Page 4 of Queen Demon
He passed back through to the stair landing, where Cerala spoke rapidly and reassuringly to the unarmed mortals. They watched Kai sweep past with wide eyes.
From the crashing and outcries from the lower floors, Nirana and Telare had rejoined Salatel, Arsha, and Hartel to finish killing the rest of the legionaries in the house. Kai reached the lower floor and saw bedraggled civilians helping the soldiers, pointing out hiding places and going after the legionaries with broken pieces of furniture and cooking knives.
Kai stopped in the central room near the entrance hall, where cushioned couches lined the walls and spilled food and broken dishes had ruined brightly colored carpets. He admitted to himself that there had been more legionaries in here than he had expected and that it could have gone badly for both him and his cadre. But so many of the dead were without weapons or armor, with their clothing open or missing entirely. Kai didn’t think Salatel and the others had the time or inclination to strip the bodies, so the legionaries must have been like that when the cadre arrived. And the place smelled like distilled liquor and rancid wine. He stepped over a half-naked legionary corpse and demanded, “What the shit was going on here?”
Nirana prodded a body with her spear to make sure it was dead and told Hartel, “It’s your turn.”
Hartel explained, “It’s an entertainment house. You pay money to attend, mostly it’s just parties and conversations, music, stories, sometimes sex too. It’s meant to be fun.” She waved at the dead littering the central hall. “The legionaries take the houses over and won’t let the hosts leave, and make them do whatever the legionaries want.”
Kai snarled, wishing he hadn’t asked. The civilians checking the dead bodies and picking through the remains of their homelooked more battered than any of the cadre soldiers. “If I’d known that I wouldn’t have made the fire so quick.” He started for the door. “We need to go.”
They found the horses a little way down the street nosing at a dead legionary. As they mounted and started away, other stragglers who had gotten separated in the fighting fell in behind them. Further up the street, civilians had come out on the covered walkways and balconies, all shouting, but none tried to throw things or block their way. Kai was still learning the Arike language and he could only pick out a few words, the emotion and the echo off the stone walls not helping. Two legionaries burst out of a house but they were fleeing, chased by a scatter of civilians with sticks and other makeshift weapons. Telare reined in long enough to block the legionaries’ escape, then hurried to catch up.
The clash of weapons sounded ahead. The walls on either side of the road abruptly fell away and they were in an open plaza, riding up on legionaries on foot who had surrounded the Arike troop.
Bashasa wasn’t visible but Kai could see the banner of the dead city of Suneai-arik, waving wildly from a pole held high over someone’s head.They’re going to have to stop doing that,Kai thought, signaling to Salatel and driving his horse forward. It marked Bashasa’s position and that was not a good idea. This time it was necessary, for the Arike in the city to know who was here, that this was a rescue, not another conqueror.
Kai had two short spears sheathed on his saddle like the other Arike, but his Saredi family had taught him to take advantage of his abilities as a demon, that he was wasted trying to fight like a mortal. He moved forward with the cadre and as they engaged legionaries, he reached out to touch a bare wrist, a neck, brush a cheek. The men had shields to hold off the vicious horses andwere quick to block jabs from a bladed weapon, but Kai was fast, taking just enough of their lives to make them collapse or stagger, and letting the soldiers finish them off.
More armed Arike civilians flooded into the plaza from the far side and Kai caught sight of Prince-heir Hiranan and her cadre among them. The legionary formations started to break; bodies on the ground made it hard for them to maneuver while the Arike horses had absolutely no fear of treading on living or dead flesh. Bashasa had told Kai that the Arike had stopped settling disagreements with warfare generations ago because they were too good at fighting, that they would have slaughtered each other out of existence. Kai had thought it was bragging, but maybe there was some truth to it.
The legionaries broke and the fight went from a roiling mass of blood and confusion to scattered groups fleeing toward the surrounding streets. Kai and his cadre cut through a last pocket of resistance and reached Bashasa. He was near the outer edge of the plaza, where the main force of the legionaries had been cut off from retreating into the city assembly hall that they had taken for their headquarters. Arike soldiers pushed prisoners to their knees on the stepped terrace near the richly carved pillars. Bashasa shouted, “If they surrender they will be shown mercy! Lahshar, you heard me!” Lahshar made an irritated snort and wheeled her horse away, her cadre turning after her.
Kai started toward him and Salatel hissed, “Fourth Prince, wait.” She drew even with him and frowned at the broken spear that was lodged above his hip. “Should I…?”
“Go ahead,” he told her. He had various slashes and a stab wound in the right leg from where he had shifted to stop an enterprising legionary from killing his horse. The rest of his cadre were still upright and on horseback, spread out around them in case any legionaries still had the will to attack. “Anyone hurt?”
