The Element of Fire - Martha Wells (best android ereader .txt) 📗

chalk, wax, and some burnt coal.” At his expression she shouted furiously, “Do you want help or not?”

*

An unblocked corridor leading out from the storerooms led Thomas and the others into the main hall.

Wounded guards and refugees were climbing the huge spiral stair up into the King’s Bastion and a thick white pall of smoke from pistols and muskets hung in the air. Out of the confusion, Thomas spotted the Cisternan Commander Vivan. He stepped forward and caught the other man’s arm. “What did we lose?”

Vivan ran a hand through his dark hair and didn’t seem to notice when it came away bloody. He said, “They’re in the Gallery Wing, and probably all of the east side.”

Thomas kept the shock off his face. “What about the King’s Bastion?”

“Secure. Everything inside the inner wall is secure, They didn’t come through there.”

“The wards,” said Galen Dubell, who was suddenly standing beside them. “They have drifted away from the newer structures of the palace, but the foundations in the older sections act as keystones themselves and are holding the wards in place there.”

Thomas nodded. “Good, it’ll give us breathing room.” What he wanted to do most was slam Vivan up against a wall and demand to know where Ravenna and Falaise were, but there was no time, and no sense in it. He knew Lucas and Gideon were on duty and for now he would just have to trust that they had gotten both Queens to safety. He said to Vivan, “You’re trying to push them back so you can close the siege doors at the top of the stairs?”

“Yes, If we fall back now, they’ll push forward and we’ll all go, but the sorceress said—”

Thomas stared. “Who?”

“The sorceress said if we gave her some time she could keep them back long enough to let us retreat.”

“Where is she?”

“At the barricade.” As Thomas started away, Vivan called after him, “Thomas! They’re throwing elf-shot.”

That explained the ominously still forms that bore no visible wounds.

Thomas spotted Kade’s tattered form crouching near the center of the barricade between two Cisternan guards firing muskets. He began to make his way over to her.

She had drawn some kind of design on the floor and was dripping wax from a lighted candle onto it. She was muttering continuously at it and Thomas thought she was saying a spell until he was close enough and realized she was cursing.

He crouched beside her and said, “How much longer?”

She tossed her head to get the hair out of her face and said, “Hours, days, weeks, how should I know?”

A bronze crossbow bolt shot through the barricade and clattered off the stone floor between them. They both hunched their shoulders instinctively and Kade said, “Close,” in a conversational tone. She tossed her hair back again.

Thomas reached over and tucked her hair into the back of her smock for her.

She muttered, “Thank you,” without looking at him, a slow flush spreading up her cheeks.

He said again, “How much longer?”

“Not long. I’m almost done. Listen, what I’m doing is calling a ward.” She stopped, grimacing as the barricade shuddered under another onslaught. “Impatient bastards.”

“Calling a ward?” he prompted.

“Yes. Its name is Ableon-Indis and it’s supposed to be over the St. Anne’s Gate but it’s lying across the top of the King’s Bastion now. I don’t know why.”

“Someone’s taken the keystone.”

“Damn. That would be the reason, then. The newer wards float away from their places without the keystone in the etheric structure, but the King’s Bastion has the strongest warding spells in the old parts of the palace. It’s drawing the drifting wards over to it. Not that it’s helping much.” Her expression was grim. “Anyway, when I finish this the ward should fall toward us here. If I’m lucky it will come to ground right here along the barricade. When we leave, the Host will surge forward, run into it, and get an unpleasant surprise. But Ableon-Indis will start moving upward again almost immediately. What I’m doing here isn’t as strong as the warding spells still drawing it to the King’s Bastion.”

Thomas nodded. “So we’ll have only a few moments at best?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be enough.”

She looked up quickly and grinned.

Berham made it over to them and knelt beside the barricade. “Albons are holding the doors in the bastion, Sir,” he reported.

“Which officers are up there?”

“Just Sir Renier that I could see, Sir. They said if I came in they wouldn’t let me go back because the idea was to get everyone out, you see.”

“All right.” Thomas looked around and saw Martin nearby. He waved him over and said, “Find Commander Vivan and spread word that when I give the order to fall back everyone’s to stop firing immediately and head for the stairs. We’ll have our retreat covered but not for long.” As Martin hurried off he told Berham, “You tell the reloaders to make sure they get the wounded out of here before we have to move.”

“Yes, Captain,” Berham said, pushing to his feet. “By God, this might work.”

As Berham made his way back to the reloaders, Thomas saw a disturbance on the other side of the hall. Soot was pouring out of the great hearth in a dusty cloud. Thomas stood and started toward it. There was something coming down the chimney.

Closer, he could see that the head emerging from under the stone mantel was like a horse’s in size and shape. But its eyes were glazed over and white and it looked as though its coat had been removed with a dull knife. It had teeth like a lion. Thomas drew his pistol, but before he could wind the mainspring, the creature plunged out of the fireplace and fell on a group of men who had been reloading muskets. It swung its great horse’s head from side to side, its teeth tearing as the men scrambled to get away.

