Unnerved by the dichotomous sight of what must have been the child’s father comforting his offspring while standing among those he’d killed to save her, Siora had begun edging away, wincing with each step from the bruises and cuts made by the stones that had struck her .
The man had lifted his head to stare at her. “Wait,” he’d said, and Siora had obeyed, captured not just by the grim, commanding voice but by the expression in his eyes—sorrow laced with murderous fury, and a bleak desperation that made her heart clench at the sight.
She had done as he ordered and waited. And while that decision had brought her to this moment, she didn’t regret it. It was a bittersweet draft that she drank, where the bitter was stronger than the sweet, but the sweet made it worthwhile.
That grim memory faded as she sank into sleep, only to be replaced with restless dreams of writhing phantoms and Gharek’s merciless gaze promising retribution for her betrayal of him and his plans. Siora heard herself speaking, an insistent command towake up. As she climbed her way back toward wakefulness, she discovered the demanding voice wasn’t hers, but a deeper one. And familiar.
Her eyes snapped open to see her father Skavol’s nebulous apparition crouched in front of her, afternoon sunlight piercing him with golden spears so that he flickered and sparkled in a haze of dust motes. “Hurry, Raven-girl,” he said in the hollow tones of the dead. “Run!”
Siora didn’t hesitate or question him. He’d been a constant presence in her life after he died but only when she was in danger, his warnings and help saving her numerous times throughout the years. He was how she’d evaded Gharek this long. She clutched her belongings and scuttled out from her hiding spot. The ominous smell of smoke teased her nostrils and, in the distance, shouting and the thunder of hooves echoed through the streets.
Scavol’s misty shape hovered at her side, one translucent hand resting on her arm to urge her to a faster pace. “Run, daughter! Horsemen!”
His enigmatic order didn’t reveal much but the smoke did, as did the increasing volume and proximity of shouts and frightened cries.
The labyrinth of hanging laundry that had offered welcome obscurity now hid her view of anything beyond the last bedsheet. She ducked around the fluttering shields, thrusting them aside, no longer caring if anyone saw her. Even those who did spare her a quick glance forgot about her instantly as people left their houses to spill into previously empty streets and gape at the roiling columns of black smoke pluming skyward from the opposite side of the town.
Uneasy calm shattered when a stripling lad suddenly rounded a corner and raced toward them, waving his arms wildly above his head, his features stricken and pale as any ghost. “Nunari!” he yelled as he dashed down the street. “Nunari attacking Wellspring!”
His frantic warning instantly turned the milling crowd into a panicked stampede. People fled in every direction, either back into their houses or through various streets, some toward the columns of smoke to join the fight, others away from them to flee the danger.
Caught in the mayhem of a frightened human tide, Siora shoved and elbowed her way toward one of the side streets leading away from the city’s center. She struggled to stay upright amid the mob that twisted and convulsed like some great, dying beast. If she fell, she’d die, trampled underfoot.
Once free of the press of bodies, she zigzagged a path through the town, taking every street with the fewest number of people clogging the way, her heart pounding as the sounds of fighting and the acrid smell of burning wood filled her ears and nose. She skidded around a corner and plunged straight into a nightmare.
Ghosts newly freed from their fleshly cages swarmed one of the town’s smaller squares, phantasmic hornets emitting an ethereal cacophony of wails and keening sorrow. They swirled around a mob of fighters slashing and stabbing at each other with swords, axes, knives, and spears. Bodies—human and horse alike—littered the ground around them in dark puddles of gore. Those battling one another were a mixed lot of civilian townsmen, Kraelian army, and invading Nunari who fought both on foot and from horseback. People fell before the blade like wheat stalks under a scythe;men shouted and cursed while blood sprayed the walls of nearby shops and houses and turned the streets into a slippery mire.
Siora froze for a moment at the horror of it, the brutality of the fighting. It was one moment too long. A Nunari fighter spotted her. Painted in the ghastly shade of blood crimson, he flashed her a murderous grin, hefted his sword, and lunged toward her.
She spun and fled, the scream trapped in her throat as she bolted for another street, no longer sure of her direction, only certain that her pursuer was close behind and getting closer. She fancied she could feel his breath on her back and prayed for her father’s presence, his guidance for a way to turn, a means to lose the man chasing her through the burning town, but no familiar specter appeared to aid her; only those newly made and still in shock over their own savage endings flitted past her.
