Ghost in the Storm (The Ghosts) (16 page)

"To hold it?" said Korbulus.

Ark nodded. "The gates are strong. They can fend off attackers from within the city just as easily as attackers from outside. A few centuries of the Nineteenth are there. Think how much easier it would be for them to hold with five hundred additional men."

"You make sense," said Korbulus, "but if we venture outside the foundry, the enemy will surround and overwhelm us."

"They might," said Ark. "But if we stay here, we will be overwhelmed. It's only a matter of time. If Rezir Shahan can hold the gates, then Marsis is his. He'll probably do what the Istarish always do when they take a city."

"Kill all the men," said Korbulus, voice grim, "and take the women and children as slaves." 

"You've seen this before," said Ark.

"So I have," said Korbulus. He shook his head. "I'm retired. It is Lord Governor Corbould's responsibility to defend the city."

"He's dead," said Ark. "If Marsis is to be saved, it's up to us."

Korbulus opened his mouth to answer, and a voice rang out.

"Korbulus!" It was one of the foundry workers, another grizzled Legion veteran, atop a platform by the window.  "You'd better see this."

Korbulus ran up the stairs, and Ark followed. 

Through the windows he saw a battle in the street leading to Foundry Square. 

A group of men, shopkeepers and laborers from their dress, struggled against a band of Istarish soldiers. Dozens of women and children fled into the square. The families of the laborers, Ark supposed. The laborers held their own against the soldiers, fighting with tenacious courage, but they were going to be overwhelmed. 

Very soon. 

And the women and children would fall into the hands of the Istarish.

"Korbulus," said the foundry worker. "What do we do?"

Korbulus's grim expression did not change, but Ark saw the hesitation in his eyes. Korbulus had been a Legionary, but not a centurion. He knew how to follow orders in battle, but not how to give them. He would remain fortified in the foundry and wait for Lord Governor Corbould or Lord Commander Hiram to appear and give him new orders.

But Lord Corbould was probably dead, and unless someone acted, Lord Hiram would never get into the city. Halfdan was wounded. Caina was missing. 

Which meant it was up to Ark.

He took a deep breath, the memories flooding into his mind. He had never wanted to go back to soldiering. 

But he would do what was necessary to save his family.

"Legionaries!" he roared in the voice he had used as a first spear centurion. Every eye in the foundry turned to look at him. "Battle formation! Shields and swords, before the doors. Now!"

He marched down the stairs, Korbulus hurrying after.

"You can't..." began Korbulus.

"Battle formation!" shouted Ark again, his voice ringing off the walls. "Now, you sluggards! Are you men of the Legion or are you women? Move!"

One of the Legionaries of the Nineteenth stepped before Ark, scowling. "All our centurions are dead. You're just some merchant's guard. You can't order us to..."

Ark punched him.

The jolt went all the way up his shoulder, but the Legionary landed on his rump, armor clattering, eyes wide with shock. 

"I will not say it again!" said Ark. "Do you want to hide in here until the Istarish come to burn you out? Or will you take up your swords and shields and show these Istarish dogs how a man of the Legion fights? Battle formation!"

For a moment no one moved. 

Then the Legionaries moved forward. A few at first, slowly. But then more and more, until all the survivors of the Nineteenth had arranged themselves in ranks. Some of the foundry workers joined them, wielding swords, shields, and armor looted from the foundry's stores. Korbulus planted himself at Ark's side, weapons in hand. 

They had been waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

"Get the doors," said Ark to Korbulus.

Korbulus yelled a command, and two of his workers pulled open the massive doors.

"Advance!" said Ark.

He strode into Foundry Square, the tramp of boots ringing behind him. 

The battle in the street was over. At least half the laborers lay dead or wounded, the survivors fleeing toward the foundry. The Istarish soldiers came in hot pursuit, expecting easy prey. 

"Halt!" ordered Ark. "Javelins!"

Every Legionary carried two javelins topped with a soft iron point. When flung, the points buried themselves in an enemy's shield and bent, rending the shield useless. The women, children, and surviving laborers raced past the Legionaries, making for the relative safety of the foundry.

The Istarish pursued...and slowed when they saw the waiting Legionaries.

"Release!" yelled Ark.

As one, the Legionaries and veterans drew back their arms and flung their javelins. A rain of iron-tipped missiles showered upon the hesitating Istarish soldiers. Three fell dead, their chests pierced by the javelins. The others managed to get their shields up in time, only to have them ruined by the iron points. The Istarish flung aside their shields, and Ark saw them waver.

