Prince Thief

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Making our appearance amidst a raging battle had one benefit: no one was paying us much attention. So preoccupied were they with hacking, slashing and bludgeoning each other that even the arrival of thirty and more men, a woman, one giant and a long-suffering thief had hardly turned a head.

Less advantageous was the fact that whatever fragile accord had developed amongst our party was fast dissolving. Ondeges had already split off his men, and all had their weapons drawn, even if they hadn’t put them to use as yet; the same went for Navare and his guardsmen, who were manoeuvring, swords out, for a place to make their stand amidst the chaos. Lastly, the buccaneers were retreating in a ragtag pack around the inner wall, having evidently decided that this was a test too far of their tenuous loyalties.

That left only Estrada, Saltlick and I upon the steps leading from the palace entrance. Saltlick was deathly pale and still hunched over, as though his time underground had warped his spine forever. Staring at the fighting, his eyes held the panicked glint of someone who’d woken from nightmares into the most furious of storms.

Estrada, too, was gazing around wild-eyed — though her focus was solely upon Ondeges, Navare and their respective factions. “No… damn it! The truce-”

“What truce?” I yelled at her. “You can’t believe Ondeges meant that!”

“Of course he meant it. Do you really think that…” The sentence broke off, as Estrada glanced about her. “Where is he?”

I was rapidly losing my grip on the conversation, not to mention any ability to care when nearby people were enthusiastically trying to kill each other. “Where’s who, damn it?”

“Malekrin,” she said. “Where’s Malekrin?”

At that name, something cold sunk inside me, like a plumb line dropped into my inmost depths. Because Estrada was right, Malekrin was nowhere to be seen — and as my own eyes sought frantically over the space between palace steps and gatehouse, over the knots of fighting men, I realised I couldn’t even say when I’d last seen him.

The Bastard Prince: the single concrete advantage we’d gained from our disastrous expedition, our bargaining chip with the King and for that matter with the Shoanish, if and when they arrived; in short, our one and only scant hope. I’d let him slip through my fingers and, as if that weren’t bad enough, he’d taken the crown of Altapasaeda with him.

All told, this was one calamity I didn’t want laid at my feet. “What do you mean?” I shouted, with all the innocence I could muster, “weren’t you watching him?”

I’d expected a scathing reply. When it didn’t come, I looked where Estrada was looking — and was startled to see Alvantes, sword in hand, staring back from the gatehouse. So he’d managed to escape the palace all those days ago, and now here he was again, once more deep in the thick of battle. Even as I saw him, he pointed in our direction and bellowed, “Protect Marina Estrada! Protect our men!”

Then he was moving — and when the mood took him, no one moved like Alvantes did. Though his clothes were torn and bloody, the chainmail beneath rent by two long gashes, he pushed forward with all the ferocity of a wild boar suddenly cut loose. When a half dozen paces placed a palace soldier in his path, Alvantes swatted the man’s blade aside with his own and barged forward, sending his opponent tumbling. A second soldier he side-stepped past, before slamming an elbow like a hammer blow into his neck. Already Alvantes was halfway to us, and a channel was opening ahead of him that his men strove to fill, before their enemies could appreciate what was happening.

Meanwhile, Navare and his guardsmen had folded into a tight semicircle in front of us. “Ready?” he asked Estrada. She drew her own sword, gave a terse nod — and we were off.

There had to be some order to the fighting, some strategy or logic, but for the life of me I couldn’t see it. To watch, it was hard to believe there were even sides, that it wasn’t every man for himself. Yet with Alvantes making his push to rescue us and Navare forcing his own way through the turmoil, it was clear even to me that, whatever the nature of the battle had been, it was now changing abruptly.

Over on the left flank, I glimpsed another familiar face, though one I could happily have never seen again: Ludovoco was fencing simultaneously with two men in unfamiliar uniforms, who I took to be part of Mounteban’s faction. It was clear he was barely testing himself — and even as he registered Alvantes’s gambit, he dispatched one with such casual ease that the other almost tripped over his own feet in surprise. The man was so busy trying to retreat that he hardly even saw Ludovoco’s sword go into his belly; he only flinched and crumpled round it, until Ludovoco tipped his arm up and let him slide to the cobbles.

