Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (7 page)

He rode with Tibraim and a score of Istarish nomads, scouting the way ahead of the main army. Tibraim was a short, bony man who seemed to drown in his brown robes and turban, his mouth twisted in a perpetual scowl above his bushy gray beard. Despite his ragged appearance, Tibraim and his nomads were among the best scouts Kylon had ever seen, and they took a gleeful delight in tormenting the enemy with arrows. Nasser Glasshand and Laertes rode next to Tibraim, Nasser with easy grace, Laertes with the grim competence of a former centurion. 

Tibraim raised a hand, and the nomads came to a halt.

“We are not yet within bowshot of the walls, headman,” said Nasser, his voice deep and smooth and calm, “and if any foes sally from the southern gate, we can withdraw easily.” His right hand held the reins of his horse in a loose grip. His gloved left hand remained in a fist at his side, concealing the living crystal that had replaced the flesh and bone of his hand and forearm. Apparently moving the fingers pained him, so he only did it when necessary, like when using the fist to punch through an enemy’s helmet and skull with a single blow. Kylon had only seen the exposed crystal of that hand once, in the Desert of Candles, when he and Caina had followed Nasser to the fountain that held the crystalline remains of his wife and children. 

“There are nearer foes, Nasser Glasshand,” said Tibraim. “Yes, there. Lying in ambush for us. Do you see the wagons ahead?”

Another mile or so, and they would come to Istarinmul’s caravanserai, the vast open field below the city’s southern walls where caravans assembled and departed the city. Right now the caravanserai was deserted, with abandoned wagons and tents strewn here and there. The approach of the rebel army had inspired the few remaining merchants to flee for their lives, leaving behind everything they could not carry. 

“Aye,” said Nasser. “What about them?”

“I think a band of soldiers has taken refuge there,” said Tibraim, sweeping his hand towards a cluster of abandoned wagons. “Behold the tracks.” Kylon could make no sense of the dusty road and the stiff grasses next to it, but Tibraim had greater experience in tracking and hunting. “They saw us coming from a distance, and took shelter within the wagons.”

“I see,” said Nasser, glancing at Kylon. “Lord Kylon?”

Kylon nodded and extended his arcane senses, the sorcery of water that allowed him to sense the emotions of those around him. The ability was often a burden, and it had taken him years to learn the discipline necessary to wall off his own mind from the emotions he sensed. Still, it was often useful and made it difficult for enemies to sneak up on him. Kylon focused and felt the tension of the men around him, the cool calm of Nasser, the vigilance of Laertes, and the bloodthirst of the Istarish nomads.

They did like to fight.

“Twenty,” said Kylon. “Twenty men are hiding inside the wagons. I think…I’m not sure, but I think they plan to ambush us.”

“Splendid,” said Tibraim. “Let us kill them.” 

“Perhaps we can persuade them to join us,” said Nasser. The army had overtaken numerous stragglers from Erghulan’s defeated army, and several groups had agreed to join Tanzir’s army. As far as Kylon could tell, he sensed no treachery from them, though Caina would have thought it a bad idea. 

“Some of them are Immortals,” said Kylon. He sensed the endless murderous rage of the Immortals in the wagons, the fury induced by the alchemical elixirs that gave them inhuman strength and endurance. Many of the common soldiers had surrendered and joined Tanzir’s army, and even a few of the lesser emirs, but none of the Immortals had changed sides. 

“Mmm,” said Tibraim. “You see, Glasshand? We must kill them all.”

“You are probably right, headman,” said Nasser. “Still, the attempt must be made. It will also give us an opportunity to turn their ambush back upon them. Lord Kylon?”

“Ready,” said Kylon, dropping from the saddle. He fought better upon foot, which had amused the nomads to no end until they had seen him kill Rhataban. Kylon reached over his shoulder and drew the valikon that the Emissary of the Living Flame had given to Caina at Silent Ash Temple, the double-edged blade of ghostsilver glittering in the harsh afternoon sunlight. The Iramisian sigils upon the blade remained dark, which was a good sign. No nagataaru were nearby, nor the other forms of sorcery that caused the sword to react. 

Around him the nomads spread out, adjusting their bows and loosening their quivers. The Immortals wore enough armor to deflect the lighter arrows of the nomads, but their armor had gaps. 

Kylon rolled his shoulders, drawing on the power of water sorcery to make himself stronger and the power of wind sorcery to make himself faster. 

