The smell of smoke is strong; the city itself is not burning, but there are enough fires lit to cloud the air. No mosquitoes, at least, Leah thinks, following winding side streets and alleys, heading generally north.
The soldiers keep to the main roads, walking regular rounds, though there are very few of them. Most seem to be by the keep, judging by the noise at their backs.
Lady Valerid does not fall behind or stumble, during their journey; she keeps the pace easily, dodging puddles and quieting her steps seemingly without effort.
If women are supposed to be physical, I wonder what the Baroness’s specialty was, Leah muses as they go. Was she a fighter, before? A dancer, maybe, with balance like that. What about her medical knowledge? What’s her story?
A clump of soldiers pass the mouth of the alleyway Leah and Lady Valerid are ascending; both women duck to the side and flatten themselves against the walls, out of reach of the torchlight. Leah counts the soldiers as they pass; at least eight, but no more than twelve. Why so many? she wonders, watching them go.
At the end of the alley, she peeks her head out to look out after them; they pass a building, nod to some guards standing outside, and continue on. The building is large and well-lit on the inside, and faint voices can be heard.
The Baroness is tugging at her sleeve, gesturing to cross the alley, and Leah struggles with her conscience. Her eyes are bleary from exhaustion, and she wonders if it might be impeding her judgement.
Oh Christ, I’ve got something for that. Duh. Which one is it again? She fumbles at her wrist, feeling for the shape of the charms. Afram. The square one. Is this a square? I think that’s a square. Yeah it is.
Leah holds the charm to her palm and whispers the rune name. Immediately she feels better; her eyes don’t feel as heavy, her spine straightens, her thoughts speed up, and her limbs don’t seem to weigh her down as she moves.
Gods, this is way better than caffeine! Why did I put off using it? Oh right, the war. Seffon’s advance guard should be here very soon…he’ll tell me when they get here, won’t he?
She shakes her head and blinks a few times, settling in to her new burst of energy, and looking again at the building down the road.
“Leah,” the Baroness whispers warningly.
“He couldn’t see us with these,” Leah says, gesturing to the amber. “We could get close…”
“Leah!”
Leah winces and turns to follow her across the road; just in time, as a group of soldiers leaves the building and begins heading down the street in their direction just after they have reached the shadows. The two women hide behind barrels full of trash, waiting for the footsteps to pass. The soldiers talk in Ched, low but not secretive.
Resuming their journey with greater caution, they continue winding northward, one short block at a time, listening at every corner, keeping to the shadows. Horns sound in the distance behind them, from the keep; a new pattern, one Leah does not know.
“The walls are breached,” the Baroness says, her voice constricted.
Leah nods and takes her arm, leading her over an exposed patch of road and back into shadows.
The patrols are just as frequent the further from the keep they go, and if anything seem to be more frequent as they get near the river. Leah can just barely hear it rumbling along, slow and powerful, somewhere up ahead.
They pass along the back wall of another well-lit building, ducking under the windows; the people within seem to be resting and chatting amongst themselves, all in Ched, none overly concerned or agitated. Leah and the Baroness stop under a windowsill as a door opens in front of them and a soldier leans out, tossing an empty bottle into the alley to shatter against the far wall, glass shards scattering. Leah can feel the Baroness’s indignation, and turns in some curiosity.
“This is a Lord’s manor,” she says tetchily once the door has closed again, a hand against the brick. “They’ve either invaded the homes of our friends and converted them to barracks, or our Lords have allowed them in.”
“Which Lord?” Leah asks, suddenly tense.
“Hm?”
“Which Lord’s manor is this? Bar…something?”
“Edeveer,” the Baroness says, the reflected light from the window showing the confusion on her face. “Why?”
“Eschen was set up in the manor of a Bir-something. He had the Lord locked in the basement.”
“Borbrick,” Lady Valerid says, with a curt nod. “Good to know he didn’t just roll over.”
“Is that far from here?”
The Baroness shoots her a hard look. “If I told you, you would run to go pick a fight.”
Leah does not argue, although she dearly wants to. Well, I want to, but over what? The fact that she implied I would abandon her to go fight, or the fact that she’s not letting me abandon her to go fight? Leah sighs at her own stubborn pride. She was right; I’m too emotional about this. I’ll get him back someday, but not right now. She instead turns to continue their passage north.
