“You thought you could make peace with it, didn't you?” Jaryd looked exasperated. “You can't make peace with this, Sofy. This is power. You kill it, or it kills you. Now if you're not going to command us all to suicide, we should move, and see you out of this alive.” From the Tol'rhen courtyard came the screams of the dying.
Sofy mounted, and Jaryd led them away. A panicked local stopped running long enough to tell of many more Elissians coming from the west, so Jaryd turned them back through the heart of the city, hoping to emerge south, where he thought the attackers would be fewest.
Several times they passed recently dead bodies, some Elissian, some local, and the sound of fighting. Surely, Sofy wondered, the honourable thing would be to stay, and help fight? No sooner had she thought it than a group of terrified Tracatans came running down the lane, pursued by Elissian horsemen. Jaryd charged them, with one of the Larosan knights. Sofy watched in horror as Jaryd simply swayed aside the initial stroke of an Elissian cavalryman, spurring past the horse and smashing the other man's skull with his own blade. That riderless horse made a blockage, and Jaryd used it to isolate another man, jostling his horse, taking a blow on his shield and using it to force the Elissian's weapon wide, Jaryd's own blow taking the other man's arm.
For several more moments he and the Larosan knight hacked and fought, and then the Elissians were galloping off, leaving three dead on the ground. Jaryd indicated for them to take another way, hard-breathing and streaked with blood, but none of it his. Sofy had never seen Jaryd kill anyone before. His brutality shocked her.
The next lane brought them to a road where the air was thick with smoke. On the pavings lay the remains of recent battle, men dead and dying, most of them Tracatans, with good weapons but little armour. Jaryd urged his nervous horse into the road, searching for another back lane to take. To the right, Sofy could see the dome of the Tol'rhen, emerging above city rooftops.
“This way,” said Sofy, pointing in the opposite direction. “I think we'd better…”
There came a blinding flash. Sofy stared about in alarm, and saw the Tol'rhen dome was on fire. It was a strange and awful fire, orange and blue, and it seemed to twirl in little, spinning whirlwinds where it licked the old building's huge stone walls. Tracatans in the street attending the wounded stopped and stared. Some cried out in anguish, as though the sight of their lovely dome on fire hurt them worse than any sword.
“That's what they were loading from the carts,” Jaryd said grimly. “They captured some of that demon fire the artillery use.”
Sofy stared in shock. She could not believe the Archbishop had ordered such a thing. What sort of a man would order a crime against all civilisation, in the name of his gods? And what sort of men would obey him?
“Come on,” said Jaryd, pulling her horse away down the street. They had not gone far when they came to a small courtyard before a grand building, its roof on fire. Sofy suddenly recognised the courtyard, and the building. It was the School of Arts and Music, perhaps her favourite in all Tracato, maybe lacking the importance of the grand institutions, but with more of the beauty.
Before she knew what she was doing, she spurred her horse toward the steps and carved stone columns, as Jaryd yelled at her to stop. She dismounted at the foot of the steps and ran up, fire now blistering the golden filigree inlays of the great wall panels beside the doors.
There was much wood used inside the main hall, with floorboards and wall panels, and lovely old furnishings. Sofy covered her mouth and squinted through the smoke as she ran, hoping only that what remained of the musical wonders had been shifted, and that some of her favourite masters had had the sense to leave before the Elissians had come.
She pushed through the doors of the grand chamber where she had heard a wonderful recital just two days before. The panelled walls about the central stage were aflame, stacked with furnishings and soaked with what she suspected from the acrid smell was oil. Black smoke gathered at the ceiling, now beginning to hide the chandelier, and burning shavings and cinders were falling about like rain.
Upon the stage sat three old men, instruments in hand. They played now, a sweet sound that rose to challenge the crackling of the flames. Burning embers fell about them, and the heat flared hotter still, yet the men played on, oblivious to all but the soaring emotion of their tune, their faces entranced with that wonder alone.
Sofy wanted to scream at them to run, to grab them from the stage and haul them bodily out the doors and into the safety of the courtyard. Yet this terrifying, mesmerising scene was the first thing she'd seen all day that made sense to her. Standing helplessly, tears flowed down her cheeks that had nothing to do with the smoke.
Jaryd burst into the room behind her. He too stopped and stared at the scene. The tune reached a crescendo, and the musicians all beamed in ecstasy. Above, the flaming ceiling groaned ominously.
“Sofy, we have to go!”
She turned and ran, grasping Jaryd's hand. As they reemerged into the courtyard, several floors of the building gave way behind, an eruption of blazing debris that burst forth from the windows and doors. A billion sparks rose skyward, glorious like the last note of a song, rising up to heaven.
ELEVEN
Errollyn sat on his horse and watched the Kazeri come. The wild plains horsemen were skirting the hills to the north, as Kessligh had said they would. Kazeri moved in a large, singular force, and relied upon speed and surprise. Thanks to talmaad scouts, they'd lost the latter. Now they'd selected the most open path across fields and foothills to close upon the rear of the retreating armies of Rhodaan, Enora, and Lenayin.
Were it not for the cavalry, it would have been trouble. Yet now confronting the Kazeri were thousands of talmaad, and thousands more Rhodaani, Enoran, and Lenay horsemen. The foot soldiers continued their march toward Jahnd. Kessligh had been unwilling to countenance an extended delay to face the Kazeri whilst the Army of the Bacosh resumed its pursuit from the north. The cavalry would hold back the Kazeri and hope that they could stop them here. If not, the footsoldiers would be next, forming hasty lines of defence upon whatever terrain was available. It reduced the Steel's defensive strengths greatly. Errollyn hoped it would not come to that.
He held his bow in hand, resting lengthwise on his saddle horn. Across this field, all were serrin. Behind, by several hundreds of paces, were human cavalry. He had been discussing this formation with fellow cavalrymen now for weeks-first with immediate comrades and then with Kessligh, once his ideas had fully formed. Kessligh had liked it. Now came the actual test of battle.
The Kazeri broke into a full charge, a roar of thousands of voices and even more hooves. Weapons glinted in summer sunshine, a thousand sparkles of sunlight on steel. The serrin said nothing. When the Kazeri reached a certain point on the field, they raised their bows, drew, and fired. Errollyn placed his first arrow very high, then drew quickly and fired a second on a lower angle. Then he yanked his reins and galloped away from the charging Kazeri.
The Kazeri yelled in triumph to see their foe running away. The first wave of arrows spattered across their forward rank, some falling from height, others coming low and flat, both flights arriving simultaneously. Horses and riders fell, others swerving to avoid sudden obstacles, yet their opponents were fleeing, and Kazeri warriors would not neglect to claim their prize.
Errollyn put a knee across his saddle horn in a well-practised move, placed another arrow to his string while holding himself barely off the saddle. All about him the serrin were galloping, riders firing back the way they'd come. Kazeri riders pursued in howling triumph, dying and crashing to the turf in scores, yet coming no closer.