Clutching blindly to the handholds and feeling a storm wind blowing past her ears, Miliana could only blink her eyes and frown.
"What was that?"
"Nothing." Below Lorenzo, the dreadful school dwindled; outraged soldiers worked to break up Miliana's spell formula which had been laboriously formed from the posed bodies of unconscious home economics tutors. The wind blew, the bright sun shone, and it felt marvelous to simply be alive. Tilting his face like a hound sniffing the wind, Lorenzo thrilled to the joys of flight.
Beneath the noisy rotor blades, the sounds of crashes, swordplay, spells, and cries of anger and fear hung loud across the city. Lorenzo gazed down across the streets far below, staring at the war-torn thoroughfares in dismay.
The flying machine worked quite well; Lorenzo confessed himself to be well pleased. The bearings whirred, the body balanced well, and the sensation of flight sent a dizzy rush of freedom through his veins. Tekoriikii circled happily nearby, noisily flapping his wings as he gave a cheery cry.
"Tekorii-kii-kii!"
Feeling her captivity sliding far away, Miliana risked loosening her handhold and groped for Lorenzo's arm.
"Lorenzo?"
"Yes?"
"Well done."
Swelling with pride, Lorenzo gazed below as he felt the craft begin to descend.
"Ah, good-there's Luccio-and there's the river now."
Miliana gave a great relieved sigh. "So we're landing by the river?"
"Um… not exactly…"
Miliana had enough time to blink, then gave a great unhappy wail. The flying machine plunged neatly into the drink-inventor, princess, silly hat, and all.
Tekoriikii watched the whole process from above, then landed gracefully on the wagon Luccio had parked on the riverbank. Luccio and the bird watched as Miliana and Lorenzo struggled damply toward them through the river mud.
"Well, all in all, Lorenzo, I think that was one of your better plans." Luccio reached down to proffer a kiss to Miliana's muddy hand. "Dear lady… so good to see you safe, and at liberty."
Luccio unshipped a bag of snorkels and alighted from the wagon top. "Alas, there is a swim ahead of us. The river is the only means of escape. The streets swarm with ten thousand blades."
"Why?" Miliana stood wringing out her muddy hair, then capped herself with the ruins of her pointy hat. "Is there a bread riot on? What's all the noise?"
Luccio looked at her, unable or unwilling to break ill news. Biting his lip, Lorenzo came forward to gently put an arm about Miliana's shoulders.
Her face had already drained ashen white. Creeping quietly into Lorenzo's touch, she let him quietly lead her away.
Lorenzo softly whispered to her. Luccio began to unpack his wagon, laying out snorkels, food packages, a toadskin book, and spare spectacles salvaged from the ruins of Miliana's room.
"Nurgle?"
"Just a moment, old chap. Leave them together for a while." Luccio quietly placed a hand on Tekoriikii's back. The bird mournfully strained toward Miliana, made anxious by the half-heard sound of tears.
Sunning herself on the riverbanks, there lay a long, exquisite female nixie-a curvaceous humanoid with webbed feet, webbed hands and dainty gills. Luccio introduced her to the curious firebird with a schoolgirl's blush.
"Tekoriikii? This is the Princess Krrrr-poka, of the Akanamere. She… ah, she owed me a favor." Luccio sealed his packages inside little wooden casks. "You can fly over the river; the rest of us will use snorkels, and she will tow us underwater past the armies and the gates."
Beside the river, Lorenzo stood with Miliana leaning on his arm. The young couple gazed in silence in the direction of Miliana's old home, which now formed the center of a distant storm of screams.
Miliana was free.
And Sumbria was burning.
13
In the city of Sumbria, the civil war between the Blade Houses lasted for eleven savage days.
In the early battles of the first violent hours, the citizens had flocked into the streets-some to avenge their fallen prince, and some to protect their homes from marauding gangs of soldiers. Gilberto Ilego, now universally acknowledged as the prince's assassin, had rallied his supporters about him, and the city burned and shuddered as it transformed into a place of surging battle lines.
Days passed; alliances shifted, soldiers clashed, and the dead were left unburied in the streets. The crash of magic spells sent rows of houses slumping into rubble, and the citizens abandoned the nobles to their fight. The market quarter became a place of tent ghettos and frightened families; women and children stood in the streets and stared up the hill at the palaces of the mighty.
One by one, the great houses besieged each other. In the first few days, a half dozen of the small fortresses fell-until the battering rams ran short of soldiers willing to man them, and those sorcerers with the power to breach the walls eventually fell victim to each other's spells. The factions split, then split again as each Blade House determined to protect its own affairs, and the great battles of the days before dissolved into street fights and skulking nighttime brawls.
Food supplies fell and sicknesses began; finally the soldiers themselves abandoned the fight. Some dragged themselves back to their barracks and remained slumped in apathy. Others took to looting empty houses, installing themselves in taverns barricaded into little forts. There they drank themselves into a howling stupor, raiding the surrounding streets for women, bread, and gold; rolling in their own filth as the city took on the stench of the damned.
Only Gilberto Ilego's house remained at war. It was a savage, mindless battle fought against the entire world. Ilego was blamed for all the nation's troubles, and so he shut himself inside his lair and struck out at anything that dared come near. His men made savage raids into the market streets for food and snatched careless citizens to use as conscripts for their unceasing attacks on other palaces. Like a monster in its pit, Ilego carved himself a niche among the ruins of a better world.
Until, one cold-dawned autumn day, the sound of wondering; joyous cheers came drifting in across the city roofs.
As the tiny sound began to spread, tired Blade Captains ran to their battered marble towers and stared. Soldiers crowded into gateways, looking at one another in confusion as citizens crept forth from their homes.
The cheers turned into a roar of adulation, and suddenly the crowds began to run out into the sun.
Through the gates of Sumbria-opened by a swarm of citizens who then flung aside the keys-came a procession more welcome than a shower of purest gold. Colletran soldiers, all with their weapons slung and swords sheathed, marching in column beside a wagon train that stretched far away into the foothills of the Akanapeaks.
The soldiers escorted cart after cart loaded to the brim with priceless food; there were bales of bread and biscuit, sacks of dried fish and flour. Whole pyramids of sausage followed barrow loads of autumn fruit. The populace of Sumbria gaped at the treasury in shock, standing in stunned amazement as the triumphant march passed them by.
And then the wagon crews began to hurtle bread into the crowds, sparking off a delirious storm of cheers.
The Colletrans had brought everything that a war-torn city might possibly need. Food and water, tents and blankets, shovels to clear rubble and five thousand hands to use them. Scores of healer priests dismounted and moved out to treat the sick. Barrels of water and beer were trundled over to a makeshift hospital. Colletran soldiers presented themselves to exhausted Sumbrian citizens, enlisting local aid in sweeping looters from the streets. Civil order restored itself in one great heady rush as food gushed out, unmeasured, into the hands of the poor.