The Way Into Chaos (24 page)

“The kitchens are servants’ areas,” Cazia said. The princess had seemed too smart for this sort of mistake. “The armory isn’t going to be connected to the hallways and workrooms they use.” But Zollik had said it was in the next yard over from this one.

Before Vilavivianna could respond, a footfall squelched in the mud from somewhere beyond the door. Both froze in place, turning toward the door. Cazia quickly, quietly drew a spike from her quiver. The metal tip made a faint scraping noise as it came free, but in the dark stone room, it sounded as loud as a blacksmith’s labors.
 

Cazia began the hand motions for casting a dart, moving slowly so the intruder would not hear her clothes rustle, and also because, if she finished too quickly, she would have to disrupt it and start over. They could hear the grunt’s heavy breathing, but where was it? Wedged as they were in a corner, they had no way to retreat. Vilavivianna could probably have wriggled through one of the windows into the yard, but Cazia would never fit.
 

Cazia remembered the way the queen’s neck had looked as she hit the ground. Lar’s mother had been trapped on that dais, just as she was trapped now, and that was all that was needed to break her concentration. She restarted the spell, moving faster this time.
The flinches
, Treygar had called it. It wasn’t fair. Her stupid brain was going to get them both killed.
 

The spell was nearly finished, and still the creature hadn’t appeared. Cazia broke it, and just as she was about to start again, Vilavivianna screamed.
 

Cazia nearly jumped out of her skin. A dark-furred arm had come through the window and caught hold of the girl’s long braid. Vilavivianna bared her teeth in pain as the creature dragged her toward the narrow window.

Without a moment’s thought, Cazia stabbed the dart into the creature’s forearm. It passed between the bones and stuck through the other side. The grunt roared in pain but didn’t release the braid. Instead, it pulled harder, the point of the protruding spike striking the window jamb. Vilavivianna gasped from the pain, but she didn’t cry out again.
 

This was no good. Cazia could stab the grunt until it looked like a thorn bush, but that wasn’t going to free the princess, not before more beasts arrived. She snatched a knife from the table beside her. An orange flash in the dim light told her it was copper, but that wouldn’t matter if it was sharp.
 

Cazia slashed the little girl’s braid, cutting it straight through. She felt an absurd rush of gratitude for that officious Chief Servant, or whatever he was called, for the way he ran his staff.
 

“The door!” Cazia said, her voice high with fear. The girl ran out of the corner as Cazia thrust the knife toward the window. As she expected, the grunt leaned into the opening, but she misjudged its position and the tip of the blade glanced off its brow above the eye.
 

The beast shrieked and reeled back. The door closed with a bang, and the princess hissed, “There’s no latch!”
 

Of course there was no latch. Why would you let servants barricade themselves in with the food? Cazia pivoted toward the door and started another spell. This time, no matter what happened, she could not let her concentration falter. Vilavivianna snatched a coal spade from beside the oven and wedged it against the door and a crack in the stone floor.
 

The grunt continued to spit and roar at the tiny window, but other roars began to grow nearer. This was the Fire that might take them both; Cazia walled off all thought about her growing panic and focused intently on the work her mind and her hands were doing. The spell itself helped, smoothing out her emotions, flinches or not.

It worked. A block of pink granite—taller and narrower than the ones she had created outside the wall--appeared beside the door, jamming it closed. “Close the other one,” Cazia said, and began her spell again. The princess hesitated, but she did it. Cazia laid another block atop the first one.
 

She cast the spell again, this time against the door to the stairs. The howl of the beasts became louder as the pack drew near. All of her spells were too slow, too slow! The next block of granite appeared at the base of the stairway door, jamming it shut. She turned back to the yard entrance. That was where the grunts were, and that was the door they’d try to batter down first. Three more blocks should close off that entrance.
 

As she cast the spell, she felt Vilavivianna’s gentle hands against her skirts. Why would the girl reach for one of her darts when the kitchen was full of knives? Cazia couldn’t remember what she’d done with the copper knife she’d taken from the bench, but she hoped the princess had it.
 

Focus. Focus on the spell. The grunts had arrived. They battered against the door and roared through the narrow windows. Cazia had never heard anything so loud in her life; not even the chaos and screaming during the attack on the palace had pressed in on her like this.
 

The block appeared, fitting snug against the door and lintel. At the same time, Cazia experienced another of her flinches, and Vilavivianna took something from her that most definitely wasn’t a dart.
 

Cazia turned as the girl stepped away. She’d taken the pouch with the translation stone. The princess deftly opened it and overturned it into her palm.
 

Never mind that. Cazia cast the spell again, then again. The door would never swing open, not with all that granite behind it, but if the grunts tore it from its hinges, she didn’t want to leave them
 
enough room to climb over.
 

When she finished, she turned toward the princess. The beasts outside screamed their animal rage and frustration, but Vilavivianna was very still. Her straw-colored hair hung loose around her face, making her seem almost adult. By the emberlight, Cazia could see that her eyes were wide with shock.
 

Cazia took the blue stone from her and clutched it in her trembling fist. The roars from outside suddenly became words.

Blessing! Bless you! Bless you! Take you! Blessing! Blessing!

That was it. Over and over, they all said the same thing. Great Way, they were talking.
 

The stupid commander was wrong. The grunts weren’t animals. They were something worse.
 

Cazia stood there, unmoving, listening to the creatures’ words in utter astonishment. If they spoke words, they could think, and if they could think, what advantage did the girls have against them?

Vilavivianna slammed the nearest shutter closed and threw the bar. The bang of wood on stone shook Cazia back to herself. She slipped the stone back into its pouch and pocket, then began another spell. The grunts battered at the door behind her as though they might push the stack of granite blocks onto her from behind. Her concentration faltered but did not fail. She stacked blocks against the second door until it was completely barricaded.
 

