“If you don't let me in,” Aisha replied, “it's unlikely my hide will last the day regardless.” Silence beyond the grille, then a muttered conferring. “No one saw me come, except your loyal allies here.” She jerked her head back along the street. “But you can trust them not to tell who's been visiting you, surely?”
The gate squealed open and Aisha slid within. Immediately opposite was a second gate, from which came the sound of many bars being released. Soldiers opened the inner gate, and Aisha entered onto a stone walk between gardens of carefully raked gravel. Above loomed the great limestone face of Maerler Mansion.
More soldiers at the huge main doors swung them open as Aisha trotted up several flagstone steps, beneath huge, square pillars made from piled granite pieces and mortar. Whatever Maerler's claims of greater sophistication than their Steiner enemies, there was little sophistication about the mansion's exterior. While Steiner Mansion was reputed to be a pleasure palace, this was a fortress pure and simple.
Within the main doors, however, the effect lightened. Guards escorted Aisha along the grand central hall, where chandeliers shone light on tapestries and paintings.
The hall opened into a great circle, above which towered a perfect dome. More guards, and hurrying servants passing. From somewhere distant, echoing through the halls, the sound of raised voices. Aisha strained her ears as she followed the guards but could not make out the words.
“Wait in here,” said a guard, opening a door. She found herself in a sitting room, with two tall windows overlooking the sea. She walked across, as the door shut behind, and gazed out at the view. Below, there was nothing but ocean, the mansion walls making a sheer drop. Here below to the right, Angel Bay, the funeral pyres and the docks. The docks, at least, looked empty, many tall ships abandoned in their bays, and the decking cleared of merchandise. Beyond was mostly warehouses. The Southern Stack had never allowed many dockworkers and fisher folk to set up house directly beside the water, and so the docks culture had never truly developed south of Sharptooth. Thus, the Nasi-Keth held far less influence there. In the south, people were more conservative, and the families still ruled the poor folk's loyalties. Perhaps if Sharptooth had not divided those people from the north, there would have been more ideas exchanged, and things would be different. Geography was destiny, it seemed. Amongst humans, anyhow.
Her eyes moved to Alaster Promontory beyond, and the waves heaving against its rocky shield. Then across the teeming slope to the many fires. She could see Tiraen from here, one large mansion, though small at this distance. Nothing looked amiss, as surrounding buildings blocked all view of the roads. Nothing seemed to be burning, yet.
To help relieve the cold tension twisting her stomach, Aisha tried the adjoining door, but found it locked. She paced for a while, then went back to the windows. She should have been back there, fighting with her friends. She had never felt so helpless.
The door clicked open and it was Patachi Maerler himself, tall and elegant in green leggings and a black satin shirt, buttoned all the way up to his tight collar. The patachi's stride was fast, and his manner held none of the playful sparkle of previous occasions. He stopped in the middle of the room, his expression blank, and watched her with lidded blue eyes. Four guards lined the wall behind him, swords but no halberds.
Aisha bowed low. “Great Patachi,” she said in her most eloquent Torovan. “Saalshen's agents are besieged. My mistress Rhillian sends me to invoke your promise of allegiance. She seeks assistance, kind sir, in the name of the friendship between you and her, and of our great future to come.”
“She promised me trade,” said the young patachi, inexpressively. “She promised me power. That is impossible now. Our mutual enemy Patachi Steiner has pushed the priesthood too hard and forced my brother to take drastic action. It was the only way he could preserve the neutrality of the priesthood. Yet the priesthood remains partisan still, and the sons and cousins of Maerler and her allies do not number enough amongst their ranks to make a difference. We could not prevent the archbishop from his sermon. He means to retake the Shereldin Star by force. I think perhaps he shall destroy it by mistake. Either way, he has stirred great hatred of Saalshen in the hearts of the people. Not even the greatest patachi can stand against this and live.”
