Shadowmasque (54 page)

All the old man’s words seemed filled with foreboding, but Calabos merely nodded. “Tell me.”

“He calls himself Byrnak,” Culri said. “Byrnak the Protector.”

Calabos was stunned, caught up in a gathering wave of realisation, and his body felt as hollow as a bell in which fate and doom began to toll.

Faces of night dance with faces of day,
Ghosts of ice dance with ghosts of fire,
Swords of hate dance with swords of blood,
While the weavers of fate dance alone.

—Mogaun seer chant

Smoke from the burning waterfront buildings drifted through the streets of northern Sejeend, a grey haze that was growing murky as the afternoon wore to its close. From a third floor window overlooking Yarram Square, Tashil sniffed the charred air and gazed south. More smoke was rising from unseen locations close to the fortified garrison of Hubranda Lock where High Steward Roldur, Dardan, Inryk and a handful of nobles and about 500 men were struggling to hold against the growing ranks of the Black Host. And with evening approaching, conditions for a successful assault on the garrison would be greatly enhanced.

A woman was screaming with grief somewhere down in the the square, screaming her son’s name over and over again, and feelings of grim sorrow passed through Tashil’s thoughts. Even though a hasty evacuation had begun before the attack of the archer, hundreds, perhaps thousands of had perished in the ensuing rain of death. Now the north of the city was largely deserted, although some houses and estates on the fringes had been swamped by the sick and the elderly, and children separated from their parents. The main roads north and west to the Rukangs were filled with continuous streams of refugees, about whom brigands and kidnappers circled like flies drawn to a dying animal.

All in less than a day, Tashil thought. From the appearance of Vashad and his Black Host this morning to the encirclement of Hubranda Lock — just a matter of hours.

The arrows fired across the Valewater by the Black Host’s archers had turned out to possess a range of deadly qualities. Some had burst on impact in fiery gouts, spreading flame across roofs; some had razor-edged splines which sprang out just after entering a victim’s body. Others, however, seemed to be half-alive and burrowed into the body, killing from within, while still others broke apart into clouds of insects with lethal stings and bites.

After that deluge of horror, the mass of the Black Host crossed the Valewater on barges captured at the Silver Landings and other wharf along the eastern bay. Disorganised and lacking clear orders, some squads of the city guard had charged the first wave of invaders and were cut to pieces. The same happened when Baron Cortain led thirty Roharkan heavy horse against them — just two riders had managed to escape the enemy’s hooked spears and poleaxes. The remaining groups of guards or Imperial troops either fled north and west, or sought refuge within the staunch walls of Hubranda Lock.

While Dardan and Inryk went to lend aid to the High Steward’s defences, Tashil, Sounek and Dybel had gone in search of the high priest of the Earthmother temple north of Sejeend, talking with them a grisly cargo in a wagon.

“Right, we’re just about done here,” came Sounek’s voice from behind her in the.

Turning back from the window, she saw Dybel tying a cloth hood over one end of a four-foot hollow cane tube which he then fitted into a canvas sack alongside another nine or ten. There were another three sacks full of the same sitting next to the door.

Tashil nodded. “Good. Have the scouts come up with any other suggestions for a likely course?”

Sounek laughed. “Every way is as good or as bad as any other,” he said. “You can approach the gates of Hubranda Lock from north or south, along narrow streets, or from the west along that big road with the statues — it matters not for those Black Host troops are everywhere. They’ve also posted more archers on the roofs of buildings closest to the garrison so any approach is going to come under attack from them as well as any on the streets.”

“That’s why we need to send a party and one of the sacks up onto the roofs overlooking the northern course.” Tashil said.

“A very exposed position,” said Dybel. “Even after sunset.”

“I know,” said Tashil, “which is why I’ll be the one to take charge of it.”

Sounek and Dybel objected strenuously and in unison, pointing out a mutliplicity of reasons why either of them were better qualified for the role, vying with each other for it. But less than an hour later it was Tashil who was leading six reliable guardsmen with shields on their backs, through the rear courts of a deserted residential terrace, which adjoined the lairages and goods yards behind the trading houses that faced Hubranda Lock. The failing light offered cover from observing eyes but concealed underfoot hazards like the rotting refuse of overflowing middens and the vermin it attracted. More than once she bit back a curse when their passage through the stinking darkness disturbed packs of rats and sent them swarming around their feet.

