“I saw you staring at her,” Salvator said. “You like those ears of hears, don’t you?”
“Don’t be perverse. She’s a pretty girl. The ears are just… weird.” Tycho drummed his fingers on the grip of his gun. “But just now, I saw her do something. She floated in the air right in front of me. Just lifted off the floor as light as a cloud for a moment.”
“Mazigh airships can float off the floor for longer than a moment, and they’re much larger than some girl with funny ears. There’s no magic in that. Just another sort of science.”
Tycho nodded. “You’re probably right. So, why are you out here?”
“The duchess and the prince want to be alone with their new best friend, Omar. They seem quite taken with him. I suppose it’s quite a coup, really, finding yet another immortal. Not that I trust him, of course.”
“We don’t know that he really is immortal. He’s only said he was. He could be lying.”
“He wasn’t. After you left, Vlad demanded a demonstration,” Salvator said. “Omar slit open his hand and we watched it heal itself almost as quickly as he cut it. Just like Koschei did, only less macabre.”
“Oh.” Tycho paused at the entrance to the stables. “So, what shall we do with the rest of our day? Have another chat with the Turk in the cistern?”
“I don’t see the point.” Salvator sniffed and grimaced at the horses. “Even if he knew something worthwhile, he’s half-mad from whatever he saw at Saray.”
“Do you really think it’s that bad? Half the Vlachians deserted when they saw this army of the dead, and the Vlachians aren’t afraid of anything,” Tycho said. “What will happen when the dead reach Constantia? Will we all go mad?”
Salvator shrugged. “Well, I won’t. You might.”
They continued around the rear of the stables and looked out across the frosted lawns. On their right stood the Church of Saint Irene, its golden dome gleaming in the sunlight, and on their left stood the ancient sea walls that protected the Seraglio Point and the palace itself from invaders in the Strait and the Sea of Marmara.
“What worries me is-”
A horn blew three blasts, and the two men looked up at the watch tower overlooking the Seraglio Point. Tycho frowned. “Come on.”
They commandeered one of the little carriages in the courtyard and rode across the length of the palace grounds to the tower on the point, and then shouldered through the stream of Hellan soldiers heading up to the wall. When they finally emerged into the cool sea breeze at the top, Tycho looked down at the mouth of the Bosporus and saw three Eranian ironclads in the channel.
He frowned. “Oh good, the Furies are back.”
They had no idea what the three ships were called in Eranian, so the Hellan lookouts had simply taken to calling them the three Furies. Each one carried a hundred heavy cannons and the sailors on deck could be seen carrying pistols and rifles. Huge steam engines sat puffing and chuffing amidships on all three, and the massive screws beneath their armored hulls were known to drive the ships above fifteen knots, faster than any other steamer in the area. From time to time, the Furies would range out across the Sea of Marmara, terrorizing the shipping lanes or protecting Eranian convoys, but they always returned to the Bosporus sooner or later.
Salvator leaned on the wall, peering at the ships. “They’re a bit close today. You don’t suppose they’re actually going to take a shot at us, do you?”
Tycho looked again, his keen eyes gauging the distance. “You’re right, they are closer than usual.” And then a flurry of movement on the deck of the center ship drew his attention there. “Good God, what are they doing?”
He beckoned for the watchman to hand over his spyglass, and Tycho studied the ship’s deck again through the narrow view of the glass. The sailors had formed ranks around a central stage on the deck where two large men where forcing a third man down onto his knees with his arms held straight at out to his sides. The kneeling man had a long, scraggly tangle of black hair hanging over his face, but his massive chest and arms were quite bare and Tycho could see the thin gray tattoos on his skin. “It’s Koschei. They’ve got Koschei on the center Fury.”
Salvator grimaced. “What are they doing with him?”
“Stretching him out like a lamb for slaughter,” Tycho said. “Kneeling. Arms out. Head down. There’s a man with an axe. Shit. I think they’re going to behead him.”
“Hm.” The Italian nodded. “Interesting. Do you suppose that will actually kill him?”
“If it does, there’ll be hell to pay with his mother. And if it doesn’t kill him…” Tycho trailed off as he tried to imagine a headless Koschei. The man was demon enough on the battlefield with his skull intact. He couldn’t fathom a Koschei with even less self-control.
He continued to watch through the glass. “Do we have any ships nearby? I don’t see any.”
“Not close enough,” Salvator said. “We have five cruisers protecting the Galata Bridge, and several more patrolling the southern shore of the Horn, but none of them could reach Koschei in time to help him.”
Damn it. God only knows what Yaga will do if her son dies.
“I have to give Radu credit,” Salvator said. “This is probably the best thing he could do with Koschei. A public execution like this will do more than upset his mother. It’ll demoralize our entire army when they learn their immortal champion is dead. And we can hardly hope to keep this quiet. Everyone is going to see it.”
Tycho slammed his fist on the wall. The Furies were only a quarter mile from shore, but there was no way to reach them, not even with a bullet or arrow. Through the spyglass, he saw the axe man circle around behind the kneeling Koschei. An Eranian officer postured and gestured, no doubt making a grand speech about how they boldly captured this mighty warrior, and were now doing God’s work in executing him as well. The officer signaled the executioner, and the man raised the axe, and then the axe fell.
When the blade sliced through Koschei’s left shoulder, the two men holding him down both stumbled back as the arm and body separated and a river of dark blood spilled across the deck. And a moment later, Tycho heard a thin scream echo across the water. But he kept his spyglass on the deck and watched as the Eranians wrestled their prisoner back into position, raised his right arm, and hacked it off at the shoulder as well. This time there was no scream. Koschei collapsed facedown and did not move as a cheer rose from the ranks of Turkish sailors across the deck.
At the same time, a low groan and sigh and gasp rippled across the sea wall as the Hellans saw or heard their immortal champion fall.
Still, Tycho watched the deck of the ironclad ship. He watched as the sailors gathered up the severed arms, and he watched as they dragged Koschei to a flagpole, tied his ankles, and lifted his body upside-down over the deck, his gory shoulders still dripping.
Then the sailors began to disperse back to their posts and duties, all except two young men with mops and buckets who set about scrubbing away the blood.
“Well, that’s that,” Salvator said. “I suppose they’ll be sending us the arms at some point, just to be certain that we got the message.”
Tycho nodded. “Not that it matters. Everyone saw it. The duchess and prince will know in a matter of minutes. And then, one way or another, Yaga will hear of it too. That’s when things go completely to hell.”
He was about to turn away and head back to the stairs when a distant keening caught his ear. It sounded almost like the cry Koschei made when they struck off his first arm, and Tycho lifted the spyglass again. “My God. He’s still alive.”
“He won’t be for long,” Salvator said. “He may have only passed out from the shock, but he’ll die from loss of blood in a minute.”
“I guess. Although, it looks like he’s stopped bleeding already. In fact… my God.” Tycho handed the spyglass to Salvator and closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead.