The Sable City (The Norothian Cycle) (43 page)

Amatesu ran for an alley on the right side of the inn and as his head was still clearer than it had been in a good long time, Zeb hesitated before following her. Killing priests could not possibly be good luck, and none of this had anything to do with him. He should be in the lines at Larbonne with his mates, or better-yet home in Wakminau sniffing around a barroom for a mate of a different sort. There was a place high on the bluffs with a glorious cherry wine, half bitter and half sweet, that would have tasted like the most wonderful thing in the world right now. And really, he did not owe any of the people here a thing. He had been kidnapped and enchanted and Nesha-tari had just cut his nose open, and it stung like hell.

In short, a man of the Riven Kingdoms had to know when to run if he was to live for long.

Amatesu disappeared into the dark alley. Zeb knew the shukenja was formidable but she looked very small and alone in that moment.

Zeb spit out blood that was trickling into his mouth and cursed himself. He hoisted his crossbow and ran into the alley.

It was pitch black and he could not see Amatesu. What he did see was light from an enclosed yard behind the inn, and as he stumbled toward it over mounded refuse and through foul puddles he heard the unmistakable clash of arms.

Zeb leaned around the corner to look into the yard and tried to make sense of what he saw. There was a tall old man laying about with a long sword while two Codian legionnaires crouched behind their tower shields trying to maneuver behind him, both darting forward in turn to poke at him with their short
gladius
swords. As they shuffled, swung, and parried, a third legionnaire tumbled out of the inn’s backdoor followed closely by a blonde fellow with mace and shield, fighting him.

Before Zeb could determine if this was something he was supposed to be concerned with, or which side of the fight he might be on, a man cursed from the darkness away from the door. Zeb turned and saw another man in a Legion breastplate struggling with a little slip of a girl. The bearded fellow reared back an arm and just smashed her across the face, leveling her to the ground and making Zeb’s mind up for him.

“
Drop your weapons!” Zeb bawled in Codian, stepping into the yard and raising his crossbow to look down the bolt right at the bearded man’s forehead. The girl was a motionless heap at his feet.

No one dropped anything but the bearded man in the helmet of a Legion Sergeant at least made no move toward the sword on his hip.

“
Who the hells are you?” he demanded, his green eyes boring into Zeb‘s.

Before Zeb could come up with a witty answer the doors of a low building backing the yard burst open and out rushed four bulky figures in heavy plate and round helmets with only eye slits, wielding enormous swords. One rushed at Zeb and he swung his bow while triggering it, but he split the difference and the bolt zipped between the sergeant and the figure clanking toward him.

Zeb dropped his crossbow and whipped his axe from his back, but the man came on too fast. Zeb never would have raised his weapon in time to ward off an overhand blow coming for his head, but Amatesu darted out of the shadows and threw herself into the charging man’s legs. Iron greaves bashed the shukenja’s shoulder and side but she twisted the man off balance, sending him stumbling toward Zeb who rolled his hips and spun on the balls of his feet while swinging his axe sideways in both hands, connecting blade to helmet with an impact that shook his arms. The man’s helmet was thick and well made and did not split, but its wearer did sprawl stunned to the ground.

The sergeant was on Zeb in an instant, stabbing for his back but just scraping his blade on ring mail as Zeb stumbled sideways from the force of his own axe blow. The sergeant tried to get inside Zeb’s reach but the Minaun spread his hands wide on the shaft of his axe while moving backwards, not able to attack but warding off two more stabs. Amatesu was on her feet behind the sergeant, but rather busy with another black-armored man and his great sword. The shukenja had slipped a weapon of some kind out of her sleeve, a block of wood as long as her forearm with one iron-shod side and an odd sort of crank handle at the end. She sidestepped sword blows and darted in to deliver strikes with the thing, but her club only rang off her opponent’s plate mail.

