Sasha’s lamp was dying when the cell door creaked open, and new light flooded the cool stone. She lay on her back on a pile of straw, trying to keep her breathing shallow. What was left of her clothes now m for a pillow. Her one relief was that underground, in the dark, the air was neither warm nor cool, and near nakedness suited the temperature. Despite that, her skin flushed hot and then cold, with the onset of what she suspected was fever. The pain was incredible. She wanted to pass out, but had no chance of sleep, and was too strong of constitution to faint. Suicide occurred to her, and was dismissed just as fast. Errollyn needed protecting, and Kessligh helping, and Lenayin saving. And enemies killing.
She closed her eyes against the new glare, trying to keep her wrists still. In the manacles, they chafed something awful, a pain nearly as bad as the burns. There were ten of those, two to each side, two on her back and two on each thigh. The cane had made cuts, and her stomach and ribs were bruised all over. Every breath was agony, though she did not think a rib was broken. Fury was the only thing that made it bearable.
The cell door shut. The owner of the lamp crouched nearby. Sasha slitted her eyes, rolled her head, and looked. Emerald eyes, beautiful and frightening beyond description. Snow white hair. Such unearthly, long-limbed beauty. Memories of loving friendship, all betrayed…fury surged, and she was lunging to her knees, lashing with manacled wrists, whipping the chain toward that long, shapely neck…. But it was pointless, and the chains pulled her short, an agony of severed skin, and wounds disturbed.
Rhillian barely moved. She watched as Sasha strained against the chains like a mad thing. And finally collapsed, frothing and gasping. She set the lamp aside.
“Sasha,” she said coolly. “I’ve been to see Errollyn. They would not let me talk to him, but he is well. Alythia too. You are the only one I can talk to. Kessligh is demanding that someone gives him proof you are still alive.” Sasha said nothing.
“Sasha, the Justiciary is heavily defended,” Rhillian continued. “A thousand, I’d guess. I have not seen Sinidane, I don’t know if he lives. There is open war in the city, I have not the forces to contain that and retake the Justiciary. I must prioritise. Council has fallen too. The Civid Sein hope to make a rallying cry, by claiming control of Tracato’s institutions.”
Sasha gave an exhausted, crazed, exasperated laugh. “What do you want me to do about it? Help? You make a fucking mess, Rhillian. You always make a fucking mess. Look at me. I’m a fucking mess.”
The cell was spinning. It was too much, and she slid down on her side, and lay on the straw. Rhillian did not reply.
“I cannot be always attempting to justify myself to you,” she said finally. Her voice was quiet. Strained, almost. “We shall all do what we will, for the best interests of all. It’s all we can do. None of us is wise enough to know all ends.”
“That’s great, Rhillian,” Sasha gasped. “A philosophical excuse. Sorry I fucked everything up, even the wise are fallible. How nice.”
Another, longer pause. Rhillian got up abruptly, and strode to the cell door. Stopped just as abruptly. Came back, and squatted once more. Sasha struggled for focus, through slitted eyes.
“I cannot stop them from hurting you, Sasha,” Rhillian whispered. Her voice trembled. “They are cruel. All sides are cruel. I play them against each other. I will defeat them soon, or they shall defeat themselves, but cannot stop them from what they do here now. I have not the force.”
“You said that already,” Sasha managed. “What do you want from me? Forgiveness? You won’t get it.”
“There was a time you would have forgiven me anything.”
Petrodor. Sadisi festival, dancing and cook fires on the dockside, reflections gleaming in dark waters. Rhillian, impossibly beautiful, taking a prawn from Sasha’s plate. Laughing, avoiding the inquiries of forward young men, discussing the night with wonder in her eyes.
“Not anything,” Sasha murmured. To her incredulity, there was a lump in her throat. Not now. Revenge required a steely heart, such softness appalled her. “Never anything.”
“Do you recall,” Rhillian said softly, “that once, I insisted you should sleep with Errollyn?”
“I didn’t do it just to please you,” Sasha croaked.
“No.” Rhillian’s lips pursed in a small smile. “I don’t suppose you did. Had I known the trouble it would cause me, I would never have suggested it. Do you recall our discussions with Father Berin?” The North Pier temple on Dockside, near the great shipping docks. Berloni the painter, swathing beautiful, holy images across the ceiling. Spirits she wished she were back there now. “He insisted that if he could convince just one serrin of the holy teachings, he would die a happy man.”
