Chapter 67
Ilahe was running before she realized it. The too-still air of the street—empty, she realized now, because fear of the eses had overpowered the tair’s call—made the inn seem impossibly far away. The swords came out in her hands, heavy, throwing off her stride, but Ilahe kept them out, glad for the feel of steel and leather against her hands. She screamed a warcry as she ran.
The eses spun, the burning building and the beaten man on the ground forgotten. Two eses, blond and tall, rushed toward her, morning stars swinging from their hands. Ilahe twisted as the blond eses reached her, catching the chain of the first morning star with one pink blade. She turned, letting the second morning star whistle past.
A spike caught her arm, tearing yellow cloth and flesh, but the morning star continued past. It struck the other esis’s still-extended arm with the crack of bone, and one of the blond eses fell with a howl. Ilahe kicked at the esis who still stood, catching him in the crotch before he could recover from his first swing. Ilahe’s second pink blade stifled the esis’s groan as it slid into his throat.
A broad-shouldered esis reached her next, two swords flashing in the afternoon light. One blade, longer than Ilahe’s, slashed at her face, and Ilahe stumbled back. The short blade came next, thrusting in toward her heart. Ilahe parried, knocking aside the thrust, but she was off-balance, and with her next step she stumbled over one of the fallen, blond eses. She hit the ground hard, landing on one elbow, and the shock and pain made her hiss. Ilahe rolled to the side, and the pain in her injured arm forced her to leave one of the iridescent blades behind.
Sun on metal was her only warning. Ilahe brought up her remaining sword with her good arm. Sparks, pink and red, showered as she caught the broad-shouldered esis’s blades. For a moment, he pressed his attack, trying to force her guard down. Ilahe hooked the back of his knee with one foot, pulled, and the broad-shouldered esis stumbled. She caught him in the chest with her other boot and heard the breath leave his lungs with a whoosh.
Ilahe scrambled to her feet. Pain ran down her injured arm, trickles of hot and cold, but she ignored it. The last esis, his face smattered with freckles, ran forward to help his companion, but Ilahe brought her sword up even faster and took the broad-shouldered esis in the side, almost the back. A killing blow. He dropped to the ground with a choked gurgle.
The freckled esis held a studded mace in one hand. He looked young—almost a boy. Ilahe felt a moment’s pity; not that long ago, she had been young like him. Happy, hopeful, trusting. Naïve.
He attacked, mace whistling toward Ilahe’s head. She brought the sword up, and the force of the blow rippled through the blade and down into her arm. The clang of metal on metal almost deafened her. The freckled esis didn’t let up; he swung again, this time toward her injured side, and Ilahe danced backward, sword held out as a guard.
The esis circled her, mace flashing out, always probing. For all his youth, he was either much more skilled, or much luckier, than his companions. He worked Ilahe’s injured side, forcing her into awkward blocks, and she found herself on the retreat. Fatigue burned in her good arm, and pain burned in her injured one. Ilahe blinked, trying to keep salty sweat from her eyes as the heat and exertion left her breathless. She needed to finish the fight quickly.
Face fixed in concentration—so serious that, in another situation, it would have been comical—the freckled esis attacked again. Ilahe caught the blow and, instead of drawing back, stepped into his attack. The esis’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back, flailing as he sought to adjust his strategy. He swung again, but clumsily, and Ilahe parried the blow easily. She darted in again, closing the gap between them. He was taller than her, but not by much. Balancing on her toes, Ilahe surged up and drove the crown of her head into his jaw.
Black and white specks danced in front of Ilahe’s eyes. Tears blurred her vision, and her head felt as though she had rammed it into Osmir’s stone quay. Blinking, Ilahe brought the sword around. The esis took a step back, blood trickling from his mouth. His eyes were unfocused, and his legs trembled slightly. When Ilahe’s pink blade entered his chest, he collapsed, sliding almost halfway down the blade without any sound but the clang of the chain shirt against the blade.
Kicking the body free, Ilahe sucked in air and examined the street. Empty. Only the beat of the drums in the distance and the crackle of flames. One of the esis groaned, but he did not rise from the ground. Ilahe wiped her blade clean, sheathed it, and retrieved its mate. Her injured arm still throbbed; the fall must have broken something. Holding the sword in her good hand, Ilahe staggered toward the inn.
Great clouds of smoke rolled out the door, between the shutters, trailed by streamers of flame. The man that the eses had assaulted lay on the ground. Blood covered his face. Ilahe prodded him once with the toe of her boot, and he whimpered, but gave no other response.
“What happened?” Ilahe asked.
No help from the beaten man. Covering her mouth with one hand, Ilahe made her way toward the door, but a whoosh of heat and smoke drove her back. The crackle of flame became a roar, and through the fire Ilahe heard a low, sustained crack. The main timbers of the inn were giving way—blackness take the Khacens and their insistence on building with wood! The whole city could catch fire.
Sheathing her remaining sword, Ilahe retreated from the heat and knelt next to the injured man. With her good arm, Ilahe tried to lift him into a sitting position, but the low moan, and the blood that dribbled from the man’s mouth, made her stop. Again, she cursed her own uselessness. Hash would have some idea of what to do—she drove the thought away as soon as it came. Hash had been a mistake.
A bitten-off curse made Ilahe turn. The blond esis—the one still alive—was on his knees, holding a shattered arm across his chest. Her own arm still throbbing, Ilahe got to her feet and started toward him. The esis stood, somehow, and stumbled away from her, but Ilahe moved faster. She was angry, she realized—blood, hot as the sun, pounded in her ears. They had killed Daye, burned down her inn. All the old hatred, fueled by fear, came back like the rising tide.
