Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

Gwenna started to snarl that she wasn’t screaming, then realized that her throat was raw, her ears ringing. Not that it made any difference, really. The whole camp vibrated with violence. The part of her that wasn’t screaming and hacking, running and panting, tried to tally up the odds. It seemed incredible that they were still alive, but here the fury of the Urghul actually worked in their favor. If all the horsemen had fallen silent and stood still, it would have been impossible to escape. The chaos and confusion covered their flight even better than the darkness. They were just three more bodies in a thrashing sea of flesh, three women among tens of thousands. Better yet, the camp was thinning as they approached the perimeter.

Keep your eyes on the ’Kent-kissing fight, Gwenna, she snapped at herself. Quit looking ahead.

Still, it was hard not to feel a hot, bright ember of hope. They’d fought clear of the last knot of Urghul, ducked through some more tents, and suddenly they were alone, free, with room to run. Annick pointed toward a picket of horses a hundred paces distant, but before they’d even begun to cross the space, the riders caught up with them, at least a score of horsemen, spears leveled even as they jumped the tent lines, voices raised in triumph.

“Not ideal,” Pyrre said, slowing, shaking her head.

“We can break through,” Gwenna said, waving to a gap. Even as she waved, it closed.

Annick was shooting. Where she’d picked up the arrows Gwenna had no idea-probably plucked from the dead. The crude bow still looked ridiculous in her hands, but it was proving deadly enough, and the sniper didn’t hesitate as she loosed into the attacking Urghul. A few riders fell, but more arrived to take their place. The sniper’s shafts were soon gone, and the horsemen were closing.

“Now what?” Gwenna asked, turning to put her back to Annick and Pyrre, shifting her feet, searching for the best footing.

“Now,” Pyrre said, “it is time to greet the god.” She sounded ready. Eager, even.

“You’re giving up?” Gwenna spat. Not that she could see any way free, but the assassin’s calm conviction baffled her. Worried her. If she let go of her own fury, she wasn’t sure anything waited beneath but mindless, gibbering fear, and so she clung to her rage, stoked it, heaped it with fuel. “Fuck that,” she shouted, then turned to the Urghul. “Who’s first?” She gestured with her high blade. “Which one of you bloody shits is first ?”

Sorry, Valyn, she said silently. We made a go of it.…

The lead rider-Huutsuu, Gwenna realized-shook her head, lowered her spear, and nudged her horse forward. The scars on her face and arms glistened with sweat in the torchlight. Her lips curled back in a smile or snarl. She had wonderful teeth, Gwenna thought pointlessly. A savage with perfect teeth was going to kill her.…

The scream came first, a sky-shattering, blood-boiling scream. The Urghul closing for the kill suddenly struggled to rein their rearing horses, but that scream drove straight into the beasts’ brains, triggering something ancient and undeniable in their hearts, a terror that would not be soothed. Again it came, and again, like steel shrieking through ice. The scream, then the wind, then the great shadow of outstretched wings, a perfect dark against the greater darkness of the night, and then the figures in black alighting silently as shadows.

“Valyn,” Gwenna called, shock and relief raging through her. “It’s Valyn!”

She had no idea where he found ’Ra, no idea how he knew to come back, no clue about any of it, and she didn’t care. Somehow, impossibly, the Wing was whole again. She’d been about to die, and now the bird had dropped straight out of the night to lift them clear.

The kettral tore into the closest riders with her talons, disemboweling one man and the horse beneath him. Huutsuu hurled herself clear at the last moment, just before her horse bucked then buckled beneath the slicing claws. The riders on the flanks tried to close, but someone was shooting arrows, the feathered shafts sprouting from necks and shoulders. When a huge taabe with a crooked nose bellowed, spurring his terrified horse forward, his skull just … folded. Gwenna could think of no other word. She hadn’t even seen the blow, but the flesh crumpled in on itself like a rotten gourd dropped from a height.

A kenning.

It had to be a kenning, but when Gwenna whirled about, instead of Talal, she found herself staring at Sigrid sa’Karnya. Not Valyn, she realized, horrified. The Flea’s Wing. Sigrid’s lips were drawn back in an expression that might have been ecstasy or rage. Blond hair whipped at her face, while blood ran in runnels down her milk-pale skin. The Flea stood just in front of her, shortbow loose in his hand, while a few steps to the side Newt was lighting a …

“Starshatter!” Gwenna bellowed, hauling Annick back with one hand, seeing the lit charge spin end over end into the mass of horsemen, bracing herself for the bone-jarring shock that lit half the sky and left her ears ringing. The air concussed. Blue-white flame sheeted up and out, slicing the night sky into shards. Gwenna closed her eyes at the last moment, blocking out the worst of the glare, reeled backward still holding Annick, then found her footing. She was amazed to still be standing after such a close detonation, but then, Newt knew his business, had figured in the mass of horses and men, using his target to shield them all from the backblow. A dozen of the beasts were down, some still, others thrashing desperately, kicking, screaming as their riders-one missing a leg, another with her face flayed to the bone-tried to claw their way free.

Someone seized her by the arm, and Gwenna pivoted, hacking down with her stolen sword. The Flea blocked the attack casually, sliding it off to the side as he locked eyes with her.

“Where are the rest?” he shouted. “Where’s Valyn?”

Gwenna hesitated. She had no idea if the Flea had come to save her or kill her. The attack on the Urghul argued for saving, but then, the last time the two Wings had met, they’d blown up the better part of a large building trying to murder each other.

“Gwenna!” he said, leaning close. She realized that, while their two swords remained locked together, he had brought a small knife to her throat. “If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead. I’m here to help.” He lowered the knife. “Now where’s Valyn?”

“Gone,” she said, waving her hand. “South. It’s just us.”

The Flea nodded, focused on something over her shoulder, threw the knife, then gestured to the bird with the empty hand. “Load up.”

Somewhere to Gwenna’s right another starshatter ripped into the Urghul. The camp was a madness of flame, screaming horses, brandished steel, and blood, all of it held at bay, impossibly, by the Flea and his Wing.

“Delay,” Newt called over his shoulder, “is the mother of defeat.”

“Meaning get on the bird,” the Flea said again. “Now.”

He tilted his head to the side, as though stretching his neck, and a spear shaft sailed past, embedding itself in the dirt. Gwenna stared at it for a moment, watching it quiver. Then she ran for the bird.

“Tan’is was among the youngest of us, one of the last Csestriim born without the rot,” Kiel said.

Two of the three lanterns in Morjeta’s bedchamber had spluttered out during their conversation, and the remaining lamp was burning low, tossing the corners of the room into fitful darkness. No one made a move to refill them. Morjeta herself had subsided against the pillows of the divan, a stunned look on her face. Kaden could sympathize. His own introduction to the Csestriim had been a shock, and the notion that they still stalked the earth had been introduced to him in gradual stages. To learn all at once that the immortal foes of humanity still lived, that one had all but seized control of Annur, that another sat several feet from her, dark stare as wide and deep and inscrutable as the sea, was clearly more than the woman could absorb all at once. There was no time, however, to ease her gently into the truth.