Wytchfire (Book 1) (21 page)

Meanwhile, the sergeant was busy asking questions of the nearest slumdwellers as they marched. In all the commotion, everyone spoke at once. Rowen made out what one wide-eyed woman was saying: “She just fell out of the sky like a gods-damned stone!”

“A stone on fire,” someone amended.

“She’s a demon!” cried another voice. “Zet’s daughter. It must be! Another dead god cast down from the heavens!”

Sergeant Epheus tried in vain to draw details from the crowd then finally gave up. “Show us.”

The crowd surged toward Dogbane Circle. Rowen tensed at the sight of even more drawn weapons. But the men of the Red Watch seemed to be the least of the slumdwellers’ worries.

“A demon!” they cried, over and over.

As they marched, Epheus glanced back at Rowen. The sergeant looked pale. Rowen thought of the conversation they’d had in the tavern: talk of a ferocious demon employed by the Shel’ai. Surely, the sergeant would see Silwren and assume that demon had come here.
And what will I do if he wants to kill her?

They reached Dogbane Circle. Here, all the rough streets in the slums converged, forming a great open space ringed by crude taverns and brothels. The crowds had grown so thick by now that the Red Watch had to shove their way through. The gangs prowled in full force, each grubby man openly wearing on his bare shoulder or arm a crude tattoo marking his loyalty: the Skull-Breakers, the Bloody Asps, the Crazy Knifemen.

Rowen had the wild thought that perhaps this had all been a trick to lure down men of the Red Watch and kill them. After all, despite the smoke lingering in the air, he saw no actual burning buildings anywhere around them. Then he remembered the scream. The gang leaders issued orders. Crowds parted to let them pass.

Rowen half hoped to find a gigantic, crimson beast with scales and horns. Instead, a familiar woman lay on her back in the filthy square, her white gown all but burned away, though the skin beneath shown pale and unharmed. Cinders smoldered all around her.

The soldiers exchanged glances of surprise that momentarily crested their panic and confusion. Long tresses like melted platinum spilled beneath the woman’s half-nude body. Though stunning, her tapered ears and angular features made it clear she was not Human. Though her eyes remained closed, the slight rise and fall of her breasts made it clear she was breathing.

Sergeant Epheus reached her first. Rowen followed. Everyone else kept their distance. A hush fell over the crowd.

The sergeant felt for a pulse. Then he pushed open one of her eyelids. The ghost-white pupil made him flinch, recoiling as though he’d touched a hot stove. “I feared as much.” The sergeant drew his knife. “Best make this quick, before she wakes up!”

Rowen grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”

Sergeant Epheus jerked away. “I’m going to peel an apple in case she’s hungry when she wakes up. What in the gods’ names do you think I’m going to do?” He lifted the knife.

Rowen seized him again. “No.”

Epheus scowled. “Locke, remember what I said about the demon? This could be it!” He gestured at her body with his knife. “We have to do this. If you can’t stomach the thought of gutting a pretty wytch, step back and let me finish this myself.”

“No,” Rowen repeated. “We’re taking her with us, back up to Lyos. That’s what we’re going to do. If you try anything different, I’ll punch you in the windpipe so hard you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.”

The sergeant cocked his head, unafraid, as though he’d just been threatened by an unruly child.

Rowen broke the gaze first and eyed the surrounding crowds. He sensed the tension building, the hush replaced by angry muttering as the slumdwellers grew tired of waiting to see what would happen next. “We have to get her out of here before she’s raped!”

Sergeant Epheus was speechless for a moment. “
Raped?
Locke, if these people had sense, they’d have gutted her already!” He raised the knife again. Rowen grabbed his arm and wrenched it backward, twisting the knife out of the sergeant’s grasp. The knife clattered to the ground. The sergeant broke free and drew his sword. Rowen drew Knightswrath. Stunned, the other soldiers made no move to intervene.

“So much for punching me in the windpipe.”

“Your arm was in the way,” Rowen answered. He gripped Knightswrath with both hands, the tarnished blade trembling in the night air. The hilt burned so hotly now that his hands should have been seared, but oddly, the heat caused him little pain.

“Locke,” the sergeant said with surprising calm, “she’s bewytched you. Sheathe that blade, step back, and I’ll forget this ever happened.”

