“Will he live?” she asked.
“The fates are halved,” said Master Deani, drenching a cloth in a pungent bowl of solution, then pressing it around the protruding bolt. “I shall do all I can.” His aged face was grim, his hands sure and fast. Deani was no Nasi-Keth, but he knew medicine like one. Palopy was not his house-Saalshen owned it-but Deani might as well have done, for how he ran the place. His father had been a friend of Saalshen's in the old days, when such friends were rare, and he had accepted Saalshen's employment since his earliest years. But Deani was no convert to serrin ways and philosophies, however skilled at medicines. He was simply a good man of Petrodor, a devout Verenthane, dedicated to his family and as loyal to his employers as any family soldier to his patachi. “Do they press us hard? I will need more hands if our number of wounded grows.”
“If we spare too many hands we shall be overrun,” Rhillian said grimly. “Best hope our good neighbours defend their neutrality by force if needs be. If the mob gain access to those houses, we'll have them pouring over the walls on two sides, and we've not enough archers to hold them then. These people are crazy, losses deter them not.”
“I can hear,” Deani said drily as he worked. “I doubt our neighbours will fold, however much they love their archbishop. It would be like inviting a rabid beast into your house to solve a mouse problem.”
“The Armadis across the road have discovered so,” Rhillian agreed. “One man caught an axe to the face, I couldn't see who.”
Deani hissed through his teeth. “I sent gifts to Patachi Armadi at the birth of his son. Who are these fools? Riverside?”
“They seem ragged enough,” Rhillian said dubiously. “Aisha says they came mostly up the Saint's Walk, that's close enough to Riverside.”
Deani made a face. “There's only one place in Petrodor to make so many crazy people, and that's Riverside. Backside's big, and plenty poor, but not so poor to make for crazed desperation. And Backside are mostly folks who've been here some years, and know enough to tell a foul, bigoted lie from the word of the gods. Riverside are rag-picking blow-ins, the lot of them. They've got the smarts of old boots and the charm of rotting manure.”
“Our properties were assaulted before this lot even arrived by crowds from midslope,” Rhillian countered.
“Bah.” Deani made a dismissive gesture. “Every crowd has its fools. The problem with you serrin, you're too polite for your own good. Riverside are slime, the Nasi-Keth would have had better luck setting the place on fire than trying to convert them. The damn archbishop got there first, only he didn't waste his coin on clean water and medicines-he's a smart man, that archbishop-he built temples. And those poor, stupid fools loved him for it, they've got so much more hope of the next life than this one. My advice-send them there as fast as you can.”
Rhillian left Master Deani to his work and crossed the hallway into the opposite room facing Maerler's Way. From the outside, the door would have appeared to lead to an innocuous bedchamber, but, instead of a bed, the room housed a great ballista-a giant crossbow elevated at its nose by two wheels. Now, the room stank of a strange, sickly solution. Two serrin were mixing the stuff in a wide basin, empty buckets nearby filled with water, along with other bags and buckets of strange-smelling, bright-coloured substances that Rhillian could not identify. Serrin oils did not keep well in large volumes, and were stored in premixed portions that would not catch fire. Only now, the final mix was made.
The two serrin filled a bucket-careful not to get the sticky, oozing substance on their gloves-and poured the solution into a leather pouch the size of a stonemelon. The pouch was sealed and placed into the ballista's firing sling. The man and woman then began winding the winch handles at the rear, pulling back great arms, each as long as a person. The thick cord groaned, and began to tremble.
“What's first?” asked the man, Arele.
“The Armadi House,” Rhillian said grimly. “Burn it down.”
The winching stopped. The woman, Calia, opened the shuttered windows to the grey day outside. There was no need to aim. Armadi House lay directly ahead, across the wall and the corpse-littered bend of Maerler's Way. Bolt and arrow fire whistled toward them and clattered off the walls. One impaled a neighbouring window shutter with a thud. Arele poured a spoonful of the sticky mixture over the leather pouch and lit it with a wrist-flick of his metal flint. Flame bloomed green about the pouch, and Arele pulled the firing rope. The ballista kicked and leaped like a wild thing. Armadi House disappeared in a brilliant flash, and Rhillian shielded her eyes. When she looked again, a portion of the house's second floor was engulfed in flame. The fire appeared to have mostly missed the windows, but that would soon change. Armadi House was only small compared to Palopy, but Rhillian was glad as she gazed at the blaze that humans did not possess the means to make the oil.
“Once more,” said Rhillian, closing the shutters and locking them, as Calia and Arele set about preparing another shot. “Those walls will get so hot the stone will crack.”
“I'll find a window with the next shot,” Arele assured her, pouring into the next leather pouch. “It'll burn fast enough.” Arrowfire thudded into the shutters. They were heavy, reinforced for the purpose, and even the crossbow fire did not penetrate. Rhillian risked a quick glance around the neighbouring window frame…and she frowned, as her eyes found a new commotion on the upslope stretch of Maerler's Way.
On the last visible portion of road, before it disappeared about a bend, the crowd parted enough to reveal a wooden, cartlike contraption. Only then did Rhillian see the firing arm and the tension ropes.
