Michael Stackpole - Chartomancy

The dung-otters proved almost as easy to deal with as the winged toads, once we learned they preferred live prey to carrion. Their weakness was fire, so dumping oil in a puddle in a sewer formed the basis of a trap. We’d throw a hapless cur down there to whine in the darkness. When it started barking, then yelped in terror, we tossed a torch down and ignited the oil. While we didn’t study the results all that closely, we got a fair number of dung-otters for each dog, and the kwajiin ran out of dung-otters well before our supply of dogs evaporated.

The Illustrated City endured the siege for a week before the kwajiin began to tighten the circle. They decided to attack at Bloodgate. I had no doubt it was a matter of honor, which made them remarkably predictable. According to Urmyr, that should have made them easy for us to defeat. But defeating them would have required an army capable of lifting the siege, and unless Prince Cyron was a day away with the whole of the Naleni military, the siege would not be broken.

In that week, the Illustrated City had broken. Aside from the brown stains and the inhuman stink, the bodies decomposing in the streets and the infirm wailing in pain, a more fundamental change had taken place. The Virine had always prided themselves on having been the Empire’s capital. I’m sure they believed that when the Empress returned, it would be to Kelewan and to the sealed throne room where the Celestial Throne waited in darkness. With every day, citizens looked to the northwest for some sign of her coming, then looked to the southeast to know that she would not arrive in time.

This crushed their spirit and, with few exceptions, they resigned themselves to dying with their city. They had lived for it. Their lives had been inscribed on its walls. It was their history, and it was about to be destroyed. Some people even took their own lives, choosing a peaceful passing over to what would befall Kelewan.

I slid my swords through the sash girding my armor. “You know I am leaving with my people. You’ll not try to stop me.”

He shook his head. “The Jade Bears and I are coming with you. We’re only a battalion, but the archers of the Sun Bears are coming as well.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What about your duty to the Prince?”

“This is part of it.” He glanced back toward the door of the armory. “Crown Prince Iekariwynal and your boy, Dunos, are being fitted with identical armor. We are tasked with getting the Crown Prince away.”

“It’s better the boy die here, you know.” I nodded toward Whitegate. “What he will see there will haunt him forever.”

“The same will be true of Dunos.”

“No, Dunos has lived through his nightmare.” I nodded to him. “Bring the Crown Prince. You know our plan. You hate it, of course.”

“Only the necessity of it. Midnight, Whitegate.” He bowed to me. “Kelewan will die, but Erumvirine will live.”

“Forget Erumvirine. Look to living yourself.”

Deshiel had the foresight to line up several wagons near Whitegate. They were actually corpse wagons, but as no traffic could get through Whitegate to the cemeteries beyond, no one had bothered to collect bodies for burial. It occurred to me that one benefit of this situation was that the kwajiin army would have its noses full of the stink of death.

My company had swelled to nearly eighty-one, which would have been a welcome omen save that this heavily taxed our supply of horses. In combination with the Bears, we had a substantial cavalry force, and had seen nothing in the enemy to rival it. Especially not in the forces opposite Whitegate, which seemed the least disciplined and weakest of the enemy troops.

Of course, one has to expect discipline to break down when one stations carrion eaters in graveyards.

The wagons had been fitted with barrels of oil and were drawn by four-horse teams. We’d even found people desperate or insane enough to drive them. Everyone knew we would set the wagons on fire and hope to cut a flaming path through the enemy line. It would be the only way out of the city, and countless people gathered amid the rendering houses, tanneries, butchers, and mortuaries of Whitetown to join us on this mad dash for survival.

I gave the signal and the portcullis was drawn up. The bar on the gates slid back, then the gates themselves slowly opened. The moment the gap proved sufficient for a wagon to make it through, Deshiel applied a torch and the driver cracked a whip. I was not certain whether the horses feared the whip, the fire, or the crowd of hungry people milling about, but they shot through the gate. Two more flaming wagons followed, then our cavalry went.

Whitegate pointed west-northwest toward a pair of hills covered with graves and mausoleums dating back to the Imperial period. The road curved north, then broke directly for the hills. The cavalry poured through the gate, then immediately south, to get off the road. We assembled in good order and trotted parallel to the road, onto which spilled a screaming mass of terrified humanity.

People had been reduced to nothing more than herd beasts. We’d started many rumors among them. To some we said that being in front was best, to get through the lines before the enemy reacted. To most others we recommended staying tight with the pack, as they would be but one among many and the enemy wouldn’t get them. A few contrarians hung back, assuming their best chance lay in seeing where the enemy went, then going elsewhere. We saw no reason to contradict their thinking.

The enemy reacted, and their kwajiin leaders could not control them. The vhangxi charged forward from their trenches and fortresses, abandoning barbicans and leaving their commanders screaming orders at them. They raced in at the refugees, saliva slicking their flesh, tongues lolling from their mouths.

Ranai, riding between me and Dunos, spoke sharply. “Don’t watch, Dunos.”

“He’s seen it before.”

She turned on me. “He doesn’t need to see it again. He’s only ten years old, Master.”

“And he will be eleven because of those people.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You gave them false hope.”

“They were dead anyway.” I shrugged. “Maybe some will escape.”

There was an outside chance that I would be correct, or there was until the vhangxi drew close to the first fire wagon. The horses shied and the wagon tipped, launching the burning barrels. They burst when they hit the ground, leaving the road awash in burning oil. A second wagon rode into the fire and its cargo exploded, lighting the night. The third left the road toward our side and flipped, sowing fire in a crescent from the road toward the south.

The people, confronting this vast arc of flames, stopped. The front ranks did anyway, then people slammed into them from behind. The forward ranks got pitched into the fire and the vhangxi, undaunted, leaped over it to fall on the milling masses.

By that time we’d ridden far enough forward that the fire hid the worst of the carnage. Three hundred yards from the enemy line, we lowered our spears and formed up in a double column eighteen wide. I aimed us for a point just south of the breastwork they’d raised across the road. As we closed to a hundred yards, we moved into a fast trot, then, at fifty, a full gallop.

The Sun Bears arced arrows above us that peppered the kwajiin and vhangxi remaining to defend their line. Half the enemy fell to that attack, and most of the surviving vhangxi fled. The kwajiin drew their swords and though I could not hear them over the thunder of hoofbeats, I knew they were announcing their histories and inviting us to join the company of all those their ancestors had slain.

A woman stepped into my path, facing me straight on, with both hands wrapped around the hilt of her sword. She braced to bat my spearpoint aside, then cut the legs out from under my horse. I knew the tactic. I’d done it before.