The Complete Empire Trilogy (112 page)

Kevin gripped Mara tightly. ‘Run!’ Barely ahead of the stampeding masses of spectators, he plunged with her down the stair. In the flickering, incandescent flash of sorcery, the plume on Lujan’s helm shone an unearthly green. His repeated cry of ‘Acoma!’ vanished into the angry shouts and terrified cries from behind.

The stair plunged endlessly down. Mara ran and stumbled on her clumsy pegged sandals. Scared beyond propriety by the danger, Kevin bent and caught her in his arms. ‘Kick your shoes off!’

Mara said something. Words could not be distinguished over the noise.

‘I don’t care about the emeralds! Kick them off!’ Kevin commanded.

Her weight made him awkward on the stair. Despite his best efforts to run, they were falling behind Lujan, and now Kevin felt himself battered by pushing hands and buffeted by fleeing bodies.

Mara shed her sandals. In desperation, Kevin set her down, his hand like a vice on her arm. He towed her relentlessly against the jostle and pull of the mob.

Someone fell to his left. In an instant a thousand remorseless feet stamped over the hapless body. The victim never screamed. The crushing weight of the mob rolled over him, pressing air from his lungs and bruising him into a pulp. A frightened, witless commoner jammed hard against Kevin’s linked arm, tearing at his hold upon Mara. By reflex he drew Arakasi’s knife.

His Lady’s wrist slipped through his grasp; now he held only her fingers. Over the shoulder of the man who still shoved, Kevin glimpsed her expression of sheer terror before he lost sight of her completely.

His hand, joined to hers, all but loosened; he wept as he drove the knife through the back of the person who thrust into them.

The weight fell away, and he jerked in merciless desperation upon the one bit of Mara he still held. She reeled free of a wedge of panicked craftsmen and tumbled into his arms.

‘Acoma!’ The shout sounded near; Kevin stared out over the heads of the mob and blessed his Midkemian stature. At once he spotted a pair of soldiers in green armour hammering a path through the rush.

‘Here!’ he screamed. ‘Here!’ He waved his hand, forgetful that he held a bloodied blade. ‘I have Mara!’

The warriors changed course toward him, their beacon his unmistakable red-gold head.

Suddenly Lujan was with him. ‘Put that away!’ he screamed, pointing to the knife. He fell in before the
barbarian and used his bracers like clubs to fend off the worst of the crush.

Kevin hid the knife. He pressed on, burdened with a trembling Mara, who yet bravely struggled to stand. ‘No!’ he shouted in her ear. ‘You’re too small, and barefoot, also. Let me carry you.’

The stairs fell away underfoot. Kevin tripped, and recovered, held upright by the shove of the crowd. They had reached the concourse between the outer levels. Vaguely the Midkemian realized that Lujan directed their path with a purpose: by the stadium walls, surrounded by a wedge of beleaguered warriors, Mara’s litter showed over running heads, a flutter of green pennons against chaos.

A thunderclap pealed from the heavens. A gust struck down like a blow, as the detonation knocked many of those fleeing to the ground.

Kevin lurched forward, slammed into Lujan, and felt the warrior brace to preserve balance. The effort failed. Both men crumpled to their knees. Ears ringing, Kevin shouldered Mara’s weight. He shoved back to his feet, unmindful of scraped knees, and barged headlong toward the litter. The crowd soon recovered, closing in relentless panic, until his elbow and side were jammed painfully into the ridges of Lujan’s armour. Kevin held ground grimly, and nearly tripped again as his feet entangled in an obstruction that felt like a rag.

A warm rag: another unfortunate who had been trampled.

A victim who might yet be Mara, if he were to lose her in the chaos. Fighting a sickness in his stomach, Kevin gripped her silk gown until the force left his knuckles bone-white.

That instant, a fountain of energies erupted from the arena and sprayed across sky and clouds. The crowd wailed in consternation, heads turned heavenward to gawk. Driven by morbid fascination, some brash folk tried to stem the flow of mass flight for a better view of the display.

Kevin and Lujan used the respite to reach the wall, where a barrier of warriors in green closed around them, an eddy of calm in the turbulence. As the Midkemian set down his shaking mistress, a voice pealed out over chaos. ‘That you have lived as you have lived for centuries is no licence for this cruelty. All here are now judged, and all are found wanting.’

