Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (44 page)

"Did you kill those people?" she shouted at the half-hidden white knight. "They didn't even go to Queen Maeve! They didn't do
anything
!"

"The White Queen has what she needs," came the smooth, lyrical answer, "and flies now on black wings to the Tower. Her business here is done."

"What?" Panna gasped. "The… the Nnyth Tower?"

The glittering arm was swinging the glass knife down at her. Balled sprang to his feet to meet the blow. His own spear leaned in the corner, but it may as well have been light years away. By the time he reached it, Panna would be dead. Ballad grabbed the other knight's wrist in one hand and jabbed with his other fist. The boxer's bracelets – when had he put those on? – rang on the glass armor but it took far more than a punch to shatter Arcadian glass.

Panna rolled out of the way, doing her best to avoid the glass littering the motel room's cheap carpet. Ballad grunted and swore as he wrestled with their attacker. Panna saw him do something complicated with the other Arcadian's wrist. The knife was almost out of the knight's hand when it… changed. The slick gray metal elongated, tripling and then quadrupling its length. It moved with the fluid ripple of nanite reconstruction, but faster than any nanomechanical technology Panna had ever seen in the Alliance. The white knight swung his spear, forcing Ballad to release his hold and leap back.

Panna heaved herself to her feet. She fought terror and Hadra's gravity in equal measure for each step to the corner where Ballad's spear leaned against the wall. She grabbed the weapon and shouted. "Ballad!"

The Prian fairy turned toward her as Panna threw the spear, but she had miscalculated the gravity again and it fell short. She also miscalculated that Xartasia's killer heard her shout as well as Ballad did. His spear flicked out and slashed down Ballad's arm as he reached out. The long gray haft swept around in a tight half circle and knocked his feet out from under him. The other knight reversed his grip on his spear and pointed the blood-smeared blade down at Ballad.

Panna screamed and yanked the lamp from the motel dresser. She flung it as hard as she could at Xartasia's killer. It shattered against his armor and sprayed the floor in more broken fragments. The knight glanced up at Panna for only a moment, but it was pause enough for Ballad to wrap his fingers around one of the lamp shards and stab it into the gap between his attacker's boots and greaves. The broken ceramic slashed through white scarves and freed a spray of bright blood.

Xartasia's knight hissed in pain and kicked out, but Ballad wrapped himself around the other man's ankles and spilled him to the floor with a swift jerk. Without his armor to weigh him down in Hadra's gravity, Ballad was the first back on his feet. He grabbed the white knight's long hair and rammed his knee into the other man's face. Blood ran from his nose. Ballad tried again, but the other Arcadian brought his arms up. The kick rang off glass.

The knight grabbed his spear from the floor and surged to his feet. He slashed another bloody line through Ballad's shirt and into his chest. The Prian leapt back as the blade lashed out again. Panna threw herself to the floor. Where was Ballad's spear? There, under her bed. She squirmed her way across the floor, feeling glass and broken pottery slice through her shirt.

Ballad threw himself to the side as the knight jabbed at him. The glass spear sliced into the wall just beside the broken window, yellow mycofoam insulation blooming around the blade. Ballad lunged into the knight, throwing a flurry of punches that rang harmlessly off the plates of glass armor but which forced him back, to release his grip on the gray spear.

"You fight like a dryad," spat the strange Arcadian. "You are no match for a knight of Arcadia."

"I'm more a knight than you are, hawk," Ballad said with a roguish grin only somewhat marred by the blood staining his teeth.

He threw himself at the other knight, kicking and punching. Panna could see nothing through the storm of red-spotted white wings. Her sweaty fingers slid off the haft of Ballad's spear. Panna bit her lips and grabbed it again, yanking it out from under the bed. She jumped to her feet, spear in hand, just as the white knight threw himself back toward the window and the wall where his own weapon was still impaled. Ballad grabbed for the other man, his bloody fingers leaving streaks like red paint across the glass armor. The knight ignored Ballad and grabbed his spear, yanking the gray haft to free.

