The First Watchman threatened to lever himself up again, but his hand shot from beneath him. Orisian threw his weight across Tomas’ sword arm, pinning it, and raked at his throat with hooked fingers. There was a terrible blow to Orisian’s flank, a club landing squarely on his old knife wound. The pain was blinding, but even as he was bludgeoned sideways his fingers clenched reflexively on the First Watchman’s throat and he heard a strangulated cry.
Then Orisian rolled free. He got on to one knee, fighting against pain, the mud and the weight of rain. The butt of a staff swept by his face so close he felt it pass. Anyara flung herself at his assailant, shouting furiously. The man slithered sideways, twisting too late to fend her off. Orisian scrambled back to Tomas. The First Watchman was writhing in the mud, pawing vaguely at his throat. Orisian seized his sword and, forgetting everything Rothe had ever taught him, hacked wildly at the man with the staff. The blade found the knee joint and he went down, taking Anyara with him. Orisian staggered to his feet, the sword dragging in the mud, water pouring from him. He gasped for breath, struggled to find Rothe. Ame’s dead eye, streaked with dirt, met him. The Second Watchman lay on his side, his neck broken and his battered helm lying in the road collecting rainwater.
Rothe was roaring, howling like some beast in a blood-rage. The two Watchmen he faced were backing away from him, glancing nervously at one another.
‘Lannis! Lannis!’ Rothe bellowed at them, and at the rain-swept sky, and they ran.
Orisian raised the sword with two hands. The last of Tomas’ men had thrown Anyara off him; she sprawled helplessly in the road as he hauled himself upright, leaning heavily on his staff.
‘Go,’ Orisian shouted and thrust the sword forwards. Rothe was coming too, reeling as if he was drunk but still roaring. The Watchman hesitated for a moment, saw that he was alone and hobbled away.
Rothe helped Anyara up. He used his right hand only; his left arm hung limply at his side.
‘You’re hurt?’ Orisian called.
‘It’ll come back,’ Rothe grunted. ‘Don’t think it’s broken. Lucky that Inkallim’s hound didn’t have longer teeth, or I’d be no use at all.’ He nodded at the sword Orisian carried and held out his good hand. Without hesitation, Orisian presented the sword to him hilt-first. Even with only one arm, Rothe could put it to better use. The shieldman smiled harshly as he took hold of the weapon.
‘Feels better to have my hand on a sword again,’ he said. He grimaced as he peered at the blade. ‘Even if it’s not been cared for as it should.’
The alarm was being rung again, more furiously even than before. It sounded closer too, but in all the tumult of the rain it was hard to be sure. It was, in any case, abruptly cut off. Tomas still lay on the road, struggling to breathe. His teeth were bared. His eyes seemed to be roving about blindly. Orisian, calmer now, felt a moment of horror at what he had done to the man. He saw Rothe eyeing the First Watchman purposefully.
‘Leave him,’ he murmured.
‘We should go,’ Yvane said. ‘Now.’
The rain pounded on the roofs around them, churned the roadway. Other sounds were rising up to compete with the storm. There were cries: panicked voices blurred with the sound of rain. Perhaps even the sound of battle. It was impossible to say where the noise was coming from, but it was not far.
Rothe made them go down the centre of the street, fearful that doors or alleyways might hold a surprise. Every muscle in Orisian’s body sang with the desire to run, but his wound was acutely painful and Rothe acutely wary. They went cautiously to a corner, and turned into a road that angled towards the sea.
‘I hear horses,’ Yvane said.
Orisian tried, but he could not disentangle the blur of sounds assailing his ears. Perhaps there were hoofs buried in the cacophony.
‘Can’t tell,’ shouted Rothe. He was at the rear, constantly turning this way and that, constantly seeking threat. Then, ‘Here’s trouble,’ he cried.
They all looked, and saw two Koldihrvers staggering out into a junction. The rain put an illusion of distance on the scene, muffled any sound. The men paused, as if unsure of where to go. One of them stared at Orisian and the others. Then three great horses came plunging through the rain and mud, their riders swinging swords. They rode over the Koldihrvers, slamming them down. The horses slithered around. Their hoofs carved troughs into the sodden ground. The riders leaned down and hacked at the fallen men. No cries, no screams, reached Orisian. He saw the riders straighten, though, and master their mounts and come on. The horses stretched their legs and surged through plumes of spray.
‘Black Road!’ Anyara was shouting.
Rothe had both hands upon the hilt of the old sword now. The riders were bearing down on him; beyond, deeper into the grey rain, Orisian could see more horses appearing.
‘Get into a house,’ Rothe urged through gritted teeth.
Orisian spun, and found two more warriors galloping towards them from the other end of the road. A wild-haired woman was in the lead, leaning forwards over her horse’s neck, sword held out to the side as if she meant to take a head in the first charge.
‘They’re behind us,’ he cried out.
Even as the words left his mouth, a lean, pale-haired figure sprang out from between two houses, lunging to punch a spear into the side of the first horse’s neck as it passed. The animal twisted in mid-stride. It crashed down in an eruption of mud and water, flinging its rider loose. The spear splintered and cart-wheeled away. Orisian started forwards but Ess’yr was ahead of him, whipping out a knife from her belt. She threw herself on to the woman, stabbing precisely for the throat. The fallen horse was thrashing around, unable to rise. The second rider slid to a halt beyond it. Varryn came swiftly and silently from the same alleyway as Ess’yr, and drove his spear up into the man’s back. He hooked the Black Roader out of the saddle and cast him down, impaled.
Orisian wheeled about. The three other horsemen were moments from Rothe. The shieldman stood with his feet well spaced, the sword held out before him.
‘Come,’ Ess’yr was shouting at Orisian. She had his arm in a powerful grip and dragged him towards the alley she had emerged from.
‘I have to get a sword,’ Orisian said, casting about for one dropped by the two fallen warriors.
Then Anyara was pushing him from the other side, crying right into his ear, ‘Move, move!’
Yvane barged into them all and knocked them down.A Black Road horseman surged past, the scything sweep of his blade cutting only the sodden air where Anyara had been standing. They scrambled for the safety of the alley. The road behind them was suddenly full of horses, bursting through the veils of rain.
‘Rothe!’ Orisian yelled. He could not see his shieldman in the chaos. Varryn ran forwards, darting between two rearing horses.
‘I will bring him,’ the Kyrinin snapped over his shoulder as he went.
Orisian thought he heard Rothe shouting, ‘Make for the ship, Orisian.’
Anyara was pulling him down the narrow path. Yvane and Ess’yr were already ahead.
‘I’m not leaving anyone,’ Orisian shouted at his sister.
‘They’ll find us,’ she replied without looking round. ‘You don’t want to die here, do you?’
They heard wailing from one of the houses they rushed past. They were moving away from the sea, away from the safety of Delyne’s ship, but the alley offered no side turns. It channelled them along its length and spat them out into another street.
There was a woman screaming as she ran down the road. She was hauling a girl after her, dragging her through the mud. The child was crying.Battle spilled into the road beyond them: half a dozen of Koldihrve’s Watchmen locked in a doomed struggle with three Horin-Gyre riders. One of the horses reared and twisted away in panic. Its rider was thrown. The other two slashed about them with their swords. Orisian glimpsed a spray of blood; it looked black at this distance, through the rain.