Oracle: The House War: Book Six (18 page)

The Guildmaster of the Order of Knowledge was considered a polite force to be placated when events became “unpleasant.” Were the demon and his fire gone from this room, Sigurne could have led the injured away.

He was not, and his fire posed a very real threat—as did Meralonne’s wind. Sigurne looked past the dead, the dying, the injured; past the men and women who stared, unseeing, at nothing. She required help, but could not see the logical choice of designated commander, the guildmaster of the Merchants’ Guild, in the hall, either alive or dead. An autocratic and proud man, the cut of his clothing would have given his body away, and he was unlikely to cower.

But he was not present.

She exhaled with otherwise unvoiced relief when her gaze alighted on a familiar woman; she was surprised to see her in the guildhall, as she was not aware that the merchant had returned to the city. Eva Juwal had seen her share of death; she traveled, caravan firmly under her figurative whip, through war zones, in which deserters lurked in wait for merchants and their cargoes. Eva was not without scars; she was perfectly capable of wielding a sword when necessary, although she was practical enough to prefer a crossbow at a distance. She was not small; she was not retiring.

Her scars—the visible ones—were stretched and discolored; she was unnaturally, but not unexpectedly, pale. “Merchant Juwal,” Sigurne said, gilding her voice with magic so it might carry. Sigurne’s talent was not bardic; she could not pitch her voice so that it was heard only by the individual in question—not without a great deal of preparation.

But Eva recognized Sigurne’s voice instantly; she turned. “Guildmaster.”

“Your help would be greatly appreciated.”

Eva, a woman half Sigurne’s age on a bad day, had an arm beneath an older man’s; he was bleeding at the left temple, his eyes wide and almost unblinking. He moved because Eva supported his weight; if not for Eva’s support, Sigurne doubted he would be walking at all. He did not seem to be fully aware of his surroundings. “I’m a bit busy, Guildmaster.”

“Of course you are, dear.”

A merchant from the tender age of four if one listened to her stories about her own life, Eva frowned. She was taller than Sigurne, although some of that height was due to Sigurne’s posture. “I hate it when you ‘dear’ me.” She had the voice of a military man; she regularly terrified men of rank, wealth, and more delicate sensibilities. But fully a third of her personal income came from the Order of Knowledge—she traveled to and from the West, as far as the mottled collection of small countries known as the Western Kingdoms if one didn’t happen to live in one of them.

She could not afford to offend the guildmaster, and they both knew it.

Her language when annoyed was salty. She was clearly annoyed at the moment; enough so that she didn’t flinch when fire landed two inches above the top of her head, spreading to either side as it flowed around the protections Sigurne had cast.

Sigurne, however, failed to hear her. Eva was a merchant in almost all of her dealings, but the man she escorted to the jagged remnant of what had once been wall was not one of her subordinates. Left to her own devices, Eva’s instinctive reaction was almost always to offer aid when it wasn’t too costly.

Cost, in Eva’s case meant money. She didn’t seem to recognize that death generally prevented earning any more of it, but she had always survived what many considered to be her recklessness. Sigurne had never considered her reckless. She waited while Eva barked at another stunned merchant, handing responsibility—and physical burden—to him. That accomplished, Eva strode quickly toward the magi.

Sigurne did not waste time. “I have three different barriers erected at the moment. I cannot supervise our retreat without losing at least half of the people present.”

“Conservative guess?”

“Yes. Take command as you can. There is a narrow strip of ground the fire will not reach.”

“The gold one?”

“Yes. The protections are not the only work I have done today; in the context of the city, they are not even the most significant.”

“How much time do we have?”

“As much as we absolutely need—but not a minute more. Leave the dead.”

“The injured?”

“Use your discretion. What did the demon demand?”

“Death,” Eva replied, shrugging. “And fear.”

Sigurne nodded. “Fear feeds them, in a fashion. If he meant to kill you all, he was far too self-indulgent—but even thus engaged he is not without power.”

“And we are.”

“Unless you were prepared for demons and magical attacks, yes.”