“We have a new target,” she announced urgently. “They've brought artillery.”
“How big?” asked Calia, sealing the pouch, teeth gritted and nose wrinkled against the stench.
“They're a hundred and fifty paces away, and I think they'll hit us with plenty of room for accuracy.”
“Some weight to haul all the way up Backside,” Arele muttered.
“Oh they've been quite well organised,” Rhillian said darkly, ducking back from the window as a bolt shot through and punched into a big armchair. “If one were suspicious, one might wonder how long something like this has been planned.” She peered again around the window rim. From the Armadi House came desperate yells and the glimpse of figures running past windows. A man leaned out a higher window to dump a bucket of water, and was immediately impaled with four arrows. Rising smoke obscured the view somewhat, but Rhillian could see the winches being worked on the catapult, bare-chested men heaving on the spoke handles.
“How far across?” Arele asked, placing the shot as Calia wound on the winch handles.
“Five hands left,” Rhillian judged, and Arele straddled the ballista body, lifting across even as Calia continued winding. “Another hand. Good.” Rhillian took a last look out the window, measuring distances with her eye. “Up a notch.” She turned and helped Arele lift the front. Calia finished winding, the arms groaning with the strain, and the firing mechanism clicked into place.
Arele poured the igniter oil and lit it, while Rhillian unlatched the window shutters and flung them open. Arrows and bolts whistled through the window, cracking against the far wall, kicking over furniture, ricocheting off the ballista itself. Calia risked a look along the weapon's length as the incoming volley ceased.
“Good,” she said.
Arele pulled the rope. Rhillian ran to a side window this time and peered out in time to see the flaming projectile strike the house wall to the downhill side of the catapult. Flames erupted, and perhaps thirty men disappeared in that terrible glare, a sea of fending arms and desperate dives for cover. But the flames roared mostly past the catapult, decimating the crowd to one side and behind, but barely singeing the artillery men. And now, those men were lighting a flame of their own.
“Artillery!” Rhillian yelled at the top of her lungs. Fire flared on the end of the catapult arm, and then the arm unwound with a rush. The projectile arced toward them, burning against the dull grey sky. Falling short, Rhillian saw, with satisfaction.
“Come on, reload!” she called to Arele and Calia, who were already doing so. “We'll get one more shot at-”
A mighty flash of flame cut her short, roaring up from the courtyard below. She ducked low, feeling the heat of the rising fireball through the open windows. From the streets beyond, the mob roared its bloodthirsty approval. As the heat died, Rhillian risked a stare down at the courtyard gardens below. They were a mess, bushes and trees ablaze, flowers withering in the heat, and smoke rising everywhere. Another roar, and the mob were charging once more; only this time, she could barely see them come. Again, a storm of serrin arrows resumed from the Palopy rooftop, now a question of aiming and hoping. Many would hit, no doubt, but now the mob had a chance.
Rhillian slammed the shutters closed once more.
“Where did a ragged mob of crazed worshippers acquire serrin oils in that quantity?” Arele muttered as he worked, a new urgency in his hands.
“I don't think it was serrin oil,” Rhillian said grimly, running to the back of the ballista and working the winch herself. “The colour was different. I think they made this themselves.”
“Errollyn warned of this day,” Calia said quietly. “He warned that one day humans would match us in our crafts.”
Rhillian gritted her teeth and winched fast. She could hear new shouts from above, dim though they were above the howls of the crowd at the wall and the resumed hammering at the gate. She finished the winching, and dashed from the room, up the hallway stairs, and up in a crouch on the rooftop. Acrid smoke darkened the air, and there was a foul smell to every breath. Serrin, carrying buckets, dashed behind the talmaad at the firing wall, keeping low as occasional return fire still flew from Armadi House. They were dashing west, upslope…Rhillian looked that way and stared.
Bottles, burning at one end, were falling from the top of the western cliff face. As they hit the flat, tiled roof, they broke, and burst into flame. Already there were lakes of flame burning across the western Palopy roof. The property above was that of Family Gershelden…an old Ameryn Family, and allies to Family Maerler. She had not expected treachery from that quarter. But loyalty to Maerler, of course, did not necessarily dictate complete obedience. There seemed no end to the steady fall of bottles.
Talmaad threw buckets of water on the fires, yet the flames clung with unnatural persistence. More were erupting every moment. Tiles would crack with prolonged heat. Roof beams beneath would burn. If not extinguished, the roof would collapse and the fire would spread below. She could move talmaad from the firing wall to help extinguish the flames, but every archer was needed or the wall would fall. There was so much smoke now in the air that some of the mob could possibly scale the wall without being seen and open the gate from the inside. She had forty talmaad in Palopy, and thirty human staff, most of whom weren't much in a fight…that seemed short-sighted now. But hiring cripples and other unwanteds had won them such goodwill from their families. Had she been wrong to continue the policy? What good had goodwill done them? Who amongst the locals would rise to save them now?