They get as far as the end of the alley before another door opens, spilling light onto the street. “Hev iecho dhabroi ned?” a female voice calls, shadow just visible in the light cast onto the cobbles. Leah and the Baroness freeze.
“Doi eved eddha niev egedhoi. Adessao, hiedh enoi khet laidh eteg,” a male voice answers, drawing nearer.
A soldier walks out and stops at the foot of the steps, while his fellow remains in the manor and closes the door.
Leah dares a quick glimpse around the corner, enough to see that he is half-armoured, apparently off-duty though still standing at attention. He looks down the street, not paying attention to the alley at his right, instead looking at the road. She pulls back before he can spot her, and she and the Baroness remain still, waiting for him to leave or head back inside.
A horse approaches, the sharp sound of metal shoes clacking against cobblestones ringing above the background thunder of a distant battle. The rider calls out a greeting in Ched, and the man at the stairs steps forward to receive a letter, giving a curt acknowledgement, then bringing it inside. The rider moves on, passing the alley with only a half-attentive glance down it.
Once the street is quiet, and the door is firmly closed to the road, the two women start up again, crossing the road at a dash.
Leah feels a vague tickle along her spine, like someone is watching her, and she turns around to look around the road, backing slowly into the alley. The tingle hits her again, more intensely.
“ – Oh?”
She looks down at her wrist, but the beacon charm is cold and inactive. She double-checks the amber, to make sure it is still attached.
“Leah?”
Leah looks over at the Baroness, and nods, catching up to her. “Someone’s trying to reach me,” she whispers.
“Lord Seffon?”
Leah shrugs. “I don’t think I’m that lucky.”
They reach the edge of the island abruptly, the buildings giving way to a tree-covered slope heading down to the water’s edge. Small white flowers speckle the branches between waxy green leaves, and long thorns stick out from every joint on every twig. Their hair and clothing get caught as they descend, the sweet smell of the trees barely covering the stink of the river; this end is not so polluted, as the far eastern branch was apparently left untouched by the Cheden forces.
A small dock sticks out from the tip of the island, pointing to the wide expanse of water where the two main branches reconnect, roiling over each other before eventually becoming smooth and even. Many small fishing boats bob in the water, tugging against their moorings. Only one boat is occupied, a figure shuffling about onboard, lit by the gibbous moon.
Leah motions for the Baroness to wait, and descends to the dock first. The figure on the boat looks up at her approach, going still.
“Did Verith pass by here?” she asks softly, standing alongside the small fishing boat.
The figure nods. “I thought something had gone wrong, how long you were in coming.”
“Something did go wrong,” Leah says, waving the Baroness to come join her. “So we need to leave as quickly as we can.”
“I’m set to sail,” the fisherman says, holding out a hand for the Baroness.
They board the boat in silence, occasional voices reaching them from the city, distorted by distance and the wind. The sounds of battle are far-removed and vague, and the horns have not blown for many minutes. The fisherman pushes away from the dock with a pole, and grabs a rudder to steer the boat into the smooth water downstream, veering left to the west bank.
Leah looks over to the bridges, the bonfires still burning but the people around them too small to see. In front of the nearer bridge are the docks, where Leah can just barely squint and make out the lit decks of ships at rest, bobbing and rocking slightly.
The littler craft makes a wide arc around them, to avoid the lights. The fisherman does not ever touch the paddles, simply letting the water carry them on silently. Leah does not take her eyes off the ships for a moment of their journey. When the boat does eventually hit the gravel of the beach it shocks her, making her flinch bodily.
The fisherman gets out first, offering a hand to them. Leah lets the Baroness go first, then descends after, feet landing in frigid water, trudging up to the shore towards a dark orchard. “Somehow, the wet doesn’t bother me anymore,” she mumbles, with dry humour. “I’ve been in this river so many times today, I guess I just got used to not being dry. Or warm. Or safe.”
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“Truer words…”
Leah draws the dagger and brandishes it at the darkness. The fisherman stumbles back with a strangled yelp, and the Baroness looks at her in alarm.
