“We could go west,” Talis countered. “To my people.”
“Your people have set fire to Nessantico,” Varina told him. “They kill. They rape. They plunder.”
“And your people don’t?” Talis snapped back at her. “You haven’t been to the Hellins, have you? Or have you forgotten what started this confrontation in the first place?” He glared at Varina, who held his gaze, unblinking.
“Stop it, both of you,” Karl told them. “We don’t have time to waste on this. Talis, moving west means trying to get through the worst of the fires, and the south doesn’t appear all that much better. We have to think of the boy, especially; it’s too dangerous.”
“And going toward the Firenzcians isn’t?” Talis countered.
“I’d say it’s less so.”
Serafina touched Talis’ shoulder. “I think he’s right, love,” she said. “Please…”
Talis scowled, then shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “But it’s on your head, Numetodo, if this turns out badly.”
They quickly gathered what they could carry. The smell of smoke was overpowering now and ash was falling steadily on the rooftops, their edges glistening with wavering fire. They couldn’t see the sun at all, though it had to be high in the sky. The street outside was still deserted; those who could flee had already done so; those who were staying were hunkered down in the buildings. They moved quickly down the lane to the first intersection and turned east.
As they reached the larger streets, they encountered crowds again. Swarms of them were looting the stores, breaking down the doors and ripping off the shutters and carrying out whatever they could. They glared defiantly at the group as they passed with their prizes, defying anyone to try to stop them or to protest. A squad of four utilino appeared, shrilling on their whistles, but beyond that they made no attempt to restore order; they pointed their sticks and yelled warning, but scurried quickly away when the nearest looters turned to confront them.
Karl and the others moved after them.
Some time later, they’d gone several blocks, far enough that the ash from the fires was no longer coating their shoulders and hair. They were nearing Oldtown Center; Karl could glimpse the open square not far ahead, where the winding lane opened suddenly into it: there was the statue of Henri VI with his sword upraised, standing in sunlight. The crowds had vanished again. They might have been hurrying through a deserted city. As they approached the end of the street, Karl stopped them: pressed against the flank of the nearest building, they watched a squadron of Garde Civile rushing south across the open plaza near the fountain of Selida, led by a trio of mounted chevarittai. Many of the soldiers were visibly wounded, limping as they half-ran across the plaza.
“They’re retreating,” Varina whispered. “Have we lost the city, then?”
Karl could give no answer to that, though he suspected the truth. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s hurry…”
They started across the plaza as the Garde Civile disappeared into the opening of a street to the south. They had reached the end of the eastering shadow of Henri VI, nearly across Oldtown Center, when they saw what the soldiers had been fleeing from.
A noisy mass of painted men swarmed into the plaza from the north. From the distance, Karl could see that they were well armed: swords, spears, arrows. Their faces were swirled with dark lines as Uly’s had been; their bodies were protected with bamboo armor. They hadn’t yet seen Karl’s little group, or if they had, they’d already judged them to be inconsequential. The Westerlanders moved out into the open ground: at least thirty or more of them. “Move!” Karl hissed. “Quickly!” They could easily reach one of the side streets leading into Oldtown Center and lose themselves before the Westlanders could reach them. Karl, taking Varina’s hand, started to run.
He realized after a few steps that they were alone. Talis remained standing in the statue’s shadow. He had Serafina’s hand, and Nico’s. “Talis!”
Talis shook his head. “No,” he said loudly.
“Talis, Sergei went to Firenzcia. We can follow him. You don’t have anything you can use to bargain with these people. Not anymore. You’re endangering Serafina and Nico.”
Talis smiled at Karl and Varina. “Ah, but I do have a bargaining chip-Uly’s black sand. Remember? It’s still there.”
Karl felt Varina’s hand tighten on his arm. He remembered: Uly, the casks of ingredients in his rooms, waiting to be mixed… “You can’t. To give them that…”
“These are my people,” Talis said. “I thank you for all you’ve done for Sera and Nico, but these are my people, the people I know, and it’s time for me to go back to them. You go on to yours.” He waved to the soldiers, shouting something in a language that Karl could not understand. “Go on,” he said to Karl. “Go on while you have the chance.”
“At least let us take Serafina and Nico with us,” Varina called to him, but Talis shook his head.
“They’re my family and they stay with me. Go, Karl. Or stay. But make your choice.” Serafina looked at them, her face panicked and uncertain. Nico stared, wide-eyed but seemingly calm.
Several painted warriors were coming at a run now. Talis raised his spell-staff. Light blossomed from it, coruscating and banishing the shadow of Henri VI. “Karl?” Varina’s hand was raised; he could feel the energy of the Second World gathering around her.
“There are too many of them,” he told her.
“We can’t leave them. Can’t leave Nico.”
“We don’t have a choice,” he answered.
Karl took Varina’s hand, and they ran.
Nico Morel
Nico couldn’t understand what Talis was saying as the painted soldiers approached them. He could hear the uncertainty in his vatarh’s voice and the way he was speaking louder and faster, holding the magical walking stick in front of him like a cudgel. His matarh clutched Nico so fiercely that he could barely breathe as the strange men surrounded them, impossibly large and frightening and smelling of blood and death.
Nico could feel the fear rising in him and with it, the strange coldness he’d felt in the Archigos’ office, as it had when he’d run away from Ville Paisli. It began to build inside him, and he muttered to himself the strange words that came to his mind as his hands made small motions under his matarh’s clinging embrace.
“Talis,” he heard his matarh say, “what’s happening? I’m frightened…”
“It’s fine,” his vatarh said, but his voice belied that. “I just need to talk to the High Warrior. Let me do that. They’re my people; they just didn’t expect to find me here…”
He turned back to one of the painted men, the one with a red-tongued black lizard crawling from the top of his skull, around his left eye, and down the side of his head. As they half-shouted at each other, Talis shaking his stick in the man’s face, Nico felt the cold growing and growing inside, so intense that he knew he would burst if he tried to contain it any longer. Nico cried out: the strange words. He gestured.
There was no blue fire this time. Instead, the air shivered around him, rippling visibly outward, and where that fast-moving wave struck the painted men, they were thrown backward as if a great fist had struck them. “Come on, Matarh!” Nico yelled. He grabbed her hand, pulling her away so that she stumbled after him as he fled in the direction that Karl and Varina had gone. “Talis! Hurry!”
But Talis wasn’t running with them; he’d also been felled by the wild burst from Nico. The lizard-warrior had already regained his feet, and Nico-glancing over his shoulder as he started to run-could see him shouting to the others as Talis screamed something back at him and raised his walking stick. Blinding light flashed from the stick and one of the warriors howled. Nico pulled at his matarh harder. “Run!”
She took a step with him, but her hand dropped away from his. He took another step before he realized that she wasn’t with him. He heard Talis scream-“Sera!”-and turned back.
His matarh was lying sprawled on the cobbles of the plaza, a spear in her back and blood staining the paving stones. She was reaching toward Nico, crawling after him, her face drawn with pain. “Matarh!” Nico screamed, and ran back to her. He went down alongside her just as Talis reached her also.
“Nico…” she said. “I’m sorry…” Her head turned to Talis and she started to speak, but he stroked her head, cradling her carefully.
“No, don’t say anything. We’ll get you to a healer, someone who can help…” Talis looked up at the painted
