The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books) (69 page)

Where lack of arms and skill had betrayed them, the thieves now took advantage of their weight of numbers. Halberds flashed, carving holes among the ranks of the thieves, but enough closed in to engage the Swords close up, where large weapons like halberds were useless. Pinned against the bodies of the soldiers, the halberds were held immobile, while small blades in the hands of thieves easily found their way through gaps in mail armour.

“Push!” Lucius yelled, and he felt the thieves behind him surge, pressing him forward into the soldiers. At first, the Swords resisted, but as the thieves grew in confidence, the line began to be driven back. Startled yells from the rearmost soldiers told Lucius they had seen the danger, but it was too late, and he grinned with malicious glee as, over the heads of the Swords, he saw the knight desperately grab at the nearest tabarded figures as he lost his balance. For a second, the knight seemed to hang at an impossible angle over the edge of the bridge. Then, he fell, disappearing from view.

Soldiers quickly followed him, and the pace of the thieves’ push increased as the resistance against them waned. With a kick, Lucius pitched the soldier he still held over the metal railings lining the side of the bridge, and watched him fall down into the bailey where scattered corpses of his comrades already lay still. Lucius gave a howl of victory, fairly stunned that his plan had worked, but it was cut short as he realised the thieves behind were still pushing.

“Hold!” he shouted desperately. “Hold!”

Kicking with all his strength, Lucius saw the metal railings approach, saw the yawning emptiness open before him, but his feet slid uselessly across the stone bridge. The air was driven from him as his stomach was pressed into the railings and his body was forced over it, so he was looking directly into the bailey. Beside him, another thief lost his battle against the surge and fell, screaming until he hit the ground with a dreadful impact.

Feeling himself toppling over the edge of the railings, Lucius closed his eyes to await the inevitable. It had been a good idea, and it had saved everyone else, but his quick wits had also killed him.

A hand grabbed the back of his collar and hauled him away from the railings. Lucius remained bent over double as he tried to catch his breath, then he looked up to see the face of Harker, beaming at him.

“Bet you’re glad you rescued me now, eh?” Harker said.

“Harker...” Lucius began, then stopped to cough. “Harker, I owe you a drink.”

“I’ll hold you to that. But for now, I think we’d better get moving.”

With no more Swords of Dawn to block their path, the thieves had already started the race to the walls. The few soldiers scattered around the tower proved no match for thieves drunk on their victory over the best the Final Faith had to offer. Elaine led the charge, Lucius saw, while he had to be content bringing up the rear and making sure no thief dallied to torture fallen soldiers.

He was reunited with Elaine at the top of the wall, as she organised the thieves’ descent of the wall.

“That was... inspired,” she said to Lucius as he held a ladder steady for thieves clambering to the ground.

“I’m just glad it worked,” he said. “If those soldiers had recovered... well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. That could have got very nasty, very quickly. Were you hurt?”

She dismissed the question with a wave. “Just a few scratches. I’ll be a whole lot better when we leave this place.”

Lucius glanced down at the ladder. The thieves had reached the bottom and were already running as fast as they could to their favourite bolt-holes. Waiting until the thieves had found their way out, the assassins were now scaling down their ropes.

“After you,” Lucius said, gesturing to the ladder, but Elaine shook her head.

“I’m the leader of the guild, remember? I leave last.”

Lucius found himself disagreeing with that sentiment, however noble it might have been, but this was not the place to argue. That could be left to their next Council meeting, preferably voiced by Wendric. Swinging himself over the wall, Lucius gripped the ladder tightly with hands and ankles, and slid down. He hit the ground smiling. They were far from safe, he knew, as the streets would be flooded with Vos soldiers, but just being able to leave the Citadel seemed a huge step.

When Elaine slid down next to him, she beckoned.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said. “Then we can see just how much damage we have done to the Empire.”

“And start planning the next strike?” he asked, still smiling.

“Indeed.”

The rest of the thieves had dispersed quickly, spreading throughout the city to brag quietly about their heroic escape, nurse wounds or mourn lost friends. Elaine and Lucius ran through the deserted market, but slowed down once they reached the quieter side streets. The streets were unusually busy for the time of evening, people hurrying past them everywhere they went. Lucius dismissed it as a by-product of the thieves’ reign of chaos that evening, but was puzzled as he saw more and more families, parents often carrying children. They all seemed to be heading to the eastern quarter of the city.

It was Lucius who first voiced his doubts. They had turned onto Meridian Street, the wide cobbled thoroughfare that rolled down the gentle slope Turnitia was built on, from the north gate to the harbour. As he looked down to the city westwards, he gasped.

“My God, Elaine, how many buildings did you tell our men to fire?”

“Just...” She trailed off, eyes widening as she took in the devastation.

The entire western quarter of the city was ablaze, a wall of flame that was gradually creeping through the city, consuming one building after another. Rising from the burning ruins, thick smoke poured into the sky, completely blotting out Kerberos and the stars with an impenetrable black pall. A mass of people flooded the lower end of Meridian Street, all of them climbing the slope away from the flames. Those in front were running while others, much slower, struggled with hand carts and wagons full of whatever possessions they had managed to save from the fire.

“No way,” Elaine said, still in shock, as the fastest of the fleeing mob began to pass them. “No way did our thieves do this.”

“Someone got carried away,” Lucius muttered. “Got careless. God, what have we done?”

“One reckless thief did not do all this. What about those who escaped the Citadel? Some were itching for vengeance.”

Lucius looked at the rolling inferno, seeing it stretch right across the city, burning through homes and warehouses alike. It was nearing the main commercial hub of Turnitia, the flames beginning to lick around the shops situated on Ring Street, near the westernmost of the Five Markets.