“Greetings!” called Nasser. “We know you are hiding there. I suggest you surrender to us. If you wish, a place is waiting for you in the army of Prince Kutal, the rightful heir to the Padishah’s throne. If you prefer to surrender your weapons and depart in peace, that is acceptable as well. You…”

Kylon sensed the emotions of the men hiding in the wagons harden.

“Nasser,” called Kylon, lifting the valikon.

Nasser nodded and drew his scimitar, the steel blade flashing in the sunlight. 

An instant later the enemy burst from their hiding place. About ten of them were common Istarish soldiers with their spiked helmets and chain mail cuirasses, armed with scimitars and short bows. The other ten were Immortals, armored from head to foot in black chain mail and black steel plate, helmets wrought in the shape of grinning skulls. The eye holes of their steel masks glimmered with blue light, a side effect of the alchemical elixirs that gave them inhuman speed and strength.

The Immortals rushed forward, while the soldiers hung back and lifted their bows, but Tibraim’s men were already moving. The Istarish nomads unleashed a storm of arrows with a yell, and four soldiers and two Immortals fell, riddled with arrows. The horsemen kicked their stubborn little mounts into a wild dance, loosing arrows as they galloped back and forth. 

Kylon sprinted forward and leaped, the sorcery of water fueling his jump and giving him extra strength. He soared forward and landed before an Immortal, all his strength and momentum behind the valikon’s blade. The sword crunched through the Immortal’s neck, and the warrior fell with a gurgling grunt, blood leaking through the skull-mask. 

Kylon had just wrenched the sword free when a second Immortal attacked him, wielding one of the chain whips that the Immortals employed in battle with such deadly skill. Kylon ducked under the first sweep of the chain, the heavy links whooshing over his head. Had it struck him, it likely would have coiled around his neck with enough force to rip his head from his shoulders. He ducked again under a second swing, and as he did, he snatched the slain Immortal’s scimitar with his left hand, the blade light and well-balanced in his grasp.

On the third lash of the whip, he blocked with the scimitar. The lash coiled around the weapon and ripped it from his grasp, yet its weight stole the whip’s momentum. The Immortal started to draw back his arm for another strike, but Kylon was already moving. The valikon took off the Immortal’s hand at the wrist, and as the warrior recoiled in pain, Kylon killed him.

A third Immortal came at him, only for a javelin to slam into the back of his calf. Kylon glimpsed Laertes in his saddle, the veteran Legionary reaching for another of his javelins. As the Immortal fought to regain his balance, Kylon cut him down, and the nodded his thanks to Laertes as he sought another enemy. 

He turned towards another Immortal, but Nasser struck first. Nasser swung his crystal fist like a mace. The strike half-crushed the Immortal’s helm, and the warrior collapsed with a clatter of armor. 

Kylon raised his sword in guard, but he realized that the fighting was over. The Istarish nomads had cut down the rest of the soldiers and the Immortals and had already dismounted to loot the slain of any valuables. He let out a long breath, rolled his shoulders, and started cleaning the blood from the valikon’s blade. It had been a short, sharp fight, but one they had won. 

Harder fighting awaited them at the walls of Istarinmul. 

“A good fight,” announced Tibraim, helping himself to a dead soldier’s money pouch. “They ought to have given up. They were too tired to fight.” 

“I think this lot might have been part of Erghulan’s personal retinue,” said Laertes, retrieving his javelin from the slain Immortals. “Decided to fight to the bitter end, the idiots.”

“Whatever the reason,” said Nasser, “they are twenty fewer men we shall have to fight atop the walls of Istarinmul. Headman, I suggest we return to the army. They will soon begin constructing the siege camp, and the Prince and the emir shall need to hear the news we bring.” 

Kylon looked at the distant walls of Istarinmul, visible through the haze of the hot afternoon. Even from here, he saw that the gates were closed. He could also see the shape of soldiers moving along the walls and the angular outlines of siege engines upon the towers. Those siege engines could fling amphorae of Hellfire, and Kylon had seen many times the kind of devastation that Hellfire unleashed. 

Istarinmul, he knew, had been defeated in many wars, but the city itself had never fallen to a siege. The city was too well-positioned, surrounded by the sea on three sides, and its walls were too strong. Hellfire made for a powerful defensive weapon. Centuries ago, the fleet of New Kyre had tried to attack Istarinmul, and the Alchemists had burned most of the ships with Hellfire, crippling Kyracian power for a generation. One of Kylon’s ancestors had burned in that battle.  

