Brian Staveley - The Last Mortal Bond

“Thank you, Your Radiance. We can mourn the fallen later. We have one bird left. What are your orders?”

Adare was still trying to formulate an answer when a runner stumbled up through the trapdoor, sweating and out of breath.

“The kenarang, ” he managed after a moment. “Your Radiance, I’ve come from the palace. Kiel sent me. He says he had eyes on the kenarang.…”

Nira stiffened at Adare’s side. “Where?” she demanded.

“Inside … the Spear,” the man gasped. “He had a hundred soldiers, and he went into the Spear.”

Adare stared. She could feel the warning from il Tornja, the single slip of paper folded inside her pocket.

“That’s where Kaden’s going,” she murmured. “That bastard. He’s always a step ahead.”

Gwenna studied her. “I don’t know why in Hull’s name Kaden would want to get inside the Spear, but he’s not headed that way. We caught a glimpse of him. Valyn was taking him west. Away from the palace. Which is just as well, since the whole ’Kent-kissing Army of the North was in his way if he tried to go east.”

“West,” Adare murmured. “They changed the plan?”

Nira snorted. “Faced with a whole army. Wouldn’t you?”

Adare took a deep breath. She could feel a sudden spark of hope inside her, hot, bright, horrible. Do not interfere, il Tornja had warned her, with anything south of the wall. I have your son.

Adare shuddered, replied silently, But I have you. Now. For the first time. I have you trapped.

“When?” she demanded, rounding on the messenger. “When did he go in?”

“Long time ago,” the man replied. “It took … time to cross the city.” He shook his head wearily. “I’m sorry, Your Radiance.”

“A long time ago,” Adare said, hope’s spark kindling to a fire. “And he hasn’t left?”

The man shook his head. “Not that I know, Your Radiance.”

“Good,” Adare said, nodding slowly. “Good.”

“’Fuck’s good about the kenarang takin’ control of your palace?” Nira demanded.

“He’s not in the palace,” Adare replied, smiling. “He’s in the Spear. It’s time for Intarra to pull her weight.”

“Meanin’ what?”

“It’s time for a miracle.”

Nira studied Adare from beneath hooded lids. “And if the goddess don’t comply?”

“Oh, I’m through waiting for the fucking goddess.”

“Meanin’ what?” Nira asked again, even more quietly this time.

“Meaning I’m going to set her Spear on fire.”

* * *

We’re killing good men, Valyn thought as the palace guardsman crumpled beneath his ax. He’d hit the man with the blunt back of the metal head, trusting to the soldier’s helmet to cushion the blow. He’d probably survive. With any luck, most of them would survive. The Flea was fighting mostly with the flats of his blades, and Sigrid, too, but sometimes the only way past a man was through him, and Valyn would be shipped to ’Shael if he failed in this last, mad dash because he was too delicate to spill the necessary blood.

After Sigrid smashed through the Water Gate, the Dawn Palace had erupted into utter madness. The normal guardsmen, baffled by what seemed an unprovoked attack, were coming at them from every direction, spears waving stupidly in the air. If there had been more time, Kaden might have talked to them-he had the eyes, they would accept him in his own palace-but there was no time. Il Tornja’s soldiers were inside the red walls, too, just behind them, fighting their own way forward, and if that weren’t enough, the Aedolians, drawn to the sound of violence, kept attacking in knots of two or four.

At least Kaden and Triste had managed not to panic. They moved forward in the center of the rough triangle of Kettral, Kaden trying to shield Triste with his body. Trying to shield her, Valyn thought, or the goddess inside her . His brother’s claim still sounded outlandish, insane, but there was no time to dwell on it. They were ducks moving through the various avenues and courtyards of the palace. Whatever had to happen inside the Spear didn’t matter, not in the instant; getting there was a simple, tactical imperative. The staircase above the lower floors was almost perfectly defensible. With high ground and a vertical choke point, the three Kettral should be able to hold against whatever soldiers il Tornja threw at them. They just needed to get inside.

The Jasmine Court was the last open space before the Spear, and they hit it at a full run. The Flea had snatched up a bow somewhere in the fight. Halfway across the courtyard, he dropped to a knee, loosed half a dozen shafts at the cordon of men lined up in front of the entrance to the tower.

Not palace guards, Valyn realized grimly. Il Tornja’s soldiers .

“Army,” the Flea shouted, noticing the same thing, dropping the bow, and drawing his blades once more.

“Stay behind me,” Valyn bellowed back to Kaden. “Stay low.”

There were seven or eight men remaining, three with flatbows. He could see the terror painted across their faces, could hear the panic in their smashing hearts. They were legionaries, like the ones he’d been killing in the street beyond, but that didn’t mean they were evil. They were following orders, obeying the general who for the past year had saved Annur over and over. Maybe they were good men and maybe they weren’t, but they hardly deserved to die for their loyalty. It had been a long time since he’d lived in a world where anyone got what they deserved.

Without breaking stride, Valyn threw one ax, then another. Two soldiers crumpled. The third managed to get off a shot without even aiming. It flew preposterously wide, and then the Flea and Sigrid were on them, moving like dancers, all steel and fists as they slashed knees, broke faces, opened the bodies for Ananshael to do his final, quiet work.

Only when they were inside the tower did the violence die off. It was like racing from the chaos of a stampede into a quiet chapel, all polished wood and bronze, robed men with soft flesh and quiet slippers going wide-eyed at their approach, then jerking back to the sides of the staircase, standing still, silent, frozen as deer, waiting for death to pass them by.

“We made it,” Triste groaned.

“Not yet,” Kaden replied. “We need to reach the top.”

The Flea grunted, kept his blades out. “Lot of stairs between here and there. Keep the feet moving.”

And so they moved, climbing first through the human floors built into the ancient structure, then clear of that mortal work, into the enormous column of light and empty air. Valyn paused, his chest heaving inside him. It had been almost ten years since he was last inside Intarra’s Spear, ten years since he and Kaden had climbed these same stairs together, pausing on the landings to spit over the edge, ignoring the admonitions of their Aedolians as they watched the spit fall away, break apart, disappear long before it struck the roof below. The memory twisted inside him like a knife. That child was a stranger, one more Annurian murdered in the war, vanished without even leaving a corpse.

He glanced over at his brother. Kaden’s eyes burned. Hotter than I remembered, Valyn thought. Brighter. He was still calm, preternaturally so for someone who had just fled for his life through the streets of Annur, who had just watched dozens of men cut into meat, who carried in his breath and bones the Lord of Pain himself. That glacial indifference Valyn had smelled on him back in the Bone Mountains, however, was gone. There was no monastic self-abnegation in the arm he had wrapped around Triste’s slender shoulders. Kaden cared what happened here. Valyn could smell the sorrow on him, the wet-rain scent of coming loss.