Then Ludovoco raised the bloodied blade to point and said — not loudly, but distinct enough that I heard it even at such a distance — “Kill them!”

It was more than a command; it was an imperative. If I hadn’t been so busy hurrying, hustled along by the guardsmen around me, I’d have struggled not to try and follow it myself. Our only slender advantage was that so few of his men were in any position to listen, and fewer in a position to respond.

But that was enough — thanks to Alvantes. Before we were even a third of the way across the courtyard he’d bridged the gap between our two groups, and the passage he’d left in his wake, cobbled with a dozen broken, bleeding men, was rapidly shored up by his troop. Navare’s guardsmen fell in to join them — and suddenly there was an avenue through the turmoil opened before us.

Even as I broke into a run, Ludovoco’s forces were starting to coordinate, trying to carve their way to us. Again, they’d have stood a better chance if it weren’t for Alvantes, now fighting a frantic rearguard alongside Navare. In the instant I spared to glance his way, he was somehow fending off two palace soldiers at once, each a head taller than him and clearly baffled at how their blows failed to land upon a one-handed man.

Then we were into the gatehouse and through, and the guardsmen were collapsing back around us, those that could still move at all, as they threw whatever stamina they had left into covering our escape. Reaching the grand plaza that ringed the palace, I blinked against the bright morning sun and at the statued fronts of the temples. Still reeling from the shock of finding myself in the midst of battle for no clear reason, my head was awhirl.

I turned to see Alvantes and Navare now in the midst of organising a defence of the gatehouse, their two squads already merged back into a single force, as though none of the last week’s events had ever occurred. Those at the forefront sallied to recover the wounded, to help or haul them back to relative safety. They were met with scant resistance, for beyond our lines Ondeges and Ludovoco’s forces were doing the same, their two factions flowing together to secure the courtyard.

Seeing them apart, lined opposite each other for the first time, I could tell that the two sides were more or less evenly matched. Whatever we’d stumbled into, then, it was a very different conflict to the one I’d left all those days ago — and I could only assume that this time it was Alvantes who’d struck the first blow. But having once escaped the palace, why would he have returned? If he’d been set on rousting Ludovoco, why wait until now? There was more to this than I could see, more than this small, desperate tussle.

With the injured out from underfoot, it was apparent that the brief armistice was drawing to a close. Given how temperamentally unsuited I was to violence, I felt it was time I started seeking an alternative. Though it was all I could do to stand upright, I knew I’d find strength to run if I had to. But where to? Without knowing the context of this brawl, it was possible I’d be charging into even greater danger.

I’d have to decide soon, or else the decision would be out of my hands. Ludovoco had finished marshalling his troops; Alvantes and his men stood ready to meet them. Now that the combat had taken on more formal outlines, Ludovoco looked coldly self-assured, as though the rest were a mere formality. Given the efficiency with which his soldiers had taken their formation, compared with the ragtag performance of Alvantes’s guardsmen, I couldn’t help thinking that he had every right to his confidence.

But I was wrong, and so was Ludovoco, and he began to realise it at exactly as I did.

Then again, how was he supposed to have known that — even as he’d fenced with such cruel efficiency, as he’d calmly organised his forces for the next round of violence — a mob of furious barbarians had been working their way through the palace? Ludovoco registered the approach of running feet with only the slightest hint of puzzlement; but as they drew nearer, his icy calm began to slip.

If I’d found something satisfying in watching the vicious bastard’s confidence waver, however, it was nothing to the look on his face when fifty scimitar-waving Shoanish poured from the palace entrance, with Kalyxis standing tall in their midst. I wished I could burn that image into my memory and keep it with me forever. It was the expression of a man whose plans had just been demolished in a fashion he couldn’t even begin to make sense of, and it was beautiful.

