Joel Shepherd - Tracato

It was almost as though…almost as though…but she pushed the thought aside, for later contemplation.

Light from the Justiciary hall had nearly vanished, when a yellow lamp lit the way from below. The descending corridor bent, and suddenly, she saw the guard room and a man who looked to be Civid Sein holding a lamp, gazing up the stairs toward her. Sasha merely kept walking, as though she had every right to be there, as the man looked at her curiously, perhaps not making the connection between the girl who had been taken from these dungeons not long before in chains, and this one with a Nasi-Keth blade in her hand.

Suddenly his eyes widened, and he yelled a warning, a hand reaching to his sword. Sasha pressed on, unsurprised by the attack from her right by the second guard as she followed the retreating man into the room. One parry and a diagonal slash dropped his corpse to the flagstones. The first man dropped his lantern, a flash of flame as serrin oil erupted. Sasha ducked past it, and took the man’s sword hand off at the wrist. He screamed and fell to his knees. Sasha stood over him, sword at his neck as he tried to stop the terrible bleeding, stuffing the stump under his armpit and squeezing.

“In which cell is the serrin? Or your head will be next.”

She found her way down more stairs with another lantern from the guardroom, leaving the guard sprawled unconscious from a blow to the head. He might die from blood loss while asleep. Sasha didn’t care-she hadn’t cut his head off, so her honour was intact.

One door before the corner the guard had indicated, she stopped, and inserted the selected key from the great key ring. The door unlocked, and she pulled it squealing open and crept inside.

Errollyn lay on his back on dirty straw, his torso a criss-cross of cuts and dried blood. His wrists were free, his arms loose, only his ankles chained. His eyes slitted open to look at her, as she placed the lantern down, and knelt at his side.

“Errollyn.” There was sanity in those eyes, blazing green in the lamplight. And pain. “Errollyn, can you move?”

“Did you take your revenge?” he asked her hoarsely.

Sasha nodded. “The big bald one from the dungeons,” she said. “Perone. Timoth Salo. Some others too.”

“Reynold?” Sasha shook her head, bitterly. “Then I have reason still to live. Let me out.”

Sasha used the keys, and released his ankles. “The Steel are attacking,” she told him as she worked. “It should be over very soon.”

“It could be no other way,” said Errollyn though gritted teeth. “This portion of humanity has become diseased. It must be cut out.”

“Your wounds will turn bad,” Sasha worried. “I have to get you to the Mahl’rhen, they can heal such things best.”

“We have to fetch Alythia first,” said Errollyn. “Do you know where she…”

“Alythia’s dead,” Sasha said shortly, as the last manacle released. She made to haul Errollyn to his feet. Errollyn clasped her hand, but did not move.

“You’re certain?” he asked, shocked. Sasha nodded, unwilling to speak more. She tried to haul Errollyn upright once more, but again he resisted. “How do you know?”

“Errollyn, not now. She’s gone, I must get you to the Mahl’rhen. If you get some disease of the blood it may already be too-”

“Sasha!” Errollyn insisted, with pain on his face that was not all from his wounds. “I cannot claim to know your loss, but she was my friend too, and I cannot leave without knowing for certain!”

Sasha could not meet his gaze. “I saw her head,” she barely managed to force out. She was trembling. “They threw it into my cell.” Errollyn looked stricken. “I spent…I spent half the night with it…”

She curled over, straining as though with a new, physical agony, trying to contain the sobs. Errollyn grabbed her shoulders with chafed, bloody hands and pressed his face to hers. Sasha tried to breathe deep, tried to calm. Errollyn was here, and alive. The nightmare was passing. Somehow, she managed to straighten.

“Let’s go.”

By the time they’d limped to the guardroom, Sasha could hear that the sounds from the Justiciary hall had changed. She could hear armour rattling, and the yelling of orders, disciplined and purposeful. The Steel were here already, and the Civid Sein lines had collapsed.

As she stood listening, Errollyn’s arm about her shoulders for support, a pair of lithe shapes came soundlessly down the stairs. Eyes blazed in the lamplight, one pair gold, another hazel. They paused, and shouted something back up the stairs in a Saalshen tongue Sasha did not recognise, then came to Errollyn and helped him up the stairs. Another serrin offered Sasha an arm, but she waved him away, and climbed up to the main floor while keeping to one side of the stairs, as more serrin came rushing down, swords in hand.

Soldiers of the Steel now guarded every doorway, stairway and archway of the Justiciary, Sasha saw, blinking in the light. There were some fresh corpses on the ground, blood pooling, and other soldiers dragged prisoners, arms twisted behind their backs. The chaos of wounded continued across the floor nearest the grand entrance, left undisturbed by the soldiers. Officers and some serrin now walked among the wounded, looking at faces, searching for certain individuals. They would find Reynold, if he were still hidden here.

Sasha shielded her eyes as she stepped out into the day. It was warm, the sky a cloudless blue, and the peaked rooftops of Tracato’s elegant buildings seemed to mock her with their beauty. Upon the wide stairs lay more bodies, blood flowing as though down a series of waterfalls. There were soldiers everywhere, and horses, and already some horse-drawn wagons, with men to load the corpses into the back. The efficiency of the Steel amazed her.

A serrin came to them, leading another, smaller serrin in a wide hat, a bloodstained blade in her hand. Aisha. She met them at the base of the steps, and would have hugged Errollyn ferociously had his wounds not given her pause. She hugged Sasha instead, gently, with shock in her eyes. Fury quickly followed.

“Who was it?” she asked quietly. “I’ll have them killed.”

“Already done,” said Sasha. “All save Reynold Hein. He got away, but he’s mine if you find him.”

“Mine,” Errollyn said hoarsely.

“Oh merciful light,” Aisha muttered, observing his cuts more closely. “I’ll have you at the Mahl’rhen shortly, just let me commandeer one of these carts.”

Errollyn eased himself down onto the lowest step, and Sasha sat alongside. Sitting hurt terribly. Every new position did. And every old one. She was certain Errollyn felt much worse. He looked up, to regard the blue sky. A serrin placed her hat upon his head, yet still he squinted fiercely beneath its broad brim.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he said. Soldiers dragged the bloodied corpses of young men away from the steps. One of them, Sasha saw, was a Nasi-Keth who had sometimes sat in her Lenay classes. A young man, happy, idealistic, passionate about his city and his people. He left a long, thick trail of blood as they dragged him away.

“Yes, it is,” said Sasha. Thud, went the body, into the cart. She felt nothing at all.

ERROLLYN AWOKE TO A LOVELY DAY. It was not the same day as he recalled, leaving the Justiciary with Sasha, the day that freedom had returned. He knew because he thought of other times between-brief, blurred snatches of time, between sleep, between consciousness and waking, between night and day. He did not know how much time had passed. Through the blur of pain, it was a struggle to know anything.