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Chapter Six



Druadaen emerged from the Archive telling himself that there was value in the further delay of the Legions’ notification of his acceptance and assignment. It gave him an opportunity to exercise and strengthen what was arguably one of his weakest attributes: patience. Still, the disappointment of having to wait another week pulled at that resolve like the strong, steady undertow that had taken more than a few swimmers near the rocks west of Tlulanxu’s wide bay.

Consequently, Druadaen was so distracted when the first alarm gong rang that he didn’t even register its significance. But when a second, higher-pitched one followed, the war between discipline and disappointment evaporated because that sound signified the start of an actual war. Whether a full-scale assault or a small raid, any attack on the capital of Dunarra was deemed a formal commencement of hostilities.

Druadaen scanned the skyline, found what he was looking for: brightly burning white-pink signal fires atop two of the towers that overlooked the main docks. An attack from the sea, no less? he wondered as he began sprinting in that direction. It was hard to imagine how an enemy’s ships could have slipped undetected past the outposts and patrols until they were upon the city itself.

As he rounded the corner of the street that sloped down to the waterfront, his path was blocked by an apparent confrontation between citizens and the city watch: something he had never seen during all his years in Tlulanxu. More peculiar still, several bodies were visible further down the hill.

Had the watchmen confronted those citizens with deadly force? If so, nothing like that had occurred in living memory, and there was no tension in the city, let alone unrest.

A moment later, the actual cause of the casualties became clear; the air in front of and around him came alive with the rushing whispers of rapidly descending arrows. Black from point to fletching, they were longer and heavier than those used by archers. Most clattered down upon the cobbles, but several found softer objects: awnings, crates…and people. Three fell, two screaming as they did. The third dropped limp and silent.

One of the watchmen glanced at Druadaen, who, unthinking, had started running forward to help. “Boy!” the man yelled, even though he was almost three inches shorter, “get back! Don’t you see that—?”

Another humming deluge of heavy black arrows. More people went down, and the watchman’s warning ended abruptly, one of the shafts protruding from his left temple as he hit the cobbles.

Druadaen ran to the body, scanning the darkening sky. He had yet to train at sea, but he was certain that these arrows were the kind flung by scorpions: mass launchers that were often found on the walls of fortifications—or on the decks of ships. Sure enough, another flight was rising up the docks, the swarm of dark shafts slowing as they neared the apex of their arc. Druadaen grabbed hold of a confused child and darted for a doorway. They reached it just as the lethal spray hit the street.

“Who is—?” the child began.

“Stay here until guards tell you it’s safe to move,” Druadaen said sharply, then ran back to the body of the watchman. If there was to be a battle, then he would be damned if he was going to remain unarmed.

The equipment was typical: a refurbished Legion sword, leather armor, a now-broken lantern. Not much with which to meet invaders. But just as Druadaen began to rise to run in search of other defenders, he noticed a loose, braided cord around the dead man’s neck: a watchman’s whistle.

Druadaen snatched it off and dodged back around the corner just as more arrows came down, sounding like a torrent of wood and steel.

* * *

The small badge that marked Druadaen as being a final-year member of the Training Legion had never been useful. But this night, that small sigil—or maybe the larger and rarer badge of authorization from the Archive—satisfied every guard he encountered as he made his way to the top of the city walls. There, he gave a wide berth to the troops that were manning the battlements and the officers that were receiving reports and sending instructions. If he got in anyone’s way, it was a surety that he would be sent—or brusquely escorted—off the broad wallwalk.

Once overlooking the roofs that marched down toward the waterfront, Druadaen saw almost everything he expected. The shining armor of Legion cohorts marked the positions they had taken around the point of engagement, ready to deflect and contain attackers attempting to make deeper inroads into the city. The signal fires in the bay-ringing watchtowers fluttered on and off as iron shutters opened and closed to send coded messages. Fast, yawl-rigged cutters kept their beams toward the landward breeze, angling in rapidly toward the docks. Every step, every procedure was being executed exactly as he’d been taught.

But the one factor that did not fit any of the military histories or training scenarios Druadaen had studied was the attack itself—or rather, the seeming lack of one. Although dusk was becoming night and the streets near the waterfront were dark, two things seemed certain, regardless of the deployment of the attackers.

Firstly, although they had apparently come from the sea, they hadn’t been detected crossing the bay. That suggested either some strange kind of ship or mancery. Or perhaps the attackers had come in on one or more merchantmen, concealed in their holds while awaiting the word that would loose them upon the city. That might also explain the volleys from scorpions; they were the most compact and swiftly reassembled naval weapons. They could have been brought above-deck piece by piece and readied under tarps.

