Witch king, p.30
Witch King, page 30
The younger person standing at his elbow nodded gravely. “You are correct, cousin.”
Kai let out a relieved breath. So he didn’t have to prove himself. About this, at least. “We need to leave, I don’t know when the flood will stop. And I need to find the Immortal Marshall Tahren Stargard. Her brother, Dahin, is around here somewhere.”
Tescai-Lin glanced at the water now rushing into the court from the hall. “It has to stop at some point.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. It’s a powerful intention and I don’t know how it works.” Kai’s legs felt weak and he just wanted to lie down. He was beginning to think his new body didn’t work as well as Enna’s, that there was some trick to being a demon in a mortal body that he had never been told. Or maybe it was just that Enna had been resigned to leaving her body in natural death, but Talamines hadn’t and fought to hold on.
Tescai-Lin lifted their brows; the effect was interesting because the hair had been shaved away and replaced with tiny gold studs. They said, “Find something to carry the head. The Arike should be this way.”
* * *
Following Tescai-Lin’s broad back, his wet clothing leaving a dripping trail, Kai saw they were going back toward the Temple Halls. The head was in a silk bag that one of the Enalin had handed Kai. Apparently it was normally for carrying a sacred something that didn’t translate into Imperial.
They passed, or were passed by, groups of mortals running to get away, but saw no legionaries. Though they did see discarded legionary weapons, armor, and clothing strewn along the corridor. Kai couldn’t understand it. Were the expositors making the legionaries’ bodies invisible but somehow not their armor? Was something eating them? He said finally, “Why are the legionaries taking off their clothes?”
Walking beside him, Tescai-Lin’s young cousin explained, “Because we have won.”
Won what? Kai almost said. Then realized they meant the battle. That seemed impossible. They hadn’t done this to win. Just to cover the escape of Bashasa’s people and Dahin, to show that the Hierarchs weren’t untouchable. That part they had accomplished, he and Bashasa had touched both Hierarchs; the head still dripping through the bag proved that. “But—”
They had just turned into the processional avenue of trophies and tributes that led toward the Temple Halls, when a shout interrupted him. “You’re alive!”
Someone ducked past Tescai-Lin and Kai barely had time to brace before Dahin threw himself into his arms.
Kai hadn’t been hugged like this by anyone since the day of the Hierarchs’ Great Working, since the Saredi had been broken and burned. He almost forgot how to respond. Fortunately, before he gave into the impulse to weep like a baby, Dahin let go to drag him toward the archway into the Temple Halls. Ziede and Tahren stood there with Bashasa and a crowd of Arike and other mortals. Still dragging him, Dahin told them, “He stabbed an expositor and threw me out a window!”
Tescai-Lin followed, and said, “Show them.”
Delighted, Bashasa called out, “Fourth Prince, you’ve returned!”
Ziede started toward him, saying, “Kai, we thought you were—”
Kai said, “Dahin, wait,” and freed his arm so he could pull the head out of the bag.
Dahin said, “What’s that?” and everyone grew suddenly quiet, the babble of voices in the corridor dying away.
Kai held up the head by the hair.
Ziede stopped, her eyes wide. Beside her, Tahren let out a long breath.
Bashasa stepped forward, growing awe and elation in his expression. Someone behind him said, “That’s the one from the Halls…”
“No.” Tahren pitched her flat voice to carry. “That’s the other one.”
Tescai-Lin said, “I confirm that. I recognize her, as does my cousin.”
Bashasa hadn’t seemed to hear. He reached Kai, his gaze locked on the Hierarch’s head. He breathed, “How?”
Kai shrugged a little helplessly. “When the intention from the Cageling Court filled the room with water suddenly, everything was confused. I saw I had a chance at her, if I went back.” It hadn’t been anything clever, just luck. Plus a combination of being fast and vicious, but he didn’t want to say that in front of all these mortals. Too many already thought demons were monstrous creatures.
Bashasa took the head from Kai’s unsteady grip and held it up. He turned to face the others. “The second Hierarch is dead. The legionaries have run from us. The Summer Halls belong to us.”
