Hades Daughter (24 page)

Then he looked back out at the death flowing down the streets, his face despairing.

Brutus worked quickly and methodically, the sounds of the chaos outside sifting through the guardhouse and down to its sub-chamber.

He had almost reached the path’s final curve when Membricus, against all his better judgement, looked at what followed Brutus along the line of black pitch.

Deimas, one hand buried in the shoulder of Cornelia’s robe, studied the crowds, then abruptly lunged into them, dragging Cornelia behind him.

She cried and beat at his hand and arm, but Deimas ignored her as best he could, and dragged her deeper and deeper into the press.

He prayed to whichever gods were listening that the Trojan swordsmen would soon put a stop to the slaughter.

Membricus saw a dark, swirling cloud of darkness; pure evil—all the evil trapped in the labyrinth since the day the city had been founded and the Game called into being.

He groaned again, then sobbed, and turned his face aside once more, a hand over his eyes, wishing he’d not been so foolhardy as to look at what he
knew
would be there.

“Courage, Membricus,” Brutus muttered as, finally, his back aching with having to walk doubled over, he reached the foot of the steps. He painted the pitch up to the foot of the first step, then stood up, wincing as he straightened his back.

“We must get out of here,” he said. “
Now!
”

B
rutus and Membricus shouted at the single warrior remaining in the guardhouse to flee, then they burst into the street.

And instantly stopped, unable to move for the press of the crowd that fought to pass through the narrow gate in the walls.

“Gods!” Membricus muttered. “I had not thought it would get this injurious.”

Brutus didn’t even bother to reply. He placed one hand on Membricus’ shoulder, then gave a great heave, pushing him along the wall of the guardhouse and away from its door. With his other hand, Brutus grabbed at the warrior who had followed them out, pulling him to safety as well.

There had not been an instant to spare. Blackness seethed out the doorway and instantly poured upwards, as if seeking the light. It combined with the smoke of the fires, acting upon it as would cold water poured on red-hot metal.

There was a crack, followed almost immediately by a hissing and spitting so violent that the crowds forgot their desperate need to push and shove, and instead crouched down, hands over their heads.

Then, stunningly, the blackness and smoke overhead disappeared, leaving nothing but uncorrupted blue sky above them.

There was a stillness as, for a time, no one dared to move, then, from far away, came a faint shout.

“The fires have gone out! The fires have gone out!”

Membricus, lowering his hands from his head, looked at Brutus, and frowned.

“There is great danger,” said Brutus. “We must get our people out. There is no time to waste.” He shouldered his way into the now rising and murmuring people in the streets.

“Trojans, hear me,” he shouted, his voice carrying far back into the city. “This city is doomed. Run, run, run for the bay and the ships!”

There was another long, still moment, then a sudden surge of movement as people once again grabbed at the hands of children, and at the baskets and packs tied to their backs, and hurried towards the gate.

“Quick, but calm,” Brutus shouted and, amazingly, people seemed to heed him, for there was no more pushing and shoving, nor was there undue panic, although faces were tight with anxiety. “Quick, but calm. If we hurry we will be safe.
We will be safe!
”

And the Trojans, composed but hurried, poured in an ever-increasing stream through the gates of the city and ran down the road towards the beach.

Brutus strode into the street, moving several paces away from Membricus, shouting encouragement and urging people ever forwards. Membricus was about to follow him, when he stopped, astonished.

While people were now more relaxed, and were moving quickly and far more efficiently through the streets towards the gate than they had previously been, not
all
people were moving.

Stranded here and there were immobile islands of people, sometimes composed of a single person, sometimes of a group of three or four or more. About them parted and flowed the stream of Trojans on their way to the gates…and escape.

“Who…?” Membricus murmured, then stopped, knowing the answer.

This I do for all Trojans, but I leave the Dorians—and all kin who ally with them—to their fate,
Brutus had said as he murdered (once again) his father, and now Membricus knew what it meant. The Trojans were free to go, free of the long-trapped evil that Brutus had released to settle on Mesopotama, but the Dorians, and presumably the swordsmen that Cornelia had hired to kill the Trojans (
kin allied with the Dorians
), seemed as if they were stuck, their feet mired into the street paving.

