Lilith Saintcrow - The Bandit King

I did not kill him—a falling chunk of masonry had. It would have been foolish to leave him the steel when I needed it so badly. Never mind that the sword was inferior, a chunk of potmetal. It had an edge and a hilt, and I have worked with worse. Before, and since.

The Gate was braced, Court sorcerers in a loose semicircle before the jumble of wood and stone. Here it was the hedgewitches who stood behind, two or three to each sorcerer, their charms tending the bodies of the noblemen and -women whose hands were outstretched, violent, showy streams of energy crackling over the pile of material bracing the Gate as they fought to keep it stable. On the other side would be a corresponding group of Court sorcerers or Damarsene Hekzen , battering at the Gate’s sheer blank outer face, seeking entrance.

Archers atop the wall, more Court sorcerers and hedgewitches, couriers dashing back and forth, and that silvery globe, fine crackling lightning-traceries describing a sphere in the darkness.

More Graecan fire, arcing and screeching overhead. The globe of silver flexed , rippling with force, and the howling meteor of flame was batted away. It was not hurled back at the engines that had flung it into Arcenne. Rather, twas deflected to the side, as if she could not bear to send it back on its makers and inflict yet more death.

She was not made for war, my hedgewitch darling.

Gaining the top of the Wall was no simple matter. Fortunately, half-singed and covered in soot, I looked like any other courier, and took care to move purposefully. My heart hammered, my legs threatening to give underneath me, hunger sour in my middle—once a man sees death, he often wishes to remind himself of the business of living, with food or other satiety. Cold fear at my nape, the idea that I would be discovered at any moment making each step a pitfall. Sweat greased me under the filth of donjon, dust, soot, and the Blessed alone knew what else. I joined a flow of couriers scurrying half-bent behind the archers, the man in front of me with laden quivers he passed along to the archers, taking the empty ones in return. Every fifty paces an embrasure reared, with a slit for crossbowmen; they worked in relays to load and shoot the mankillers, their quarrels loaded with death-sorcery. Screams, the Wall rippling as sorcery eddied and swirled, looking for an entrance. They did not try the ladders yet, but sappers would be working busily below, in trenches that would grow their fingers toward the city.

Sorcery was not the only way to bring a wall down.

She stood above the Gate, a moon in the smoky dark. Shadows around her—there was Jierre, slim and dark, and Adersahl’s stocky figure. Other men, none of them giving a moment’s attention to me. Were I an assassin, I could have—

A crashing impact. He hit me hard, driving me down, shouts and curses. Yelling in an unlovely foreign language, he lifted a hand full of blade-blacked knife, and my own fist flashed out, crunching into his throat.

A lean face, dark hair clubbed at his nape with black ribbon, in night-melding clothing. A proud beak of a nose, spurting blood as I hammered at him again, I brought up a knee, striking true. It was sheer luck; I was weak from imprisonment and disuse.

It was the Pruzian Knife, the only surviving assassin of his trio. He had tried to kill me once before. What was he doing here , so close to Vianne?

More shouts, a sudden seething anthill with me at its center. The silvery radiance dimmed slightly, as if she was distracted, and I am certain I was wasting my breath on cursing. No, protect her, do not pay any mind to me, brace her—

The world turned white.

An immense globe of Graecan fire splashed against her shield of silver-threaded light, veins of green hedgewitchery spreading in complex knots as it sought to deflect. Vianne screamed, a sharp hawk-like cry, and I heaved the Pruzian away, striking him once more—again in the throat, to rob him of breath and fight—for good measure. Jierre was there, blade drawn, but I was on my feet and the knife from my boot was in my left hand as I gained my balance, the potmetal sword in my right flashing in the sudden livid glare, deflecting his strike. My knife sank into my lieutenant’s right shoulder with the unheard sound of an ax biting dry wood, the shock rising all the way up my arm, twisting and wrenching the blade free.

He’ll live. Vianne—

She staggered back, Adersahl’s face a picture of dismay in the glare as he spun to face me. The Graecan fire looped forward, cracking the shield and hungrily arrowing for her, its sharp, rosy fingers brightening as they scented a hedgewitch.

The spell to snuff that hideous flame left me in a thunder of senseless effort, Court sorcery few know. I doubted it would have any teeth, for I was only one man. But the Aryx, fount of the light illusions and deadliness of Court sorcery, was close, and no doubt my effort tapped some of that wellspring.

That is the only explanation I can give.

No, that is a lie. I can give the truth, it will not harm.

Vianne’s dark head had turned, and she stared at me, her countenance shining with the same radiance I had seen on a statue of Jiserah the Gentle on our wedding day. Under that gaze, I was stripped bare.

I did not care.

I reached her just as broken masonry showered around us, threads of Graecan fire eating into stone. The fireball had winked out of existence, leaving only its fringed edges, and my hand shot out, closed around her arm. I meant to pull her down, for in that one terrible moment I sensed how exhausted she was. Gaunt-thin under the quilted overjacket someone had bundled her into, her face pared down to bone and unutterably weary, her soot-laden skirts moving stiffly and her hair unraveling from its braids, she was still heart-stopping.

Still mine .

The Aryx shifted against her chest, a knot of unburning sorcerous fire writhing madly. I felt it each time she drew on the Seal’s force, pulling on every secret fiber of me. Henri had never used the Aryx thus. Of course, it had slept until she took it. Why?

I did not know. I would have slept too, waiting for her.

The world went white again, and my battered body finally betrayed me. I fell into darkness, my mouth still seeking to shape her name.

“The fires?” She sounded so weary.

“Largely contained.” My father, grim and equally hoarse. The gravel of exhaustion in his throat, a sound I rarely heard. “They are licking their wounds outside the walls, my liege.”

“I am blind . Stupid, and useless, and witless besides.” Sharp frustration, a rustling of velvet. I smelled burning, the reek of Graecan, and spice-bergaime. Green hedgewitchery. Leather, and metal. “I should have known . I should have… gods .”

My eyes flew open. Or rather, I struggled to open them, and succeeded with rather more effort than such an operation should have cost me. The room was dark, a fire in the grate, and I had, for once, absolutely no idea where I was.

A few moments of studying the ceiling gave me the answer. A stone cube—a room in the Keep’s infirmary, one of the smaller corners for patients who required seclusion.

“Lie still.” Bryony was beside me. His usually merry face was solemn, his mouth pulled tight against itself. He was bruised and scorched too, soot ground into his hair, and the dark smudges under his eyes were fatigue itself. “ M’dama , sieur Baron, he’s awake.”

Savage aching in every part of me. I blinked, and over Bryony’s shoulder, Vianne appeared. She bit her lip, her hair knocked free of its braids and spilling in a glory of dark curls. My body betrayed me as I sought to rise. I had not the strength, and fury at my own weakness rose sharp and iron-tasting in my throat.