Governor Siden’s face was bloodless. “No. No no no. Our dragon,” he murmured, then turned on the queensman. “Don’t just stand there! We have to help! Sound the attack! We’ll free him from this trickery and end this once and for all.”
“Shouldn’t do that,” Yardem said.
“Yes, sir,” the guard captain said and bolted past the servants and down the stairs. There was little need. On the ground and at the wall’s top, the soldiers of Porte Oliva were already surging forward. Cithrin willed them to go faster. To save Inys before it was too late. The dragon’s voice rose in rage and agony and the governor sank to his knees. Yardem made a low grunt like he’d been punched. Cithrin turned to him. The coldness in his eyes surprised her.
“What?” she said.
“I’d thought Captain Wester was being overcautious,” he said. “Owe him an apology. You need to come with me now.”
“But—” She gestured at the wall that hid the battle from her.
“Ma’am,” Yardem said, “they’re going out after him. That means they’re opening the gates. Not something that’s wise to do with an experienced army on the other side.”
“No, I have to see that—”
Yardem put a hand on her shoulder. His eyes were dark and hard. “Ma’am, the governor’s just ordered the attack. He’s opening the gates. The city’s about to fall.”
Cithrin blinked, shook her head. It was like waking up from a dream. “Oh,” she said.
The stairs had been interminable when she’d gone up them. Going down was faster, easier, and seemed to take lifetimes. She expected to have nightmares running down an endless stairway, the curve of the stone walls keeping her from seeing what was only just ahead, for the rest of her life. If she lived out the day.
When they reached the square, the fighting had already spilled into the city. The streets, tightly packed before, were in chaos. Bodies surged one direction and then another, pressing together until Cithrin couldn’t move her arms, couldn’t breathe. Yardem raised his voice and then his bare sword. There were no Anteans near him. He was fighting their own. Refugees and workers and bakers and children. They were transformed to the enemy by the accident of being between them and where they wanted to be.
Ten horses in full barding appeared at the far side of the square, men in armor sitting astride them and hewing at the crowd. Cithrin managed to reach the far corner and thread her way through the press, following Yardem’s shouts and threats. She was weeping, but she ignored it. An old Kurtadam woman with a grey-brown pelt and rheumy, confused eyes stepped into Cithrin’s path, and Yardem disappeared. Cithrin shouted for him. Called his name. Screamed. She could barely hear her own voice. The crowd moved like a riptide, carrying her with it. She fought to breathe. She stumbled over something soft, and was pushed along before she could see what it was. She hoped it wasn’t a body. If it was a body, she hoped it was already dead.
At the corner of the Grand Market, the churn of humanity grew thicker. Worse. Maestro Asanpur’s café was shattered and overrun. The tents of the Grand Market had fallen, the space they had contained overflowing with panic and the desperate need for escape when there was no escape to be had. Cithrin screamed Yardem’s name and Marcus’s. She couldn’t hear her own voice over the roar of the crowd.
First the roar, and then the screams.
Antean soldiers poured into the market square from two of the larger streets. People shrieked, and the pressure of flesh pushed the breath out of her. She couldn’t shout. Couldn’t call for help. She thought for a moment she saw Besel a few ranks in front of her, and she tried to reach out to him until she remembered he was dead, had died before even the fall of Vanai. Words carried over the roar, inhumanly loud. You have lost. Everything you love is already gone. There is no hope. Listen to my voice. All is lost. The air was hot and the sounds of slaughter made it hotter. She closed her eyes. Nausea overwhelmed her. Somewhere very, very nearby, people were being cut to death with swords, and she was powerless to stop it or to avoid it.
This is war, she thought. What she’d fled in Vanai and Camnipol and Suddapal had caught her here. Her head swam, bright colors dancing before her that had nothing to do with light. The distance to her feet seemed like a day’s journey. Her mind slid away, and she didn’t try to hold it close.
Time changed, became meaningless. A series of moments passed with no more connection between them than images in a dream. A Timzinae man, blood pouring from his mouth. A Firstblood child huddled in a corner, her hands over her head. The cobbled street, Cithrin’s cheek pressed against it as someone ground their boot against her ear.
“Are you Cithrin bel Sarcour?”
Her lip was swollen. Something had happened to her knee. Someone shook her shoulder. The words came again, in their strange accent.
“Are you Cithrin bel Sarcour?”
“No,” she said.
A man’s laughter. She opened her eyes. She didn’t know him, but she saw the resemblance. He had the same shape of face as Master Kit. The same wiry hair. His robes were the brown of the spider priests, and he held a speaking trumpet in his hand. Soldiers stood at either side. She knew the place. She was at the seawall, not far from where Opal had died. She hadn’t thought of Opal in years. Why was her mind calling up the dead? The screams of the crowd still deafened. The air smelled like a slaughterhouse. Flies were buzzing everywhere. The slaughter was still going on. The death of her city.
“This is she,” the priest said. “This is the one.”
She shook her head. She was on her knees. She didn’t remember being on her knees. She must have fallen in the crowd. “No,” she said. “I’m not. You’ve made a mistake.”
“Sergeant!” the man at her right called. “We’ve got the bitch!”
A Firstblood voice howled in triumph behind her. She shook her head, but her heart was in her belly. Better she’d died in the press. Not this. Please, anything but this.
A man stooped down beside her. He had thinning pale hair, pockmarks on his cheeks. She thought he looked sad. “All right,” he said. “No one hurts her. She goes back to Camnipol, not so much as a bruise on her. Not until she gets there. Understood? You! Kippar. You’re her personal guard now. Anything happens to her, you’re the first to die for it.”
Cithrin’s gaze swam up to the new man. He stood beside the priest, fists the size of hams, shoulders as broad as a table. Yemmu blood in him, she was sure of it. When he spoke, his voice was sharp.
“Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.”
The priest’s head snapped forward, blood splashing on Kippar’s face. The massive guard stumbled back, shouting and clawing at his eyes. The two men at her shoulders dropped her and turned. The priest lay on the pale stone pavement, a crossbow bolt protruding an inch from the back of his head. Rich red blood pooled around his skull. And in the pool…
Cithrin screamed and tried to crawl away. To run. Tiny black bodies scattered from the dead priest, leaving pinprick footsteps of crimson. Someone shouted, and the Anteans, blades already drawn, closed ranks around her. The sad-faced sergeant looked around, confusion in his expression. He glanced down, dropped his blade, started screaming. Something tickled Cithrin’s ankle and she slapped it hard enough to sting her fingertips. Small black legs thinner than hairs stuck to her palm, the spider’s body ripped apart.
“Please, I’ll go with you,” she shouted. “Let me get up!”
She tried to stand, but someone pushed her down. Another Antean knelt beside the priest and started screaming.
“They’ve got a cunning man!” someone shouted. “They’re using some kind of magic on us.”
“Get away from the body,” Cithrin shouted. “They’re in his blood. Get away from his body!”