Dancer's Lament

Chapter 18

THE MID-WINTER HAD passed yet the central plains of Quon Tali still lay gripped within an unnatural frigid chill, which troubled the Sister of Cold Nights deeply. The glacial frost was not of her summoning. It reeked of another Realm, and another kind, one she knew well and considered her cause. The extravagant and unpredictable Jaghut.

The preternatural cold drew her to the wall of the Inner Round, to a section overlooking the Idryn. It was still the thick of night, just before the gathering of any predawn glow. A cloying mist had gathered in the low-lying quarters and now smothered the entire course of the river. It was no natural fog – it had been summoned from Omtose Phellack, the wellspring of Jaghut magery, and it hid things.

Even as she watched, the Li Heng guards next to her squinting at the mists, oblivious, shapes came easing down on to the river’s surface and formed up into ranks, waiting.

Her breath hissed from her at the scale of the puissance expended to bring this about. The river’s surface frozen overnight. A road to the entire city now open to the Kanese.

It was a bid to end the siege and it was unfolding before her eyes. A gambit she could counter now in the simplest of manners. A few words to any guard; a summons of one of the city mages; a call to arms. Any of these could end the throw before it could be made.

Yet she did none of them. She remained quiet, her breath pluming, her chest tense. For she had sworn a vow to K’rul not to interfere. And in return for that vow he had promised her that she may one day reach her goal – a goal that had eluded her for untold centuries. And so she waited, watching, while the fog coiled and thickened and the basso creaking and groaning of the ice increased.

* * *

Iko shuddered in her full-length mail coat. Despite the thick aketon underpadding, the surcoat and the fur cloak, the iron still bit where it happened to touch flesh. Not only was she frozen here on guard next to the river, she was also profoundly uneasy. They were nearly within bow range! It was outrageous. No prior king of this dynasty had so endangered himself. Yet here he was. Chulalorn the Third, encircled by his bodyguard, watching his plan unfold from the shore of the frozen Idryn.

When she had been told the river was iced over Iko had scoffed. Who could believe such a thing? Yet here it was beneath their feet, clear flat ice like a pond’s still surface, while the river flowed onward unimpeded just what? Two feet beneath? It was sorcery, and the name connected with it made her flesh crawl.

She flexed her grip on the cold coiled wire of the whipsword and clenched the other fist to her belt. Wincing, she tested the state of her ankle yet again. Every sister had been gathered for this mission and she’d been granted a brusque session with a harried Denul healer. Around her, all the Sword-Dancers who’d travelled north with the king now scanned the thick scarves of fog about them, uneasy, while within their circle the king stood with his generals, relaying orders and receiving reports.

Not only did the name behind this sorcery trouble her; the very unleashing of the tactic worried her. For it was a truism of all the treatises on warfare and strategy that she’d read: just as the sword is answered by the sword, so too is sorcery answered by sorcery.

And the Protectress was a byword across the continent as a sorceress beyond measure.

What could Chulalorn be thinking? Was he discounting those old reports as lies, propaganda? And if Shalmanat should answer this in kind, what could she and her sisters possibly do to protect him?

The ranks she could just discern through the unnaturally thick mist now began moving forward. They were advancing along the river’s course from the east and the west simultaneously, as she understood the king’s plan. They would march onward, ignoring the Inner Round and the other nested circles, to lay claim to the palace itself. Once the palace and the inner sanctum were taken the city would, in effect, be theirs.

Unfortunately, this meant dealing with Shalmanat. And Iko had more than a suspicion of who would be handling that confrontation.

So long as Chulalorn remained here, as far from the fighting as they could keep him, she would breathe as easily as she could. And so she continued flexing her grip to warm her hands, shifting her feet, and scanning the damned blinding fogs.

*

Silk was walking a patrol of the north Central Round wall. He was checking on the installation of siege weapons, catapults and onagers mostly, on this second to last defence before the palace grounds. The commander of the section walked with him. She was an older career officer who, from her obvious familiarity with the requisite engineering, had no doubt come up through the ranks.

He felt at ease with this one: the woman was secure in her rank and competence and obviously cared nothing for Silk’s own putative position in the hierarchy of influence surrounding Shalmanat. She was also far older, close to retirement age, and so treated Silk as the mild inconvenience of a visiting dignitary come to inspect the works.

Progress in said works, unfortunately, appeared painfully little. ‘Few are fully installed,’ he remarked to the captain.

She took it all in her stride, her hands clasped behind her back. ‘We are short of everything, sir. Timber, rope, dressed stone, general supplies. Even labour. Especially labour.’

‘The city is full of citizens.’

Quite heavy and squarely built, the woman pursed her thick lips. ‘Starving citizens who can barely lift a hammer.’

‘I understand. Do what you can.’

‘Of course.’

Shouts sounded from the base of nearby stairs and the captain frowned her irritation. ‘What’s this?’ she called down.

‘Some drunkard full of fight, captain,’ a trooper answered. ‘We’ll send him off to dry out.’

Silk stepped to the edge of the catwalk and squinted down into the shadowed street below. ‘Wait! What does he want?’

Silence. Silk looked to the captain who shrugged her apology. ‘Answer the man!’ she bellowed.

‘Ah – he says he has a message, sir.’

Silk waved his acceptance. ‘Let him up!’ the captain called.