Rowen hesitated. Telling the sergeant he knew Silwren would only further erode his credibility. Instead, he asked, “What if she’s
not
the demon we’ve heard about? What if the Shel’ai really are coming to Lyos next? She must know their plans! We could interrogate her.”

The sergeant hesitated. His sword dipped a little. Rowen was getting through to him.

“Let’s just take her back up to Lyos. We can lock her away. Wytch or no, she’s just one woman! What can she possibly do against an entire garrison? We’ll question her, find out what she knows. Maybe what she tells us could save lives. But if we kill her, we gain nothing.”

The muttering of the crowd became an angry clamor. If the Red Watch wasn’t willing to kill the wytch, they were. The crowds began to close in. Springing into action, the other soldiers formed a protective ring around their sergeant and, inadvertently, the woman lying at his feet.

Rowen pressed on. He could not be certain that the sergeant had even heard him over the noise. But Epheus glanced coldly at the woman. He lowered his sword. He stepped closer and growled, “Fine, Locke.
You
carry her. And if this crowd turns on us, or she wakes and blasts us to ashes, I’ll follow you down to Fohl’s hells and box your ears. Hear me?” He gave Rowen a shove.

Sheathing Knightswrath, Rowen gathered Silwren in his arms. Her skin felt like a blacksmith’s forge, but he hugged her close anyway, his heart pounding. Sergeant Epheus started toward King’s Bend. Rowen followed. The reluctant soldiers of the Red Watch encircled them as the crowd pressed in on all sides.

Chapter Seventeen

Trials

R
owen Locke wondered if he was about to be hanged.

The sun had barely risen. He stood unarmed in the office of Captain Ferocles, just above the barracks. The captain’s face was furrowed with anger, fixed for the moment on a piece of parchment. On the captain’s desk lay a drawn dagger, its blade gleaming cold and dull in the morning light angling through the captain’s window. Rowen tried not to look at the dagger. Instead, he focused on the noise outside.

Even inside, he could hear that all of Lyos was in an uproar. Despite attempts to keep Silwren’s arrival secret, word had already spread from the Dark Quarter, and now angry crowds bristled outside the palace of King Pelleas, at the eastern edge of the inner city, demanding that she be released to a growing mob.

Thanks to rumors planted by none other than Captain Ferocles himself that the wytch was being kept in a secret location, the mobs had no idea that she had simply been locked away in the basement of the jailhouse. That gave them time to decide what to do with her. But it also required the captain to reassign nearly half the Red Watch to protect the palace, which made him none too happy.

Rowen swallowed hard, sweating in his leather armor. He had finally told his story: how he had met El’rash’lin on the plains, how he found Silwren in Cadavash and saved her, only to watch her leave with the stated intent of warning Lyos of danger. He had told them of everything except his dizzying glimpse into the Well, into the Light itself: a glimpse that had filled him with joy and reassurance at the time but had since left him so lamenting its absence that he refused to let himself think about it. Nor did he mention how Knightswrath, the rusty sword given to him by Hráthbam, seemed to warm in the presence of magic, even to draw him somehow.

Rowen hoped his candor in all other matters might save him, especially if they believed what he’d said about El’rash’lin’s selfless action on the plains. But as he finished his tale, their frowns made it clear that they did not believe a word of it. He could feel the cold eyes of Sergeant Epheus, who was sitting in a chair off to one side. Captain Ferocles finally looked up, stone faced, from the parchment before him. The captain asked, “Do you know what this is?”

“No, sir.” Rowen was glad that he was still standing at attention, his shaking hands clasped behind him, hidden from view.

“It is an order for your immediate expulsion from the Red Watch—plus a recommendation from your squad commander, Sergeant Epheus, that I have you executed for insubordination and striking an officer.”

Rowen’s jaw dropped. He had expected expulsion from the Red Watch. But he had spent the night in the jailhouse harboring the vague hope that he would merely be beaten instead of killed. He might have escaped from the barracks and fled Lyos, but he’d stayed for Silwren—though he could not say why, since he suspected they would kill her soon enough.
Not that I can blame them.

Captain Ferocles leaned toward him. “How do you plead to these charges, Locke? Do you understand what I’ve just told you?”

Rowen managed a nod. “Yes, Captain.”

The captain threw up his hands impatiently. “Well, then? Say something, whelp!”

