Juliet McKenna - The Warrior's Bond

“Devoir! Casuel! Back off and get the Duty Cohort,” I yelled with a force that tore at my throat.

Devoir looked back over his shoulder but the confusion blocking the road made reversing impossible.

“Camarl is hurt!” Temar shouted with equal urgency. Allin caught sight of Messire kneeling beside the prostrate Esquire, her jaw dropping before she turned to relay information to Demoiselle Avila and Casuel, one hand gesturing.

“Temar!” I moved swiftly to intercept one man scrambling over the debris of scaffolding with evil in his eyes and a sword in each hand. Temar was about to follow but a hail of stones and juggling balls from two acrobats appearing in the mouth of an alleyway forced him to duck and dodge backwards. Temar snatched up a piece of broken panelling from the carriage to protect his head, moving to shield Messire and Camarl with his body.

The man facing me dropped to a wrestler’s crouch. He had the brutish and battered face of a prizefighter but he had two blades and, for all I knew, was perfectly able to use them. He thrust at me, each hand in turn, clumsy strokes but fast and unhesitating. Moving back I felt splintered wood treacherous beneath the soft half-boots I was wearing. I took a two-handed grip on my sword and went in hard, circling the blade round and back on itself, half parrying, half attacking. Swordplay learned for the stage made a novice of the man, who instinctively fell into the trap of anticipating my strokes and moving to parry too early. Now I had the initiative I tempted him into an upward sweep and then ripped a sudden sideways cut underneath his arms. As I sliced his chest open his arms flung back in nerveless shock and I wrenched my blade up still further, tearing the notched steel into his bull neck. He collapsed, gurgling through a spray of blood.

I wiped drops off my face to see Temar smashing his improvised buckler into the head of some new attacker. The man turned and would have escaped down the nearby alley but the jugglers blocked his way and I realised they had their own problems. A swarm of what looked like ruddy, greyish hornets swirled around them, but there was no buzzing and whenever one of the dots darted in to land on cloth smoke rose briefly from black scorch marks. Angry red blisters appeared on the jugglers’ exposed hands and faces, raised by scarlet sparks glowing and vanishing so swiftly they deceived the eye. I saw Allin still hanging on grimly to Devoir’s frivolous gig, plump face intent with hatred as she glared at the acrobats. An empty brazier some way beyond the alley was smoking emptily but for a fading crimson light.

Devoir had beaten his horse into trembling submission, the poor beast too terrified to know whether it should flee forwards or back. Demoiselle Avila was struggling down from the back, Casuel wringing anguished hands as he followed her, cowering inside his ostentatious robe. Avila ignored the commotion all around as she headed straight for the doorway behind me. Temar ran forward to draw her into our frail circle of protection as fast as he could.

I’d have gone too but a vicious fistfight erupted in front of me, stones and broken wood hurled indiscriminately from the sidelines, and it was all I could do to stop the combatants falling over me, the Sieur, the Esquire. Temar and I were jostled from all sides, unable to tell hapless Festival-goers from murderous masqueraders, so forced to drive all comers off with harsh words and harder blows. Casuel yelped with outrage as I stood on his foot, but that served him right for trying to shelter between me and Temar. A stinging pain licked around the back of my neck.

“Shit, Devoir, watch that cursed whip!” But I forgave the musician when I saw he was laying about with it to keep the brawl from crushing Demoiselle Avila and the Sieur as they knelt in the doorway, busy with Esquire Camarl’s wounds.

A brazen note pierced the tumult, Den Janaquel’s horns finally giving notice of their imminent arrival. The strident signal came again, warning everyone to get clear or face the consequences. Efforts to struggle free of the fighting redoubled all around us and I saw several masqueraders ripping off their masks in hopes of disappearing into the anonymous crowd.

But three weren’t abandoning their disguises and I wondered just who they might be, hacking a way through the turmoil with vicious swords, the bland wooden faces of folk tale heroes still tied on tight. They were heading for the alley opposite.

“Temar!” I yelled, pointing, as the crush around us lessened.

“Run them to earth, Ryshad!” The Sieur was at my elbow, a sword in his hand, Master Devoir with him, whip ready.

Temar and I used sword pommels, flat blades, fists and elbows to try to force a path to intercept the bastards. We were just too late and the three men hared down the alley, turning into a ginnel running between the backs of the close-packed buildings. I was after them like a loosed courser, Temar hard on my heels.

“Just run, man,” he was raging, and I realised we’d caught Casuel up in the pursuit. With the narrow alley giving him nowhere to step aside to let Temar pass, all he could do was run with us.

The masqueraders were holding their distance but only at the cost of running at full tilt, not daring to try any doors or gates into yards or outhouses. Using every effort I could summon I was gaining, and I heard Temar behind me mercilessly driving Casuel on with ever fouler curses. The masqueraders turned a sharp corner into a wide alley. As I skidded after them, I realised the far end opened into a walled yard. A broad stone arch was carved with archaic flourishes, vines heavy with leaves and fruit on either side of open gates. I recognised it for the yard behind the Popinjay and frustration burned in my heaving chest. If they got out into the busy northern end of the Primeway, we’d lose the bastards for certain.

“Bring that down!” I turned to yell hoarsely at Casuel who was leaning in the corner of a wall, half doubled up, one hand clutching his throat. “Block their way!”

“Noseless sons of pox-rotted whores!” spat Temar, racing past me.

That youth had been spending too much time with mercenaries. But I had no breath to say so and I ran after him.

Ahead of us the first masquerader was nearly into the yard, but just as I thought he’d escaped us the carved vines reached out from either side of the arch. They laced themselves together, coiling around each other, quicker than the eye could comprehend. A barrier of pale strands blocked the villain’s way but he was running too fast to stop himself slamming into the crisscross of writhing stone. The tangle knotted and twined around him, each tendril swelling into a branch reaching up and outwards. Tugged this way and that the man struggled frantically, yelling in terror as he was lifted clear of the ground. His cries of fear turned to anguish as his body was twisted with audible wrenching, sinew and bone no match for the implacable pull of the rippling lattice. A final hideous snap silenced his howls, leaving his body hanging contorted in the coils of the warped vines.

The second man had stumbled to a halt a scant arm’s length away but in the moment he took to recover his balance a yellow limb snaked out from the living archway. Leaves once wrought from solid rock waved softly as the sinuous vine coiled around his legs. The man screamed in horror and hacked at the curling stem but his blade simply struck sparks from the stone. A second tendril darted out to wrap itself round his sword arm, smothering it. As he tore at it with frantic, bleeding nails, new shoots sprouted to snarl around the hand he’d had free a breath before. New leaves budded and opened all over the intertwining stems now rooting his feet to the ground. But the vines binding his arms were still curling upwards in an insane parody of growth, racking the man ever more painfully. He shrieked some inarticulate curse with his last strangled gasps as the heedless branches forced him backwards in an agonising curve. His spine snapped like a dry stick.