Kai remembered he hadn’t delivered the most important information. He leaned close to Bashasa and whispered, “The water intention is flooding everywhere. I don’t know if it’ll stop. It’s so far underwater by now no one could reach it to make it stop.”
“But we must leave this place where we were held against our will, and make our plans elsewhere,” Bashasa continued without hesitation. “The Fourth Prince has unleashed a powerful working which will leave it flooded, and confuse any pursuit. It will also prevent the other Hierarchs from retaking the Summer Halls, at least for a time. Spread the word to all who will listen, make sure the Hostage Courts and slave cells are empty, that none are left behind. Everyone must flee!”
The mortals seemed uncertain or stricken or disbelieving. But Tescai-Lin said, “We will search the northern Hostage Courts on our way to gather the rest of our people. Before we leave, I would speak with you again, Bashasa Arike Heir.”
“And I you, Light. We will meet outside in the leaving court,” Bashasa said. Tescai-Lin strode away with their followers in their wake and Bashasa added, “Hiranan, you will search the south with Vrim?”
“I will,” the older Prince-heir said, gathering a number of Arike soldiers around her with a wave. “We’ll see you outside.”
The rest of the mortals in the chamber began to move purposefully or to scatter in panic. Bashasa turned back and Kai held out the bag for the head, and said, “That was quick thinking. Sorry about the flood.”
“Do not apologize.” Bashasa tucked the flap of the bag over the dead Hierarch’s face. He handed it back to Kai, grim now. “There is no way we could hold this place, and no rational reason to; having an excuse to leave immediately will keep us moving and acting together, for a time at least.” His serious gaze met Kai’s for a heartbeat, then Bashasa looked down. “What you have done … I cannot…”
Ziede stepped forward and squeezed Kai’s arm. “Kai, you found Dahin; Tahren was both pleased and furious.”
“I was not furious,” Tahren said, only a step behind her, holding Dahin firmly by the wrist. “Prince-heir, Ziede Daiyahah has offered to take charge of the removal of the wounded in the Temple Halls. I will help her.”
“Very good. Take Arava and her cadre with you,” Bashasa said briskly, motioning to one of his soldiers. He lowered his voice. “That other matter—only if you can do so safely. I won’t risk a life for it.”
“I understand,” Tahren said. Ziede strode purposefully away but Tahren focused on Kai. “I owe you my brother’s life.”
“I wasn’t going to leave him there,” Kai said, too overwhelmed to even think of how to be polite in this situation. In the grassplains it was assumed you would take care of others, if you had any chance to. And the underearth didn’t have wars the way mortals did, slaughtering whole cities. Not that he could claim to belong to either of those places anymore.
Tahren didn’t seem to care. She nodded and turned to go. Dahin, towed behind her, began, “Can I go with—”
“No,” Tahren said firmly.
Bashasa clapped Kai on the shoulder. “Can you check the eastern Hostage Courts with your cadre? I must secure our transport away from here.”
“All right.” Kai tied the bag to his belt. “What’s a cadre?”
* * *
It turned out a cadre was the Imperial word for a personal guard. Salatel and the Arike who Bashasa had assigned to make sure nobody killed Kai while he was unconscious were actually now his cadre.
Salatel knew only a little more of the layout of the Summer Halls than Kai did, but she knew where the eastern Hostage Courts were. She also still had the coat Bashasa had given him. Kai pulled it on over his still damp clothes to hopefully signal he wasn’t an expositor and that no one should stab him in the back.
When they found the gate into the eastern Hostage Courts, Kai could now see the intention to alert expositors woven into the stone. He stopped and lifted a hand in the Saredi scout sign for caution, before remembering the people following him didn’t know it. But the idea must have gotten across, because Salatel and the others stopped immediately. Kai eased forward and drew the intention off the stone, partly to see if he could. It came to his fingers as a stretchy web of shifting light. Kai discarded it to the side, and it turned dark and faded into the paving. “That’s probably meant to alert someone who might already be dead, but…” He shouldn’t be telling them he had only the vaguest idea what he was doing; he was so tired he was starting to ramble. Though Salatel and these Arike had been there when everything happened, they knew he wasn’t a real expositor. He didn’t want to be a real expositor, no matter how intriguing Ziede seemed to find the idea.
