“Listen!” Loren shouted, trying to be heard above the thundering roar. Behind him, a second knight came out of the Keep and spoke to Sir Radulf. If Loren knew, he didn’t turn. He lifted his arms, calling for quiet. “Listen! There is more to tell.”
The crowd stilled, silence rolling back from the foot of the mound and to the very edges of the gathering. Usha glanced at Dezra, who was looking around the crowd, noting the position of the mounted knights.
“Be ready,” Dezra whispered. “Your friend is going to say something this crowd won’t like.”
Usha’s belly tightened. She kept an eye on Dezra now.
“Last night,” Loren said, “after grave and thoughtful consideration, our Lord Mayor has turned over the stewardship of Haven to his Council, and they have voted to disband in favor of a citizen’s committee that will work in close cooperation with Sir Radulf. The committee will be made up of people you know, men and women who ...”
Loren’s voice faded, hardly heard now above the rustling of people shifting from one foot to another, the restless, angry mutter that came from nowhere and everywhere as people began to understand that the man whose family had ruled Haven for generations no longer held power. An ancient tradition had ended.
Shrill, almost panicky, a woman’s voice shouted: “Show us our lord mayor!”
Like fire suddenly kindled, similar cries erupted from the crowd, people demanding to see their mayor and hear from his own lips that this unprecedented change had been made. Some shouted that he’d been forced, some called him a traitor, and everyone cried out to see him.
Loren stepped back, turning to the knights.
“If he has any sense,” Dez muttered, “Sir Radulf is going to send that other knight scurrying for the lord mayor. It was stupid move not letting him make the announcement himself.”
Perhaps, Usha thought. Perhaps not, for sight of the mayor would surely inflame the mood of the crowd. Or ... a sudden thought chilled Usha. “Dez, maybe the lord mayor couldn’t make the announcement. Maybe—”
Someone shouted in a strong voice, “It’s time to take back our city!” and others joined in, while women clutched their children and looked around for ways out of the mob.
The old man beside Usha laughed, a brittle bitter cackle. “Young fools!” He clutched his cane as the people around him began to sway and move, some toward the way they’d come in, others surging toward the keep itself. “Fools! Where were they when the damned city fell? Now they care. Now!”
Usha looked up, trying to find Loren. Sweat and dust stung her eyes. From this distance, she couldn’t see his face. She could see him move, though, and the snap of his head, the swift turn that spoke of a sudden shock of fear, of terror.
There was a moment—Usha saw Dez feel it, too—when the world around seemed to still. In that moment, the crowd became motionless; As though by agreement; no one moved for the space between one heartbeat and the next.
Then, swift and dark as a terrible storm, a black-winged dragon sailed the currents low over the White-rage River. It did no more than that. It didn’t even turn its great head or note the crowd or Sir Radulf in any way. It didn’t have to.
Women screamed, children sobbed, and young men buckled under the inexorable weight of dragonfear. Usha felt her own legs go weak and watery. Terror gripped her—terror of the fanged beast, its talons longer than her forearm, its eyes blazing and cold as the eyes of its rider. She saw Dez’s face drain of color, and she felt the thunder of horses beneath her feet.
The dragon tilted its wings a little, dropped lower and then pushed up again, catching the air current and vanishing beyond the city. Usha could breathe again.
“Dez!” she shouted. Her voice sounded strangled. “Dez, the knights! Let’s go!”
Like an arrow sprung from the bowstring, Dezra grabbed Usha’s wrist, holding hard as she ran. The knights pricked their mounts now, the horses snorted, and the cordon tightened around the crowd.
Fear changed the crowd into a mob, and panic threw the mob into a rout. In the dust and screaming, Dezra’s hand slipped away. Usha stumbled and fell. Someone tripped over her. Another kicked her. She cried out in pain and then in anger. Scrambling to her feet, she looked around for Dezra and saw her running back to her through the crowd.
“No, Dez! Go! I’ll follow!”
One flash of fear lit Dezra’s face, then she turned and ran, shouldering, elbowing, kicking a way through the crowd for Usha to follow. It worked for a few dreadful moments, with all the thunder and panic coming behind her, Usha ran and she came within arm’s length of Dezra.
A child wailed, a woman shrieked, and a horse reared between Usha and them, ironshod hooves flashing in the dusty air. Laughing, the knight sawed the bit in the horse’s mouth and leaned down to grab Usha. She saw his eyes, heard his laughter, and knew him at once. Sir Arvel swung her off her feet and tried to toss her over the saddle and the horse’s withers. Usha twisted, slapping his face and raking his cheek with her nails so deeply that he bled. Cursing, Sir Arvel flung her away, and she spun to her knees. When she scrambled up, he was gone.
Though it seemed like hours, the rout was over in a matter of minutes. The knights departed the field to range themselves before every way out of the practice ground but that leading back into Haven by Cross Street. Usha stumbled along with the others who could manage. She wrapped her arms around herself, not seeing her torn blouse, not feeling scraped elbows or the red welts on her arm that would soon become bruises. Shivering in shock, she tripped on the dragging hem of her skirt. She staggered up again and went on.
When she found Dezra, Usha was no longer in shock. She was trembling with white-faced fury. Neither spoke but to be sure the other was well, and they went on in silence back through the clogged streets where people wept or muttered dire imprecations.
Usha paid heed to none of it, the weeping or the railing. Her body ached, her heart was sore with anger each time she recalled the sudden appearance of the dragon and the terror it inspired. She couldn’t forget the look of horror on Loren’s face, while Sir Radulf stood calmly by to watch the panic. To her surprise, she felt a twinge of sorrow for the man whose faith in the knight had been betrayed.
Dez, for a long time quiet, said, “What happens now, do you think?”
“I don’t know. The ships go out. That’s good, I suppose. But the Council is disbanded, the lord mayor ...” Usha glanced at Dez, lowering her voice. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
“I don’t know. But they almost had a riot on their hands today. If he turns up dead, they might not be able to control the city.” She laughed, a hard, bitter sound. “Oh, they’d mow down anyone who riots, but they’d lose a lot doing it. Shops would close or be burned to the ground. The wharfs would go up in flames. I think there are enough people angry now that if they had a leader—or even one man with a loud voice crying havoc—they’d burn every ship in the harbor. Hate themselves for it later, but the mind of a mob isn’t given to thoughtful consideration. They might very well do it. No, the occupation can’t risk that. The lord mayor’s alive and well. Your friend Gance, too, I’ll bet. They’ll put in an appearance sooner or later.”
“And then ... what? The city goes on this way, the fleet sails, and we’re still trapped here.”
“For now. Soon, other things might be possible.”
Dezra said no more, but they had become adept at speaking of secret things in oblique ways. Usha understood. Qui’thonas might make escape possible.
The sun shone hot on the city, gulls screamed in the blue sky, and all the trees were coated with dust. Usha longed for a cup of water, for clean clothes, for a quiet place to lie down and think. At the corner of the road that led to the Ivy, a group of young men stood, shoulders hunched, eyes low, like whipped pups. All but one, a red-headed youth swearing to the others that if need be, he would take down the occupation with his own two hands.