Three Coins for Confession (17 page)

His hand convulsed in response, the talisman falling to the
slates. Dargana nodded as she stepped to scoop it up, slipped it to her pocket.
“Something you’ve seen before,” she said. Not a question. “They’ll find you,
half-blood. You need to get to somewhere safe. But in exchange, I need your
aid. I need your prince…”

The exile’s words were cut to silence as the rooftop around them
flared to the brightness of full day. Mage light pulsed from one of the chimney
stacks, shedding deep shadow behind it and bathing the rest of the rooftop in
light. The prince’s guard had moved even faster than Chriani expected, but the
presence of war-mages was an unexpected and dangerous turn.

“Hold attack! Chriani of the prince’s guard with one tyro!” He
looked to grab Kathlan but she was already moving, seizing him by the hand and
pulling him toward the nearest chimney stack. She drew him down flat behind it
as he called out again. “Regiment of Rheran and the Bastion, on assignment from
Konaugo Post. The Ilvani are down, hold fire!”

“Half-blood!” Dargana hissed from the shadows, unseen where she’d
dropped down into the narrow well of darkness the mage-light hadn’t touched.
“To me!”

“This is the guard,” Chriani called back, as quietly as he could.
“We won’t make it…”

“Show yourself and your insignia!” The voice from below had
moved, shifting closer. Bootsteps rose over the wet wind as Chriani saw figures
clambering up to the rooftops adjacent to the inn. He twisted to see the path
to the window lit up bright and wholly impassable. Beyond that window,
everything that marked him and Kathlan as members of the guard was out of
reach.

Footsteps struck the edge of the roof as three figures in the
insignia of the Bastion garrison leaped across, following the same path the
Ilvani had taken to land before Dargana. Cursing, the exile pushed backward,
trying to stay low in the light. Chriani saw her twist, saw the war-mark at her
bare arm pulse as stark shadow against her skin.

They gave no warning. No call for surrender. From the edge of the
roof, three crossbows sang out. One bolt shattered off the chimney a hand’s
breadth from Chriani’s head, forcing him to duck down under a hail of splintering
brick, the long-knife slipping from his grasp as he held on.

The other two took Dargana in the back.

She tried to rise. Stumbled. Her boots slipped on the wet slates
and she went down, sliding to the edge of the roof, then over it. Chriani heard
her hit the stones of the street below.

She’d fallen to the narrow alley behind the inn, away from the
roof’s edge from which the balisters had shot. Chriani was moving by instinct,
seizing the too-brief moment it would take them to reload. He pulled Kathlan
with him as he pushed off down the tiles, sliding back and away from the
guards, lying flat against any follow-up attack.

He grabbed at the edge of the roof as he slipped over it, felt
his blunted nails torn as they scraped the slate. He hung on with one hand, the
other around Kathlan, but she was latched to the roof even tighter than he was,
clinging to the gutter and scanning the darkness below.

Chriani saw the questions in her eyes still, understood that she
was following him without asking them. He squeezed her hand to make the only
thanks he could, then swung out over the edge of the roof and down. The inn
wall along the alley side was all rough stone and plenty of handholds. Kathlan
was a faster climber than he was, dropping down in three smoothly swinging
motions. Chriani pushed off to catch her, close enough to the ground that he
could roll.

The alley was dark, but beneath the veil of starlight, he could
see Dargana on her side, fighting to breathe. She had fallen beside the
Valnirata that Chriani and Kathlan had killed together, blood pooling on the
rain-slicked tiles from the jagged gash at his neck. His lifeless eyes were
dark, the bright gold that had filled them gleaming now in the coins set in his
slack hands, his open mouth.

The bolts that dropped Dargana were bloody stumps in her back,
shattering where she’d rolled as she hit the ground. No sign of their heads at
the front of her armor likely meant they had hit ribs, dug into the lungs
beyond. A bad wound.

Kathlan had lost her rapier, but she drew the second dagger she’d
tucked into her belt. Chriani was weaponless, felt the urge to seize the dagger
sheathed at Dargana’s back. His hand stayed where it was, though. Afraid to
touch the grip of the bloodblade. The
narneth móir
of the Valnirata, a
weapon as ancient as it was deadly.

“Who is she?” Kathlan whispered. “Chriani, what in fate’s name is
going on?”

