but her men were already scurrying to move a section of the barricade.
Isyllt smiled; the cold made her teeth ache. Denaris led her horse through the gap, and Ashlin and Savedra followed. Isyllt’s cruelty wasn’t entirely spent. “Thank you, Sergeant. We would welcome assistance, if you have anyone to spare.”
“I-” The other Vigils shifted backward nervously while their leader stammered. “That is, my men are needed here, to hold the line.”
“Of course.” She nudged her horse toward the barricade, then paused. “Oh, have you any word of Inspector Shar’s cohort?”
The sergeant shook her head. “I think they were among the first to respond, so they may be deeper inside this mess. Beyond that-” She shrugged.
Isyllt nodded and urged her gelding through the gap. The Vigils were replacing the barricade as his tail cleared the opening.
Once Isyllt would have thought the scene inside something from a nightmare, a Mortificant’s vision of hell. She’d seen worse since, but not much. Flames licked from rooftop to rooftop, and gouts of smoke shredded in the wind to choke them. Snow was trampled to slush, grey with dirt and ash and sometimes dark with blood. Broken glass glittered vermilion amid the filth.
“Saints!” gasped Savedra, even as Isyllt’s ring chilled with a different flavor of death.
Gaunt shapes crouched on a rooftop across from the barricade, eyes blazing by firelight. Razor teeth flashed with their laughter. Vrykoloi, at least four. More than Isyllt had ever seen outside of the catacombs. Spider’s young rebels, come to feast in the chaos.
“What are they?” Ashlin asked, her hand on her sword.
“Vampires.”
“What do we do?”
“Ride on,” Isyllt said, her mouth dry and bitter with smoke. “We have no time, and we’re not their prey tonight.”
Ashlin’s eyes narrowed. “Who is?”
“Anyone without swords or spells.” Isyllt set heels to her unhappy horse, leading them deeper into the burning quarter.
They passed tendrils of the mob, shouting and smashing windows and pounding on doors, and smaller clusters of looters. Some families fled burning apartments; others lingered, faces ghostly behind barred windows. Praying, no doubt, that fire and violence passed them by. Victims and instigators both turned to the riders, but Denaris urged them all away. She and Ashlin carried naked blades, the steel not yet stained-boots and warnings and the bulk of their mounts would only protect them so long.
When hands closed on Isyllt’s leg and tried to unseat her, she conjured ghostlight, a web of unearthly fire that unfolded around the four riders. Her attackers fell back, crying out as the cold singed them. The horses whickered and drew closer together, away from the web, but their steady canter didn’t slow till they reached Desolation Circle and the grey bulk of the Hecatomb wall.
“Isyllt!”
She tugged on the reins, turning to look down at Khelsea’s blood-and-ash-smeared face. She let the web fall.
“Are you all right?” Isyllt asked. The inspector’s pistol was in her hand, her face dull beneath the mask of grime.
“Oh, splendid. I’m glad you made it to the party.” Her eyes glittered in the too-near firelight as she glanced at Denaris and Ashlin and Savedra. “And in such company, too.”
“We need inside the palace, Khels.”
“Are you looking for the king?”
Ashlin and Savedra swung around in an identical motion. “Is he here?” Ashlin asked, leaning over her horse’s neck.
Khelsea nodded. “He came through with three octads of soldiers.” Her mouth twisted, the grimace ghastly in the shifting shadows. “They rode warhorses-the crowds didn’t have a chance. They broke open the main gate-I think his men are still guarding it.”
A frown passed between the four riders.
“We would prefer not to meet the king just yet,” Isyllt said. “Is there another way in?”
“Follow me.”
Khelsea led them to the walls of the ruined palace, where a handful of her cohort had put their backs to the stone. Beside them was a wagon carrying lumber and sandbags, the makings of a barricade. The cart’s horse was nowhere in evidence, severed harness straps hanging uselessly against the ground.
“It’s not graceful,” Khelsea said, gesturing toward the cart as Isyllt swung down from the saddle, “but you can brace the planks and climb to the top. I’m not so sure about the drop on the other side.”
Isyllt stared up at the walls-twenty feet high, at least, granite blocks moss-veined and weathered smooth. The ice and rusty iron that crowned them glittered bloody in the firelight.
“Do we have ropes?” Ashlin asked.
Khelsea shook her head. “Not enough to lower you safely. I wouldn’t trust the rock not to slice them, anyway. You can take your chances with the king’s guard, but the gate is on the far side of the circle.”
“Blood and iron. All right,” Ashlin said. “This is the fastest way.”
“No!” Savedra’s hand closed on the princess’s arm. “You can’t risk it, not with-”
A weighted glance passed between them. “Hush,
Isyllt and Denaris left them to argue and helped the Vigils brace the lumber against the wall. Between the cart and the boards they had just enough height to reach the top of the wall.
“Nikos won’t thank me if I get his wife and mistress killed trying to rescue him,” the captain muttered as they hoisted planks.
“They’ll kill themselves just as easily without you,” Isyllt said.
Denaris went first, scrambling up the makeshift ramp and leaping the last few inches with the grace of a girl a third her age. Isyllt held her breath as the woman’s boots scrabbled for purchase on slick stones, but with one good hoist the captain hauled herself up and writhed between the spikes.
They waited when she disappeared over the edge, ears straining against the cacophony of the riots. After a moment with no screams, Ashlin shrugged and started up.
The princess waited at the top to help Savedra, who was hampered by skirts. When Ashlin’s fair hair vanished from sight, Isyllt began her own ascent. Splinters caught and broke in her leather gloves, speared through her trousers into her knees. Plays and operas were full of sorcerers who flew on cunning wire contraptions-she would have traded all the souls in her ring for one of those now. Her crippled hand slipped on the top of the wall, but Savedra caught her wrist and tugged while Isyllt wedged her toes into chinks.
They balanced precariously at the top, holding each other as snow danced and spun around them. Isyllt laughed, and the wind whipped the sound away.
“You’re as bad as Ashlin,” Savedra gasped, steadying herself against a corroded iron spike.
The top of the wall was a yard across; a small mercy in the ice-slick dark. Several spikes had rusted away, leaving only jagged nubs of iron protruding from the stone. Peering over the edge, Isyllt saw Ashlin waving. The ground was a shadowed tangle of snow and briars and saints only knew what else.
“Go on,” she told Savedra. “They’re waiting.”
“You go first.” The woman’s hair had come free of its pins, tangling around her face in a wild black cloud. Her face was grey as the falling ashes beneath.
“And leave you alone, too scared to jump or climb back down?”
Savedra scowled, but didn’t deny it. “I can’t do this.”
“Oh, yes you can, Pallakis. Your prince is waiting in there, remember?” She swept one arm toward the shadowed white ruin.
“Damn you,” Savedra whispered. And, more softly, “Thank you.” She edged closer to the drop. “What do I do?”
