“You know I’m not abandoning the city. I told Prince Jekusmirwyn at the first that his city was lost. I never intended to stay.”
Captain Lumel wore the Jade Bears green-and-black armor well. He cut an imposing figure, and even a few cuts through the paint had not lessened his image. He’d defended against the enemy’s first forays, and had already become something of a legend within the city by challenging a kwajiin and defeating him in single combat. I’d watched the duel and felt the tingle of jaedun. If he survived the siege, Lumel would be a Mystic.
“It was assumed that you would stay because you did not flee with others as the kwajiin surrounded the city.”
“But that wasn’t an assumption you made.”
He smiled slightly, then shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t stay. Your first analysis was correct. The city is indefensible. Those who got out early are likely to be the only ones who survive. Why did you stay?”
“To see how they fight. I’ve engaged them in small bands, and the kwajiin have changed things. I wanted to see how they would handle a city.”
He slowly nodded. “It has been an education.”
“For both sides.”
The kwajiin methodology of warfare promised many new things, but some I found hauntingly familiar. The invaders came in from the southeast and did make one run at Bloodgate. The vhangxi attacked in strength, but it still felt like a probe to me. The grey-skinned horde poured onto the plain and came at the gate. Archers rained arrows down from the walls while the vhangxi leaped nearly to the parapets to attack them. They had no equipment to hammer the gates down, so the attack really had no chance of success.
The Jade Bears had been on the walls repulsing them, and Captain Lumel’s troops fought hard. Had they been less disciplined, it would have been possible for vhangxi to get into the city, though I doubt they had the presence of mind to open the gates to their fellows. In case that was their plan, my companions and I were poised to interfere, but our aid was not called for.
When Captain Lumel issued his challenge to one of the kwajiin, I don’t think either knew what they were getting into. The vhangxi attack had faltered, and the kwajiin had come forward to call them back. He slew two of the vhangxi when they sought to rebel, and a third drove at his back. It might have gotten to him, but it did not because Captain Lumel ordered archers to bring the beast down.
The kwajiin raised his sword in a salute and, in words no one but I seemed to understand, said his life was Lumel’s. Lumel then pointed to the circle with his own sword, and the two of them agreed to meet. I translated, because I wanted Lumel to know what was happening. He didn’t have to challenge the kwajiin, but once events started to unfold, the Virine warrior did not shrink from them.
The two warriors entered the circle—Lumel having emerged through a sally port at Bloodgate. They saluted each other, then began to fight. The kwajiin preferred Eagle, Tiger, and Wolf as fighting styles. They let him be on the attack at all times, and he pressed it. While I sensed no jaedun radiating from him, he possessed a native talent that exceeded that of many warriors—even those of superior training.
Virine to the core, Lumel remained patient. Mantis, Crane, and Dragon withstood the invader’s attacks. Lumel was skilled, and jaedun flashed as he avoided some cuts and parried others. Still, he benefited from the fact that he was a more recent student of the sword, and refinements in techniques made it easier for him to defend against the kwajiin’s more archaic forms.
But the kwajiin died because Lumel broke form. The invader had lunged while Lumel waited in Crane form three. The blade slid along the Virine’s breastplate, but scored nothing more than paint. Lumel kicked out with his right foot, aiming for the kwajiin’s right knee. The enemy warrior twisted so the kick missed to the left, but Lumel then hooked his foot back and drove his spur through the kwajiin’s right knee.
As the enemy went down, he tried to slash at Lumel, but the Virine grabbed his wrist. Lumel followed him down, then drove his knee into the kwajiin’s right biceps, shattering his arm with a sharp crack. He brought his sword’s hilt down into the blue-skinned warrior’s face, smashing teeth. Two more punches left the enemy dazed and bleeding, then Lumel stood and harvested his head with a single stroke.
He still wore the sword he’d taken from the kwajiin, but he had strapped it to his back, where it served as a challenge to others to take it from him.
Thus ended the only noble part of the siege. After that the kwajiin commanders brought more troops up and encircled the city. They even placed troops on the other side of the Green River in case any of the city’s residents decided to swim for freedom. Their encirclement complete, they sent parties to the nearby forests to gather wood for the creation of siege machinery.
While waiting for their towers to be completed, they launched other attacks. In the depths of the night they released their winged toads. Ranai had seen them before, and many people died that first night. Those who didn’t die actually created more of a problem, for the deep bite wounds festered. Moreover, the creatures’ vile saliva loosened bowels and soon the city was awash in night soil.
The winged toads came again the next night, but we were prepared for them. Fishing nets had been taken from the docks and strung through alleys and between towers. People armed themselves with broomsticks, candlesticks, short knives and long. They pounded and hacked at anything that flew. While there were injuries visited upon each other in the frenzy, the attacks devastated the winged toads and showed how ineffective they were against a prepared populace.
The second assault proved more dangerous. As with any city, Kelewan had a sewer system. Gates and grates guarded against any enemy soldiers infiltrating that way, but the kwajiin employed a different weapon. They released creatures with the sharp teeth and voracious appetites of the vhangxi, but most closely resembled small otters or large weasels. They swam into the sewers and up through pipes, crawling into cesspits beneath toilets. They were possessed of singular jumping capabilities.
