Storm and Steel (42 page)

Suddenly, Emanon sprinted toward him with his sword upraised. Jirom tensed at the intense look on his lover's face. Jirom started to turn around just as a noise rushed up behind him, a hissing roar like the gathering of a massive wave on the verge of crashing.

An inferno exploded in the rebel formation. Smoke filled the street as men flew in all directions. From out of a cloud of smoke emerged a long burning arm, and then another. It took Jirom a moment to realize they were serpents. Huge pythons of fire. He didn't even have time to curse before they lunged at Emanon, closing their burning mouths around his arm and shoulder. Jirom leapt to protect his man from the foul things, but a third flaming serpent emerged to strike at him. Jirom swung the
assurana
, and the fire-snake reared back as if it had hit a stone wall. He took a step, intending to press his attack and save Emanon, but something clubbed him from behind.

He staggered to one knee. Fighting through the pain, he tried to stand up. The fiery serpent lunged, its jaws opened wide. Jirom surged upward to meet it with a two-handed slash. Intense heat flowed through the hilt into his hands as he split the creature in two. With a soft hiss, it dissipated in a puff of acrid steam.

He started to run to Emanon, but the unseen attacker struck from behind again. This time his vision blacked out, replaced by a panorama of swirling lights. A rock landed on the street beside him with a splash. Not a stone, but a brick. Bits of broken mortar stuck to its edges as if someone had torn it out of a building and hurled it at him.

Jirom looked over his shoulder and up. Another robed man stood on a nearby building. The man gestured, and an oblong object flew off the roof. Jirom raised his shield just in time to meet the flying masonry. The impact sent a shiver up his arm as the shield's wooden facing split.
Damn all wizards to hell!

Jirom lifted his sword, but a sharp pain ran through his wrist. Stony shrapnel stung the side of his face as he dropped his sword. The shield buckled as pieces of stone and brick poured down, tearing into his shoulders and back. He tried to crawl to Emanon, but the fire-snakes lashed out with vicious snaps. His lover hung in their embrace, his eyes closed. The rebels tried to form a barricade, but they were getting slaughtered under the spears and arrows of the Akeshian legionnaires.

Jirom started to yell for them to scatter, to get out any way they could, but something struck his lower back before he could get it out. It hit right
in the spot where he'd taken a spear, so many years ago he couldn't remember where it had happened anymore. His entire lower body went numb from the shock. He fell forward on his chest, arms splayed out before him.

Tongues of bright flame filled his vision as searing pain dragged him down into a bottomless abyss.

Horace stood atop a mound of rubble, barely able to hold himself upright. His head and chest were killing him, the aches penetrating into his core.

Akeshian soldiers scoured the streets, pulling the dead and wounded from the piles of bodies. Captives were disarmed, cobbled together, and led off under guard. The rebels were bedraggled and soaking wet, most of them bearing at least one bleeding wound, but they weren't beaten. They walked with their heads up, a challenge written in their eyes.
You may have won
, those hard gazes said,
but you'll never beat us
.

He understood. It wasn't so long ago that he had trod in a similar line, battered and bruised but refusing to let his captors defeat him. It tore at his heart to see the former slaves in bondage once again. But this time, he knew, none of them would be given the choice of serving the empire again. The queen had been true to her word, even if she hadn't been completely honest with him.

Jirom had already been carried away, either unconscious or dead. Horace hadn't been able to tell which, and he grieved for his friend. This had been a cruel blow.

Gravel crunched underfoot as a tall man in sodden robes came to stand with him.

“First Sword. I have sent out skirmishing parties to track down the remaining rebels beyond the walls.”

Horace kept his fists clenched tight by his sides. “Lord Xantu. I didn't expect any…assistance with this matter.”

“Her Majesty thought you could use the reinforcement.”

Is that it? Or did she suspect I wouldn't be able to complete the mission?

He waited for Xantu to comment on his actions during the battle, especially the cloudburst, but the sorcerer merely stood quietly. Rain plopped in the puddles and rivulets that filled the street. After a minute, Horace couldn't stand the silence. “So what happens now?”

The
zoanii
raised his glance to the governor's palace. A flying ship hovered next to the roof. “We are ordered to return to Erugash.”

“And the prisoners?”

“The survivors will accompany us.”

And be executed as an example, no doubt. Damn you, Byleth. Why couldn't you trust me to handle this my way?

Lord Xantu led the way. After a couple seconds, Horace followed him through the ruined street. As he stepped over a wide gash filled with muddy water, Horace felt a faint itch down the back of his neck. In his mind's eye he saw a flicker of red. That mysterious aura again, farther off than before.

Ismail squatted behind a section of broken wall as mayhem raged around him. Cambys was dead, lying not five paces from him, with a dent in his forehead deep enough to fit a man's fist. His good eye had rolled back up in his head, but the bastard was still grinning.

Arrows flew down from the rooftops, invisible in the darkness. Just sticking his head out was enough to draw a withering hail. Worse things rumbled in the night. Things that shook the ground and flooded the streets. Things that weren't natural. That meant sorcery, but he didn't want to think about it. He had enough problems already.

He'd seen the captain and lieutenant taken. Seen the fire-snakes and the green smoke, things he never thought he'd see in his lifetime. Now he didn't know if anything would ever be the same.

