They came to another intersection and were about to ride through it, when suddenly the Hunter reined up to a stop.
“What is it?”
Tarrant looked down the three roads available, then back the way they had come. Damien followed his gaze. There was an open-air market to the left of them, its wooden tables now empty until the morning. Some kind of factory stood to the right, its windows dark, its doors securely locked against the night. Up and down the street and to both sides of them it was the same: no signs of human habitation, or of any business that might be active after dark.
He watched as Tarrant worked a Locating, and breathed in sharply as the image took focus. The road to the harbor was wide and paved with flagstone, and even at this hour it was not wholly deserted. Not like this road that they had been sent to, which might have been in the midst of a desert for all the human life it contained. They had been sent in the wrong direction ... and that could only mean one thing.
With a sharp curse Tarrant wheeled his horse about, and the Locating shattered like glass as he passed through it. Listening carefully, Damien could hear a faint noise approaching from the way they had come. Voices? There was a similar sound to the west of them, and the clear echo of hurried footsteps. No safety there, either. Damien was willing to bet that the other two roads were similarly guarded, or had been closed off.
“You said they wouldn’t know who we were,” he whispered fiercely.
“I worked an Obscuring,” Tarrant snapped. “Either they’re hunting mere strangers ...” He didn’t finish the thought, but Damien could finish it for him. Or Calesta gave them a vision of who we really were. An illusion of his own, to take the place of the one you conjured. Shit. If that’s what had happened, then they were in real trouble—and not only here, but anywhere that men could be gathered together for action.
“That way will be a dead end,” Tarrant declared, indicating the direction they had been riding. “And that way, too, most likely.” He gestured toward the silent street to the right of them. “With an ambush waiting, no doubt.” He studied the road down which they had come; Damien saw his nostrils flare, as if sifting the scent of the road for more information. “Calesta will have known that our destination is the harbor. Therefore they will have turned us away from it.”
“So we go back?”
“That, or drive the horses forward and go elsewhere ourselves. Maybe the sound of their flight would detract attention for just long enough ... we could take to the rooftops.” He nodded toward the wooden awning that had been erected over the market area, and the buildings that abutted it. “They wouldn’t think to look up there, at least not until they learned that the horses were riderless.”
The sounds were getting closer now, and were loud enough that Damien could guess at the size of the approaching mob. If it was a large enough crowd, then the horses would never be able to break through it. On the other hand, trying to make it to the harbor and beyond without swift mounts to carry them was not an appealing alternative. “What’s your preference?” he demanded.
Tarrant stared back down the way they had come, studying the currents that flowed along the street. “Calesta can point people to the roof as easily as he can control their vision. And then what would we have? In this district, where there are no homes to put in jeopardy . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. Damien could picture the district burning up all by himself, along with the refugees who clung to its rooftops.
“All right, then.” Tarrant steadied his horse with one hand and drew his sword with the other. The coldfire blade blazed in the darkened street with an almost hungry brilliance. “Let’s do it.”
“Gerald.”
The Hunter looked back at him. The silver eyes were black as jet, and it seemed to Damien that something red and hungry had sparked to life in their depths.
“You can shapeshift,” the ex-priest reminded him. “Fly out of here and reach Shaitan that way.”
“Yes,” he said shortly. “But you can’t.”
And he kicked his horse into sudden motion, forcing Damien to follow suit.
It was an eerie ride, back down those deserted streets. Tarrant had wrapped some fae about the horses’ hooves that kept their footfall from being heard, but there was no way to tell if Calesta was circumventing that Working as well. If so, Damien thought grimly, they’ll be ready for us. He had his own sword out, flame-embossed grip settled firmly in his palm. The sword of his Order, the Golden Flame, of which Gerald Tarrant had once been Knight Premier. And he still claimed that title, Damien knew. Assuming Tarrant dead, the Church had never bothered to throw him out. For some reason, in this dark moment, the thought pleased him immensely.
They could hear distinct voices up ahead, and see the glittering of lanterns. Not far now. With a sinking heart Damien realized just how many men had come to seal the trap, and he knew that there would be no way through them save on a road paved with blood.
“Jump,” Tarrant muttered fiercely. Damien glanced over at him and saw a strange double image flickering about the head of his horse, as though there were two animals sharing the same space. A quick glance at his own revealed a similar situation. Teeth gritted, sword raised high in preparation for combat, he forced himself to ignore Tarrant’s Working-whatever the hell it was-as he signaled his mount to leap. His old horse would have done it-his old horse would have followed him to Hell and back and not complained-but who could tell what this new mount would do? Ten feet closer to the crowd, now twenty. He could make out individual faces, torches and lamps, swords and spears. There was a rage in those faces burning so hot that several were flushed red with the force of it, and as he and Tarrant came into range, curses were wielded along with sharp steel. What the hell had Calesta told these people-or showed them-to merit such hostility? There were spears being leveled in their direction, and Damien knew that if his horse failed to jump, they would be skewered within seconds.
Please, he prayed. Do it.
It did.
He could see the false image peel off as his horse rose up, powerful flanks driving them up over the heads of the nearest townspeople. Behind him the false horse-image plowed into the crowd, and the men there, believing what their eyes told them, fell down before it. Tarrant’s own phantom worked similar damage, with such brutal efficiency that row upon row of their attackers seemed to be trampled by the ghostly hooves. The men behind them pressed forward, thrusting spears and swords into the illusory flesh, believing in it enough that it seemed to them the bodies resisted, then punctured, then bled.
—And then the real horse was coming down with Damien still in the saddle, only it hadn’t cleared the mob yet, not by a long shot. The men beneath him never saw it coming. One minute they were focused on the ghost-horse before them, and the next minute half a ton of steel and flesh was bearing down on them. Damien heard bones crack as they landed on a sea of moving flesh, and he clung desperately to his saddle as his horse struggled for solid footing, wincing at every cry from the bodies crushed beneath him. For a few precious seconds it was all he could do to keep his seat, and hope that no weapon reached him. Then he saw a blade swinging down toward the horse’s neck, and with strength born of utter desperation he leaned out as far as he could to strike it aside, then cut back toward its owner’s chest. His blade bit deep into leather and flesh, and the man fell back with a cry.
They don’t know what they’re doing here, he thought, as he whipped around to see what threat might be coming from another direction. They probably don’t even know who it is they’re fighting. He could hear screams of fury and pain now on all sides. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tarrant’s coldfire blade sweeping like a scythe through the mob. Some of the attackers were starting to back off now, horrified, and the look in their eyes was like that of men awakening from a dream. Damn Calesta, for whatever he had done to them! Wasn’t it enough that armies had to die, without making the innocent join them!