Sadly, I didn’t have long to enjoy it. Because whatever Kalyxis had been expecting, it wasn’t this either, not a company of armed and already bloodied soldiers formed in perfect battle order. I didn’t hear what she called to her followers, but I was willing to guess the word ambush figured in there somewhere. When Ludovoco’s thin lips moved just slightly, I’d no doubt he was expressing a similar thought.

Either way, they were on each other quickly enough.

“You really did it?” cried Alvantes. “You brought help?”

“They’re not here to save us, Lunto,” called back Estrada.

Alvantes gave that news a moment’s consideration. Then, “Navare,” he shouted, “stay here with half the men and do whatever you can. Ludovoco mustn’t leave, do you hear me? He’s the target. If you have to take a side, make it the Shoanish.”

Though Navare must have been every bit as shattered as I was, I’d have never guessed it as he began to organise the guardsmen closest to him. The rest fell into step behind Alvantes and Estrada, who were already pacing across the square. I tried a quick mental reckoning as to whether following was more or less risky than running as fast my legs would carry me in the other direction; but I had no more evidence than before, and at least with Alvantes there would be armed men between me and any threats. I hurried to catch up, and Saltlick — who had been hovering close, still looking frail and stunned — limped along after me.

A number of horses were tied before one of the larger temples, a blasphemy Alvantes had presumably chosen to overlook — though it was hard to imagine whichever god was represented by the fish-headed statue glaring down at us agreeing, given the still-steaming offerings a couple of the beasts had deposited on his doorstep.

We mounted hurriedly, and I barely had time to wonder what Alvantes had in mind before we were off. He was leading us north, I noted; the main road we joined would eventually end at the northwestern gate, the one recently pulverised by the giants in our bid to rescue the city from Mounteban.

Speaking of giants: “Slow down!” I bawled at Alvantes. “Don’t you see he can’t keep up?”

I was referring, of course, to Saltlick, who was trying his best to keep pace with the horses despite his recent injuries and failing hopelessly. Seeing how far he’d already fallen behind us, Alvantes threw a questioning glance at Estrada, and then said, “All right, damn it… slower, everyone.”

He didn’t sound at all happy about it, and it was perhaps as much to divert his thoughts as from genuine curiosity that Estrada chose that moment to ask, “What’s been happening, Lunto? Why were you fighting?”

Alvantes’s face somehow became a shade grimmer. “The King’s at the gates. Or through them by now, who knows? Mounteban’s covering that end, damn him.”

“But the palace…?”

“We had to keep Ludovoco where he is. He knows too much about what’s been going on inside the city; I couldn’t let him take that knowledge to Panchessa.”

So that was it. Altapasaeda was defending itself on two fronts — and that wasn’t even to mention Kalyxis and her Shoanish, or for that matter, Mounteban’s inevitable next betrayal. Perhaps I’d made the wrong call in trailing after Alvantes. Then again, it was hard to imagine where I’d possibly be safe with so many enemies around, every one of them after my blood for their own reasons.

“And now you’re hoping Kalyxis and Ludovoco will keep each other occupied?” Estrada asked.

“Exactly,” agreed Alvantes. “Anyway, I can’t trust Mounteban to hold the walls. What does containing Ludovoco matter if the whole city’s overrun?” He drew up abruptly at a junction, where an easterly road cut towards the Market District and eventually the docks. “Before that, though, we have to get you to safety.”

“What?” Estrada’s tone hardened. “Don’t be absurd, Lunto. If we can’t hold off Panchessa, here and now, there’ll be no safety anywhere.”

It was a sentiment uncomfortably close to my own thoughts. However, I recognised that look in Alvantes’s eye, that certainty beyond doubt that he was right.

Then again, I’d seen the stubborn set of Estrada’s jaw often enough as well. “What hiding place is going to last once the King’s inside the walls?” she added, a shade more gently.

“There are still boats in the harbour…” Alvantes began.

“No. Lunto, no. Even if they haven’t blockaded the river, which they most probably have, I’m not leaving. Now, stop wasting time that peoples’ lives depend on.”

“She’s right,” I told Alvantes, “and you know it. For once, why don’t you save yourself the trouble of losing an argument?”

