Salo looked ill with fear and horror, the sword trembling in his hands. Reynold was backing away, circling about, his own blade far steadier. No assistance had yet come through the doors. Sasha reckoned most would be busy with the defence of the Justiciary.
She paused to pick up the big man’s blade. He had been Nasi-Keth too, it seemed, though she had not recognised the face…but most Tracato Nasi-Keth were ex-pupils of the Tol’rhen, not present ones. His blade presented her with a much better balance than the shorter one in her hand, so she exchanged them with several expert twirls.
Behind Salo, the room held something extraordinary-a great sphere on a stand. It was covered with the dark squiggles of map lines, and on one high corner, Sasha recognised the coastline of Rhodia. A map of the world. The serrin world, perfectly round, that the Verenthane priesthood considered sacrilege of the highest order. Only a little of the coastline seemed complete, the rest was mostly guesswork. There were banners in the room too, and parchment inscriptions in scrawling Rhodaani letters. A Verenthane star, prominent upon a shield in the Tracatan colours. Sasha realised whose chambers these had been.
“This is Chief Justiciar Sinidane’s room,” she said to Reynold. “Where is Sinidane?”
“I don’t know,” Reynold said, breathing hard. “Somewhere about.”
“You arrested him, didn’t you?”
“He was a traitor!” Salo screamed. “They were all traitors! All who cannot see that deserve to die!”
“You breed a calm and thoughtful disposition in your movement, I see,” Sasha observed to Reynold. “In your search for justice, you’ve destroyed justice itself.”
Salo panicked, attacking because he knew nothing else to do. Sasha had seen that before in youngsters and was not surprised, deflecting his first strike on pure reflex, and killed him with the counter before his follow-through had finished. Reynold ran.
Sasha tore after him, into a deserted hall. She was a good runner, but Reynold was taller, uninjured, and a man. As he flew away from her, Sasha felt her burns and wounds screaming in pain for the first time, and fancied she felt some skin on her leg tear. Still she ran, slowing a little, listening above the slap of her bare feet as Reynold disappeared about a corner, lest his footsteps abruptly stop, indicating ambush. But his boots pounded on and Sasha charged about the corner, onto a balcony above the wide floor of the Justiciary below, now awash with people and confusion.
Reynold flew down some stairs, faster again than Sasha, who plunged after, unconcerned of who he might rally against her-half of the crowds were women, hauling bloodied bodies of dead and wounded, crying for water, for bandages, for anything to cope with the flood of human catastrophe that now lay sprawled across the flagstones. She darted after Reynold, sighting a flash of movement ahead, a ducking figure there…she wove past hobbling wounded and skirted around a makeshift bed where a desperate surgeon cut crossbow bolts free from shrieking victims. The figure she’d thought was Reynold turned out to be a stranger, and she spun about, thinking perhaps he had tricked her, and was doubling back to surprise her from the crowd…but she saw only frightened men and women, and the same, panicked disbelief she’d seen on the face of Timoth Salo.
Sasha snarled, spinning back. Reynold could not run far-the Steel had the Justiciary surrounded, soon enough he would be forced back here, as the noose tightened. A young man she recognised from the Tol’rhen passed, supporting a bleeding, ashen-faced comrade. It was poor discipline, however much one cared for friends, for all to be abandoning the defence to carry their comrades back to shelter. The priorities were…
Priorities. Errollyn.
She turned away from the direction Reynold had run, and pushed her way back through the throng toward the dungeon entrance. To abandon her revenge on Reynold made her want to sob. But to abandon Errollyn would be worse.
The dungeons were unguarded, and she moved silently down the darkening stairs. Her wounds burned like murder now, and her legs felt unsteady, her balance suddenly dubious as the light slowly faded. She did not know how she had done what she’d just done, save that warriorhood was the truest nature of what she was, and came to her as naturally as a horse did to running. That, and pure, blood-lusting fury.
It was almost as though…almost as though…but she pushed the thought aside, for later contemplation.
Light from the Justiciary hall had nearly vanished, when a yellow lamp lit the way from below. The descending corridor bent, and suddenly, she saw the guard room and a man who looked to be Civid Sein holding a lamp, gazing up the stairs toward her. Sasha merely kept walking, as though she had every right to be there, as the man looked at her curiously, perhaps not making the connection between the girl who had been taken from these dungeons not long before in chains, and this one with a Nasi-Keth blade in her hand.
Suddenly his eyes widened, and he yelled a warning, a hand reaching to his sword. Sasha pressed on, unsurprised by the attack from her right by the second guard as she followed the retreating man into the room. One parry and a diagonal slash dropped his corpse to the flagstones. The first man dropped his lantern, a flash of flame as serrin oil erupted. Sasha ducked past it, and took the man’s sword hand off at the wrist. He screamed and fell to his knees. Sasha stood over him, sword at his neck as he tried to stop the terrible bleeding, stuffing the stump under his armpit and squeezing.
“In which cell is the serrin? Or your head will be next.”
She found her way down more stairs with another lantern from the guardroom, leaving the guard sprawled unconscious from a blow to the head. He might die from blood loss while asleep. Sasha didn’t care-she hadn’t cut his head off, so her honour was intact.
One door before the corner the guard had indicated, she stopped, and inserted the selected key from the great key ring. The door unlocked, and she pulled it squealing open and crept inside.
Errollyn lay on his back on dirty straw, his torso a criss-cross of cuts and dried blood. His wrists were free, his arms loose, only his ankles chained. His eyes slitted open to look at her, as she placed the lantern down, and knelt at his side.
“Errollyn.” There was sanity in those eyes, blazing green in the lamplight. And pain. “Errollyn, can you move?”
“Did you take your revenge?” he asked her hoarsely.
Sasha nodded. “The big bald one from the dungeons,” she said. “Perone. Timoth Salo. Some others too.”
“Reynold?” Sasha shook her head, bitterly. “Then I have reason still to live. Let me out.”
Sasha used the keys, and released his ankles. “The Steel are attacking,” she told him as she worked. “It should be over very soon.”
“It could be no other way,” said Errollyn though gritted teeth. “This portion of humanity has become diseased. It must be cut out.”
“Your wounds will turn bad,” Sasha worried. “I have to get you to the Mahl’rhen, they can heal such things best.”
“We have to fetch Alythia first,” said Errollyn. “Do you know where she…”
“Alythia’s dead,” Sasha said shortly, as the last manacle released. She made to haul Errollyn to his feet. Errollyn clasped her hand, but did not move.
“You’re certain?” he asked, shocked. Sasha nodded, unwilling to speak more. She tried to haul Errollyn upright once more, but again he resisted. “How do you know?”
“Errollyn, not now. She’s gone, I must get you to the Mahl’rhen. If you get some disease of the blood it may already be too-”
“Sasha!” Errollyn insisted, with pain on his face that was not all from his wounds. “I cannot claim to know your loss, but she was my friend too, and I cannot leave without knowing for certain!”