But Salatel said, “Better to be cautious, Fourth Prince. This horrible place is full of things we don’t understand.”
She was right about that. Kai checked for more prosaic traps, then led the way inside.
In the first few courts, they found only confused mortals who needed to be pointed toward the way out, or who were so frightened or shocked that they needed to be told it was all right to leave. The Arike shooed them out and made sure they were heading in the right direction.
In the last court, they found bodies.
The first was in the corridor bordering the entrance court, sprawled and bloody near a broken tray of dirty crockery. Obviously caught by surprise, the others only had time to try to hide, huddling in corners in sleeping rooms or behind baskets in a storeroom. Some had tried to fight, using anything to hand as a makeshift weapon. The Arike spread out to search for survivors, and Kai checked all the bodies he found, hoping for a sign of life. But they were all cold and already going stiff, so they must have been killed not long after everything had started.
By a dry fountain in the central court, Kai crouched beside the body of an elderly person, with gray streaked hair and a lined face, now slack and still, blood dried around the gaping stab wound in their chest. “Why these people? Why not the people in the other courts?” he said as the soldiers returned and gathered around him. The dead were small in stature, the tallest handspans shorter than Enna had been, and most were slender and small-boned, with fine features. Their skin was a light bronze, their hair shades of brown and very straight and soft. They had small, skillfully drawn tattoos all along the edges of their hairlines, in bright colors, symbols or words in a language Kai had never seen.
“The others left first?” one of the soldiers suggested, in heavily accented Imperial. She added, “No one to kill?”
Salatel looked doubtful. “The other courts hadn’t been searched, the ones who stayed behind weren’t disturbed. Legionaries coming to kill wouldn’t let anyone live.”
Kai had to agree, the legionaries had never gone into the courts where there were survivors. “Maybe they started here and were called away to try to stop us from getting to the last Hierarch.” Shaking his head, he pushed to his feet as the last soldiers reappeared. “Nothing?”
“No, Fourth Prince,” one replied. She gestured back toward the empty doorways, dismayed. “They are so small, we searched anywhere they might hide. But so did the legionaries.”
Kai rubbed his forehead. He hadn’t seen mortals like this before. Maybe the legionaries had chosen to kill them because they were different.
“Fourth Prince, Salatel,” someone said, and Kai turned to see a soldier pointing at the arched doorway that led into the court. A trickle of water ran in, following the gap between the paving stones. She added, “It’s coming through the corridor from the big hall.”
“Right.” Kai watched the water find the grooves in the paving. “We need to go.”
* * *
By the time they made it through the maze of courts and found a wide columned corridor Salatel recognized as leading to the way out, the water was knee-deep. The oil lamps along the enclosed corridors flickered on the rising water. Kai would have felt more panic, but it was muted from exhaustion.
It was a relief to make a turn into a larger passageway, and see the end where a broad set of stairs led up into open daylight. Kai sloshed forward with Salatel and the others, glad they weren’t going to drown in here after all.
As they drew closer, the stairwell looked more and more like a man-made gorge, the walls carved with half pillars, sloping up a long distance, far longer than climbing to the top of Kentdessa Saredi. A few groups of mortals climbed ahead, the last about halfway to the top. The steps were covered with damp footprints and the occasional lost shoe or veil or discarded bag.
As Kai heaved waterlogged legs up onto the first step, he said, “We’re not underground, are we? Are the Halls in a—” He couldn’t remember the Imperial word for canyon. “A hole?”
“Yes, Fourth Prince,” Salatel said, pausing to wring the water out of her long tunic. “You didn’t see when you came here?”
“I was in a bag,” Kai told her. And too sick and half-conscious to remember the feeling of being carried down into the earth. “I couldn’t see anything.”
