At least Kaden and Triste had managed not to panic. They moved forward in the center of the rough triangle of Kettral, Kaden trying to shield Triste with his body. Trying to shield her, Valyn thought, or the goddess inside her. His brother’s claim still sounded outlandish, insane, but there was no time to dwell on it. They were ducks moving through the various avenues and courtyards of the palace. Whatever had to happen inside the Spear didn’t matter, not in the instant; getting there was a simple, tactical imperative. The staircase above the lower floors was almost perfectly defensible. With high ground and a vertical choke point, the three Kettral should be able to hold against whatever soldiers il Tornja threw at them. They just needed to get inside.
The Jasmine Court was the last open space before the Spear, and they hit it at a full run. The Flea had snatched up a bow somewhere in the fight. Halfway across the courtyard, he dropped to a knee, loosed half a dozen shafts at the cordon of men lined up in front of the entrance to the tower.
Not palace guards, Valyn realized grimly. Il Tornja’s soldiers.
“Army,” the Flea shouted, noticing the same thing, dropping the bow, and drawing his blades once more.
“Stay behind me,” Valyn bellowed back to Kaden. “Stay low.”
There were seven or eight men remaining, three with flatbows. He could see the terror painted across their faces, could hear the panic in their smashing hearts. They were legionaries, like the ones he’d been killing in the street beyond, but that didn’t mean they were evil. They were following orders, obeying the general who for the past year had saved Annur over and over. Maybe they were good men and maybe they weren’t, but they hardly deserved to die for their loyalty. It had been a long time since he’d lived in a world where anyone got what they deserved.
Without breaking stride, Valyn threw one ax, then another. Two soldiers crumpled. The third managed to get off a shot without even aiming. It flew preposterously wide, and then the Flea and Sigrid were on them, moving like dancers, all steel and fists as they slashed knees, broke faces, opened the bodies for Ananshael to do his final, quiet work.
Only when they were inside the tower did the violence die off. It was like racing from the chaos of a stampede into a quiet chapel, all polished wood and bronze, robed men with soft flesh and quiet slippers going wide-eyed at their approach, then jerking back to the sides of the staircase, standing still, silent, frozen as deer, waiting for death to pass them by.
“We made it,” Triste groaned.
“Not yet,” Kaden replied. “We need to reach the top.”
The Flea grunted, kept his blades out. “Lot of stairs between here and there. Keep the feet moving.”
And so they moved, climbing first through the human floors built into the ancient structure, then clear of that mortal work, into the enormous column of light and empty air. Valyn paused, his chest heaving inside him. It had been almost ten years since he was last inside Intarra’s Spear, ten years since he and Kaden had climbed these same stairs together, pausing on the landings to spit over the edge, ignoring the admonitions of their Aedolians as they watched the spit fall away, break apart, disappear long before it struck the roof below. The memory twisted inside him like a knife. That child was a stranger, one more Annurian murdered in the war, vanished without even leaving a corpse.
He glanced over at his brother. Kaden’s eyes burned. Hotter than I remembered, Valyn thought. Brighter. He was still calm, preternaturally so for someone who had just fled for his life through the streets of Annur, who had just watched dozens of men cut into meat, who carried in his breath and bones the Lord of Pain himself. That glacial indifference Valyn had smelled on him back in the Bone Mountains, however, was gone. There was no monastic self-abnegation in the arm he had wrapped around Triste’s slender shoulders. Kaden cared what happened here. Valyn could smell the sorrow on him, the wet-rain scent of coming loss.
“More movement,” the Flea called out. He and Sigrid had taken up a position just behind them. “Il Tornja’s friends can climb stairs the same as we can.”
The warning was hardly necessary. Valyn could hear the heavy clomp of boots. Ten floors down, maybe twelve, but coming. He turned back to Kaden.
“Where?” he demanded.
Kaden raised a single finger. “Up,” he said again. “We need to reach the top.”
Valyn nodded. “Get to the prison level. Sigrid, the Flea, and I can hold them there. How long does this ceremony take?”
Kaden shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.” He seemed, suddenly, to be struggling with something, some unexpected pain welling up inside him. His face twitched, then went still. “Just get us up there.”
He held Valyn’s gaze a moment, then turned back to Triste. She was crying, tears standing in her violet eyes, obviously exhausted. Despite it all, she nodded. Then they were moving once again.
The fierce, vicious bliss that had buoyed Valyn up during the whole race through Annur had faded the moment the violence lapsed. His legs were a leaden blaze as he labored up the stairs. Breath burned his chest. From the sound of it, the others were struggling, too, and yet it was working. Once they reached the prison level they could throw shut the steel doors. The soldiers below wouldn’t be able to touch them.
He glanced over at Kaden.
“We’re going to make it,” he said.
Then he smelled the smoke. There was just a hint of it at first, faint and acrid, then stronger and stronger. He paused, holding the railing to keep from falling over, closed his eyes, and listened. His stomach twisted when he realized what he was hearing: below the rumble of boots on the stairs, below the desperate breathing of the people around him, below his own blood pounding in his ears, a quieter, more dangerous sound: the hiss and roar of fire, fire inside the Spear itself, gnawing through the floors below, quiet, but getting louder.
* * *
Quick Jak was going over Allar’ra’s tail feathers when Gwenna returned to the Wing. Annick and Talal were talking quietly a few paces from the flier-Gwenna couldn’t quite make out the words. She hesitated at the edge of the large square, stayed in the wall’s cool shadow for a moment. It was easier than facing them all again, easier than seeing her failure reflected in their eyes. She started to lean against the stones, then shoved herself upright.
“Knock it off, you bitch,” she muttered to herself.
She straightened her shoulders, checked her blades, then strode from the shadows into the open space.
“We failed,” she said. The three turned to watch her approach. Talal looked concerned; Quick Jak, wary, then scared. Gwenna shoved down her own fury. “We failed,” she said again, “but we are not done fighting. Right now, I need to hear it, all your best ideas on how we can get at Balendin before he blows the doors right off this ’Kent-kissing city.”
“Go in on foot,” Annick said after a pause. “He’s seen the birds. He knows we escaped, so he’ll be prepared for another air attack. If we can infiltrate that group of prisoners, get close to him…”
“We’ll just be easier to kill,” Talal said quietly. He shook his head. “He’s too strong. He has the awe of the whole Urghul nation to draw on, and the growing terror of every citizen in Annur. Right now, he might be the most powerful leach since the Atmani, and that power’s not going away unless a million people suddenly forget all about him.” He shook his head again. “I’ll go with you. I’ll try it the way Annick says. I just don’t see how we can win.”