Though he glowered — at me, of course, rather than Estrada — Alvantes didn’t try to disagree again. Instead, he tapped his heels against his horse’s flank, and we were off once more.

I gritted my teeth. I had a fair idea of what we were riding towards; the noise was a sure portent. It had been audible since we’d left the palace, and building ever since — though proximity only made it harder to pick individual sounds from the roar of shouts and thrash of weapons. It was the cacophony of violence on a grand scale, and it was becoming all too familiar.

If it was making me jumpy, it was terrifying the horses. Guard animals they might be, but they’d never had to experience a war, and panic was spreading rapidly through their ranks. Approaching a bend, Alvantes signalled us to halt and called, “We’ll dismount here.”

We hurried to alight and I cautiously tethered my steed, for the expression in his large and too-white eyes told me he’d much rather be galloping in the other direction. “You and me both,” I muttered, as I tied off a last knot.

By the time I had him secured to my satisfaction, the others were already hurrying on. I dashed to catch up. As we careened around the bend, the northwestern gate came into view — and for all that I thought I knew what to expect, my jaw still fell open.

The gates were wide open, their inner edges broken and splintered. Perhaps that was small wonder, for there was only so much that could be done to repair a portal so recently smashed, especially in a city that was coming apart at the seams. And just as at the palace, the gatehouse had become a focal point for the fighting, its narrow confines going some way to levelling the odds between the city’s defenders and the purple-clad soldiers pressing from outside.

All of that was shocking, without doubt. I’d never truly believed Altapasaeda could be vulnerable to any army; compared with the rest of the Castoval, it had always seemed indomitable. Yet, strange as it was to see the city under attack, it wasn’t unexpected. No, what defied my belief wasn’t the fighting already inside the walls — it was just who was fighting.

Giants. There were giants massed alongside the defenders. And in case I tried to convince myself it was a trick, a scam like the one I’d once conceived myself, they were wearing armour made ready to their scale and bearing weapons, great spiked hammers each as tall as a small tree, and they were using those weapons, sweeping bloody swathes through the men crowding into the breach.

I realised too late what was about to happen, what was bound to happen, and I was already asking myself what I could possibly do to stop Saltlick when he thundered past me. He was roaring a word in giantish, over and over and over — and though I couldn’t understand, though it was reduced to sheer noise by rage and grief and buried in the crash of his feet, I was sure I knew exactly what he was saying.

No! No! No!

Then Saltlick was amidst the fighting, men diving and stumbling to get out of his way, and he was forcing himself into the very heart of the violence, like a surgeon’s knife plunged into a canker. His brethren looked astonished to see him, and cowed. He snatched a hammer from one and hurled it as if it were a twig; it struck the wall and lodged there, its head a hand deep in the spider-webbed stone. Another followed after, scattering cobbles, a dozen men tumbling to avoid its impact.

It was clear now that most of those pressed in the gatehouse were Pasaedans, and that the giants had been the only thing keeping them out of the city. With our attackers’ initial alarm beginning to pass, they seemed more unsure than afraid. It must be dawning on them that Saltlick, still busy plucking and discarding hammers, wasn’t simply another foe. In fact, wasn’t he aiding rather than hindering their assault? He’d disarmed most of the other giants by then, meeting no resistance — for they stood like sleepwalkers as he tore the weapons from their hands. Not only that but, unlike those others, Saltlick wore no armour. And while he might be doing the Pasaedans a favour, he still stood between them and their goal…

The first blow was hesitant, barely a prick. A soldier poked his sword at Saltlick’s calf, as if he expected the weapon to burst into flames the moment it made contact. When it didn’t, he looked more amazed than he had already. But that didn’t stop him from trying again, less delicately this time — and that was all the encouragement it took for those nearby to mimic his example.

Saltlick staggered. He glanced around him, as if dazed. The other giants were all unarmed now, but they weren’t backing off, were making no effort to disengage from the fighting — and I realised that nothing else would make Saltlick retreat.

I wanted to scream at them, but it was as though my tongue had swollen and clogged my throat. Anyway, by then it was already too late.

Because in that moment, Saltlick went down.