“No more than you are.” Salatel grimaced and yanked the javelin out.
Kai bent forward over his saddlebow, gritting his teeth through the wave of pain. Just because it healed quickly didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. He was glad Cerala, who was tall and bulky, blocked Bashasa’s view of him. He tried to channel as much pain as he could for the next intention, but it was hard, and much of it seemed to scatter like sand grains when there was no immediate use for it. Another thing he would need to practice.
He took a deep breath and sat up, and nudged his horse forward again. “Fourth Prince!” Bashasa called out when he saw him. “All is well?” He had lost his hat too and his face was streaked with sweat and grime. His right coat sleeve was slashed and bloody but he didn’t appear to notice.
“So far,” Kai answered. He knew what the plan was but he wanted the civilians who had poured into the plaza and gathered nearby to hear it. “What now?”
Bashasa needed no prompting. He pitched his voice to carry. “Now we drive the Hierarchs’ servants from our city!”
Dusk had settled over the day by the time Kai returned to the plaza. Big hanging lamps were lit on the terrace of the assembly hall and he picked out the familiar figures of Arava and Trenal, who was easier to spot now since she was using a crutch after her injury at the Kagala. Garrison officers and others from the cadres gathered near the doors, or stood in guard positions. Kai had only split from them on Bashasa’s orders, again, to check on Ziede and Tahren. It was annoying and a little confusing; Kai had expected to be Bashasa’s bodyguard, to literally put his body between Bashasa and the enemy. But Bashasa kept ordering him to go and do other things. Granted, they were urgent things he was well-suited for, but still.
Ziede rode behind Kai, having finally admitted that shewas too exhausted to call more wind-devils to carry her. The soldiers who had been working hard all day had at least had the opportunity to sleep last night, but she had been awake and using her craft since she and Tahren slipped into the city yesterday morning. She leaned against Kai’s back, her head drooping onto his shoulder, wearing Tahren’s unadorned gray coat.
Tahren still guarded the well-source with Dahin and several of the most trusted members of Bashasa’s and Hiranan’s cadres. The well-source was in a tower attached to the house of the Hierarch servant-noble Ilicarat, who had been charged with supervising the late usurper Karanis. He was apparently the person who had stopped their troop in the street and exposed their deception; as far as Kai knew, what was left of him was still there.
Most of Kai’s cadre trailed him, though Arsha and Telare had been wounded and sent to the physicians’ tent that had been pitched in the grounds in front of the Prince-heirs’ palace. There were dozens of lanterns around it now, and several more makeshift tents. That meant the rest of their supply train from the abandoned Kagala had arrived.
Many Arike soldiers and civilians stood or sat around the tents in mostly orderly groups. Kai reined in near the edge of the grounds, where the garrison had set up temporary pickets with feed and water buckets. Salatel swung down and set Hartel to taking care of their beasts. Kai carefully elbowed Ziede, who snorted awake and sat up, demanding, “What?”
“Do you want to stay out here or come in with us?” Kai asked her. The air was mild and it would be safe enough for her to curl up under a blanket near the horse pickets, like a lot of other soldiers were, as long as Hartel was here to keep watch.
“No, I’ll come with you,” she said through a yawn. “I need to report to Bashasa.”
Tahren had told Kai the gist of how their mission had gonebut he wasn’t going to argue with her. The sooner Ziede saw Bashasa, the sooner he could find her a safe place to rest.
Kai waited until she slid down, Nirana now hovering nearby to offer an arm to steady her. Cerala sighed and rolled her eyes; apparently Nirana’s developing crush was obvious.
They crossed the plaza and went up the steps to the assembly’s terrace. The doors in the pointed arch were easily twice Kai’s height, and the wall they were set in was carved with hundreds of small figures of people: in a few scenes they were fighting in armies, but in most they were picking fruit, sailing canal boats, stacking stones, hammering wood, carrying giant vases, hauling fish nets, driving oxen, and a myriad of other things Kai had no time to note. Higher above the tall doors, the carving continued, but it was pierced to allow air to flow in.
Everyone turned to stare at Kai and Ziede and the cadre as they crossed the terrace under the lamps, but Kai was used to that. He was still dressed as a Hierarch’s servant-noble, though the hat and fancy coat were gone and the long shirt and skirt were torn and blood-stained, and a little charred at the hems. Ziede they might not even have recognized if Kai wasn’t towing her along behind him. Under Tahren’s coat, she wore an Arike woman’s simple tunic and pants, her long braids tied back.