Then an Immortal bellowed a command, voice crazed with bloodlust, and the Istarish charged.  Behind him, Ark saw a ripple of alarm go through the Legionaries and the veterans. 

“Hold!” he yelled. “Shields! Stand ready to receive the charge!”

The Legionaries and the veterans wavered…but they kept their formation, and raised their shields, presenting a wall of iron and oak to the charging enemy. Ark kept his place in the center of the formation, shield raised. The Istarish footmen and the Immortals crashed into the wall, hacking and screaming, attacking with scimitars and chain whips. But the shield wall held. The Istarish fought with courage and tenacity – but Legion discipline outweighed individual courage every single time.

“Advance!” said Ark.

He lowered his shield just long enough to thrust his broadsword. The blade took an Istarish footman in the face, and the man fell screaming. Around him the Legionaries and the veterans did the same, following the movements that had been drilled into them.

An Immortal crashed into the line, knocking a Legionary to the ground. The black-armored soldier held a scimitar in his right hand and a chain whip in his left. Even as Ark turned, the Immortal attacked, the chain whip lashing with such force that it ripped a man’s head from his shoulders. Ark seized a dropped javelin and thrust the weapon at the Immortal. The Immortal snapped the whip around, the chain lash coiling around the javelin and ripping it from Ark’s hand.

But the Immortal overbalanced, and Ark drove forward, thrusting his sword into the Immortal’s face. The blue glow within the skull-masked helmet went dark, and the Immortal fell. A cheer went up from the Legionaries, and they drove forward with renewed vigor. Ark fell back to his place in the line, shield raised, sword stabbing, pushing the Istarish back pace by pace. The old movements, the Legion style of fighting, returned to him so easily that it seemed he had never left at all. 

And then the enemy broke. Most lay dead upon the ground of Foundry Square. A few of the Legionaries and the veterans lay dead or wounded, but not nearly as many as the Istarish soldiers. 

“A good fight,” said Korbulus, wiping the blood from his blade. “But too many of them got away. They’ll report back to Rezir Shahan, and the bastard will send troops to finish us off.”

“I know,” said Ark, thinking. 

He looked at the dimming sky, at the sun disappearing to the west. If Rezir planned to seize the Plaza of the Tower, even if he had already taken it, an organized force in Foundry Square would disrupt his plans. He would send troops to kill them, or at least to bottle them up.

Ark looked at the rooftop of the foundry. 

“If the enemy is coming,” said Ark, “then we had best get ready to meet them.”  

Chapter 12 - A Stormsinger's Wrath

“In the name of Andromache, High Seat of House Kardamnos, Archon of the Assembly of New Kyre,” roared Kleistheon, pointing his sword, “I charge you to open your doors and surrender yourselves to our custody immediately!”

Kylon shifted his grip on his sword. 

No answer came from the chapterhouse of the Imperial Magisterium.

“Will they answer us?” said Kylon.

“Of course not,” said Kleistheon, voice thick with disdain. “The magi of the Magisterium are weaklings. No doubt they are hiding under their beds, hoping their arcane sciences will save them.” 

“No doubt,” said Andromache, voice placid, “but they will fight. The Imperial magi believe themselves the masters of arcane science. Before the sun rises again, they will learn otherwise.”

Kylon, Kleistheon, and Andromache stood outside the Magisterium chapterhouse, flanked by five hundred ashtairoi. Constructed of gleaming white stone, the chapterhouse was a tall basilica built in the Nighmarian style. Statues of men in robes stood in niches along the basilica’s walls. Wings on the side of the basilica held the living quarters of the magi, and the double doors to the basilica were closed and barred. 

“Shall I order an attack, High Seat?” said Kleistheon.

Andromache glanced at Kylon.

“They’re…waiting, I think,” said Kylon, directing his arcane senses at the chapterhouse. “Some of them are shielded, and the entire building is warded. I cannot read much of their emotions. But they are preparing something, I’m sure of it.”

“As am I,” said Andromache. “We shall let them make the first move. Kleistheon. Kill the magi and their guards. But I want the master magi taken alive. Am I understood?” 

“It shall be as you command, High Seat,” said Kleistheon.

Andromache shook her head in irritation. “If the Moroaica is not here to give me what I seek, then I will simply have to take it for myself.” 

