Chapter 8
8
W ITH R AMI AT his heels, Kanthe rushed behind the carriage to a fallen horse. A soldier lay crushed under the armored steed. Kanthe stopped long enough to unhook a crossbow hanging from the saddle, along with a quiver of feathered bolts. He felt a thousandfold more confident in his plan as he gripped the weapon’s ironwood stock.
As a second-born prince, he had been forbidden to wield a sword, but that hadn’t stopped him from learning to hunt with a bow. He had been trained by the best, a Cloudreach scout of cunning skill and agility.
He remembered one lesson now.
When hunting dangerous prey, your best weapon is the shadows.
With bow in hand, Kanthe ignored the fighting in the street and ran low toward the neighboring ruins of a line of row houses. He climbed through a broken window, scoured long ago of any shards of glass. He took a breath to help Rami through while letting his sight adjust to the darkness.
“If we stick to this cover,” Kanthe whispered, “we can cross forward through these homes and come up behind your sister’s carriage.”
Rami nodded and pointed deeper into the structure. “Such households usually share a common courtyard in the back. We could pass more quickly through there to reach the home closest to Aalia.”
“Good.”
Kanthe headed through the dilapidated structure. The upper level had partially collapsed, creating a deadfall of beams, planks, and broken stone. Rats and other squeaking vermin fled from them. Webs stuck to their faces and clothes. The place smelled sharply of spoor and old piss.
Kanthe glanced back to check on Rami. The prince of this realm showed no hesitation or squeamishness to be climbing through such filth. His face remained a mask of desperate determination. Rami grabbed a fat rat by the tail and flung it away without a wince. Kanthe liked the man all the more—resolute now to firm up their friendship if they survived.
Together, they forged through to a low-roofed kitchen with a soot-blackened stone hearth in a corner. A far door hung crookedly, letting in more light. A peek through revealed a rear garden. It was overgrown with weeds, thistles, and thorns. A lichen-scribed stone ring marked an old well.
“Stick close to the wall,” Kanthe warned. “In case anyone on the second floor is watching this side.”
Rami ducked after Kanthe into the yard. They flattened against the wall. As they edged along, his friend readied his blades, flipping them across his fingers. He was likely testing their weight, limbering up his joints, or maybe it was a way of dispelling his nervousness. Either way, the silver knives seemed to appear and disappear at will.
They continued through the weeds and over broken roof tiles to reach the abode nearest Aalia’s carriage. He glanced to Rami, getting a confirming nod that passing through this home was their best chance.
Kanthe led the way, squeezing through a door that gapped open. He took a breath to steady himself and let his sight adjust again to the gloom. Echoes of the battle outside reached them. Screams, shouted orders, clashes of steel.
“Go,” Rami urged.
Kanthe continued through the home’s kitchen. At least this place was in better shape. The second floor remained intact. He passed stairs leading up. His ears strained for any sign of lurkers above. But the fighting outside made it difficult.
He ducked lower and exited into the main room at the front. Broken furniture lay strewn about. A pile of ashes and partially burnt wood suggested someone had once used this place to camp from the cold.
Rami grabbed his shoulder, hissing low. He pointed upward. A thin trickle of dust streamed between the rafters, seeping through the floorboards above.
Someone’s moving up there.
Kanthe cursed himself for focusing on the floor, the piles of ashes. He carefully shifted a couple of steps to the side, edging toward a ragged hole in the ceiling. While the upper level was mostly in place, a corner of it had given way. He made out the slightest flickering glow up there, noticed only as the light shifted in the gap’s direction.
Have we been heard down here?
Kanthe positioned the butt of his crossbow to his shoulder. A bolt was already in place, strung taut. As he neared the hole, he lifted the weapon to his eye, aiming intently. He tilted his head enough to flick a look at Rami, willing his friend to hang back—then froze.
A shadow shifted behind Rami, at the threshold of the kitchen. Someone had come down the back stairs, moving silently to come up behind them. A sword flashed in the darkness.
Ambushed yet again…
Maybe it was Kanthe’s look of shocked horror, but Rami reacted, moving as swiftly as a striking serpent.
His friend dropped a shoulder and, without even seeming to glance backward, flung his arm behind him. Silver flew from his fingertips. The blade found the man’s throat. The cry was a strangled gurgle as the knife all but silenced the attacker.
It was quiet enough for Kanthe to hear the tread of boots overhead. He swung around as a figure leaped through the hole, a cloak flared wide, a sword in hand.
Kanthe still had his bow at his cheek and squeezed the trigger. He kept his grip tight as the twanging release threatened to shake off his aim. The bolt pierced the attacker’s left eye before he even landed. His legs crumpled under him, followed by his body.
Rami joined him. Kanthe grabbed another bolt from his quiver and fitted it in place, cranking the string taut. They watched in all directions, but no other attackers appeared.
“Must’ve been all of them,” Kanthe whispered.
They rushed across the rest of the room and reached a window that had been partially boarded shut. They peered through a broken slat. The back of Aalia’s toppled carriage lay directly ahead. It was impossible to tell how many defenders remained.
The only one in sight was Aalia’s lithe bodyguard, who still danced on the cobbles, fighting two attackers. The pile of bodies around her had grown. But the feathered end of an arrow waved from her left shoulder. Her face ran with blood, not all from her attackers.
Another assailant rushed across the street to join the fray.
The woman could not last much longer.
Not without help.