“Patachi,” said Aisha, bowing once more, “the Nasi-Keth shall hold the Shereldin Star. Patachi Steiner has sensibly refused the archbishop's requests for an assault on Dockside for many years. Dockside is defensible, their people will fight to the last, and now Kessligh Cronenverdt leads their defences.” She looked up, desperately. “Whoever holds the star can dictate terms to the archbishop! The archbishop has sworn to reunite the star with the Enoran High Temple. He intends to march the Army of Torovan into battle with the star at its head-”
“You lend me little confidence,” Maerler interrupted coldly. “The archbishop has roused more angry men with his sermon than Patachi Steiner could dream of. I think you underestimate the scale of it, little serrin. From our heights here on Sharptooth, we have quite a good view of the proceedings, and we count well past ten thousand. Possibly twenty.” Aisha could well believe it, having seen what she'd seen…yet still her blood ran cold. “Steiner has perhaps fifteen thousand in total, but he could never have used more than a third of them in any assault, given his defensive requirements. The Nasi-Keth can muster barely more than fifteen hundred fighters, the rest are many thousands but they are a rabble, and I think you overestimate their chances.
“Kessligh will most likely lose the star. If so, the mobs will doubtless take it to the archbishop, where it rightly belongs. Should Kessligh retain the star, he will bargain until the highest bidder, and his price will be no war in the Bacosh…which was perhaps feasible before today, but not after. Perhaps he will threaten to destroy the star, which will force all the great houses to join forces against him. War in the Bacosh is inevitable now. In trying to equalise the imbalance growing within the priesthood, I fear we have forced the archbishop's hand too far. That sermon should never have been delivered, and had the equilibrium existed, the other priests could have stopped it. But now, everything is tilted, and nothing shall be the same again.”
Rhillian, Aisha recalled, had spoken of equilibrium. She'd argued with Errollyn about it. Aisha had spoken up once in support of Errollyn. Had she spoken loudly enough? Perhaps if she'd pushed harder…but to what ends? Rhillian was within her ra'shi. The pull of the vel'ennar was strong. But Errollyn did not feel it…He could stand against Rhillian, where Aisha found it hard. Was he then in the right? Had he been right all along? And had she, and all the talmaad in Petrodor, been blind to it?
“It's over, little serrin,” said Patachi Maerler, suddenly tired. “The game is at an end. It was fun while it lasted, but perhaps the archbishop always had the final move in his keeping, and we were all fools for thinking we could play him. I do not know who will lead this Army of Torovan into the Bacosh, but I do know that the decision is no longer mine to make. I think I shall keep you, however, as a bargaining tool with Saalshen's new representatives, when they arrive. My spies tell me that you speak rather a lot of languages, and have much knowledge of the Saalshen Bacosh. Have no fear I shall mistreat you. I offer you safety and hospitality from the storm.”
Aisha's fear subsided, as something else displaced it. And the patachi frowned to see the sudden change in the little blonde serrin's bright blue eyes. “I will fight to defend my people,” Aisha said quietly, with menace in her tone. “I came to you freely, as a friend. I would leave as such.”
“You are in no position to make demands, little girl,” Maerler said crossly, but there was an edge of uncertainty in his tone. “I offer you your life. Most people would be grateful!”
“I am not most people,” Aisha said coldly. “I may look like a little girl to you, my Lord, but I have seen thirty-one summers. Humans have misjudged serrin many times before.”
The patachi began a retreat and Aisha took a deep breath as the four guards against the wall moved forward, encircling, hands fingering the pommels of their swords. “Just let me go,” she told the patachi quietly. For the briefest, hopeful moment, she thought he might agree. But she saw the rapid calculation in his eyes as he realised he'd told her too much.
Aisha had no desire to kill these men. But her friends were out there dying, and these men sought to prevent her from joining them. “Dear girl,” said the patachi, backing behind his guards, “please be reasonable. If you go back out to face those mobs, you will surely die.”
Aisha barely heard him. She could feel the pull, the force of it like a tugging in her heart. Vel'ennar. Like a part of herself that did not belong solely to her. The pain of it made her ache. If she stayed here, trapped within the patachi's hospitality, she'd go mad.
She tore the blade from its sheath and leapt forward, swinging down. Her target sprang back, the other swords came out fast…she cut sideways at the closest before he could prepare his defence, and felt the blade go through mail and flesh. She sprang into the gap left by that man as he fell, defending two strokes in passing and nearly removing that man's head with a fast, one-handed overswing, the guard ducking just in time, stumbling for balance.
