He nodded, and barked out commands in an Island dialect she couldn’t follow. Six of his men, including Shoji, stepped forward.
“Stay close,” Shoji told her with his familiar lecherous grin. “I want you to make sure I get out of this alive.”
Bo-Shing called out a command, the men on the ropes grunted and pulled, and the wagons began to roll. Cassandra and the vanguard took up a position about thirty feet ahead of the convoy, Shoji leading the way to the ship. It wasn’t until they rounded the second corner that they ran into the fleeing crowds.
Shoji and the other pirates began shouting loudly for people to clear a path, punctuating their words with swears and angry swipes of their cutlasses through the air. Despite the madness and confusion, the crowd parted quickly; even in their haste to flee, nobody wanted to get cut down by a horde of angry pirates.
“Soldiers around the next corner!” Cassandra shouted, her Sight giving her advance warning.
She rushed ahead to meet the enemy, Shoji and the vanguard close on her heels.
Eight soldiers had fanned out in a line across the street, forming a roadblock between them and the now-visible docks. Despite being outnumbered, the pirate vanguard threw itself at the enemy. Cassandra was quick to join them, knowing they needed to end this before more soldiers—or even some Inquisitors—arrived.
The pirates attacked with wild abandon, relying on speed and fury instead of tactics, strategy, or technique. They screamed like gibbering monkeys as they charged, an unnerving, high-pitched squeal that rose and fell in quick, staccato bursts.
The soldiers held their ground, drawing their ranks in to meet the charge. Cassandra reached out with her mind and gently tapped into the Crown on her back, drawing its power into her muscles and limbs before exploding into action.
In three quick, bounding steps she closed the gap between her and the soldiers, easily outpacing Shoji and the others. She dropped into a roll and came in low, sweeping out the legs of the two closest to her. She heard the sound of a blade whistling past as one of the others took a clumsy swipe in her direction, but she knew it wouldn’t make contact and she didn’t even bother to move out of the way as it passed over her shoulder. Instead, she threw her left elbow into the chin of one of the fallen soldiers, then twisted and drove the heel of her right palm into the side of the other’s helmet, rendering them both unconscious. She didn’t want to kill anyone unless she had to.
She sprang back to her feet just as Shoji and the others joined the fray. With her heightened reflexes and awareness, everyone and everything around her seemed to be moving in slow motion. She took down two more soldiers with a leaping split kick, her boots connecting simultaneously with each man’s helmet. The pair dropped instantly, incapacitated but still alive.
Unfortunately, the other four were taken down by the pirates, and they did not share Cassandra’s qualms about killing their foes. Steel flashed and blood flew, and within seconds the fight was over.
Bo-Shing and the wagons came rolling up behind them, and Shoji and his crew scrambled to move the fallen bodies out of the road so the convoy wouldn’t have to stop and lose its momentum.
With the way ahead cleared, the men on the towropes picked up their pace, the wagons bouncing and clattering over the rough cobblestone street until they reached The Chaos Runner.
To Cassandra’s eye, the ship looked unremarkable. But when she concentrated on it carefully, she could sense the faintest aura of Chaos emanating from deep inside the hull.
It really is an enchanted ship, she thought, though she wondered how strong the magic could actually be. If she hadn’t already known it was there, she would never have noticed the faint spark of Chaos.
“Lower the gangplank and get these wagons on board!” Bo-Shing shouted.
Several of the pirates sprang into action, leaping from the pier onto cargo nets hanging from the ship’s side and scrambling up onto the top deck. The sails unfurled and a large wooden plank slammed down on the dock beside them, just wide enough for the wagons to cross.
Several of the pirates got behind the first wagon and began to push. Others, including Bo-Shing, seized the towrope and pulled. Together they managed to get it up and onto the ship.
Cassandra let her awareness drift outward, taking in her surroundings. Skirmishes between the soldiers and those trying to get to the ships were still being fought on several of the nearby piers, but it was clear the Order’s troops were overwhelmed. Already, several ships had cast off and many more would soon join them.