“Someone’s tracking us,” Leah says, her free hand fumbling at her sleeve for the amber. “It’s not working like it should be, it should be fouling any scrying attempts…”
“And it did, while you were far away from me.” The voice is clearly Eschen’s, and this time it does not come through as a whisper in her ear, but casual and conversational, from up the bank.
Leah turns back to the voice. To her left, the Baroness draws her dagger and takes up a low fighting stance on the very edge of the shore, though a little uncertainly. In the dim light there is no way to make out shapes; even the boat at her side is only visible due to its sheer size, and the way it blots out the reflected moonlight on the water. Those on land – however many there may be – are utterly invisible.
“But even the finest Devadiss amber rings only work up to a certain distance; it’s why I was so fascinated by your ‘battery.’”
Leah turns back to the fisherman. “Get away. Fast as you can, far as you can. Go!”
The fisherman stumbles to obey, and a few arrows whiz past him into the water. He begins moving with purpose, pushing the boat off the bank and into the water, leaping in and rowing. A few more arrows fly, but it is too dark to aim; the sound of rowing grows quickly distant.
“Very noble of you,” Eschen says. “I expected nothing less.”
Leah’s forehead scrunches in thought. “How many of you are there?” she asks, moving slowly forwards; she still cannot see any figures among the shadows of the orchard.
“How many of us do you think you could take alone?” He asks it with some humour, then says a few quieter words in Ched. Footsteps pass away from them, making a wide loop to block escape from either side.
Leah darts a glance to her left, hoping that the Baroness realised the same thing she did. He thinks I’m alone. He can scry my location, but not my companions. Maybe if I turn myself in, he’ll just go before he realises she’s here?
“I don’t suppose you have another round in you?” she asks, trying to put a bit of a teasing edge in her voice. “I thought our earlier meeting was cut short a little too soon.”
Eschen does not respond, but continues to give quiet commands in Ched.
“Or maybe you have some idea of how to recover my memories? Seffon’s done his best, but maybe Cheden has some secret tricks…?”
Footsteps approach her voice; she moves further to the right, and they follow, sedately, heavily. The Baroness remains absolutely still, low to the ground, water lapping around her ankles.
“I mean clearly, just based on the evidence of this past month, my allegiances are in flux. We’ve already established that! I am willing to entertain any offer made fairly, if I believe the person wants to help. Or, don’t offer – take me into custody, and we’ll talk some more, at your convenience.”
The footsteps pause. There’s a rustling sound of something being removed from a bag or pocket, and Leah tenses, looking for the gleam of moonlight on a metal blade. “I am not a fool.”
“Oh?” Coulda fooled me.
“I will not start talking with you,” Eschen says, and suddenly a torch flares up beside him. He has shielded his eyes pre-emptively, but Leah gets the full brunt of it. She squints, taking a few hurried steps back.
“Hedhiev!” another voice calls, and both Eschen and Leah turn. A Cheden soldier is approaching Lady Valerid, who stands firm, the dagger gripped tightly.
“Oh?” Eschen’s tone registers sincere surprise, though Leah still cannot quite see clearly through the flare of bright blue after-image.
Leah blindly grabs at her wrist, feeling for the last charm. They’re both circles, which one is the last one? Which one is right?
Eschen gives a casual order, and two Cheden guards approach the Baroness. In a quick flick she throws the dagger into the eyeball of the left-most, and the moment it hits she breaks into a run. Two more soldiers break away to follow her, sprinting through the dark.
“Ebiev seddha,” Eschen says, with the feeling of a curse, and raises a hand.
Leah identifies the rune by touch, grabs the charm, and whispers “Diefe,” even as she takes a step up to the captain and stabs upward, into the exposed gap under his arm.
The captain’s arm drops and twists, trapping Leah’s hand and pinning her beside him. Some deep feeling in her core tells her turn around and throw him, to flip him onto his back, but the pebbled beach shifts under her feet and she can’t get her stance fixed. She pushes against him and wrenches her arm away by sheer force, tearing most of the sleeve of the borrowed jacket as she does so.
Eschen looks at her, impressed. One of the Cheden soldiers calls something, and Leah can hear the Baroness shouting and then being muffled. Indignation mounts, but she doesn’t try anything else stupid – Not yet, at least.
