The Assassin King (33 page)

“To the basilica!” Fynn shouted to the soldiers in the streets, but his voice was drowned in the noise of panic. He pointed above for the benefit of the stunned archers again. “Fire at the damned beasts!”

One of the archers finally was able to shake off his shock and take aim as the flying lizard soared over his head and landed on a nearby roof. He drew back and let fly, a clean, hefty shot that caught the beast square in the side, just below the wing.

The arrow bounced off harmlessly with a resounding thud, the same noise it would make against a cobblestone or brick. “We are surely done for, Fynn thought. ”All right, then,“ he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. ”Shoot the rider.“ The archer, shaking, complied, another clean shot that made its mark in the split of the man's cuirass. The rider straightened up sharply, then fell heavily from his monstrous mount into the street below. The captain of the guard and the archer both gasped in delight. ”That's it!“ Fynn exclaimed. ”That's how we take them—aim for the riders."

The beast seemed to stare at them for a moment. Then it stood and launched off the roof with a great leap on its insec-toid legs, diving down to the street below, its serpentine head snapping viciously. The pilgrims, cowering in doorways of burning buildings, screamed as if in one voice as it caught a fleeing woman in its razor jaws, snapped her spine with a single bite, then took off in a great leap into the sky again, its prize in its mouth.

Madness descended upon the City of Reason.

Fhremus observed the initial assault from the air with satisfaction. He surveyed the smoke pouring into the sky from the center of the city, black and oily with the rancid odor of pitch and burning thatch. A plethora of birds had taken wing, roosting swallows, pigeons and doves that made their nests in the eaves of buildings that were now alight. From within the city, great cries of anguish and horror could be heard issuing forth over the wall.

He turned from his seat on horseback and looked up at the titan, who had been standing stock still since they had arrived at the city gate.

“Are you ready, Faron?” he asked, not certain if it was even awake or aware.

The milky blue irises in the stone orbs appeared. The giant statue nodded perfunctorily.

Fhremus swallowed, then cleared his throat. “Very well, then. Open the gate.”

The gigantic statue flexed its arms and legs, then began to walk forward alone.

The commander turned to his aides-de-camp. “At my signal,” he said. They saluted and rode back to the column heads.

The entire army watched as their standard bearer neared the great gate of Sepulvarta, a gate that had not been broached in the thousand years since it was hung.

F ire! Fire, damn it!" Fynn screamed to the archers.

The men, reeling from the aerial attack, from the smoke and the burning ash raining down on them from the buildings around them, turned their concentration on the titan and let fly.

About half the arrows found their marks. About half of those shattered; the rest bounced off the enormous statue with the same resounding thud they had heard from missile contact with the flying beast.

“Dear All-God,” Fynn whispered. “This must be a nightmare.”

His words were echoed by the deafening sound of stone contacting wood.

The archers reloaded, shaking, and let fly again, with the The same result—every arrow that impacted the stone man shattered or was repelled without apparent harm.

“Save your arrows,” Fynn cautioned, looking out over the wall at the force surrounding the city. "They're preparing to storm the gate—hold your fire for those it might actually affect.

Stand as long as the arrows hold out, then topple the braziers onto anyone entering the gates.

Make that count—it will probably be your only chance. Godspeed, gentlemen—it's been good to serve with you."

“You as well, sir,” came a weak chorus of trembling voices.

The wall nearest the gate shuddered as another blow battered the wood, sending splinters flying into the air. Fynn steeled his nerve and looked down over the wall.

The stone giant was slamming his fist into the holy gate of Sepulvarta, punching deep holes into the wood, then ripping apart the ancient timbers of trees that had been made of Living Stone with his hands. The gate screamed as if alive as he tore it asunder.

In the distance a clarion call sounded from within the Sor-bold columns.

The archers raised their bows, training them on the front line.

With a hissing streak, one of the flying beasts soared over the wall and snatched an archer in its jaws, toppling a few more into the streets below.

The gate crashed open with a sound like thunder in the mountain passes.

With a roar, the attacking force surged like a tidal wave into the city of Sepulvarta as the sun began its descent below the horizon.