They started the climb and Kai could tell the soldiers were drooping with fatigue. It had been hours since they had a chance to eat or to even stop moving for a few moments. Kai knew he had more endurance than a mortal and he was worn down, aching in his knees and back. Talamines hadn’t been that much older than Enna but even ten full changes of the seasons was a lot for a mortal. But no one complained; the water was rising and they didn’t have time to stop.
Finally they dragged themselves up the last few steps. A cloudy gray sky and an unfettered wind scented with recent rain and green earth greeted them. They emerged onto a stone walkway and Kai saw that all the buildings of the massive city-fortress had been surrounded by a high earthen wall. Kai would never have believed a single mortal-built structure could be so large, if he hadn’t spent hours running around in it. The scale was hard to take in. He turned, getting his bearings for the first time since he had been captured.
The top of the Summer Halls was an expanse of pitched glass rooftops like transparent mountain slopes and the square openings of terraced courts like canyons. A nearby tower had large balconies standing out at alternating levels, each facing a different direction. The balconies were shaped like spreading fans, or maybe the caps of oyster mushrooms. For Immortal Blessed craft, Kai realized. It made the back of his neck itch, knowing more might show up at any moment. Would Tahren fight her own people for them? Or would she even have a choice, once they knew she had helped kill two Hierarchs.
Around the curve to the east was another stairwell exit, a trickle of mortals emerging up onto the walkway that circled the rim. They staggered around in relief, and then hurried toward the nearest path down the outer slope. That was near the spot where he and Ziede had crossed over the canyon-like corridor full of fleeing people.
Two soldiers had sunk down to sit on the top step. Salatel checked the others, gripping their shoulders and patting their faces. Kai went to the edge of the walkway to look outward. Three waterways matched the curve of the earthwork, the outermost one joined with a broad canal that led away to the east. A small city lay next to the canal, with clusters of low stone buildings interspersed with wooden compounds and houses topped with tall narrow spires, with trees and gardens, walkways and wide paths for wagons.
Salatel came to his side. “Fourth Prince, we should go. The Prince-heir Bashasa will be waiting.”
Kai just nodded. He didn’t think the soldiers would appreciate any attempt to help them, particularly from him, so he waited while they got each other to their feet. Then he took another breath of the fresh wind and followed as Salatel led the way toward the nearest stairs down the outside of the earthwork.
The steps cut back and forth through the slope, made of the same white stone as the rim. It was easier going down, and the earthwork wall was thickly planted with tall grasses, so at least there was something soft to land on if anyone fell. Kai asked, “Who did the Hierarchs take this place from?”
“I don’t know, Fourth Prince,” Salatel said. Most of her attention was ahead, where the bottom of the slope was coming into view as the stairs wound down. There was a large walled semi-circular court, now crowded with fleeing mortals. The court of leaving that Bashasa had mentioned. “This land is called the Sana-sarcofa, I don’t know who lived here.”
“They say it was Witches,” a soldier behind them said. Kai turned to look at her and she shrugged wearily. “But they say that about a lot of places.”
“I don’t think Witches build places like this,” Kai said. It was nothing like what he had seen in the borderlands.
“The servers said the Hierarchs built it,” another soldier volunteered. There were mild noises of disbelief and disagreement. “They did say it,” she protested.
As they climbed further down, Kai saw the court had a tall archway cut into the earthwork wall, out of which riding animals, even the giant wallwalkers, and every kind of wheeled contraption poured in a steady stream. The place was a chaos of people, all leaving or preparing to leave.
On the far side was a large pool, a harbor, with barges and sailing boats emerging from another stone arch built into the earthwork wall. Every form of transport was rapidly filling with people. A high stone wall enclosed the outer side of the court, but its heavy iron gates and railed portcullis led onto a wide bridge. The watergates protecting the harbor were open to the inner moat.
As Kai and the cadre reached the floor of the court, Salatel stopped to get her bearings. Kai took the opportunity to pull his veil back on, tugging it down just enough to shield his eyes.