“Where did you hope to go from there?” Eschen asks, checking the enamel of his armour for flaking. “If you’d had an ounce of sense you’d have gone for my neck.” He then makes a sour face, staring at the river. “Impressive. Even when I said you wouldn’t, you’ve got me talking.”
“Oh, we just have a bond, you know,” Leah says with a shrug.
Eschen draws his sword and swings it at her head. Leah drops to the ground and scampers backwards, only to hear footsteps closing around behind her from the other soldiers. She adjusts her grip on the dagger and spares a glance at the opponents at her back; two archers and a pike bearer.
“I don’t suppose you have my spear or shield with you?” Leah asks, dodging his next two swings but catching the third in the forearm; her bracer keeps it from being sliced open, but the whole limb immediately aches bone-deep.
Eschen does not talk, pressing her back towards the water; she takes the risk and bolts along the edge, trying to put him between her and the archers – more importantly, to put his torch between them and her. He swings down at her and misses her ankle by a hair, throwing up a spray of tiny rocks.
“We could make this a fair fight?” she offers, skidding backward and turning to face him. He tosses the torch to the ground and takes the sword in two hands, advancing. “You know as well as I do that you’d win either way, so – ”
The sword flies across where her torso had been a second before. Leah catches herself and crabwalks for a bit before regaining her feet, standing over the body of the soldier Lady Valerid had killed. She tugs the dagger out from his eye and hefts it, wondering if she has the muscle-memory for throwing a dagger.
Eschen advances slowly, his soldiers fanning out to block her retreat. Leah eyes the river, wondering whether she could get far enough out to be safe, and then swim all the way back once the current had carried her away.
He swings and Leah ducks, and as he prepares a back-hand she lunges forward with the stiletto and aims it at the chainmail under the edge of his breastplate; it slides between the links smoothly and up into his gut, then back out, followed by a hot rush of blood. For a moment Eschen’s face registers shock, but it is quickly replaced by anger. He grabs her jacket and tries to pin her in place, hefting the sword to skewer her from the side. Leah lifts her arms and drops out of the jacket, falling to the beach in front of him as the sword pierces through the wool.
The charm on her wrist is immediately burning hot.
She barely has time to notice this before Eschen’s boot stomps down on her gut; Leah retches and curls over involuntarily, cradling her stomach. He kicks her exposed back and she rolls over the beach, scattering pebbles.
The breath is knocked out of her, and she can’t quite convince her limbs to move how she wants them to. Eschen is approaching her, with steady steps, unhurried.
Leah scrambles up and pushes herself back into the water, a second before the sword swings down where her body once lay. She lets herself sink underwater, immediately feeling like she’s drowning, and Eschen’s head whips around, looking for her. A couple of arrows shoot through the water around her, one slicing through her hair and nicking her ear.
The charm on her wrist is pulsing with heat, and she fumbles, holding it to her palm.
“By all the Gods, Leah, where are you?” Seffon’s voice is distorted, whether by water or by weakening of the beacon charm Leah doesn’t know. “I’ve been trying to call you since we got here, you’ve been twenty minutes ignoring me!”
A sword blade stabs through the water between Leah’s arm and torso, and she kicks away, swimming out to deeper water before standing and taking a deep breath of air. Eschen watches her, backlit by the torch. Two more arrows fly, one skidding off her pauldron and one off her tasset.
“The beach, past the north bridge, past the docks,” Leah says into her wrist. “Hurry.” She drops even as she says it, as Eschen overextends with a swing at her head. She tries to rush him, and the water seems to resist less than it ought; ramming into him, she feels her shoulder rebound against the armour, but he falls under the weight of her attack. When she looks at his decorated breastplate, she sees it has a dent.
Oh, that will hurt in the morning, spell or no, she thinks, rubbing her shoulder. She walks around to stand on his right arm, pinning it under water.
Dagger in both hands, she drops from above him and stabs at the narrow gap of neck visible between helmet and gorget. Eschen wrenches his arm away as she does, throwing her off-balance; the dagger nicks his neck but nothing more, and Leah is kneeling in the water over his sword arm.
She rushes up and to the beach, Eschen reaching for her ankle as she passes but too slow and ungainly in the water to reach it. Once there she blocks a jab from the pike-bearer and pulls the pike from her grip, tripping her with the butt end and backing away to face the three remaining foes, still keeping the torch between her and the archers.
