expected. Alyssa lay very still on the front bench. Beside her sat Nole, looking very tired. Logan was nowhere to be found. Zusa flung herself at the priest, grabbing the front of his robes and pulling him to the ground. Haern had a blade at his throat immediately.
“Check her,” Haern said as outside someone bellowed for Alyssa and the Watcher to come forth. Zusa put her fingers against Alyssa’s mouth as Nole slowly shook his head.
“She won’t wake,” the priest said. “Not for many hours. A simple leaf I crushed into her tea. I assure you, it will cause her no permanent harm.”
“Why?” Haern asked, trying to remain calm as fury swept through him at the betrayal.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Nole said, remaining calm despite the weapon pressed against his neck. “I do this for Ashhur, and only for him.”
Behind him, Zusa shook and slapped Alyssa, but the woman would not wake. Haern’s knuckles turned white as he clutched the hilt of his saber. He thought of Robert Haern, his mentor, giving his life to protect a young Aaron Felhorn from the wrath of his father. Comparing them seemed foul, given what Nole had done. Yet Nole was a priest, a holy man, while Robert had been just…Robert.
“The temple’s surrounded,” Nole said softly, interrupting Haern’s thoughts. “They won’t enter out of respect, at least for now. Turn yourselves in. Spare us all the bloodshed. If you are innocent, and your heart pure, you have nothing to fear, for even in death you will go to Ashhur’s Golden Eternity.”
“You’d sell us for blood money?” Zusa asked, finally setting Alyssa back down on the bench. “You are a disgrace.”
“I do what must be done!”
Haern shook his head.
“I’ve seen a man give his life to protect others, and it never had to be done,” he said, pulling back his saber. “I’m the one who must kill. I’m the one who wraps his hands in death. That is my lot, my sin, and if Ashhur turns me away at his gates then so be it. But I would never betray a man or woman I offered succor to, then claim it an act of faith. Damn you, Nole, are you so blind?”
He gave him no chance to answer, for he didn’t want to hear it. He slammed the priest’s head with the hilt of his saber, hard enough to knock him out, then let him drop to the floor. That done, he looked to Zusa, and he had no answers for her worried stare.
“We cannot take her,” she said. “Not if we hope to escape.”
“We can still try,” he insisted.
“Dying will not help Alyssa.”
“Then what, Zusa? What?”
Again the soldiers cried for them to come out, but this time it was all of them, not just the one. Their voices were like thunder shaking the walls. There had to be at least a hundred out there. They could not fight them off, especially trying to carry Alyssa’s unconscious body. Nor would any stand at the doors last, not against that many. They had no options, no obvious choice. Either they died, or they left Alyssa to her fate, and neither possibility was something Haern would willingly embrace. He could not leave her there, to suffer for a crime he knew she had not committed.
“We live,” Zusa said softly. “We continue on, and in doing so, rescue her on our terms.”
“You’d have us run. Have us wait. You said the same earlier, and because of it I watched children hang and did nothing. I think I’d rather fight, and die knowing I was not a coward. How could you even suggest leaving her?”
“Damn you, Haern, don’t you see? Leaving her will be the hardest thing I have ever done, and I will still do so because I am no fool. I rescued you from your prison. I can rescue her. Now will you stay, or will you come with me?”
Haern looked to Alyssa, and more than ever he hated the city of Angelport.
“Lead on,” he said, the words nearly catching in his throat.
“Don’t stop moving,” Zusa said, facing one of the slender windows, the milky glass preventing them from seeing anything outside but the yellow haze of light. “Keep fighting, keep running, and if we separate, find me at the docks come nightfall.”
Drawing her dagger across her palm, she clutched her cloak and let her blood seep into it. Eyes closed, she whispered words that sounded strange to Haern’s ears. Then the color spread throughout the cloak, and it shifted and swayed in an unnatural way. That done, she turned to the window and leapt, her body twisting sideways. Her fists smashed through, scattering glass and no doubt cutting her severely. Haern hesitated. The doors to the temple broke open. He almost stayed, almost assaulted the armored guard who came rushing up the aisle, but he had given Zusa his word he would follow, and so he did. The glass cut into his clothes, and he felt a vicious sting on his left arm as he rolled along the ground, but none of it mattered. Pulling out of his roll, he caught sight of Zusa and followed.
The city guard had formed a circle around the building, but most were gathered near the front. At the side, the line was only two men deep, spread out enough that Haern knew they could punch through if they assaulted with enough ferocity. Zusa knew this as well, and she had already begun. Her daggers were brilliant flashes of steel, spinning and twirling in their bloody dance. Her cloak lashed out as if it had a mind of its own, and its edges were as sharp as knives. As Haern rushed in to help her, he saw the cloak snap toward a guard, shift its angle, and then slice open his throat.
Haern kicked that same guard, and he fell. Landing atop the body, Haern heard Zusa cry out, “Left!” He followed without thinking, jointly assaulting a trio of soldiers who thrust at them with spears. Zusa shifted her body so she slid between them, and Haern parried away the sole spear aimed at his chest. Her feet hardly touching the ground, Zusa stabbed the one of her left, twisted the blade, then yanked it free in time to double-thrust into the other guard’s chest. The chainmail there kept them from piercing, but the blow knocked out his wind, and Zusa’s ensuing kick to his forehead took him down.
As for Haern, he ran right past his guard, lashing out with a saber as he did. The guard fell to one knee, holding a hand against the side of his neck to stem the bleeding. The two sprinted down the streets, leaving a pile of corpses behind them. The city guard chased, spurred on by the sight of so many dead.
“Move!” Haern shouted, grabbing Zusa’s wrist and pulling her to the ground as he glimpsed several guards behind him with crossbows taking aim. Bolts sailed over their heads, one catching the thigh of a woman haggling with a merchant. Her scream sent the early morning crowd into a frenzy. Once back on their feet, the two easily weaved through the chaos, while the city guard had to fight for every step.
They ducked into an alley once far enough away. Haern removed his hood, and he glanced at Zusa. Her clothes were torn and stained with blood, but he had no clue how much was hers, and how much that of the guards. The red of her cloak had faded, whatever magic infusing it now gone.
“You need new clothes,” he said, nodding toward the blood.
“As do you,” she said, pointing to the long scrape along his arm. It wasn’t deep, but it’d certainly leave a scar.
“At least you’re not wearing your wrappings,” he said.
Neither laughed, for they were in no mood for humor. They drifted toward the more crowded marketplace, far away from where the guards still searched. With the little money left in his pockets after purchasing his new swords, he bought them new clothes, plain grays and browns.
“A dress?” Zusa said when he returned.
“Best I could find,” he said, handing it to her.
“I can’t fight in a dress.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
Where they hid ended in a dead end, so Haern stood with his back to her as she changed, blocking sight of her best he could from the street ahead. When she finished, he turned around, and he gave a half-hearted laugh at the comic sight of her short hair, exotic features, and slender form stuffed into a plain brown dress that hung loose around her shoulders.
“Perhaps we were better off with the bloody clothes,” he said.
He changed into his own clothes, then tied their old outfits into a bundle he could throw over his shoulder. Zusa hid her daggers within the folds of her dress, while Haern stashed his sabers in the bundle.
“Very well,” she said. “A simple couple we are once more. Where now?”