Kanthe shifted his crossbow to the gap, aimed with a steadying breath, and fired. The bolt found its intended target. The running assailant’s head snapped back, carrying his body with it. The figure crashed backward.
Rami had shifted to the door by now. It had been roped shut, but age had turned hemp to mulch. His friend slammed his shoulder into the door and burst out into the open. He rushed for cover behind the overturned coach. He made it safely, likely due to the thickening smoke—and the fact he and Rami had already dispatched the two men upstairs.
Kanthe followed, struggling with his weapon, fumbling for another bolt. As he reached the street, he spotted an abandoned bow, likely tossed here when the first war wagon exploded. A leather quiver lay steps away amidst a scatter of arrows.
He smiled at this smallest of good fortunes, not knowing which god to thank. He tossed aside the crossbow, glad to be rid of it. “Sod that.”
He scooped up the bow and gathered the arrows back into their quiver. He caught three between his fingers. He gripped their shafts firmly as he straightened. Rami nodded to him, then rounded the wagon, ready to go to the aid of the bodyguard.
Kanthe followed at his heels, stringing the first arrow in place while still holding the other two between his fingers.
Their sudden appearance from behind the wagon caught everyone off guard. Rami dispatched one of the bodyguard’s attackers. Kanthe took out the other. Together, they flanked the woman, who stumbled back a step, breathing hard.
More assailants rushed forward.
Kanthe had already shifted his wrist to fit the second arrow to the bowstring. He drew and fired. As the shaft flew, he fixed the remaining arrow in place, pulled hard, and let it loose. The two arrows struck true, dropping two figures.
Beside him, Rami twirled and spun, flashing silver through the air.
Screams followed, blood arced high, more bodies fell.
Kanthe fumbled with the quiver over his shoulder. He grasped three more arrows between his fingers and pulled them free. Before he could fit the first one in place, a leather-coated arm lunged before his face. A crossbow bolt clanged off steel, ricocheting off the small shield strapped to the bodyguard’s forearm. She shifted forward, ready to defend them both.
Kanthe concentrated on the bowmen up in the windows.
Rami dispatched swordsmen on the ground.
The battle waged for what felt like forever.
Kanthe found himself gasping. He wiped sweat from his eyes. His fingers ached. His shoulders burned. He searched his quiver, only to find it empty. Likewise, Rami had snatched up a curved sword after running out of knives.
Kanthe risked a glance to his friend, read the fear there, confirming what he knew was true.
We can’t win.
Then a loud crash drew all their attention to the left. Horses reared and snorted, tossing their armored heads. The war wagon burst past the other coach. Before it did, Kanthe saw Pratik leap into the wagon from the other carriage. The Chaaen carried an ax in both hands. The man must have chopped the carriage free of the weight of its dead horses and finally maneuvered the coach out of the way.
The armored war wagon thundered toward them.
Archers fired in all directions, driving back the attackers.
The huge cart drew to a stop amidst a clatter of hooves. A door opened on the wagon’s side, revealing a steel-plated cabin hidden beneath the open battle deck.
Now protected, Rami turned to the toppled carriage. Aalia crouched far under it. A handful of her chaaen-bound nestled with her. The others appeared dead, having used their own bodies to shield the Illuminated Rose.
Kanthe went to Rami’s aid. He helped get the Chaaen up and moving, while Rami unchained his sister from the dead. They hurried to the wagon, where soldiers hauled them inside.
Kanthe offered his hand to help Aalia up.
She slapped his arm away, looking past his shoulder as if he were not even worthy of her gaze. “Do not touch me,” she spat in Hálendiian, plainly able to speak his language all this time.
Kanthe balked at the heat of her rejection.
Rami winced and assisted his sister into the wagon. He offered an apologetic shrug to Kanthe as he passed. “She’s frightened.”
Kanthe caught a glare from Aalia before she turned away. It wasn’t fear shining on her face. He easily recognized what it was.
Hatred.
He sighed and followed her, accepting his fate as best he could.
As he did, a stray crossbow bolt sliced past his ear, close enough to shave off a few strands of hair. He ducked to the side and searched in the direction of the attack. A figure appeared down the street. The man lowered his weapon and stood tall, fearless, his dark face bared to the sunlight. His strong features—firm jaw, wide cheekbones—could be considered handsome, especially his bright violet eyes, rare and prized among the Klashean. The only blemish was a scar that ran from brow to cheek, crossing through the white paint over his left eye.
That gaze fixed on Kanthe.
The man’s expression was easy to read.
Hatred once again.
The figure lifted an arm and slashed it low. Upon this signal, the attack ended. The pinging of arrows and bolts went silent. Figures vanished in all directions, fading into the shadows. The man, clearly the leader, turned and followed.
“Hurry,” Rami warned, and held out an arm toward Kanthe.
He grabbed his friend’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled inside the wagon. Rami guided him to a bench. He dropped heavily, exhausted in every measure of the word.
He closed his eyes, picturing that figure on the street.
Only then did he remember one detail. As Aalia had slapped his hand away, she had been staring past Kanthe’s shoulder—in that same direction. He had thought her too disdainful of him to be worthy of her gaze. But maybe she had also spotted the leader out in the street.
He shook his head, too addled to contemplate it all. He only knew one thing for certain. He pictured the expressions shared by Aalia and the attacker on the street and accepted the truth of this day.
I seem to be doing what I do best.
He sighed loudly.
Creating more enemies.