Enemy Page 5

  She lifted her face to look at his, full lips parted, gaze flicking over him.

  Bruche chuckled. She seems to have an appreciation for your looks, Khel Szi.

  Draken ignored him. She went back down the steps, nimble despite her age and the slick stone, skirts swaying. He followed more carefully, favoring his knee. The cold stabbed into it with every step. Halmar kept close in case he slipped. When he got to the bottom, the firemaster had already disappeared into the Cindershack, and he grimaced at Halmar and Tyrolean.

  “Perhaps an evening with her could ease your tension, Khel Szi,” Halmar said.

  Draken opened his mouth to retort that he had no interest in taking any woman to his bed, even this attractive but grandmotherly sort, much less now, but he realized a grin quirked the corner of Halmar’s mouth.

  Bruche chuckled deep inside him. It felt strained, but the swordhand was trying. Sometimes there’s nothing left to do but laugh.

  “Halmar,” Draken said. “You made a joke. It must truly be the end of nights.”

  Halmar’s pierced lips stretched with a rare smile. He opened the rickety door to the Cindershack for Draken and dipped his chin to him. Draken strode inside and Tyrolean and Halmar followed. The firemaster held out her hands, chapped from the cold, to the hearth. The fire shed negligible warmth.“What is your name?” he said instead.

  The place felt smaller with her in it, but whether it was to do with her voluminous skirts or her discerning gaze, he wasn’t sure. “Ninya, Khel Szi.”

  A young woman’s name.

  Even she was young once. Bruche was enjoying himself.

  “The fire oil’s nor ready,” Ninya announced.

  Once, he, too, hadn’t known how to make a little waste-talk with his betters before reporting. He wagered she did; she just didn’t want to. “Surely we can make some use of it.”

  Ninya shook her head. “Only have a bit that’ll burn in this wet, and s’nor enough to take out that ram.”

  “You know about the ram?”

  “Whole of Brîn know all about that ram, aye, Khel Szi.”

  “That was quick,” Draken said, dryly.

  That Sept accent. Khellian’s balls, she must be sundry. She looked Brînian enough though. Fair enough. She wasn’t the only one with a deceiving face.

  Draken mined memories that weren’t all his own. Septonshir, upper region. Clannish and reclusive. Reputation held the men loved their fishing skiffs more than their wives, and no wonder, with women in command. It must have been why Elena never heard any rumblings against her reign from Septonshir. The Sept, of anyone, would appreciate a queen over a king.

  It must also be why Ninya had no qualms about looking Draken in the eye and speaking directly. “A waste in this wind, s’well. The lot of it’ll splash ’gainst the gates.”

  He considered a moment and told her his plan. “We intended on disabling and leaving the ram there as a blockade. They’re already setting the damned thing up and arrows are worthless in this.” He waved a hand, indicating the storm creaking the rafters and sneaking in through every crack. “Barrels of fire oil would require rather less aim.”

  “If we had barrels of the stuff, which we d’nor.”

  Her brusque tone was getting to him. “How long do you think it will take to produce more?”

  “Sevennight or two.”

  “Why? Isn’t it just mixing up ingredients and—”

  Her snort cut him off. “A four-step process to reduce the incendiary. Gods, that stuff by itself’ll blow a metal-strapped barrel and the building it’s in to Korde hisself—it’s to be done and stored in a cellar where a slab of meat will chill hard so it won’t blow. And the mix s’nor in ready supply. It takes time and careful—”

  “All right, all right.” He knew nothing of how to make the stuff and at the moment he didn’t care. All he cared was they apparently couldn’t make it. She seemed to be making plenty of damned excuses about it. He couldn’t help thinking of Ilumat’s warning about hiding rebels in the city. Could she be one of them? Bruche prodded him to question her. “You’re Sept?”

  She gave a matter-of-fact nod. “Slave from there, aye, Khel Szi.”

  His brows raised. “How did you get free?”

  “My mistress called me too clever by half. Found a trader’d take me if I was trained to desk work. Hired me to Algir for reading and figures. I was supposed to be back to my mistress when the job were done.” A shrug. “Got trained up and d’nor go. He was a chemic.”