“At least we will not have to look at them,” Vilavivianna said, having to raise her voice over the noise from outside. “But closed doors will bring all of them here and will drive them into a frenzy.”

“Good.”

“Good?” The girl took a few sticks of wood and laid them on the hot embers of the stove pit, then sprinkled shavings over them. Why not? They weren’t in hiding any more. “Are we establishing Fort Child, then? We build high our walls, ration our salted fruit mush, and wait for rescue?” There was a note of derision in her tone. She frowned at her cut hair and began to braid it again.
 

Cazia took another breath to steady her nerves. It seemed odd to say, but the firelight made her feel stronger. There was still a great deal of work to do. “We don’t have to wait for rescue. We’re already here. We’re going to gather supplies and get out of this fort.”

The princess thrust her little chin forward and nodded.

The grunts could easily have smashed the shutters but they didn’t. The door was all they cared about. Cazia pulled Vilavivianna into a narrow space between two benches--she had to kick aside a wooden pail full of boiled bones to make room for them both, and for some reason, that brought on another flinch. A bad one.
 

The little princess laid a gentle hand on her elbow. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine,” Cazia snapped. She was not going to show weakness in front of this Indregai snob. “I just need to catch my breath.” She began another spell. It was difficult to focus past the jumpiness in her stomach--the meal she’d eaten didn’t want to stay down--but she did it.

A block at about waist height crumbled. Cazia crouched down to peer through but there was nothing but darkness beyond. Good. If the wall had stood against the yard, they would have seen starlight. She began shoving the broken rock through the hole, making space to crawl through.
 

“I can fit,” Vilavivianna said. “But you should break another rock to make room for you.”
 

“I can fit, too!” Cazia snapped. “Besides, if I broke another, the whole thing might come down on us.”
 

“Ah,” was all the princess said. She wriggled through the gap like a snake.
 

Cazia squeezed into the hole just behind her. Her shoulders fit through comfortably, but her breasts scraped uncomfortably against the rough stone. It was embarrassing, even in this pitch dark room with no one nearby but a child who couldn’t even see. A few years ago, this wouldn’t have happened, but she wasn’t Vilavivianna’s age any more. Her hips were a tight fit as well, but she knew she could get through. It would just take a bit of time. “Do you see any windows?” she whispered.

There was no answer at first, which she didn’t like. Could something have happened to the girl in the few moments--

“No,” the princess finally said. Her voice faint. “There is no light at all. The darkness, it is too much. I—”

“Patience,” Cazia said. She finally got her hips through, but was punished for her haste by the sound of tearing cloth. “Fire and Fury,” she said as she stood in the darkness.
 

She cast a light spell, placing it high on the wall beside her. It was just a little glowing ball, like a self-contained sphere of moonlit fog, but their eyes were so accustomed to the dark that it looked as bright as the rising of the sun.
 

“We are here!” Vilavivianna said, more loudly than Cazia thought was wise. But she was right. This was the armory. It was directly next to the kitchen, but there had been no easy connection between them until Cazia had created one.
 

And there were no windows, but the door was standing slightly ajar.
 

Cazia snatched a travel cloak from a peg in the wall and threw it over the door. The walkway where Zollik had killed the grunt must have been directly above them, which meant the great hall where the creatures held their prisoners was across the yard to the left. The armory door opened inward, with the hinges on the right. If a grunt looked out of the hall doorway, it would not see into the lighted room, but it might see a shaft of light falling into the yard.
 

“Do you see?” Vilavivianna asked.
 

At first, Cazia could not. She peeked between the cloak and the door jamb, noting the light from the great hall and the uneven ground of the yard…
 

There was a dead man lying just outside the door. Even in the terrible light, they could see it was Commander Gerrit. Farther from the door, they could see silhouettes on the ground that could only be more dead bodies.

Monument, sustain me.
 

The girls arranged the cloak on the corner of the door, rubbing the wool against the rough granite wall so it stuck there. Eventually, they were satisfied. The door would stand open, but no light would shine through.

In the armory, both of them went for the knives first, choosing two iron blades each with good leather-wrapped handles and belt sheaths. Then Cazia crossed to the cloaks, rations, and back packs while Vilavivianna hunted among the bows and quivers for something that suited her. Cazia had no intention of taking any more weapons. Knives and darts were enough for a scholar, and her quiver was full.
 

She packed meatbread and gathered smallish cloaks, a pair of wooden canteens with bladder linings, and a few other odds and ends they’d need.
 

The whole thing suddenly seemed ridiculous. Cazia had never trekked through wilderness in her life, but to do it at night with no other company but a girl even younger than she was?
 

They would be eaten by a bear or a mountain cat. They would be buried in a rockslide, kidnapped by Durdric Holy Sons, or fall from a cliff. They would starve. Cazia had spent her whole life in the palace, with only the occasional trip, under guard, outside Peradain.
 

Vilavivianna stepped up at her shoulder and examined her pack. “Is there no needle and thread? A copper needle will do as long as we keep the green off of it. Some gut would also be useful; I know imperial troops are used to healing magic, but we will be far from sleepstones and medical scholars.”

Cazia stood and surveyed the room. In the far corner, there were small leather satchels with medical symbols branded into the corner. There were copper needles inside with gut, clean cotton, and tiny glazed jars with wax stoppers. She grabbed two.

Vilavivianna had laid out a second pack and was loading them both. She’d already loaded all the provisions Cazia had set out into one of the packs, and was adding an equal amount to the other. She’d also thrown aside the black imperial cloaks Cazia had chosen, replacing them with two unmarked gray ones. Finally, she put a hatchet onto the top of each pack.
 

“We are young,” the girl said, “and we are not strong enough to carry everything we will need. But this will have to do.”