Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) (29 page)

A pale and pitiless moon loomed over the Holy City. While the College of Cardinals still raged in debate down in the underchambers of the papal manse, the rest of the estate slept. A few impostor-knights trudged across the frost-kissed grass, keeping a halfhearted watch.

At the gatehouse on the Via Sacra, the great boulevard that wound its way through the heart of the city, weary-eyed constables stood a lonely guard over the curtain wall gate. Half a city away and down toward the docks, the gate on the Via del Popolo was no different. The one constable still awake to keep watch barely noticed the long covered wagon rattling out of the Alms District, drawn by a pair of rheumy-eyed horses.

He did notice the pounding on the gatehouse door, though. Grumbling and pushing himself up from his stool, he trudged over and opened it. The constable didn’t have time to blink before a beefy fist slammed into his jaw and knocked him flat on his back. The tiny gatehouse flooded with half of Amadeo’s small army, their faces masked under hoods of leather or rags of dirty cloth with crude slashes for eye holes. They fell on the sleeping guards with clenched fists and coils of sailor’s rope, binding their wrists and stripping away their sword belts.

Amadeo huddled under the wagon canopy with the papal guard. They’d decided that the raid on the estate was too dangerous for anyone but them—and Gallo had to be talked into letting Amadeo come, for that matter. While their new recruits secured the two gatehouses and got the boat ready to leave, they’d handle the rescue.

The wagon parked on the edge of the rolling lawns, just outside the tall iron fence that ringed the papal estate. Gallo’s two best climbers scaled the fence and tumbled silently to the grass on the other side. The rest ran, keeping low and quiet, toward the front gate.

The knight in the gatehouse was more alert than the constabulary in the city, but he still hesitated, confused to see two members of the guard strolling toward him. His gaze flicked between the iron trees emblazoned on their ivory tabards, and his brow furrowed.

“What are you lot doing here? I thought you were all reassi—”

One of Gallo’s men grappled his arms. The other punched a dagger through the knight’s throat and then wrenched it free, tearing open his windpipe. They left him to drown in his own blood, dumping the twitching body and unlocking the gate without a second’s pause. Reunited, Gallo pointed to four men, then east, toward the barracks. The other two guardsmen, along with Amadeo, followed him in a long jog along the outer edge of the estate. They kept to the shadows of the fence line as they closed in on the mansion.

There they waited, huddled in the dark, ears perked and waiting for a sign. It came ten minutes later in the form of warm orange light, growing in the distance. Not the sunrise. A fire.

*   *   *

Sister Columba took a deep breath as harsh, booming alarm bells rang out in the dark. This was the sign she’d been waiting for.

A pair of knights ran past, nearly knocking her over. “Barracks fire!” one told the other, breathless. “There are two dozen men trapped in there, and Gunther says they’re not waking up!”

Columba rounded a corner on her way to Livia’s rooms. Another knight sat dozing in a chair, snoring and slumped to one side, oblivious to the world. Columba frowned. Something felt wrong, like an itching in her bones. Or a heaviness in her eyelids, encouraging her to rest, take a short nap right here in the middle of the hallway. She shoved aside the bizarre temptation and flung open Livia’s door, eager to deliver her mistress to safety.

Bloody feathers drifted across the hardwood floor. Bloody smears coated Livia’s hands. She crouched over a strange and swirling design painted onto the wood at her feet, a symbol that made Columba’s eyes water and her heart pound. Livia’s head snapped up. She gasped, then rose and snatched a small bag from the chair by her hearth.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Livia, you—what did you—”

Livia’s eyes blazed as she loomed over the elderly woman.

“Nothing,” she hissed. “I did
nothing
.”

Then she stormed out, leaving Columba to try to keep up in her wake.

*   *   *

Gallo’s men had accounted for the spread of the blaze, the direction of the wind—for everything except how fast the impostor-knights would react when the first shouts rang out across the rolling lawns. The four guards were halfway back to rejoining the rest of the team when cold steel suddenly gleamed from the darkness around them. One guardsman doubled over, taking a slash to the gut that spilled his intestines across the mansion’s lawn. Another barely got his blade clear of its scabbard before a sweeping ax chopped him open from the slope of his shoulder to his rib cage. The knights moved with practiced finesse, precise and lethal, and seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. With numbers and coordination on the knights’ side, Gallo’s men never had a chance.

On the far side of the lawn, still in hiding, Amadeo saw Gallo grind his teeth. He had to make a split-second decision, doing the hard calculus of war. “We keep to the plan,” he whispered sharply, leading the way to the darkened windows of the mansion and leaving the fire team to die.

Livia and Columba met them at the window, and Gallo helped Columba climb over the sill. Amadeo tilted his head, noting the way Columba jerked away when Livia tried to touch her. For as long as he’d known the pope’s chambermaid, he’d never seen that look on her face before.

Revulsion
, he thought.