  Capital offense, that. By Akrasian law she should have something cut off her, a breast, fingers, and wear shackles the rest of her life, if not be hanged outright. But with Akrasians preparing to batter down the gates Draken wasn’t inclined to give a hang for the minutiae of Akrasian law and one escaped slave with an offer of the truth made him more confident in her loyalty, despite her sour disposition.

  “Work on the mixture then,” he said. “It may be of use later.”

  A clear dismissal, though she held, considering him. Now he was losing his patience. “What, woman?”

  “You’re bigger than I heard. Handsomer. And I think a deal more dangerous than I was told.” She shook her head a little and dropped a curtsy.

  You’re going to let her go, just like that? It’s been a while since you had such an, er, willing bedmate.

  It’s been a while since I had a bedmate at all, old scullion.

  Ninya admitted a harsh burst of wind as she went through the door. The cold draught left him grey and empty inside. The banter reminded him sharply of waking alone every morning since Elena had gone.

  No sooner did the door slam shut behind her than a BOOM! crashed through the rickety old building, peppering his head and shoulders with leaking rain and splinters from the ancient beams overhead. Draken cursed. Already? Truls flowed closer to him, but Draken pushed through him and strode outside to find the soldiers who’d manned the gate struts running back to them. The gates had slipped inward slightly with the first battering. It needed more bracing, desperately. The cross-beam had buckled.

  “Lower,” he shouted into the wind and pointed. “Hammer more cross-braces here!”

  Wind whipped his cloak about his heels and nearly tripped him up. He tore it off as he ran to the gate to indicate where, cursing himself for not noticing earlier that the cross-braces needed to be set lower. It was just so damned difficult to examine the details with the wind and rain. The gates buckled inward half the length of a man’s arm, cross-bars groaning as they cracked under the strain of the impact. It didn’t want to snap back. The ends of two great chocks already in place—four square-planed logs strapped together made a beam bigger around than a man—skittered across the icy roadway with the next blow of the ram. Good job they’d been bolted to the gates because they’d have rattled free of brackets by now. Men ran to reset them with great levered crankwheels, and others worked to pry up the large roadstones to make holes in which to set the butts of the chocks. Draken cursed again, more from not knowing how to best help than from the urgency of reinforcing the gates. Halmar’s hand on his arm guided him back out of the way.

  Shouts were momentarily silenced by another echoing thud. As the great strut screeched across the icy roadstones, a soldier yanked his pry bar up just in time to keep from it getting stuck—and himself with it. The iron bar in his hands accidentally swung up to hit another soldier in the head. It clanged against his helm and he dropped like a stone. Sounds of dismay mingled with the whipping rain and harried shouts.

  That, Draken could see to. He shook free of Halmar and shoved back the worried soldier who had hit the unconscious man, shouting at him to get back to it. Halmar pulled him out of the way of the workers and Draken felt under his chin for a pulse. Erratic, curse the Seven, and thick blood ran from under the ill-fitting helm. His face was slack and unlined. “Get him out of here, Halmar.”

  The big szi nêre picked up the soldier and carried him toward the cindershack. Draken wiped at the rain running down his
face. It soaked the edges of his armor and his locks too. His woolen padded shirt made him smell like a wet farm animal.

  Tethered horses neighed and skittered. The soldier with the pry bar finally loosed a stone, teeth gritted, muscles straining. From the effort it looked like the roadstone had grown roots. It took three men to displace it from the hole and shove it aside. Boom! The strut slid further and slipped into the knee-deep hollow the stone left. This allowed a lopsided gap between the gates as the crossbar buckled, splinters flying. Some lucky Akrasian bowman was able to send arrows through the gap. They skittered harmlessly off the roadstones; no Brînian was stupid enough to get in the line of fire between the two struts.

  BOOM! Splinters flew and the gate with the loose strut slid treacherously further.

  The other team digging up the roadstone weren’t lucky enough to have the beam slip into place. It slid to one side because of the gate’s new angle. Men rushed the gates to push it closed again and the strut itself had to be shoved and dragged back toward the hole by four men. Shouts filtered through the gates and Draken heard a sharp squeal that he realized he’d been hearing all along … the sound of the King’s Ram as its mechanism drew back. Icy rain trickled under his armor and soaked his head and arms as he watched helplessly.