"Ballad!" Panna threw the spear once more. This time, she did not miss.

The Prian knight seized the weapon out of the air. His opponent was still wrestling with his own spear. Ballad slashed at the white knight's wing, spattering the feathers in gore. Xartasia's man sang out as he finally wrenched his spear free and brought it around on Ballad. But the other man was too close and he could not retract his spear quickly enough. Ballad slammed a kick into his chest and the knight toppled backward out the broken window. The knight fought to spread his wings, but the injured one would not hold his weight. It snapped and folded, tumbling the white knight down into the street. It was not a long fall, but in the high Hadra gravity, it was far enough.

"Are you all right?" Ballad asked Panna.

"Am
I
okay? You idiot." Panna wrenched her eyes from the dead knight below. She wished they had been able to question him. She looked up at Ballad. He was bleeding from a dozen messy wounds. "We need to get out of here."

"Yeah, the police would never let us out of this one," agreed Ballad. "And we need to tell Queen Maeve what he said about the Tower."

That was not what Panna meant at all. "We will," she said. "I hope you liked Doctor Xel. We're going to see her right now."

"A new name can't change a man's stripes."

– Mirran saying

The riots could not gain much momentum, at first. It was hard to kindle anger with Queen Maeve in the very place she gave away food. For those first hours, there were only a few injuries.

Until the prince consort arrived. When Anthem heard Logan's news, he took wing with all nearby knights and made his way swiftly to the scene. But he was even less welcome there than Logan had been. Anthem retreated, chased by screams of
whore
and
traitor
.

With Logan's help – riots were commonplace on Prianus and he had some experience with them – Anthem directed his forces from a distance. Within the hour, they had dispersed the crowd and sent everyone home. Logan did not like working alongside Anthem, but if he could give Maeve up in the name of Kaellisem, Logan would force himself to be professional with his replacement.

The sullen peace did not last long. Word of Maeve's role in the White Kingdom's fall spread quickly. The next morning, there were three fights in the food lines between Maeve's supporters and those screaming for her blood. Knights stepped in each time, but by noon, there were shouting matches and worse breaking out all across Kaellisem. The skies were full of angry, righteous and frightened fairies.

"This is worse than the theater bombing!" Duaal shouted, not ceasing his pacing across the Blue Phoenix mess. They had relocated the queen and her tiny court to the ship for her safety. At the last report Logan had heard, there were over a thousand Arcadians in the street and sky surrounding her red and gold tower.

"Arcadian lives were lost during the enassui," Anthem pointed out stiffly. "There have been injuries today, but none have died."

"So far," said Duaal. "But that will change. There's a mob of more than a thousand fairies out there, all screaming for blood."

"Duaal!" Xia gasped. She gestured subtly to Maeve, who sat at the table with her face in her hands.

"It is not as if I do not know," the queen mumbled through her fingers. She was not wearing the glass circlet that Duaal had designed for her. Several strands of white stood out in Maeve's midnight hair that had not been there a month ago.

"And for what we're trying to do, for keeping the Arcadians away from Xartasia, this is so much worse!" Duaal finished. "How can we keep Kaellisem together now? How the hells did they find out about Tamlin?"

"We're the only ones who know, right?" Gripper said. "I mean originally."

"Panna does, as well," said Duke Ferris. The old fairy nobleman glared suspiciously around at the coreworlders.

"Sprite's on Hadra!" Gripper objected. "She couldn't have done this!"

"Perhaps she told someone before she left," Ferris suggested. "Who then told another…?"

"That could be true of anyone in this room," said Logan.

"Did any of you speak of this?" Anthem asked.

Duaal shook his head. So did Xia. Gripper did so more slowly. "Just to Glass," he said. "And she sort of um… knows."

Logan looked at the two Arcadian men. "What about you?"

Duke Ferris' lined face was a mask of indignation. "I would never! It was
I
who advised Queen Maeve to keep the secret of the Tamlin Waygate! If I wished it known, all I had to do was remain silent."