“You used to provoke him.”
“I did. But he was a rare Verenthane, he enjoyed it. I truly think he was more interested in converting you than me.”
Sasha managed a small, breathless laugh. “I’m even more the hopeless case than you.”
“I did tell him,” Rhillian agreed. “I also think he merely enjoyed the company of two pretty girls, whatever his priestly protestations.” She gazed at Sasha in the lamplight, humour fading from her eyes. “Oh, Sasha.” Regarding her wounds. “What have they done to you?”
“You protest yourself innocent of violence now?”
“Any serrin can kill for the cause of survival, Sasha, but…” she shook her head. “This is not in our vocabulary. To kill fast is one thing. To kill slow is entirely…”
“Kiel would,” Sasha gasped. “I hear that Kiel has.”
“Sasha, please, just tell them what they want to hear. The Army of Lenayin is powerful, it will make no difference if they know….”
“I don’t care. I don’t care. I’ll kill them.”
“Sasha,” Rhillian protested, in mounting desperation, “these people are crazy! They…some of them accuse the priesthood and refuse religion, but in truth, they remind me of the fanatics at Riverside. One truth, one belief, and it’s repeated, over and over, as though by sheer force of will they can arrange truth and stone and blue sky above to suit their fancy. And Reynold Hein! The most intelligent man of the bunch, and the worst as well. Every opposing argument, he turns on its head, twists i, flips it, remoulds it to suit his preordained conclusion. It’s the most incredible feat of intellectual self-blindedness. There are serrin in Saalshen who have not travelled in human lands who struggle to believe it when I explain it to them! How can I explain the likes of Reynold Hein to the wise and gentle souls of the Saalshen councils? Even Lesthen struggles, and he’s travelled widely!”
“You forgot Sevarien.”
“No, I never counted Sevarien amongst the most intelligent,” Rhillian retorted. “He was always a big, blustering fool. Sasha, they have identified themselves as the victims, and in their victimhood, all manner of crime becomes acceptable. And worst of all, they are the victims of feudalist oppression, so their arguments appear valid to any without the patience to search more deeply!”
“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
“Sasha,” she tried again, “just do what they say. Please. As the fighting grows more desperate, so will they. They believe blood can solve their ills.” She looked again at Sasha’s wounds. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Don’t,” Sasha whispered. “You’ll not get off that lightly. You got me into this. If anything happens to Errollyn or Alythia, I’ll hold you responsible. I’m Lenay. You know what that means.”
“You’ll not scare me that easily. Serrin are a complex people, Sasha. We can hate and love at the same time.”
Sasha could feel her steely resolve slipping. Through the agony, she felt a pain that had nothing to do with wounds. She swallowed hard, and tried to recapture the steel mask. She needed it. It sustained her.
“You’re responsible,” she whispered. “If the people I love die, I’ll kill you.”
“In the end,” Rhillian said sadly, “we must all do what we must.”
It did not seem like more than a few hours before Sasha was hauled from her cell once more down to the wide, hot dungeon. There, she was hung from the hook, grasping the chains with tight fists to try to keep the manacles from digging into her wrists. She did not see Reynold Hein, but the handsome, dark-haired man was there. Perone, she recalled his name.
She did not think much time had passed since the last session, however deceptive such perceptions could be underground. She thought perhaps the last session had been late afternoon, and now it would be night. Something about Perone’s manner seemed hurried, perhaps distracted. From that, and Rhillian’s visit, she guessed that the Civid Sein might think their time was limited. She didn’t know if that made her less frightened, or more.
The grip on her chains began to slip. She felt beyond dizzy, nearly nauseous with pain. Any more treatment like the last time, and she knew she could die.
More footsteps entered the dungeon, and the sound of something heavy being dragged. Sasha twisted to look…and saw Errollyn, chained as she was, and dragged by two men. Her heart nearly stopped.
“Errollyn!” He twisted, and saw her. He had been beaten, his face swollen, but what he saw enraged him. He lashed at his captors, knocking one to te floor, but others grabbed him, kicking and beating him until he fell. It took four strong men to hoist his manacle chains over a ceiling hook, and winch until he hung nearly suspended, like her. “Errollyn, I’m all right!” she told him in Lenay, trying to be reassuring.
