“I should be with them.” There was a strain in Errollyn's voice. Sasha saw the tears in his eyes. “I should be with them. Even if I can't feel it, I should be there.”
“Errollyn…” Sasha shook her head in disbelief. “Can't feel what? What are you talking about?”
“It's a curse.” He stood abruptly, fists clenched. For a brief moment, Sasha thought he might strike something. “It's said all that is strange is a blessing, but it feels like a curse.”
“Errollyn.” She touched his arm gently. “Aisha needs you here. She always respected your choices. Don't regret what she does not.”
He looked down at her, his green eyes struggling. “I wanted to feel it, Sasha. I wanted to believe in Rhillian, and I wanted to believe in Saalshen, and I didn't want to doubt. But I've always been different. Ever since I was a child, I couldn't feel it, however hard I tried. Rhillian didn't understand that, and she made me so angry because she was the one who wanted a du'janah in this talmaad in the first place. A balance of truth, she said. She refused to understand, and she made me so angry, and now I've betrayed them all…”
“No!” Sasha grasped his arms firmly. “No. Rhillian made her own decisions, Errollyn. You were right, damn it. Kessligh tells me just now this proves you were right-”
“And you think this makes it any easier!”
Sasha gazed up at him. The pain in his eyes echoed the one in her heart. She took a risk, and reached to wipe away his tears. A Lenay man might have struck her for such an insulting gesture. Errollyn did not flinch. His gaze was almost…longing. Something occurred to her. “Errollyn. You've never told me your age.” Aisha looked barely sixteen, yet she had more than thirty summers. Rhillian had even more. She'd always assumed that Errollyn must also be considerably older than herself. But something in his eyes now made her wonder.
“I'm twenty-three,” he said. Sasha was almost shocked.
She managed a crooked smile at him. “Finally a serrin who looks his age.” And acts it, she nearly added, but didn't.
Errollyn stared at her desperately. And kissed her full on the lips. The kiss lingered, deeper and deeper, and suddenly her heart was hammering and her arms were about him, and she wanted nothing more than to melt into that warm intoxication and never emerge…He pulled back, hands firm on her shoulders. His stare at this range was paralysing. Deep green, like the deepest ocean. “Don't die,” he whispered. “You're all I have left.”
He turned back to Aisha and Sasha backed up, blinking. Her knees wanted to give way. She had twenty summers, and it was the first time she'd been properly kissed. She could hardly complain of the intensity. Yet still…one hell of a time for it, she couldn't help think. She recalled Errollyn's last words, and was suddenly angry.
“No, I'm not!” she snapped at him. “You have Aisha. Look, you have Elra.” Pointing to the other bed, where little Elra stared with wide eyes at the scene they made. “You have all the spirits-blasted Nasi-Keth! This whole dockside, in fact, those who aren't completely stupid. Don't you do this stupid, defeatist thing to me, I liked you much better when you were arrogant and annoying!”
She turned to stride out, heart still hammering, and realised that it was not the final parting she wanted, not after what had just happened. She spun back around, grabbed him, and kissed him as hard as she could. Then she stormed out.
Palopy House, fully ablaze, was beginning to collapse when the last of the oil ran out and the fires that had filled the gaps on the defensive wall began to die. The first of the mob to brave the dying flames fell instantly, shot through the neck or heart. Rhillian waited, in the smouldering wreckage of small trees and bushes that had once been a lovely garden, and tested the pull of her bow. She'd wrapped a cloth about her face, yet still her mouth tasted of ash and irritation rasped in her throat when she breathed. Her broad hat, too, she'd dunked in water to keep the burning embers from her hair. Behind, another wall collapsed with a great roar and a billow of thick, white ash that rolled across the fire-blackened front garden. At least now, with an attack imminent, the artillery had stopped.
More serrin crouched about the open yard, barely visible through a haze of smoke, drifting ash and falling rain. Stones sailed through the air and clattered on the pavings, or thudded on the black stalks that had once been grass. Beyond the wall, the chanting now rose to a frenzy: “Death to serrin.” Rhillian had long since ceased listening to the words-it was only rhetoric, that most foul of human creations.
With a final roar, they came through the smoke-a torrent of men, the leaders carrying the shields from the first wave of fallen. Rhillian fired low and they fell screaming, clutching their legs. More hurdled them. Bows thrummed and arrowfire buzzed, men falling in a flail of arms and legs, punched off their feet by the power of serrin longbows. Others fanned out, running crazily, trying to clear the killing zone. Most fell, as Rhillian struggled to keep pace with the reloading speed of her comrades, pulled and killed a man coming down the gravel gate path.
Ahead of her, several serrin nearer the gate were forced to drop their bows and pull swords. Across the yard, several more did likewise. The volume of fire reduced, yet the numbers coming only seemed to increase. Rhillian kept firing, and killed another four. The next were too close, and she dropped the bow and drew her blade.
The rioters were no swordsmen. Most did not have swords. She killed more than seemed civilised, her precise, slashing strokes in brutal contrast to the thrashing lunacy that passed as attacks. Corpses and bits of bodies thudded to earth about her as she made new space for her footing, backing slowly across the yard. Swivel, slash, fade and cut, the improvised dance of master performer amidst a throng of clumsy pretenders, she laid a trail of gore and blood in her wake. Only now, the numbers grew greater and she was running out of space.
Not far away, she saw Arele hit by a wooden pole and stumble. He killed the next who lunged at him with an axe, hacked the pole in half, but off balance, failed to see the knife from behind. That man also died, but Arele fell to his knees, and two more simply threw themselves on him, and more piled on, striking and cutting.
Another attacker, barely more than a ragged boy, did not attack, but stood off and threw stones. Rhillian fended a spear thrust and took its owner's hand on the reverse, swivel-stepped into an onrushing club wielder and cut him nearly in half, then took a hard stone to the chest as the boy threw, cradling his armful and reaching for another. She parried a slashing hand-scythe, which caught about her blade and twisted the hilt in her hands. She sidestepped and missed the reverse, tried to lunge at the stone thrower but he danced back. A running madman tried to tackle her, but she spun away, his arm knocking her off balance once more. An axe-wielder tried to split her down the middle, and she rolled backward, recovering to kill another who came at her side, only to take a stone to the side of her head. Half stunned, she whipped a knife without thinking and killed the young stone thrower with a knife through the throat. And was fighting for her life before she could so much as pause and register the horror she'd just performed.
The heat of roaring flames seemed to singe her clothes, her feet stumbling now on debris from the collapsed walls. Her attackers were a sea of mad shadows in the ash and smoke, arms and faces and flailing weapons lit orange in a hellish glare.
She hacked another, then ducked and sprinted clear of a flanking move, her boots tripping on charred rubble. Ahead, falling back to the gap between the house and the western cliff, she saw several serrin fighting desperately. One fell even as she ran to them, yet the smaller space made it more defensible. She arrived at Terel's side, hurdling the half-dozen corpses of those he'd felled, and killed two more from behind as they tried to press Terel's flank.