That made sense, but Logan wasn't quite done. "Building Kaellisem on Stray meant leaving your injured daughter on Sunjarrah. That would be difficult for any father."

Ferris' cheeks turned a dark red. "How dare you?
Ella esu cerri vae!"

I am loyal to the queen,
Logan translated the angry Arcadian shout. He was inclined to believe the old nobleman. Ferris was stubbornly honorable and Logan doubted that he would risk putting Maeve or Kaellisem in danger.

Anthem had been quiet. Logan studied him. There was a purple bruise on his temple where one of the rioting fairies had thrown a rock at the prince consort. He still wore his glass armor and carried his spear. Anthem
was
Xartasia's lover… or had been a century before. What if his heart and loyalty still belonged to her?

"No," Anthem said at last. "I do not think I have spoken to anyone on the matter. I have not thought much about it, in truth."

Maeve finally raised her face from the table. Her eyes were rimmed in red. "Not thought much about it?" she said in a loud, raw voice. "I killed our people, Anthem! And you just forget…?"

"I did not say that."

Maeve was on her feet, wings and arms wrapped around herself. "Who first told Kaellisem about Tamlin is not to blame in this," she cried. "It is I. The deed is my own and even now, I am not done destroying Arcadia! Is it not enough that entire worlds are left shattered? Now the knowledge will break apart Kaellisem, too. And without Kaellisem, Xartasia wins."

"We've got to get the information under control," said Xia. "Gossip has vectors, just like any other pathogen. We can project–"

"Too many people already know," Duaal interrupted. "We could contain the borders of Kaellisem, couldn't we? No one here has weapons except the knights. We could keep the Arcadians from leaving."

"Absolutely not!" shouted Duke Ferris. "We are not turning the knights on their own people!"

"It would not work, anyway," Anthem added. "We lack the numbers to enforce such a border, even if we left the queen entirely unprotected–"

"Which we are
not
doing," said Logan. Anthem nodded in agreement.

"Can't we just tell everyone that it's not true?" Gripper asked plaintively.

"No. No more lies. I will not–" Maeve began in a hard voice. One of her young handmaidens, Dain, came into the mess and whispered to the queen. Maeve frowned. "Now? Dain, the people of Kaellisem are rioting."

"I told her that you were busy," Dain said shyly. "But Panna swears that her news is important."

With a sigh, Maeve rose, took the com that Dain held out and stepped out into the corridor. Logan caught just a glimpse of the queen's furrowed brow before she turned away and her wings hid her face from view. Anthem came to stand beside Logan.

"Do you think that you can find the one who betrayed Maeve's secret?" the prince consort asked.

Logan found himself glaring at the too-handsome fairy knight and reminding himself to be professional. "The queen said that's not important."

"It may be the same man or woman who created the bombs. Someone is trying to destroy Maeve and her kingdom. With this, they might have finally succeeded."

A sudden and startling fury blazed inside Logan. He grabbed the front of Anthem's armor. Glass screeched against glass until Logan's fingers caught the edge of Anthem's breastplate and he yanked the smaller man up to eye level. Duke Ferris yelped indignantly and demanded that Logan put the prince consort down this minute. Gripper's hands flew to his mouth.

"No one will destroy Maeve," Logan snarled. "No one! And if you
ever
say something like that to her, I'll break your wings. You're her prince, Anthem. Act like it!"

"Logan!" shouted Duaal. "For the love of God, let him go!"

"Why?" Logan asked, not looking at the Hyzaari captain. His eyes remained fixed on Anthem's deep blue-black ones. The knight stared back, unflinching. For all his tiny size and fragile anatomy, Anthem had guts. The servos inside Logan's glass hand strained visibly as his grip tightened.

"I don't like it, either," Duaal said. "But Anthem's right. That knight on Sunjarrah and his pet Devourer, the police interference there and here on Stray, the bombs… Somehow this has managed to be so much worse. I didn't think there was anything in the worlds that could get the Arcadians to stand up and fight. Now we have it and… and it's horrible. They're fighting each other. They're fighting us. Anthem just said what we're all thinking."