They attacked when people—many suffering from the winged toad venom—were least on guard. To hear the commotion described could almost make it seem comical—a man runs screaming from a toilet, sporting a furred tail. The fact that the tail shrank as the creature gnawed its way up through his bowels, on the other hand, painted the horror in stark terms that converted buckets into toilets, and the Illustrated City suddenly found itself with brown splashes trailing from every window.
The dung-otters proved almost as easy to deal with as the winged toads, once we learned they preferred live prey to carrion. Their weakness was fire, so dumping oil in a puddle in a sewer formed the basis of a trap. We’d throw a hapless cur down there to whine in the darkness. When it started barking, then yelped in terror, we tossed a torch down and ignited the oil. While we didn’t study the results all that closely, we got a fair number of dung-otters for each dog, and the kwajiin ran out of dung-otters well before our supply of dogs evaporated.
The Illustrated City endured the siege for a week before the kwajiin began to tighten the circle. They decided to attack at Bloodgate. I had no doubt it was a matter of honor, which made them remarkably predictable. According to Urmyr, that should have made them easy for us to defeat. But defeating them would have required an army capable of lifting the siege, and unless Prince Cyron was a day away with the whole of the Naleni military, the siege would not be broken.
In that week, the Illustrated City had broken. Aside from the brown stains and the inhuman stink, the bodies decomposing in the streets and the infirm wailing in pain, a more fundamental change had taken place. The Virine had always prided themselves on having been the Empire’s capital. I’m sure they believed that when the Empress returned, it would be to Kelewan and to the sealed throne room where the Celestial Throne waited in darkness. With every day, citizens looked to the northwest for some sign of her coming, then looked to the southeast to know that she would not arrive in time.
This crushed their spirit and, wit
h few exceptions, they resigned themselves to dying with their city. They had lived for it. Their lives had been inscribed on its walls. It was their history, and it was about to be destroyed. Some people even took their own lives, choosing a peaceful passing over to what would befall Kelewan.
I slid my swords through the sash girding my armor. “You know I am leaving with my people. You’ll not try to stop me.”
He shook his head. “The Jade Bears and I are coming with you. We’re only a battalion, but the archers of the Sun Bears are coming as well.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What about your duty to the Prince?”
“This is part of it.” He glanced back toward the door of the armory. “Crown Prince Iekariwynal and your boy, Dunos, are being fitted with identical armor. We are tasked with getting the Crown Prince away.”
“It’s better the boy die here, you know.” I nodded toward Whitegate. “What he will see there will haunt him forever.”
“The same will be true of Dunos.”
“No, Dunos has lived through his nightmare.” I nodded to him. “Bring the Crown Prince. You know our plan. You hate it, of course.”
“Only the necessity of it. Midnight, Whitegate.” He bowed to me. “Kelewan will die, but Erumvirine will live.”
“Forget Erumvirine. Look to living yourself.”
Deshiel had the foresight to line up several wagons near Whitegate. They were actually corpse wagons, but as no traffic could get through Whitegate to the cemeteries beyond, no one had bothered to collect bodies for burial. It occurred to me that one benefit of this situation was that the kwajiin army would have its noses full of the stink of death.
My company had swelled to nearly eighty-one, which would have been a welcome omen save that this heavily taxed our supply of horses. In combination with the Bears, we had a substantial cavalry force, and had seen nothing in the enemy to rival it. Especially not in the forces opposite Whitegate, which seemed the least disciplined and weakest of the enemy troops.
Of course, one has to expect discipline to break down when one stations carrion eaters in graveyards.
The wagons had been fitted with barrels of oil and were drawn by four-horse teams. We’d even found people desperate or insane enough to drive them. Everyone knew we would set the wagons on fire and hope to cut a flaming path through the enemy line. It would be the only way out of the city, and countless people gathered amid the rendering houses, tanneries, butchers, and mortuaries of Whitetown to join us on this mad dash for survival.
I gave the signal and the portcullis was drawn up. The bar on the gates slid back, then the gates themselves slowly opened. The moment the gap proved sufficient for a wagon to make it through, Deshiel applied a torch and the driver cracked a whip. I was not certain whether the horses feared the whip, the fire, or the crowd of hungry people milling about, but they shot through the gate. Two more flaming wagons followed, then our cavalry went.
Whitegate pointed west-northwest toward a pair of hills covered with graves and mausoleums dating back to the Imperial period. The road curved north, then broke directly for the hills. The cavalry poured through the gate, then immediately south, to get off the road. We assembled in good order and trotted parallel to the road, onto which spilled a screaming mass of terrified humanity.
People had been reduced to nothing more than herd beasts. We’d started many rumors among them. To some we said that being in front was best, to get through the lines before the enemy reacted. To most others we recommended staying tight with the pack, as they would be but one among many and the enemy wouldn’t get them. A few contrarians hung back, assuming their best chance lay in seeing where the enemy went, then going elsewhere. We saw no reason to contradict their thinking.