The magician: Milamber. Kevin knew a savage surge of pride, that a man from the Kingdom had dared to place righteous compassion before decadence.

The tone of the mob changed subtly. Driven by curiosity, and also by the beginnings of affront, a few people shouted in amazement. Movement swirled through the masses as more and more bystanders slowed their flight and shoved to reenter the arena.

‘They are fools that would linger here,’ Lujan shouted. ‘The mistress must be got safely home.’

Kevin reached out to steady Mara, saw blood on his hand, and belatedly remembered the knife. He made to surrender the weapon, but Lujan sharply shook his head. ‘I didn’t see you take that, and my eyes are blind if you use it in my Lady’s protection.’

Soldiers fell into a tight cordon, with Mara, Kevin, and a half-dozen hapless bearers clustered in a knot at the centre. Out of habit, the slaves moved to their places by the litter poles.

Then the voice of the magician echoed with unnatural force over the stadium. ‘You who would take pleasure from the death and dishonour of others, see then how well you face destruction!’

Kevin shouted, ‘To hell with the litter! Just run!’

Still greatly shaken by the commotion, Mara found her voice and shouted, ‘Yes, we must run!’

At Lujan’s order, the cumbersome litter was abandoned. The guards regrouped their formation on the fly, and the dash for safety began afresh.

A wind slapped outward from the arena, raising new screams, and setting the plumes of the officers streaming. Kevin felt his skin rise up into gooseflesh, and he marvelled at a sensation nearly forgotten since leaving home: cold. On Kelewan, no natural gust could carry such a touch of ice.

As if in response, Milamber’s voice cried, ‘Tremble and despair, for I am Power!’

A keening wailed upon the air as the Acoma cordon began their rush down the lower stairway. The blustery gust increased as Milamber shouted, ‘Wind!’

The gale swelled to a howl in response. A stink of death rode the gust and set Kevin and the staunchest warriors choking. They pressed on in their descent, forcing pained lungs to inhale. Mara’s face drained of colour, but she kept pace with her retinue, down the steep stairs.

Their path was maddeningly crooked. Forced to skirt others who had doubled over with nausea from the foul odour, Lujan called to his soldiers to keep step. Some who succumbed to sickness became trampled, while others were jostled and kicked by the flood of retreating citizens.

A low moan shivered the pavement. Created by nothing of this world, the sound tormented the ears with subsonics. The warriors increased pace, and Kevin caught Mara’s wrist to aid her down the last of the stairs. Ominously, the shadows deepened; the atmosphere darkened, and the sun vanished from view. Clouds gathered above the stadium and swirled in a monstrous vortex.

That Milamber stood at its centre Kevin never doubted. He flung off fear with a laugh. ‘He’s going to make one hell of a show!’

Breathlessly jogging at his side, Mara shot him a confused look. Belatedly, Kevin realized he had slipped into the King’s speech. He repeated his remark in Tsurani.

She forced a brave smile.

They stumbled to the base of the stairs. Lujan halted as
more guardsmen joined ranks, reinforcing the square of protection around their mistress. The outer ranks linked arms, and they resumed course down the avenue as the magician behind them cried, ‘Rain!’

The resonance of the voice had damped slightly. Kevin sucked air into burning lungs and hoped the change meant their progress had distanced them from the vortex of spells and trauma Milamber called in judgment upon the crowd. The heavens opened, and icy drops slashed the air. The first fall sheeted into a downpour, soaking all in the street to the skin. The last light vanished. Eyes squinting against the storm of elements, Kevin ran. He kept hold of Mara’s wrist, though her skin became slippery, and her steps dragged against the cling of sodden formal robes. The rattle of rainfall against cobbles and armour blended with the slap of fleeing feet. The cries of the crowd seemed dimmer, whipped to misery and despair.

‘Keep going,’ Kevin exhorted Mara.

A few steps more, and he sensed the rain lessening with each stride.

The Acoma retinue reached the street that bordered the arena, and the distant voice of Milamber cried, ‘Fire!’