What about Bo-Shing’s decoy? she wondered, casting out in vain for a ship under attack by a team of Inquisitors.
“Care to help?” Bo-Shing asked, as they came down the gangplank to load the second wagon.
“I’m keeping watch,” Cassandra said. “In case the Inquisitors weren’t fooled by your plan.”
“Do you sense them?” he asked, making no effort to mask his fear.
“No. Not yet. That’s what worries me.”
Turning to his men, Bo-Shing shouted, “Get these other wagons on board—NOW!”
—
Orath flitted from pier to pier, using his long fingernails to crawl along the underside of the docks. The water below was littered with bits of broken rafts, a random assortment of boots, gloves, and capes, and the occasional bloated corpse. Above him the Pontiff’s soldiers were slowly being overrun by the crush of Callastan’s citizens determined to escape by sea.
He scuttled along, searching for the Crown, and it didn’t take him long to find it.
The Talisman wasn’t actually visible; the mortal who carried it wasn’t foolish enough to leave it out in the open. But as he drew close, he could feel its power calling to him.
Knowing his own presence would be masked by the spell he’d used to hide himself from the Inquisitors’ Sight, he slowly worked his way along the underbelly of the piers until he sat directly beneath his target.
The slight woman stood on the wooden slats above him, completely oblivious to his presence even though he was mere inches away. Part of him wanted to tear through the boards, drag her down into the cold water, and rip the Crown from her drowning grasp. But another part of him—the part that had kept him alive and helped him climb the ranks until he was one of Daemron’s favorites—knew better.
She thwarted Raven and killed the Crawling Twins. She is far more dangerous than she appears.
Why take the risk of striking now and failing when she was already doing exactly what Daemron desired? Why had he gone to the trouble of killing off all the Inquisitors on the docks over the past few nights if he wasn’t going to let her escape the city?
Watch and wait. See that she reaches the Keystone.
Above him, the humans were loading several wagons onto their ship.
“Let’s go!” one of them shouted. “Come on!”
“I don’t understand,” the woman carrying the Crown answered. “Even if the Inquisitors fell for your trick, I still should be able to sense them.”
“This is a good thing!” the other replied. “Now get on board so we can cast off!”
Shaking her head, she scurried up the gangplank and onto the ship. Orath let go and plunged straight down into the cold water below with barely a ripple. With quick, powerful strokes he swam to the vessel as it pushed off from the pier, holding his breath and staying below the surface.
He latched on to the hull, his nails carving long furrows into the wood as he crawled up the stern. Unnoticed in the commotion of setting out to sea, he dragged himself upward until he reached a small porthole, then wrenched it open. The opening was a tight fit, but Orath’s body was thin and sinewy, and he was just barely able to slither through and into the dank cargo hold on the other side.
Manacles and chains lined the walls, but the pirates weren’t carrying slaves today. To his surprise, he felt the familiar tingle of Chaos magic in the hold’s stuffy air. The power was strong but dormant—as if the magic slept while the ship was in port.
Satisfied the vessel would be able to deliver Cassandra to the Keystone without his help, Orath crawled into a back corner of the empty cargo hold. Pressing himself into the shadows, he became one with the darkness.
—
Cassandra stared back at Callastan as they slowly pulled out, hardly daring to believe they’d made it.
It almost seemed too easy, Rexol said. Like this is all part of some elaborate trap.
You’re paranoid, she reminded him as she gazed back at the city.
Several tendrils of smoke curled up from various parts of the city, though whether the fires were set by the attackers or defenders she couldn’t say. The battle still raged inside the city walls; with her Sight she sensed that the fighting had intensified and spread throughout the entire city.
She reached out to the Crown, pushing her awareness as far as she could in the hopes of finding Methodis. But even with the aid of the Talisman, she couldn’t locate a single man inside an entire city.