He did not look in quite as bad shape as her. He had taken blows to the head, which she had not, but his shirtless torso bore far fewer bruises, and no burns that she could see. His green eyes burned at his captors, beneath a wild, sweaty fringe. His breath came hard. Errollyn had no love of closed spaces, Sasha knew. He did not fear them, exactly…but he had lived most of his years before becoming talmaad in relative solitude in the foothills of Saalshen. Now, his eyes had that slightly crazed look, like a wolf backed into a corner.
“Your slut has not been particularly forthcoming to our questions,” Perone said now, whistling a cane with expert flicks of his wrist. “She appears to enjoy pain…not surprising, for a Lenay bitch. I hear that lovemaking in Lenayin is little more than a violent beating followed by climax.”
Laughter from one of the other men. Sasha made certain she got a good look at his face. She wanted to recall that laugh, when she killed him. It was with little surprise that she recognised the man-it was Timoth Salo, the young nobleman of the Tol’rhen, Reynold Hein’s prized convert to the Civid Sein.
“Someone had the very clever idea,” Perone continued, “that she might be more responsive to someone else’s pain than her own.” He shrugged. “I don’t hold much hope, but I’m willing to give it a try.”
He lashed with the cane, and a sharp, red line appeared across Errollyn’s stomach. Errollyn made not a sound.
“Rhillian will kill you!” Sasha snarled. “All the serrin will kill you, you neither harm nor kill serrin without setting all of Saalshen at your throat!”
Perone smiled. “Oh, I think you exaggerate.” He signalled to the big, bald man, who drove a fist hard into Errollyn’s ribs. Errollyn barely grunted, swinging on his chains. “Rhillian could have demanded his release, but she did not. Besides, the serrin are fools to think they could rule Tracato. This city belongs to the true patriots of Rhodaan, and we rule here now. All who stand against us are traitors, human and serrin alike.”
His stroll brought him to the horrid little table, picked up a nasty little blade, and examined it. Sasha’s heart galloped. Another fist drove into Errollyn’s midriff. “Stop it!” Sasha screamed at them. “Leave him alone!”
Errollyn’s green eyes were fixed on her. “Sasha,” he said hoarsely. “No sheth an sary. You tried to explain it to me once. Now I understand.”
Perone strolled back to him, the blade in hand. Tears spilled in Sasha’s eyes, sobs threatening to wrack her body.
“The only comfort,” Errollyn told her, in Lenay, “is in the knowledge that you will kill these men. Concentrate on that, and do not fear for me. Your revenge shall sustain me.”
Perone’s knife flashed, and a new red line appeared, this one trickling blood. Pain flashed on Errollyn’s face, yet he made no sound. Sasha thrashed against chains, in desperation, crying. Perone slashed again. No one asked her any questions.
Later that night, if night it was, Sasha awoke. It had not been sleep, merely unconsciousness. She lay on dirty straw in her cell, mostly naked, in chains. Her body bore no new injuries, but in her memory, she now carried her last sight of Errollyn as they’d unhooked him from the ceiling. There’d been a lot of blood, drenching his pants. A thin maze of scars across his torso. They’d used salt, which had finally made him scream. She’d never before in her life heard Errollyn scream. It did worse than make her cry, or make her stomach retch-it robbed him of that strength of dignity he’d always carried.
But he’d been alive when they’d dragged him away. The cuts were shallow, designed more for pain than injury. She clung to that hope.
She wanted to think, but could not. Her mind was awash with pain, with fury, with exhaustion and fear. The fever she had feared had not advanced, yet still her skin flushed hot and cold. Her burns seemed to have come up in blisters. Her stomach muscles were bruised, her wrists badly strained beneath the chafing, but most of the injuries were no more than skin deep. Were she to get free, she was certain she could still move fast if she had to. If she could ignore the pain.
She closed her eyes, not wishing to see the dull, grey stone of the cell, lit by a single, yellow lantern. Not wishing the disorientation of feeling the walls and ceiling swinging around her. She would be all right. As would Errollyn.