As far as Silk knew he’d never seen the disreputable fellow before. His hair and beard were tangled and wild, his clothes practically water-repellent in their greasiness, and he obviously hadn’t washed in a decade. He leered soddenly at Silk. ‘Pretty boy.’

The captain raised a thick arm as if to throw a back-handed blow. ‘Show some respect.’

‘Message for the pretty boy,’ the derelict repeated, and he gave an exaggerated wink to Silk.

Silk eased the captain’s arm down. ‘From who?’

‘Ah – that’d be from whom.’

The captain’s arm came up again and Silk made no move to lower it. ‘Whom,’ he sighed.

The man straightened, gave a mocking salute. ‘Message from Liss for the pretty boy.’

Silk waited, then sighed again. ‘And the message . . .? ’

‘River’s frozen over.’

Silk stared, nearly uncomprehending. The captain scoffed her disbelief. ‘That’s impossible. Never in living memory has it frozen over.’

Silk thought of all the warnings. The hints and the predictions. Utter certainty hit him like a wave of dizziness and he nearly toppled from the wall. He pointed to the captain. ‘Ready barricades along the shore! Do it now!’ And he pushed past the foul-smelling messenger for the stairs and took them two at a time.

The very quiet of the mist-choked predawn streets that he passed gnawed at Silk’s impression of certainty. How could it all be so calm? Why hadn’t he noticed any magery? Thinking of that, he raised his Warren as he jogged along then sent a portion of his awareness ahead, questing and sensing. He detected nothing. Nothing at all.

Yet this reaffirmed his impression of warning. For in the past, whenever he’d happened to have his Warren raised near the river, he’d always sensed the alien aura of Liss. That alone was the main reason he offered her any respect – though it was thin and dispersed, and ancient-seeming, it was yet strangely powerful, seemingly everywhere.

And now it was gone. Or hidden. Disguised by magics obscuring the river. Obscuring, more importantly, what was going on along the river. He slowed, listening. Had he heard something? He cocked an ear, straining.

Noises came wavering to him through the dense drifting fog. The sounds raised the hackles on his neck and sent chills down his arms. The clash of weaponry and the yells of fighting. He ran on.

*

Someone entering his room awoke Dorin. Keeping himself completely motionless he opened his eyes a slit then relaxed: it was one of Wu’s lads. The boy lifted a foot to kick the cot but Dorin spoke up. ‘I’m awake. What is it?’

The lad jumped backwards then swallowed, half bowing. ‘The river’s frozen, sir. And the Kanese are invading!’

Dorin leaped from the cot. ‘What?’

‘’S true! I swear it!’

Dorin was pulling his gear on. ‘I believe you. Where’s Wu?’

‘In his rooms.’

‘Good.’ Dorin waved the youth off and ran for Wu’s quarters.

He found the young mage engrossed as usual in his drawings and shadow-staring. He wondered, briefly, whether the fellow ever slept at all. ‘The Kanese have frozen the river and are invading,’ he announced. ‘Heng might fall.’

Wu did not look up from his sketching. ‘I know.’

Dorin halted. He rested his hands on the parchment-strewn table. ‘What do you mean, you know?’

The mage continued brushing with his charcoal stylus. ‘I mean I’ve been aware of their Warren manipulation for some time now.’

‘And you said nothing?’

The young mage peered up, blinking. ‘Should I have?’

‘Well . . . yes.’

‘Why so?’

‘Well . . . because I’d like to know what’s going on, dammit!’

‘Ah. Very well. I shall endeavour to keep you informed in the future.’

‘Thank you very much.’ Dorin straightened from the table, adjusted his baldrics. He picked up a drawing. It appeared to be a study of some sort of squat angular structure. ‘What is this, anyway?’

Wu snatched the parchment slip from his fingers, snapping, ‘It’s not finished yet.’

‘Not finished yet? You’ve been at this all winter.’

The mage tapped the charcoal stick to his lips, refreshing a black stain there. ‘I can’t quite see it clearly enough yet.’

‘See what?’

‘Shadow, of course.’

‘I figured that out. I mean what, exactly?’

‘If you must know,’ Wu began, loftily, ‘these are things I have glimpsed within Shadow.’

‘Hunh. Well, are you coming or not?’

The mage narrowed his already beady eyes even further. ‘Coming? Coming where?’

Dorin couldn’t believe the fellow’s obtuseness. ‘The invasion! The Kanese!’

Wu waved him off. ‘It matters not to me. However,’ and he raised a finger, ‘it would serve us better if Chulalorn did win . . . all the easier to unseat a usurper, and so on.’

‘Easier to—’ Dorin studied the fellow as if he were mad. ‘You’re not still going on about taking the city, are you?’ Now he raised a warning finger, which he quickly lowered. ‘If you fill these kids’ heads with such impossibilities and they get hurt . . . I swear, I’ll come for you.’

Wu waved him off and returned to his sketching. ‘I believe you were going . . . yes?’

Dorin picked up another drawing.

Wu tried to snatch the slip away but Dorin evaded his hand. This sketch was framed in a rectangular outline and featured a dense dark tangled mass of writhing shapes. Dorin turned it this way and that. ‘I don’t think much of your execution.’

Wu darted out from behind the table to yank the parchment from his fingers. He pinned it to a timber next to dozens of other such sketches.

‘You sure you don’t want to come?’ Dorin asked.