Rowen steadied himself and began. “Captain, I intended no disrespect—”

“You drew steel against your sergeant,” the captain interrupted. “You don’t even have a gods-damned rank yet, and you defied his orders in front of about a hundred witnesses.”

Rowen glanced reflexively at Sergeant Epheus. The sergeant returned the look with murderous calm, arms folded. Rowen shuddered and faced the captain again. “Sir... may I explain?”

The captain snorted and leaned back in his chair. “I wish
somebody
would! So far, all I know is that a damned fireball fell out of the heavens like the flaming corpse of Zet himself! Now I have a Sylv wytch in my stockades, four hundred angry townspeople marching on the palace, and a king mad with questions I can’t answer.” He pointed to the sergeant. “Epheus tells me he wanted to cut this woman’s throat right then and there. That very well might have prevented all this. You stopped him. Why?”

Rowen sighed. “I’m sorry, Captain. I don’t know.”

His answer caught the captain off guard. Ferocles stared at him for a moment, incredulous. Then he laughed. “At least tell me it was because she’s beautiful, Locke. Or by the Light, I’ll hang you myself.”

Despite his fear, Rowen smiled. “Captain, I swear I meant no harm. But we’ve all heard stories about the Shel’ai marshalling an army in the west. This woman... Silwren... she said she was coming here to warn you. She said the entire city was in danger. If she was evil, she could have killed me with ease. But she didn’t.” He shrugged, helpless to explain further.

Captain Ferocles scrutinized him for a moment. Then he set the one parchment aside in favor of another one lying beneath it. “I got this report a few hours ago. Before I tell you what it says, Locke, I have a question. Have you ever been to Cassica?”

This time, it was Rowen’s turn to be caught off guard. “Yes. Years ago, when my brother and I were sellswords.”

“Years ago?” The captain sneered. “What were you, twelve?”

Rowen blushed. “We started early.”

“And what do you remember?”

Rowen could not fathom what this had to do with his imminent execution, but he was not about to question the delay. “Cassica’s not bad. A city like any other. We might have taken work there, but their king doesn’t take kindly to mercenaries. Or brothels, as I recall.”

Ferocles ignored the joke. “What of their army?”

Rowen shrugged. “Not much in the way of cavalry—ground’s too rough around there to graze horses—but Cassica’s men-at-arms are near the best I’ve seen. No disrespect to the Red Watch, of course.”

“And the Dhargots?”

Rowen thought for a moment, remembering the Dhargots’ well-disciplined phalanxes with their interlocked tower shields, their devilish catapults hurling clay jars of burning pitch that seeped into the chinks of armor and roasted men alive, so that afterward, they looked like bread left to burn in the oven. And, of course, their gigantic war-elephants: moving fortresses, virtually indestructible, tons of muscle and bone and fury carrying chariot-like saddles crowded with archers. And all of it emblazoned with the Dhargots’ chilling sigil: a dragon impaled on a spear.

Rowen said, “I fought both with them and against them. With them was better. Their phalanxes are more or less indestructible. They fight with chariots and archers, too. And those elephants of theirs are a nightmare all to themselves. There’s always stories about the Dhargots wanting to sweep down and conquer the Simurgh Plains, but the Free Cities keep them at bay, especially Syros. So the Dhargots mainly just fight each other and terrify foreign villages. Even elephants aren’t much use against stone walls.”

Ferocles glanced at Sergeant Epheus again then back at Rowen. “Then it might interest you to know,” he began, “that the rumors are true. Cassica has fallen. And Syros too, maybe a couple weeks before.”

Rowen’s eyes widened. “The Dhargots?”

“No. To my great surprise, it looks like Dhargoth had nothing to do with it. According to my scout, whose messenger bird arrived just this morning, it was the Shel’ai. Or more accurately, it was this patchwork army they’ve raised. And”—he grimaced—“this demon of theirs. The army itself is mostly hired swords, plus conscripts from all the places they’ve conquered. But this demon is something else. Swords won’t cut it. Arrows don’t pierce it. It shoulders through stone walls like they were made of twigs. They say the Shel’ai control it. And now, thanks to you, we have one of them in our jails.” He smiled slightly. “I suppose I should thank you.”

Captain Ferocles picked up the first parchment—the one containing Sergeant Epheus’s recommendation to have Rowen executed—and tore it in half. From his chair, Sergeant Epheus fixed a cold stare on both of them.