The green-eyed sergeant drove Zeb back and threw a swipe at his face that Zeb only avoided by leaning back so far he had to scramble away to recover. The sergeant took advantage to break away and run across the yard for the old man, whose back was to them as he fought another legionnaire. Zeb had no idea what the fellow’s name was so shouted only, “Old man! Behind you!” as a warning. Before he could move to anyone’s assistance firelight bloomed behind him and Zeb turned to find the first man he had knocked down back on his feet. Flames were dancing along the long blade of his great sword, and Zeb abruptly knew what he was fighting.

“
Oh, gods! You’re a Destroyer?” Zeb asked, for the fearsome warriors of the fiery god Ayon had a presence in Larbonne. The man’s helmet was dented and turned sideways on his face, but he tore it off to reveal that he was not a he at all.

“
And you are the destroyed,” the bald woman growled, and lunged.

Zeb knocked the first blow of the flaming sword aside with the head of his axe, but he could feel the heat of it washing over him. The swords of the other Destroyers were blooming into flames around the yard, casting hellish, struggling shadows on the walls. A legionnaire’s helmet came sailing out of the back door of the Dead Possum and struck the ground with such a heavy sound that Zeb knew there was still a head in it. Uriako Shikashe came out behind it, saw Amatesu fighting a Destroyer, and charged at the nearest man in the same black armor.

Zeb’s opponent made a thrust that came close enough to his side to leave his jerkin smoking. He could feel the warming rings of his mail like ingots through leather gloves. He swept for her legs but she hopped over the blow and then the two of them were spinning almost like a dance, neither quite able to land a blow with what were rather inelegant weapons, better suited for hacking than for parry and thrust. But sweat was running into Zeb’s eyes while the woman’s smirking face was cool and calm. She had him and she knew it, right up until blue light cracked across the yard and a bolt of lightning sent her flying into a wall.

Nesha-tari was framed in the back doorway of the inn, her hair standing out on end and her indescribable face illuminated by blue lightning humming between her raised hands. Her eyes raked the yard and she threw out another lash of crackling blue fire that spun a legionnaire to the ground and staggered a Destroyer, allowing Shikashe to lock the longer of his two swords high against the man’s flaming weapon. The samurai stabbed his shorter sword deep into the Destroyer’s chest through his armpit.

The light faded but Nesha-tari advanced into the yard like an angel of death and the remaining Destroyers and legionnaires drew back from her. Shikashe and Amatesu were on their feet but the blonde fellow was kneeling by the sprawled old man. Zeb took the moment to race to his crossbow and work the crank after spilling out bolts to the ground next to it.

“
Horayachus!” Nesha-tari roared, and for an answer a jet of flames erupted at her from the building out of which the Destroyers had come. Nesha-tari brought both hands up in front of her, palms out, and the flames scattered in the air before her as though they had hit a solid stone wall. She rocked back and staggered to the ground.

There was a man at an open window, tall and bald and armored as were the Destroyers in a black breast plate with red trim, but with bare arms tattooed wrist-to-shoulder with licking flames.

“
Who are you to come against me, Dragon Eyes?” he shouted in Zantish. Zeb had reloaded but before he raised his crossbow Nesha-tari snarled on the ground and threw more blue lightning from her hands, not a great bolt but buzzing tendrils that sizzled all along the wall and through the open window. Ayon’s priest screamed.

The two Destroyers still on their feet charged Nesha-tari. Shikashe intercepted one with a flurry of blows, Zeb shot at the other and hit him in the side. The black breastplate stopped Zeb’s bolt but not before the head had gone several inches into the Destroyer’s ribs. He turned his charge with a growl and lurched toward Zeb, who dropped the bow and readied his axe.

Nesha-tari was back on her feet but she gave a sharp hiss as the air started to leave the yard as though a wind was blowing from the ground to the sky. There was an eerie silence for what must only have been an instant, then high in the air over Nesha-tari’s head and above the roofs of the surrounding buildings, a spinning disk of flames appeared. With a whoosh the disk expanded into a ring, then a great column of fire descended to the ground as a pillar.

Nesha-tari was enveloped, screaming. The impact sent a wave of heat through the yard, hurling bodies and bursting the walls into flames.