Aisha could smell smoke on the wind as she ran, ducking fast along a winding alley. She was south of Sharptooth. Above her The Crack ran upslope toward the high Petrodor Ridge. She caught glimpses of grand mansions lining The Crack as the slope began to rise, a ridge intersecting the Petrodor Incline. She paused only to listen at the way ahead and avoid the mobs. The roads were swelled with armed men, mostly Riversiders to look at them, but not always. Saalshen's properties were ablaze from one end of Petrodor to the other. She had caught a glimpse of the roads around the old Saalshen house of Tiraen-heard the furious chanting of a thousand angry voices, a song from her darkest nightmares come to life. All the smaller Saalshen properties had been abandoned to the defence of Tiraen, Palopy, Cresfel and Edana. All the talmaad of Petrodor defended those four properties now. Now, she doubted that all the talmaad in Petrodor would be enough.
Her breath came desperately hard, and her legs cried protest at the sight of a new slope rising before her, but she could not have stopped if all the elders of Saalshen had demanded it. Terror drove her, and picked her back up after she missed a step and fell. She dashed across the next winding road, and ran along the shadow of a wall until she found a new alley entrance and darted within.
Before Tiraen, she'd stopped at House Berendani, one of Maerler's main allies. There she had met not Patachi Berendani himself, nor one of his sons, but a common soldier. Her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. No Berendani soldier would move against the mobs, he'd said, with stony formality. The mobs marched in the name of the archbishop. They wielded the Verenthane star. No Berendani man would stand against the will of the people of Petrodor and their gods. Saalshen, alliance or no alliance, was on its own.
They'd lost, Aisha realised, as she panted up the steepening slope. Two hundred years of Saalshen's presence in Petrodor was at an end. This game of powerful houses had been just that-a game, until someone had invoked religion. There, the game of calculation had ended. Now it was a rabid, mad orgy of violence that threatened to destroy everything, friend and ally alike. No wonder the patachis all retreated into their mansions and locked the gates. No patachi could withstand power like this. The archbishop had shown them all their place. The archbishop's weapons were not elegant, but they could crush everything and everyone, if he chose. Now, they all learned.
Patachi Maerler was her final hope. The Nasi-Keth were confined to Dockside, well aware that they would be next once the serrin were dealt with. They would be barricading Dockside for the attack that would follow, the attack that she knew the archbishop, and some others, had been urging Patachi Steiner to make for some time. Patachi Steiner had sensibly refused, and now events propelled the archbishop to mobilise his ragged army of the faithful to reclaim what had been displaced by the previous political games. The Docksiders stood a far better chance than did Saalshen's properties, that was certain. If she could not convince Patachi Maerler himself to help, then Saalshen would soon be receiving news that its entire Petrodor talmaad was dead. A slaughter to foreshadow the slaughter in the Saalshen Bacosh…and then, perhaps, within the borders of Saalshen itself.
She came upon a pair of dead men in the alley, recently killed. One had been cut nearly in half by a single stroke. Riversiders for certain, Aisha saw, leaping quickly over the vast pool of blood. They had that raggedy, unwashed look about them, even in death. And slope-dwelling locals avoided these alleys for a reason; at least it seemed there were still some other nightwraiths out on this grim afternoon.
Ahead, the slope became a cliff, rising like a single, yellow tooth from the harbour. Aisha stopped and counted the pyres of smoke across southern Petrodor. She counted nine. There were ten Saalshen properties south of Sharptooth. Tiraen, she guessed, was the last one left. Below were the many ships docked at the port of Angel Bay. Here, below the looming cliffs of Sharptooth, smaller trails of smoke made a black smudge against the ocean. Even in calamity, the funeral pyres burned. The dead waited for no one.
The last lane along The Crack emerged onto the road to Maerler Mansion. It was a dead end, well chosen and well exploited-a single, narrow road overlooked by the walls and archery positions of friendly houses. Any large force advancing this way would be annihilated one piece at a time. Whenever Aisha had visited before, she'd come the back way, up the passage from the base of Sharptooth cliff, but if she took that route today, Palopy and Tiraen could easily fall before she reached Patachi Maerler.
She took a deep breath and emerged from the lane mouth. Atop the walls, men with crossbows manned battlements not unlike the old castles of Enora. Aisha saw their weapons pointed down at her and wondered if she should say a prayer. Papa had. Mother had never entirely swayed Papa from his Verenthane beliefs, although she had tried. Helen hadn't thought that fair, and they'd argued.
Serrin were supposed to be completely accepting of human faith, Helen had said. Mother wasn't doing that. Mama had replied that she had no problem with Papa's faith, but as serrin, she would challenge any inconsistency that troubled her. To which Helen had accused her of completely misunderstanding the nature of human faith. To be faithful, she'd insisted, was not to question, but to accept. Mama hadn't liked that, and the argument had gone on long past dinner, until the coals had begun to dim on the fire grill, and Papa had gone off to bed. Papa had never been interested in such debates. He worked his lands, and if it did not help with farming, Papa wasn't interested. That, ironically, was why Mama had fallen in love with him in the first place. Mama said that he listened to the music of his own soul.
Approaching the Maerler gate, Aisha realised that she did not need to pray. If she were about to die, impaled by human arrows far from home, she would die with thoughts of her family in her mind, and love for them and her fellow talmaad in her heart.