Ferocles’s low voice commanded Rowen’s full attention. “This is where we stand, Locke. Rumors of Cassica have already spread through the city. In another day or two, no matter how hard I try to keep this secret, everyone will know. Meanwhile, two weeks’ march from here lies an army at least five or six times the size of the Red Watch in its entirety—an army bolstered by sorcery, which I don’t pretend to understand. If they march on Lyos, we’ll have to surrender. King Pelleas knows this. That’s why the wytch is still alive. We need to know why she’s here and exactly what her wretched kind are planning.”

The captain pointed at Epheus again. “The good sergeant thinks we should wring the information out of her, maybe throw in some rape and red-hot tongs. I’m inclined to agree.” He smirked at Rowen. “Don’t look so surprised, Locke. I’ll do what I must to save this city. But we’ll try diplomacy first. That’s where you come in.”

Rowen swallowed hard. “What would you have me do, Captain?”

Ferocles answered, “
Talk
to her. Offer her whatever she wants. Tell her you’re her friend. Tell her you’ll have her released. Get her to fall in love with you. Honestly, I don’t give a damn how you do it. Just get her to talk.” He sighed. “You’re probably the only one who doesn’t want her dead. That’s why I’m sending you first. But if this doesn’t work, I’ll visit her myself.” He tapped the knife before him. “Do we understand each other?”

Rowen cleared his throat. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good. A detail of guards is waiting outside. They’ll escort you to the jailhouse. The better you fare at this, the more likely I am to forget what happened in the Dark Quarter.”

Rowen said, “Thank you, Captain.” He saluted and turned to go.

“Another thing, Locke. Since half my men want you dead for defending a wytch, we’re moving your lodgings to the jailhouse. Don’t worry, you’re not a prisoner. Not exactly. But if you try to leave Lyos, my men have orders to kill you. In fact, right now, my orders are about the
only
thing keeping them from tearing you limb from limb. So if I were you, when you meet this wytch, I’d be very gods-damned charming.”

Chaos swamped the cobblestone streets and marble walkways of Lyos.

Rowen pieced together what had happened from snippets of conversation he overheard between the guards walking on either side of him. Mobs had formed, word having spread by then that the fireball fallen from the heavens just the previous night was, in fact, a Sylvan wytch come to kill them. Many demanded that the wytch be brought out immediately and executed in the King’s Market.

Still others sought only to use the abrupt unrest in the city as an excuse to loot and burn whatever they could. With most of the Red Watch busy trying to keep order in the city, gangs of the Dark Quarter had no trouble slipping into the city to wreak their own brand of havoc. Adding fuel to this was the growing whisper that three mighty cities—Quorim, Syros, and Cassica—had already fallen to a rampaging army of sorcerers.

The smell of smoke reached Rowen’s nostrils. Supposedly, the temples of Tier’Gothma were already filling with the wounded and dying. The city streets bore a startling resemblance to those of the Dark Quarter. In less than a day, Lyos had been transformed into a city besieged from within. He shuddered.

I have to get out of here!
But that was impossible. Scowling soldiers flanked him on all sides, hurrying him along. Rowen’s Lyosi longsword had been confiscated, but surprisingly, Ferocles had returned Knightswrath to him. Rowen figured the captain did not think the rusty blade posed much threat to anyone, let alone half a dozen armed men who squarely blamed him for what was happening in their city.

Maybe they’re right,
Rowen thought ruefully. He clenched his fists, growing so tense that the guards bristled around him, thinking he was about to strike.

Rowen forced himself to relax. On the Lotus Isles, the Knights had taught him to respect even one’s enemies. Now, thanks to Sergeant Epheus, Rowen was beginning to distrust the very order he’d wanted so desperately to join. Did the Knights who had trained him even believe in the very code of honor and piety they preached?
But that doesn’t mean the code itself is wrong.

Acrid smoke stung his eyes, making them water. They were passing a burning inn. Dyoni’s Bane. Half the inn was already wreathed in scarlet flames, which a squad of soldiers was trying in vain to extinguish. They called for help, but the nearest citizens of Lyos were busy trying to save their own homes. The men escorting Rowen to the jailhouse hesitated.

“Go,” Rowen said. “Go help them. I won’t run.”