Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (20 page)

Jaryd looked away.

“Jeddie,” she continued, “get to the Mahl'rhen, see it evacuated, see those few foolish serrin like Lesthen taken out in disguise if you have to.”

Jeddie nodded and went for her horse. Jaryd indicated to Jandlys, and the huge Taneryn ran to follow. Sofy did not protest since Jandlys was obviously taken with the noble Tournean, and would fight like an animal to protect her.

Sofy grasped Jaryd's hand. “Jaryd, go. Asym can stay and protect me. Do this for me.”

“And where will you be?”

Sofy smiled wanly. “Within the protective army of my husband's knights, what could hurt me?”

Jaryd arrived to find local men in urgent discussion upon the broad steps of the Justiciary. He dismounted and accosted a local to ask him what this latest commotion was about.

“Fighting,” said the man, in broken Torovan. “East, east.” He pointed, more northeast than east, in the direction the Elissians would come from. “Local men fight, but they many.”

Jaryd ran up the steps and into the huge hall of one of the most impressive buildings in Tracato. It thronged with people, more commotion, and urgent conversation. The Justiciary was the centre of Tracato in many ways. During the troubles, the Civid Sein had overrun it, held Sasha captive here, and tortured her. Alythia, they'd murdered. No doubt Sofy was correct that any new force determined to overrun the city would aim here first.

Some hurried questions directed him to a senior Justice, talking with a local man Jaryd took to be Nasi-Keth, in a back hallway. “I'm Jaryd Nyvar,” Jaryd interrupted. “I come on Princess Sofy's instructions—she has just had audience with Archbishop Turen, and she fears for the safety of the documents of law.”

“I tell you, they are coming!” the Nasi-Keth man resumed berating the Justice. “The Elissians are coming, the Archbishop gives them holy sanction to enter the city and lay waste!”

The Justice stared at Jaryd for a long moment. Jaryd had seen fear before. He'd known it himself, intimately. What he saw in the Justice's eyes was not the fear for personal safety. It was more like the fear he'd known in that moment he'd learned that his fellow nobles had invoked the Sylden Sarach, and declared the dissolution of his family. The fear when an old Baen-Tar groundsman had dared approach to tell him that his little brother was dead.

It was the fear of a man who saw the one thing he loved more in the world than himself sentenced to death.

The Justice turned and led them hurriedly up some stairs to a higher hallway. They entered a grand chamber, where clerks sorted piles of parchment and books onto tables. There followed much shouting of instruction in Rhodaani, as Jaryd stood by impatiently and wondered how long it would take the Elissians to fight their way through to this point. Some ordinary Tracatans had fled the city, but most had stayed. Some of those were formerly of the Steel and retained weapons. Others were Nasi-Keth, or Nasi-Keth trained. The Elissians would not find it easy, but they had armour and organisation, and many of those opposing would be older men who had not drilled in a decade or more.

“We can't take all of this!” Jaryd insisted to the clerks who ran into the chamber from adjoining rooms, carrying yet more piles. Few paid him any attention. Jaryd fumed, and went to the window to listen for sounds of fighting.

From conversation within the room, he gathered there was a ship in harbour that could take them. Saalshen's navy ruled the waves, and once into the Sharaal Sea, a ship could find safe harbour anywhere along the Saalshen coast. But how long would such cargo be safe, if Saalshen itself were next to fall?

“This is stupid,” he muttered to himself. Tracato's defenders had little time to prepare, and Elissian cavalry could penetrate faster than they could throw up blockades. They could be here any moment and they could reach Sofy too. Meanwhile he was here, guarding paper.

He stalked from the chamber and down to the main floor. Outside, he heard yells and hooves clattering. Nasi-Keth archers at the doors were loosing arrows at mounted knights who wheeled across the courtyard, running down some city folk armed only with makeshift weapons.

“Aim for the horses you fools!” Jaryd yelled at the archers as arrows glanced harmlessly from heavy armour. There were no more than ten knights, he saw—a small raiding party, advancing ahead of the main body, likely to seek the glory of first capture for themselves.

A horse was struck, and reared, flailing. A knight saw the archers and came charging toward the broad stone steps. Jaryd pushed past to the top step, sword drawn, and dared the knight to come. He did, his horse bounding uncertainly on the steps, the knight's sword readied for a right-handed swing…and Jaryd leaped quickly across the horse's path and half-severed its head with a huge swing.