She might have slept for a moment, she could not tell, but suddenly there was a rattle of keys, and the clank of the door’s lock. The door squealed open. A thud as something was thrown into the cell, and then the door closed once more. Food maybe. One of those big, ugly loaves of stale bread. Sasha’s stomach turned. She was not hungry, but she should try to eat.
She opened her eyes, and slowly focused on the object on the stones before her. It was a human head, facing her, eyes open. Long black hair. The eyes, the features, were Alythia’s.
Sasha screamed.
A long time later, she was still screaming.
There was a commotion when they dragged her next from the cell. The first flight of steps did not go down, as before, but up. Dazed, Sasha realised she was being led out of the catacombs entirely. A cloak was thrown about her bare shoulders, covering her to the knees.
She registered a broad hall, filled with light, blinking and squinting as she was shuffled across the flagstones. Men were shouting, footsteps running, weapons clattering…and was it her imagination, or could she hear the distant sounds of battle? Yes, and then, clearly, there came a clash of weapons. The Justiciary was under assault. A thousand Civid Sein defenders, Rhillian had said. Who was assaulting? The feudalists? The Steel? Kessligh’s Nasi-Keth? All three, she hoped.
She was pulled up more stairs, three flights in total…the Justiciary was no taller than four floors, surely? She could not recall. Despite the chains, the sleepless night, the lack of food, the horror, her head felt clear. The stairs seemed to help, as exercise always did…but mostly, she thought, it was the prospect of battle. It made her nostrils flare, like some old warhorse.
On the upper floor, her guards handed her to Perone, whose two Civid Sein companions dragged her down a corridor and into a small room that might have been a study. They threw her down on a chair beside a bookshelf, and one man stood by to guard her, his sword out. Perone gave that guard a harsh instruction in Rhodaani, then left, slamming the door behind. By the guard’s stance, Sasha guessed those words had been to the effect of: “If she tries anything, kill her.” Chained hand and foot, she did not fancy her chances.
There was an arched window nearby. With gritted teeth, she heaved herself from the chair and shuffled to the window, hunched like an old woman. The guard did not protest, but watched her all the way, his blade ready.
She had a view of the Ushal Fortress, across a jumble of tiled roofs. It was morning, she saw from the light. It had been just one night then, that the Civid Sein had occupied the Justiciary. Possibly Kessligh knew what that would mean, for her. Possibly that knowledge had forced his hand. She knew better than to assume so. Kessligh had far more on his plate than just concern for his wayward uma.
The sounds of battle were clear from this height. It was difficult to discern their location. Sasha guessed that was partly because the battle was all around. The Justiciary was being attacked from all sides. The feudalists would have the numbers for such an attack, but not access to the eastern approaches, which were away from feudalist heartland and currently strong with Civid Sein. The Nasi-Keth lacked the numbers, and were no good for massed combat anyway. It had to be the Steel. True to her word, Rhillian had lost patience.
The door crashed open and an angry-looking Perone strode back in. He paced across the room, apparently aimless, then reversed. Then kicked at a table, furiously, and snapped at the guard. Perone, Sasha noted, was wearing a swordbelt, good boots and a wide-collared leather jacket. The stylish attire of a wealthy Tracatan. Curious choice, for a Civid Sein revolutionary.
The argument with the guard continued. The guard looked a genuine country lad, tall and blond, freckled and missing some teeth. Sasha caught a few words, and knew enough of young men and warfare to guess that Perone had been told to stay here, and not to go out and fight. Guarding her, no less.
Perone saw her watching. He stopped and gave an exasperated laugh. “Look at her,” he said, in Torovan. “Thinking this all so amusing.” Abruptly he made toward her. Sasha backed away from the window, her ankle chains nearly overbalancing her. Perone caught at her wrist chain, and Sasha lashed back. Perone’s blow struck her head, and suddenly she was on the floor, seeing stars.
Perone and the guard picked her up and dumped her on the table. “You should be grateful,” Perone told her, unbuckling his sword belt, as the other man held her arms down over her head. “I am a great man of the revolution. If you are fortunate, you may die with my bastard in your belly.”
They were going to kill her, Sasha realised, blinking her vision clear. Or at least, they had moved her upstairs so that no sudden breakthrough on the lower floors could liberate the dungeons.