Aisha moved sideways toward the door, three guards and the patachi following, none quite prepared to stand between her and escape. She saw the fear on their faces, the uncertainty in their postures-wondering, trembling, if they dared try her blade. The men of House Maerler knew the talmaad better than most. Aisha knew her standard was not that of Rhillian, though Errollyn she could usually match. And Errollyn was formidable enough.
She reached for the door handle. A soldier edged forward, seeing one hand off her sword…Aisha replaced the hand fast, and took stance against him. The soldier backed up. Patachi Maerler moved in sudden frustration, striding across the room to the adjoining door. He too found it locked, and hammered on it in frustration. “Guards!” he yelled.
Aisha flung open the main door and tore through, the soldiers in pursuit. Two men were running down the hall, skidding into a stance as Aisha came through. She feinted left, sprang right instead, brushed the first man's side as his hurried blade missed, drove the point of her sword through the second man's middle, then dashed on as he fell, nearly losing her sword as she pulled it clear.
Servants scattered and screamed as she came, a maid carrying a lady's expensive dress fell to the floor and covered her head. A strong servant in black thought to tackle her barehanded, then changed his mind as Aisha aimed a running swipe at him, and he dived for the wall. She arrived back at the central dome just as more soldiers came rushing in from adjoining halls and yells echoed through the house.
One man threw his halberd directly across her path, seeking to entangle her legs as he drew his sword. Aisha leapt, as more soldiers tried to block her path, dodged left as one swung, parried his companion, spinning about as she ran to defend herself, then jumped onto a broad wooden bench that ran about the circular wall. She ran along it, ran two steps up the wall to jump a swiping halberd at her legs, then jumped for a large vase on a plinth as the bench ended, and sent it crashing to the floor, guards scattering from its flying shards. She hit the floor and stumbled, rolled awkwardly back to her feet, parried and killed the first man to attack, his body crashing into the wall behind.
Two more were on her fast, their blades sure and deadly. Aisha parried, ducked and spun desperately aside, using the one advantage her small stature afforded. She defended from another direction, aware she was being driven further from her desired route, and risked keeping her back to the man who approached from that way. She barely survived a head-high swipe, deflecting it upward, then turned at the last moment to drop low, and take the man behind's leg as he cut for her back. The leg severed in a shower of blood, and she was over his body before he could scream, and racing for the hallway, severing the halberd of the man who slashed at her side. With a many-voiced yell, perhaps twenty men pursued. It might have been more.
The end to this hallway was blocked by more soldiers, so she crashed through a doorway and into a room where many children were all dressed in costume, rehearsing a play. Several were gods, in white and tinsel. Several were pretty noble ladies. One, dressed all in black, held a great farmer's sickle, and a hood pulled over his eyes. Death. Maids and tutors leapt for the children, screaming, as Aisha came dashing across the floor, bloody sword in hand, headed for a door on the far wall. A young maid dived on top of little Death and covered him with her body. In her mind, Aisha saw little Dashi crying amidst the ruins of his parents’ house, spattered with the blood of his brothers and sisters. She had to get back to him.
Aisha hit the opposing door in a shoulder charge, and it smashed open. Half stunned, she staggered onward, found a stairway and rushed down it. Halfway down, two soldiers arrived at the bottom and began to rush up. Aisha hurdled the railing from ceiling height, hit the flagstones and rolled, as the soldiers on the stairs reversed. She ran away from them, past barrels lining a limestone hall, and crates of leafy vegetables on top of those, and smelled the distinct flavour of the kitchens nearby. And near the kitchens would be…the cellar!
She turned left, nearly colliding with a smock-wearing servant who turned and ran away, and only managed to get right in her path. She dodged left, so did he, then right, as did he, with hands over his head and terrified…frustrated, Aisha kicked his heels, and he tripped and sprawled. Aisha hurdled him, and emerged into the huge, wide, kitchens-an open limestone floor and several long benches, big ovens blazing in the far wall. Most barely even noticed her as she entered, consumed with chopping and mixing and shouting, arms bare in the heat. The kitchens of a great house would pause for no calamity, and food was clearly more important than war. Aisha empathised.
