The Straits of Galahesh: Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya (97 page)

It sounded like a warning. A call that the enemy had been found.

Styophan slung his musket off his shoulder and sighted along the barrel. As the pan flashed, Nikandr looked away so he wouldn’t be blinded. When he looked back, slinging his own musket into position, he saw that the nearest of the two had been felled, but it was already up again, and now it was charging toward him, calling in a high-pitched squeal as it came.

Nikandr had been in many battles, but something about the darkness and the sound of the creature staggering toward him made him shake, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“To me!” Nikandr called.

With the two akhoz coming closer and closer, the men of the Grand Duchy rushed forward.

Nikandr sighted carefully down the length of his musket and pulled the trigger. The musket bucked, and he saw the akhoz go down again.

It rose one last time before three more musket shots felled it.

Some of the Maharraht came forward, including Soroush, but Nikandr waved them away. “Keep loading! We need more powder!”

As more musket shots tore into the other akhoz, calls were taken up by their brothers and sisters, some from afar, but many nearer.

“Go!” Nikandr said.

Soroush did, and the Maharraht moved as quickly as they could with their heavy loads.

More akhoz reached the base of the hill, a dozen at the least.

“Another five minutes,” Nikandr shouted. “That’s all we need! Hold fire! Be ready, and give them two shots each!”

No sooner had he said this than musket shot zipped over his head.

“Down!” Nikandr called as he dropped to the snow-covered ground.

The first shot was followed by another, and another. The strelet next to him took a meaty shot in the center of his chest before he could lie down. He grunted, long and hard, and fell to the ground.

The rest dropped as more musket shots punched into the earth around them.

The akhoz were nearing their line now.

One of the Maharraht behind Nikandr cried out. He dropped the barrel he was carrying and fell heavily to the ground.

“Fire!”

Their muskets rang out, not in quick succession, but staggered so that they could see if an akhoz was down or not. Soon, though, the akhoz were coming too close, and the shots were released in a frenzy.

Nikandr fired. The akhoz he’d sighted fell, but there were two more behind it. He came to a kneel and reloaded—powder, shot, and ramrod—and fired one more time before the first of the akhoz reached the far right of their line.

It crouched and belched flame from its mouth even as it was struck by four musket shots that had been fired in desperation. The akhoz collapsed, but more took its place, breathing gouts of flame. One of his streltsi was caught in the blasts, and then another, both of them screaming as the flames licked their woolen cherkesskas and black kolpak hats.

One dropped to the snow, trying to douse the flames, but the other threw aside his musket and took up his berdische axe. He swung it high over his head, his death cries rising high into the nighttime sky as he brought the axe down on the nearest of the akhoz even as the creature blasted him with another column of bright, searing fire. The akhoz was split from neck to navel. The strelet, amazingly still aware and able to fight, tried to pull the axe free, but then another akhoz leapt on him from the side and bit deeply into his neck.

“Close!” Nikandr called. “Close!”

And then the akhoz were among them.

Nikandr drew his sword and cut one from behind that had just begun to gout flame. It cried out and arched backward. Fire licked Nikandr’s sleeve, but he stepped away and batted it out.

The Maharraht were still pulling barrels toward the skiffs, but a dozen had now joined the fray. Several were dropped before they could reach the fight, however—victims of musket fire coming in from the base of the hill.

“Pull back!” Nikandr shouted in Anuskayan. “Pull back!” he shouted again in Mahndi.

They retreated, though many fell before they’d made it halfway to the skiffs.

A shout drew Nikandr’s attention. He looked beyond the chaos before him and by the light of the akhoz’s flames saw a low form—naked and childlike—gallop like a mongrel dog into the building.

“Run!” Nikandr bellowed. “Run!”

He turned and sprinted for the skiffs. Sensing the danger, his men followed, as did most of the Maharraht. They’d gone only ten strides before an explosion ripped through the night. It tossed him like a rag doll onto the snow.

Groaning with the pain running through his chest, he turned and saw stones flying outward from the rear of the building as a fireball, black and roiling, curled up into the air.

He scrabbled backward as stone blocks and burning wreckage plowed into the ground around him. Some sizzled against the snow. A piece of stone the size of a mastiff fell on top of Jonis, the young boatswain, killing him instantly.

More musket shots rained in as the few soldiers who’d made it to their feet descended on the remaining akhoz. Their mewling cries rose above the sounds of the fire. The acrid smell of their breath mixed with the bitter smell of burnt gunpowder.

“Hurry, My Lord!”

Nikandr turned. It was Styophan, and he was pointing toward the skiffs.

“You’re coming with me.”

“
Nyet
, My Lord. You’re needed on the skiffs”—he pointed to the Hratha coming slowly up the hill—“and I’m needed here.”

Nikandr looked to the Hratha. They were many, and if they weren’t slowed, they would overrun the skiffs before they had a chance to leave.

“Retreat when you can,” Nikandr said. “Lose yourself in the forest, and then meet us at the Spar.”

“
Da
,” Styophan said as he reloaded his musket, “now go!”

He turned and ran forward, pausing once to fire toward the line of dark-robed men that were now halfway up the hill.

Nikandr moved to the skiffs where Anahid waited. She began calling upon her dhoshahezhan immediately.

