Kushiel's Scion

Page 96

"Eamonn!" I shouted. "Where's Eamonn?"
There was a surge at the door. Two Valpetrans burst through. Constantin and another Barbarus member killed one; the other retreated. Outside, it was getting louder. I craned around, looking for a glimpse of copper-bright hair, half a head taller than anyone else.
"Imriel." Matius touched my arm. "Eamonn never made it to the baths. He—"
His lips continued to move, forming words I couldn't hear. There was only a high-pitched ringing sound, the sound of fury. It coursed through me in waves, filling my veins with dark fire. I could taste it on my tongue, acrid as steel.
Enough.
I don't know if I thought the word or spoke it. I tore away from Matius' grip, from Canis' urging, and made for the arched doorway at a dead run. Members of Barbarus squadron turned their heads slowly. I plowed past Constantin and hurdled a Valpetran corpse. There was another Valpetran in the doorway, a live one. He stared at me open-mouthed. I ducked under his raised sword and slid past his shield, dropping to one knee and executing a one-handed backward thrust. As though from a great distance, I heard him bellow as my sword pierced the back of his thigh. Without pausing, I yanked my sword free and continued onto the portico.
"Eamonn!" I shouted.
It was madness outside the baths. The streets were clogged with almost two hundred Valpetran infantry and mounted men, and hundreds of Luccan soldiers. Hundreds. They must have rallied from every quarter of the city. As though a door had been flung open wide, my hearing returned, and the sound of it slammed into me: clashing, grating, deafening. Over the top of it all rode the sound of the horns calling out an alarum. Somewhere through it ran the thread of a familiar roar. There was a mounted figure amidst the advancing Red Scourge, clad in gilded armor, a crest of crimson horsehair bobbing.
Lucius, alive. Not Eamonn.
"Eamonn!"
I couldn't hear my own voice in the din. I shook my head in frustration. Another Valpetran charged across the portico toward me. Realizing I still held the useless helmet, I flung it in his face. When he staggered backward, I plunged the point of my blade in a gap beneath his armpit.
A lot more of them attacked me then.
I don't know how many. I didn't count. Out of the corner of my eye, I'd caught a flash of red-gold hair some distance from the portico, backed up against the ledge surrounding the baths. I fought my way toward him. No shield; no shield line. No comrades in arms to worry about. I fought in the Cassiline style. They weren't men anymore, just obstacles to surmount. Shields to dodge, blades to parry, bits of moving armor to pierce. I didn't care about killing them, I only wanted to get past them. Somewhere behind me, I could hear a voice cursing steadily in a language that sounded like Hellene, but wasn't.
I saw Eamonn go down, and I cursed, too.
It was the helmet, the damned lack of a helmet. A big Valpetran with a thrusting spear gave him a glancing blow to the head and his knees began to sag. A helmet would have turned it. I'd taken several. Small wonder my ears were ringing.
"Eamonn!" I shouted, and he turned his head. Blood was spilling down one side of his neck. Our eyes met and he pitched forward. The Valpetran grinned and raised his spear for the finishing thrust.
Whispering a prayer to Blessed Elua, I ran for the edge of the portico and leapt. His arms began to descend. There was no time to strike a blow. I simply lowered my head and ran into him. He dropped his spear as the impact sent us both sprawling. I landed atop him, losing my sword in the process.
There were more horns blowing, a confusion of horns. There were hoofbeats on the cobblestones. Someone was shouting an order to surrender. It didn't sound like Lucius, or Gallus Tadius. The Valpetran soldier beneath me glared and heaved, nearly throwing me off him. I fumbled for the dagger in my boot-sheath and planted it between his eyes, sinking it to the hilt. His glare faded, eyes fixed and open.
A heavy weight fell across my back.
"Surrender arms!" the voice shouted.
For the first time, I panicked, flailing out from beneath the weight. A body. Finding my sword, I scrambled to my feet, gripping the hilt in both hands and breathing hard, terrified of what I might see.
D'Angeline banners and Tiberian soldiers massing on the outskirts of the battle.
Silvanus the Younger calling on his men to surrender.
Lucius making his way through the throng, accompanied by three guardsmen.
Canis at my feet, clutching the haft of a javelin, his lips drawn back with pain.