She ran an aisle, tapped one cook on the shoulder and asked, “Which way to the cellar?” The cook pointed without even looking and Aisha ran off, ducking low as soldiers appeared, searching for her.
She slid out a small entrance in the wall and ran down a flight of stone steps, the way lit by oil lamps. There she arrived at a doorway, and found herself in the vast, familiar cellar, with a wood-beamed ceiling and more beam supports, surrounding which were stacked piles and piles of barrels and boxes. She ran down the stone steps to the cellar floor, sighting on her left the flight of steps she'd taken with Rhillian, Errollyn and Kiel to the isolated room where Patachi Maerler usually met his serrin guests.
There was no guard at the trapdoor-there was no need usually, as the guards at the tunnel's far end would signal if someone were coming by tugging a small cord that ran through metal loops on the tunnel's ceiling and rang a small bell that was located…somewhere. Was there a bell at the other end that could be rung from here?
She heard running footsteps coming from the kitchen and quickly undid the bolts holding the trapdoor shut. Soldiers arrived at the top of the cellar stairs as she pulled up the lid and jumped inside, letting the trapdoor slam shut behind her. Abruptly, she was plunged into blackness. There was only the occasional lamp along the tunnel, she recalled. As Sasha would say in her charming Lenay brogue-“Shit.”
But Aisha remembered the stairs well enough, and recalled them to be uniformly even. She walked down at first, dragging her toes to feel out the length and shape of the steps. That done, she began to accelerate her descent. In total blackness, it was difficult to judge, but Aisha was trained in the svaalverd like all talmaad, and both footing and balance were intimate to her. She could balance on a fence rail in bare feet in the rain, she'd jumped from stone to stone across a stream from memory alone whilst blindfolded, and she'd been able to perform all the basic svaalverd stances since the age of eight. Running down stairs in the dark wasn't so hard after that.
To be sure, she removed a cloth she used for cleaning her blade from a pocket, wrapped it around her left fingers, and trailed them along the rough limestone wall. Behind her, the trapdoor opened, but then the stairs switched back on themselves and she was around the corner. Those men would think twice before following a serrin into the dark. They'd stop and find a lamp first. She used the burst of light from the trapdoor to locate and cut the warning cord that ran along the ceiling. Soon she found some light in the tunnel and descended all the faster, her feet a rapid patter on the stone. The more rhythm she found, the easier it became, even when the tunnel became black once more, around several more corners. Her soft boots made only a little sound.
Finally, she reached what she fancied was the last stretch of stairs-she had come down far enough and there was a lamp burning at the bottom. Had a warning reached the guards at the bottom of the stairs? There was no way of telling, and no way to make her descent safer. The stairs were a straight line with no cover. If one had a crossbow and she were caught halfway down…well.
She put the cloth back in her pocket, shifted her sword to her left hand and pulled a knife with her right. Then she began her descent as quietly as she could. Halfway down, she could see the rusted iron gates that led out to Dockside, dimly illuminated by the lamp above the guard's chamber. Just a few more steps and she'd be within knife range. Just a few…but then a man with a crossbow stepped from the guard's chamber, and Aisha knew the fates for frauds.
She hurled her knife anyhow, aiming high to make the distance-it hit the ceiling and bounced with a ringing crack…the crossbowman fired, and Aisha leapt, and felt her left leg kick away from under her. She fell crashing down the steps, somehow contriving to twist her small frame into a tight bundle and not decapitate herself on her own blade. The guard dropped his crossbow and pulled his sword. Aisha braced her arms and leg to stop her roll just short…her left leg screamed agony, her intended brace-stance collapsed and she barely managed to raise her blade in time to catch the full weight of the guard's blow. With no semblance of technique, it smashed her into the wall. Her head hit the stone, knocking her insensible, but her hands were moving of their own accord, her left hand snatching the second knife from her belt as she spun sideways to stab the man backhanded through the shoulder.