“You’ll owe me for this.”

Sigurne expected no less; she wasn’t pleased, but she didn’t have time to make this clear. Loss of a handful of merchants caused difficulty—but loss of most of the guild would be far, far worse for the city. “Yes. Where is the guildmaster?”

Eva frowned.

“Never mind; now is not the time.” A cascading rain of raging fire swept the room, charring flesh; the stench made breathing difficult, and the barrier buckled under its concerted attack. Not all of the merchants had moved to safety. There were men and women she could not save. There had always been men and women she could not save. She concentrated only on those she could.

She bent her head as Eva left. The younger woman kept her wide feet firmly planted across the narrow stretch of illuminated floor that Sigurne had pronounced safe. “Listen up,” the merchant snapped, her voice filling all of the space not occupied by wind, fire, or immortals. “Corin, get the hell away from the mantel.
Now
. Bring that idiot friend of yours with you.”

The idiot friend appeared to have lost half a hand. It was his left.

“Jill—shut it or
I’ll
give you something to scream about.”

No less a person than the head of House Montaven’s jaws snapped shut. She was younger than Eva; she was not a woman to whom commands were given. But she had undeniably been whimpering. And she had never, in Sigurne’s hearing, been called an unvarnished “Jill” before. Sigurne was not certain that that
was
her official given name.

Eva never failed to surprise.

The merchant had already moved on. She understood, as Matteos had, exactly what Sigurne wanted from her; it was likely she would have taken the lead regardless, but where it was possible at this late stage, Sigurne did not wish to leave things to chance.

In the rain of fire, lightning was red and blue; thunder was demonic, a great roar of fury that shook the ground—but did not wake the earth as was intended.

Eva’s voice was drowned out, twice, by the clash of two swords. What was almost metallic thunder died before the merchant’s voice did; she had a job to do now, and bent a ferocious focus upon only that. Demons were foreign, terrifying nightmares—but the magi were now here; men who fought creatures standing on nothing but air were therefore
not
Eva’s problem. The merchants were.

She wasn’t gentle; she didn’t have the time. She slapped at least two people; Sigurne heard and registered the sound, but didn’t see who; nor did she now care. The shadows that had sealed the public doors, so effectively preventing escape began to flow away from them.

Toward the merchants; toward Eva herself.

Those doors now burst open; standing in them were armed and armored men. Men, Sigurne thought, not demons.

But men could be bought; men could be coerced. They could also be killed—but not with any ease, not while the barriers were being maintained. The calculus of magic was always difficult; one borrowed against oneself, and one repaid the debt with interest. Some debts could not be paid; a fourth barrier against men wielding plain steel could be erected; it would halve the duration of the other three.

She raised voice. “
Meralonne
.” She called Eva’s name as well, but Eva didn’t turn; she stilled. She understood.

Not all of the merchants did, and four died running
to
the open doors. Their deaths answered the brief doubt Sigurne had entertained—and such a doubt was folly. Hope often was.

The wind did what Sigurne could not; it bore down upon the armed men who had entered the hall, driving them back into their comrades. Armor clattered against armor, and at least three swords flew in the wind’s folds. Fire answered, but it was an imperfect tool; the men could not breach it without burning.

Sigurne did not look up. She shortened the Summer path. She did not intend to offer any succor to men who had sold their swords to a demon. They had; they evinced no surprise at the aerial combat confined—for the most part—to the ceiling’s height; nor did they seem surprised at the fire. The wind, yes—but the wind was no part of their forces.

They regrouped, attempting to navigate the fire that now reached for the wind—as it had, in patches, since they’d breached the shattered door. The demon shouted perfectly clear Weston orders. The merchants were to die. All of them. No exceptions.

Orders were barked—in the same Weston. They were passed back through the open doorway through which more men poured. As fire flared, as blue light flashed, Sigurne recognized the tabards half a dozen men wore: they were Merchants’ Guild.