“Pity to waste her,” said the blond man above her. “Can I have a turn?”
“We’ll invite the whole fucking movement,” said Perone, placing his swordbelt aside, and unfastening his pants. “If they won blow str019;t let me fight, they must at least let me fuck.” He pulled a knife, inserted it into her underwear leg, and slashed.
Quite strangely, it occurred to Sasha that her hands, pulled back over her head, were close to the blond man’s belt. Did he keep a knife there? Her hands reached and found a hilt. It seemed he did.
She pulled it hard and stuck it in his belly before he could notice what she’d done. The pressure on her arms ceased, and she flipped her legs up, wrapped her ankle chain about Perone’s neck, and pulled as tight with her legs as humanly possible. Perone’s hands grasped the chain, trying to pull it off. Sasha slammed her feet down on the tabletop, and took Perone’s head down with them. His flailing arm struck her, reaching for her throat. Sasha stuck the other man’s knife in it. Perone flung himself sideways, pulling her off the table. They hit the ground together, Sasha careful to brace her legs and not lose the tightness of that loop around his neck. Perone tried to roll away, and Sasha took the opportunity to make a second loop, hooking her ankle again around his head. Then she braced both feet on the floor, and tried to stretch out from the knees as hard as she could, pulling the chain tighter and tighter.
It was a big-link chain. A small-link chain would have been more supple, and cut more tightly. The big link chain took longer, and required more effort. Sasha thought that perfectly fine. Perone’s horrid choking, his desperate agony, his flailing hands and spluttered attempts to beg, scream, cry for help, were all blissful music to her soul.
“I told you I would,” she told him. She had never hated like this. It felt indescribably wonderful.
Perone died sooner than she’d hoped. She didn’t trust it, and stuck the knife in his neck just to be sure. She got up, and found the other man slumped against the far wall, clutching a bloody wound just below his heart. She hadn’t expected to have stuck him so well, but it seemed she was so good with blades these days that her hands knew what to do, even if the mind was elsewhere. He was sobbing and frightened, apparently in too much pain to risk inhaling, and cry out for help. Coward, Sasha thought, searching Perone’s body for a key. She found a ring of them on his belt, dropped with his pants now about his feet. A few moments’ searching found the right key, and she unlocked manacles from wrists and ankles.
No sooner had she done so than the door clanked open once more. Sasha was on her feet in a flash, taking Perone’s sword from its sheath, and was onto the new arrival in quick strides just as he realised what had happened. The man’s reach for his sword ended with Sasha’s blade tearing his throat, the head nearly severed, blood jetting in violent sprays as he fell. It trickled down her face, warm and sticky, as she walked to where the wounded man sat, staring at her in helpless terror.
Sasha knew of no graceful stroke that would kill a seated man, or she would have done it then and there. There was a lot of blood on his hands. She’d driven the knife in almost to the hilt, and none of these Civid Sein wore armour. So close to the heart, there was no surviving such a wound. Better that he died slowly, anyhow.
She took his blade, a short sword like the Steel used, sheath and all. She also took Perone’s coat, as it fitted her better than the big cloak, and would not impede her movement. The knife, she put in the coat’s pocket. Then she padded lightly into the corridor, a naked midlength blade in her rigt hand, a sheathed short one in her left. Pain blazed with every motion, but it was a welcome price to pay. As against the joy of revenge, pain was nothing. She had tasted the blood of enemies, and like a drunkard sniffing the scent of a brew, she wanted more.
She moved quickly, bare feet soundless on stone, pausing to peer into open doorways before passing. Footsteps gave her warning to duck into one room, as several Civid Sein came into the corridor, then opened the door through which she’d last seen Reynold Hein disappear. She caught a glimpse within before it closed-it was a command room of some sort, perhaps it had a good view of the fighting. There could be quite a few men inside such a room. The thought brought her no pause, only cheer.
She strode calmly to the door, testing the balance of her blade. It had not the length of a svaalverd weapon, its hilt barely long enough for her accustomed two-handed grip, and the balance felt all wrong…but she knew enough one-handed svaalverd extensions to think she would manage. As for the rest, well, she had always liked to improvise. She changed the sword to her left hand, holding it and the sheathed short sword together, and opened the door. There were three high, arched windows on the right wall, before which four men were gathered, behind a large desk. Another three stood about a small table, poring over some parchments. None looked up immediately as she entered, gaining her several strides with which to close the range and take the knife from her pocket.
