“No. Freak accident during the chaos. No one was hurt in the blaze, but she lost two cows, a barn, and the better part of her house.” Rezi forced Styke to sit up straight. Then she lay across the bench so that her head was in Styke’s lap. “Someone threw a rock at Sirod’s bodyguards. Caught the poor bastard right in the temple and knocked him out cold. He slipped, fell, and broke his neck when he landed. I can’t really piece together what happened next. The soldiers panicked and charged into the citizens. More rocks were thrown. There weren’t any gunshots, thank Kresimir, but there was a lot of trampling and throwing and cutting.”
“Your lancers were good,” she continued. “They put themselves between the soldiers and the citizens, but it was just too damned late.”
“So what happened?”
“It took hours to get everything back under control. Took a few more to convince Sirod that he should leave town and take his soldiers with them for their own safety. He left just before dark, and I’ve spent every moment since trying to assess the damage and letting everyone burn out their anger.”
Styke was nothing short of impressed that she hadn’t killed anyone in a rage. He knew damn well that if he’d been in her place, the town square would be filled with Kez corpses and he’d either be dead or well on his way to hiding out on the frontier. “They’re gone, then?”
“The soldiers?”
“Yeah.”
“Hours ago,” Rezi confirmed. “I’ve spent the whole night trying to calm down the citizens. But the governor was pissed. I could tell he took the whole thing as a personal affront. Took me and the mayor to convince him not to burn the whole town down.”
Styke looked down at Rezi, wondering if he should point out that the governor would likely be back, and with far more men. At the very least, Fernhollow was going to get a Kez garrison – and the added expense of having to support them. At the most… well, Styke wasn’t sure of the extent of Sirod’s rage. Sirod was a cold, calculating bastard. He only cared for the things that might affect his reputation. An event like this… well, it was bound to get back to the King’s court eventually.
Styke would find out the extent of the damage when a military tribunal sent for him. He thought back to the news that Lindet had dismissed the Redstone garrison, and he dared to hope that today would be forgotten in the face of larger problems across the country.
He decided that this was not the time to discuss more bad news with Rezi. There’d be plenty of time for that going forward, as he sat in this cell waiting for a summons from Landfall.
“I think you should go,” Rezi suddenly said.
“Huh?”
“Break the cell door. Slip out in the night. Fill your saddlebags, take Deshnar, and get the pit out of here.”
The same thought had crossed Styke’s mind over the last few hours, but he was surprised that it had crossed Rezi’s. She was far more law-abiding than he was. “I won’t leave you to take the heat for that.”
“I damn well didn’t say I would,” Rezi snorted. “That’s why I’m telling you to escape, rather than to just walk out.”
Styke almost laughed. He considered the option, leaning his head back against the cool brick wall and running his fingers through Rezi’s sweaty hair. He could go to Redstone. See if Lindet wanted herself a lancer. His thoughts began to follow that road when he noticed something off. The cell was no longer lit by the lantern alone. He could see a harsh, orange light dancing on the ceiling. He looked over his shoulder out the window and accidentally threw Rezi to the floor when he shot to his feet.
Across the city square, the mayor’s house was on fire. The conflagration consumed the entirety of the home’s façade, and he could see figures running to and fro in the flickering light. He opened his mouth to say something to Rezi when he noticed that, several blocks away, the local church was also on fire.
“What the pit did you do…” Rezi trailed off as she cleaned herself off the floor. They both stared, dumbfounded, at the growing fire. “What is going on?” Rezi whispered. She ran for the stairs just as there was a loud crash from below them.
“That was the door,” Styke warned as Rezi opened the cell.
“I know,” she snapped, taking one long step into her office and returning with a big, fixed-blade boz knife in her hand. There was a shout downstairs, and the angry thump of footsteps. Rezi leapt for the stairs and Styke found himself following her involuntarily.
There was a strangled gurgle in the stairwell. Styke froze, his hands on the bars of the cell, watching as Rezi came to a sudden stop. “Rezi?” he called.
She stiffened, then seemed to suddenly float back up the stairs, coming so quickly that Styke took half a step back. She reached the top of the stairs and was thrown backwards, sprawling on the landing and revealing the two men who had just shoved her up the stairs on the end of their bayonets. Styke stared down at Rezi’s unmoving body, then at the four soldiers who rushed up to take the landing, spreading out with bayoneted muskets pointed at the barred cell door. They trampled her underfoot, not even giving her a second glance.
Styke recognized one of the soldiers. It was Sergeant Gracely, the Kez who’d insulted him in the street two mornings before. Her mouth was drawn into a thin, grim line. “That’s him,” she said, brandishing her musket.
Styke stared down at Rezi. Then he looked at Gracely, and back to Rezi.
“Shoot him in the knees,” Gracely ordered. “Captain wants him to burn.”
Styke braced his hands on the ceiling, lashing out with a leg and every ounce of his strength. The cell door, still unlocked and part open, crashed into – and then through – its own frame and off the hinges. The weighty iron smashed into the row of muskets, and two panicked shots in the small space made Styke’s ears ring.
He didn’t know whether he’d been hit, and he didn’t care. He followed the door out of the cell. One of the four soldiers tumbled down the stairs, while the other three were knocked down onto the floor of Rezi’s office. Styke bent over the closest, grasping him by the throat and squeezing hard, crushing the bastard’s windpipe. He grabbed the musket of a second as it was aimed at him and with a deft twist pulled off the musket’s ring bayonet. He flipped it around and buried it in the soldier’s eye.
Gracely lay underneath the bulk of the cell door’s weight, her musket trapped. She tried to free her weapon in vain, glancing up at Styke in a panic as he stepped over her.
“I didn’t want to,” she insisted. “But orders…”
“Prost did this?” Styke demanded. The light from the burning buildings outside now completely illuminated the room, and he could only imagine that the whole town would soon be in flames.
“Yes,” Gracely said. “I mean, no. Prost is giving commands, but Sirod ordered it.”
“Why?” Styke demanded, listening to the movement of the soldier in the stairwell.
“He was humiliated! You can’t cross the governor’s family like this!”
“Where’s Prost?”
“He’s burning down the mayor’s house. Look, Styke, I was just following orders. You would have done the same!”
“No,” Styke said. He bent and lifted the iron door off of Gracely with both hands. “I wouldn’t have. I may be a monster, but at least I have standards.” Gracely tried to bring her musket to bear, but Styke flipped the iron door up and brought the bottom of it down hard, crushing Gracely’s skull like an egg beneath it. He scooped up her musket, stepped into the stairwell, and unloaded it into the chest of the soldier still trying to find his senses.
Styke tossed aside the musket and knelt down beside Rezi. He was surprised to find her eyes open, her lips moving slightly. He looked down at her stomach. It was a scrambled mess of black blood and guts. Not even a Privileged could save her, not after a bayoneting like that.