Wren the Fox Witch (Europa #3: A Dark Fantasy) (15 page)

Salvator squinted at the lumpy trinket. “What is that?”

Radu frowned at it. “I’m not sure, really. It looks like a human heart, vaguely.” He tucked it back into his shirt. “It seemed important to him, so naturally I tried to destroy it. Perhaps it’s a gift from his mother, yes? But my smiths cannot melt it down in their hottest forges, and they cannot smash it with their strongest engines. Ridiculous, isn’t it? So, here it remains.”

One of the clerks slipped out of the room.

Salvator went over to the window and stared at the darkening clouds over the Strait. “I don’t know exactly what you hoped to accomplish with Koschei, but it is having an effect.”

“Ah.” The prince nodded. “Your men are angry and afraid. Some of them will no doubt attempt an ill-fated rescue mission tonight under cover of darkness. They will be slaughtered.”

“The Hellans look scared,” Salvator said. “The Vlachians seem angry. But none of that compares to what’s happening in the witch’s tower. Koschei’s mother is… well, see for yourself.” He pointed at the distant city skyline.

Radu came around the desk and stood beside him. “What is that?”

Across the water, a pale gray cyclone rose from grounds of the Palace of Constantine. It spiraled up into the dark sky where a light scattering of clouds were just beginning to shift and turn around the vortex.

“I’m told it’s aether,” Salvator said. “And any man who gets too close to it falls to the ground, screaming like a child. We had to evacuate half the palace.”

Radu cast him a doubting glance. “Why would you tell me this?”

“Hm?” Salvator raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I simply thought you’d want to know. After all, you butchered Koschei outside our walls to prod some sort of reaction from us, didn’t you? Well, there it is. Koschei’s mother is reacting.”

The prince sighed. “Baba Yaga? I’ve heard the stories, of course, but I left Vlachia when I was very young, long before she visited Vlad. I never met her, or Koschei, at the time. What is she like?”

“She’s quite distasteful.” Salvator paced away from the window. “She’s selfish, childish, unpredictable, and most importantly, she has a startling array of strange abilities that are making life in Constantia very unpleasant at this moment.”

Radu nodded sternly. “Good.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t good at all, Highness,” the Italian said. “You see, our aether expert has told us that when the sun sets and the temperature falls tonight, the aether will grow thicker. Much thicker. And that annoying little tornado over the palace will become a massive storm, hurling aether across both cities, and then you too will have men lying in the streets, screaming like children.”

The prince paused. “I don’t believe you.”

There was a knock at the door. “I’m afraid you should believe him, Your Highness.”

Salvator turned. An older gentleman stood in the doorway dressed in long, heavy green robes and in the thick black sash around his waist was the familiar scabbard and grip of a seireiken.

So the Sons of Osiris are here after all.

The Italian stepped quickly forward and held out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, Signore…?”

The shorter man shook his arm free of his sleeve and embraced the offered hand. “I am Master Iruka of Alexandria, advisor to the holy prince.”

Salvator carefully gauged the man’s handshake, noting the rough palm and warm skin, and the thick veins around the wrist.

A fighter. A strong one.

“Salvator Fabris, ambassador from Her Grace, the Duchess Nerissa.”

“A pleasure.” Iruka nodded curtly as he slipped his hand back into his long sleeve as he turned to the prince. “My lord, what the ambassador has said is true. If that is indeed a storm of aether, when the sun sets it will surely grow larger and more powerful. And there will be nothing I or anyone else here can do to stop it.”

Radu frowned very intently at the man in green. “And when it reaches us, you believe we will all be reduced to screaming children, lying on the ground, as Signore Fabris claims?”

“If that is what the aether is doing to the Hellans, it will certainly have the same effect on our own people.” Iruka bowed his shaven head.

Radu glared at both of them as he circled back around his desk and dropped heavily into his chair. “Immortals, aether, plagues! Vlad is grasping at straws. He knows he cannot defeat me, he knows that Constantia must fall and the Church with it. The empire will rule both banks of the Bosporus. It is inevitable. Why can’t he see that!?” He gripped the arms of his chair.

