Ess’yr led them away from the fight, pressing close to the houses fronting the street as if they could give some shelter from the horrors consuming Koldihrve.
‘Wait,’ gasped Yvane. She gestured at a shabby house next to them. ‘There’s a path on the other side of these, I think. We can cut back to the sea.’
She pushed rather weakly at the door. It opened partway and then stuck. Orisian kicked at it and it smacked open. They tumbled inside. There was only one room: a bed with threadbare blankets, a table, chair and ash-filled fireplace. The occupants had fled, or were fighting or dying somewhere. The rain shook the thin roof. Water ran from their hair, their clothes.
‘We can’t leave Rothe,’ Orisian said.
‘He knows where we’re going,’ Yvane said. ‘He’ll come to us.’ She was struggling with the latch on a closed window at the far side of the room. Orisian went to help her.
The shutters came open. Yvane leaned out. Ess’yr was watching the door.
‘You left your own people to come to us,’ Orisian said to the Kyrinin.
Her hair was clinging to the side of her face. Rainwater ran in fine rivulets over her skin. She blinked, and there were droplets upon her eyelashes: silvery beads of rain.
‘I must see you safe,’ she said.
‘We have to go,’ Anyara insisted.
‘All right,’ Yvane said. ‘I don’t see any trouble out on this side. Hammarn’s is close. Follow me.’
She clambered out of the window on to a wooden walkway that ran along the backs of the houses. Anyara went after her, and then Ess’yr. Orisian put his hands on the window frame to pull himself out. He swung a leg up and over, and then stopped. A pale glint by the fireplace took his eye: the blade of a thin knife hanging from a hook. He pulled himself back inside. He went across and took the knife in his hand. It was a plain tool, but it was sharp.
‘Orisian.’
He turned, and thought his heart would stop. A lean, powerful man stood in the doorway. He was half-stooped, for the frame was too low for him. He held a sword; blood and water were dripping together from its blade.
‘That is your name, isn’t it?’ the man said quietly. ‘Mine is Kanin oc Horin-Gyre.’
The crashing of the rain receded; Orisian’s vision tightened upon the man standing before him.
Kanin took a single, long step into the room. He straightened up, lifted the point of his sword until it was level with Orisian’s chest. Orisian edged towards the window. Kanin surged forwards. Orisian hurled himself at the window, launching himself up and out into the rainstorm. He cleared the walkway and sprawled in the road. Mud filled his mouth and nose. He rolled, spitting, in time to see Kanin oc Horin-Gyre putting a foot on the window sill, pulling himself up into the aperture. Ess’yr was standing to one side, and as the Thane emerged she swung her bow like a club and smashed it into his face. There was a spray of blood and Kanin fell backwards into the house with a cry of shock and pain. The impact broke the bow’s back, and Ess’yr cast it away as she sprang down into the roadway.
‘No sitting around,’ muttered Yvane as she pulled Orisian to his feet.
They flew down the street and around an acute corner. They cut between houses and came out within sight of the sea. Orisian recognised where they were. Hammarn’s hut was there, the door open, Hammarn himself peering out with wide and frightened eyes.
‘Is it you? Is it you?’ he shouted as they rushed up.
‘Yes,’ Yvane said. ‘Time to come with us, friend.’
The old na’kyrim looked startled.
‘Can’t you hear?’ Yvane asked him. ‘This town’s no place to be.’
Hammarn cocked his head. Cries and screams were still rising up through the rain.
‘Perhaps so,’ Hammarn grunted. ‘Maybe so. Better gather myself.’ He ducked back inside.
‘Hammarn . . .’ Yvane started to say.
‘Let him get what he wants,’ Orisian said. ‘We’ll wait for Rothe as long as we can. And for Varryn.’
Yvane looked back the way they had come.
‘That would not be wise,’ she said.
Orisian faced her without a moment’s uncertainty. ‘Wise or not, I will give them the chance.’
He darted around the side of the house, hunching his shoulders fruitlessly against the downpour. The sea was a great shiver of ripples and impacts beneath the rain’s assault. Edryn Delyne’s ship had its sails set. Figures were moving about on the deck. Orisian waved and shouted, but there was no sign that anyone saw him. He glanced along the storm-swept, muddy shore. There was a long, low rowboat tied up at the nearest of the crude jetties. He returned to the others. They were gathered just inside the doorway. Hammarn was rummaging deep in a pile of driftwood, muttering softly to himself.
‘There’s a boat we can take,’ Orisian reported, ‘but we don’t have much time. Delyne’s making ready to sail.’
He looked at Ess’yr. An unfocused glaze had settled over her eyes. A blurring sheen of rainwater overlay her tattoos, making them seem damaged, impotent.
‘What of the vo’an?’ he asked her.
She gave the slightest shake of her head. ‘The enemy have come. Many of them.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Orisian felt a hand upon his arm. Anyara was at his side. Her face was mournful. He tried to smile for her.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘No more time. We can’t wait.’
Hammarn had collected nothing but woodtwines. He bound a scrap of cloth around the little bundle of carvings and clutched them to his chest like a baby.
‘Got it,’ he said to no one.
Orisian led the way out and made for the shore. He had gone only a few paces when he saw Rothe and Varryn burst out from a side street and come running towards them. The Kyrinin was limping a fraction. Rothe’s left arm hung with an ominous looseness. It had taken no mere numbing blow this time: there was blood sluicing away in the rain.
Orisian felt a tremendous surge of relief rush through him.
‘Is it bad?’ he asked as the shieldman came up to him.
‘Not as bad as it could have been,’ Rothe said with a lopsided smile. ‘Lucky there’s plenty of places too narrow for horses in this dismal town.’
When they reached the shore, water running out from the town was cutting channels for itself down the beach. Shells and stones were appearing, eroded out of the mud by the hard rain. They slipped and slithered to the jetty and ran out along its uneven length. The boarding felt treacherous.
Two ropes held the boat. Yvane went to one, Orisian the other. The swollen knot felt huge and solid beneath his numb fingers. He could not get any purchase. He pulled the knife out from where he had tucked it into his belt and began to saw at the sodden fibres. He shot a glance at the ship. Men had gathered at its rail and were gesturing towards them.
‘Let me cut it,’ Rothe said, raising his sword. ‘Blade’s not the sharpest, but it’ll do.’
Orisian backed away. Rothe’s first blow went partway through the rope.
‘We go now,’ Varryn said quietly.
Orisian turned to him. The Kyrinin warrior was impassive, looking not at Orisian but Ess’yr. She did not reply at once. Orisian sought for the words he needed. This once, this one time, he wanted to say the right thing to her.
‘Kanin!’ Anyara cried. ‘It’s Kanin.’
There were riders pounding along the shore, ten or twelve of them. Orisian wiped rain from his eyes. Kanin was to the fore, driving his horse on with wild energy. Orisian heard the chop of another sword blow from behind him.
‘It’s free,’ Rothe said. ‘I’ll cut the other.’
Yvane gave up her unequal struggle with the second rope. She stood at Orisian’s side. The Black Road warriors were close. Fountains of mud and sand erupted at their horses’ feet. Orisian could hear the wet thumps of the hoofs.