The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (23 page)

"I've never heard of such a vast kingdom before," Urus said.

"Waldron and the other cities have sworn fealty to the king. In exchange we get safe passage on the roads, commerce free of tariffs, and the security of the kingdom."

"If it takes the king a week to come help, that doesn't seem like much security."

"This is an unusual case. No army this size has ever before massed within the kingdom borders."

Urus turned and his ribs stabbed at him. The physician helped him on with his padded leather vest and cinched it up tight. It hurt at first but eventually the pressure holding the poultice felt good.

The Knight Marshall lifted a sword from brackets on the wall. It was much wider than the usual blades, forged from thick steel and somewhat longer than a typical broadsword.

"This was made by the best blacksmith in the city," Corliss said, admiring the blade like a proud father. "It swings as heavily as a two-handed sword, but has perfect balance. He swears it will cleave through just about any armor. Hopefully this will help ease the loss of your maces."

Urus took the weapon and held it with one hand. Corliss was right: the heavy weapon was perfectly balanced, the broad blade great for parrying. He ran a finger along the blade, satisfied when the thin edge easily drew blood.

He noticed Cailix staring at the blood. He wiped the blade clean, then sheathed it and winced through the pain to strap the sword to his back.

"It's a fantastic blade, thank you very much."

Corliss nodded. "All it needs now is a name. In Waldron, all commissioned soldiers name their weapons."

Hugo
, Urus thought, in honor of the doll-hero his mother had made for him when he was a boy.

"The weapon suits you, Urus. Big, bulky, awkward," Goodwyn said with a grin.
 

Urus ignored the joke. He couldn't stand around in the barracks anymore. Despite the size of the room, it felt too dark and closed in, and he needed some fresh air, or whatever passed for fresh in this part of the world.

He pushed through the door and stepped out onto the stone balcony overlooking one of the main streets of the city.
 

What he saw shocked him to the core and filled him with sadness.

Women and children filled the streets, more than he thought could possibly live in a city this size. The women carried sacks on their backs or dragged trunks behind them on wheels while the children clung to their favorite toy or clutched a beloved blanket, toddling along behind their parents in lines like little ducklings.

They were fleeing the city, heading for the warrens and beyond while every man capable of bearing a sword stayed behind. Corliss and his men would try to keep the briene army at bay long enough to get the women and children to safety.

Such a strange place
, Urus thought.
The women and children flee rather than fight.
No Kestians ever fled from a fight.

He stood watching the looks of despair on the women's faces and the children crying, the word 'Papa' on their lips. Those old enough to know what was going on futilely tried to comfort the younger ones.

Goodwyn gripped his shoulder, giving him an excuse to look away from the sad scene. Rhygant stepped out of the barracks, followed by Murin, Corliss, Goodwyn, Cailix, and several of Corliss's men. They stood on the balcony surveying the exodus below.

"This isn't what war is supposed to look like," Urus signed to Goodwyn.

"It is for the losers," he replied.

Urus stood in silence for a moment, letting that statement sink in.

"I want to help keep them safe, to defend Waldron," Urus said to Corliss.

"No matter what your people thought of your skills, I know my men would be glad to have you and your friends fight at their side. The heavens know we could use all the help we can get."

"We have a more important task ahead of us, Master Corliss," Murin said.

"What could be more important than defending this city and protecting those people down there?" Urus said. "I'm not going to run while another city gets attacked like we did at Kest."

"Have you not been paying attention? There is far more at stake here than Waldron or Kest. You cannot possibly imagine the atrocities that will befall this world and others should the Order succeed in destroying the vertexes; there are no words to describe that horror."

"So we're just supposed to go off and leave these people?" Urus asked aloud, fists clenched.

"If the Order succeeds because we stayed behind to slay a few briene and perhaps save one or two lives, then the fate of the entire world will be our fault, and trust me when I say tell you that you cannot fathom that kind of guilt."