May the True Gods watch over you, she thought.
The True Gods are dead, Rexol reminded her.
“Shut up,” she whispered, turning her back on the slowly receding city.
VAALER HAD FORGOTTEN how much easier it was to ride rather than walk; they had traveled over ten miles already today and he wasn’t even tired.
But most of the soldiers are traveling by foot, he reminded himself. It’s important not to push them too hard.
He glanced down from his mount at Shalana, walking close beside him, her long strides matching the easy pace of his steed. She and the rest of his honor guard—who were also marching along on foot—could easily travel thirty miles in a day. But that kind of pace would be far too much to handle for the bulk of his troops.
“I think we should make camp in a couple hours,” he said.
“Are the royal buttocks become sore from sitting in a saddle all day, Your Highness?” she teased.
“I keep telling you we can find you a horse if you want one,” Vaaler objected. “I can teach you how to ride.”
Shalana gave the beast beneath him a suspicious, sidelong glance.
“I think I’ll walk…like the rest of your soldiers.”
“The horse is a gift from Lord Bonchamps,” Vaaler said in his defense. “It would be rude not to make use of it.”
Thanks to Andar’s ruse, Cheville’s City Lord had completely changed his attitude. Once he believed Vaaler was the heir to the Danaan throne—and a potentially valuable political ally—he’d offered soldiers, supplies, refuge for the civilians following Vaaler, and the promise that messenger birds would be dispatched to the other Free Cities asking for them to send reinforcements to march with them.
Unfortunately, the numbers were far lower than what Vaaler had hoped for. Cheville could have raised an army of a thousand on short notice, but Bonchamps had given them only five hundred. Still, he couldn’t blame him for being reluctant to turn over his entire fighting force to their cause: It would have been irresponsible—and politically foolish—to leave his city completely undefended.
And he did give me a very nice horse, Vaaler reminded himself.
“The least you can do,” Shalana told him, “is to watch where you’re going. If you keep riding with your nose buried in those pages the Danaan brought you, that animal is going to step in a hole and you’re going to fall off and break your neck.”
“My horse is a lot smarter than you give him credit for,” Vaaler assured her. “And these pages are important,” he added, holding up the sheaves of paper he carried with him as he rode. “They could hold the key to helping Keegan fulfill his destiny.”
Andar and the rest of the Danaan delegation had joined them on their journey to Callastan, though Vaaler was careful to make sure they were always positioned well away from his honor guard whenever they made camp. They had brought with them a number of transcribed passages from the Danaan archives, all of them making references to something called the Keystone and the birth of the Legacy. According to Andar, the Queen had seen the Keystone in her dreams, and she believed it would play a crucial role in Keegan’s—and the entire world’s—fate.
Vaaler didn’t have much use for his mother’s visions, but he knew there was a wealth of valuable but long-forgotten information buried in the Danaan archives. Since leaving Cheville three days ago, he’d spent several hours each day studying the transcriptions. And each night, he would meet with Andar and the other Danaan scholars to analyze and discuss what he’d read. No single passage explicitly described the exact purpose or location of the Keystone, but Vaaler knew if they could properly assemble all the various bits and pieces, they could build a complete picture.
But will we be able to finish it in time?
At their current pace, they would reach Callastan in a few more days.
And then what?
In addition to the soldiers from Cheville, several hundred more from Accul had caught up with them last night. But he suspected they were still not even close to matching the size of the force the Order had assembled.
Maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear.
Scouts had been sent ahead to assess the strength of their enemy, but they had yet to return. To Vaaler’s surprise, Darmmid—the soldier who believed Keegan had cursed him—had volunteered to join them. Shalana had been reluctant simply to turn him loose unsupervised, but Vaaler didn’t see any harm in letting him go. Even if he went mad again or decided to betray them, he doubted one man could do much harm.
“Jendarme is coming,” Shalana said, pointing back at the long line of soldiers winding out behind them.