And Domenico Martelli, the Duke of Valpetra, seated astride a black horse. His men, Silvanus' men, had drawn back to give him a wide berth. Lucius was yet to reach us. We might have been alone on the street. Although we were strangers to one another, a strange sense of intimacy settled between us. He gazed down at me, his fleshy, rain-streaked face impassive. One hand ended in a bandaged stump. In the other, he held a javelin, cocked and ready to throw.
"I've been looking for you, D'Angeline" he said conversationally. "I blame you for all of this. I'm not sure why, but I do."
I nodded. "I carry a lot of guilt, my lord."
"Valpetra!" Lucius' voice; Gallus' voice, raised in an earsplitting roar, carrying over the mass of soldiers. "It's over! Your condottiere has surrendered! Drop your weapon!"
"Ready to die?" Domenico Martelli asked me, ignoring him.
"Not really," I said honestly.
Lucius shouted an order, and a trio of crossbows sang out over the crowd. Martelli jerked hard as one bolt struck home, jutting from his left shoulder. The other two missed. Lucius shouted again. The guardsmen struggled to reload, but it was a slow process. At my feet, I could hear Canis moving feebly. Martelli gathered himself, cocking his right arm and setting his javelin, aiming its point at my heart. Now, at last, I wished I had my shield.
"Well," said the Duke of Valpetra. "Ready or not."
I bowed to him in the Cassiline manner. I wished there was sunlight to cast a shadow, I wished I'd thought to remove my helmet so I could hear better, I wished my ears would stop ringing. I closed my eyes and listened, shutting out the din and clamor. Hard, harder than I'd ever listened during one of Phèdre's games. All the world narrowed to this moment. With my eyes closed, I stepped outside myself and concentrated on this Duke, this stranger, closer to me in this moment than any lover had ever been.
And I heard an indrawn breath, softer than a lover's gasp.
I didn't wait for the exhale. By the time he threw, it would be too late. I straightened, sweeping my vambraced forearms before me, my eyelids flying open. All around me was knife-edged brightness. The jolt of the javelin's impact against the outer vambrace struck me to the bone, my arms aching at it. Everything ached. For the space of a heartbeat, I wasn't sure if I was alive or dead. Then I heard the javelin clatter harmlessly to the cobblestones and the crossbows sang once more.
This time they were closer. No one missed.
Bristling like a pincushion, Domenico Martelli, the Duke of Valpetra, slumped sideways and fell off his horse. He landed with a dull thud and lay without moving.
"You alive, Montrève?" Lucius called.
"Yes," I called back. "I think so."
"Good."
They were surrendering, all of them; laying down their arms and surrendering. I supposed I was glad. If Eamonn was alive, I would be. I made my way to his side. He was slouched against the ledge, one hand clamped to his head. Blood trickled down his neck and leaked between his fingers.
"Are you—?" I asked anxiously.
"I'll live." He gestured with his chin, then winced. "Look to him."
Canis.
He was still alive when I returned, though barely. The javelin had pierced him clean through, the bloody point exiting from his chest. Like me, he wore only a leather jerkin. He was curled on his side, his hands clasped loosely around the head of the shaft. I knelt beside him, understanding what he'd done. Valpetra had cast two javelins, and the first when my back was turned. Canis had taken the death-blow meant for me.
"Why did you do it?" I asked softly.
There was a froth of blood on his lips, but his brown eyes were clear, filled with a mixture of pain and rue. Canis the Cynic; the cheerful philosopher-beggar; Canis the deaf-mute; Canis the Unseen Guilds-man; Canis the soldier. All along, he had been there. I had a thousand questions and he held a thousand answers, but time to speak only one. I had to bend low to hear his faint voice.
"Your mother sends her love," he whispered.
There was no more. With a quiet, bloodstained smile, Canis died.
The siege was over.
Chapter Sixty-Three
In the days that followed, I pieced together all the varying accounts to make sense of what had transpired. Gallus Tadius' plan had worked to a point. Bent on looting and slaughter, most of Valpetra's men had scattered throughout the city, falling prey to traps and ambush. A good many had surrendered of their own will. I daresay the madness that had befallen everyone when the mundus manes was uncovered had begun to disperse after Gallus Tadius sent the floodwaters to hell.
Not Valpetra's.