Gallo scooped Columba up in his arms. They ran. With heads ducked and hearts pounding, the remnants of the team barreled across the lawns, headed for the gate. The fire grew at their backs, greedy for kindling, dining on the wooden barracks-house. Tendrils of flame casting the grounds in shifting twilight. Amadeo heard a new shout, one aimed in their direction, just before a crossbow bolt whistled past him and punched a hole in another guardsman’s back.

The knights came running like a flood of furious ants across the lawn as a few doubled back toward the stables. Amadeo’s lungs burned for air as he clambered into the wagon, helping the survivors up, pulling Livia into his arms as she tumbled in. Gallo jumped up onto the driver’s perch, snapped the reins, and they were off.

*   *   *

“They
what
?” Carlo roared, pacing through the halls like a hungry lion, clutching a half-empty bottle of wine in his sweaty grip.

“Took your sister and the old maid, sir,” said the knight who jogged to keep up with him. “The fire was apparently a distraction. Worse, we found something in your sister’s room. It looks like she was doing…some kind of witchcraft.”

“
Not surprising
,” Carlo spat. “This is war. She’s declared war against me, her family, her flesh and blood, her church and faith—”

“Sir? What do you want us to do?”

Carlo’s eyebrow twitched. A vein pulsed in his temple.

“I want you to
find her
! She wants to play with fire? Fine. Burn her out. Wherever she’s hiding, whoever is stupid enough to grant her sanctuary, burn her out. Burn half the city if you have to.”

“Is…is that wise? You haven’t been coronated yet, and you could lose the support of—”

Carlo hurled his bottle against the wall. It exploded in a shower of smoked glass. Burgundy wine splashed the plaster and rolled down in gleaming rivulets. He grabbed the knight’s collar and yanked him close, bellowing in his face.

“
Burn! Her! Out!
”

The wagon jolted through the dark streets as Gallo whipped the horses into a stampeding frenzy. Other hoofbeats sounded in the air, though, closing in fast from behind. Stallions with grim-eyed riders out for blood.

“We can’t outrun them!” Livia said, squeezing Amadeo’s hand as they watched the horsemen close the gap.

“We don’t have to beat them to the docks,” Amadeo said. “Just to the first gatehouse.”

The curtain wall loomed up ahead, carving its twisting way through the district. The portcullis arch stood open and inviting.

Amadeo held his breath as the horsemen closed in. The gap between them and the wagon narrowed to ten feet, then eight, then six, and the lead rider drew his sword.

The wagon shot under the arch just as one of Amadeo’s recruits chopped the rope connected to the gatehouse crank. The severed end whipped free and the gate fell with a groan of rusted iron, eight hundred pounds of metal crashing down on the lead rider’s skull, impaling him against the broken back of his stallion. Man and beast twitched and bled out on the cobblestones. The other knights reared their horses, drawing up short, and jumped from their saddles to run over and try to lift the gate.

“Don’t look—” Amadeo started to say, but Livia waved him away.

“I am not innocent,” she said softly.

The second gate at the Via del Popolo rattled down in their wake, a second chance to slow down the steel tide, but Amadeo knew it wouldn’t last long. There were other, less direct ways through the city, and now Carlo’s mercenaries had a personal motive for revenge.

The fishing boat,
Morning’s Glory
, was tied off at the docks and ready to go. A few of the volunteers worked frantically, loading its tiny hold with crates of food and emergency supplies, whatever they could scrounge for the voyage. Amadeo felt a surge of exhilaration as the cart clattered to a stop, and he jumped out. They were actually going to make it. Five minutes and they’d be sailing, far from the city and Carlo’s mad grasp.

Then he smelled the smoke and heard the screams carrying over the rooftops. Gallo grabbed his arm and pointed. Down on the far end of the Alms District, flames rose up to lick at the starry sky.

“They’re burning it,” Gallo said. “They’re burning
everything
.”

They know
, Amadeo thought as icy fingers of dread squeezed his heart.
They know which way we ran, and they know where we recruited help. There’s going to be a massacre. And it’s my fault
.

“Right,” he said, turning to the
Glory
’s captain. “Cast off, right now. Get Livia out of here and as many people as you can pack aboard. Gallo, take your men up and down the docks and start commandeering boats. Fishing boats, barges, rowboats—if it floats, get it ready to launch.”

“What are you doing?” Livia said.

“Whatever I can,” Amadeo said.

Then he was off and running, his shoes pounding the broken street as he headed straight toward the fires. He hammered on doors and windows along the way, cupping his hands to his mouth and shouting for everyone to evacuate to the docks. A few locals were already out on the street, drawn from their beds by the smell of smoke. They joined in the shouts, racing to get their families or sprinting down side streets, spreading the word.