The merchants—those that could move, with or without aid—clung to the path that Sigurne had made, fear of the most mundane of the threats they faced speeding their movements. The golden light on the floor did not seem to the unschooled to offer much in the way of protection—but it led away from the armed men. One or two of the merchants sported daggers that had been drawn only in the face of the new arrivals; many of them had faced bandits, and they had all demonstrably survived.

Because they had, they knew survival was never guaranteed. Yes, she thought, as she heard
Kalliaris’
name raised. Pray if you must, but
move
.

Sigurne did not pray. She had long since discovered there was no efficacy in it. Prayers were offered when all other avenues had failed, because at that point, efficiency signified little. All that was left was the pain of raw hope.

It yawned before her now.

Demons were not careful about their merely human servants; fire rose, sweeping across the guildhall floors; what it touched, it consumed. The flooring fell away in large patches. Wood, blood-soaked carpets and the corpses that lay strewn across them, turned to ash, bone, black rising smoke.

She felt a distant, grim satisfaction as armored men fell through the floor to the basement rooms beneath it. The second layer of Sigurne’s cast protections maintained the solidity of her Summer path under the feet of the merchants; she had expected this. It had come later rather than sooner, allowing her to husband some of the power she now spent in earnest.

“Matteos!”

He answered, his voice attenuated.

“Tell Gavin—enter the main hall through the front doors; use whatever force he deems necessary. There will be resistance. Very little of it will be magical in nature.

“Eva.”

The merchant was now less than ten feet from where Sigurne stood. She herded—there was no other word for it—the last of the merchants toward the gaping hole in the wall. The floor beneath her feet was solid—but the gaps that opened up to one side of it yawned, waiting for a false step. Waiting, Sigurne thought, for the wind that could not—yet—pass her barriers.

“The fire, Guildmaster—”

Sigurne exhaled. “It will die when the demon does.” And let that be soon. Let it be before the exultance she heard in Meralonne’s voice reached the ears of the rest of the merchants. “The halls beyond this room are not yet contested. Matteos will tell you where to go—make sure as many of your cohort follows his instructions as you can.”

Eva nodded. She wanted to argue—no doubt to demand more information—but that was just instinct, and a stronger instinct overwhelmed it: survival. If Sigurne did not believe that prayer was beneficial, she would nonetheless offer a benediction to the triumvirate for any who survived this evening’s work. She held the path. She held it, although her arms began the involuntary shuddering that indicated that she had pushed past—far past—her reasonable limits.

Now was
not
the time for such weakness. It was, however, the time for such risks. “Meralonne!”

She didn’t look up, although she desired a glimpse of the most fractious, disorderly member of her Order. She knew that he was almost unconfined here, unfettered by the trappings of life as a mortal. And yes, it stirred her; the ancient and the wild both elevated and diminished her. She could never be what he was; no amount of study or power could change her essential nature.

Yet she could stand, as she might stand in a storm, in awe of a force that was so much beyond her it might have been tidal wave or earthquake. She could no more command a tidal wave than she could command Meralonne; what authority she had, he ceded her. He tolerated it. But obey or no, he had always heard her voice.

He heard it now.

He replied: the wind roared. Fire had been summoned and fire had scorched floor and charred corpses, adding to their count when the living, too traumatized to comprehend basic commands, failed to stand on the only safe ground marked by three different magics. But the fire that had been called was bound to the voice and the power of a ghost.

The wind was not.

Sigurne retreated to the wall; it was far simpler to sustain protections in the gap there, and the moment they were no longer necessary—and that time was coming—she could allow them to lapse without fear of perishing herself. She did not count the merchants who passed her by; she did not tell them to hurry.

Eva did that, her voice strident and clear. She led—harshly—where leading was necessary, but she returned to the stragglers and the back of the line. She was not gentle; if she had ever been gentle, travel with caravans had cured her. Where her words couldn’t reach the last of the merchants, her hands could; the sharp sting of her palm was silenced by the wind’s anger and the crackle of fire.

She led, cajoled, and dragged. Each merchant clambered out of the gaping hole that had once contained both doorframe and door, passing Sigurne, until only Eva remained. Her dark eyes narrowed as they met Sigurne’s.