Their faces were frantic, wreathed in horror, yet their gaping mouths gave forth no sound.

“Membricus!” Brutus shouted. “I could use your aid!”

And Membricus blinked, gathered himself, and pushed into the flowing throng to help as best he could.

Deimas yanked Cornelia along as fast as possible, but the girl was proving more than difficult. For every pace he managed to force her down the street towards the gates, she dragged him several paces sideways.

She kept calling out for her father, her voice frantic, and nothing Deimas could do would deflect her from her purpose.

“Stupid girl,” he shouted at her. “Can you not see you will die if you linger? Your father, wheresoever he be, is doomed, along with all your kin! Look! Look! See their feet sink deeper into the stone?”

Deimas was not sure what kind of magic Brutus had worked, but it was proving cruelly effective. All about him Dorians swayed in hopeless efforts to free their feet from the stone paving which held them fast.

Deimas even saw one man, one of Cornelia’s hired swords by the look of him, so desperate that he held
his sword up high, then swung it down in a frightful arc, cutting through both his legs at the ankles.

He roared in agony, falling over and dropping his sword, but almost immediately tried to struggle forward, dragging himself by his hands. His efforts were useless. As soon as he had fallen, his hip had sunk into the stone paving, and he was stuck as fast as previously. The man’s roar turned into a horrific, high-pitched squeal as he fought against the grip of the stone, his lower legs spraying blood over whoever came within three paces of him.

As Deimas watched, one hand still buried in the shoulder of Cornelia’s gown, the man thankfully lost consciousness, and Trojans, seeking whichever was the quickest way forward, stepped uncaring over him.

Then a woman cried out, and pointed, and Deimas jerked his eyes in the direction the woman indicated.

To his right, and perhaps some eight or nine paces before him, stood the wall of a substantial house. It rose windowless and smooth some twelve paces into the air. Yet now its smoothness had been adulterated, for cracks spread from the ground upwards, like fast-flowing rivulets of water.

The cracks were as wide as the palm of a man’s hand, and they were filled with grey, as if all the smoke that had disappeared from the sky had been drawn into their depths.

There were several more shouts, and Deimas jerked his gaze about him. Cracks were spreading up every wall he could see.

The city was disintegrating.

To his left, Cornelia gave another lurch, trying to escape him, still crying for her father.

“Curse you, Cornelia!” Deimas cried out, his fear and frustration combining into a fury that gave him enough strength to pull her struggling body close and to deliver her a stinging slap across her cheek.

She reeled away from him—and would have fallen save that Deimas still had tight hold of her gown—one of her hands to her reddened cheek.

“Come,” Deimas said, and pulled her forward at a stumbling and, thankfully for the moment, unresisting trot down the street.

Every few paces they had to dodge another Dorian man or woman or even, horribly, a child mired in the stone. Without exception the trapped Dorians twisted and turned, tried frantically to escape, their faces ravaged with despair, their hands held out for aid from those streaming past them.

None helped them.

Every so often Deimas glanced at Cornelia, and saw that her face was white (save for that cheek), and her eyes wide and appalled.

He hoped she felt some measure of guilt.

They managed to travel relatively unimpeded through the city to a point only some hundred paces from the gate. Around them the buildings were crisscrossed with wide cracks that seethed with grey; the buildings groaned, and some of them trembled, as if they knew their doom was upon them.

Deimas, although still anxious, was beginning to foster some small hope that he and Cornelia, and all other Trojans about them, were close to escape when, suddenly, Cornelia once more lunged to the side, managing to finally pull herself from Deimas’ grasp.

Cursing, he pushed through the crowds of escaping Trojans about him to see her standing by what at first he thought was a statue attached to one of the buildings.