Amadeo rounded a corner onto the Via Marlane and froze in stark horror. Flames roiled from open windows, and clouds of billowing smoke washed over the corpses that littered the street. Carlo’s men were making their way from house to house, kicking in doors, butchering and burning like rabid animals. He’d known they were killers, but to see carnage on this scale, to hear the screams of the survivors as leering mercenaries dragged them into dark alleys for mutilation or worse—

“Hello, hello,” said a familiar voice. The axman from the cathedral strode from the smoke, gore dripping from his blade and staining his holy armor in dark, thick spatters. “Hope you didn’t think we forgot about you.”

Heat from the spreading fires burned against Amadeo’s face. He tasted ashes on his tongue when he inhaled, and the screams around him were a symphony of horror and loss.
The Barren Fields
, he thought, his mind reeling.
Damnation. This is what it looks like
.

“Who are you?” he heard himself ask, frozen by fear.

“We’re the Dustmen.”

“Why?” Amadeo asked, the words catching in his throat. “Why are you doing this?”

The axman shrugged, looking back at his handiwork with a lazy smile.

“It’s fun, isn’t it?”

“These people haven’t done anything to you. They’ve done nothing to deserve this!”

“They can’t stop us,” the axman said, giving an indifferent shrug.

Amadeo’s hands balled up into fists.

“Then I will.”

The axman laughed. “Come on, Father. You’re joking.”

Amadeo couldn’t think, for all the smoke and blood-stench curling inside his skull. His heart jackhammered against his ribs and his fists trembled at his sides, but he wasn’t afraid anymore. He was beyond fear. This was fury.

“As far as I’m concerned, I died the night I plunged into the river,” Amadeo seethed. “I had no right to ever wake again, but I did. Every minute since, and every breath in my lungs, is a gift. A man who’s died once isn’t afraid to die twice.”

“This time,” the killer told him, hefting his ax, “it’s gonna stick.”

Amadeo took a lurching step forward, spurred by adrenaline, and raised his fists for the first time in his life. “Let’s find out.
Come at me!
”

The axman took two steps before a fist-sized rock whipped out of the shadows and cracked him in the side of the head, leaving a bloody gash. He yelped and staggered back, grabbing his wound, and Amadeo turned to see Freda and four of her fellow urchins standing at his back. They clutched sacks laden with stones.

“Why are you still here?” Amadeo shouted. “You should have been on the boat with Livia!”

Freda rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Father. You know she wouldn’t leave like that. She’s warning people on the other side of the district. Thing is, they got—”

The axman charged, bellowing. A hurricane of rocks drove him back, clanging off his armor and forcing him to drop his weapon and throw up his arms to protect his face.

“They got the Via del Popolo gate open and more knights are coming and we gotta go
now
!” Freda shouted in one pent-up breath. Amadeo didn’t need coaxing. The children threw another hailstorm of rocks to cover their retreat and ran, turning down a twisting alley and leaving the carnage behind.

The exodus had already begun. The harbor was thick with boats, casting off from the docks and sailing away from the battle as fast as they could. Most had more passengers than they could manage, desperate survivors dangling from hulls and clinging on for dear life, the weight pushing the rickety boats down to the waterline. It was standing room only on the deck of the
Morning’s Glory,
but they didn’t cast off just yet, holding their lines until Amadeo and the children clambered aboard.

“Now!” Livia shouted up to the captain. “That’s the last of them.”

A column of knights rode up to the docks as the
Glory
slid away on black, restless waters. The urchins’ rocks fell short, pelting uselessly onto wet timbers, but the knights didn’t try to pursue them. They just waited there, watching.

The axman stood in the line. He and Amadeo locked eyes. The axman grinned, flashing blood-stained teeth, and offered a mocking farewell salute.

Behind them, the Alms District burned.

As the sun rose across the waters, painting the sky in shades of pink and tangerine, the refugee fleet sailed south.

*   *   *

Livia didn’t speak until the Holy City was a speck on the horizon. She stood out on the edge of the fishing boat’s deck, staring into the distance.

“How many?” she asked. Amadeo blinked at her, not understanding. “How many did we save?”

He craned his neck, looking across the waves. A flotilla of small and motley boats limped along in the wake of the
Morning’s Glory
.

“Hard to tell. Two, maybe three hundred?”

“And how many people lived in the Alms District?” she said.

Amadeo’s voice was soft. “You know how many. Livia, don’t torture yourself—”

“Two hours,” she murmured.

“Hmm?”

Two hours
, she wanted to say,
was how long it took me to find the nerve to use Squirrel’s spellbook. The sleep-curse was working. I had another trick ready for the guards at the door. That done, I could have freed myself without your help.

You thought I was some damsel in distress, and you came running to the rescue. And now hundreds of people are dead. They died in my name. But that’s not your fault, Amadeo. It’s mine. Because I knew what needed to be done, and it took me two hours to find the courage to do it. By then it was far too late. I valued my own soul over their lives, and this is what happened.

Never again.

“It’s my fault they died,” she said.

Amadeo touched her arm.

“No. It’s my fault. I had no idea Carlo’s thugs would retaliate like this. If I’d known, I never would have risked it—”

She tugged her arm away and stared at the waves.