He'd held a core of his men together and gone hunting me, consumed with the notion of revenge. When Lucius realized it, he'd rallied the Red Scourge in pursuit, turning the hunted into hunters. The sentries atop the walls had spotted the approaching army of D'Angeline and Tiberian forces, and their appearance in the city had tipped the balance; Silvanus the Younger had cut his losses and surrendered.
And Canis…
No one knew for sure. Cutpurse squadron had sustained heavy losses, and none of his fellows remembered seeing him after their initial retreat. They'd assumed him dead. I could only guess that he'd deserted. Like Valpetra, he'd gone looking for me.
Your mother sends her love.
I knelt beside his body for a long time, there on the cobbled streets of Lucca, rain dripping from my helmet. I was too tired to know what I felt, other than pain. All around me, there were men—cheering and groaning, sullen, wounded, dying. I would like, I thought, to spend a good deal more time in the company of women.
More hoofbeats; an uncertain voice. "Your highness?"
I pried myself to my feet, aching in every part, and gazed upward. "Messire LeClerc."
Once again, I was filthy and bedraggled in the presence of the D'Angeline ambassadress' guardsmen; clad in motley armor, splashed with mud and gore. This time, there was no hint of amusement in their regard. Quentin LeClerc dismounted and his men followed suit. There in the filthy street, they all dropped to one knee.
"Your highness," he repeated, bowing his head. "We came in all haste."
"Thank you." There were lines of Tiberian faces behind the kneeling D'Angelines, alert and attentive. And clean. They all looked so clean. I took off my helmet and rubbed my face with a fold of my sodden cloak. "Mayhap… mayhap you could help with the wounded."
Quentin LeClerc stood. "Of course, your highness."
"Call me Imriel," I said wearily.
He began to give orders, calm and efficient, and they spread through the streets, helping sort the dead from the wounded, giving what comfort they might to the latter. Atop the roofs and the walls, the sentries were sounding the all-clear, and Luccan citizens were beginning to emerge, wailing or rejoicing at the fate of their loved ones. Lucius was busy organizing the surrender of Silvanus' men, who were being gathered from all quarters of the city and herded into the empty fabric warehouse where Barbarus squadron would have made its second stand. There was a great stack of weapons piling up on the portico.
I stooped and gathered Canis' body in my arms, carrying him over to the ledge where Eamonn was waiting. He was on his feet, weaving a little, the rain making pink rivulets through the blood seeping along his neck. I laid Canis down gently, then eased the bloody length of the javelin from his chest and set it aside. We both gazed at him. He looked peaceful in death.
"So," Eamonn said. "Who was he?"
"I don't know," I said. "My mother sent him."
"Phèdre?"
"No." I shook my head. "My mother." I touched his arm. "Come on, Captain Barbarus. Let's get you patched."
Eamonn nodded at a dead Valpetran. "Your dagger."
The hilt jutted forth between the man's eyes. A part of me was tempted to leave it. I didn't want to remember killing him with it. But Joscelin had given them to me when I'd turned fifteen. It was after the winter when I'd first kept Elua's vigil on the Longest Night with him. I remembered the carriage ride home, shivering and delirious, when I'd told him I wanted to be like him.
Ah, love, he'd said. Don't wish for that.
I had, though.
I put one foot on the Valpetran's breastplate, grabbed the hilt, and yanked. It came out hard; I'd planted it with a good deal of force. There was a cracking sound and it came free. The corpse's helmeted skull bounced on the cobblestones. I thought about that vast pit opening beneath the city, the obsidian curtains of water spilling downward, downward, and wondered if the Valpetran's spirit was wandering a flooded Caerdicci hell, all its five rivers swollen and raging.
I wondered how many others I'd sent there.
I didn't know.
"Imri," Eamonn said.
I laughed, or at least I made a sound that resembled a laugh. "Is three a lot, Eamonn? I wanted to ask you, before. Because I didn't think it was, but you made it sound like it was. And now I don't know how many. Four, anyway."
"I owe you my life," he said simply.
It was enough; it had to be enough, because if it wasn't, there was nothing else. Standing in the cold, drizzling rain, I met his steady grey-green gaze and forced myself to smile. "Do you suppose Brigitta will think better of D'Angelines because of it?"