A collective peal of terror arose from inside the stadium. Mara looked back in horror, afraid for the unfortunates who were still trapped. Kevin turned to hurry her on and, through the pattering fall of thinning droplets, saw a thing of terrifying, alien beauty. A display of flames played through clouds that even yet splashed icy wetness upon the earth. Jagged bolts of lightning rent the sky. A burning sting grazed Kevin’s cheek as a rain of pure fire began to fall.

Mara screamed. Flame blossomed in the silks that covered her head, and the wet did not stop them igniting. Soldiers slapped at the flames with their gauntlets, and the odour of seared hide and lacquer grew choking on the smoke-filled air. They ran. Falling fires spattered sparks
across the pavement, and, in fear for their lives, they ran harder.

Lujan pointed. ‘There!’ A hundred yards away, across a streaming expanse of puddles and flame, sunlight shone down untroubled.

Kevin dragged Mara into a sprint, and still those last hundred yards stretched like miles. And then they were safe in the sunlight.

The soldiers slowed to catch their breath at stern orders from Lujan. Winded men made poor fighters, and the streets were a seething mass of frightened people and soldiers battle-ready to defend their Lords. Kevin seized the respite to look back. The madness above the arena had not stopped. Fire splashed down in lurid streaks, and the cries of the dying and the injured mingled into one vast wail.

The streets were packed with suffering, blazing scarecrows that danced and flapped in an agony of burning. Singed survivors raced into safety and collided with craftsmen and slaves who had paused about their business to gape. Many had fallen prostrate out of fear, while others made protective signs against the gods’ displeasure; the most simple just stood in mute astonishment.

A faint word carried over the confusion. Kevin couldn’t make out the meaning, but at a wave from Lujan he gently urged Mara forward. ‘Do your feet hurt? We’d better keep moving. I think we’re still a little close to the action.’

Mara blinked, white-faced with exhaustion. Numbly she said, ‘The matter of shoes must wait. To the town house.’

Lujan sent one soldier ahead to bring more warriors from the garrison to guard the Lady in her walk across town. Skilful in his guidance, the Force Commander kept to quiet streets; he avoided the temple precinct, where worshippers and priests seethed around offering-tables, chanting and singing a rush of placating prayers. Runners hastened on unknown errands, and beggars roved districts that were not
in their usual province. Wary of attack, the soldiers kept together; Kevin kept a grip on Arakasi’s knife. No ambush materialized, but an odd buzzing sensation rippled through the ground underfoot.

The vibration swelled to a deep-throated rumbling, and Kevin knew a flash of fear. ‘Earthquake!’ he shouted. ‘Into that doorway! Now!’

Lujan and his warriors wheeled smartly. They forced aside a trio of commoners who sheltered under the arch of an alehouse door. Made of solid stone, the portal had once supported two wooden panels, torn down forgotten years before.

The warriors passed Mara between them, sending her reeling into cover under the overhang. Kevin stumbled in behind her, and, pressed on all sides by armoured men, he felt the earth fall out from beneath his feet. The warriors staggered and buckled to their knees; others fell prostrate, while the litter bearers whimpered with their arms over their heads. The force of the quake sent people reeling and falling in the street, and screams arose from inside the alehouse as ceiling beams collapsed and plaster and debris rained down. Crockery mugs spilled and clattered; buildings outside shed roof tiles, and cornices, and coping, to crash and shatter on the pavement. Balconies collapsed, and screens tore, and people fell bleeding like tossed litter.

A stone wall nearby collapsed in a grating puff of dust, and the shaking increased. A bucking, surging motion rolled the length of the avenue, and the air rang with the grinding crash of splintering timbers and masonry. Kevin fought the heave of the earth to reach Mara, but a pair of soldiers already lay atop her, shielding her with their bodies.

On and on the madness raged; the very ground writhed like a thing in pain. From across the imperial precinct, in the vicinity of the arena, the noise of wrenched stones rumbled and roared like an avalanche. The sound raged tireless as the
sea, cut by tens of thousands of voices shrieking in horror and pain.

Then the earth stilled between one heartbeat and the next. Quiet fell, and sun shone down through a haze of raised dust. The street was left in wreckage, a battleground of rubble and moaning wounded. Mashed between stones, crushed under splintered falls of lumber, lay the silent, bloody dead.