He didn’t get out another word before a black arrow seemed to shoot from the clouds – the flying glassdancer, wings tucked back, diving like a bird of prey. It hit Jorfax’s horse hard enough to throw both animal and rider, and all three went tumbling off the road and into the field. The flying glassdancer was up again, leaping for the sky.
“Fire!” Idrian shouted.
A line of carbine fire erupted from the group, tearing through the creature’s massive wings. It hissed and howled, spinning in the air and landing on its feet. Black blood oozed from bullet wounds. It seemed annoyed rather than truly injured, and it stared at them all for several moments as a dozen trembling hands tried to reload carbines.
Idrian leapt from his horse, half an eye on the creature and half an eye on Jorfax. She lay beneath her dead horse, her teeth bared and her eyes full of fear. “Kill it!” she snapped. “Before it takes my egg! Ahhhhh!” Her scream reached a fever pitch and the glassdancer egg suddenly tore from her jacket, shattering into dozens of pieces as it shot straight for Idrian. He threw his shield up, listening to pieces slam against the hammerglass. Behind him, voices cried out in terror and then pain.
He didn’t have the time to see who’d been hit. He leapt forward, guard held close, forcing the creature to dodge his blows, hoping that the action threw off its glassdancer timing. Its wings twitched and moved like second limbs, darting forward to slam into Idrian’s shield or bash aside a thrust of his sword. Idrian pressed his attack, unwilling to give it even a moment to reorient itself, forcing it back step by step until it suddenly turned and sprinted.
A smattering of carbine fire caught the beast from the side. It rolled, skidded across the furrows of the fallow field, then changed direction once more, leaping for the closest soldier. It reached the poor woman as Idrian turned to follow, its wings hitting her with enough force to shatter her carbine and toss her dozens of feet. Idrian followed the creature’s path, adjusting his own, pushing himself to try and reach it before it could get airborne. His eyes widened in horror.
“Braileer, out of the way!”
It was too late. The creature charged through two more soldiers, batted Squeaks to one side, and then snatched Braileer by his hammerglass buckler as it leapt into the air. Idrian continued to pursue, watching helplessly as it squeezed Braileer by the neck. A grenade exploded immediately above the creature. The blast drove it down, forcing it to dive. Idrian discarded his shield, taking his sword over his head in both hands, and leapt. The razorglass swept down, cleaving through bone and sinew in a spray of black blood.
The creature screamed and tossed Braileer. The armorer hit the ground at speed, a rolling, limp mess of limbs. The winged glassdancer hit just after him. It skipped across the dirt like a rock across water. Idrian charged, but the thing leapt back into the air, clearly struggling to fly. Another grenade exploded beside it, but it beat hard at the air, shooting up. Within moments it was gone, disappeared into the low clouds.
Idrian stared after it, gasping for breath, sword held at the ready. The seconds ticked by as he waited for it to return, but the next sound he heard was a gasp of pain from Jorfax.
“Bloody thing has fled,” Jorfax called. “Now come get this horse off me!”
Idrian lowered his sword, sweeping his gaze across his team. Mika stood nearby with her legs set, her sling at the ready, Squeaks shakily getting to her feet just behind her. Half the soldiers were down. Idrian’s eyes landed on Braileer. The armorer was a dirty mess; an unmoving lump.
“Mika,” Idrian called, “help Jorfax!” He hurried toward Braileer, cursing at the sky as he did.
58
The Zorlian Mansion was one of the most famous buildings in Ossa. It was once the seat of the Zorlian guild-family, a powerful and respected group that at their height owned almost a quarter of the city. For generations, every new Zorlian matriarch or patriarch had added a new wing to the mansion, building it out across their country estate in an attempt to leave their own mark on a rich, bloated guild-family.
At some point – the history was foggy to Kizzie – the Zorlian splintered and collapsed. Dozens of family members committed suicide, while the rest changed their names or left the country. In less than a generation the guild-family was no more, leaving behind dozens of bankrupt businesses, thousands of acres of empty land, and the mansion itself – a mighty testament to greed and overreach. No one wanted it. No one even cared for the barren hunting grounds upon which it sat.
Kizzie and Montego arrived in the late morning, taking their carriage up the long gravel drive several miles west of the city borders. It was an overcast day, the erratic breeze cold and humid, as if a storm was sweeping in from the north. Montego drove, while Kizzie sat in the carriage, hugging herself against the weather, staring out into the overgrown, tangled forest that surrounded the mansion. She remembered coming here once as a kid, though she couldn’t remember with whom – her half sisters, perhaps – and the small group hadn’t gotten more than halfway up the drive before getting too spooked and turning back.
Montego did not turn back, and Kizzie watched carefully as they rolled over a hill, down through a gully, and around a massive embankment. The gravel hadn’t been replaced in decades and was mostly overgrown with grass, but it was obvious the drive was in use. Wheel ruts were well-worn through the grass, fallen branches were cleared away, and the bridge at the bottom of the gully had been recently repaired.
Someone was using the mansion.
They came around the embankment and Kizzie got her first good look at the mansion: a glimpse across a massive, overgrown field. Someone had once described it to her as so big that its footprint was measured in acres rather than square feet. “Sprawling” was the only word she could use to describe it, and even that seemed inadequate. The crumbling facade, three stories high, stretched so far in either direction that it disappeared into the forest. It was patchwork and ugly, the extensions done in clashing styles that made her eyes hurt, and she’d never had the slightest eye for architecture. The windows, most of them broken, had heavy bars on them.
Her attention was drawn away from the house itself and to the terminus of the drive. A dozen carriages were parked outside the front door. Some of them even had horses already waiting, as if departure was imminent, and a half dozen workers in dirty tunics were attending to them. They all seemed to stop what they were doing and stare toward Kizzie’s approaching carriage, and the feeling of disquiet in her belly grew stronger.
They should have come with an army – fifty Vorcien and Grappo enforcers at their backs – but Montego insisted on immediate action so they didn’t give Aristanes the chance to flee. Montego’s presence did give Kizzie a sense of invincibility, but even so she checked both her stilettos and the sword at her belt, then made certain the pistol she carried was still loaded. They came to a stop and the carriage rocked as Montego leapt down, opening the door with his back to the workers.
She studied them over his shoulder. Four men. Two women. They looked much like the caretakers of any great estate, but it was their unblinking stare that unsettled her. None of them were openly armed, but one of them slowly reached for a cudgel sitting next to a carriage.
With his back still to them, Montego reached into his pocket and produced a piece of forgeglass. “Take this,” he said, “and use it in an emergency.”
Simply touching it caused Kizzie’s heart to skip from the powerful sorcery that emanated from it. It was hot, the sorcery seeming to sizzle if she listened carefully. “That’s high-resonance,” she said, keeping it out of sight of the workers. “That’s worth twice my yearly salary.”