Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

She had been involved in trouble like this several times before. Eighteen years ago, when Willem Marcellan was assassinated by a breakaway Watcher sect, she had been at his side in the carriage when the murderer climbed in and stabbed him to death. The killer had been moving across to her when a Blade’s sword pinned him to the carriage floor and gutted him before her. More recently, she and several other Hanharan priests had been trapped in a blood-feud riot between two powerful families from Mino Mont Canton, a skirmish that had resulted in the Marcellan Wall running red with the blood of fourteen executions over the space of three moons. Brutal, shocking, but necessary. So she was no stranger to bloodshed and the shock of violence, and fear was tempered by her faith. The spirit of Hanharan, the originator of Echo City, would welcome her down into the One Echo should she die here today.

But her concern was not for herself.

If they take Bamore and hide him away…

That could not happen. He knew too much—he was too much—and the city was nowhere near ready for him and his kind. If Hanharan chose to smile upon her today, it would never need to be.

It took her a few moments to assess exactly what was happening. The Wreckers must have been waiting among the crowd and in some of the buildings they passed by, because the carriage and its escort appeared to be surrounded. Arrows arced in from several directions, and she could hear the vicious thunk of crossbows being fired. Three Blades were already down, writhing on the ground and flailing for the arrows or bolts piercing them. One of them screamed. How unbecoming, Jan Ray thought. It seemed not even Scarlet Blade training was perfect.

The four tusked swine were also down, their tough hides spiked with many arrows and bolts. Two of them still moved, kicking feebly, the network of ropes and timber supports tethering them to the carriage twisted and useless. The first thing the attackers had done was to make sure they couldn’t move.

The crowd was panicking and trying to retreat from the scene, but others behind them pushed forward to see what was happening. The resultant crush denied them any hope of escape, and she saw very quickly that this ambush must be fought and won here. Gaol Ten was two miles away, but might as well have been twenty.

Buildings lined both sides of the street—taverns, a chocolate shop, a street café where several jugglers cowered in colorful terror among scattered tables and chairs. Some of the upper windows were open, and she saw movement here and there as Wreckers inside aimed and fired at the Blades pinned down in the street below. Over the rooftops to Jan Ray’s right rose the looming mass of the Marcellan Wall, and she so wished she were back behind it now.

But Jave had acted quickly, and their position was far from hopeless. A dozen Blades surrounded Dal Bamore where he bled on his rack, their billowing wire-rich capes pulled before them to divert incoming arrows. Their archers fired back, and she knew that they were the finest in the city. Even as she watched, she heard a scream from the upstairs window of a tavern, and a shadow fell away inside. Several Blades were lowering the wooden shutters around her carriage, striving to lock her in and protect her from danger. Jave was one of them, and he glared angrily when he saw her peering from the carriage window.

“Inside!” he shouted.

“Have you sent—”

“Of course!” There would already be several pairs of Scarlet Blades infiltrating the surrounding buildings, working their way toward concealed attackers. And there were also several combats occurring in the street, Wreckers clashing swords with Blade soldiers whom they had very little hope of defeating in one-on-one combat, and that confused Jan Ray. Wreckers were far from suicidal. Resorting to this strategy so early in the ambush meant that they were desperate, or…

“Jave, they shouldn’t have come forward so soon,” she said.

He dropped the final wooden shutter, trapping it with one hand just before it cracked into the priestess’s head. “I know that,” he said impatiently. “They’re stalling for something. We’ll be ready.”

“Make sure they don’t get him, Jave,” Jan Ray said, and even she was shocked by the tremor in her voice.

Despite the shouts, screams, and smells of battle, he paused and gave her a questioning stare. “Who is he?” he asked.

“Someone who must be seen to die on the Wall.” She ducked back into the carriage and let him shut her in, and the sudden darkness was terrifying. Closing her eyes, Jan Ray prayed to the spirit of Hanharan, but not for herself. She asked that Dal Bamore be spared so that he could be crucified.

“That’s no way for a man to die,” Jan Ray says, “covered in his own shit and piss.” She pulls a small curved knife from her sleeve and steps toward the hanging man.

“Don’t pity me,” Dal Bamore says. His voice has changed. Last time, as he stood before the Council four days earlier, there had been humor to his tone, and insolence in the way he formed his words. Now he sounds defeated. But she will not let him fool her.

It takes several slices at the rope to cut it through. As the last strands strain and part, she steps back quickly. He falls into the large bowl and tips it over, spilling the disgusting mess across the stone floor. Jan Ray wrinkles her nose in revulsion.

“Look at you,” she says. “The big revolutionary, the idealist, the heathen.”

“I’m no heathen,” he says. He manages to sit up, though his hands are still tied, and she can see that he’s woozy. She wonders how long Trivner has had him hanging upside down. His face is red beneath the streaks of muck. There’s blood all over his body, dried and still running. He appears unabashed at his nakedness, and Jan Ray glances away uncomfortably. From the corner of her eye she sees him shifting one leg aside.

“I’ll have Scrivner cut it off,” she says. “He’s done it to others, many times.”

Bamore chuckles and brings his knees up to rest his chin. He groans, but looks almost contemplative as he stares past her into the shadows.

“Give yourself to Hanharan,” she says. “It’ll make everything easier on you.”

“This is where we have a problem,” he says. He spits blood, closes his eyes, breathing heavily. He’s almost passing out, she thinks. We’ve almost broken him, and—

But he is not broken. Far from it. And as he starts talking, Jan Ray realizes that he has spent these last three days growing stronger.

“And the problem is need. You want me to give myself to Hanharan, because that will satisfy this curious need you Marcellans have to gather everyone to your flock. You need to hear acceptance from my mouth, because the idea that I don’t require Hanharan to make my life worthwhile scares you.”

“No,” Jan Ray says.

“It terrifies you. And I don’t need any of that at all.”

“If it means so little to you, accept Him and have done with it.”

“And then you win.”

“We win anyway. Tomorrow we take you to Gaol Ten. Three days later you go on trial for heresy, for which you will be sentenced to death. You’ll be taken to the Wall, nails hammered into your wrists and ankles. We’ll pierce you with thirteen mepple shoots to attract the lizards, and leave you to die. And after you die you rot, in sight of anyone who cares to look. I’ve heard of people staying up there for thirty days before they decay enough to rip free of the nails and fall.”

“I’ll be dead. It doesn’t matter.”

“If you accept Him, I can arrange for the executioner to stick you with a poisoned knife. You’ll be dead before he descends the ladder.”