“I don’t presume to speak for your brother,” Salvator said calmly. “But I’ve come to know him fairly well these past few months, and I can say with some certainty that he will defy you simply to defy you, Highness. If any other man sat in your chair, Vlad would never have left Vlachia to join the war and Constantia might already be conquered. Vlad is not here for the city, or for the Church, or even for Lady Nerissa. He’s here to fight you. To spite you. To punish you.”

“Really?” Radu looked up, his body beginning to sag as he slumped lower in his chair.

“Yes. You left your country and your family and your faith,” the Italian said. “And he took that very personally.”

“That’s all very interesting, but it has little bearing on the matter at hand. Iruka, how do I defeat a storm of aether?”

The Aegyptian bowed his head once more. “I am sorry, Your Highness. But these are uncommon arts. Aether-craft is still a rudimentary science, at best. No one of my order could possibly defeat someone as powerful as Baba Yaga.”

“You don’t have to defeat her,” Salvator said. “She’s a dreadful creature, but not a mysterious one. You’re torturing her son right in front of her, and she’s throwing a fit. The only difference between her and a fishwife is that when a fishwife stamps her foot the heavens don’t roar in agreement with her.”

“So what?” Radu glared up through his black brows. “You want me to free Koschei to stop Yaga’s tantrum? Just let him go? Give Vlad back his greatest warrior, an unkillable Rus juggernaut? Never.”

“We could come to some arrangement,” Salvator said. “An exchange of assurances. You return Koschei, and we send him and his mother back to Rus. We remove both of them from the equation. That would satisfy everyone, wouldn’t it?”

Radu laughed, his face suddenly transformed from a dark scowl to a youthful smile. “You expect me to simply trust you? To trust that you will send away Koschei the Deathless, that he will never return to slaughter my men on the field of battle?”

The Italian shrugged. “I’m merely here to suggest solutions that will make both parties happy, Highness. The sun is setting, and I would prefer to spend the night pleasantly, in my bed, preferably with a bottle of wine and a young female companion. I have no desire to collapse to the floor and scream until the dawn lifts the aether.”

Radu’s smile faded and he sighed. “You’re being serious, aren’t you? This aether business, Yaga, all of it. You’re telling the truth, yes?”

Salvator nodded.

“Very well, then. Give me Yaga.”

The Italian stared at him. “What?”

“She misses her son, she grieves for his injuries. I understand this.” The prince held out his hands. “Surrender her to me and I swear no harm will come to her, as long as she does not attempt to harm me. She will be reunited with her son, and I will place the both of them in a very comfortable estate a few leagues to the south where they will be out of the way for the remainder of this war.”

Salvator swallowed.

Damn him. I didn’t expect that from him. It’s a shrewd play. It solves everyone’s problem, avoids violence, and leaves him with one more immortal prisoner. Who’s been schooling him in negotiations? The Sons of Osiris, I suppose.

“A reasonable proposal,” Salvator said quietly. “Politically, it’s quite sound, and under any other conditions I would be almost eager to present your terms to the Duchess.”

“But?”

“But what you are proposing would require us to somehow bring you the woman in question, either by coercion or by violence, and quickly too. The sun will be setting very soon,” Salvator said. “I would have to return to the palace, mount an armed force, and somehow penetrate this storm of aether without being rendered insane, capture Baba Yaga, and drag her to your ship to be reunited with her son.”

“I see your point,” Radu said. “Whereas, if I were to concede to your terms, I could have Koschei set free in a matter of minutes in plain sight of his mother, and all would be resolved.”

“My thought exactly.”

“It’s quite a trap you’ve set for me,” said the prince. “If I believe you, then I have only a few minutes to free my prisoner to prevent a storm of madness from crippling my people. But, if I don’t believe you, if I call your bluff, if I choose to go about my business, then perhaps nothing will happen at all, and that puff of wind over your city will simply blow away.”

Salvator paused, wondering what else he might say.

“Most holy prince,” Iruka said, again bowing his bare head. “If I may be so bold, I would advise you to accept what you see and what you have been told as truth. I have studied aether for many years, and I assure you that the storm over the palace is not a natural one, and if it does engulf Stamballa, as I believe it will, we will all suffer. The city will be defenseless for hours, perhaps even days.”

