Red Tide (64 page)

“… of the stone-skins, O Great One.”

“But then there have been sightings…”

“… of the executioner, too, along with everyone…”

“… from the Faerie Queen of Imbar to…”

“… the Demon Lord of the Ninth Hell.”

Senar considered. “Any chance this talk of Augerans is just a ruse? Any chance someone could have heard about what happened on the
Eternal
and used the stone-skins as a front to settle scores?”

Twist barked a laugh. “You reckon folks round here need a front for that sort of thing? Besides, the timing's wrong. News from the
Eternal
didn't break till after this went down.”

The Guardian nodded absently, his thoughts troubled. There was something wrong about this. Assuming the Augerans who'd hit the cantina had come from the
Eternal,
why pick a fight with the locals and advertise their presence? Why come to this nowhere part of the city at all? He looked round again, wondering what he wasn't seeing. Along the street he'd taken to get here, dust hung in the air as if a team of horses had just passed this way. Beyond, the buildings of the Upper City were a distant smudge of white, and if he craned his neck he could make out the battlements of the Key Tower to the southeast. Closer, nothing rose higher from the ground than the single-story mud-brick shanties all about.

“Why here?” he mused aloud, then looked at Twist. “Why would the stone-skins come
here
?”

“Been askin' myself the same question. Ain't nothin' round here but flies and dust.”

“What about the Erin Elalese Mazana's had you watching? Are they close by?”

“Close enough. Don't see how the stone-skins coulda known that, though. And even if they did, don't see what they gain by marchin' into that cantina and redecoratin' the walls.”

Tali said, “Maybe they
wanted
us…”

“… to know they were here.”

Twist nodded his agreement. “Explains the fireworks. City like this, you get a lot of background noise. Stone-skins had to make sure they shouted loud enough to get our attention.”

Senar's skin prickled. And why would the Augerans want them looking in this part of the city unless they didn't want them looking somewhere else?
Like a trickster showing the lure with one hand as he lightens your purse with the other.

“Call off your search,” he said to Twist. “Pull your men back to the Upper City.”

The mercenary's lips quirked. “Them's the chica's orders, are they?”

“Let's pretend they are. Whatever the stone-skins are planning to do next, it won't happen here. We need eyes on the Alcazar and the seawall. And we can't watch them from here.”

Twist nodded, but did not move. He murmured something to Jodren's coral bird, then twitched his shoulder and watched the animal take to the air. It disappeared behind the rooftops. The mercenary's gaze shifted back to the man with the scarred shoulder.

“Was there something else?” Senar asked.

“That depends. Our friend there”—he gestured to the Gilgamarian—“was at the cantina when I showed up earlier. Red to the elbows, like he'd been wieldin' a blade himself. Got me wonderin' where that meat he's been hawkin' comes from.”

Senar looked at him. “You thinking about breakfast again?”

“Maybe I am. You join me?”

The Guardian raised an eyebrow, searching the mercenary's expression. The man was probably joking, he decided. Almost certainly.

But he couldn't have sworn to it.

*   *   *

Ebon stared along the waterfront toward the metal-clad ship. On the quay, two carts were being piled with corpses taken from the vessel. A crowd of amputees was clustered around it like someone was handing out new limbs. A cordon of Gilgamarian soldiers tried to keep order. As Ebon watched, one of the warriors slammed the flat of his sword into the face of a man missing both ears. Then he picked him up and tipped him into a cart. That didn't seem to calm the other vultures, but why would it? Now there was just one more body for them to squabble over.

Ebon rubbed a hand across his chin. He'd healed his jaw and stomach since Ocarn's beating, but they still ached. Gods, how he hated this city. It was destined to be his home a while longer, though—at least until he tracked down Tia. He'd tried asking the locals for information on her whereabouts, but he'd been met with hostile looks. She'd seek him out herself eventually; Lamella and Rendale were too valuable an asset for her to squander. First, though, she'd probably want to let Ebon stew awhile so his desperation grew—and with it the bounty she could ask for her prisoners.

Thereby giving Ocarn a chance to make contact with her first.