Kylon wondered what she meant by that.

Then he felt the surge of sorcerous power in the air. 

A tremor went through the basilica’s walls, and a dozen statues ripped free from their niches, caught in the grip of the magi’s spells of psychokinetic force. The stone statues fell like catapult stones toward the assembled ashtairoi. 

Andromache lifted her hands and sang. 

Her voice rang out, thundering with sorcerous power. A howling gale sprang up, tearing through the small square before the chapterhouse. The statues reversed direction and flew towards the basilica. Several smashed against the walls. But two more fell through the chapterhouse’s windows, landing with tremendous crashes. 

Kylon sensed sudden flashes of agony from within the chapterhouse, followed by nothingness. 

The wayward statues had claimed some victims.

Andromache lifted her hands higher, her song growing louder.

Lightning screamed out the sky, hammering at the basilica’s doors. The first two bolts rebounded, driven aside by the magi’s wards. The third bolt drove through the doors, ripped them from their hinges, and shattered part of the surrounding wall. 

"Kleistheon," said Andromache.

"Now!" bellowed Kleistheon, pointing his lighting-wrapped sword at the gates. "Charge! For the glory of New Kyre!" 

The ashtairoi shouted, banging their swords against their round shields. Kleistheon shot forward, moving in a sorcery-enhanced blur, and Kylon followed close upon his heels. In battle, the stormdancers led the charge, tearing their way through the ranks of the enemy troops, while the ashtairoi followed to take advantage of the chaos left in the stormdancers' wake. 

Kylon burst into the main hall of the chapterhouse. Thick marble pillars supported the vaulted roof, and more statues stood in niches along the walls. Glowing glass globes, enspelled by the Magisterium to emit light, hung in elaborate iron chandeliers. A high table sat on a dais at the far end of the hall, and before the dais stood the magi of the chapterhouse. About twenty of them, men in black robes with crimson sashes about their waists. Here and there stood an older man in a black robe with a purple sash - the master magi, the ones Andromache wanted alive. 

"Stormdancers!" barked one of the master magi, a balding, stout man. Kylon recognized him from Rezir Shahan's description. Quintus Tolius, the preceptor of the chapterhouse. Apparently he had escaped the ambush in the Great Market. "Take them!" 

As one the magi lifted their hands and pointed, muttering spells, and Kylon felt the massive release of arcane power. 

Invisible power seized him and threw him toward the wall with enough force to turn his flesh to pulp. But Kylon drew upon his power, filling his muscles with the strength of his water sorcery. His feet slammed into the wall, a web of cracks spreading beneath his boots. He kicked off the stone, spinning through the air, and landed closer to the magi. Besides him, Kleistheon shrugged off the spell, his face alight with the joy of battle, and charged the brothers of the Magisterium. 

“Take them down!” yelled Tolius, his hands hooked into claws.

The statues trembled in their niches, and hurtled toward the stormdancers. Kylon let the sorcery of air fill him, and with its power he dodged and danced around the falling pieces of sculpture. Again the magi cast a spell in unison, and this time a wall of psychokinetic force swept across the basilica floor, flinging chunks of broken stone into the air. Kylon spun past the stone head of a long-dead Emperor, and the wall of invisible force slammed into him. He let the momentum fling him back several feet, and then he kicked off the floor. He tumbled over the wall of force and landed before the magi.

Behind him the ashtairoi charged into the chapterhouse, shields raised, swords drawn back to attack. Kleistheon landed next to Kylon, blue-white lightning snarling up and down his blade. Tolius shouted a command to the other magi, and they began another spell.

But it was too late for them.

Kylon tore into the magi. A thin magus with a hooked nose pointed at him, arcane force snarling around his fingers, and Kylon's slash took his hand at the wrist. The magus fell to his knees with a scream, the ragged stump of his wrist coated in icicles of dried blood. 

Kleistheon crashed into the magi, and their coordinated defense collapsed into chaos. Some of the magi tried to fling blasts of psychokinetic force at the stormdancers, while others cast spells at the charging ashtairoi. Kylon slew another magi, glittering diamonds of frozen blood flying from his blade. He saw Tolius fling out his hand, and a half-dozen ashtairoi tumbled into the air, caught in the grip of his sorcery. Kylon dodged another blast of invisible force, eyes fixed on Tolius. The preceptor was the key. If Kylon could overpower him, the defense would crumble. Perhaps the surviving magi would even surrender...