Wu sat heavily, frowned at the page before him. ‘Quite.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Dorin left to search for Rheena. He found her in the main common room where many of the lads and lasses ate and slept. He waved her over. ‘Keep everyone locked down. This has nothing to do with us.’

‘Yes. I’ve called everyone in already.’

‘Good.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m going to keep an eye on things.’

She tightened her lips in disapproval, but nodded. ‘Careful. And Wu?’

‘His head’s up his arse. You’ll have to organize a defence here in case troopers come looking for trouble.’

‘Looks like someone will have to.’

‘Thank you.’ He dashed from the cellar as she was saying something else, and didn’t quite catch it.

*

Silk came across Hengan troops defending a hastily raised barricade of overturned wagons and heaped warehouse bales and wooden crates thrown up across a major access to the riverfront. From the fallen and the wounded being treated it was obvious that they had seen some action, but there was no fighting at the moment. Silk called for the officer in charge and was joined by a young sergeant-at-arms.

‘Why are you not attacking?’ he demanded.

The young officer flinched at his tone. ‘They are far too many, sir.’

‘Then why aren’t they attacking?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

Silk climbed the barricade, squinted into the heavy layered fog. ‘What’s going on? What could you see?’

‘They’ve formed shield walls defending the shore, sir.’

Defending? Holding the river? Why do that when the streets lay open before them? He fought to penetrate the hanging mists but couldn’t be certain of anything. There was one way to illuminate the situation, but doing so would open him up to retaliation from whoever was behind this astonishing magery. He could get squashed for his trouble. Still, whoever was manipulating these forces on such a scale . . . he or she must have their hands more than full. It might be worth the risk. He readied his Warren. ‘Keep your eyes open,’ he told the sergeant. ‘Tell me what you see . . .’

He raised his hands, summoned his energies, and sent a stabbing shaft of light streaming down and across the width of the river. He was too busy concentrating on his manipulation to study what the flash revealed. It lasted one instant and he immediately grabbed the sergeant’s arm and pulled him down with him. ‘What was there? What did you see?’

The young fellow was blinking in the dark. He started, hesitantly, ‘A series of defences assembled against major accesses. Like outposts. But the majority were on the move – ranks marching west past us.’

Past them? West? Deeper into the city? Why pass by unsecured sections? They could be cut off. It went against all military strategy that he knew of to expose one’s forces like this.

His thoughts went to the city centre. The governing quarters, the palace and the Inner Sanctum, and his breath fled from him. Gods of the city! Unless one were making a throw for the seat itself. Why waste the lives of hundreds, nay thousands, in messy uncertain street-fighting when in one clean stroke one could take control of the city entire?

He staggered from the sergeant, horrified by the vision. They meant to take the palace. They mean to take . . . his gaze shot to the tall single spire of the one tower rising into the night sky above the sanctum. Shalmanat!

He turned and ran without any explanation, any word.

‘Sir!’ the sergeant called after him. ‘What do we do? Sir!’

The clash of battle echoing through the streets as Silk approached the Inner Round both reassured and dismayed him. It reassured him that he was right in his guess, yet he wished he hadn’t been. He did not even slow as he passed through fortified Hengan positions to enter a contested main thoroughfare that led to the nearest gate, which was held by Kanese infantry.

Even as he ran, crossbow bolts hissing about him, he raised his Warren and cast ahead of himself without restraint, without thought of what was to come. The infantrymen and women massed in the gate shouted their pain as they dropped weapons and pulled at their armour, falling and writhing. Smoke wafted up carrying with it the stink of burned flesh.

He ran over them where they lay crying in agony, the smoke rising from them. In such an extravagant manner, flaying all about without any holding back or husbanding of his energies, he reached the palace grounds. Here city elites still held the main structure of the Inner Temple. These ranks let him through and he jogged for the throne room.

He found Shalmanat cloistered within, together with Ho. He halted, panting, exhausted and drained. ‘Good,’ he managed, hardly able to speak. ‘I caught you before you withdrew. We can escort you from the city, of course.’

The Protectress wore a long cloak of thick wool that she drew up about herself at his words. ‘I’m not going.’

Silk looked to Ho for support; the man shrugged his helplessness. He offered, ‘We cannot hope to hold them all off . . .’

‘How long until dawn?’ she demanded.

‘Perhaps an hour.’

She nodded at this. ‘Until then. One hour. Can you do that?’

Ho and Silk shared a glance. ‘We will try,’ Ho answered.

Her nod turned fierce. ‘Do that. Give me the dawn, gentlemen.’ She backed away, waving them off. Ho bowed, and when Silk would not move he took his arm and drew him on.

‘Where is she going?’ Silk demanded.

‘I believe she is withdrawing to the tower.’

Silk was appalled. ‘There’s no retreat from there!’

Ho would not release his arm. ‘Then she will surrender – if she must. Now come with me. We have a great deal of work ahead of us.’ Silk allowed himself to be led off. Not that he had any choice as Ho was immensely strong, but he did not resist. ‘What does she mean, the dawn? What does she want with the dawn?’

The shaggy, unkempt fellow was grim. ‘I’m afraid we’ll find out. For now, we will hold, yes?’

Silk yanked his arm. ‘Yes. You can count on me.’

Ho released him. His thick lips drew back from his blunt teeth in a humourless smile. ‘We shall see.’

*

Fascinated, Dorin traced the route of the invading Kanese infantry along the Idryn’s course, past river gates and on to the city centre itself. From rooftops he watched while hastily thrown up barricades and strongpoints were overrun by an irresistible Kanese advance to the Inner Round. It was as if the Idryn itself had overflowed its banks, he reflected.

Here, resistance hardened. Elites with nowhere to retreat held out in narrow gates and chokepoints. Yet the overall current could not be held back. The Hengans were already outnumbered by the Kanese and more were flowing in from both the east and the west.

The end, it appeared to Dorin, could not be disputed.

And in consequence, it lost its interest for him. No need to linger here. What he wondered now was who was in charge of the operation. The slim possibility that Chulalorn himself might be down there somewhere directing the campaign was intriguing. That was worth investigating. And so he waited, and watched, and eventually he spotted a runner, a messenger, and shadowed the young woman as she jogged off along the river’s length.

He lost sight of her a few times in the thick curling scarves of fog – burning off now with the coming dawn – until her trail led him to the river gate of the Inner Round. Here she joined a mass of Kan Elites, all picketed and readied, guarding a position in the shadowed murk of the gate.

Chulalorn himself, he was sure.

And he became certain when he glimpsed the bright shimmer of the fine mail coats of the Sword-Dancers, in double ranks, encircling the centre.

His target, come into the open. Yet now would be the worst time, with everyone alert and readied. The very opposite of the proper moment, in point of fact. And so he sat back in the shelter of a chimney on a tall building overlooking the Idryn, content to watch, and evaluate.

Shortly afterwards the crackle of grit on the rooftop alerted him that he was not alone. Knives readied, he peered round the brick chimney to see a lone figure standing on the roof’s edge, also studying the secured position on the Idryn. He relaxed, lowering his weapons; it was that strange foreign female mage.

‘Greetings,’ she called without even turning.

He straightened and approached. ‘We meet again.’

‘Indeed. It would appear we are creatures of habit.’

‘Why are you interested?’

‘This . . .’ she gestured airily to the night, ‘manifestation interests me.’

‘I know its author.’

She turned to face him directly, one brow arched, and again he was struck by her alien appearance: not obviously inhuman, but not quite right in the proportions of the eyes, cheekbones and chin either. ‘In truth? Now you interest me. Who, or what?’

‘A Jag. Named Juage.’

‘Ah. He is here. We have met . . . long ago. Strange that he should lend himself to such an . . . errand.’

‘He said he was compelled. That the Kanese kings have a hold over him.’

‘Indeed.’ Now her face hardened, the jaw tightening and the lips compressing into nonexistence.

‘He is a friend?’

‘Not as such. He is Jaghut. They are a strange kind, I admit. Alien to you, but admirable – in their own manner – to me. Their current . . . well, situation concerns me. It is something I have sworn to look into.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Nothing. As yet. But time is running out.’

Dorin eyed her, wary. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that dawn is coming and these Kanese have yet to subdue the Protrectress.’

‘And so?’

Her mouth drew down once more. ‘There may be a confrontation that would be dangerous for everyone.’

Dorin was shaken by the strange woman’s certainty, but there was little he could do at the moment. ‘Well, thank you for the warning.’

The mage turned to the east and raised her chin to peer past the forest of roofs that lay all about them. ‘We shall see soon enough.’

*

Silk used his forearm to push up the sword thrusting at him and drew the soldier’s belt-knife with his other hand to thrust it straight up under the man’s chin. He staggered backwards as the man fell. Ten of the Hengan palace elites remained standing with him in the corridor. A new wave of Kan infantry rounded the corridor to crash shields with the elites. Silk reached for one shield and took hold; with direct touch he easily heated the bronze to glowing and the fellow howled, falling away as he pawed at the burning piece. A javelin thrust at him but, as he had experienced only a few times before, with his Warren elevated to its fever pitch everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. He jerked his head aside and thrust in past the weapon to take the fellow in the eye. This brought him to the front and now he was forced to bat aside several short sword thrusts, turning one to break a wrist, slashing a forearm, and leaving the dagger in a last one’s throat.

The rush ended with this last Kanese to fall; the elites were panting, seeing to minor slashes and cuts. Silk fell back as well, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. ‘That’s all for now,’ he managed.

‘We’ll hold,’ a female elite said. ‘What with you taking half of them.’

A mass of approaching footsteps announced another rush of Kanese.

He signalled for a withdrawal to the next inner set of doors.

Crossbow quarrels whisked past them and the Hengan elites ducked, holding their wide shields behind them. Silk merely backed away, dodging the missiles – as before, with his Warren sizzling about him he could see their paths the way a shaft of light crosses a darkened room. Yet he was past spent now, weaving, his grasp upon Thyr slipping. He ducked behind the palace guards to lean against a wall, his head spinning in exhaustion.

The bellowing and laughter of Koroll in full battle fury echoed up the corridor from another wing of the palace. Beneath that growled the constant low roar of Smokey’s Telas flames and a kiln heat emanated from the main audience hall on the left.

Silk nodded to the surviving men and women of the guard to hold these doors. Only one last set remained behind: those that led to the throne room itself, their last retreat. He was worried that the Kanese may yet get behind them and cut them off, and wanted to check on all the other accesses and corridors. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave these guards. Earlier this winter he knew he would have, without a moment’s thought or misgiving, but something had changed. Men and women had died for him. They’d given up their lives. He’d seen it up close, felt their blood on him. And it had changed him.

He could admit that now. A damned late time in one’s life to come to any sort of empathy with others, but there it was. Some never came to it at all.

He nodded encouragement to the female guard, who was clutching her leg where she’d been stabbed through. ‘No need for much marching now anyway,’ he told her with a wink.

She smiled through her pain and gestured up the hall. ‘You needn’t stay, sir.’

Sir. First time anyone in the palace had ever called him sir.

‘We promised the Protectress the dawn, and we’ll give it to her.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘They’re advancing as a solid column behind shields,’ the forward guard warned everyone.

Silk roused himself, pushing from the wall. ‘One more time . . . I will try to hit the shields again.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

The elites readied themselves in ranks, two across. Silk, at the rear, reached for his Warren once more and found it frighteningly distant. In attempting to raise it he fell forward on to the rear of the soldiers ahead of him and they supported him, alarmed. Their mouths moved but he heard nothing above the roaring in his ears as he pushed himself further and harder than he ever had before. Finally, almost beyond conscious volition, he grasped it and lashed out at the shields and armour of the column now pushing against the elites before him.

When his vision returned he found himself being dragged backwards between two wounded palace guards. They sat him just inside the threshold of the throne room and swung closed the double doors and barred them. He struggled to his feet. ‘What happened?’

‘They bought us some time,’ one told him.

Neither of these was the female guard he’d spoken to. He nodded, accepting this just as they had. ‘Hold here,’ he told them. ‘I’ll check on the others.’

In answer they saluted him as they would a commanding officer. He returned the salute then jogged, or rather staggered, to find the others. The main entranceway to the throne room he found choked with thick black smoke and radiating a deadly gasping heat – somewhere within that maelstrom Smokey appeared to still be holding.

The crash of stonework sounded from further along and here he came to Mara, panting and sweaty amid a cloud of dust. The hallway before her lay choked by a collapsed heap of fallen blocks and crushed masonry. In the east he found Ho and his contingent of guards retreating towards the throne room. Next to him, Koroll held a barred set of doors. From far off came a resounding booming, as of heavy blows. He headed back to his position.

The two guards were pressed against the doors, which jolted beneath a steady pounding. ‘They’ve brought up a timber or something,’ one shouted to him.

Mara joined them. ‘Not long now,’ she muttered, sourly.

Silk glanced back to the frail filigree door that led to the tower stairs. Hardly defensible, that.

The pounding stopped. Silk listened, wondering what was going on, and dreading some new stratagem.

‘Hello inside!’ a voice called, its south Itko Kan lilt quite strong. ‘Is anyone there?’

‘What do you want!’ Silk bellowed with more defiance than he felt.

‘You have fought well in defence of your ruler. Chulalorn sends his respect. But it is over now. Surrender and we will allow you to keep your lives.’

‘And what of the Protectress?’

‘Exile.’

The heavy stink of smoke wafted over them and Silk turned to see Smokey approaching. His clothes were scorched and blackened, his hair smoking.

‘What guarantee can you offer?’ Silk demanded.

‘The word of our king. From one ruler to another.’

‘I don’t trust Chulalorn,’ Smokey growled to Silk, his voice so hoarse as to be near soundless.

‘Give us your answer,’ the voice warned. ‘If we must break in we will slay all we find within.’

‘Give us time to put it to the Protectress,’ Silk called. He whispered to Smokey, ‘How long until the dawn?’

‘About a quarter of the hour,’ Smokey mouthed, near silent.

‘Give us half the hour!’ Silk called.

They waited in silence for the Kanese response. After a brief time the officer answered, ‘Very well. The half-hour. But no more.’

Smokey offered Silk a wink, but Mara scowled, still dubious.

*

Dorin was crouched on his haunches on the rooftop, listening to the general panic gathering in the streets below. He’d heard some fighting up and down the river’s shore, isolated pockets mostly; the majority of both sides appeared to be waiting. The Hengans were exhausted, numbed by the invasion, and too heavily outnumbered to mount a counter-attack. The Kanese infantry remained firmly in ranks, obviously under orders to defend their frozen highway through the city.

Yet as time passed the fog was lifting, and Dorin wondered whether the sorcerous ice would melt with it. The Kanese would have to get moving if that were to happen.

‘It looks as if they’ve won,’ he opined to the female mage with him. ‘What is your name, if I may?’

‘You may call me Nightchill. And do not be too hasty.’

‘The Hengans aren’t even fighting. They’re beaten.’

‘They are certainly shocked and demoralized, I agree.’

‘What is everyone waiting for?’

‘Word from the palace, I imagine.’

He grunted his understanding. They believed the palace taken, the Protectress fallen. Why fight and die when the cause was lost already?

The citizenry, however, was not quite so pragmatic. Panicked mobs surged through the predawn streets and the Hengan guards now found themselves embroiled in crowd control.

‘It has taken too long,’ Nightchill suddenly announced, and Dorin peered up at her. She was studying the one tall structure of the city – the tower that rose so very high over the palace. He straightened to examine it as well. Something strange was happening there at its peak. ‘What . . .’ He realized that what he was seeing was the dawn’s oblique golden rays striking the parapet at the tower’s viewing terrace. ‘I don’t see what . . .’ He stopped again as an answering glow seemed to echo the rays. It was swelling, burgeoning, even as he watched. ‘What—’

‘Get down!’ the woman yelled, and, displaying astonishing strength, she yanked him to the ground and bent over him.

