A TaiGethen warrior ran into the street from the left, sprinting hard, sliding to a stop when he saw them.
‘Yniss bless us, we may just be in time,’ he said.
‘Pakiir. Run with us,’ said Katyett. ‘Tell me.’
‘They’re coming from all over. Crowding the temple piazza. Al-Arynaar are trying to hold them but they are too few. They mean to burn the temple of Yniss.’
Katyett’s body went cold.
‘Not again,’ she whispered. ‘Tais, run. Run hard.’
The sky towards the piazza was glowing with torchlight. Katyett ran alongside Faleen. The nearer they got the worse Katyett felt. They could hear the noise of the mob. She could almost taste the intent. A chant started. A line of the ancient tongue.
Chilmatta nun kerene.
Immortals die screaming.
She swore and pushed yet harder, forging ahead of Faleen. Still two hundred yards and more, and she could hear fighting. The clash of weapons. Screams of pain above the roar of the mob. An intensification of the mood. Blood was flowing. Elves were dying.
‘Up to the roof of Shorth,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘Let’s see what we’re up against.’
Pakiir was going to be proved wrong. They were not going to get there in time. Katyett heard a roar of triumph that could only mean the defence was broken. Immediately after, there was a whooshing sound and the stink of burning oil filled the air. The roar intensified.
Katyett tore around the back of Shorth’s Temple, pounded through the sunken garden with the yelling of the mob all around her, above her and ahead of her. She led the TaiGethen up the side of the temple, using the thick liana that grew there. She ran along the arm and down the body, pulling up at the temple’s edge and looking down on mass murder.
Rioters surrounded Yniss. Doorways and windows had been blocked by heavy drums and upturned wagons. Oil rained down on the building and torches were flicking into the fuel in their hundreds. The temple had caught with a ferocity that surprised even the rioters. Katyett could see those within the temple trying to beat their way out but the barricading was horribly effective. It rocked but did not fall.
Hundreds would be inside, believing themselves safe. But thousands were outside. Thousands.
‘We’ve got to get down there,’ she said. ‘Get those doors open.’
‘We’ll be overrun,’ said Pakiir. ‘Look at them. Look at their faces.’
Ugly, twisted fury. Some of them upturned to the TaiGethen. Fingers pointed up while dozens of others added more fuel to the fire, which had already set the roof alight. Paint was blistering. There was screaming from inside. The piazza was choked with elves, safe in their numbers, taunting the TaiGethen. Yelling their hate of the Ynissul.
Down at the edges of the apron a few Al-Arynaar still fought, trying to keep the rioters away. Three broke from the crowd, racing to the barricades to try to pull them away from the main doors. Forty elves engulfed them. She saw fists and feet fly in and the flash of a blade.
A bloodied Al-Arynaar body was lifted aloft and thrown onto the flames. A second was raised, still struggling. Katyett snarled. Pelyn. Fighting hard. The rioters dropped her. More fists and raking fingers went in.
‘Yniss save us. Tais, we move.’
Katyett backed up two paces, ran to the temple edge and jumped, her blades in her hands and the will to use them in her heart. Her leap carried her out over the narrow path between Shorth and the Yniss apron, over the heads of the rioters. She wouldn’t clear them all, that leap would have been prodigious even for a TaiGethen. She just hoped her arrival would be enough to cause a measure of disruption.
Katyett was coming down from a height of around forty feet. She yelled for space and saw elves begin to scatter. The heat down here was already intense. The screaming and yelling was an assault on the ears. The sheer violence of the atmosphere was a physical shock.
Katyett drew her arms across her chest in an X, her blades resting against her cheeks. She hit the ground immediately behind an ula who was pushing forward, desperate to gain himself some space. Katyett absorbed the impact throughout her body, crouching low then standing and bringing her blades back across her body to ready by her sides.
She ran forward while others landed behind her, shouting for space that none wanted to cede. Katyett found her way blocked almost immediately. She lashed out with a foot, catching an ula behind the knee. He pitched forward. Katyett ran up his body. She slammed the hilt of one blade into the back of an iad’s neck. She dropped unconscious. Katyett hurdled the body, feeling her feet on the temple apron.
The atmosphere was clogged with ash and smoke. The heat was incredible. She’d broken through the main rioter line. Directly ahead was the group of elves fighting the remaining Al-Arynaar. Pelyn struggled on. A big ula, a Beethan, had wrapped his arms around her midriff. She struck at him again and again with the back of her head while her feet lashed out, catching another square in the face.
Katyett ran straight into the melee, shoulder-charging an iad from in front of Pelyn. TaiGethen ran to either side, heading for the barricades, casting around for something with which to drag them aside.
‘Drop her right now,’ called Katyett.
The ula turned his bloodied face to Katyett. A contemptuous smile twisted his face. He turned instead towards the fire. Pelyn screamed, knowing his intent. So did Katyett. She took a single pace and thrashed a blade through the back of the man’s hamstrings. Simultaneously, Pakiir darted across in front of him, snatching Pelyn from his grasp as he opened his mouth to scream. He fell forward, head catching the burning barricade a glancing blow. His hair smoked, caught fire.
Katyett moved left to defend Pakiir. Pelyn was shouting to be let go. Pakiir complied. Pelyn hit the ground and was already turning back to the burning temple. Katyett saw the aching pain in her face, the singeing of her brows and hair. The smudges across her armour. Pelyn ran towards the front doors. TaiGethen who had been trying to break through the flaming obstacle bore her backwards with them as they came, beaten back by the sheer heat.
Rioters on the apron had begun to fall back. A TaiGethen foot whipped out, catching one in the gut, sending him sprawling. A jaqrui whispered away, catching another in the upper arm, forcing her to drop her blade. Al-Arynaar bodies littered the ground. Twenty of them. Katyett blinked away the stinging tears of smoke.
Out in the piazza, the fury was undimmed. Missiles were being hurled towards them and the temple. The building itself and all within it were lost. The roof had begun to collapse and the doors were burned in. Any screaming from within had ceased. TaiGethen still tried to breach the inferno.
Katyett felt tears on her face. The scene took on an echoing, unreal quality for her. Shouts sounded distant. Everything in her vision appeared to slow. She turned her head to see the flames towering into the night sky, pushing clouds of thick black smoke before them. Inside, three hundred and more Ynissul. Innocent elves. Bakers, potters, coopers, priests, healers. Children. Burned to death.
The Arch of the TaiGethen turned back to the crowd, letting the sight of her desecrated temple settle in her memory. She was aware of others joining her – Grafyrre and Merrat with those they had sought elsewhere in the city. Pakiir. Faleen. Standing in a line to stare at those for whom they protected the rainforest, for whom they had sworn to keep the elven people safe.
Wind was getting up. Picking at the clothing of the fallen. Fanning the flames in advance of Gyal’s arrival. Her tears would be bitter when they came. The gods would turn from the elves. Angry, betrayed. Their faith insulted, their mercy ignored. The elves would walk alone now. And the path would run with their blood.