“No, there hasn’t been enough time – this happened while we were in the Citadel. Someone planned this, Elaine.”

“Not us,” Elaine said firmly.

“No, not us,” he repeated. He began to feel an icy hand grip his stomach. “Come on. People are going to need our help.”

Elaine looked as though she would protest for a moment, then dutifully followed him down Meridian Street. Their progress slowed as they tried to push their way through the crowd, and they were met with dazed, smoke-stained faces. Seeing the crowd get even thicker further on, Lucius grabbed Elaine’s arm and steered her off the thoroughfare and into the side streets.

Even these were packed with people, all trying to escape the fires, but squeezing between families and carts, they made better progress. The crowds gradually melted away.

They were near the westernmost market, and though the fires were still at least a quarter-mile away, Lucius could feel the heat from them, swept up through the city by the sea wind which fanned the flames. An orange glow surrounded everything, even when the fires were out of sight.

They heard the crackling of burning wood, and the occasional thundering crash of a burning building, followed by bright cinders spiralling up into the dark sky. Screams and cries for help reached their ears as a steady rain of ash begin to fall, driven before the flames by the sheer heat. The inferno stretched horizon to horizon.

“There is no way this can be stopped,” Elaine said. “It’s too large.”

“Even a fire this big can be made to burn itself out,” Lucius said. “Look.”

He pointed down a junction of streets where, at the far end, a squad of Vos soldiers were hacking away at a low building with halberds, axes and whatever tools they had managed to find on the streets.

“They’re creating a firebreak.”

“They’re not completely useless then,” Elaine said. “Will it work?”

“If there are enough soldiers here, then yes, they have a chance.”

“So what can we do?”

Lucius watched the soldiers as they brought one exterior wall crashing down, one of them leaping back as a section of the first floor tumbled down near him.

“I think I can do that,” he said. “With magic, I mean.”

“You can destroy a building?” Elaine asked, incredulously.

“It will be difficult, but I think I can do enough damage to make a building collapse. After all, they are using nothing more than hand tools,” he said, gesturing to the soldiers.

“And if they just happen to be passing by while you are casting your great spell?”

“That’s where you come in. Watch my back, and we’ll see if we can’t help stop this.”

Waving a hand to indicate he should lead, Elaine followed Lucius along a side street, away from the soldiers. As they ran, the screams of terrified citizens grew louder, but Lucius guessed they were coming from behind the wall of flame, and were beyond help. Turning back onto a straight road that led to Ring Street, Lucius looked for a suitable building, but his eye was drawn to the bodies strewn across the ground before him.

Many had been burned alive, the blackened, crisp corpses twisted in agonising contortions by the heat, smoke still rising from the motionless forms. He did not need to mention to Elaine that the fire was close but had not yet reached this part of the city, and again, he felt something cold in his stomach. Elaine tugged at his sleeve, and pointed at another set of bodies. These had not been burned but were lying in unnatural positions, their limbs broken, as if they had been thrown against the side of a building or dashed against the ground like a rag doll.

As they stood, dumbfounded, they heard a choking cry. Lucius looked around for the source, finally fixing upon an upended wagon, overturned by the evacuating crowd in their haste. Rushing over, he put his shoulder against the wagon’s broad wooden side and heaved, but he might as well have tried to move the Cathedral.

Elaine had dropped to her hands and knees and was looking underneath the wagon, crawling around to get a better look at who was there. She bent lower, so her head was beneath the overturned rim of the wagon, and Lucius heard her speaking softly. Standing up, she walked around to his side of the wagon.

“There’s a child there,” she said. “Lord alone knows how it survived the wagon flipping over, but I can’t reach it. Can we roll it back?”

Lucius shook his head. “It’s far too heavy. Stand back though, I think I can move it.”

“Careful,” Elaine warned him. “If it slides, you’ll crush the child. Try to flip it from the front, there may be more room.”

“I can do better than that,” he said, as he vaulted up onto its chassis.

Feeling the grain of the wooden planks that formed the wagon’s floor, Lucius let the flow of magic course through his body, directing it to his right hand. Flattening his palm, he drove it through the wood like a spear, the spell hardening his flesh and lending strength to the thrust.

Wood splintered as his hand broke through a plank and, magic suffusing his arm until it burned, he wrenched his hand back, tearing a hole through the floor of the wagon. The spell dissipated, and he heaved at one of the planks. He studied the hole he had made and waved Elaine over.

“You are smaller than I am – can you get through there?”

Elaine joined him on top of the wagon, but looked doubtfully at the thin gap. She bent over it and whispered down.

“It’s alright, don’t struggle. I’m going to get you out of there.”

For all the time he had known her, Lucius had never heard a single note of tenderness in Elaine’s voice, and he felt his heart warm to hear it now. He watched as Elaine lay flat on the underside of the wagon, and wriggled through the hole until her head, shoulder and one arm was buried within it. When she started to shuffle back, Lucius grabbed her waist and helped her. As soon as her head was free, Elaine braced herself with her free arm and pulled a dirty, soot-covered child in a ragged shift free from the wreckage.

The child looked at them with wide eyes, the only part of its body that was not covered with soot or grime. Lucius could not even tell whether it was a boy or girl until Elaine, finally, after gentle coaxing, persuaded the child to talk.

“What happened to you, then?” Elaine asked.

“I was running with everyone,” the boy said. Lucius guessed he was in his early teens, but short for his age. “From the fire.”

“With your parents?”

The boy shook his head. “No, they’re dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Elaine said, shocked by the boy’s bluntness. He gave her an odd look.