After breaking through an old wooden gate, they found that the ostlers quarters by the stable had a doorway into the mercantile building. From a tiled scullery a servant staircase led up to the first floor — Tashil knew that there were six floors and a loft and knew from scout reports that Black Host archers were firing into Hubranda Lock from balconies on the sixth floor. But she also knew that there were black-armoured sentries on every floor, a tricky obstacle to silent infiltration.

It took a combination of stealth, detours along window ledges and the thought-canto Smother for them to finally reach a sturdy ladder which led up to the loft. But with magesight Tashil quickly saw that the loft’s flooring was either rotted with damp and woodworm or missing altogether, and decided that they would have to climb up onto the peaked roof itself and traverse the length of the building that way. To her surprise it proved a straightforward route for them all, with plenty of tiler pegs to provide solid footing, then a climb up to the peak and down the other side to bring them to the corner directly above the archers on their balconies.

There were other archers in the building opposite, just visible in the dusk, but she knew that she had to deal with the nearer ones first and hope that her guardsmen’s shields would give her enough time.

Tashil turned to the man carrying the sack of tubes, a lantern-jawed Kejani called Habrul.

“Let’s have two to begin with,” she whispered.

Habrul nodded, quietly pulled two from the sack and passed them to her. Tashil laid them softly on the tiles and slid them down to rest on the guttering, one poking over the front, one over the side. A flight of arrows leaped up from the unseen archers below, causing her to freeze and hold her breath for a moment. Then she removed the hoods on the upper ends and wound the tear cord of the front-facing one around her fingers. She paused, remembering how that morning the vial of bone-dust had eaten into the grey blight and later now Dardan’s second vial had stopped a Black Host swordsman in his tracks, its contents chewing through the inky armour in seconds then through the man beneath. It had been an ugly sight, but a revelatory one. After that they had raced to a burial grove and filled a wagon with plundered bones then headed north to the Earthmother temple at Harring. There, she had persuaded the high priest to let them use the big flour mills to grind down the bones, and then to bless the resultant powder.

Consecrated bone dust,
she thought as she prepared herself.
It seems absurd yet it works….

“Be ready with the shields,” she muttered and sharply tugged the tear cord. Then she gripped the upper half of the tube and swung it to and fro along the edge of the guttering and the bonedust poured out to fall in pale clouds.

Sounds of surprise were followed by curses and the first gasps of fear, but by then more dust clouds were falling on the balconies round the corner as well.

Dardan
, she said with farspeech.
Time to move — now!

(
We’re going, we’re going…
)

Then out the corner of her eye she saw an arrow hurtling towards her and for a second thought that death had found her….until a shield swept down and the arrow hammered into it, splinters flying as a gleaming black spike punched through it, missing the guardsman’s arm by a finger’s width. Tashil snatched another dust tube out of the sack, tore off the hood and called up the thought-canto Ram in her mind. Then she raised the tube to level it at the archers on the building opposite, yanked on the tear cord and cast Ram down the tube. A bolus of bonedust shot from the other end, leaving a trail in the gloom as it arced across the street and burst against the stonework, enveloping most of the building’s frontage in choking clouds. The shrieks of torment rising from the nearby balconies soon began to be echoed from over there.

Suddenly one of her shieldmen cried out as he was dragged backwards and tossed aside. Driven by fear and instinct she threw herself sideway, up the slope of the roof, and turned with her hands still gripping the dust tube. It slammed into the upraised sword arm of a black-armoured invader and bonedust residue was jarred loose, covering the man’s helm and shoulders. He managed one downward cut which she parried with the tube which broke apart, then he groaned and staggered backwards, dropped his nightblack blade and began to claw at his helm’s faceplate. Howling with pain he went down on his knees and rolled down to the eaves and gripped the guttering with one hand. Tashil caught a glimpse of gore and the paleness of exposed bone before he fell and was gone.