“She’s Ilvani of the exile lands,” he said simply. “She helped
the princess and I get free and to Aerach.” Most of the truth there. Too much
else to explain in the moment. “She’s on our side. Dargana.”

As if in response to her name, the exile’s eyes flickered open,
scanning the darkness around her as if she wasn’t sure where she was. Chriani’s
hand at her shoulder brought her arm lashing out against him, but she stopped
it short when she recognized him. The hand went instead to the bloodblade,
Dargana drawing it with a grimace of pain.

“And what side is our side, exactly?” Kathlan was circling, wary,
dagger held toward Dargana on the ground. “The Ilvani are hunting you, but she
saves you. You call the guard, and now we’re running from them.”

On the narneth móir, Chriani saw again the acid-etched glyph that
marked the name of Halobrelia. The same glyph at the center of the war-mark
that he and the dark Ilvani both shared.

A shadowed doorway stood near the dead-end wall of the alley.
Chriani ignored Kathlan’s questions as he pointed her to it. “In through there.
Kick it open if you need to. Get to the room, get your insignia. Get Milyan’s
satchel with our orders, and the glass jar from my jacket pocket.”

“The guard…”

“I’ll deal with the guard, but Dargana’s breathing blood. She’ll
die if the bolts stay in, but she’ll die faster if I draw them without healing.
Go, Kath. Trust me. Please.”

Kathlan’s eyes were cold as she turned from him and sprinted
away. He heard two kicks take her through the door, but his focus was on the
bootsteps coming from in front of him, out along the darkened street. Shouts of
challenge rose, Chriani not knowing if other Ilvani were fleeing the scene. Not
knowing if they were still coming for him.

The Valnirata warrior that had fallen still wore his bow. Chriani
pulled it from the body’s back, strung it quickly. He had nowhere to take cover
in the alley, but he could keep whoever was approaching from closing if he
needed to. He collected the arrows that had spilled from the dead warrior’s
combat quiver, spread across the rain-slick stones.

“Half-blood…” Dargana whispered through flecks of red-black at
her lips.

“Stop talking,” Chriani said.

“Your prince… Chanist…”

Dargana spat the name, an enmity in her voice that Chriani felt
reflected in his own heart. A heat twisted through him that shook off the
chill, pushing even into his numbed feet.

“What do you know of the prince?”

“I bring intelligence to him… a message you need to send.
You need to get clear from here… send word to Chanist…”

“Save your strength,” Chriani said coldly.

It wasn’t something he’d hoped to be right about, he realized.
Even having made the decision, having returned to the Bastion, his suspicion of
Chanist was nothing more than gut instinct. The quick reaction that his mother
had warned him of, tried to teach him to look past.

At the open alley mouth, a pulse of mage-light appeared, flaring
from the stones. Figures pushed in from both sides, balisters crouched low with
crossbows at the ready. A guard squad from the Bastion. A better option than
facing the Ilvani, but Chriani understood how much trouble he was still in.

“Chriani of the prince’s guard,” he called again. “Hold fire.”

“Stand clear with your hands out and show insignias.” A deep
voice rang out from behind the balisters, whatever sergeant was in charge
hanging back.

“My insignia and uniform are in the inn. My adjutant and I were
attacked inside and took the fight to the roof. There’s no threat here, stand
down…”

“Lord, I see him. I recognize him.”

It was one of the balisters who spoke. Chriani had to squint to
see her face, remembering it as he did. She was a tyro alongside him. Two years
his junior, she’d made rank as a squire two years before him.

“It’s good to see you,” he said. In the chaos of his thoughts, he
couldn’t recall her name.

“Sergeant Eliana, it looks clear,” the balister called to the
darkness behind her. Chriani heard no sense in her voice that she shared his
sentiment.

From the shadows behind the balisters, four more figures
approached. A tall sergeant in full uniform cloak led them, Chriani guessing
that he’d been on duty at the gatehouse. He recognized the longtime master of
the gate guards, would have forgotten his name as well if the balister hadn’t
said it. Another officer he’d spent much of his life annoying.

“Stand,” the sergeant called.

Slowly, carefully, Chriani stood. He spread his arms wide to show
he had no weapon, but the only thing the balisters focused on were the dead
Ilvani behind him and Dargana at his feet.