  It took another breath before the men wedged the strut awkwardly into its hole. Air burst from his lungs when the ram hit again. The cross-brace tore a little more with snapping sounds reminiscent of bones breaking, but the struts held and kept the whole lot from moving further. Men rushed to set lesser struts and Brînian archers sent arrows flying through the gap in the gates.

  Draken’s fingers twitched, wishing for his bow.

  But you are Khel Szi and only engage the enemy under extreme need.

  “It’s bloody engaging me, if I am Brîn, as you all like to say.” Draken still knelt where the injured man had lain, and pain shot through his knee and radiated up his thigh as he shoved to his feet. In that moment, he realized Truls had disappeared. He looked around for him as Halmar returned and reached out to help him up. Draken shook him off and strode for Vannis, who barked orders at a dumfounded soldier, then prodded him in the chest when he didn’t move quickly enough. Draken rubbed his hand over his face, swiping at the rain again. The Comhanar turned on Draken, ready to shout more orders, then balked when he saw who it was.

  “How long ’til they break through?” Draken said.

  Flat cheeks wet and raw, Comhanar Vannis narrowed his eyes at the struts and the makeshift smaller beams soldiers were hammering to the gates between the impact of the ram and exchanges of arrows. The edges of the gates were already peppered with them. A man hit a nail with a mallet just as the ram hit and he screamed as the impact threw him back onto the pavers, arm dangling uselessly at his side, his shoulder misshapen. His screams choked off. Shock. Dislocated shoulders hurt, as Draken well knew.

  One of Vannis’s men trod down the steps off the wall and drew near. Draken gave him a look. He returned a grim shake of his head. “We’re firing as fast as we can, Khel Szi, but with the wind we can’t hit anything but mud.”

  “Best take yourself back to the Citadel, Khel Szi,” Vannis said, “and hide away the little Szirin somewhere I don’t know. Won’t be long now and I’m of more use here.”

  Undermanned at the only barrier between the Akrasians and the city. But the Comhanar stood like a rooted tree on the roadstones, hand hooked on the hilt of his sword, unmoving even as the ram’s impact reverberated through the stone under their boots and made everyone else, including Draken, startle again. Slowly Vannis’s square hand, the dark skin spotted and scarred and lined, reached for the buckles on his armor. Draken blinked in surprise. He’d disarm, go against orders?

  Fight and die a Brînian. They’ll torture him when they work out who he is. He might tell all he knows, and he knows fair more than you think. Better for us all if he dies in battle.

  He should return with me.

  Do not order him thus. He’ll fight and die a Brînian as he always has done. Bruche grunted softly in Draken’s chest. Treat it as nothing. Order him to report to you.

  What? But—

  Vannis had loosened his breastplate and was pulling it over his head. Next a shirt stained with sweat peeled away, baring a scarred chest still strapped with muscle under the loose skin of an older man.

  Honor him with confidence in his survival, Draken.

  Vannis sat on a bench along the road to remove his boots. He set his dark feet with beringed toes on the cold stone. An old man with priceless war knowledge about to be put to death on an Akrasian sword.

  Draken cleared his throat. “I’ll expect you to report to the Citadel when you know more, Comhanar.”

  Vannis rose. Dipped his chin to Draken. “Aye, Khel Szi. That I will—”

  BOOM!

  Draken turned to go, heart in a knot, wondering if he’d done enough, if he could ever do enough. How many Brînians would Vannis take with him? How many Akrasians, for that matter? They were all his people, damn them. Three dozen or more; I’d lay good rare on it. Bruche’s tone was sage and sure. But they’ll hold things here, give you time to get to Sikyra and get her to safety.

  Except he had no idea where. He regretted letting Aarinnaie run off. She was the one who knew places to hide. Maybe even a way to escape the city, though the thought sank a stone in his stomach. Draken drew a deep breath of war-strewn air, rife with smoke and wet and sweat. He mounted. The ram hit again, making Sky toss her head. “Be easy.” He soothed her with a firm hand on her curved neck. “Soon the frightening noises will end.”