The animal collapsed, gushing blood, its rider crashing on the stairs. Nasi-Keth were on him before he could rise, pinning his armoured bulk, stabbing with knives into the gaps between armourplate. Jaryd spun his sword several times in challenge, beckoning the other knights who'd watched to try the same.

They did, three at once, and this time rearing their horses on the steps, hooves lashing at head height, forcing the defenders back. Jaryd retreated within the doors, but those were large enough to admit even mounted riders, and now there were knights coming into the Justiciary itself, shod hooves sliding on the smooth pavings as they galloped in circles, spreading chaos.

Stupid fools, Jaryd thought, slipping outside once more through a further door—they were massively outnumbered, and the archers were now shooting at them from the walls, peppering their horses. They'd retreat or die soon enough, and weren't worth his trouble.

He retrieved his horse and galloped back toward the Tol'rhen, where Sofy was surely headed next. Those knights her husband had assigned to protect her were half of them Larosan, and loyal to their lord's lawfully wedded wife. But the other half were sworn only by word, not by blood. In the Bacosh, words beside blood were nothing.

Sofy was halfway back to the Tol'rhen when a knight fell from his horse. She heard the huge crash of metal and spun in her saddle to look. That was when she sensed rather than saw the movement to her left, a knight suddenly riding much closer than he should, and she ducked by some instinct she had not known she possessed. A large sword whistled where her head had been, and then there were yells of alarm from her Larosan guards, blades drawn, steel clashing and horses rearing and colliding all around.

She could not even scream. Having no breath in her lungs, she merely grasped her reins with her face pressed to her horse's mane and kicked with her heels in blind panic, hoping the animal would find a way through the flying bodies and blades.

Someone grasped her reins, and she fought to drag them back, but it was Asym, leading her through the mess. He lashed at one knight, and abandoned Sofy momentarily as another required both his hands. Sofy reclaimed control and found space, galloping into open road. A narrow alley appeared on the right and she skidded into it, nearly hitting the wall, barely ducking beneath an overhanging inn's signpost.

She heard pursuit behind and risked a look over her shoulder to find two knights pursuing…but both wore Larosan colours and the leader waved at her to keep going. She did, weaving through tight corners and across small courtyards. Then she slowed to allow the Larosans to catch up—with no armour she weighed barely a third what they did, to the benefit of her horse.

She stopped in a small courtyard by a fountain, so her horse could drink. The horse was too frightened, blowing hard, ears pricked and swivelling. The two Larosans pushed up their visors, looking anxiously behind.

“Your Highness,” said one, gasping. “I do not know what happened…”

“I do,” said Sofy, and her voice was not nearly as unsteady as she'd feared. “My husband's dear allies have decided to end our marriage. Nothing like some more Tracatan unrest to cover their crime, they could claim anyone did it.”

Then came the sound of more hooves, echoing at some uncertain distance. The Larosans readied their swords. Asym cantered into view down the alley, his blade raised again at the sight of two more knights flanking Sofy.

“Asym!” Sofy shouted above the racket of hooves, her hands raised. “No!” Asym stopped opposite the fountain. “Larosan knights, Asym. Balthaar's allies, sworn by blood.”

Asym spoke only a little Lenay, but he knew the Larosan colours, and knew who had and had not betrayed them. He nodded, narrow eyes grim.

“Five Larosan dead,” he said brokenly, showing five fingers to be sure. “More go, run. We go Tol'rhen?”

Sofy nodded. “We have to. We must tell them what's coming.”

The Tol'rhen courtyard when they reached it was filled with Elissian knights and soldiers.

“What are they doing?” Sofy muttered, peering past Asym's shoulder. They stood, dismounted, at the corner of a narrow lane, watching the activity. There were carts arriving, and men unloading from the back. It was too far away to see properly. Elsewhere in the city, Sofy could hear shouting, and the distant clash of weapons. Somewhere near, smoke rose thick into a cloudy sky. On the wind, she smelled smoke.

Asym said something in his native Telochi that Sofy didn't understand. Behind them, the two Larosan knights stood mounted, guarding the lane to their rear.