Blazing ferocious radiance stabbed at his eyes and he groaned his pain, pressing his fists to his face. A deafening sizzling like the crackling of ten thousand fires erupted next to him and he howled, certain he was being burned alive. The very building shook and juddered beneath him as in an earthquake as something came grinding and thundering through the city. ‘What is it?’ he yelled to be heard.

‘Elder magics,’ the woman shouted, next to his ear. ‘Kurald Liosan, unveiled.’

‘Who?’

‘The Protectress, of course.’

The unveiling, or summoning, pounded onward in a sizzling growling as of a waterfall in flood rushing past his position. It went on and on, swelling, burgeoning until he was certain he was about to be consumed, then slowly, relentlessly, it passed, or faded, or he’d become deaf and blind from the punishment. He dared a glimpse by pressing the backs of both hands to his eyes and sliding them apart until he could glance between fingers. The vision dazzled and awed him. Twin sizzling firestorms of light each as tall as the sky. Each pounding its way along the river – one rolling to the east and the other to the west. Even as he watched, the westward one overran a huddled column of Kanese soldiery. Within the waterfall of brilliance they seemed to blur, dissolving, eroding. When the avalanche ground onward all that was left behind was a smear of ash and soot upon the rotting ice.

The power unleashed here appalled him. How could they counter such might? In short, they could not. No one could. Surely there must be an equivalent price to be paid for such expenditure. He was frankly rather overawed; he thought he’d known power before. But all he’d seen to date paled to insignificance next to this display. Nothing, it seemed to him, could ever be the same again.

Nightchill helped him up and he stood blinking as a glow filled his vision. The thundering roar scoured onward, but distant now. ‘I can barely see.’

‘It should pass.’

‘What was that?’

‘She has sent the fires of Liosan, or Thyrllan, down the river. Many are slain. I must go now.’

Dorin blinked his weeping eyes. ‘If you must.’ She did not answer – no doubt she’d left already. Blind, feeling as if he’d been roasted over a fire, he sat again then hissed, yanking his hands from the roof: the bricks had burned his palms and he could just hear them all about him, crackling and ticking with the radiated heat of the sorcerous onslaught.

*

The instant the brilliant light burst upon them Iko and her sister Sword-Dancers were blinded with everyone else. Blinking, hands extended, they encircled the king and began edging him back along the river, heading for the Outer Round. Panicked officers and messengers pulled and clutched to reach Chulalorn, but the Sword-Dancers, unable to tell who was who, fought everyone off.

Iko raised her forearms to her eyes and squinted through the narrow slit between. In this manner she could just make out some sort of towering pillar of pure white coruscating energy that appeared to be heading their way along the river. It was like a waterfall of light pouring down from the sky. It came pounding the surface, consuming all in its path. White flames licked its edges, turning blue and orange as they annihilated building fronts and wharves. The tumult was swelling to an unendurable howl.

She watched the approaching wave of brilliance wash over entire companies on the river. They dissolved in the fiery light like wisps of tinder in a furnace. Even wagons brought down on to the ice disappeared in the onslaught. It was as if they were ground to dust before her straining, aching eyes.

A closer company, an entire column, now sought shelter under wagons and she shouted to them to run but her voice was utterly inaudible even to her. The immense tower of light ground onward and the wagons disappeared even as the soldiers beneath squinted into the light as if seeking enemies. ‘No!’ she shrieked, but they vanished as if snatched away, blown to shreds of ash like leaves in a windstorm.

She tore her gaze away, blinking, dazzled by after-images. She set her lips to another Sword-Dancer’s ear: ‘We must flee the river! Now!’

This one nodded her understanding and passed along the order. Together they worked to redirect the shuffling protective circle, searching for any route up the shore. Feeling their way along, they came to a stone stairway leading up from the frozen surface. An access for washing perhaps, or collecting drinking water. They began slipping through two by two up the stairs. The king, held low among them, now struggled against such disrespectful treatment. They held him down despite this, hands at his back and neck.

One of their number found a narrow alleyway bound by two tall brick buildings and they withdrew between, the king hidden.

The punishing roar had swollen to a landslide thunder and the stabbing radiance was somehow even brighter. Its intensity lanced Iko through her squeezed shut eyes. She imagined that this was what standing at the edge of an avalanche must feel like.

The crescendo roared up level with them. Tiles and bricks, shaken loose from above, came crashing down. A reflected kiln heat made her pull her hands from the brick wall as the stone burned too hot to touch. The waterfall thunder continued past like a mountain tumbling down a slope.

Eventually, in the relative silence, she straightened, tentatively. After a time, Yuna sent a sister off to investigate. A hot wind now blew from the river, heating Iko’s face. It carried the stink of smoke, and of roasted flesh.

By the time the sister returned Iko’s vision had half cleared, though floating dots of darkness obscured it. The sister was pale, her face strained, even sickened. She said nothing, only shook her head. Yuna gestured them onward to the west. They headed that way, restraining the king among them like a prisoner.

Luckily for them, Iko thought, no counter-offensive was in motion. The Hengans, guards and citizenry alike, appeared just as stunned by this unprecedented cataclysm as they. She and her sisters reached the inside of the Outer Round wall where it marched down into the Idryn and only then did it come to her that they were on the north shore. They would have to cross the river.

