in charge.
'We had to leave everything.'
'My children are hungry.'
'My children are in the city! I have to go back down.'
'What's happening?'
'Those cursed reeves have done nothing. They let the refugees flood us. They let the army march without resistance. They padded their own nests while others work. The Commander says she's in charge, and yet see what has happened-'
'And what in the hells have you ever done?' snapped Nallo to the man, dressed in his expensive silks with his hair done up in a rich man's threefold loops. 'Let me see the calluses on your clean hands, eh?'
Volias took her arm. 'Nallo, come on.'
'You pissing coward,' she shouted for good measure as they trotted off. The man waved his hands as though berating her and was then lost in the milling crowd.
Volias said nothing, not to scold, not to praise. He was mumbling under his breath as he let go of her arm, but she was pretty sure it was nothing to do with her or that gods-rotted whining fool behind them. Toskala's Assizes Tower rose higher than any structure she had ever seen, with its thick stone base and wooden tiers floating above. They ascended the wide ramp, lit by lamps hanging from tripods. Militia guards huddled in groups, talking as they glanced nervously into the night.
'What's that?' said Pil, gaze lifting.
Lights dipped in the sky. Folk scattered, and with their shrieks ringing close beside and the steady rumbling clamor from below, Nallo could not hear the clap of horses' hooves when the animals dropped down out of the sky and trotted to the ramp. A light steadier than a burning oil lamp gleamed from the hand of each Guardian, two men and two women.
She couldn't move. She couldn't even breathe, but when the four riders hit the base of the ramp, she grabbed a stunned Volias and yanked him to one side as the winged horses paced up the stone walkway and the militiamen leaped out of their way.
Guardians!
Everyone knew the tales. She wept to see them, so bright and beautiful, come to save the city. Guardians of justice. The servants of the gods.
Men cowered, or dropped to their knees. Some wept, while others covered their faces.
A ghost rode in their midst.
'The demon,' said Pil, quite clearly, if not very loud.
A pallid face turned in their direction, and its gaze caught Nallo. Sheh! For shame! The rice she had stolen from a neighbor's storehouse before she was married, and how she let her cousin take the blame and the whipping. That time she had slapped Jerad until he cried, and then bullied him into keeping quiet about it. How much she had resented her husband, although he'd only ever been kind, smiling gently sometimes as if he knew what a bad bargain he'd gotten but was determined to accept his fate gracefully. That was the worst of it, hating yourself and never being brave enough to change.
The demon released her, and she swayed, a sob convulsing her. The demon's gaze snapped to Pil, fierce with challenge.
Yet he faced her. 'I will not fear demons!'
She considered him with her flat demon gaze held over a shoulder until, passing upward and riding actually into the tower in the wake of the others, she vanished from sight.
'The hells!' said Volias. 'Are those Guardians?'
Away across the square, an eagle shrieked in fury. A man screamed, the pitch ripping high, then cut off.
Volias heaved, staggered, and retched, although nothing came up. 'Trouble,' he said hoarsely. 'Aui!' He collapsed, sprawling limp on the ground.
In Justice Square, a stilling hand had turned the crowd as into stone while the city below sank further into chaos.
Now that she was trapped, her purpose suspected, Marit felt a sense of peace. Let them do their worst!
She rode behind Lord Radas into a hall lined with benches. The Toskalan council sat in expectant assembly, everyone facing the woman cloaked in night who stood on the elevated speaker's platform holding the lacquered speaker's stick. They watched her as if she were holding their hearts in her hand and meant to decide whose she would crush.
The air in the room was sweat-drenched. The size and weight of the horses devoured space so the women and men seated on the
benches shrank back to give room. Marit knew the trick of quick assessment: there, twelve reeves, experienced men and women; a pair of militia captains and another dozen prosperous-looking council members, some of whom shifted nervously while the rest sat very still. Guardsmen stood behind the benches on which the reeves sat. A cloaked man stood in the shadows behind the speaker's platform, his face unfamiliar. Six Guardians assembled here. Kirit and her mare blocked the door; she watched the council through the reflection of her mirror, studying their faces.
Something terrible was going to happen.
'An ill day,' said she who wore the cloak of night. 'Trouble has risen to plague the Hundred. We the Guardians have returned on this day to restore peace.'
As in the old days with Flirt, when the raptor's excitement at a reckless maneuver had burned in her blood as well, Marit grinned as she took the plunge. She stood in her stirrups.
'Don't believe her! These are ones who command the army that assaults Toskala. As we are speaking, in the city below, the gates have been opened by traitors and your enemy marches in. Don't trust them!'
One of the reeves stood, an older man whose black hair was streaked with silver. 'Who are you? You look like a reeve who died twenty years ago. A dear friend of mine. Her eagle was slaughtered on the Iliyat Pass and yet her own body never found. Who are you?'
Lamplight flashed off a mirrored surface, illuminating his face. Aui! She hadn't recognized him. The years had not been kind, not in the way they had been to Joss. 'Kedi?'
'Marit? Eiya! You have the same voice! Yet you've not aged a day. Commander, this is a ghost or a demon. How can it wear Marit's face?'
'Marit!' said Lord Radas beside her. 'I recall you now. You are the foreseen traitor. 'One among the Guardians will betray her companions'.'
'Kedi, I beg you, believe me for the sake of the friendship we shared. They mean to betray you, they have already a plan in place, you are in danger-'
Of course they ran a hundred mey ahead of her down this road, swords and knives drawn before the words left her mouth.
A militia captain stabbed the man beside him. Three council members turned on their own. The guardsmen standing behind the reeves drove knives into unprotected backs. By the time she got her sword out, those not yet dead were being swarmed by the killers.
'Kedi!'
Lord Radas reined his horse into hers, forcing her back. She slid off one side as Warning flicked a wing half open, and crawled under the horse's belly. A tremor stirred beneath the planking, a whispering pulse she recognized as the tracery of a Guardian's altar hidden under the Assizes Tower. Her skin throbbed, goose-flesh rising.
Coming up, she found herself face-to-face with Miken, the spy. 'They caught me on the river,' he murmured, and his blood-soaked shame pressed like a blade at her throat.
I had to kill, in exchange for the lives of my sister and her children.
'They've lied to you,' she said.
She pushed past him, but the senior staff of Clan Hall were dead, dispatched cleanly. Despite being inside the tower, and with the riot of sound aloft in the air outside drowning out much else, she felt more than actually heard the distinctive squalls of eagles sundered from the bond that jesses them to their reeves.
Three of the killers knelt, heads bowed. A fourth was doubled over, fluid leaking out where he'd been stabbed by someone who had, briefly, fought back. Five guardsmen and merchants remained standing, weapons poised, but