Reaching it, Thomas drew his rapier and slashed at its side. As it turned toward him with a scream of rage, he drove the point through its neck. It teetered, then fell toward him, dragging him down as it slumped onto the floor.

A second creature was emerging from the fireplace. Thomas dropped the rapier and wound the pistol’s spring, then braced it on his forearm and fired.

The ball hit the creature in its broad chest along with three other shots fired from different areas of the hall and a fourth ball that all but shattered the mantel of the hearth. The creature dropped like a stone.

Galen Dubell appeared at Thomas’s side, pointed at the fireplace, and gestured. The creature’s body caught fire as if it had been dipped in pitch and flames shot up the chimney. “That should hold them for awhile,” Dubell said with satisfaction.

Thomas shoved himself upright and went to put a foot on the fay-horse’s neck to work his rapier free. He asked, “Can you help Kade?”

“No, anything I could do might only counteract the effect she is attempting to create and then we would be dead.” Dubell smiled grimly. “But I can harry the enemy and perhaps give her more time.”

As the sorcerer strode off Thomas looked after him, a little nonplused. Disasters agree with you.

As others ran up to carry the wounded, more fay charged the barricade and Thomas joined the defenders.

Nightmare images flung themselves out of the darkness and were driven back by pistol balls or pikes wielded over the barricade. There were hideous animal-shapes with distorted bodies and wicked intelligent eyes, creatures with oddly human faces and bodies that were marked with startling deformities, and other things that vanished so quickly the mind discounted what the eyes saw. Their shrieking and keening mixed with the blasts of muskets and pistols was deafening.

Thomas had lost track of time when Vivan grabbed his arm and said, “She’s ready.”

Thomas looked around. The wounded and the refugees had vanished up the stairway and Commander Vivan had already sent the reloaders after them. Thomas said, “Pass the word: when I give the order, stop firing and fall back into the bastion.” He stepped back where he could see Kade and waited for the word to pass down the line.

When the guards at each end signaled ready, Thomas looked at Kade. She nodded, and he yelled, “Fall back.”

Discipline held remarkably, even among the Albon knights, who didn’t think themselves obliged to listen to anyone.

The shrieking din from their attackers rose in a crescendo. Thomas moved with the others to the foot of the stairs and looked back for Kade, not seeing her among the crowd.

She was still crouched beside the barricade. Thomas saw what she had been waiting for. The Host surged up toward the barricade and met a wall of hostile air. Some dissolved into myriad colors that shrieked toward the ceiling and away like fleeing ghosts. Some popped like soap bubbles and disappeared while others fell backward, marked by horrible wounds.

Kade smiled tightly to herself, leapt to her feet, and ran.

Thomas waited for her to reach the stairway before starting up. She was a little ahead of him halfway up the second tier when she was thrown back against the banister as if something had struck her.

The Host started to pour over the barricade. Thomas reached Kade and lifted her up. She was unconscious but still breathing and weighed practically nothing.

The third tier passed in a blur with the fay on the stairs below. Then the Albon knights were closing the siege doors behind him, foot-thick oak panels sheathed with iron. They slammed them to and shoved the heavy locking-bolts home. The foyer was crowded with wounded guards and refugees, and the light was dim and smoky.

Kade let him know she was awake and wanted to be put down with a sharp elbow in his ribs. He set her on her feet and she staggered slightly. “What happened to you?” he demanded, his breath coming hard from the climb.

“I don’t know. Ow.” She felt the side of her head gingerly. “Where’s Galen?”

The old sorcerer was already on the other side of the gallery, helping with the wounded. As Kade turned away to go to him Thomas said, “Wait.”

She paused, wary, and he asked, “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“No.” Her voice was scornful. “That is the Unseelie Court, the Dark Host, the enemy of light. I wouldn’t have anything to do with them. They were the ones who tricked my mother into accepting a wager she couldn’t possibly win. I wasn’t much fond of her, but no one deserves— And they would just as soon do the same to me.”

He had to be sure. “You didn’t mention you knew how to manipulate the wards.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to call that ward down if the keystone had still been in its place. Removing it destroyed the etheric structure that held the wards in their courses.” She winced and touched her head again, then continued more calmly. “Galen taught me how to track wards in a puddle of ash, and the way I called Ableon-Indis to me was only a variation on the spells used to temporarily hold a ward in one place, which every apprentice knows. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

There was a muffled thump from the other side of the siege doors, then an echoing roar, as some thwarted creature expressed its displeasure. If Kade had not bothered to aid the defenders, they would have been on the other side of those doors now. Thomas thought, She didn’t have to do it, and it certainty wouldn’t serve her purpose if she meant us any harm. He said,