02 - The Barbed Rose (48 page)

Or perhaps not. The fall of their leaders seemed to send the fighters into a greater frenzy. Why?

She grabbed a bleeding rebel and asked. Their leaders—the demons—had them convinced they would be slaughtered in retaliation for daring to rebel. Death in battle appealed more.

Fenetta
. Kallista sent to the court farspeaker.
Tell the Reinine to offer the rebels their lives if they surrender. And bind the offer with a truthspell so they won’t fear to accept it. The demons have them believing we’re as bad as they are
.

I can’t
tell
the Reinine to do anything, Major
. Fenetta’s shock and alarm came through clearly.
But I will inform her of your suggestion
.

Do that
.

Kallista caught Joh’s arm. “We’re pulling back. Tell the others. We’ve still two more demons to kill.”

It took more time than she liked to cut their way through to empty streets again. Before they were out of earshot, Uskenda had heralds with voice amplifying cones calling out the Reinine’s offer of clemency. Kallista hoped it worked, at least here. She didn’t expect it to have any effect on the rebel advances elsewhere in the city until the other demons were destroyed.

Death and danger stalked the corridors of power. Gweric began to fear he would never be able to lead the major’s family through to safety. Every hallway he turned down screamed at him. It was just a matter of how loudly they screamed. This one—

He froze in place, putting a hand out to stop the others, and they waited. Even the babies kept silent. They waited more. Merinda shifted.

Gweric turned to
look
at her, and she went still again. He could tell how uneasy his empty eyes made her. He would have worn a cloth over them, but somehow it blocked his ability to
see
. And still they waited.

The Torvyll’s guard sergeant whispered half a word before Gweric’s hand on his mouth stopped it, just as a band of eight or nine rebels walked quietly through the intersecting cross-corridor twice a dozen paces away. An intersection where his charges would have been seen had they continued on their way.

They waited another little while, till Gweric’s questing senses felt the danger ease down from screams to whimpers, and they moved on.

Just as they reached the intersecting walkway, the sound of quick-moving feet had the guards shoving the children back, raising swords to attack.

“Do you lead us to our deaths?” the sergeant snarled, snatching Gweric by the tunic and hauling him close to use as hostage.

Panicked, Gweric searched.
Had
he led them into danger? He could sense nothing deadly.

Then a small company much like theirs came into view. Bodyguards leaped forward, weapons on guard, pushing their charge behind them. Almost they came to blows, until Rozite squealed.

“Babies?” A woman’s voice came from the center of the clustered bodyguards. “Rebel fighters won’t have babies with them.”

“It’s us, Majesty.” Gweric took the chance and called out. “Kallista Naitan’s children and Shaluine’s youngest prinsipelli.”

Serysta Reinine pushed her way through her bodyguards. “What are you doing wandering the corridor, Gweric? You should be locked behind doors, safe.”

The Torvyll’s sergeant lowered his sword as if he’d never considered using it on Gweric.

“It wasn’t safe in Daybright. The rebels know it’s Kallista Naitan’s quarters,” Gweric said. The guards seemed happy to let him do the speaking, especially since the Reinine knew his name. “We’re going to Shaluine’s suite.”

“You could come with us. My safe room is the most secure in the palace. And it’s close enough you’ll be out of these dangerous corridors all the sooner.”

“My Reinine, we should go.” The shaved-bald bodyguard almost twitched with impatience, and Gweric wondered if he could feel the danger building, too.

Maybe they
should
go with the Reinine. But the minute he thought it, alarm went screaming through him. “Thank you, my Reinine, but Major Varyl sent us to Shaluine. She’ll be looking for us there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Merinda pushed her way through the guards. “The Reinine has invited us. Her room is closer and it’s safer. We go there.”

“No.”
Gweric caught her arm and pulled her back. “It’s
not
safer. Death waits for us that way.”

Serysta Reinine stiffened. “For all of us?”

Gweric questioned his magic, removing Kallista’s family from the grouping. “Danger,” he said. “But not necessarily death. Danger is everywhere now.”

“And becoming greater the longer we delay,” her bodyguard said. “Serysta, we
must
go.” He took her arm and urged her on down the corridor.