The first looked up-a Nasi-Keth, a man she recognised from the Tol’rhen. Jardine, she recalled the name. She hurled the knife, and he fell with it sticking from his throat. The second and third reached for their weapons in panic. Sasha killed the one nearest with a single slash, leaped onto the low tabletop to clear the third man’s defence, and drove the point down through his shoulder, into the heart. She landed on light feet, rounded a chair and came at those by the windows. One, Reynold Hein, was yelling at the top of his lungs for assistance.
Sasha grabbed her short blade by the hilt and swung so that the sheath flew off, straight at the first man, who ducked. The big, bald man who had beaten her and Errollyn in the dungeon came around the big table at her, while Reynold drew a throwing knife. Sasha threw the short blade at Reynold, no great throw, but it made him duck. The big man swung hard from above…a stupid attack; Sasha just swayed aside and impaled him with his own momentum.
She pushed him back several steps, using his bulk as a shield from Reynold’s knife. The man she’d thrown the sheath at was trying to come about on her left. As he raised his blade for a strike, Sasha pulled her sword free of the big man’s gut, spun low and took the other’s leg. He fell screaming, and Sasha grabbed up his fallen blade and hurled that at Reynold too. Reynold ducked aside again as the blade scythed by his head, and lost his knife as he rolled. The big man collapsed, face first, clutching his stomach.
Reynold’s last standing companion was Timoth Salo. The young nobleman held his blade two-handed, Nasi-Keth style, staring incredulously at Sasha, then about at the carnage she’d wrought. The man she’d legged was still screaming, clutching the terrible wound. Sasha stuck her blade in his back to shut him up.
“What did you do?” Salo said with horror. And again, on the verge of hysterical tears, “What did you do?” As though it had not occurred to him that his friends could die so easily. As though it had not ocurred to him that his own actions could lead to this end.
Sasha rose from her crouch and advanced slowly. “You thought this was a game?” The calm of her voice amazed her. Dripping fury, and cold as ice, yet steady. Revenge made her calm, when all about her was crazy. No sheth an sary. She had never felt more Lenay than she did at that moment. “Did you think I was joking when I said I’d kill you all?”
Salo looked ill with fear and horror, the sword trembling in his hands. Reynold was backing away, circling about, his own blade far steadier. No assistance had yet come through the doors. Sasha reckoned most would be busy with the defence of the Justiciary.
She paused to pick up the big man’s blade. He had been Nasi-Keth too, it seemed, though she had not recognised the face…but most Tracato Nasi-Keth were ex-pupils of the Tol’rhen, not present ones. His blade presented her with a much better balance than the shorter one in her hand, so she exchanged them with several expert twirls.
Behind Salo, the room held something extraordinary-a great sphere on a stand. It was covered with the dark squiggles of map lines, and on one high corner, Sasha recognised the coastline of Rhodia. A map of the world. The serrin world, perfectly round, that the Verenthane priesthood considered sacrilege of the highest order. Only a little of the coastline seemed complete, the rest was mostly guesswork. There were banners in the room too, and parchment inscriptions in scrawling Rhodaani letters. A Verenthane star, prominent upon a shield in the Tracatan colours. Sasha realised whose chambers these had been.
“This is Chief Justiciar Sinidane’s room,” she said to Reynold. “Where is Sinidane?”
“I don’t know,” Reynold said, breathing hard. “Somewhere about.”
“You arrested him, didn’t you?”
“He was a traitor!” Salo screamed. “They were all traitors! All who cannot see that deserve to die!”
“You breed a calm and thoughtful disposition in your movement, I see,” Sasha observed to Reynold. “In your search for justice, you’ve destroyed justice itself.”
Salo panicked, attacking because he knew nothing else to do. Sasha had seen that before in youngsters and was not surprised, deflecting his first strike on pure reflex, and killed him with the counter before his follow-through had finished. Reynold ran.