Secondly, whereas outnumbered attackers typically move as quickly as possible to their objective, this group had apparently established a perimeter just beyond the docks, barely pushing into the constricted streets and alleys there. That kind of deployment was not for mounting an attack but securing safe egress for evacuation. It was, essentially, a protective position which could easily be collapsed inward after any withdrawing forces had embarked.

But neither of those enemy activities had delivered any forces so significant that they would need such provisions for withdrawal and then maritime transport.

Druadaen frowned. Was there any reason for an enemy to mount an attack that was restricted to the projection of a small defensive ring around a few ships firing blind volleys from hastily assembled scorpions, but without a landing force of any size? No: that made no sense.

Unless…

Could the landing force already be here, but in disguise? Druadaen wondered. Or hidden? But no: that did not make any sense, either. Tlulanxu, like the rest of Dunarra’s cities, had been constructed to preempt the plots of saboteurs and infiltrators. The final decades of the First, or “Silver,” Consentium had taught the propretors the cost of keeping their cities truly open. On several disastrous occasions, enemy forces had trickled in, dispersed into separate hiding places, and then arose when given a subtle signal to wreak havoc.

But if there were such forces somehow lurking somewhere in Tlulanxu, what could they possibly achieve given their unavoidably small numbers? And why had the attackers on the wharves established their foothold before the landside operation had launched?

Furthermore, why spoil their surprise by launching scorpion volleys that caused more reaction than casualties—most of whom weren’t even soldiers? These attacks weren’t meant to wound the bear in its den; they were just poking at it. Which made less than no sense.

Unless that was exactly what they intended to do.

Druadaen’s thoughts swerved down a new and serpentine path: Just because there’s no sign of trouble in the city, it does not mean that there still isn’t trouble arising in it—just very quietly.

Druadaen’s head turned a slow half circle as he inspected the twilight skyline of Tlulanxu. Somewhere, among all those silhouetted buildings, there might be a much smaller enemy force preparing to attack…what? The Propretorium? The Temple District? The Arsenal? The Collegia?

He closed his eyes. The attack on the docks is a distraction, so the main attack is to be aimed elsewhere. And it cannot require a very large force. And given the restrictions on entry, there is no covert way to slip many people past the gate guards. So the enemy’s biggest tactical problem is to find a means of ingress for a force that is large enough to prevail and yet small enough to move within the city without being immediately detected.

Furthermore, if any of that force meant to escape, they would have to be able to reach the docks. In all likelihood, then, the target would be on the bay side of the city. Or, to put it another way, someplace close to where Druadaen was standing at that very moment.

He turned slowly back to the right, looked anew at that familiar stretch of wall and what lay on the other side of it: the trade quarter. Merchants from all over the globe. There was no way to know how many persons might remain on the ships that docked there. And with the city’s military attention now focused on the Dunarran part of the waterfront, there would be less vigilance near the foot of the walls in that area, where the most common problem was drunken brawling or spiteful urination against the immense foundation stones.

Druadaen began walking in that direction, letting his gaze run ahead. Almost all the troops on the wallwalk were moving in the opposite direction: eastward toward the point of attack. Their eyes were hard, determined, intent, and showed what was in their minds: absolute focus on their current orders to repel the attackers. If he meant to accost them and compel them to believe an inexperienced cadet’s assertion that the attack on the docks was actually a diversion, Druadaen would need clear and irrefutable evidence.

He reached the overlook where, five years earlier, he’d sprinted along rooftops in order to sit by his father’s body before running on to the epiphanium. He glanced down into the trade quarter. Linens, still pinned up in most of the stalls, moved like angry nighttime clouds. Buffeted by the wind, they made the bazaar a broad expanse of shifting shadows and random movement. Which was completely at odds with the merchants’ prudent habit of carefully folding and storing all their wares at the approach of dark.

He stopped and stared down at the still-bedecked stalls. However, they were perfect for obscuring the approach of stealthy attackers and tricking the eye of those whose job was to watch for them. Still, it was not evidence of an infiltration; it was merely atypical.

Druadaen pushed on, reaching the small towers that flanked the gate and marked the beginning of the street that led to Commerce Way: the only artery that connected the trade quarter with the heart of Tlulanxu. Two guards were there, attention riveted on the unfolding drama half a mile to the east. One noticed his attention. “Ai, lad! Not a night to be on the walls.”

Druadaen recognized the voice as belonging to the same guard he’d routinely encountered five years ago. That this fellow was still here, at the same post, was no surprise; he was congenial but almost too tolerant, as well as profoundly conventional.