If Lamella and Rendale died, Ebon would have no one to blame but himself. Since arriving in Gilgamar, he'd taken one half measure after another: the sailor he'd released when he could have silenced him; his decision to let Ocarn live. No doubt some would say that he'd done the right thing, sparing the Mercerien's life. But right for whom? For Ebon's kinsmen in Galitia, certainly. Maybe even for Ebon himself. What about Lamella and Rendale, though? He recalled the moment Majack's walls had been breached by Mayot's undead army. Faced with the choice of rescuing Lamella or going after the Fangalar sorceress, he hadn't hesitated. Why was it that when the hard decisions came, it was always Lamella who lost out? Why did he always sacrifice her in favor of the kinsmen who feared and distrusted him?

Vale had been talking to four men in gray cloaks near the carts. Now he walked over to speak to Ebon.

“What news?” Ebon asked him.

“Those men are mercenaries,” Vale said. “Revenants, they call themselves. For some reason they think I should've heard of them. Seems they're working for the emira—that's who we saw arrive yesterday before we questioned the Mercerien sailor.”

Ebon stared at him. “Imerle Polivar is here?”

“Imerle is dead. She died on Dragon Day, along with most of the other Storm Lords. Mazana Creed's in charge now.”

The prince held Vale's gaze. Ordinarily he couldn't have cared less about Sabian politics, but could he afford
not
to take an interest when the new emira visited Gilgamar just as Mottle warned of an attack?

Vale must have been thinking the same, for he nodded and said, “I thought I should ask a few questions about what happened on that metal ship. Came in before dawn, apparently. The crew's all been slaughtered. Whoever did the killing was on the ship with them, but they've since vanished. Revenants wouldn't say anything about that, so I spoke to a couple of the locals. Seems the Gray Cloaks have been wearing out their boots tramping back and forth, looking for someone who saw the killers leave the ship. Killers with skin that looks like stone.”

A whisper of cold passed through Ebon. He'd seen someone with skin like granite near the Mercerien embassy. “And
did
anyone see anything?”

“No.”

Of course they didn't. No one ever did, remember.

Before Ebon could say more, four Gray Cloaks pounded past him along the waterfront. A painted lady slow to get out of their way was caught by a shoulder and sent toppling into the harbor. From the western end of the port—the direction the Revenants headed in—came shouts of warning. When Ebon tried to see the cause, though, he found his view blocked by the hull of an Androsian galleon.

The Gilgamarian soldiers protecting the carts abandoned their positions and sprinted toward the Harbor Gate. People started running every way, some toward the gate with the soldiers, some along the quays as if they were late to board a ship just departing. Another group of Gray Cloaks hustled past Ebon, and he exchanged a look with Vale before jogging after them. Ahead the waterfront curved south and west until it met the harbor wall at a tower—the Key Tower, he'd heard it called. Over the bow of a fishing scow he saw red-cloaked figures carrying spears and shields pouring onto the wharfs from a ship in the tower's shadow. He couldn't make out their faces from this distance, but he didn't need to see them to know their complexions would be stony.

The approach to the Key Tower was guarded by a ramp and a gatehouse with a raised portcullis. The Gilgamarian soldiers stationed there had evidently been caught out by the speed of the enemy offensive, because the lead red-cloaked figures were already swarming beneath the portcullis and into the stronghold beyond. Not a single sword had been raised against them, though there were archers on the tower's battlements shooting down at the foe. Ebon saw a man lean out so far his helmet slipped from his head. A red-cloaked warrior took a bolt through the leg and went down. None of his companions stopped to help him. From within the tower came echoing screams, a clash of metal on metal. Then a bare-chested Gilgamarian soldier emerged from an archway onto the harbor wall. A spear thrown from inside took him in the back, and he pitched forward.

Red-cloaked warriors appeared in the archway. They hurdled the prone figure and dashed along the wall, sunlight glinting off their spear tips. Ebon looked from them to the Gilgamarian soldiers remaining unmolested on the battlements of the Key Tower they had left behind.

“They're not attacking up the tower,” he said to Vale as he ran across the drawbridge linking the two halves of the harbor.

“Not enough men, not enough time,” the Endorian said. “They'll want to take as much of the wall as they can while the surprise is with them.”