The old captain had come along to serve as the leader of the Cheville troops, though Vaaler wasn’t certain if Bonchamps had ordered him to do so or if he’d volunteered. He’d feared the long journey would exhaust the old man even though he also rode rather than walked. But Jendarme seemed to have ample reserves of energy, and he’d even taken on the role of liaison between the various factions that had united under their banner.
His horse trotted briskly past the marching ranks until he fell into step beside Vaaler and Shalana.
“A gentleman would let the lady ride,” he said by way of greeting, arching one eyebrow.
“I can think of only one good use for a horse,” Shalana told him, “and then only if the meat is tender.”
“No wonder they call you Barbarians,” he grumbled.
His tone was gruff, but in their short time together Vaaler had learned to recognize his deadpan sense of humor. Fortunately, Shalana recognized it as well.
“It could be worse,” she answered, the hint of a smile on her lips. “I hear in Torian they say we eat babies, too.”
“Torian is no longer one of the Free Cities,” Jendarme told her, and this time his anger wasn’t for comic effect. “They lost the right to that title when they decided to grovel at the Pontiff’s feet.”
“Any word from the scouts?” Vaaler asked.
“Not the ones we sent ahead to Callastan,” he answered. “But a messenger brings word that troops from Innaca are on their way. They should meet up with us by tomorrow night.”
“How many?”
“Only a few hundred,” Jendarme replied. “Lady Vennessia is no friend of the Order, but Innaca is the smallest of the Free Cities. I doubt they could spare any more.”
Over a thousand troops in total now, Vaaler thought. Enough to be a threat to the Order as long as the defenders in Callastan are able to hit them from the other side at the same time.
“Thank you, Captain,” Vaaler said. “You are dismissed.”
Jendarme bowed low in his saddle, then wheeled his horse around in a tight circle and rode off at a full gallop.
“He handles his horse with more flair than you,” Shalana noted as she watched him go. “If I ever want to learn to ride, I think he’d be a better teacher than you.”
“I think I’m starting to feel a bit jealous,” Vaaler said in mock indignation.
“Relax, my love,”
she said, patting him gently on the thigh. “I prefer younger men.”
—
When Methodis arrived to find the warehouse empty, his first thought was that Bo-Shing had double-crossed them. But as the minutes dragged by and Cassandra failed to show up, he realized that it was the young woman who had misled him.
He briefly considered rushing to the docks to try to intercept them before they fled the city, but quickly discarded the idea. Cassandra clearly didn’t want him to go with her.
She’s trying to protect me.
Outside he could hear the distant sounds of battle as the fighting spread slowly through the city. Those who stayed to defend Callastan would neither give nor ask any quarter, and he knew casualties on both sides would be high.
He couldn’t help Cassandra anymore, but there were others who would soon need his services. He was one of the few healers who had a shop outside the wealthy merchant and noble districts; it wouldn’t be long before a steady stream of wounded began to arrive at his door.
Leaving the empty warehouse, he worked his way cautiously back to his apothecary. Several times he had to backtrack and take an alternate route to avoid streets where soldiers on both sides hacked away at each other, but he managed to reach his shop without incident.
He slipped inside and closed the door behind him but didn’t lock it. Then he took a quick inventory of his supplies. He wasn’t surprised to see that Cassandra had left everything behind, but he wasn’t expecting to find the hastily written chalk note waiting for him.
I’m sorry. But I know you will understand why it had to be done. I can never repay the kindness you showed me. Thank you for everything, and I will pray to the True Gods to keep you safe.
As he read it, his eyes misted up.
May the True Gods watch over you, too, child.
He heard the door behind him swing open and glanced over his shoulder. Two young men stood in the door, covered in dust and blood. One was barely conscious, only standing because his friend was literally holding him up.
“Fell off the wall,” the friend said. “Leg’s all busted up. Shoulder, too.”