The enemy reacted, and their kwajiin leaders could not control them. The vhangxi charged forward from their trenches and fortresses, abandoning barbicans and leaving their commanders screaming orders at them. They raced in at the refugees, saliva slicking their flesh, tongues lolling from their mouths.
Ranai, riding between me and Dunos, spoke sharply. “Don’t watch, Dunos.”
“He’s seen it before.”
She turned on me. “He doesn’t need to see it again. He’s only ten years old, Master.”
“And he will be eleven because of those people.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You gave them false hope.”
“They were dead anyway.” I shrugged. “Maybe some will escape.”
There was an outside chance that I would be correct, or there was until the vhangxi drew close to the first fire wagon. The horses shied and the wagon tipped, launching the burning barrels. They burst when they hit the ground, leaving the road awash in burning oil. A second wagon rode into the fire and its cargo exploded, lighting the night. The third left the road toward our side and flipped, sowing fire in a crescent from the road toward the south.
The people, confronting this vast arc of flames, stopped. The front ranks did anyway, then people slammed into them from behind. The forward ranks got pitched into the fire and the vhangxi, undaunted, leaped over it to fall on the milling masses.
By that time we’d ridden far enough forward that the fire hid the worst of the carnage. Three hundred yards from the enemy line, we lowered our spears and formed up in a double column eighteen wide. I aimed us for a point just south of the breastwork they’d raised across the road. As we closed to a hundred yards, we moved into a fast trot, then, at fifty, a full gallop.
The Sun Bears arced arrows above us that peppered the kwajiin and vhangxi remaining to defend their line. Half the enemy fell to that attack, and most of the surviving vhangxi fled. The kwajiin drew their swords and though I could not hear them over the thunder of hoofbeats, I knew they were announcing their histories and inviting us to join the company of all those their ancestors had slain.
A woman stepped into my path, facing me straight on, with both hands wrapped around the hilt of her sword. She braced to bat my spearpoint aside, then cut the legs out from under my horse. I knew the tactic. I’d done it before.
I’d seen others killed trying it.
I rose in my stirrups, spun the spear to reverse my grip, then hurled with all my strength. It flew straight, coming in faster than she had expected, and at a sharper angle. Though she did get her sword on it, it still pierced her hip. She spun down and away and I was past her.
Past her, past the enemy line, free.
Still high in the stirrups, I turned to look back at the city. The writhing shadows from the slaughter danced over the city’s walls. To the southeast, the first of what would be many flaming projectiles arced up from the kwajiin line to spread fire through the Illustrated City. People scurried about on the walls, and some arrows arced back, but the defenders clearly would not survive long.
Our cavalry made it through with few casualties. Had I given the order, we could have wheeled right and hit another part of the enemy line. We could have wrought havoc, and might even have been able then to turn back toward the city, kill the vhangxi around the fire, and usher some of the refugees away.
For a moment I considered giving that order. I knew I would be obeyed without question. My people would actually welcome the chance to do more, to avenge their city’s death.
The words waited on the tip of my tongue, but I did not speak them.
Had we turned, we would have done damage. We would have given those watching some hope.
False hope.
Kelewan would be avenged. That I knew. But not this night, not this place.
Turning northwest, we rode as if the whole kwajiin army pursued us.
Chapter Thirty-five
28th day, Month of the Dragon, Year of the Rat
10th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Tolwreen, Ixyll
Stripped to the waist and already beginning to sweat, Ciras Dejote entered the circle in the heart of the metal towe
r. The sword he bore was the one that had come from the Ixyll grave. Over the time he’d been in Tolwreen, between being subjected to a variety of tests or feasts offered in his honor, he’d learned the blade had once belonged to Jogot Yirxan, a Morythian member of the vanyesh who had been a swordsman without equal.
Across from him, a hulking silver behemoth stalked into the circle. He bore a resemblance to a man because he had begun as one. All of his bones had been wrapped in silver, and the metal had been etched with very fine dragons coiling and cavorting along the polished surface. Over the years, as the work was continued, the bones had been split and extended, so now the thing known as Pravak Helos stood eight feet tall and boasted a second set of arms. They linked into the body right at the lower edge of the ribs, and were silvery whiplike appendages that ended in short, sharp dagger blades.
In his upper two hands, Pravak bore swords, each the equal of the blade Ciras carried. His opponent hardly needed the swords since his hands ended in long, very sharp claws and the outer edge of his lower forearm bone had been serrated. When he was fully alive, Pravak had enjoyed stalking and killing Viruk. In reshaping himself, he’d become more than their match.
His skull had likewise been coated in inscribed silver, but he wore a mask that resembled what he’d looked like in life. The fullness of his face, as well as the wild tangle of filaments that danced from a warrior knot at the back of his head, let Ciras imagine what he must have been when mortal. The fact that he had hunted Viruk did layer muscle into those bones, painting a picture of a fighter who relied on power more than speed.
And he has the advantage here again. Ciras bowed deeply and held it for a respectful time. His foe did the same, then set himself. He adopted the first Scorpion form, with both swords up and back, but the two tentacles darted forward, promising punishment for a rash attack.