Sasha tore after him, into a deserted hall. She was a good runner, but Reynold was taller, uninjured, and a man. As he flew away from her, Sasha felt her burns and wounds screaming in pain for the first time, and fancied she felt some skin on her leg tear. Still she ran, slowing a little, listening above the slap of her bare feet as Reynold disappeared about a corner, lest his footsteps abruptly stop, indicating ambush. But his boots pounded on and Sasha charged about the corner, onto a balcony above the wide floor of the Justiciary below, now awash with people and confusion.
Reynold flew down some stairs, faster again than Sasha, who plunged after, unconcerned of who he might rally against her-half of the crowds were women, hauling bloodied bodies of dead and wounded, crying for water, for bandages, for anything to cope with the flood of human catastrophe that now lay sprawled across thflagstones. She darted after Reynold, sighting a flash of movement ahead, a ducking figure there…she wove past hobbling wounded and skirted around a makeshift bed where a desperate surgeon cut crossbow bolts free from shrieking victims. The figure she’d thought was Reynold turned out to be a stranger, and she spun about, thinking perhaps he had tricked her, and was doubling back to surprise her from the crowd…but she saw only frightened men and women, and the same, panicked disbelief she’d seen on the face of Timoth Salo.
Sasha snarled, spinning back. Reynold could not run far-the Steel had the Justiciary surrounded, soon enough he would be forced back here, as the noose tightened. A young man she recognised from the Tol’rhen passed, supporting a bleeding, ashen-faced comrade. It was poor discipline, however much one cared for friends, for all to be abandoning the defence to carry their comrades back to shelter. The priorities were…
Priorities. Errollyn.
She turned away from the direction Reynold had run, and pushed her way back through the throng toward the dungeon entrance. To abandon her revenge on Reynold made her want to sob. But to abandon Errollyn would be worse.
The dungeons were unguarded, and she moved silently down the darkening stairs. Her wounds burned like murder now, and her legs felt unsteady, her balance suddenly dubious as the light slowly faded. She did not know how she had done what she’d just done, save that warriorhood was the truest nature of what she was, and came to her as naturally as a horse did to running. That, and pure, blood-lusting fury.
It was almost as though…almost as though…but she pushed the thought aside, for later contemplation.
Light from the Justiciary hall had nearly vanished, when a yellow lamp lit the way from below. The descending corridor bent, and suddenly, she saw the guard room and a man who looked to be Civid Sein holding a lamp, gazing up the stairs toward her. Sasha merely kept walking, as though she had every right to be there, as the man looked at her curiously, perhaps not making the connection between the girl who had been taken from these dungeons not long before in chains, and this one with a Nasi-Keth blade in her hand.
Suddenly his eyes widened, and he yelled a warning, a hand reaching to his sword. Sasha pressed on, unsurprised by the attack from her right by the second guard as she followed the retreating man into the room. One parry and a diagonal slash dropped his corpse to the flagstones. The first man dropped his lantern, a flash of flame as serrin oil erupted. Sasha ducked past it, and took the man’s sword hand off at the wrist. He screamed and fell to his knees. Sasha stood over him, sword at his neck as he tried to stop the terrible bleeding, stuffing the stump under his armpit and squeezing.
“In which cell is the serrin? Or your head will be next.”
She found her way down more stairs with another lantern from the guardroom, leaving the guard sprawled unconscious from a blow to the head. He might die from blood loss while asleep. Sasha didn’t care-she hadn’t cut his head off, so her honour was intact.
One door before the corner the guard had indicated, she stopped, and inserted the selected key from the great key ring. The door unlocked, and she pulled it squealing open and crept inside.
Errollyn lay on his back on dirty straw, his torso a criss-cross of cut and dried blood. His wrists were free, his arms loose, only his ankles chained. His eyes slitted open to look at her, as she placed the lantern down, and knelt at his side.
“Errollyn.” There was sanity in those eyes, blazing green in the lamplight. And pain. “Errollyn, can you move?”
“Did you take your revenge?” he asked her hoarsely.
Sasha nodded. “The big bald one from the dungeons,” she said. “Perone. Timoth Salo. Some others too.”
“Reynold?” Sasha shook her head, bitterly. “Then I have reason still to live. Let me out.”
Sasha used the keys, and released his ankles. “The Steel are attacking,” she told him as she worked. “It should be over very soon.”
“It could be no other way,” said Errollyn though gritted teeth. “This portion of humanity has become diseased. It must be cut out.”