Eschen gets up slowly from the river, water draining out of his armour, and Leah judges that he will be delayed. She backs a few steps further away, and debates running, but footsteps approaching from behind dissuade her; glancing over her shoulder, she sees a swordsman and another pikeman, descending the slope towards her. The woman she disarmed is standing back up and pulling a short sword from its sheath, positioning herself away from the archers’ line of fire.
The archers let fly another duo of arrows; one misses Leah’s shoulder by an inch, and the other is struck out of the air in a blur of steel.
A woman in dark red and black armour stands in front of Leah, long sword drawn and held in both hands, bronze lines of her armour glinting in the torchlight.
Another person seemingly materialises out of thin air next to her. Watching more carefully, Leah realises they are dropping out of a wind-walk spell. She recognises him as one of the rangers sent after the runaway assassin; his bow is drawn and aimed at the archers.
Sewheil and one of the students of the school are next to step out, both of them with hands glowing with blue light, tendrils whipping around, casting wild shadows over the beach. They take up aim at Eschen.
Seffon and Teo step out last, Teo finishing muttering the incantation to end the spell, then immediately starting another. Within seconds the beach goes dark – darker than dark; Leah can’t see her hand in front of her face, can’t tell the difference between eyes open and eyes shut.
She can hear arrows whiz, a male voice reciting a spell, a crunch of pebbles, a sound like wind chimes, and a whip-lash of red that sizzles but makes no other sound, burning itself into her retina.
The darkness lifts; one of the archers is down, the pikewoman is down, the swordsman is down, and a thorny cage of iron and frost stands in the shallows where Eschen had stood.
“Sea-rat bastard,” Teo spits, lowering her arms in disappointment. “He stole your move, Leah.”
“He can’t have shifted far, not bleeding like that,” Seffon said, pulling a glass bead from his pocket and calling up a scry. “He’s barely a hundred metres away, up-river.”
The student and Adan are subduing and binding the remaining two Cheden soldiers, and the ranger is pacing the line of the orchard, on guard.
“We can’t chase him, he’s too near the boats,” Leah says, swaying.
“Uy damn uell can,” Sewheil says, the blue glow around her hands still twitching and lashing out.
“Where’s the Baroness?”
“What?” Seffon drops to a knee and helps her sit down. Sewheil joins him, letting the spell fade and instead checking Leah for injuries. Her hands glow the gentle, healing blue, passing over her bruised and battered torso and lingering over her earlier stab-wound. Her face registers a deep confusion and disbelief.
“I was helping Lady Valerid escape. Some of Eschen’s men caught her, heading that way,” Leah gestures, then suddenly realises how very much her body hurts.
Seffon changes the target of the scry, and nods. “She’s already on one of their ships.”
“Ley, ua happen’ teu yõ res?”
Leah shudders a bit as every little nick and bruise makes itself known at once. “Huh?”
“Her ribs?” Seffon repeats. He calls up a small white ball of light and holds it over her stomach. “Oh Gods…”
“He kicked me,” Leah says, breathing slowly to try and minimise the pain. “I don’t remember when exactly, but – ”
Seffon helps her to stand, looking around the beach for any more incoming opponents. Teo takes her other side and helps support her, even though she’s at least four inches shorter than Leah and certainly much frailer.
“Encomeng; ten solzẽs, ue maze suppõ,” the ranger reports, nocking an arrow.
“We need to get to the keep,” Seffon says. “Sewheil, stay with Leah. Teo, Lutenan, th nõ brez es teu guã’, go bi th sou brez an – ”
“The keep fell,” Leah says weakly, gripping his shoulder to get his attention. “They sounded the horns. The walls are breached. The keep has fallen.”
“Then we wait for the army to arrive, we heal, and we retake it. Eschen will be spent from tonight, and won’t be able to mount a defence for tomorrow. They’ll arrive by noon, and – ”
A rumbling cuts him off. All eyes turn to the bridges. The bonfires shift, and then sink, and then go out, as in a slow and roaring rush of stone and dust the immense bridges connecting the island to the mainland sink into the river. The waves rock the ships at the port, and steadily advance until they break upon the shore where the party stands, watching in silent awe.
The horns of the keep sound one last time.