Ebon nodded. They were going for the chains.

Before they could reach the monstrous Chain Tower, though, they would first have to negotiate the smaller Buck Tower halfway along the wall. It was toward this tower that the stone-skin frontrunners now raced unopposed. The doorway offering access to the fort was unbarred, but as the enemy drew near, a portcullis began to inch down over the opening. Why so slow? The first stone-skin fell to a crossbow bolt shot from the tower's battlements, and the warrior after him too. But the next attacker reached the gate when it was only half down, and slid into the gloom beyond. A second red-cloaked man followed him under, then a third. As a fourth tried to duck through, though, the portcullis dropped onto him. Its spikes crushed him, screaming, into the ground.

Ebon drew up. Farther along the waterfront the flow of stone-skins coming ashore from their ship had dried up. The last handful now toiled up the ramp, and snapping at their heels were the eight Revenants who had preceded Ebon along the harbor. A look back revealed more Gray Cloaks coming up behind the prince, but their progress had been halted at the drawbridge Ebon had just crossed. That bridge was being raised by a group of Gilgamarian soldiers, no doubt anxious to isolate the Upper City—and therefore themselves—from the fighting. A sharp exchange of views ended with the severed head of a Gilgamarian guard on the ground. Harsh, perhaps, but with the city's fate in the balance, this was no time for careful diplomacy. The dead soldier's colleagues saw the error of their ways and lowered the bridge again. The Gray Cloaks ran over.

Ebon swung his gaze back to the second tower. With the portcullis down, the red-cloaked attackers were bunching up on the wall, and the ones with crossbows among them started up a withering fire to pin down the Gilgamarian soldiers on the battlements. Just three stone-skins had made it inside. And how many Gilgamarians to face them? Surely more than enough, Ebon told himself, but then a burst of fire-magic lit up the windows. Was one of those three stone-skins a sorcerer? Screams sounded inside.

“How many stone-skins do you count?” Ebon asked Vale.

“A hundred, maybe.” The Endorian looked at the Chain Tower. “Not enough to take that fortress.”

“Are you sure about that? And even if you're right, what about the fleet that's no doubt waiting outside?” Ebon couldn't see anything of that fleet along the Neck, but it had to be there, didn't it? Else why were the stone-skins intent on lowering the chains? “Those ships can provide covering fire for the men on the wall, maybe even cross more fighters over to join the attack.”

Vale looked back along the waterfront. More Revenants rushed across the drawbridge spanning the canal, but there were only a dozen of them, and the Gilgamarian soldiers showed no signs of wanting to follow.

“Where the hell are the rest of the Gilgamarians?” Vale said. “This can't be all the men they've got.”

“Tucked up in the Upper City, most likely, happy to let someone else do the fighting.” The Harbor Gate had been closed, and the battlements above it were thronged with soldiers watching the struggle on the wall. “By the time they pluck up the courage to come out, this could be over. If the stone-skins take the second tower, they'll be able to hold it with a handful of men while the rest attack the Chain Tower. You've seen the Gilgamarians in action. How long do you think the ones in the Chain Tower will survive?”

At the first tower, the portcullis had been lowered to maroon a dozen red-cloaked warriors on the wrong side. A volley of crossbow bolts shot by Revenants landed like a clattering hail on their shields. Meanwhile, at the second tower, the portcullis barring entry to the stone-skins on the wall was rising. The corpse of the impaled man rose with it until two of his kinsmen tugged him free of its spikes. Smoke trickled from the fort's windows.

Ebon swung his gaze back to Vale.

The Endorian grimaced, knowing what was in the prince's mind. “This ain't our fight,” he said.

“You think I don't know that?” Ebon snapped. “You think I want to be here?” Just the sound of combat so soon after Estapharriol had chilled the sweat on the prince's skin. “I don't care what happens to Gilgamar, or the League. But if Gilgamar is lost, then so are Lamella and Rendale. And until Tia contacts us, we have no way of tracking them down. If the stone-skins take the city, do you think finding them will get any easier? Do you think Tia is going to worry about keeping them safe if she's busy dodging stone-skins?”