Ilahe grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back. A growl of surprise turned into a yelp as she kicked out his legs and let him fall to the ground. When Ilahe heard his scream, as the impact rattled through his broken arm, she thought for a moment the man would lose consciousness. Straddling him, the ridiculous buttery dress sliding up her thighs so that, even as she prepared to hurt the esis, Ilahe found herself blushing at the immodesty, she stared down into his blue eyes.
They stayed open, although it took long moments after his scream had faded for the pain in them to clear. He blinked twice and, without a word, raised his head and spat at her.
With the brutality that only experience could bring, Ilahe slammed his head against the packed dirt—once, twice. Then a dozen frantic heartbeats, the pain throbbing in her elbow, as she waited.
“Daye,” Ilahe said. “Why did you kill her?”
Voice slurred, the esis said, “Didn’t kill anyone.”
Hope, sharp as a knife, sprang to life in Ilahe’s chest. “What?”
“S’alive,” the esis said. “At least, the ones we caught. Sent ’em to the temple for harvest.”
The sliver of hope turned inward, its edge scoring Ilahe’s heart. Harvest. The temple, where the tair’s power pooled, an ocean of lust and madness. Blind fool! Ilahe could barely resist the tair’s lure in the streets—what would happen when she was within the temple itself? A god-made-flesh, standing before her—ancient, impossibly powerful, pure life given shape.
Ilahe pushed away the thought; she had come here—it seemed so long ago—to kill a god. All of that had changed. But to go to the temple to rescue a blind fool of a woman, a woman who lived in a world of Istbyan romances? It was not worth Ilahe’s life.
“Why her?” Ilahe said. “What did you want?”
The esis spat again, but this time to clear his mouth. “Temple’s orders. Told to leave the Cenarbasins alone,
the Istbyans are the ones making all the trouble. We found the Istbyan ambassador’s men sniffing around here, and when we searched the place, the old bitch who ran it had a room stocked with Istbyan books. Even had an Istbyan woman in hiding, we heard, but couldn’t find her.”
Shock and pain flared to life. Ilahe had convinced Ayde to turn the eses attention from Cenarbasins, in an attempt to save her own skin. All it had done was put Daye in danger. From the first day, when she entered the city, Ilahe had made Daye’s life difficult—first with the Istbyans, and now because of that very association with the Istbyans. Rescuing Daye was no longer a choice; Ilahe owed it to the woman. It was a way to pay the debt she owed. Then she would leave this city and its god. For good, this time.
She left the esis and made her way down the block. Toward the temple. She saw more faces in the windows here, hidden behind curtains, darting away when she looked at them. Perhaps more of the city resisted the tair’s call than she had thought. Perhaps it was simply a matter of wanting to resist. It did not really make any difference, Ilahe realized.
Halfway down the next block, Ilahe froze. The drums continued, and even at this distance she could hear the flames and crack of falling timbers, but something rode under the noise—the clack of stone on stone, as though the gods themselves played at marbles, rumbling and reverberating, all around her. It shook the earth—not much, but enough that trembles ran up Ilahe’s legs, sent a chill down her spine. What was the tair doing?
She glanced back, toward one of those strange, tall buildings. The sound seemed to be coming from there, in part at least. As she watched, shapes appeared at the massive windows, flying through the air to land on the rooftops, then leaping again, impossible jumps that sent them careening through the deep blue of the sky. When they landed, when they jumped, that crack of stone on stone filled the air. Ilahe, mouth dry, pressed herself against a building, flinching at the tremors that ran through the timbers as the creatures landed above her and then, after a moment that lasted forever, moved on.
Almost as quickly as they had come, the creatures were past her, flying through the air toward the temple. With each heartbeat, the sound of their passing grew more distant. Ilahe wiped cold sweat from her face. The way those creatures moved—so fast, so smooth—it made her gut tighten. She would not want to fight them. Too late, Ilahe remembered the cam-ad, but even that was small comfort.
Another crack rang in the air. Across from her, a man, skin grey, clothes tattered and soiled, clung upside down to the timbers of a home. He lifted his head and stared at Ilahe. In the daylight, it was easy to make out his features. Dull, smooth, gray. Eyes, lips, everywhere. Something about the face tugged at Ilahe’s memory, but she couldn’t place it. The man—the thing—hung there, watching her.
So quickly she could barely follow, the creature threw itself forward, flipping through the air to strike the building next to Ilahe with a crash. Ilahe’s sword rang as she slid it free, but the creature just hung there, staring down at her. It jumped again, a grey blur, to the next building up the street. Ilahe flinched, then cursed herself. It had jumped away from her, and she had still flinched.
It gripped the timbers, fingers gouging the wood, and stared. Uncounted heartbeats passed until Ilahe realized she held her breath. With a low, deep breath, Ilahe stepped forward, sword trembling in one hand. Not since that night when the priests had taken her had she felt fear like this.
The creature leaped to the next building and then turned to pause. It wanted her to follow it. Ilahe shook her head. The solars must be having a laugh at her—perhaps the creature sensed the godling inside her, the thing she had quickened with her foolishness. Perhaps it was a trap by the tair.
Her gut told her that it was neither. This was something different. Heart in her mouth, sword in her hand, Ilahe trotted down the street after the creature. She had one last debt to pay before she left the Paths.