“You see, this would have been an ideal moment for two forward thinking gentlemen to be on a ship sailing away across the placid Sea of Marmara toward the Ionian coast,” Salvator said from his chair. “Have you ever been to Palermo? It’s quite picturesque in the winter. And when spring comes, those two gentlemen might take a leisurely journey up to Rome to seduce foolish young women and kill arrogant young priests. For money, of course.”
“How are your stitches?” Tycho asked, his eyes never leaving the map.
“Holding, for the moment. Your common Hellan surgeon is no match for even the lowliest Italian tailor, but I suspect I’m going to survive.”
Tycho said nothing. He stood by the map, his arms folded, his foot tapping, as he waited for the runners to start bringing fresh reports so the map could be updated and he could offer the Duchess some new idea, some new tactic that might help save Constantia from the airships. But as he stood waiting, his mind was a blank. His eyes traveled up to the young woman in black, to her long red hair cascading around her shoulders in wild tumbling locks, her tall red ears poking up in front of the black scarf that was slipping back over her head, and to her pale white hands with the jangling silver bracelets.
“Is everything all right?” he asked her. “Can I get you anything?” He frowned as he glanced around the makeshift office in the dank cavern.
That was stupid. What the hell can I get her? A handful of dirty water?
“I’m fine.” She flashed a brief, tired smile and came over to stand beside him and look at the map of the city. “Just restless. I don’t like standing still, waiting for something to happen to me. I spent a long time with my first teacher, Gudrun, in this one little village, just listening to old stories and learning about herbs. And toward the end, I couldn’t even leave the tower for more than an hour or two. It wasn’t safe. But then when I did leave the tower, it was nothing but running and fighting and arguing and more running. Even after I left Ysland with Omar, it’s been nothing but moving and moving. We sailed across the Sea of Ice in a ship made of steel, and rode through frozen forests on huge shaggy horses, and then crossed the glaciers on sleds pulled by dogs.”
“It sounds like it was hard. And cold.”
“It was, but it was wonderful. I saw new places, met strange people. I talked to ghosts hundreds of years old and visited tiny villages in the mountains that can barely survive, but somehow do, generation after generation.” Wren stared up at the shadowy ceiling as she spoke in soft, reverent tones. “And then we reached Vlachia and saw the walking corpses, and fought them, and escaped here, and the war, and Yaga…”
“Not a moment to rest?”
“Not a one.” She glanced at him. “I guess I’m starting to like it that way. I don’t like just standing still like this, especially in the dark. Waiting in the dark. It brings back bad memories.”
“I’m sorry. It’s only for a day or two,” he said. “But at least we’ll be safe from the bombs.”
“Right, the bombs.” She nodded absently. “If they ever drop any bombs.”
He sighed. “If. When.”
Wren looked sharply to her right. “Did you hear that?”
Tycho turned to peer into the deep shadows at the far end of the hall. He heard people murmuring and papers shuffling and pens scratching, and faintly, he heard water dripping. “What was it?”
Wren’s ears twitched, jerking left and right in tiny increments. “It was like footsteps. Tapping, but irregular, not like the dripping. And scraping, like boots.”
Tycho frowned a bit deeper as he started walking through the office space and out beyond the perimeter of torches across the wet tiles toward the dark corners and sealed doors. He heard nothing. Still, he drew his white-handled Mazigh revolver and pointed it at the shadows and stood very still, listening.
Wren followed a moment later and stood behind him. “I hear it. Scratching.”
“It could be rats in the walls,” he said quietly.
“Maybe.”
One of the sealed doors in front of them banged against its hinges and the deep wooden thump echoed across the room. A dozen clerks looked up from their papers.
Tycho pointed his gun at the door and took a few more steps forward. “That wasn’t a rat.”
“What else could be down here?” she asked. “Are there other parts of this palace used for other things? Could other people be down here for shelter too?”
“Maybe,” he said.
But probably not.
Tycho waved to two of the soldiers to follow him and they crossed the room through cold puddles and over crackling, uneven tiles to the door that had banged. It was a double door hung in a thick frame of carved pillars crowned with stone leaves and flowers.
“Hello?” he called.
The doors banged, and banged again. Something heavy was striking the wood panels, and the doors shook on their hinges, rattling against the old iron locks that held them together. They banged a third time and the left door cracked apart a bit, splintering just enough to reveal a sliver of darkness on the far side.
And from that darkness a pale blue hand clawed into the light.
“Guards! Get over here!” Tycho grabbed Wren’s hand and pointed his gun at the door.
I have six bullets. I can kill six of them, at most. Six, and then we’re all dead.
He squeezed Wren’s hand and grimaced.
Palermo is sounding very nice right about now.
Chapter 22. Stamballa
Omar stood on the banks of the Bosporus and gazed up at the beautiful towers of the Mazdan temples beyond the tiled roofs of the ancient villas and mansions and princely estates of Stamballa. It was late in the morning, nearly noon, and the droning of the approaching airships reverberated across the pale winter sky.
“We’re certain the entire district is empty?” Omar asked.
I can’t believe I’m about to be a party to this.
“My scouts have been to the top of the hill,” Vlad said. “Half a league or so from the water. The houses are all empty.”
Omar nodded grimly. “Then I suppose we should get started. Those airships will be overhead in just a few minutes.” He paced up the cobblestone lane to the first house and plunged his seireiken into the joint between the top of the wall and the bottom of the roof. The stones began to glow a dull red and the old timbers of the house burst into flame.
As he stood there, making certain the house was well and truly on fire, Omar noticed the dim shade of Ito Daisuke standing beside him. “Yes?”
“This is your side of the border, isn’t it? Imperial soil?”
Omar sighed. “Yes.”
“And you’re setting fire to this city to save that other city?”
Omar stifled a glare. “Yes.”
“Ah.” The dead samurai paced along the front of the house, looking up at the burning roof.
Omar pulled his seireiken free, walked to the next house, and plunged the blade up into the roof. A second fire crackled to life.
“I know you said you would help the Hellans with their little witch problem, with the walking dead and such,” Daisuke said. “And I respect that. But that task appears to be complete. Koschei is free, Yaga is under control, and the army of corpses was defeated.”
“So?”
“So why are you now helping the Hellans to fight the Turks?” The samurai gestured to the street around them as the Constantian marines and Vlachian archers strode by, tossing torches onto roofs and kicking in doors to ransack the abandoned houses. “This has nothing to do with you, or your promise. This is barely even warfare. This is simple barbarism, and you appear to be on the wrong side of it.”
“If the airships bomb Constantia, thousands of innocent people will die. But if they bomb us here, only a few soldiers will be in danger.” Omar moved on up the street.
“This is about saving lives?” The samurai frowned. “You’ve spent the last forty-five centuries searching for arcane knowledge to overcome death, to transcend humanity, and to meet the Divine face to face.”