Mist obscured the wide expanse, but not the thick heavy fog of before. These hanging tendrils resembled more the steam of heated water. Yuna pointed a sister ahead and she eased out on to the frozen surface. It gave slightly beneath her feet, and water now coursed above the ice sheet, but it held. Yuna gestured two more to attempt to cross. They set out keeping a good few paces between them. Soon the mists swallowed both. Some tens of heartbeats later came a high whistle – one of their ‘all-clear’ signals. Yuna sent out two more.

In this manner, some few at a time, they crossed the river. Chulalorn went in the middle of the crossings, with guards established behind and before. Iko was among the last pairs to go.

It was unsettling in the extreme starting out. The ice sheet creaked and groaned beneath her feet. The mists obscured her vision – it was as if she were walking through clouds. Her footing was unsteady as the surface gave and yielded like soft clay. Her boots were sodden by the river water now coursing over the rotting ice.

Shapes emerged from the mists around her and she jerked her sword free, nearly falling as the ice rocked beneath her. They were Kanese regulars retreating from the city centre. They came as ghosts, some singly, some in groups, limping, supporting one another. All bore horrific wounds. Their surcoats and leather armour hung blackened and burned, some still smoking. Their faces and hands were cracked and scorched, their scalps bare, the skin broken and bleeding. The only sound was a low constant moaning as of intense agony dulled now by numbness.

Iko stood still as the army of near dead limped past her, sloshing and splashing through the shallow water above the ice. We’ve been destroyed, she realized. How many hundreds – nay, thousands – had they lost here this day? They no longer possessed a viable force. They had no choice but to retreat and hope to limit whatever damages may follow from this disaster.

It was as Hallens had feared. Sorcery had been answered by sorcery – power had drawn power. The sudden need to slap Chulalorn across the face for all these deaths washed over her like a physical force and she suppressed the urge with a shudder. He could not have known. Yet he should have.

She slogged onward, splashing, her feet now sinking into the softening dough-like ice sheet. She made the southern shore, pulled herself up the still frozen mud slope by yanking on tall grasses, and joined the waiting party. Here she dutifully took her place in the defensive circle about the king and they made their way south to the encampment.

Yuna was already giving orders to her sisters regarding the logistics of the retreat while the king said nothing. He staggered along at their centre, his brows crimped in complete incomprehension, his gaze on the ground, seemingly as stunned and numbed as his soldiers themselves.

*

The eruption of power that came with the dawn had knocked Silk and his fellow mages to the floor. He and Smokey had been negotiating for more time with the Kanese officer; the man had had enough and his troops were once more pounding on the doors. The doors were yielding and he and Smokey were readying themselves though Silk knew he had nothing left to give – he’d exhausted himself drawing upon his Warren and could barely summon it.

All that changed, however, when the stupendous swelling of power blossomed from far above and all five mages dropped their own preparations to peer upwards in awed astonishment. Even when Silk couldn’t imagine it possibly intensifying any further, the upwelling continued to grow and surge. It doubled, and redoubled again, utterly beyond any capacity he had dreamed any mage could possibly channel or sustain.

The unthinkable might drove him to clutch his head in agony; dimly, through blurring vision, he glimpsed Smokey falling to his knees. He fell as well, only just catching himself on one hand. His head hanging, he saw red droplets pattering to the polished white marble flags beneath him and he touched his nose to find warm wetness there as blood flowed freely. Somewhere, out of his vision, Mara screamed in wordless protest.

A renewed burst of puissance drove him to the floor where he lay, hardly able to hold on to his consciousness. He felt as if he were pinned beneath the mightiest cataract in the earth and all those tons of water were pounding down upon him. He lost awareness while holding his head to keep it from bursting and giving vent to his own soundless scream.

He awoke being shaken, and turned over to blink upwards at the giant Koroll. The other mage handed him a cloth rag. ‘Thyrllan . . .’ Silk groaned.

The giant nodded. ‘A dose of the might of the Tiste-kind.’

Silk wiped the thickly caked blood from his nose, mouth, and chin. He slowly and carefully pushed himself to his feet. Dizzy, he peered about, squinting. Smokey and Mara were rousing themselves; Ho stood aside, waiting, appearing little the worse for their exposure to the cataclysmic power. Silk felt a surge of resentment for that.

He staggered over to the Hengan mage. ‘We must go to her now.’

Ho nodded and headed for the tower door. The long climb up the circular stairway was an agony for Silk, because of his weakened condition, and because Ho insisted upon leading the way, and lumbered like a dozing bear. He examined nearly every step as he went; Silk fumed, urging him on, hand cradling his head. ‘Would you hurry?’ he hissed for the twentieth time.

‘She either lives or not,’ the older mage answered gruffly. ‘We must be careful – who knows what stresses this has placed upon the structure here.’

Indeed, the white marble of the tower was too hot to touch, and still seemed to glow, but all the more reason to reach Shalmanat. Silk growled and resisted beating his fists on the man’s broad back.

After four more turns of the tight climb Ho announced, ‘We are close.’

When Silk reached the step he found a stain of black flakes upon the polished white stone. He touched his fingertips to it and brought it to his nose. He smelled the iron tang of dried blood.

It was a thread of spilled blood descending the heated steps, drying as it came. Silk pushed the wary Ho onward with a hand on his back. They found the uppermost door open a fraction and Ho pushed it wider. His breath eased from him in shock and Silk pushed past him. The room was black with soot as from a ferocious fire; the furnishings lay as ash scattered about the floor; the very stone around them ticked and crackled with cooling; the radiating heat drove Silk to shield his face.

