It was difficult not to be caught up in the rush of excitement. Niente surged forward behind Zolin and the wall of the infantry, and he heard his own voice screaming challenge with the others. Then, with an audible shudder, the Tehuantin line collided with the waiting Nessanticans. Niente could see blades flashing, could see the mounted warriors on the horses slashing down into the chaotic mass of soldiers, could hear the cries from the wounded or dying of both sides, could smell the blood and see spatters of it flying in the air, but there were too many warriors between. The warriors behind him pressed in at their backs, pushing them forward, and the front line gave way so abruptly that Niente nearly fell. He was suddenly in the midst of the battle, with individuals fighting all around him, and he saw a Nessantican in his chain mail swinging a great sword overhead as he came at Niente.
The scrying bowl… The dead nahualli…
Niente shouted and thrust his spell-staff at the man as if it were a rapier. When it touched the man’s abdomen, a spell released: a flash, an explosion of broken steel links, of brown cloth and pale flesh and crimson blood. The sword toppled from nerveless hands, the man’s mouth gaped though no sound emerged, and he fell.
But there was no time to rest. Another soldier came at him, and again the stave, packed with the spells Niente had prepared, took the man down. One of the mounted soldiers they called chevarittai charged toward him, and Niente flung himself to the side as the warhorse’s spiked and armored hooves tore the earth where he’d just been standing, plunging on past.
For Niente, this battle-like every battle-became a series of disconnected encounters, a maelstrom of confusion and mayhem, a disorganized landscape in which he continued to push forward. The noise was so tremendous that it became an unheard roar all around him. He sidestepped swords, thrust his stave at anything clad in the colors of blue and gold. A blade caught his arm, slicing open his forearm, another his calf. Niente shouted, his throat raw, the stave hot in his right hand, the energy blazing from it fast, almost gone now.
And…
He realized that he was standing not in a field, but amongst houses and other buildings, that the battle was now raging in the streets of the city, and the blue-and-gold-clad soldiers were turning now as horns blared, retreating deeper into the depths of the great city.
He was still alive, and so was Zolin.
The Battle Begun: Sigourney ca’Ludovici
Commandant Aleron ca’Gerodi stood before Sigourney and the rest of the Council of Ca’ in armor spattered with blood, his helm dented by a sword strike, his face coated with mud, soot, and gore. “I’m sorry, Kraljica, Councillors,” he said. His voice was as exhausted as his stance. “We could not hold them…”
Ca’Mazzak hissed like a steam kettle too long over the fire. Sigourney closed her eye. She took a long breath, full of soot and ash, and coughed. Her lungs were full of the stench. She opened her eye again. Through the haze of smoke, she could see the ruins of the palais, parts of it still actively burning. She and the Council had taken refuge in the Old Temple, which despite the shattered dome, was still largely intact. The main nave was packed with the treasures of the palais: paintings (including the charred one of Kraljica Marguerite), gold-and-silver place settings, the ceremonial clothes, the staffs and crowns worn by a hundred Kralji-they were all here, though much-too much-had been lost in the blaze. Sigourney sat on the Sun Throne at the entrance to the dome chamber, though if the throne were alight, it was not apparent in the brightness of the sun through the great hole torn in the dome. The sun mocked her, shining bright in a cloudless sky.
One of the attendants handed her a goblet of the cuore della volpe to ease the coughing and the pain. She sipped at the cool liquid, though it was brown and cloudy in the golden cup.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“We managed to halt their advance finally,” ca’Gerodi told her. “They didn’t reach the Avi a’Parete, but they have most of the streets to the west of it on the North Bank. They have the village of Viaux. There was a fierce battle near the River Market and for a time they held it, but we pushed them back. I’ve moved a battalion to protect the Pontica Kralji, but that’s left the Nortegate area more open than I would like.”
The councillors muttered to themselves. “This is unacceptable,” ca’Mazzak said, more loudly.
“Then perhaps you should have left Commandant cu’Ulcai alive,” Sigourney told the man. “Or would you care to take up the sword yourself?” Ca’Mazzak grumbled and subsided. Ca’Gerodi seemed to waver on his feet, and Sigourney motioned to one of the servants to bring a chair; the man sank gratefully onto the cushioned seat, uncaring of the filth he smeared on the brocade. “What are you telling me, Commandant?” Sigourney asked him. “That tonight they will set the rest of the city on fire, that tomorrow they will overrun us entirely? You said that you had more than enough men. You said that-”
“I know what I said,” he interrupted, then-as Sigourney snapped her mouth shut at his rudeness-seemed to realize what he’d done and shook his head. “Pardon me, Kraljica; I haven’t slept since the night before last. But yes, that’s exactly what I fear: that tonight will bring more of the Westlanders’ awful fire, and that when they attack tomorrow…” He brought his head up, gazing at her with eyes sagging and brown. “I will give my life to protect Nessantico, if that is what is required.”
“Aleron…” Sigourney started to push up from the Sun Throne, forgetting for a moment her injuries, then fell back. The movement caused her to cough again. The councillors watched her. She knew now what she must do, and the realization burned at her, as painful as her wounded body. “Go. Get what rest you can, and we will deal with whatever tonight and tomorrow bring. Go on. Sleep while you can…”
Ca’Gerodi rose and saluted her. Limping, he left the room. When he’d gone, Sigourney gestured to one of the servants. “Bring me a scribe,” she told him. “And I will also need a rider-the best we have-to take a message east to the Hirzg.”
The servant’s eyes widened momentarily, then he bowed and hurried away.
“Kraljica,” ca’Mazzak said. “You can’t-”
“We have no choice,” she told him, told all of them. “No choice. This is no longer about us.”
Sigourney leaned back against the cushioned seat of the Sun Throne; it smelled of woodsmoke. It smelled of defeat.
RESOLUTIONS
Allesandra ca’Vorl
Jan read the missive carefully, his pale eyes scanning the words there. Allesandra already knew what it said-Starkkapitan ca’Damont’s soldiers had intercepted the rider pounding eastward along the Avi a’Firenczia with a white banner fluttering over him in the moonlight, and had brought the sealed scroll to Allesandra, insisting to her attendants that she be awakened. Allesandra had broken the seal and scanned the letter, then she’d quickly dressed and gone to Jan.
If her son noticed or cared that the seal hung broken on the thick paper, or that the Kraljica had addressed the missive to Allesandra and not himself, he’d said nothing. He moved the candle aside that he’d been using for light; its holder scraped along the table that had been hastily set up in the field tent next to the Hirzg’s private tent.