“Your wounds will turn bad,” Sasha worried. “I have to get you to the Mahl’rhen, they can heal such things best.”
“We have to fetch Alythia first,” said Errollyn. “Do you know where she…”
“Alythia’s dead,” Sasha said shortly, as the last manacle released. She made to haul Errollyn to his feet. Errollyn clasped her hand, but did not move.
“You’re certain?” he asked, shocked. Sasha nodded, unwilling to speak more. She tried to haul Errollyn upright once more, but again he resisted. “How do you know?”
“Errollyn, not now. She’s gone, I must get you to the Mahl’rhen. If you get some disease of the blood it may already be too-”
“Sasha!” Errollyn insisted, with pain on his face that was not all from his wounds. “I cannot claim to know your loss, but she was my friend too, and I cannot leave without knowing for certain!”
Sasha could not meet his gaze. “I saw her head,” she barely managed to force out. She was trembling. “They threw it into my cell.” Errollyn looked stricken. “I spent…I spent half the night with it….”
She curled over, straining as though with a new, physical agony, trying to contain the sobs. Errollyn grabbed her shoulders with chafed, bloody hands and pressed his face to hers. Sasha tried to breathe deep, tried to calm. Errollyn was here, and alive. The nightmare was passing. Somehow, she managed to straighten.
“Let’s go.”
By the time they’d limped to the guardroom, Sasha could hear that the sounds from the Justiciary hall had changed. She could hear armour rattling, and the yelling of orders, disciplined and purposeful. The Steel were here already, and the Civid Sein lines had collapsed.
As she stood listening, Errollyn’s arm about her shoulders for support, a pair of lithe shapes came soundlessly down the stairs. Eyes blazed in the lamplight, one pair gold, another hazel. They paused, and shouted something back up the stairs in a Saalshen tongue Sasha did not recognise, then came to Errollyn and helped him up the stairs. Another serrin offered Saha an arm, but she waved him away, and climbed up to the main floor while keeping to one side of the stairs, as more serrin came rushing down, swords in hand.
Soldiers of the Steel now guarded every doorway, stairway and archway of the Justiciary, Sasha saw, blinking in the light. There were some fresh corpses on the ground, blood pooling, and other soldiers dragged prisoners, arms twisted behind their backs. The chaos of wounded continued across the floor nearest the grand entrance, left undisturbed by the soldiers. Officers and some serrin now walked among the wounded, looking at faces, searching for certain individuals. They would find Reynold, if he were still hidden here.
Sasha shielded her eyes as she stepped out into the day. It was warm, the sky a cloudless blue, and the peaked rooftops of Tracato’s elegant buildings seemed to mock her with their beauty. Upon the wide stairs lay more bodies, blood flowing as though down a series of waterfalls. There were soldiers everywhere, and horses, and already some horse-drawn wagons, with men to load the corpses into the back. The efficiency of the Steel amazed her.
A serrin came to them, leading another, smaller serrin in a wide hat, a bloodstained blade in her hand. Aisha. She met them at the base of the steps, and would have hugged Errollyn ferociously had his wounds not given her pause. She hugged Sasha instead, gently, with shock in her eyes. Fury quickly followed.
“Who was it?” she asked quietly. “I’ll have them killed.”
“Already done,” said Sasha. “All save Reynold Hein. He got away, but he’s mine if you find him.”
“Mine,” Errollyn said hoarsely.
“Oh merciful light,” Aisha muttered, observing his cuts more closely. “I’ll have you at the Mahl’rhen shortly, just let me commandeer one of these carts.”
Errollyn eased himself down onto the lowest step, and Sasha sat alongside. Sitting hurt terribly. Every new position did. And every old one. She was certain Errollyn felt much worse. He looked up, to regard the blue sky. A serrin placed her hat upon his head, yet still he squinted fiercely beneath its broad brim.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he said. Soldiers dragged the bloodied corpses of young men away from the steps. One of them, Sasha saw, was a Nasi-Keth who had sometimes sat in her Lenay classes. A young man, happy, idealistic, passionate about his city and his people. He left a long, thick trail of blood as they dragged him away.
“Yes, it is,” said Sasha. Thud, went the body, into the cart. She felt nothing at all.