Then he realised Cornelia’s hands were twisted in her hair, and she was screaming, and that the statue was no statue at all, but Pandrasus, more than half fused into the wall of a building.

Cornelia cried out, and reached for her father, but just before she touched him, Deimas lunged forward and grabbed her, managing to pull her back from him.

“You witless girl,” he cried. “Touch him and you risk being dragged into that wall as well.”

Pandrasus, his eyes wide and staring, was straining one of his arms towards his daughter writhing and sobbing within the circle of Deimas’ arms, but his arm was caught fast from elbow to shoulder, and all Pandrasus could do was waggle his hand helplessly at his daughter.

He tried to speak, but all that issued from his mouth was a moan…

…and dust, as if the mortar from the wall embedded in his back had been forced out his throat in his desperate efforts to speak.

“He is dead, Cornelia. Leave him,” Deimas said.

“Father,” she sobbed, reaching out to him again, and Deimas had to wrap both his arms tightly about her and physically wrench her away.

“Deimas!”

He swivelled his eyes in the direction of the shout and felt a surge of relief.

Brutus and Membricus were pushing through the crowd towards them.

“I can’t get her away from her father,” he said, as the two men reached him.

Both Brutus and Membricus stared at Pandrasus, still straining hopelessly towards his daughter, then at Cornelia, who gave no sign that she realised her husband was at her side.

Membricus’ gaze went from father to daughter. “How is it she can still walk?” he said.

“Her child is Trojan,” Brutus said, “and her legs are needed to carry it from this tomb. That is all that has saved her. Deimas, give her to Membricus and myself. We can drag her away, and you look exhausted.”

Deimas exhaled gratefully as Brutus managed to take Cornelia from him.

She struggled, still weeping, her arms still outstretched towards her father.

Brutus tightened his hold on his wife, and Membricus grabbed her wrists, but she struggled violently against them, kicking out with her feet, and started a high-pitched keening, as if that could break their hold even if her physical efforts were in vain.

She managed to free one of her hands, and hit Membricus a heavy blow on his head.

“Foolish child,” Brutus seethed, and tightened his hold so much she gave a shriek of pain. “Do you see your father there, mired in the stone? Do you see your fellow Dorians, dying in the streets? Do you understand,
can
you understand, that their deaths are on your conscience?
Can you?
If you had let all be, if you had merely allowed my people to walk out those gates and sail away,
none of this would have been necessary.
You are death incarnate, Cornelia. It stains your soul.”

High atop her sacred hill, Genvissa bared her breasts to the sun, tipped back her head, and ran the flower lightly across her nipples.

She shuddered, then sighed, content, even though Brutus had not allowed that damned bloated wife of his to die within the crumbling mausoleum that was her home.

Never mind. Cornelia would always wait for another time (definitely before she had time to bear that ugly little son she was brewing) and the most important thing had come to pass. Brutus had passed the test. He was strong enough to manage the Game. What he could destroy, he could also build.

All was well.

All was very, very well indeed.

Genvissa closed her eyes against the sun’s warmth, and once more traced the flower over her nipples.

A world away to the east, Asterion sat within the dark heart he had constructed for himself. The horn-handled knife was in his hands now, and he turned it slowly over and over as he thought.

Perhaps there
would
be enjoyment in his eventual triumph. The world had not gone entirely to fools after all. Despite himself, Asterion was as impressed as Genvissa by Brutus’ skill: he would make a fine adversary.

But, as with everyone else Asterion faced, the man had a weakness; a weakness that would eventually prove Asterion’s strength. The man’s power derived largely from his kingship bands—Asterion was sure of it—and the kingship bands of Troy were very powerful. Possibly the most powerful ever crafted.

Power that Asterion could use.

“But only once you are dead, my friend,” Asterion said. “Then I shall take great pleasure in tearing those bands from your cold, grey limbs and…”

And?

“And placing them about my own,” Asterion whispered, his mind racing as it encountered a possibility he’d never thought of previously. He
had
been planning to use the Game’s one fatal weakness to destroy it completely…but why should he?