Urus remembered the ocean of guilt and pain that washed over the shores in Murin's mind when the two had shared that awkward moment in Kest's dungeons. What could fill a man with such anguish?

"So what would you have us do then?"

"We must find the vertex before the Order does."

"Have you any idea where this thing might be, or even what it looks like?" Corliss asked.

"Only that it will be in the oldest part of the city. It could be anything—a stone slab, a wall, anything on which the ancient sigils could be etched. The writing will look freshly chiseled though it was carved in a time when this mountain was nothing more than a refuge from the weather for nomads and travelers passing between the old kingdoms."

Murin leaned against the railing, a hand clutching his forehead, eyebrows furrowed.

"What's wrong?" Cailix asked him.

"There are too many people here; their minds assault me with ceaseless prattle. I do not have any of the herbs used by the Kestian shaman nor anything else that can dull the noise."

"You can hear their thoughts?" Corliss asked the question Urus had been itching to ask.

Murin gave a slow nod.

"My men and I are going to lead the citizens down to the warrens to make sure they don't have any trouble with Noah and his thugs," Corliss told him. "Once we see them safely in, we'll be heading for the Sky Gate. You can decide then whether you're staying with us or whether you're going after this vertex."
 

"I want to go with Urus and the gray man to find the vertex," said Cailix.

"No way," Goodwyn said, stepping close and towering over her. "You put your lot in with that blood mage who killed the duke. You're not coming with us."

Cailix's eyes flared, but she spoke calmly. "I used him to stay alive, then I turned on him as soon as I could."

"You're not coming with us," Goodwyn said.

"Yes, she is," Urus said.
 

Goodwyn just turned and stared back at Urus.

"I know you don't trust her," Urus signed so no one would overhear. "But I do. If she wants to come with us, she can."

Goodwyn shrugged. "If you say so. But I still don't like it."

The group, accompanied by a detachment of Corliss's men, made their way out of the barracks and down to the street below, called Tannery Row by the locals. Despite the fact that no one was working that day, it still smelled as bad as its name implied.

They joined up with the procession of refugees and weaved their way to the front. Urus hated the idea of heading in the opposite direction of the fight—again. The notion that there was a fate worse than losing another city to siege scared him to his core. After seeing what the blood magic could do, he didn't want to imagine what horrors awaited them if they failed.

They walked in silence at the head of the crowd, slowly making their way out of the more prosperous sections of the city, then heading around the curve of the mountain and down the slope toward the entrance to the warrens.

"If this thing you seek is as old as you say it is," Corliss said, breaking the silence, "and it's down in the old caverns below the city, then there is someone who might be able to help you find it."

"Who?" Murin asked.

"Noah." Corliss snorted. "That scum knows every inch of the inside of the mountain below Waldron."

"How are we to find this Noah?"

Corliss stopped short and held up a closed fist. The soldiers behind him turned and stopped the throng of civilians.

"I don't think finding him is going to be a problem," he said, pointing ahead. Down the road, just before it passed under the bridge marking the unofficial start of the shanty towns and slums that were the warrens, stood a bearded man in a brightly colored shirt and matching pants.

"That is the man who operates the opium tent where you found me, Master Corliss," offered Murin.

Corliss simply shook his head and sighed.

"I won't speak to the Knight Marshall," called Noah. He appeared to be alone, which seemed odd, given Corliss's description of him. Urus suspected there were thieves hiding around every corner.

Corliss stood still, folding his hands over his chest, "Look at the people behind me, Noah. You would drag them into our petty feud?"

Noah said nothing.

Murin was about to take a step forward, but Urus felt compelled to do something. He had seen enough of this kind of bickering between the shaman and warriors in Kest. The two of them would never settle this on their own. They each had too great a personal stake in the argument.

He took a few steps forward and shouted down the street, "Will you speak to a stranger then? One with no claim in this quarrel between you and Corliss?"

Goodwyn shot him a warning glance.

Urus kept walking so he could get close enough to read Noah's lips.