“Wait,” Merinda cried. “We’re coming with you.” She lifted the hem of her long tunic to hurry toward them.

“No, Merinda. The major said to go to Shaluine.” Gweric had to leap to catch her.

She rounded on him. “I am ilias, not you. You’re only a boy who pretends to see things to make yourself important. But you’re not. You’re nobody.”

“I am the one Kallista said to follow, not you. She told
me
to keep you safe.” His anger flared, not at her insults—he’d had worse—but at her refusal to listen.

“Fine. You go where you want.
I
am going with the Reinine.” She turned and ran after the retreating bodyguards. “My Reinine,
wait
.”

“You going with ’em?” The sergeant spoke from behind Gweric.

“No, Sergeant.” Gweric sighed. If Merinda wanted to get herself killed, he couldn’t do anything about it. Maybe she would live. Some of them would.

“This way.” He pointed across the intersection. “To Shaluine’s chambers.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

K
allista had Joh “borrow” horses from a back garden stable to cross the city in better time. Aisse was grateful. Kallista sent back a sense of her own aches and gratitude, amusing them all.

This second demon—Keqwith was the name
given
Kallista—hadn’t been in Turysh with the others. She got a vague impression of travel, that it had been in many places, probably stirring up support for the rebel cause. But it was here now, terrified and desperate to avoid becoming the next victim of the Destroyer.

Kallista smiled, not a pretty one. She rather liked the title the demons had given her.

The horses screamed and bolted the wrong direction, throwing their riders when they tried to turn them. Keqwith wasn’t content to wait for them. It sent out its odorous magic to fend them off.

“Let them go.” Kallista touched Joh’s hand, urged him to open it and release the reins he held. “They’re afraid of the demon.”

“So am I,” Stone said. “You don’t see me tossing everyone on their heads.”

“That’s because the horses are smarter than you are.” Fox dusted off his trousers and drew his sword.

“Smarter than you are, too, apparently.” Stone helped Aisse to her feet.

“It’s insanity, not lack of intelligence that afflicts me,” Fox said.

“Anyone hurt?” Torchay asked. “Other than bruises?”

“We’re all fine.” Kallista started toward the sound of fighting, following the magic tagging Keqwith.

“That’s because we all landed on our heads,” Stone said. “Safest place to fall.”

“
I
didn’t land on my head.” Viyelle made a show of rubbing her backside.

“Nor me.” Aisse grinned up at the prinsipella. “We landed on extra padding.”

“Do you need help tending your hurt?” Stone played at innocence. “I can kiss it and make it better.”

Kallista let them play. They would be back in battle soon enough.

The demon attacked again five streets nearer, clawing at their links. Fox cried out at the rancid touch, panic flaring as he recoiled inside himself. Kallista raced down the link, leaping to join him before he could cut himself off from her again.

Safe, Fox. It can’t touch you. The mark protects you. The magic fills you. It can’t get in. No room for it
. She whispered to him, curled up with him behind his defensive walls, maintaining only the thinnest thread of connection to her other six mates.

After a moment, he seemed to hear her. He didn’t speak, but suddenly she was inside her own self, the links wide open and blazing with power. Keqwith threw talons at them to rend and tear, and flinched away as Kallista’s magic lashed out.

She caught the talons, the tendrils of demonstuff, and yanked, stretching more of the demon’s substance between her ilian and the person the demon rode. Winding it up like new spun yarn around a spindle, she called and shaped magic. This time, she didn’t need to
push
it. With the demon in one insubstantial hand and magic in the other, she merely touched them together.

Keqwith seemed to blaze up, its shriek echoing through the mountains behind them. The magic ate it, leaving nothing behind, following the demonstuff like sparks along a gunpowder trail until all of it was gone.

“Two done,” she said. “One left to kill.”

“Then let us kill it and be done.” Obed bowed and gestured Kallista into the lead.

“It’s west,” she said. “Back across the whole damn city this time. Joh, can you organize some horses again?”

He bowed and signaled for Viyelle to accompany him.

“You sure you want to risk horses?” Torchay slid his second sword into its lower sheath and locked it in.

