows and light,
Raven thought,
how would it feel to see your home burning? How would I feel to lose my cabin in Vale after all the work I put into it?

He was jostled rudely out of his thoughts when he noticed smoke rising from his clothing. He let out a cry of alarm.

“It’s just steam!” Called Leah.

Raven realized she was right; the vapor began to curl up into the air around them, the water from their clothing evaporating and the bits of snow left behind from their long trek melting and running to the floor in puddles. Pins and needles suddenly sprang into life in the tips of his fingers and the sodden toes of his boots, painful and sharp. He winced and continued on, moving as fast as he could as his blood warmed and moved sluggishly throughout his body.

They raced down the street, and Raven, who had been so concerned about the heat and the burning flame, suddenly realized that their real challenge would be breathing long enough to burn to death. The smoke covering the city was so thick that he began to choke and found himself forced to stop as he crouched down in search of the clearer air beneath the haze. He couldn’t seem to get a full breath – his vision began to spin.

“This way!”

Leah pulled at him, yanking him forward through the smoke. Raven threw an arm over his nose and mouth and narrowed his eyes to slits in an effort to maintain visibility as they groped forward.

But despite his efforts, within five paces his eyes had begun to burn and he could barely see through a haze of sooty tears. He followed Leah blindly, hoping she knew where they were going. He stumbled over a broken piece of brick, causing him to gasp in surprise. Smoke poured into his lungs, sinking its curling tendrils deep into his chest.

Coughing and hacking, they ran down the broad avenue that led from the gate to the castle at the city’s center. Here the smoke finally began to lessen, and they could breathe more easily; a few strides after that and they could see again; and not ten yards further the air was clear enough that they could stop and catch their breath.

Water fell on Raven’s head in little droplets, and he looked up.

The blizzard was still raging high above them, coming down hard, but the heat from the fire was melting the snow before it got to them, turning it into water. Huge gouts of steam mixed with smoke had begun to curl into the dark night sky, two elemental forces of nature battling over who would control and subjugate the great city of Roarke.

And then they heard the first screams.

They turned and looked down the street, back into the fire. There were people there, shambling forward just as they had, arms over their eyes, trying to make their way forward, pouring out of buildings that were catching fire.

“THIS WAY!” Raven roared immediately, waving his arms, moving to the center of the road. “COME THIS WAY!”

Leah stepped up and joined him, both waving their arms frantically, yelling themselves hoarse. Dozens of people flocked to them, many carrying loads of clothing and belongings, some in packs, some thrown over shoulders, and others just hastily donned. Children came too, crying and coughing, and Raven felt his rage at Tiffenal deepen. These were innocents; they should have had no part in this.

They gathered around him and Leah, and he realized they needed someone to tell them what to do. Leah was looking to him, waiting for him to act. He steeled himself for the ordeal that was about to come, and moved forward.

“You three!” He said quickly, pointing to three young men who seemed to be without families. They turned to him, dazed looks in their eyes.

“Stand here and keep yelling for others who might be trapped in the smoke,” he told them, his voice hoarse but commanding. They nodded quickly and immediately began shouting as he turned back to the others.

“Who are you?” One woman asked. She was holding a crying child.

“He’s the man who’s going to save your life,” Leah said harshly. “Shut up and listen.”

“The rest of you!” Raven continued, ignoring this exchange as he motioned to the dozen or so families before him. “Follow me down this way, take me to the center of the town!”

“The castle is in the center of town!” One of them cried.

Raven spun and looked at the castle and confirmed what he’d already seen – the keep of the huge building was burning – the inside gutted and useless. He rounded on the woman who had spoken, the one with the baby.

“Is there a central square?” He asked quickly. “A gathering place, something wide and open?”

“There’s a park –”

“Wood burns! We need a square, an open square, a meeting place, a place you hear proclamation or announcements –”

“The Prince’s Yard!” Called an old man, gnarled and bent with age. “The Prince’s Yard, where the Ox Lord would practice – you Kindred cleared it out when you came in, it’s completely fallow.”

“How big is it?”

“It’s huge!”

“Go there!” Raven called. “
NOW!
”

He watched as they all broke into a shambling run down the main boulevard, which split into two branches – they took the left one, which looked smokier, but hopefully they knew what they were doing.

“You three,” Raven said to the young men. “Stay ahead of the flames but
keep calling
, let people know where we’re gathering! Don’t let yourselves get trapped – if the flames come too fast, leave here and get to the Prince’s Yard. Do you understand?”

They nodded, looking scared but determined, then turned and started shouting, directing anyone who could hear them the way Raven had asked.

“Leah!” Raven called out.

She turned to him and he saw that her eyes were glazed over. Too much was happening too quickly and she was still losing blood –
 
she was going into shock.

“Leah,” Raven said, coming close to her and grabbing her, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “We need to go down that other road – we have to go around the perimeter and make sure everyone is out of those buildings and knows where to go. Are you able to help me? Are you still here?”

She shook her head as if to clear it, but did not respond.