“If that’s true, then Constantia was be just as weak,” Radu countered. “They could not attack us. Anyone who came near would fall victim to this storm. And besides, even if Baba Yaga is causing this, how do I know she is not simply performing to the tune of our Italian friend here? What if she isn’t mad with grief at all? Perhaps this is merely a threat to try to pry Koschei from my grasp. She will not attack the Hellans, or us. Fabris can call her off at any time.”

“I assure you, I cannot,” Salvator said.

“You assure me?” Radu stood up sharply and tugged his dress jacket down smartly over his chest. “Who are you to assure me? You are no councilor of mine, no trusted advisor to the imperial court. You serve my enemies!” He slammed his fist down on the corner of the desk as he circled it to stand beside the other men.

Salvator frowned.

This has gone on long enough.

“Yes, I suppose I do serve your enemies, Highness.” Salvator’s hand shot out and ripped the seireiken from the green-robed monk’s sash. The scabbard flew off the blade and clattered against the wall as the sun-steel sword bathed the room in a warm golden light. Ripples of heat danced around the edges of the blade.

The seireiken was heavier and shorter than his rapier, and the knowledge that even touching the flat of the blade was deadly did nothing to soothe Salvator’s peace of mind. But still, it was a weapon, and a terrifying one at that.

Suddenly everyone in the room was quite still and silent, and every eye was fixed on the shining sword. Salvator swung the tip of the blade casually past Iruka’s face, passing just before his eyes, and then he pointed the bright sword at the sweating prince. “Highness, I could kill you and everyone in this room before you could cry out for your guards. I could imprison your souls in this hideous sword and leave you trapped in there for all eternity, and I could slaughter my way out of this palace and sail back to my beloved Rome, where I will live out my days, never giving any of you a second thought.”

Radu wet his lips. “Fabris…”

“But I’m not going to do that,” the Italian said. “With you dead, no one would free poor Koschei and his mother would drive everyone mad, but sooner or later your emperor would send someone else to command the siege and this war would go on, and on. And if I was very unlucky, I might even be caught in this aether storm of insanity myself.”

“I see,” said the prince, his eyes never leaving the golden shimmer of the sword. “So when words fail, you resort to violence like any other man, Fabris?”

Salvator smiled. “I didn’t become the Supreme Knight of the Order of Seven Hearts without a certain flair for violence, Highness.”

“Very well, then. I accept your terms. Koschei goes free, immediately.”

Salvator nodded and lowered the sword as he backed away toward the window. “Excellent. You won’t mind if I just oversee the orders and make sure all is in order before I return this little trinket of yours, would you?”

The bullwhip crack of a pistol shot rang out.

Salvator grimaced as the searing pain began to radiate out from his belly. He saw the trail of smoke rising from inside Iruka’s right sleeve. The monk’s hand glided out with a tiny Numidian gun clutched in his hairy fingers.

“Damn you.” Salvator dropped the seireiken as he leaned heavily against the wall and pressed his hand to his stomach and felt the warm blood staining his shirt. He glanced down at his bloody hand and then looked up at the prince. “I despise guns.”

And he fell to the floor.

Chapter 12. Rescue

Tycho sat on a cold, wet stone beneath the Galata Bridge and stared out across the dark waters of the Bosporus. On his right he could follow the outer walls of the Palace of Constantine out to the Seraglio Point, and from there it was a short distance to the three ironclad warships sitting in the middle of the Strait.

A young man called Lycus clambered down from the upper road and crouched beside the major. “Sir, the sun’s down. It’s getting pretty dark out there. And it looks like the storm around the tower is getting bigger.”

Tycho nodded and checked his revolver one last time. “All right then. It looks like Salvator didn’t get anywhere with the Turks after all, so it’s down to us.”

“Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get through them just fine.” The youth grinned and ran his hand over his shaved head.

All of the marines had recently shaved their heads, and at that moment Tycho couldn’t remember why.

They were probably drunk.

Nearly one hundred of the lightly clothed youths stood in the shadows under the bridge with their dozens of little boats bobbing in the shallows. They wore no uniforms, no boots, and no armor, but every last one them had two knives and a Mazigh revolver, and they knew how to use them.