North of Sepulvarta on the Pilgrim's Road

fornication!" Anborn dragged his horse to a shocked halt. The Alliance forces quickly followed suit behind him. As they came to a stop in the center of the Pilgrim's Road, the force that had assembled with the greatest of speed and had ridden with alacrity to the rescue of the holy city could only stare from atop horses dancing in place at the sight that unfolded before them.

Black smoke billowed from the towers and rooftops of the city, clogging the sky with ash and oily grit. Flames could be seen ascending from the rooftops, dancing off the tower of the Spire and lighting the night sky for miles around.

In the shining reflection of those fires, black winged beasts circled in the hazy air above the city proper, diving occasionally with the snap of an adder striking.

And even from where they were, five miles or more off, the sound of screaming could be heard, rending the night.

“Lord Marshal—”

“Silence!” Anborn thundered, shifting atop his horse.

The Patriarch rode to his side and stopped next to him. His great craggy face, hidden within a peasant's hood, was white as the ceremonial robes he often wore. “What are those figures flying above the city?” he asked, his thunderous voice strained.

“I've no idea,” said Anborn, “but their presence changes everything. We are going to need a new plan of attack. I was prepared to break a simple siege, which we could do, even outnumbered. But with the enemy attacking from the air—”

“Contemplate it no further,” the Patriarch said, his voice stronger. “The city is lost—to intervene now would be to condemn every one of these men, and us, to death.”

Anborn's eyes flared in fury. “That is your assessment as a battlefield commander?” he asked icily. The Patriarch shook his head, his eyes burning with angry fire. “That is the assessment of the Ring of Wisdom,” he said. He held up his hand; the clear stone in the ring was glowing as intensely as the sky above Sepulvarta. “I am now consigned to exile; if by turning myself over to the attacking force I could spare the city, I would do so. But that is not their intent. They have just moved the border of Sorbold north by the distance of my lands.”

“Indeed,” murmured Anborn. “And they no doubt expect to use the city as a base to annex as much of the southern Krevensfield Plain as they can.” He yanked back on the reins, ignoring the terrified whinny of his mount. “That area is too vast, too spread out to defend. All the people of those farming settlements and villages are border fodder if we don't evacuate them to Roland immediately. Take one last look at the citadel, Your Grace; I expect the next time you come through here the place will be in ashes. And if they take the Spire, who knows what they will use it for.”

“I know,” replied the Patriarch. “And the horror of it defies description.”

Anborn was not listening; he had already turned and ridden the line, shouting orders to the troops for the mass evacuation that was to follow.

When daylight came, after a night of pillage and sacking, Fhremus called a halt to the hostilities. “Empty the basilica and seal it,” he ordered; Minus saluted and passed along the command. “Truly it is one of the wonders of the Known World; I'm sure the emperor does not wish to see it damaged any more than was necessary to subdue the city.”

He looked around at the remains of Sepulvarta. The historic white buildings were smeared and marred with soot; whole sections of the city, especially the pilgrim sites, were still in flames, and in the cobbled streets, blood ran in rivers between the stones.

“Where is Faron?” he asked Trevnor.

The aide-de-camp shook his head. “I saw him last within the garden district, sir. He broke open the doors of the Patriarch's manse, as directed, but then he went off on his own; we could not follow him in the smoke.” “The Patriarch has still not been found?” “No, sir. And the priests and acolytes in the manse swear they do not know where he is, even under pain of torture.” “Hmm. Well, keep looking for them both. There is only one gate in the city wall—and Faron did not come back to it, so he must be in here somewhere. He's rather large to overlook; I'm certain we will find him sooner rather than later.”

Fhremus's certainty changed a short time later, when a massive hole was found in the wall at the northern edge of the city, torn through by what appeared to be a hand. When finally the earth beneath his feet had cooled sufficiently, Faron stopped.

