Joel Shepherd - Tracato

She moved quickly, bare feet soundless on stone, pausing to peer into open doorways before passing. Footsteps gave her warning to duck into one room, as several Civid Sein came into the corridor, then opened the door through which she’d last seen Reynold Hein disappear. She caught a glimpse within before it closed-it was a command room of some sort, perhaps it had a good view of the fighting. There could be quite a few men inside such a room. The thought brought her no pause, only cheer.

She strode calmly to the door, testing the balance of her blade. It had not the length of a svaalverd weapon, its hilt barely long enough for her accustomed two-handed grip, and the balance felt all wrong…but she knew enough one-handed svaalverd extensions to think she would manage. As for the rest, well, she had always liked to improvise. She changed the sword to her left hand, holding it and the sheathed short sword together, and opened the door. There were three high, arched windows on the right wall, before which four men were gathered, behind a large desk. Another three stood about a small table, poring over some parchments. None looked up immediately as she entered, gaining her several strides with which to close the range and take the knife from her pocket.

The first looked up-a Nasi-Keth, a man she recognised from the Tol’rhen. Jardine, she recalled the name. She hurled the knife, and he fell with it sticking from his throat. The second and third reached for their weapons in panic. Sasha killed the one nearest with a single slash, leaped onto the low tabletop to clear the third man’s defence, and drove the point down through his shoulder, into the heart. She landed on light feet, rounded a chair and came at those by the windows. One, Reynold Hein, was yelling at the top of his lungs for assistance.

Sasha grabbed her short blade by the hilt and swung so that the sheath flew off, straight at the first man, who ducked. The big, bald man who had beaten her and Errollyn in the dungeon came around the big table at her, while Reynold drew a throwing knife. Sasha threw the short blade at Reynold, no great throw, but it made him duck. The big man swung hard from above…a stupid attack; Sasha just swayed aside and impaled him with his own momentum.

She pushed him back several steps, using his bulk as a shield from Reynold’s knife. The man she’d thrown the sheath at was trying to come about on her left. As he raised his blade for a strike, Sasha pulled her sword free of the big man’s gut, spun low and took the other’s leg. He fell screaming, and Sasha grabbed up his fallen blade and hurled that at Reynold too. Reynold ducked aside again as the blade scythed by his head, and lost his knife as he rolled. The big man collapsed, face first, clutching his stomach.

Reynold’s last standing companion was Timoth Salo. The young nobleman held his blade two-handed, Nasi-Keth style, staring incredulously at Sasha, then about at the carnage she’d wrought. The man she’d legged was still screaming, clutching the terrible wound. Sasha stuck her blade in his back to shut him up.

“What did you do?” Salo said with horror. And again, on the verge of hysterical tears, “ What did you do? ” As though it had not occurred to him that his friends could die so easily. As though it had not occurred to him that his own actions could lead to this end.

Sasha rose from her crouch and advanced slowly. “You thought this was a game?” The calm of her voice amazed her. Dripping fury, and cold as ice, yet steady. Revenge made her calm, when all about her was crazy. No sheth an sary. She had never felt more Lenay than she did at that moment. “Did you think I was joking when I said I’d kill you all?”

Salo looked ill with fear and horror, the sword trembling in his hands. Reynold was backing away, circling about, his own blade far steadier. No assistance had yet come through the doors. Sasha reckoned most would be busy with the defence of the Justiciary.

She paused to pick up the big man’s blade. He had been Nasi-Keth too, it seemed, though she had not recognised the face…but most Tracato Nasi-Keth were ex-pupils of the Tol’rhen, not present ones. His blade presented her with a much better balance than the shorter one in her hand, so she exchanged them with several expert twirls.

Behind Salo, the room held something extraordinary-a great sphere on a stand. It was covered with the dark squiggles of map lines, and on one high corner, Sasha recognised the coastline of Rhodia. A map of the world. The serrin world, perfectly round, that the Verenthane priesthood considered sacrilege of the highest order. Only a little of the coastline seemed complete, the rest was mostly guesswork. There were banners in the room too, and parchment inscriptions in scrawling Rhodaani letters. A Verenthane star, prominent upon a shield in the Tracatan colours. Sasha realised whose chambers these had been.

“This is Chief Justiciar Sinidane’s room,” she said to Reynold. “Where is Sinidane?”

“I don’t know,” Reynold said, breathing hard. “Somewhere about.”

“You arrested him, didn’t you?”

“He was a traitor!” Salo screamed. “They were all traitors! All who cannot see that deserve to die!”

“You breed a calm and thoughtful disposition in your movement, I see,” Sasha observed to Reynold. “In your search for justice, you’ve destroyed justice itself.”

Salo panicked, attacking because he knew nothing else to do. Sasha had seen that before in youngsters and was not surprised, deflecting his first strike on pure reflex, and killed him with the counter before his follow-through had finished. Reynold ran.

Sasha tore after him, into a deserted hall. She was a good runner, but Reynold was taller, uninjured, and a man. As he flew away from her, Sasha felt her burns and wounds screaming in pain for the first time, and fancied she felt some skin on her leg tear. Still she ran, slowing a little, listening above the slap of her bare feet as Reynold disappeared about a corner, lest his footsteps abruptly stop, indicating ambush. But his boots pounded on and Sasha charged about the corner, onto a balcony above the wide floor of the Justiciary below, now awash with people and confusion.

Reynold flew down some stairs, faster again than Sasha, who plunged after, unconcerned of who he might rally against her-half of the crowds were women, hauling bloodied bodies of dead and wounded, crying for water, for bandages, for anything to cope with the flood of human catastrophe that now lay sprawled across the flagstones. She darted after Reynold, sighting a flash of movement ahead, a ducking figure there…she wove past hobbling wounded and skirted around a makeshift bed where a desperate surgeon cut crossbow bolts free from shrieking victims. The figure she’d thought was Reynold turned out to be a stranger, and she spun about, thinking perhaps he had tricked her, and was doubling back to surprise her from the crowd…but she saw only frightened men and women, and the same, panicked disbelief she’d seen on the face of Timoth Salo.

Sasha snarled, spinning back. Reynold could not run far-the Steel had the Justiciary surrounded, soon enough he would be forced back here, as the noose tightened. A young man she recognised from the Tol’rhen passed, supporting a bleeding, ashen-faced comrade. It was poor discipline, however much one cared for friends, for all to be abandoning the defence to carry their comrades back to shelter. The priorities were…

Priorities. Errollyn.

She turned away from the direction Reynold had run, and pushed her way back through the throng toward the dungeon entrance. To abandon her revenge on Reynold made her want to sob. But to abandon Errollyn would be worse.

The dungeons were unguarded, and she moved silently down the darkening stairs. Her wounds burned like murder now, and her legs felt unsteady, her balance suddenly dubious as the light slowly faded. She did not know how she had done what she’d just done, save that warriorhood was the truest nature of what she was, and came to her as naturally as a horse did to running. That, and pure, blood-lusting fury.