Suddenly Asym pointed. Men in the courtyard were shouting, hands waving. On the far side near grand buildings, two had fallen. Another followed, and arrows skipped on stone. Now with a massed yell, armed men were running from the cover of buildings, swinging at those closest Elissians. The Elissians stopped what they were doing and charged. Mounted knights plunged into the attackers, striking out, scattering them. One knight was pulled down, but now Elissian foot soldiers were in amongst it, and the clashes and screams of battle echoed loudly off the surrounding buildings.

Hooves clattered behind and the Larosan knights called warning, but it was Jaryd who appeared on horseback. Sofy ran back to him, away from the conspicuousness of the lane mouth.

“I thought you'd be here,” Jaryd said down to her. “They're all over—they came into the city from several directions, very well planned. Local folk are trying to organise defence, but they're outmuscled. They're going after the big buildings, the institutions. I saw that big library four streets down on fire on the way here.”

“Jaryd, we have to stop them!” Sofy felt utterly desperate. “These Elissians are unloading carts into the Tol'rhen, I don't know what they're doing but now the locals are attacking them….”

“Maybe you could negotiate them into liking each other,” Jaryd said sourly. Sofy stared up at him. “Sofy, this city's done. Finished, understand?”

“It's not finished! We can still…”

“Fight them? This is the Elissian
Army
, Sofy, the locals are militia at best. I'll fight them if you order it, but I'll be dead well before sundown, as will we all. Is that what you want?”

Sofy put hands to her head in despair.

“You thought you could make peace with it, didn't you?” Jaryd looked exasperated. “You can't make peace with this, Sofy. This is power. You kill it, or it kills you. Now if you're not going to command us all to suicide, we should move, and see you out of this alive.” From the Tol'rhen courtyard came the screams of the dying.

Sofy mounted, and Jaryd led them away. A panicked local stopped running long enough to tell of many more Elissians coming from the west, so Jaryd turned them back through the heart of the city, hoping to emerge south, where he thought the attackers would be fewest.

Several times they passed recently dead bodies, some Elissian, some local, and the sound of fighting. Surely, Sofy wondered, the honourable thing would be to stay, and help fight? No sooner had she thought it than a group of terrified Tracatans came running down the lane, pursued by Elissian horsemen. Jaryd charged them, with one of the Larosan knights. Sofy watched in horror as Jaryd simply swayed aside the initial stroke of an Elissian cavalryman, spurring past the horse and smashing the other man's skull with his own blade. That riderless horse made a blockage, and Jaryd used it to isolate another man, jostling his horse, taking a blow on his shield and using it to force the Elissian's weapon wide, Jaryd's own blow taking the other man's arm.

For several more moments he and the Larosan knight hacked and fought, and then the Elissians were galloping off, leaving three dead on the ground. Jaryd indicated for them to take another way, hard-breathing and streaked with blood, but none of it his. Sofy had never seen Jaryd kill anyone before. His brutality shocked her.

The next lane brought them to a road where the air was thick with smoke. On the pavings lay the remains of recent battle, men dead and dying, most of them Tracatans, with good weapons but little armour. Jaryd urged his nervous horse into the road, searching for another back lane to take. To the right, Sofy could see the dome of the Tol'rhen, emerging above city rooftops.

“This way,” said Sofy, pointing in the opposite direction. “I think we'd better…”

There came a blinding flash. Sofy stared about in alarm, and saw the Tol'rhen dome was on fire. It was a strange and awful fire, orange and blue, and it seemed to twirl in little, spinning whirlwinds where it licked the old building's huge stone walls. Tracatans in the street attending the wounded stopped and stared. Some cried out in anguish, as though the sight of their lovely dome on fire hurt them worse than any sword.

“That's what they were loading from the carts,” Jaryd said grimly. “They captured some of that demon fire the artillery use.”

Sofy stared in shock. She could not believe the Archbishop had ordered such a thing. What sort of a man would order a crime against all civilisation, in the name of his gods? And what sort of men would obey him?

“Come on,” said Jaryd, pulling her horse away down the street. They had not gone far when they came to a small courtyard before a grand building, its roof on fire. Sofy suddenly recognised the courtyard, and the building. It was the School of Arts and Music, perhaps her favourite in all Tracato, maybe lacking the importance of the grand institutions, but with more of the beauty.