Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

To Marcus’ immense surprise, he himself appeared to be uninjured, or at least in no immediate pain. He found Janus also levering himself to his feet. The colonel fixed Marcus with an almost rueful look.

“Sir,” Marcus said, when he’d found his voice. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t believe so, Captain.” Janus tossed his sword to the floor and patted himself inquisitively. “No, it appears not.”

“Fitz?” Marcus called over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Yessir.”

Even the bare few seconds that had passed seemed to have been enough for the normally unflappable lieutenant to regain his composure. His voice doesn’t even tremble, Marcus thought, a bit enviously.

“Anybody else injured?”

“I’m afraid Corporal Denthrope is dead, sir,” Fitz said. “The rest of us seem to be unhurt.”

“Right.” Marcus almost tossed aside the remaining pistol, checking himself at the last moment when he remembered it was still loaded. He carefully closed the hammer instead and turned to the doorway. “We’re going to want runners to every duty company. Close all the gates, start a cordon at the outer wall, and-”

“No,” Janus said, behind him.

“What?” Marcus rounded on the colonel. “Sir, with all due respect, that was an assassination attempt. It was nearly successful. We can’t just let him go-”

“They won’t be able to stop him,” Janus said. “And I’d sooner not lose any more men trying.”

Marcus wanted to scream. Part of him was still stunned by the impossibility of what he’d just seen, and the fact that Janus obviously knew something he wasn’t bothering to share made him want to pick the colonel up by his collar and shake him until he explained what the hell was going on. Half a lifetime of military decorum warred with raw emotion, and his fists clenched until the knuckles went white.

“Sir,” Fitz said urgently, “there’s more. The lower city is on fire.”

“Fire?”

That cut through the budding rage like a bucket of cold water. Marcus had lived in Ashe-Katarion long enough to absorb some of the fear its citizens had for the prospect of fire. Built largely of dry wood and straw-stuffed mud bricks, the city was a perfect tinderbox. Buildings were packed so tightly against one another that a blaze, once started, was almost impossible to stop.

The prohibition on the use of fire as a weapon was the one rule that everyone observed, even the street gangs. For the most part the Khandarai got by without lamps or candles and cooked in stone fire pits, so the risk of accidental flames was small. Nevertheless, large portions of the lower city burned down every twenty or thirty years. Among the upper classes, who lived inside the stone walls that served as a highly effective firebreak, these events were known as the “crimson flowers of Ashe-Katarion,” and the citizens often gathered on rooftops to drink and watch the show.

“Where?” Marcus said. “And how bad is it?” There was no such thing as a fire service in Khandar, but the Colonials might be able to accomplish something.

“Bad,” Fitz said. “Our sentries on the wall reported that four fires started along the west edge of the city, more or less simultaneously. There’s not much wind, but you know how these things spread. I’ve sent runners to all our patrols outside the walls.”

“Good.” Marcus turned to Janus. “Sir. Four fires at once has to be enemy action. It could be cover for some kind of insurrection-”

To his astonishment, the colonel was smiling. Not his usual smile, tight-lipped and gone in an instant, but a wild, almost mad grin.

“Go on ahead, Lieutenant. The captain and I will follow presently.”

Fitz’s eyes flicked from Janus to Marcus, who gave an infinitesimal nod. He saluted and herded the gawking rankers with their smoking muskets out into the corridor. Once they were out of sight, Janus spun to face Marcus.

“Don’t you see, Captain? It’s still here .”

“I don’t understand. What’s still here?”

“The Names . When we found the vault empty I thought they must have been removed from the city months ago. With all of the Desol to hide them in, it would have taken years to ferret them out. But this. .”

Marcus frowned. “What makes you think they weren’t?”

“The fire. Enemy action, you said, and very perceptively. But why would the Redeemers burn the city?”

“To try to get us, I would assume. .” Marcus trailed off as Janus waved his hand.

“No, no. They must know we’re camped inside the walls. A fire would be inconvenient, but certainly not devastating. A lone fanatic might try such a thing, but four fires at once? No.”

“Then what?”

“ Cover . You said it yourself. It keeps us penned up inside the walls while they remove the treasure from the city.” Janus’ mad smile was fading, and his brow furrowed.

“But. .” Marcus tried to follow this chain of logic, certain that there must be some flaw. “What makes you think this is related to your ancient treasure in the first place?”

Janus raised one eyebrow. “I should think you would have guessed that as well, Captain. After all, it was you who spared my life from their assassin.”

“I might have,” Marcus said. “But-”

“Tell me, do you think an ordinary man could move so quickly, or strike with such force? Could an ordinary man have caught a pistol ball in flight?” He spun and pointed to the cracked stone doorframe. “Do you know of any normal man who could fracture rock with his bare hands?”

“I don’t know what I saw,” Marcus replied, hedging.

“You know,” Janus said, with a quick smile, “but you’re not prepared to believe the evidence of your senses. I believe mine, Captain, and what they tell me is that the treasure of the Demon King is real. Now we must move quickly to retrieve it, as His Majesty has instructed. And,” he added, as an afterthought, “to keep it out of the hands of the Last Duke.”

WINTER

Winter woke before dawn with a pounding pain in the back of her head, a mouth that tasted of sewer water, and a need to visit the privy that would brook no delay.

Bobby lay against her, head resting on Winter’s shoulder. Feor was in the opposite corner, neatly curled up in a catlike ball on a pile of cushions.

Winter extricated herself from Bobby, who murmured a little and didn’t wake, and found that one of her legs had gone to sleep. She quietly slapped the flesh to try to work some life back into it, then limped out into the corridor. The Khandarai practice of large communal chamber pots had caused some serious embarrassment for Winter in the past. Fortunately, at this early hour, no one was about to watch her. Afterward, greatly relieved, she groped her way back through the semidarkness to the little room she’d shared with the two younger girls.

She had dreamed, after all, but her dreams had been strange, disjointed things. Jane had been there, of course, but so had Captain d’Ivoire, and Sergeant Davis, and others she couldn’t quite remember. Whatever it had been, it was fading quickly.

Her plan to use her own revelation to distract Bobby from brooding on what had happened to her had worked a bit too well. The younger girls had taken to drink with cautious enthusiasm, and it wasn’t long before all talk of magic and Mrs. Wilmore’s was forgotten, at least for the moment. Winter had never been a world-class drunkard herself, in spite of her bravado. There was always the danger that, in an inebriated state, she would do something that would compromise her secret. It was oddly liberating to be in the company of people who already knew , and after the initial tide of melancholy had receded she found herself enjoying the experience.