“Keep running, little bitch,” a voice snarled practically in her ear. “You still can’t get away.”
His words and her terror gave Siora’s feet wings. Her lungs burned, but she ignored the splinters in her chest every time she inhaled. She darted toward a busy street, crowded with people—those who fled or those who fought or both. It didn’t matter. Anything that offered an obstacle for the Nunari chasing her and an opportunity to outrun him.
Once more the thunder of battle boomed around her as she raced through the center square where only a few hours earlier Wellspring Holt had hummed with business and townspeople going about their day, unaware of the madness about to descend on them. Now the square was a raging mayhem of burning buildings, flame and smoke, screaming people and runaway horses, bloodyskirmishes between Nunari invaders and desperate citizens defending their families and themselves.
She plunged into the thick of it without looking back. Her own cry drowned in the chaos as a stinging pain burst across her scalp and neck. Her head snapped back and she was wrenched off her feet. She hit the dirt hard, the impact flattening her lungs. The leering face of her Nunari pursuer loomed above her, and from the corner of her eye she saw her braid, her one small concession to vanity that had become the means of her capture, wrapped in his hand. He raised the bloodied sword he held in his other hand, and Siora stared at death with tear-filled eyes.
Months of running, hiding, and surviving by her wits, her luck, the help of her dead father, and the arbitrary mercy of the gods, and now she’d die not by Gharek’s hand but by some nameless steppe nomad looking to loot, plunder, and kill.
The thought was briefer than the breath she couldn’t take, chased away by the sight of the sword blade flashing in the sun as its wielder brought it down to cleave her in two.
Death came fast and savage, but not hers. Another blade met the first with a dull ring, blocking the lethal blow, and Siora managed to snatch a thin inhalation as the second blade slid free to slice through her attacker’s neck. Gouts of blood fountained in every direction, splashing her in a hot wave. She rolled away just before the Nunari’s headless body collapsed onto the spot where she’d lain, his sword clattering harmlessly beside him. His head bounced a short distance before stopping with his face turned to the sky. His wide eyes blinked slowly as if mystified by how he’d ended up in his current position.
Terrified of facing a rescuer who was just as likely to kill her as the dead Nunari, Siora scuttled backward on her haunches and elbows, half blinded by blood not her own dripping down her forehead and into her eyelashes. A hand grabbed her arm, the grip as unyielding as the one that had held her braid. She twisted to see who imprisoned her.
Fear fought with relief at the sight of her captor. Gharek’s implacable features were soot-stained and as bloody as hers. He hauled her to her feet, giving her a slight shake to emphasize his displeasure. “Stupid girl, stop fighting and keep up,” he snarled.
He didn’t give her a chance to reply or resist. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, shackling her to him, and he pulled her deeper into the havoc around them. There was no time to puzzle out why he’d chosen to save her instead of letting the Nunari cut her down. She stayed close behind him, using his body as both shield and battering ram as he clove a path through the square.
Buildings consumed by flames collapsed into fiery heaps of red-hot timbers and glowing showers of sparks. Heavy smoke made it hard to see and breathe. Riderless horses, terror-struck by the fire, galloped through the crowds, trampling anyone too slow to get out the way. A man enrobed in flame and blazing brighter than any pitch-soaked torch staggered along a hastily cleared path, screaming in a voice no longer human. A woman, face resolute and smeared with soot, tossed a baby from the second story window of a burning house into the arms of an older girl waiting in the street. She closed her eyes in obvious relief just as the roof collapsed on her with a dull roar and an explosion of sparks.
The hazy shapes of ghosts mingled with the serpentine swirl of smoke in Wellspring Holt, both so thick in some places aperson could carve their name in the miasma and have it linger. The chance for Siora to escape Gharek came when he let her go to capture a runaway horse by its trailing reins. She didn’t take it. The man who’d chased her across Empire lands was, for the moment, her ally and her best chance at survival.
The animal skidded in the dirt and reared before settling down. Its wide eyes rolled and its nostrils sprayed snot with every frightened, bellowing breath. Gharek grabbed Siora, flinging her onto its back so hard she nearly flew off the opposite side. He mounted behind her, using the reins as a lash. The horse jumped to a full gallop, and Siora clutched the saddle pommel to hold on.
We’re going to die. We’re going to die.