No matter how accurate a shot it had been, Bryck noted silently, it couldn't make nearly enough of a difference. Not with the number of armed Felk in the street below, now alerted to their position above.
Quentis was by Bryck's side. Radstac, sword in hand, had joined Deo. The others of the Broken Circle, including Aquint and Nievze, had made their escape off the far lip of the rooftops, Bryck saw with a distant shudder of relief. It was of course crucial that the blood magic wizard got away, so to perform his spell.
But still Bryck's only real priority was getting Quentis out of danger.
Below, the soldiers were charging toward the buildings that held the Circle's rooms and the craft workshops, looking for access to the roofs. They would find it. The patrol was very large, bigger than the entire original garrison put together. Aquint had been correct; reinforcements had obviously been Far Moved to Callah.
Also in the streets were the Callahans that the soldiers had turned out from their homes. Several of these were prone on the ground. Bryck saw blood.
The last time the Felk had run rampant through the city, it had been because of Bryck's inadvertent murder of a garrison soldier. This time a Felk mage of great political importance lay dead. These soldiers had probably received their orders from high up the chain of command. They wouldn't be concerned with the niceties Governor Jesile had tried to observe while occupying this city for the Felk.
Callah's streets would be wet with blood before sunrise.
These thoughts flashed through Bryck's mind, not eclipsing his concerns for Quentis's safety. He seized her hand. Her returning grip was strong.
Deo's crossbow gave another sharp twang, and another Felk soldier dropped in the street.
'We're going to run!' Bryck said to Radstac and Deo.
Radstac was studying the terrain below. 'Too late,' she said, clearly and calmly.
And it was, of course. He wanted to say some last thing to these two; both had been instrumental in this desperate and supremely important Broken Circle operation. But Deo was busy with another bolt, and Radstac wouldn't waste her attention listening.
'Thank you,' he whispered. It was lost in the general tumult.
He turned, with Quentis, and they raced across the rooftops, over onto those atop the shops. The Felk clogged this street as well. Bryck hunkered low, pulling down Quentis, then dropped to his knees. His fingers clawed the squared sections of a particular roof.
'What're you doing?' Quentis asked, imitating his actions anyway, fingertips probing the edges of the squares.
'Looking for a trap door.' Bryck was scrabbling hard now, trying not to let his fear overwhelm him. The roar from below was growing louder, more violent. He hoped the others were making good their escape.
Suddenly his fingers found a groove, and he pried upward. The hatch came free. No hinge, just a loose segment of the roof. Beneath was an invitingly dark hole. No doubt the Felk would break into all these shops, but maybe they could hide themselves down there somewhere, somehow—
'What
Bryck lifted his head from the hole. The turmoil was louder still, and it had taken on some new quality, it seemed. Quentis, on one knee, was trying to peer cautiously over the roof edge.
'Be careful,' Bryck said, grabbing for her again.
She instead took his hand and drew him near. She was not one to panic, he knew, and in that moment he appreciated that trait fully.
Together they looked down on the street. The Felk soldiers were no longer alone.
Bryck felt a wave of such strong emotion that at first he was wholly unable to identify it. His eyes widened, and his breath went still in his chest. His fingers tightened around Quentis's hand, until his bones ground against hers.
They came in a gathering wave. Bryck saw individuals joining the mass, and by the time they actually came into contact with the patrol, the numbers were substantial. They brandished improvised weaponry, mostly objects that would serve as bludgeons. The added noise was the general cry of battle, a high taut note, a collective voice of frustration and fury. These people had suffered enough under their occupiers. They had withstood the conquest of their city, and they had acquiesced to the laws of their conquerors. But surrender wasn't enough apparently. Tonight the Felk had come once more into their homes, and the violation and violence was, finally, too much.
And so the Callahans were rising.
Even with these numbers they weren't going to have an easy time of it. The Felk were professionally armed. They were troops drawn possibly from Felk itself or some other occupied city, but as likely had been culled from the active ranks in the field. These soldiers almost certainly had combat experience of some sort. It was unlikely many of these Callahans did.
The Felk cut into them, without hesitation or mercy. Bryck was still holding's Quentis's hand, still overwhelmed with feeling. But what
'Should we help?' Quentis was asking.
Pride, Bryck realized. He felt pride for these people. At long last they were doing as he'd hoped. He had created for them a fictional revolution, one that had become, by increments, real. Now these people of Callah were giving it its final authenticity.
Yet even under the sway of such powerful emotions, Bryck's prime concern was still Quentis's safety.
'We've done enough,' he said, pulling her toward the opening in the roof. An arrow or crossbow bolt streaked past her shoulder, perilously close.
Quentis dropped her legs into the hole, swung by her hands planted on either side and shot her eyes up at him. 'You're coming, too, aren't you?'
'I am.' Another missile whisked past, just overhead.
She disappeared into the dark. He barely heard her landing over the uproar. He didn't have time for a look back at Radstac and Deo. He just went down into the very relative safety of the empty shop below, hoping fervently that these Callahans had success with their uprising.
The Isthmus, Bryck later learned, became once again a very large place that night. As large as it had been before the advent of Far Movement and Far Speak magic. Distances were once more their normal and natural scope. If three days of horseback travel were required to traverse two points, then that was just how it had to be done once again. No more portals. No more wizards to make them appear.
However, Bryck and many others in the city of Callah had concerns of a more immediate nature.
For a quarter-lune the fight for Callah's freedom splashed blood into the streets. The patrol that Bryck and Quentis saw that first night weren't the only Felk reinforcements transported into the city. Quite a large company had been ordered in, to recover Abraxis's bag of blood samples and to crush the evident rebel element in the city. But now no further reinforcements would arrive; and no Felk could be Far Moved to safety.
As the uprising carried on, growing bloodier by the watch, it also drew more participants. More Callahans joined their fellows. They saw an opportunity to be rid of the Felk. They saw the moment of their revenge against their oppressors. Some no doubt simply succumbed to the frenzy of the bloodthirsty spectacle.
The Callahans fought the Felk, neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street. The natives grew more organized. As they recovered weapons from the fallen soldiers, they became better armed. It was war. It was a second chance. Callah had fallen too easily the first time to these invaders from the north.
There were no more curfews, no more public floggings, no rules of any kind that these occupiers could enforce any longer. Eventually the Felk retreated toward the Registry, and eventually the rebels—so many now— surrounded that building from every side. A siege ensued.
Rumors circulated wildly in the city that the Felk, everywhere throughout the Isthmus, had suffered a crippling blow. Their wizards, all of them and all at once, had been struck mysteriously with death. No one could say where the rumor had originated, but it was evident that no Far Movement magicians were currently operating within Callah.
With the surviving soldiers barricaded in the Registry and veritable droves of Callahans encircling the site, Governor Jesile prudently announced the garrison's surrender. He came to a window to do so. The mob hurled stones and obscenities. They had several times tried unsuccessfully to set fire to the combustible parts of the building.