"You speak our language, but you slur it like a drunken child. Are you a drunkard, then, stranger?" asked Noah.
 

Urus studied the leader of the thieves' guild. He was an average man. He had no scars or markings, his beard was nearly trimmed, his hair cut short. He was a little round but not an overly fat man. If anything, Noah looked a little
too
average. Everything about him seemed to be deliberately insignificant.

"He is deaf and was born as such," Murin said with remarkable diplomacy, given his attitude toward the emperor back in Kest. "He does not speak as clearly as others. I can assure you the boy is no drunkard."
 

"I was talking to the boy," Noah snapped, walking closer to Urus so they could talk without shouting. The idea seemed foolish to Urus, since Noah's volume didn't matter at all. "That true? You deaf?"

Urus nodded.

"Well, I suppose given your company that may be a blessing. That way you don't have to listen to Corliss's shrill cry, and the gray opium fiend has a voice as deep as a thunderclap."

Urus ignored the comments. "The city is going to be attacked. We need to get these people to safety."

"Oh, I know all about the little people and their crazy machines at the bottom of the mountain. That was quite a display you put on last night."

Urus blinked. Noah was definitely more well-informed than Urus had expected. Corliss had warned that he was not to be underestimated, and now Urus understood why.

"I will let these people into the warrens and will even provide guides to get them down through the tunnels and out the other side of the mountain," Noah paused, holding up an index finger. "On one condition."

"My head is staying firmly attached to my neck, if that's what you're thinking, Noah," said Corliss, stepping closer to the conversation. The men behind him bristled.
 

Noah ignored the remark and turned back to Urus. "I want a full pardon. If this city isn't a smoldering ash when the enemy take their machines and go, I want to walk the streets of Waldron as a free man."

Now Corliss bristled. "Absolutely not. You're a king among criminals. Not a single crime happens in this city without you being involved somehow."
 

Noah grinned. "Ever stop and wonder about that, Knight Marshal? I don't just control the crime in Waldron, I control Waldron itself. You may think you're the law and order around here, but you're only the law.
I'm
the order. I maintain the even balance. Without me, this city would plunge into anarchy."

Corliss's face reddened with anger and his fists clenched. "That's absurd! You're nothing but a—"
 

Urus cut him off. "Gentlemen! There's an army approaching, and there are thousands of civilians behind us in need of safety. Can you put aside your bickering for their sake?" Urus snapped. He had seen countless petty arguments while watching his uncle work, and heard tales of even more that the emperor had settled. He felt a little disappointed to see that such arguments persisted even this far away from Kest.

"The boy is right," Corliss said.

"I'll still need a pardon before I take this flock off your hands."

"Knight Marshall, we need to get the citizens to safety so we can get back to the city's defenses," Rhygant urged.

Corliss gripped the hilt of his sword and gnashed his teeth together, a pained look on his face. "All right. It sickens me to my core to do so, Noah, but the safety of these people is what's important here."

"Fine, my men will—" Noah stopped short, jaw dropping as he stared up into the sky.

Urus turned to look. Dozens of the briene mechanical birds swooped down low over the road. Briene tossed little black clay pots from the front-shielded cockpits in the bronze bird heads. As the pots shattered, thick, black smoke billowed up. Within seconds half of Waldron had been swallowed in the dark cloud.

Urus drew Hugo, again appreciating the expert craftsmanship that had gone into its making, waiting for one of the birds to drop within attack range. Just seconds later, a silhouette of a giant bird glided through the dark smoke then burst out, its gold and bronze feathers gleaming in the sunlight. Urus dodged to one side, swinging and slamming the flat of the blade into the back of the pilot's head.
 

The briene sagged in the cockpit, and the bird-machine smashed to pieces against the stone cliff that formed one side of the road to the warrens.

"This is going to be a bloodbath! The civilians are exposed and we can't defend them from the air!" Corliss shouted. "Get them to the warrens!"