Matthew Sturges - Midwinter

They reached the door to the stairwell just as it burst open. Silverdun backed out of the doorway, followed quickly by Satterly. The stairwell was teeming with guardsmen in chain mail. They carried vicious-looking curved swords and thin daggers.

"How many?" shouted Mauritane, slamming the door shut before any of the guards could reach it.

"I didn't stop to count," said Silverdun, drawing his sword now that he had room. "I'd guess a dozen. More coming. Held them off as long as I could."

"You did well, Silverdun."

"I'm scared all to piss," Silverdun said.

"So am I," said Mauritane.

The door crashed open again.

Raieve lost sight of her companions. She ran towards one of the guards, crashing into him with her sword aimed at his groin. Blood spattered onto her fingers. The man beneath her grunted, his face red. She rolled off of him, tripping another who bent down to grasp at her legs. Her sword flashed out at a pair of exposed ankles, severing the tendons of each.

The floor swayed again, this time more violently, and several of the men around her fell onto their knees. She whipped her blade around, slashing into the face of the man next to her. He screamed like a child.

Something was dripping down her neck. Standing, she reached up, touched her head, felt a deep cut there. She had no idea when it had happened.

Another guard came at her. This one moved in low and fast, grabbing her around the waist. Raieve leaned forward and bit down on the man's ear, tearing it slowly from his head. He jerked backward, and they toppled to the floor together.

It seemed to go on forever in this way; as soon as she pried one of them off of her, another one was upon her. She strained against them, her sword arm aching, but none of them managed to touch her with a blade. She blessed her good fortune and kept swinging.

When Raieve stood up, it was already over. Mauritane stood with his feet planted, casting his body back and forth for new foes. Easily a dozen bodies lay on the floor. Silverdun was on his knees, holding his stomach. Eloquet and Satterly leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

Satisfied that the stairway had been cleared, Mauritane took a deep breath. "Let's go," he said. He turned and saw Silverdun kneeling. "Are you all right?" he said.

"I'll survive," Silverdun said. "Took one in the family heirlooms."

"We're all alive," said Raieve, shocked. "Five against… eighteen, and we all survived. How?"

All eyes turned to Mauritane. It was Eloquet who said, "You possess all twelve Gifts, don't you? No normal man can fight like that."

Mauritane didn't answer. "Time is running short," he muttered.

"It's true, though. Isn't it? The man who possesses all Gifts in equal strength cannot be beaten by any foe. I saw you. You watched over each of us, protected us while you fought." Eloquet pressed.

"Enough," said Mauritane. "Now go or I'll cut you down myself!"

Eloquet knelt before him. "You are He Who Clears the Path," he said. "Only the one who comes after you is more holy."

Mauritane dragged Eloquet up by his collar. "Not again!" He pulled the man close. "I won't have any of that. Move! Now!"

They ran for the stairs, now silent.

Outside, a phalanx of soldiers waited in the courtyard, their shields close. Behind the ranks of shield-bearers stood a row of bowmen. Mauritane ran headlong into the courtyard and stopped short, the others right behind him.

"Hold fire!" cried a voice from behind the shields. Raieve turned to back away but found the great double doors of the tower were now pushing themselves closed.

A tiny woman, ancient in appearance, perfect in poise and elegance, pressed through the soldiers. Her hands were raised toward the doors, and she beckoned them toward her. When they had closed completely, she dropped her hands and regarded Mauritane.

"Titania's messenger," she said. "What have you done?"

"Death to Queen Mab!" shouted Eloquet. A knife sailed from his fingers, aimed at the woman. "This is for Marar Envacoro!"

The dagger caught in her chest and she sank to the ground. "Who?" she managed.

"That… is Queen Mab?" whispered Raieve.

Mauritane nodded.

Mab stood again and pulled the knife from her flesh as though pulling a pin from a pincushion. She looked at Eloquet, her face serene. "You are about to die; very painfully, I might add. If you think your god Aba can save you, I suggest you call on him now." She took a step forward. "Guards, take them."

Mauritane ran directly toward her, his sword raised high. He shouted to the heavens, a war cry from a faraway place.

The archers raised their crossbows and aimed them at his breast. The order came to fire.

Then the world fell away.

Raieve felt herself pitch forward. She reached out to stop her descent and kept falling. The floor seemed to drop away from her as she continued downward.

She hit something hard, a wooden wall perhaps. When she opened her eyes, the world had turned sideways. Wind sang in her ears. Her stomach tried to leave through her mouth. All around her, men were shouting at the tops of their lungs. Somewhere, in the midst of it, she heard Eloquet's voice, speaking the spell words that had brought Envacoro's flyer to the Mountain of Oak and Thorn.

She was praising him for his presence of mind when a wooden spar came about fast and cracked into her forehead. The sunlight dimmed and she pitched forward onto her face.

When she awoke, she was aboard the flyer, sprawled across the laps of Mauritane and Silverdun.

"What happened?" she said.

"You got hit by a flying hunk of wood," said Satterly. "Are you okay?"

"We got out?" she said.

"Look behind you," said Eloquet. She raised her head painfully and looked backward.

The city of Mab was split down the middle in two jagged halves. From within the wrecked hull, geysers of water from torn plumbing lines sprayed into the afternoon sky. A swirling fire spread across the massive main deck of the city, sending up tongues of flame along the cloth sails and the rigging.

"Look," said Satterly. "It's falling out of the sky."

It was true. The entire city had begun to dip toward the earth. Entire sections of its architecture began to split off and hurtle toward the ground. Fliers sprang from every part of the city's walls, some so loaded with Fae that they themselves tipped and spiraled to the ground.

With a peal like thunder, the two halves of the city separated. The forward half, that containing the Royal Complex, remained aloft while the rear half lost all buoyancy and plummeted. Whatever screams might have been heard were lost in the rush of wind and the cry of metal and wood tearing and breaking, a symphony of destruction.

As Raieve watched, the remaining half of the city lurched once, then twice, then it listed to the side and began to fall, tumbling end over end.

The two halves struck the forested ground within seconds of each other. There was a flash of light from the ground, then an enormous billowing of dust. Then the sound of the explosion reached them, screaming like the roar of death that it embodied.

In the confusion, no one bothered to follow them as they sped away.

"We made it," said Eloquet. "We did it! We did it!"

Mauritane looked wearily at him. "There is no cause to celebrate what happened here," he said. "We just murdered thousands of innocent Fae."

"We saved Sylvan," said Eloquet, his eyes searching.

"Yes," said Mauritane. "I suppose that's one way of feeling better about it." He turned his eyes away from Eloquet's.

Raieve chose to remain silent. She ran her brown-stained fingers through sticky hair, remembering her clan's practical adage that blood and conversation do not mix.

"Look!" said Silverdun, pointing at the ground. "We weren't as successful as we might have hoped."