There seemed to be a long suspended moment when all she did was half-sit, half-lie on the side of the roof, listening to the sounds of fighting and cries near and distant, as if the battle had somehow dropped away.

Then a large arrow thudded into the roof tiles a few feet away and promptly split into half a dozen coiling snake things. Eyeless, they began to squirm towards her until Habrul seized one of the bonedust tube, tore at the cord and upended the contents on them. As they writhed and hissed, blackening amid the layer of powder, Habrul grinned.

“Even their false creatures are slain by our ancestors’ bones…”

Then another arrow flew out of the night and struck the roof at his feet, bursting into flame. In a moment he was a gasping, screaming mass of fire, so blinded by pain that he lost his footing and fell burning to the street below.

Shaken, Tashil swore and order the rest of her shieldsmen over to the other side of the roof. Even as they scrambled up, she felt a tickle of farspeech — Dardan.

(
Can you see what is happening?
)

We’ve had to seek cover from those cursed archers,
she said.
What do you mean?

(
We’ve been fighting our way through, and the bonedust has worked wonders. But all of a sudden they’re pulling back, towards the wharves between here and the seagates, it seems. We’re almost at Hubranda Lock’s main gate and no-one’s here to stop us
)

I don’t know, Dardan
, she said, pulling herself back up to the peak of the roof.
Let me take a look…

Cautiously, she peered over the coping stone, using magesight to study the buildings across the darkened avenue of statues. But the roofs and windows seemed empty, lightless and abandoned, and she was sweeping her gaze along the row of roofs when something large flew past overhead,

Mother’s name!
she thought.
Are they sending winged troops against us now?

Her guardsmen had drawn their swords and she was fumbling for one of the bonedust tubes, when a voice came down from the darkness.

“Tashil Akri — be not alarmed, for we are friends.”

Sitting up straight she saw two winged figures descending from above, carrying a third between them. One of her men still had a hooded lamp and she told him to open it a little as wings beat the air and the newcomer was set down with feet astraddle the roof’s peak. By the meagre yellow glow Tashil recognised him as Calabos’ cousin, Coireg, attired in grey breeks and an unadorned tabard that left his arms bare, the plain garb of a temple novitiate. But there was a difference to him now, an iron calm in his manner and the light of enigmatic purpose in his eyes.

Tashil got to her feet. “Greetings, Coireg — am I right in thinking that the Daemonkind have entered the fray?”

Coireg nodded. “Pericogal, captain of the Stormclaw, was reluctant to involve the crew of the Stormclaw in this conflict but once I reminded him of the divine writ of my task he became more amenable.”

“And what task is this?” she said, at once feelng a ripple of foreboding.

“Nothing less than the defeat of the pitiless enemy that assails us.” He smiled wryly. “Or at least, I am charged with an undertaking necessary to that end. I was with the Stormclaw at Nydratha when Ondene succumbed to the Shadowking again and fled through the seagod Grath, followed by Calabos. But once they were gone, the Sleeping God spoke again and laid upon me a task whose enormity I am still unable to grasp, yet which I must carry out. And part of that includes taking you with me!”

She stared at him, unsure of whether to frown or laugh. “Take me where?”

“To the heart of the war,” he said. “We are flying north to near Besdarok at the behest of the Sleeping God who said to tell you that those closest to you will soon need your help.”

“Ayoni and Chellour?” she said. “What kind of danger are they in?”

“I’m not certain,” Coireg said ruefully. “The Sleeping God only mentioned ‘dread fetters’. This seems to be an abiding aspect of the pronouncements of gods — some are starkly apparent, others annoyingly opaque. But I’m afraid you’ll have to decide now as we are leaving now.”

As he spoke, another pair of Daemonkind swooped out of the night to alight on the roof.

“We are ready, friend Coireg,” said one. “Are we needed?”

“A moment, Besarl — the lady Tashil is considering her duty.”

Tashil bit back a harsh retort while trying to gauge her value to the defenders here against the uncertainties of this god-appointed task. Farspeech with Ayoni and Chellour would have helped her decide but there had been neither word nor response from either the entire day.