Druadaen nodded. “Where’s the rest of the gate watch?”

The fellow gestured east toward the docks. “Called to the excitement. And half who should’ve been standing duty tonight are sick. Bad food, I’m told.”

Druadaen wondered if the food had been bad or poisoned. But without any way to confirm the latter, it once again failed to rise to the level of “proof.” He nodded at the guards and turned to gauge his leap to the nearest roof within the city proper.

“You still playing at mountain goat, lad?”

“Just for old times’ sake,” Druadaen called back, and jumped.

His legs were longer and stronger…but that was what nearly undid him. Having used a bit too much force, and with his heavier chest and broader shoulders having raised his center of gravity, he landed awkwardly, a twitch away from falling three stories to the cobblestones.

Druadaen sidestepped gingerly down the slate shingles, peered back at the gate. It didn’t appear to be open, but he also did not see any guards. Again, hardly worthy of sounding an alarm, not unless he scrambled down to the ground to confirm his suspicions of foul play. But if infiltrators had slipped in, there wasn’t a moment to spare. It meant that after eliminating the guards silently, they had reclosed the gate to create the appearance of normalcy and were now well ahead of him. So it was time to dust off his old roof-running skills.

That proved easier to resolve than accomplish. Although well over six feet tall and well muscled for his age, that now worked against Druadaen, who barely completed leaps and maintained balance that would not have required any special effort or attention just five years ago. He still made reasonable progress along the roofs but dislodged no small number of terra-cotta and slate shingles doing so.

As he approached the ridge of the fifth roof, he realized that the next street was too wide to jump across and, in the process of surveying his other options, he finally saw what he’d been looking—and fearing—to find:

Six still forms on the cobbles beneath him. Twenty yards further on, there were another two. And just before the road ran around a blind corner, one more. A trail of bodies that marked a path to the Temple, or possibly Consular, district. Either way, they first had to go through the oldest part of the city, dominated by twisting roads and stores and workshops instead of dwellings. A perfect route of approach for infiltrators on their way to—well, wherever they were going. But unless they knew the streets and roofs better than he did, Druadaen was sure he could get ahead of them.

Assuming I don’t break my neck first.

* * *

As Druadaen approached the harborside end of Commerce Way, he realized that the plan he’d concocted while running across uneven roofs was not as original as he’d thought. It was merely a vastly simplified reprise of the tactics employed by the first Ballashan emperor, Hafshanis, at the pivotal Battle of Thēda-Shri, back in the early years of the First Age.

But Hafshanis had enticed and misled his enemies with an entire—and ultimately, much battered—cohort. Unfortunately, tonight’s version of the ancient ploy would fail if the enemy inflicted even one casualty. Namely, Druadaen himself.

Having managed to follow a mostly straight line over the roofs, he finished by clinging to the underside of a long, arching walkway built across what locals referred to as “The Throat” of Commerce Way. Twelve yards beneath Druadaen’s dangling boots, four thoroughfares joined to become the wide, brick-and-cement commercial artery whereby trade moved into and out of Tlulanxu’s trade quarter. From there, the broad avenue ran into the heart of the city, as straight as a quarrel-shot. Its four separated lanes had few intersecting streets or alleys, ensuring a minimum of traffic from its sides. As a result, there were few impediments to the steady stream of ox-wains that made it possible to move so much material into and out of Dunarra’s capital on any given day.

Druadaen swung from the bottom of the elevated walkway down to a balcony, dropped to the peak of a gable, and finally slid to the ground along one of the decorative half columns that framed it. Remaining in a crouch, he glanced back toward the conjunction of streets at The Throat: still no sign of the infiltrators. But that was sure to change soon enough.

Druadaen shifted the sword into his right hand, then fished the watchman’s whistle out of his pocket. He blew into it as hard as he could for a full minute. Then he turned and ran north, blowing it again but keeping close to the center of Commerce Way so that the sound might spread equally in all directions.

Druadaen’s stamina and strength were deemed very high, even by the standards of the Legions, but after sprinting and blowing the whistle for three hundred yards, he experienced a sensation he hadn’t felt for a decade: light-headedness. He glanced behind as he caught his breath.

There was movement in the darkness beneath the walkway from which he’d dropped down. However, there were no glints of weapons or armor, and the infiltrators courted the shadows so well that Druadaen could not estimate their numbers.

He darted away from the median of Commerce Way, making for the side drowned in the hard-edged shadows cast by the rising of the night’s first moon: Latharos. As he did, he heard a single air-shivering whisper well behind him: the release of a small arrow, probably from a shortbow.