  And others, more horrifying, would begin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  An alarmed cry pierced the quiet streets, and then another. The szi nêre pushed ahead of Draken, but Konnon cantered toward them on his horse, emerging from the mists like a god of war on the rampage. He gleamed with sleet. Draken thought he’d caught a flash of sword, but Konnon’s was sheathed.

  “Khel Szi,” he cried. “You must come to the Citadel straight away!”

  “Konnon. What’s the mad rush, man?” And why aren’t you with Sikyra?

  Their horses danced around each other, hooves sliding over slick cobbles, sensing the anxiety of their masters.

  “The Citadel is under attack—”

  “Sikyra?”

  “The little Szirin is inside, protected.”

  Draken cursed, his tone harsh against the patter of rain and low snort of horses. “You dared leave her?”

  “I didn’t dare not come. My Lord Mance ordered me to fetch you. They’re trying to climb the walls. So far it holds, but not for long.”

  “They? They who? Who is attacking?”

  Konnon’s voice quieted, as if he weren’t sure of Draken’s reaction. He swiped an arm over his wet face. He’d left too quickly to don a helm. “Brînians, my lord. Our own.”

  His chest seized. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Bruche moved within him gently, bringing him back. Traitors, bought and paid for by Ilumat. Draken started his horse toward the Citadel but reined up as quick; no going through the gates this night. “How did you get out?”

  Konnon lowered his voice and his gaze flitted about. “The … er, passageway, Khel Szi. Under the temple and Citadel.”

  A gentle term for a nasty place that did nothing to alleviate the sick knot under his heart. Generations of Brînian royal bones lay in the bowels of the Citadel temple. The great planked door inside the Temple, an arched thing as wide as it was tall, was barred with a thick lock, one of the earliest of its kind. Draken wasn’t aware a key existed, nor that there was an exterior entrance. He swallowed down the thought of breathing in his ancestors’ dust and nodded to the szi nêre. “Take me.”

  There was a brief debate over what to do with the horses, especially on such a miserable night. Draken shifted in his saddle, blood pounding with fear for Sikyra, but he knew the folly of rushing in to fetch her alone. The streets they took were deserted and the we
althier residential district surrounding the Citadel had no public stables. Draken couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of quiet before the storm of attack. Bells had rung when the Akrasians first appeared; some few civilians had appeared and been sent back out of harm’s way. Soon after, everyone at the gates had been much too busy stopping the invasion. No bells rang now. Because there was no one left alive to ring them?

  At last Konnon pounded on the door of a sizable attached house. The Moonling-half slave’s jaw dropped at the sight of them, though she dropped into a passable curtsy. The master of the house, a wealthy merchant Draken had met before, was more businesslike than his servant and roused his stable staff to take the horses, saying they’d be here when Khel Szi returned.

  Draken strode after Konnon on foot, only vaguely curious about how they were going to reach the tombs on this side of the Citadel wall, ears pricked for sounds of battle. But they were on the other side of the palace grounds from the main gates. The building and the sharp patter of rain on metal railings and over rooftops and cobbles hid whatever noises the Akrasians … or their mercenaries … caused in the attack.

  You know you can’t go back for the horses, not personally.

  Bruche was right. Ilumat’s threats about having people inside city walls had come true. Draken could trust no one now, maybe even not the szi nêre. Konnon led them without glancing back, certain his Khel Szi would follow, certain Halmar and the others would protect Draken.

  You can trust them.

  Draken wondered.

  Konnon once was sworn to Geord—Aarinnaie’s betrothed and named heir to the Brînian throne until Draken had killed him. He didn’t have to spell it out to Bruche that the old heir—or at least the idea of him—still had loyals in the city, people he’d paid well to be his friends and who resented Draken’s aversion to bribes.

  The peril of his situation was hitting him with fresh clarity. Despite being his father’s son, he’d appeared seemingly out of nowhere with a fallible personal history. Of course he was not received by everyone in Brîn as Khel Szi. Just being his father’s bastard was enough to turn backs. If word got out he was sundry, and half-Monoean to boot, there’d be more people in the city who would hunt him than protect him. Bad enough Sikyra was known sundry. That had paved an easy road for Ilumat. As far as Brîn, it wasn’t a leap to assume the tide against Draken had fair turned.