Two more skiffs were loaded, each holding fewer men than before. Part of this was out of necessity—each barrel weighed nearly a stone—but part was the sheer number of men that had died in the furious battle.

Nikandr helped Soroush up and into his skiff, and they were off. Musket shots tore into the hull, and Nikandr was worried that one would ignite the gunpowder. He heard two shots puncture the hull and the barrels, and then a third, but the ancients were watching over him, and nothing happened.

Soon they were high enough and far enough that the Hratha gave up firing upon them.

By the moon’s pale light, he could see the battle raging, but his men, along with the Maharraht, were already beginning to retreat.

Nikandr put his fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly three times, and soon after, the men turned and ran toward the tree line. He tried to find Styophan but could not. They were too far away, the night too dark.

But then Nikandr recognized something, or some
one
, through his soulstone. He pulled it from his shirt and held it tightly in his hand.

It was Atiana.

And she was near.

She was out there in the night, with the akhoz and the Hratha. But there was something terribly, terribly wrong. He knew this, for he
knew
Atiana, and this was not she.

“What is it?” Soroush asked.

Nikandr did not want to admit it to Soroush, but he saw no reason to withhold it. He pointed toward the base of the hill, at the black shapes of the nearest buildings. “Atiana is out there.”

The firefight continued in the distance, but it was softer now, like a memory beginning to fade. Soroush looked to the city of Vihrosh, to the Spar beyond. And then he turned to Nikandr. “Had I not been so blinded with rage, I might have listened to my heart, and Rehada might have been saved.”

Nikandr looked to the Spar himself, the shadows of its arches barely visible against the dark gray of the white cliffs. By the ancients who guide, what should he do? But when he gripped his soulstone and felt Atiana, felt the taint upon her, he knew what he must do.

He nodded to Soroush.

Soroush took up a coiled rope and tossed it over the side. “Anahid, lower the skiff.”

After only a brief pause, Anahid did.

Nikandr felt like he was abandoning them, but he could no more deny this need than he could the need to breathe.

“I’ll find you at the Spar.”

Soroush nodded.

And Nikandr slipped over the side.

N
ikandr padded along snowy ground with the twenty or so men who remained of the battle trailing behind. Styophan moved alongside him with an awkward gait that spoke of the pain he was experiencing. He was wounded. His shoulder had been bound hastily, but he had strength in him yet to fire a musket, and that was all Nikandr could hope for at a time like this.

They had headed deeper into the forest to the north of the city and circled back in the hopes that Atiana would be held at the rear of the train marching steadily toward the Spar.

Among the chill and distant calls of the akhoz, Nikandr’s anxiety had grown worse. Normally when he felt Atiana—or anyone else with whom he’d touched stones—he could sense, however faintly, their mood. Whether they were happy or sad or angry, it shone through their shared connection like a scent upon the wind. But in Atiana he could feel nothing—only her presence—and it terrified him. It was as if she were dead, lying in a room so that he could see her, feel her, but could not communicate with her.

As they left the forest and entered the fields surrounding Vihrosh, he could tell that she was close. She might be near the center of the city now, and he was sure that if
she
were there, then so would be Muqallad and Sariya. They pushed, marching at the quick, and came to the edge of the city as the sound of battle on the far side of the straits rose to new heights.

As they entered a square with decorative trees, a bird winged down and landed on the cobbled street. It was the gallows crow. “She has been taken,” it said. “You must hurry. You must save her.”

The way the bird spoke those words, it reminded Nikandr of someone, but the thought seemed preposterous. “Ishkyna?”

The crow cawed over and over, a low, sad sound. “Speak not her name!”

Nikandr didn’t understand, but he knew better than to question her. “How?” he asked. “How can I save her?”

“I failed her. Sariya’s hold on her was stronger than I had guessed—much stronger—and now the Atalayina has her in its grasp. She is lost in its depths.” The crow stumbled and fell to the ground, its wings trying ineffectually to help it remain standing. He could see something clutched in one of its talons, which it dropped onto the cobbles. The thing clinked and made a
shink
sound as the crow hopped away. “Take it to her, Nischka. I hope it will return her to herself.”

With that the crow shivered along its whole length. It regained its feet and flew off in a rush, as if it had just then awoken to find itself among men in a place it had never been.

Nikandr reached down and found a necklace, a soulstone necklace, and he knew just by touching it that it was Atiana’s. How the crow had come by it, and how Atiana had lost it, he didn’t know, but he was glad to have it. It gave him hope.

“Hers?” Styophan asked.

“
Da
.”

“What do we do now?”

Nikandr pulled Atiana’s soulstone necklace over his head. It felt good to have it resting next to his own. “What is there to do but go on?”

They resumed the chase, faster than before. Light began to fill the eastern sky. Gone were all but the brightest stars on the horizon, the weakest replaced by a swath of indigo that foreshadowed the dawn. They knew when they were coming close from the calls of the akhoz. Few had appeared at the battle at the munitions building, which made sense, for if the ritual was anything like the one on Rafsuhan, most would have been sacrificed to make the Atalayina whole.

They came to a place where six roads met at a large circle with a lawn at its center with a lone, towering larch. This was the heart of Vihrosh. The ponderous stone buildings were old remnants of the power that Vihrosh had once held as the seat of Yrstanla’s power here on Galahesh. On the far side of the larch, running down the opposite street toward the circle, was the silhouette of a woman.