Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

Blood had spread into a scarlet pool, half an inch deep and thirty or forty feet across.

And then the great chimes in Ceres’s citadel began to ring in deep, panicked strokes, sounding the alert to the city’s legions. Horns began to blow the Legion call to arms.

The city was under attack.

“Bloody crows,” Amara whispered, stunned.

“Move!” Fade snarled. “We can’t let her-”

Then the slave suddenly glanced up. He dropped Bernard and threw himself at Giraldi and Isana, hand outstretched.

An arrow, a black shaft with green-and-grey feathering flickered through the air and slammed completely through Fade’s left hand. A broad, barbed arrowhead erupted from his flesh.

Without blinking, he pointed with his sword to a nearby rooftop, where a shadowed figure quickly vanished from view. “Countess! Stop him!”

Amara seized Fade’s blade from his hand, called to Cirrus, and flung herself into the sky. She streaked toward the rooftop and saw the dark figure, bow still in hand, crouching to climb down.

Rage and fear made it impossible for Amara to think. It was on pure reflex that she cast Cirrus out in front of her, the sudden rush of wind throwing the cloaked figure from the rooftop to fall twenty feet to the ground. The archer landed with a sickening, crunching sound and let out a high-pitched scream of pain.

Amara darted down into the alley, alighting on the stone almost atop the fallen woman, and struck downward as the woman raised the bow. The sword shattered the wood, and the woman fell back with another cry.

Gripping the sword tight, Amara drove it down at the archer’s throat and set the point against her skin so that it was drawing a bead of blood. She could see by the light of a nearby furylamp, and so she ripped the hood from the woman’s head.

It was Gaele-or rather, it was the mask Kalare’s head spy, Rook, wore when she was serving the Cursors in the capital, a spy within the midst of Kalare’s enemies.

The woman met Amara’s eyes, her features pleasant but plain, and her face was pale. Her leg was twisted beneath her at an unnatural angle.

And she was weeping.

“Please,” she whispered to Amara. “Countess. Please kill me.”

Events proceeded at a pace which Amara remembered as a blur of desperate communications, shouted commands, and scrambling dashes from one building to the next while the panicked city of Ceres girded itself for battle.

By the deepest hours of the night, it all culminated in a meeting within the private garden of the High Lord Cereus, within the walls of the High Lord’s Tower, the final redoubt and bastion of the city’s defenses, and the most secure location in the city.

Amara arrived first, with Bernard and Giraldi. Bernard had, maddeningly, staggered up from a healer’s watercrafting tub and refused to leave her unprotected for the space of a minute since the attack at the restaurant. Giraldi claimed that he had to remain nearby as well, in order to protect his Count, but Amara was not fooled. The men had decided that she needed protecting, and as far as they were concerned, that was that.

A wizened old majordomo showed them to the garden, a simple affair of flowers and trees that might be found at any steadholt in the Realm, and that the High Lord Cereus tended to with his own hands. The garden was arranged around a perfectly circular pool. Its mirrored surface reflected the colors of the low furylamps throughout the garden, as well as the sullen red light of the stars.

Servants produced food, and Amara’s belly remembered that they’d been attacked before she’d had the chance to eat. Giraldi made both her and her husband sit, while he brought them food and stood over them as he might over his grandchildren, making sure that they ate before sitting down with a small round of cheese, a loaf, and a pitcher of ale for himself.

A few moments later, Lord Cereus arrived. Among the Citizenry of the Realm, Cereus Macius was something of a rarity-a silver-haired, elderly man. Either he had lacked the talent for preserving his outward youth, or he had simply never bothered to maintain it. There were rumors that Cereus’s furycrafting abilities were somewhat stunted when it came to watercrafting, though Amara had no way to know if the rumors were based on fact, or if the fact of his appearance had given birth to the rumors.

Cereus was of medium height and slender build, with a long, morose-looking face and blunt, strong fingers. He entered, two hard-faced men flanking him, hands on their swords. Upon seeing Bernard and Giraldi, the two men paused and narrowed their eyes. Bernard and Giraldi returned their scrutiny with matching impassivity.

“I wonder, Countess Amara,” Cereus murmured, his tone whimsical. “Are we to let them sniff one another’s rumps and become friends, or should we tie their leashes to separate walls to avoid trouble.”

“Your Grace.” Amara smiled and rose, bowing deeply. “They mean well.”

Cereus took her hands in both of his, smiling, and nodded back to her. “You may be right. Gentlemen, if there’s fighting to be done tonight, I’d prefer that it not be in my garden. Very well?”

The two bodyguards nodded and withdrew by half a step and no more. Giraldi grinned and went back to his food. Bernard smiled and bowed to Cereus. “Of course, Your Grace.”

“Count Calderon,” Cereus said. “Welcome. Though I fear you have come to my city at a most unfortunate time.”

“I am here, Your Grace,” Bernard said firmly. “And I offer you whatever aid I can provide.”

“Thank you,” Cereus said, no trace of irony in his words. “Countess, are the others coming?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” she said. “But it may take more time. Most of the survivors were badly traumatized by the city’s panic.”

Cereus grunted and lowered himself stiffly onto a richly, beautifully carved wooden bench. “Understandable.” He squinted at Bernard. “Your sister, the…” He blinked as if mildly disbelieving, “… Steadholder. The woman Steadholder. She’s a talented watercrafter, yes?”

“Yes,” Bernard said.

“How is she?”

“Exhausted. Sleeping,” Bernard replied. “She’d had a difficult day even before the stars changed.”

“The panic was extremely painful to those of sensitivity to such things. If there is anything I can do to help her, please send word to me,” Cereus said.

Bernard bowed his head. “Thank you, Your Grace. Your offer of secure quarters was more than generous enough. She’s resting comfortably.”

Cereus squinted at Giraldi. “Is that ale? Real, honest ale?”

Giraldi belched.

“Crows and thunder,” Cereus said. “Do you have another mug, soldier?” Giraldi did. Cereus sipped, let out a long sigh, and settled back down on his bench. “My daughter, you see,” he explained. “She’ll not let an old man have a well-earned draught. Says it isn’t good for my heart.”

“Got to die of something,” Giraldi observed. “Might as well put back a few pints while you wait to see what it is.”

“Exactly,” Cereus said. “The girl’s got a heart of gold, but she doesn’t see that.” He glanced over his shoulder, at the battlements rising above the garden, and the old lord’s face settled into deeper lines, marks of worry and grief etched in the shadows on his face. Amara watched as he settled down to sip carefully at the ale and wait for the others to arrive. It didn’t take long. Within half an hour, High Lord Cereus’s little garden was crowded with visitors. “Well,” he said, looking around with a somewhat lost expression on his face. “I suppose we should begin.”

Cereus rose. He stepped up onto his bench with an apologetic expression and rapped a ring against his now-empty mug. “My lords, ladies. Welcome. Would that it were a happier occasion.” He smiled faintly and gestured. “I have asked you here on behalf of the First Lord and his Cursor, Countess Amara. Countess.”