She lay half out upon the viewing parapet, naked, her clothes a mere dusting of white ash. Silk ran to her. A sickle blade of some white stone lay next to her. Silk was sickened to see blood still running from each wrist, a trickle now. She had slit both.

He tore his shirt and set to binding the wounds. Ho crouched next to him. ‘Sacrifice . . .’ the man murmured, awed. ‘I’d thought it sorcery but I was wrong. This is a religious invocation. The cult of the Liosan. Elder Light.’

‘Shut up and help me.’

‘I will carry her.’

Silk acceded to that – the man was far stronger than he.

Gently, the burly mage eased her up to cradle her in his arms. Blood formed dried black trails from her nose and mouth. Perhaps the movement pained her for she stirred then, blinking, and Silk was shocked to see the orbs of her eyes all deep crimson – shot through entirely by blood.

Ho started down the stairs, but Silk lingered. He leaned out of the parapet, careful not to brush the steaming hissing stone, and peered over the city. Mist still obscured most of the river and streets, but from what he could see the ice sheet was breaking into slabs and these bumping their way down the flow. The streets remained empty, citizens and soldiers alike stunned and shocked by a demonstration of power utterly unprecedented in any living memory.

Of course now he understood. Now he could see her reluctance. Not only the awful weight of this loss of life, but the possible cost of her own.

And from this point onward she had certainly lost the love of the people here. In exchange she had won their fear.

Steps sounded behind and Smokey joined him at the viewing terrace. He too glanced down, then shifted his gaze to him. ‘We have to salvage what we can.’

Silk nodded, his mouth dry. ‘Yes.’

Smokey started down, gesturing him to join him.

*

She found him lying in the shallows. A steaming husk hardly recognizable as a human, or humanlike, form. Smoke still plumed from his pitted scorched flesh. When she lifted him up he whimpered like an animal in agony. She raised her aspect to cool him while she held him in her arms, and though he was twice her size she carried him easily, like a child.

His breathing slowed as her power worked upon him and his eyelids fluttered open. Recognition focused within his tawny gaze. ‘Sister Night,’ he whispered, his voice breaking. ‘I sensed an Azathani near. I did not know it was you.’

‘Quiet now, Juage. Do not strain yourself. I have you.’

His cracked bleeding lips spread in a wry smile. ‘Still a friend of us foolish kind, are you?’

‘Hush now.’

She carried him to an abandoned cottage and set him down within, then went to the gaping doorway to keep watch. They were on the south shore, not that distant from the Kanese encampment, but she did not think them at risk – not now, at any rate. There ought not to be any more patrols or excursions coming out of that camp. Not any longer.

Instead they were no doubt breaking everything down in a panicked rush, loading their wagons, carts and mules and slogging off southward before any vengeful Hengan sally could be organized. Chulalorn himself had probably already departed, bundled into his personal carriage, surrounded by his cavalry elites and bodyguard.

If he’d survived, that was. Her impression was that he had. His kind usually did.

Perhaps it was the heat, but a light drifting rain began to fall across the landscape of trampled fields and burned-out crofts and sheds. It was a rain black with soot and smoke, as if the very sky had burned. Later in the day Juage stirred, groaning, and she came to sit cross-legged, studying him. The stink of roasted flesh had no effect upon her. His eyes opened once more and he turned his head to regard her. The light rain hissed down around them, dripping from gaps in the broken slate roofing.

‘Why do you involve yourself in this stupidity?’ she asked.

‘Sadly, I have no choice. The grandfather found me and released me. In return he asked for service to his family. Unfortunately, I had no idea he possessed such an extremely large family.’

Sister Night eyed him, dubious. ‘Come now, Juage. A Jaghut compelled by a human?’

Juage attempted a shrug, and hissed in pain. ‘Well . . . very nearly. In truth I am here for the same reason as you. Power draws power, does it not? Something is going to happen here and I know you sense it also.’

Sister Night nodded, conceding the point. ‘In any case, you were a fool to move against the Protectress.’

He shook his head, wincing as the burned flesh of his neck split apart. ‘Come, come. You did not expect this either.’

She nodded again. ‘True. But you must have known she was Liosan . . .’

‘Yes, I sensed that, of course. But a priestess of the cult? Able to unveil true Kurald Thyrllan?’ His tone turned chiding. ‘Admit you were as shocked as I.’

The barest of smiles pulled at her severe mouth. ‘I was . . . surprised by the . . . extravagance of it. I admit that. No doubt she is in even worse shape than you.’

He chuckled. ‘No doubt.’

For a time she listened to the rain drifting down in thin sheets. ‘And now?’

‘Now I must play my role – and keep an eye on these lands.’

She pursed her thin lips. ‘And if Chulalorn were not to have survived the attack . . .?’

He shook his head once more. ‘Now, now. Did you not swear not to involve yourself in such matters? And in any case, there is an heir.’

She gave the smallest of shrugs. ‘I made such a vow, yes.’

His amber eyes narrowed to slits as he regarded her. ‘Sometimes I suspect you are even more devious than T’riss.’

She rose. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about. But what I can say is that since you are so incapacitated I suggest you rest here for a day or two to recover.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I do need to recover my strength.’

‘Indeed. Take care, then. Farewell – for now.’

‘And fare you well, Sister Night.’

She bowed and stepped out into the thin misty rain.