He screamed, and Aisha saw through blurred eyes a second guard in the guard room, his crossbow levelled at her chest. She sprawled forward, grabbing the wounded first guard, keeping him between her and the crossbow. The first guard swung around, trying to grab her. Aisha swung with him, ripping her sword across his leg. He screamed again, falling, Aisha catching his weight, or trying to, as her own leg gave way and her head spun, and she threw her sword in final desperation. It was a poor throw, and the second guard deflected it off his crossbow. He tried to re-aim, but Aisha tore the knife from the wounded man's shoulder, slicing her hand in the process, and threw that too. It was a worse throw, but the crossbowman ducked back behind his doorway.
The man at Aisha's feet grabbed her wounded leg and she screamed in agony, falling on top of the first abandoned crossbow. She grabbed it and swung arm-point first at the wounded man's head. It smashed into his helm, and his grip released. Aisha grabbed up his fallen sword, staggering to her feet, threw the crossbow at the emerging crossbowman who ducked back, and charged. Or tried to, as again her leg nearly folded.
The crossbowman fired in panic as she came through the guard chamber entrance, and Aisha felt a blaze of pain across her ribs, and a yank on her jacket that nearly turned her around. She swung in blind fury, but her hand was agony and her leg gave no balance, and he blocked the blow with his crossbow, then swung it at her head. Aisha tried to defend in the confined space, but her blade entangled with a wall, so she ducked instead and caught the full weight of the weapon on her shoulder, and a glancing blow off the head. She fell hard, face first on the stone and suddenly her mouth was bloody. The crossbowman was drawing his sword, backing around to the doorway for safety. Aisha rolled hard and slashed at his leg, and he leapt back, catching the tip across his shin.
He yelled, and hopped, and Aisha crawled for a desperate lunge, and stabbed one-handed through his thigh. He screamed and fell. Aisha was on him fast, as he collapsed on his back in the doorway, and she angled the blade across his throat. He got a hand on the blade's edge to try and stop its progress, but the steel was blunt on the reverse side and Aisha had a good, painless pressure with her left hand on the steel, while her right anchored the hilt. Blood flowed from the guardsman's hand. He sobbed and looked terrified. Humans were so dangerous when terrified. Aisha knew. She'd seen the ruins, the burned corpses, the strange fruit hanging from the courtyard tree. One shouldn't feel sorry for terrified humans. One couldn't.
She killed him, arterial blood spurting, drenching her face, an unspeakable horror on her victim's. Aisha left him dying on the floor, and crawled to reclaim her sword from where it had fallen alongside the guards’ bunks. Then she sat and considered her leg properly. There was a crossbow bolt straight through her calf, just missing the shinbone. The pain was horrible, and there was a lot of blood. Her hand was cut, her head swam and throbbed, and her shoulder felt like maybe something was broken, where the crossbow had hit her. The man she'd killed was still kicking. He wasn't dead yet. Death wasn't fair. Death never was.
Somehow she hauled herself up and staggered to the iron gate. The wounded man there had found her first knife, the one she'd thrown. He sat propped against the gate, the knife held hopelessly before him, his hand trembling. Clearly he had no idea how to throw it, nor was in any condition to do so. His leg was bleeding badly, and his right shoulder was bloody. She shouldn't leave him that knife, with its serrin steel edge. Nor the other one that she'd thrown at the dead man. But she'd forgotten that one, and taking this one off a second terrified, wounded man seemed too much effort. She had to get out.
“Move,” she said hoarsely. “Get away from the gate.” He moved, struggling, trying to keep pressure on his bloody leg with one hand, while shuffling with the knife hand. Aisha lifted the gate's heavy bar with difficulty and slammed the bolts open. The gate opened soundlessly as she pulled, its hinges well oiled. She limped out into the thicket of redberry bushes that obscured the entrance. Above, the high yellow cliff of Sharptooth soared toward the grey sky. Opposite, beyond the bushes, dark walls loomed, windows barred and bricked up.
Aisha limped past the bushes, then collapsed on the narrow, paved lane between wall and cliff as her head spun and her balance failed. She rolled on her back, and found that the pavings were wet, and a light rain fell onto her face. The tug in her heart did not pull so strongly, now. Perhaps, she thought, if she lay here long enough, the rain would wash her back into the sea, where the currents would carry her all the way to Enora eventually. She wished it so, more than anything she'd ever wished in her life. In the distance, above the gentle patter of rain and the cry of a gull, she could hear the sounds of battle.