“They didn’t panic till we got close enough for the demon to reach them. We can’t afford the time it will take to cover the distance afoot. We’ll just leave them sooner this time.”

They had to circle round the palace to get to the fighting on the western side of the city. It was afternoon, the sun halfway along its downward journey, and hot. Summer was waning, but even in the mountains, it had not yet given way to fall. Kallista wiped the sweat from her eyes and blinked away the sting. She needed no distractions.

The horses’ hooves slipped on the round cobblestones if they tried to push them too fast, but even at a trot, they made better time than walking. They left the horses just two streets past the wide, avenue parks surrounding the palace. The rebels had advanced too far on this side for Kallista’s comfort. If they linked up with those fighting inside the palace—

She shuddered. That would not happen. She would not allow it.

Summoning magic, she shaped it as they strode through the streets toward the battle sounds. Her iliasti drew their swords as the noise swelled, spacing themselves around her without having to speak a word. She drew more magic, sending her love to them, among them, recreating the web linking them all together.

This was the last demon. Ataroth, the weakest of the three, despite having eaten its sedil-demon during the aerial attack months and eons ago. It had spread itself thin, like Ashbel, Kallista saw when they reached the fighting at the barricaded Smith’s Square. But the smeared shadow was smaller, thinner than that of the first demon they’d faced today. And with Ashbel, Kallista hadn’t added the hunter-spell to the demon-killer magic as she had for Keqwith.

She’d done it instinctively, wanting the magic to destroy all the demon. Demons might learn with every encounter, but so did she.

Kallista was tired. Defeating two demons, not to mention quartering the maze of Arikon’s streets, required a great deal of energy. One more demon and they could turn their attention to the palace. The guards and the Torvylls would keep the children safe until they could return and take over the job.

They waded into the edges of the battle, among the loyalist troops. The army was stretched thin across the three-front battle. Kallista compressed her magic, hammering in the hunter-spell, adding another bit that should stick like hot tar to demon essence.

“Down!” she shouted. She didn’t know who or what this enhanced magic would affect.

Torchay and Obed dropped to a waist-high crouch. The troops beyond them fell on their faces, trained to respond instantly to the naitan-only command.

Kallista
threw
the magic. It blasted into the faint blurred edges of the demon, flaring up so brightly she had to turn away. All her iliasti did. Could they see it, too?

Squinting, she watched from the corner of her eye as the coruscating blaze flashed across the square and down most of the adjoining streets. When the brilliance died away, the demon was gone. As if it had never been.

The rebels still fought like madmen, but the colonel in command of this front began the shouted offers of clemency at once.

“That was almost too easy.” Kallista stood panting in the center of the circle formed by her ilian. Not that she minded easy, but it made her fear what that seventh demon might be. She dredged up another tiny filament of magic and sent it to look, not sure whether to hope for or against finding something.

“Easy?”
Stone sounded incredulous. “I’d like to know what you think is difficult.”

“Last year,” she said. “Tchyrizel, in Tsekrish. That was difficult.”

“Oh. Well, yes. When you put it that way.” He leaned wearily on Viyelle and after a brief, startled moment, she leaned back.

“Now what?” Joh paused, shook his head, straightened to attention. “What are your orders, Major?”

Kallista patted his cheek. “I liked the first question better. Back to the palace. Make sure the children are safe. Then—I suppose we join the cleanup.” She started walking. The palace seemed a hundred leagues away, tired as she was.

“It’ll take a while to root all the rebels out of that rabbit warren.” Torchay fell in at her elbow. “You’d be more help using your magic to pinpoint their location than going after them yourself.”

“Maybe so. It would require less walking. I’ve got magic out scouring for demon remnants, in case we missed something. I hope we have time to rest up before we have to fight again.”

“I didn’t realize you were still so out of shape after the twins,” Torchay said, all seriousness. “We’ll have to boost your workout schedule.”

Kallista couldn’t keep her horror from resonating through the wide-open links. “It’s not the walking or even the fighting that tired me. It was working the magic
while
I was walking and fighting. I’m in perfectly good sha—”