A woman ran screaming down the corridor. “Oh, gods! The roof is on fire!”
Dez flung herself away from the window, eyes glittering, face pale in the moonlight. “Dragons!”
“Come on, Dez!” Heart pounding, eyes streaming tears from the smoke, Usha yanked open the door. More smoke poured in. There was another floor of rooms above them. She heard the crackling of fire up there but saw none on this floor yet.
Dez had already grabbed her bow and quiver. She belted on her sword running. All else they would leave behind.
Eyes stinging, they plunged out into the dark corridor. They tried to find the crossing passages that led one out to the garden and the common room. A young woman bolting out of her room collided with Usha, shoved her aside and ran on. Someone else dragged Usha up to her feet and thrust her forward, urging her to follow the people only dimly seen ahead.
“Usha!” Dez shouted, far behind.
Usha turned, but she could not see Dezra and the terrified people in the hall swept her onward.
“Go to the garden, Usha! Don’t go—!”
But she had no choice of where to go. The panicking people swept her along, pushing her to the crossway and into the passage to the common room. She heard the first screams when she stumbled across the threshold, and the stench of burning flesh came in a sickening wave on a billow of smoke. A keg of volatile dwarf spirits behind the bar had ignited. Flames flashed to candles and stacked firewood, then to chairs and tables. The common room became an inferno.
A howling figure staggered across the floor of the wide room, clothing aflame, hair afire. A woman ahead of Usha screamed, a child wailed in terror, and Usha turned from the sight.
She put her back to the doorway, thrust her arms out before her and cried, “Stop! Go back!”
Her voice, clear and sharp, halted the boy who’d been behind her. His father stumbled into him and tried to reach over him to shove Usha aside. She grabbed his wrist before he could grab her shoulder.
“Stop! Look!”
He didn’t have to look. The agonized howling and the stench of burning flesh told him everything. His eyes went wide, shocked and comprehending. Behind him others staggered. Some stumbled and fell.
“We have to go back!” Usha said, raising her voice to be heard, striving for calm and grateful that she’d at least managed to keep her voice firm. She put the hand on the boy’s shoulder and looked past him to those milling behind, clogging the corridor, elbowing each other and cursing; all frightened by the roar of fire. “Go back to the garden!”
A man she couldn’t see shouted, “There’s dragons out there! I saw ’em from the window. Hundreds! I saw ’em in the sky!”
Panic rose to near hysteria, cries of fear became screams of horror at the thought of hundreds of dragons over Haven. Waves of heat rolled past her, over her, and Usha shouted him down. “There can’t be hundreds! There is fire in here! Go back into the garden! Go!”
They turned, first those farthest from her, now closest to safety. Turning, they became the same kind of force that had carried her along the passage to the common room, strong and terrified and almost without mind. The father and son nearest her, once first were now last and they shoved and pushed to get to the garden. Usha went in their wake, and it wasn’t long before she felt the cooler air of outdoors. She tumbled out the door and staggered into the bricked courtyard that framed the inn’s garden. Long wooden tables and benches filled the space. No one stopped to rest. All flowed out of the broad gates into the street. Next door, the inn’s stable rang with the clatter of hooves, the screams of panicking horses, the shouts of men and boys trying to get them into the streets and away from the fire.
Usha ran for the gates, but a hard hand caught her elbow, holding her. She pulled away, then stopped when she recognized the dwarf Dunbrae. He pointed up to the dark space of sky between the inn and the stable. Smoke hid the moon, erasing the stars. Between one rolling billow and another, Usha saw broad swathes of flame as two red-scaled dragons soared above Haven.
Sight of them sent icy terror rushing through her. She stiffened her knees, not permitting them to tremble or buckle. “How many?”
He shook his head, lips twisting into a wry, humorless grin. “Enough. Come with me.”
Usha shook her head, looking around wildly for Dez. “I’m not alone! I have to find—”
Dunbrae pointed across the garden. Near the gates Dez stood, shifting from foot to foot, scanning the faces of the people running by her. The dwarf whistled sharply, and Dez turned, her face alight with relief.
Dunbrae gave Usha a forceful push. “Now let’s go.”
As they ran, the two women following Dunbrae along streets Usha didn’t know, they heard the sound of Haven’s fall—the roaring of dragons, the screams of terror, the bellowing of fire leaping from roof to roof. Somewhere, Usha had lost her shoes. Her naked feet hurt when she ran. She stumbled on the hem of her skirt then clenched the material in her hands out of her way. She fled beside Dez, running behind Dunbrae down alleys so dark the way could be found by few but a dwarf whose eyesight had been for generations bred beneath the mountains. Once, at the end of a narrow, dank alley, they stopped to catch their breath. Gasping, leaning against a cold, wet wall, Usha saw the river. It ran like a torrent of fire as it reflected the burning ship and the flaming piers.
It’s all gone, Usha thought, her stomach turning. She looked at Dez and saw a stunned look that must surely mirror her own expression. In one night, Haven is gone!
Aline put a cup of tea on the table beside Usha. The steam rising smelled faintly of apples and lavender, but the soothing fragrance didn’t draw Usha from the window. She’d been there much of the night, hardly moving from the cushioned seat since Dunbrae had brought her and Dez to Rose Hall. Though Aline had made bedrooms ready for them, neither Usha nor Dez had taken advantage of them. With Aline, they’d spent the rest of the night in a high room, watching the taking of Haven, ready to flee if they must and hoping that the battle would not come sweeping down on them.
It had not.
The dragonriders fought at the wall, handily defeating Haven’s militia made up of farmers, shopkeepers, apprentices, and a few doughty dwarves from the smithy district. The dark knights had thrown open the gates to admit a column of foot soldiers, and Haven had fallen before dawn. Now, with morning shadows beginning to grow long, Usha could not take her eyes off the sooty sky.
“I thought Haven was gone,” she said. “When Dunbrae came for us, I saw dragons in the sky.”
“Haven isn’t gone,” Aline said. “She’s hurt, though.”
Dezra, hands clenched into tight fists, paced the carpeted floor, her boot heels muffled, her stride silent. She had said little since they arrived at Rose Hall, but her restless energy filled the room.
Grimly thoughtful, Usha said, “Haven is more than hurt, Aline. She’s occupied by a foreign army.”
“Yes, and that’s why I want you and Dez to get out of here. Now. This morning. I have horses for you.”
Dez stopped pacing. The stillness drew Usha’s attention.
“People left the city at first light,” Dez said. In answer to Usha’s questioning look she said, “One of the boys in the kitchen told me. One or two families, a couple of lone men and women, some on foot and others on horseback. The knights aren’t closing all ways out. Yet. Aline’s right. We should leave. Now.”
Usha was not inclined to argue. The chancy paths of Darken Wood seemed more appealing than winding streets in a city occupied by the green dragon’s knights. Impulsively, she said, “Come with us, Aline. Once he hears what you’ve done for his daughter, Caramon Majere will see that you have shelter at the Inn of the Last Home as long as you need it.”