As the shaft sighed through the space he’d occupied only a moment earlier, Druadaen reached the outer edge of the shadows and continued sprinting until he came up against the buildings on the southern side of the avenue. Soft but fast footfalls were approaching, although still well behind him. Staying in the ink-black shadows cast by Latharos, he literally ran for his life.

Druadaen maintained that pace for the three hundred yards it took to reach the spot he’d had in mind since leaping down from the city wall to the first roof: a wide opening to the right. To casual observers, it would appear to be the mouth of a cross street. In actuality, it was a wagon-access apron for a large warehouse located just a few yards shy of the second elevated walkway that arched across Commerce Way, a near match for the one that spanned The Throat.

Druadaen rounded the corner, kneeled, and caught his breath. Still in deep shadow, he checked his gear to ensure that nothing reflective was exposed. Then he leaned his head forward just far enough to have one eye peeking around the corner.

A mass of dispersed, crouching figures was flowing in his direction, unusually silent.

Druadaen inhaled as quietly as he could. Well, this was the plan. He meant to move…but didn’t. So, have you lost your nerve? Still balking, he added, You don’t deserve to be in the Legions.

That was a rebuke he could not tolerate, not even from himself. He sucked in a deep breath, tensed the muscles of his throat, and bellowed in his best parade-ground voice: “Dress ranks! Stand ready! Subaltern, report!”

He stood, leaned around the corner…far enough to ensure that his silhouette and light-colored tunic would be visible.

An arrow whiffled past. Most of the cloaked figures continued approaching, concealed by the same black shadows that had kept Druadaen alive as he’d sprinted away from them. He jerked back behind the corner and tried to make his voice even deeper, more from his chest: “Front rank: shields low! Second rank: shields high! Marching wall, on my command!”

Out in the street, he heard short, hissed snippets of what sounded like low-caste S’Dyxan: the sharp, hasty whispers of an urgent debate. Before it could die down, Druadaen blew the whistle again, as long and hard as he could. When he was finally too winded to go on, he tried to listen in between gasping attempts to fill his lungs.

There was no sound coming from the street, now. Which meant they were advancing, but slowly, cautiously. Druadaen flattened himself against the wall and thought, Well, if what worked for Hafshanis is going to work for me, it had better do so soon. He slipped the sword’s pommel-fixed lanyard around his wrist, wishing he had a shield and helmet, too. He listened again for movement—either out on Commerce Way or overhead on the nearby walkway—and tried to put everything out of his mind other than the corner just two feet away: the place where the first enemy scout was sure to appear.

If he’d been wearing a helmet, he would not have heard the approach of soft leather boots: the kind that S’Dyxan assassins were said to favor. He drew back the watchman’s sword, saw a slight change in the shadows just beyond the corner. Then: movement—

He swung the sword.

And missed. The S’Dyxan—a wiry, middle-aged veteran—cleared the corner in a low crouch and came up just after Druadaen’s blade completed slicing the air over his head. His teeth flashed as he saw his boyish adversary and stepped forward with two readied shortswords.

But he fell sideways, two black-fletched arrows thudding into his leather armor, another transfixing his neck. And the high angle of those impacts told Druadaen that the whistle had been heard and that his ruse had worked. All along the near span of the second walkover, Legion archers were rising to fire, having responded to the whistles and taken their positions silently.

Stepping over the slain S’Dyxan, Druadaen waved up at the bowmen, saw a steady stream of more Legion helmets moving behind them and then further out along the walkway. If any of the Legiors saw him, they did not acknowledge; they were too busy firing their composite bows down the length of Commerce Way.

A command—an order to charge—was shouted in S’Dyxan and a brief roar answered it—just before it spun apart into cries of dismay and pain. Druadaen risked peeking out around the corner again.

Back upon the walkway that arched over The Throat, moon-reflecting gleams marked the steel helmets of even more Dunarran bowmen: the ones that had converged upon the point where Druadaen had first blown the watchman’s whistle. Their arrows hit the rear of the charging S’Dyxoi who, scrambling for cover, learned too late that Commerce Way’s lack of side streets had a tactical purpose as well. Like snakes that had crawled into a tube, the S’Dyxoi now found it stoppered by withering bowfire at both ends, and without any exits or cover along its length.

Druadaen sighed, realized he had been sweating so heavily that his clothes were almost as wet as if he had jumped into the bay. He retreated to the back of the warehouse’s loading apron, found where the shadows were darkest, and remained there, ready and watchful. As much as he hated it, he had to admit that doing anything else would only put him in the way of real soldiers, lethal arrows, or quite probably both.


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