A look of grim satisfaction twisted through Eliana. “How many
with you? How many dead?”

“My adjutant in the inn, fetching insignia and credentials. One
Valnirata dead here, at least four dead on the roof. Possibly six dead on the
street nearby. One other here, under my protection. An Ilvani who fought
against the others, alive but injured.”

In response to his words, the balisters sunk down. Eliana barked
a command. “Step away!”

“She needs healing,” Chriani said, ignoring him. “There’s no
threat…”

“Take them both!”

Chriani swung his arms behind him even as the guards began to
move. The balisters had only just shifted to the side to allow Eliana and his
three swords to step forward when Chriani revealed the dead Ilvani’s bow in
hand, an arrow already nocked and drawn.

He had stood carefully so the guards wouldn’t see the bow held
behind him as he rose. Balanced against his leg, out of sight. Wouldn’t see the
arrow he’d slipped to his sleeve, unseen and ready to drop to his hand. That
hand was rock-steady now, taking dead aim at Sergeant Eliana’s heart where he
stopped short.

No one moved.

“You’ll hang for this, squire.” Eliana’s voice was ice.

“That’s
soldier
,” Chriani corrected him. “And not unless
any of your squad are stupid enough to shoot me first and send my fingers off
the string. In which case, it’ll be a hanging you won’t live to see.”

Eliana was quick to motion the balisters to lower their aim, but
they stayed in firing position, weapons locked and ready. Chriani noted a faint
disappointment in the one who’d recognized him. Brinta was her name. He
remembered it now.

“Chanist…” Dargana’s voice was a whisper from the ground, thick
with pain. “Half-blood… if I don’t make it…”

Chriani couldn’t look down, but he heard Dargana slip to
unconsciousness. Each breath she took was a wet rasp.

“This Ilvani has intelligence for the Prince High Chanist.”
Chriani said it loudly, making sure everyone in Eliana’s squad heard. “Send a
runner to the Bastion, tell them what’s happened here. Wake the prince and
inform him that we need an audience.”

Even as the words came, he wasn’t entirely sure why he said them.
An instinct, perhaps, that it was a thing that might just save him in this
moment. Taken to the prince high even in irons, he’d have a chance to talk his
way free. Challenge Chanist with what he knew, with what he suspected. His
career in the guard would be done, but he’d have his life at least. But
standing off against other guards, armed and with threats made, he knew it was
a short leap of assumption to see Dargana as Valnirata herself, and to see
Chriani as being complicit in the night’s attack. If that happened, he’d lose
his life in a heartbeat.

Eliana spat. “You don’t get to decide how this ends,
treason-bastard.”

“Send a runner to the Bastion, lord. Give the prince high the
following message, from me. This Ilvani agent was with me on the Clearwater
Way.”

The coldness of Eliana’s gaze matched Chriani’s own. He felt an
ache starting in his arm, felt the chill press in around him as he stood
motionless. The wind was low in the alley, but even still, he didn’t know how
long he could hold the shot. Didn’t want to find out.

With a nod to a guard beside him, Eliana gave the order. The
runner slipped back out of the haze of mage-light, vanishing as fast footsteps
in the shadows.

Kathlan’s footsteps followed a moment later, coming back down to
the broken door. “My adjutant approaches behind me,” Chriani said evenly,
“bearing insignia and healing. Your squad will please remain standing down,
lord.”

Eliana said nothing as Kathlan appeared at the door. She had her
dagger down low at her side, Magus Milyan’s oilcloth-wrapped satchel under her
arm. Both her and Chriani’s insignias of rank were held high in her other hand.
She approached slowly, Chriani hearing her footsteps stutter as she got close
enough to see the bow in his hand, realize what was happening.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “Open the jar. A fingerful to
her mouth, then pull both bolts as fast as you can.”

Kathlan needed no more instruction than that, dropping to
Dargana’s side. She rubbed her hands briskly, fighting the cold before she
slipped Derrach’s salve to the exile’s lips. Then she seized the remains of a
bolt in each hand, Dargana waking with a scream as Kathlan pulled them fast,
focused like she might be executing a field exercise. The healing power of the
salve closed the wounds, though it did nothing for the surge of pain as they
were remade. The Ilvani was fighting to breathe, teeth set, but the job was
done.