Someone ran up. Ismail turned, his spear set to receive a charge, and almost impaled Yadz through the gut. The rebel trooper dove to the ground beside
him. “It's crazy out there! I can't tell who is who except for those fuckers on the roofs. You think they'll run out of arrows anytime soon?”

Probably not before they've killed all of us
.

“Did you find the other units?”

Yadz gestured down the street. “I think I saw one. Silfar's squad, maybe. But they ain't looking too good either. Only got a couple warm bodies left.”

Ismail squinted in the dark, trying to determine whether a shadow on the street ahead was an enemy crawling toward them or just his imagination. “That's better than nothing.”

Yadz held up a crossbow, glistening wet. “And look what I found!”

Ismail leaned his face away from the head of the quarrel loaded in the weapon. “You know how to use it?”

“It looks pretty simple. Just point and shoot, right?”

If anyone would understand simple, it's you
. “Fine. Just don't point it in my direction. Like I was saying—”

Ismail flinched as the crossbow's string catapulted forward, shooting the quarrel high into the air. Yadz smiled like a six-year-old with his first honey stick. “Yowee! Did you see that?”

“Do you have any more ammunition for it?”

Yadz's smile faded. “Uh, I guess not.”

Ismail shook his head and kept scanning the street for foes. He still couldn't believe that Lieutenant Jirom had stopped in the middle of the battle to parley with that
zoanii
. Even more unbelievable was the rumor that the pale-skinned man was the foreign wizard they'd all heard about, the one who served in Queen Byleth's court. But before anyone had a chance to stop and think about what was happening, more Akeshians showed up. These new ones wore the royal colors and were a heck of a lot better armed than the town militia. The mercenaries had gotten to work, setting up a sturdy defense in the intersection to four streets. When they started pushing into the buildings underneath the roof archers, Ismail had gathered his squad to join them. They had almost gotten to the street-level doorway when a terrifying
crackle
erupted from above. Seconds later, the building came tumbling down in a rush of
bricks and mortar dust, throwing him and his mates into the street. That's where Cambys had died with a brick through his forehead.

After that, they'd been lost on their own, pinned down and surrounded by enemies. Yadz had run off, against his orders, to “find help.” Ismail gave the man credit for guts, if not much smarts. “All right. We're going to make a break for it. We'll join up with Silfar's squad and get out of here.”

Yadz gave him a lazy salute. “After you, Corporal.”

“You might want to find a weapon.”

“Oh, yeah.” Yadz crawled over to Cambys and pulled a shortsword out from under the body. “Sorry, old boy. Since you can't pay me that money you owe, I'll just take this in trade.”

Ismail suppressed the urge to leave Yadz behind. “You ready yet?”

“Yep.”

They set off down the street. With every step Ismail got a better view of the carnage. Bodies lay all around, their blood mixing with the rainwater. Arrows occasionally flew in their direction. They crawled over a mound of debris from another semi-collapsed building at the end of the block.

Silfar's crew was coming out of a ruined eatery, all four of them. Their sergeant led the way; broken arrow points jutted from his shield. Corporal Uchan took up the rear.

Sergeant Silfar called out to them, his shield held ready. “What unit?”

“Partha's squad,” Ismail answered back in a loud whisper.

The two squads met in the lee of a municipal building with a marble overhang supported by a row of pillars. “You two the only ones left?” the sergeant asked. His face betrayed a flicker of despair.

“Yessir. I hope you guys are heading out of here.”

“Sure. We've already overstayed our welcome. You two take rearguard and stay on us like—”

“Like flies on shit?” Yadz asked.

For a second Ismail thought the sergeant was going to punch Yadz square in the nose, but he merely nodded and turned away.

They made their way through the wreckage, swathed in darkness. Every so often someone would trip over something, usually a dead body, or brush
against a wall, and the resulting noise made Ismail duck his head as he imagined hidden marksmen drawing a bead on them.
Where are all the people of the town? Did they evacuate, or are they hiding all around us? Watching and waiting for us to die
.

Just then, doors opened on either side of the street, filled with dark shadows. “Watch—!”

Akeshian soldiers poured out of the buildings before Ismail could finish his warning. Corporal Uchan dropped immediately with a javelin through his side. Another of the troopers in Silfar's squad took a spear through the thigh and fell on his ass, screaming as blood spurted from the wound.

Ismail blocked a war-axe aimed at his head and pushed hard. The soldier stumbled back a step, and Yadz darted in to stab him under his armpit. Yadz flashed a tight smile and almost got his head caved in by a soldier swinging a two-handed maul. Ismail extended his spear in a lunge, hoping to catch the blow in time. But the soldier fell back, a thick quarrel punched through his chest.

The mercenaries arrived like steel-clad ghosts, rushing in to engage the Akeshians. Ismail stuck close to Yadz as the furious melee unfolded, pitting them against one visored face after another. He was stabbed twice and took a mace to his left shoulder, hard enough that he saw stars and thought the socket was ruined for a few seconds before feeling returned.

There was no place to retreat or advance with the mercs surging behind them and the enemy in front; they were stuck like two refugees on an island while the battle raged around them. An Akeshian came at him with a pair of long knives, sawing at the air like a deranged man. Ismail didn't think. He just bent his knees and leaned forward, letting the point of his spear lodge in the soldier's abdomen beneath the breastbone. The spear shaft flexed for a moment as the soldier came to an arrested halt, then the knife-wielder sagged and slid off to the bloody street.