Tanzir’s rebel army might have defeated the Grand Wazir, but actually taking Istarinmul would be another matter entirely.

Kylon reclaimed his horse and joined the others as they rode south to rejoin the host of Tanzir Shahan. 

###

The rebel army camped out of catapult range of the walls and laid siege to the city of Istarinmul as night fell.

Kylon supposed they weren’t rebels, not really. They were the army of Kutal Sulaman Tarshahzon, the rightful heir to the throne of the Padishah Nahas Tarshahzon. The Padishah had disappeared years ago, and likely Callatas or Erghulan had murdered him at some point. As the Padishah’s sole surviving son, Sulaman was the rightful heir to the throne of Istarinmul. Kylon did not know the man well, but Caina trusted him, and from what Kylon had seen, Sulaman would make a better ruler for the city than Erghulan.

Though any man plucked from the street at random would likely make a better ruler than Erghulan Amirasku. 

At the thought of Caina, his hand drifted to his belt, to the pouch holding the four vials of Elixir Restorata she had given him. Kylon had not needed them. Or, more to the point, he had not needed them himself. Kylon was not sure if keeping them had been the right thing to do. There had been hundreds of wounded men after the battle, many of them mortally wounded, and Kylon had considered simply walking into the hospital tents and giving the vials to the first four mortally wounded men he saw. 

The knowledge that he might one day need a vial of Elixir Restorata to save Caina’s life stayed his hand. 

He wondered what Caina would have done. She alternated between calculated coldness and stunning generosity, or sometimes calculated generosity, given her knack for making allies. Certainly, the Ghosts of the Istarinmul circle that Kylon had met were devoted in their loyalty to Caina. 

Gods, but he missed her.

He wondered if she was even still alive. The Emissary said so, but Kylon knew better than to trust the word of seers and oracles.

He had learned that the hard way.

Wrapped in his dark thoughts, he rode with Nasser and Laertes and Tibraim and the others into the heart of the camp. Men raised tents, started campfires, and tended to horses, the familiar smells of sweat and smoke and horse dung filling his nostrils. The catapults and other siege engines remained loaded in their carts. The army had captured several of Erghulan’s siege engines, along with large supplies of Hellfire, and most of Erghulan’s surviving siege engineers had changed sides, so they had men who knew how to use and assemble the catapults. 

They reached the center of the camp. The commanders of the army had gathered there, clustered around Tanzir Shahan, a stout and bearded and worried-looking emir. Evidently, Tanzir had met Caina years ago at Malarae, and after surviving the experience he had become assertive enough to lead an army. Next to the emir stood Prince Kutal Sulaman Tarshahzon, tall and thin and ascetic-looking despite his armor. Mazyan, the Prince’s Oath Shadow and bodyguard, stood scowling behind his master, and Kylon felt the fiery presence of the djinni bound within Mazyan’s flesh, the spirit that gave him superhuman power and strength. 

The others stood in a loose ring around the Prince and the emir. Kylon saw the headman Strabane of Drynemet, a hulking man with the battle-scarred look of a former gladiator. There was the Anshani archer Kazravid, and the captains of the mercenary companies. Lord Martin Dorius and the Imperial Guard centurion Tylas stood together, both wearing the black armor of the Imperial Guard. Lord Martin’s wife Claudia stood next to him, her blond hair bound back in a braid, her green eyes tired and bloodshot. She wore chain mail and a leather jerkin over her travel-stained dress, mostly at her husband’s insistence. Kylon wished she could have been elsewhere. On the day that Cassander had tried to destroy Istarinmul, Claudia had given birth to her first child. She ought to have been resting peacefully, but Callatas’s seizure of the relics had forced her and Martin and the Imperial embassy to flee the city for Tanzir’s army. 

Perhaps it was just as well. Her warding and banishment spells had saved Kylon’s life outside of the Lord Ambassador’s mansion, and far worse things that could have befallen her and her family if they had remained in the city.

Many of the commanders greeted Nasser as he approached, which amused Kylon. Several had been Nasser’s partners on various theft-related enterprises over the years, and quite a few of his former associates had turned up with positions of authority in the rebel army. Kylon wondered just how far in advance the former Prince of Iramis had planned this rebellion with Sulaman, and how much had been improvised.