The battle had meant little to him. Destruction sometimes was a primal pleasure, but there was little of that in the sacking of Sepulvarta, though Faron had no idea why. Perhaps it had been the parsimoniousness of the commanders and the soldiers, the troops who were following him like a great pagan or animist god, not realizing that the great animist god was once a quivering pile of pale dying flesh, gelatinous and pathetic, until Talquist had sealed him within this body of Living Stone on the Scales of Jierna Tal. Faron had found the transformation ironic at best, child of the demon spirit that he was, he had come to be sealed within a Vault of Living Stone just as his father had once been.

Titan or no, soldier of incomprehensible strength or carnival atrocity, Faron missed his father deeply. In spite of the abuse he had suffered at his hands, he had been for the most part lovingly cared for by the man whose body the demon clung to, a man that had been called the Seneschal later in life, but in earlier times had been known as Michael, the Wind of Death. He had regaled a fascinated Faron with the exploits of his days as a soldier, had made him long for a body that would allow him to follow his father on such exploits, such joyful outings of murder and pillage, but nature had not been kind to him.

And ironically, now that he had the perfect housing for a soldier, he was alone, being directed by men he cared nothing for, who he could crush with a mere thought.

Somewhere on the wind there was a hint of dark fire. Faron had no idea how he was aware of this, but in the depths of his solid being something had stirred, had called to him off to the north, something he recognized from the time before everything had gone sour.

Faron reached into the huge leather belt at his waist, once the harness for a team of horses, and clumsily pulled out the blue scale.

It was his favorite, he thought, the card that allowed him to see hidden things, or objects at great distance. He loved the picture that had been drawn on it as well; one side bore the image of a clear eye, the other one an eye shrouded in clouds, much like his own milky blue ones.

He could not see anything yet, but there was enough invisible ash on the wind that the scale hummed with life when he held it in a northerly direction. Whatever was there was too far away to be seen yet, but he could follow its path.

And maybe find one of his own kind.

Faron turned his primitive head in that direction and followed the faint whisper of evil creosote, leaving the noise and chaos of the burning city behind him.

Kurimah Milani, northwestern Yarim, in the shadow of the Teeth The dragon extended her claws in her torpor, reveling in her ease and the dimming of the pain that had been chewing on her since the turn of the moon.

With the partial healing of her body came a similarly partial revival of her memory. Deep in slumber, she was dreaming now, and in those dreams she did not inhabit the draconic form that was her current reality, but rather she was a woman, the Lady of legendary beauty and power that she had been only a short time ago.

The wyrm stretched lazily, allowing herself to enjoy the motion of her torn muscles as they mended. She was recalling her halcyon days, flashes of memories she didn't understand—the echoes of childhood laughter with two other shapes that seemed to be those of young girls, like herself, chasing after each other in a virgin forest, no adult, or in fact any other person, in sight. She did not remember her sisters, nor the dragon mother who left the three of them at the foot of the Great White Tree, save for a sour taste in her mouth that was pittance beside the hate she felt for the woman named Rhapsody. But she did recall the laughter, the sense of freedom, and of loneliness, from those times, and little else.

Her breaming grew deeper as it grew easier. The image in her mind faded from childhood revels to the day when, as a young woman alone on a bluff overlooking the same beach where her mother had first spied her father coming off of the ocean, she saw the arrival of ships, storm-tossed and broken, landing one after another on the heels of a terrible storm. The people who debarked from those ships were like none she had ever seen—some tall and fair, some broad and sturdy, some the size of children with slender hands and enormous eyes that spoke in flowers rather than words, a panoply of mankind, their skin arrayed in all different colors; one by one, the ships unloaded their living treasure, leaving her breathless, her golden face scored with tiny lines was wet with tears for the first time in her life. My horde, she thought, then and now, the closest she had ever come to love at first sight.

The other memories that loomed, threatening to displace those happy ones, she pushed away, shrinking from the pain they caused in much the same way as she had from the broken shards of metal still wedged within her. No, no, she thought hazily, banishing all other thought from her mind and returning to happier times, images of celebrations at the seaside, feasts and joyous dancing and a ceremony at the foot of the Great White Tree in which she was elevated above all and called Lady by the living treasure whose name she still could not recall. The Cymrians, the refugees of the First Fleet from the dead Island of Serendair.