Zeb was farthest away from it but even he was knocked off his feet and thrown back into the alley. His throat burned as he gasped for breath, drawing in air hotter than any desert. He tried to get up and a hand grabbed his ankle, hauling him back into the yard and tossing him across the blackened ground. The Destroyer with the bolt sticking out of his breastplate put a boot on Zeb’s chest and raised his flaming sword to stab down, but staggered forward as Amatesu’s thrown club clanged off his helmet. The stabbing sword just missed Zeb’s head, and as the Destroyer’s chest loomed above him he grabbed the feathered end of his bolt with both hands and twisted.

The man screamed and hammered a gauntlet against Zeb’s helmet, but the Minauan was not about to let go. The Destroyer lurched, dragging Zeb across the ground, and got both iron hands around Zeb’s neck.

Zeb tried to drive the bolt in further but his vision dimmed as he was throttled. The man choking him shuddered as though under impacts, but the Destroyer was as obstinate as the man from the Rivens. Before Zeb’s world went to black the last thing he thought he saw, and that but dimly, was the impossible sight of Nesha-tari Hrilamae tottering to her feet in the blasted yard, her body smoking all over.

*

Phinneas Phoarty heard nothing over the noise of the inn’s common room until a single boom as of thunder shuddered the inn walls. Some of the noise faded away downstairs, and after a second blast sounded close by, the inn fell silent altogether.

Phin left the bunkroom and stood on the open walkway overlooking the common area. The place was still full, but silent as everyone there was looking toward the rear wall.

Then the back of the inn exploded, flames blazing in through the windows and splintered wood spraying the crowd.

Phin was almost thrown over the railing but he caught himself and stayed on the walkway. He was shaken to the floor as the whole building trembled. The bunkrooms were on the side of the inn, but black smoke poured into the common room from the back, driving out the occupants who were yelling, crying, and many bleeding. Overhead the main ceiling beam cracked as the back wall started to sag.

Phin scrambled back into the room and grabbed his pack from under his bunk. He snatched someone’s extra dagger off a table and ran halfway back to the door before turning back to the Sarge’s bunk. He yanked off the lumpy mattress and lifted the heavy leather bag hidden under it to his shoulder, the bag in which the Sarge carried the book from which he’d had Phin read.

Halfway down the stairs Phin ran into the Sarge coming up, though the man was almost unrecognizable with his face and armor covered in black ash. Phin shook the bag at him.

“
You got it?” the Sarge said.

“
I do.”

“
Then go! Out the front!”

Three legionnaires waited anxiously in what was now an empty common room, with the front doors and windows all bashed out as the occupants had fled by every available aperture. The legionnaires all looked as bad or worse than the Sarge, with two of them glassy eyed and leaning on each other to keep their feet. The Sarge started to bark for them to go as he and Phin picked their way among fallen tables and chairs, but he was interrupted by a shout from behind.

Horayachus lurched out of the black smoke boiling from the back hall and the kitchens, carrying a limp figure in his arms.

“
I will be damned,” the Sarge muttered, hardly audible over the crackle of the fire spreading up the rear walls to the second floor.

Horayachus pitched his burden into Ty’s arms, the legionnaire dropping his tower shield to catch her. Phin saw that she was a woman when her head lolled into view, for she was very pretty despite the blood pouring from a nose that looked broken. The Zant’s teeth were clenched and his breast plate was pocked with smoking rents like the steel had melted.

“
You have the book?” he barked at the Sarge, who nodded. Horayachus reached under his armor and withdrew a carved Shugak baton with ten licenses to enter the Sable City jingling from it.

“
If it works, take this woman alive and unharmed to Ayzantu City. To the Great Temple of Ayon there.”

“
Are you out of your bald skull?” the Sarge demanded. He was seized by the collar with a burnt hand.

“
Do this, and the priests will give you all the gold you can carry,” Horayachus hissed. “Fail, and the Burning Man’s wrath will find you. All of you.”

With that, he released the Sarge’s collar and staggered back to the middle of the room to face the smoke. “Go!” he barked over his shoulder.