Orb Sceptre Throne

the many religious festivals — fireworks ironically supplied by the Moranth. Beneath the barrage a broad pale dome flickered and winked in and out of sight.

Even at this great distance the window shuddered and rattled lightly.

He glanced to the card he held. So ancient. The Orb of Rulership. A white sphere held upraised in the hand of a cloaked figure.

He squeezed the card until the varnish cracked and shattered.

He only wanted to be safe. He only wanted the city to be strong.

How could he have been so blind?

*

Rallick was already on the roof when the assault began. For this reason he had mixed feelings regarding the Moranth’s failure to penetrate the Legate’s sorcerous defences. In either case, he felt that he had the best seat in the house, as they say, standing out on the roof peering up at the blinding eruptions where the munitions struck the clear opalescent wall of the Legate’s dome.

He blamed those blasts for his own failure to sense the approach of light slippered feet, and his failure to twist aside soon enough to completely avoid the blades that thrust for his back.

He rolled away but not quickly enough as blazing agony yammered down his back. He faced her now across the run of tiles, his own heavier curved blades out. She advanced, darting in and out. They tested each other’s skill, she stepping lightly with a hungry smile at her lips; he slower, careful on the sloped and shifting ceramic roof tiles.

‘You were a fool to return,’ she shouted over the blasts that rocked them in flashing chiaroscuro.

He said nothing, tensed, waiting for her to commit herself.

He did not have long to wait. She dodged in, feinting side to side, both blades spinning. A run of alternating high and low slashes backed Rallick up to the side of a gable. Here he pushed off, kicking her in the chest, throwing her back two steps. Her face betrayed open shock.

Rallick allowed himself an inward smile. Those slippered tracks at Baruk’s: small but heavy. He’d struck her with all his weight, treating her like an infantryman. Her reaction told him not many ever had.

Her lips pulled back from her small pointed teeth and she readied again, raising her arms high, both blades pointing down. Rallick shuffled away from the gable to clear his retreat. Multiple shadows flashed across them and waves of concussive force popped his ears. ‘There are greater threats,’ he yelled, motioning to the circling Moranth.

‘Their turn will come,’ she answered.

Time to surprise her again, he decided, and rushed. He was right: she was taken off guard. Yet every swing was met by a parrying blade, every spin and slash avoided, every thrust turned or slid aside. His charge ended when a circling counter-parry threw one of his blades wide, opening him to a thrust he avoided only by falling backwards.

He righted himself on the narrow level run along the spine of the roof, now rather surprised himself.

‘Ready?’ the girl asked, grinning.

Despite the agony shooting up his back he crouched, blades out.

The girl daintily slipped a foot forward on the tiled run. To either side the steep roof led down to a fall from the height of the Great Hall.

Rallick braced a foot behind, determined not to give ground this time.

She closed the distance in one leap. Blades clashed, scraping and rebounding again and again in a weaving dance of strike and immediate counter-strike until suddenly the girl pushed herself backwards. She snarled her frustration, her thin chest heaving.

‘Enough,’ she grated, and thrust out a hand.

A wave of pressure washed over Rallick: something like a strong wind or a splash of cold water. It passed on, leaving him untouched. The girl gaped at him. ‘How …’

He lunged and his blade caught her front, slashing scarves and flesh as she twisted sideways, slipping and tumbling down the roof. She bellowed, spat and hissed all the way down the slope until she disappeared over the edge.

Rallick hunched his shoulders and winced at the pain slashing into his back. He knew that that was certainly not the end of the creature. Under the cover of an eaves he knelt, untied a pouch and pulled out a shallow dish that contained a thick honey-like salve. This he scooped up in his hand and, reaching behind under his leather jerkin and shirting, rubbed into the warm wetness smeared there.

Almost immediately the pain lost its cut-glass sharpness and his breath came more easily. Some would think it ironic, he knew, using the alchemist’s offerings while engaged in a battle against him. Rallick wondered whether the term just was more appropriate. He remembered applying another alchemical product on a rather similar night a long time ago: dust of the magic-deadening mineral otataral. And on both nights it saved his life.

*

They circled high above the complex of Majesty Hall, over the flickering dome that so far seemed to have absorbed every munition dropped upon it. So tightly did they circle that Torvald sat sideways while the wide waist straps of the saddle harness held him tight. Below, the majority of the swooping quorls continued their runs. Blasting up to meet them came the magics of these mage-slaves who the Moranth claimed served the returned Tyrant himself. Torvald had a hard time accepting that, but what he had witnessed so far this night convinced him that something terrible had happened — perhaps deals had been struck with these mages themselves. Exactly what, he didn’t know for certain yet.

Ducking down from the wind he peered into the packs. ‘Last one!’ he called to Galene.

She nodded and adjusted the jesses. They swooped anew and Torvald was thrown backwards, scraping his lower back yet again against the sharp cantle behind. The flashing pale glow of the sorcerous dome rose up to meet them.

Directly over the top Galene shouted, ‘Now!’

Leaning even further over he let the last cusser go. He twisted in his saddle to follow its tumbling descent. It erupted in yet another empty blast against the opalescent curve of the dome. The pressure wave pushed the quorl sideways, slapping him and Galene over for an instant. She fought again to regain control.

‘What now?’ he called.

She turned back to regard him through her narrow visor. ‘Now? Now we land, Councillor!’

Torvald’s stomach twisted more sharply than it had all evening.

They swooped low over the estate district, weaving between lesser hills topped by noble family manors. The coruscating counterattacks of the mages blasted over them. Quorls fell over the city, either spinning tightly or limp like dead weights, to fall in bursts of light and erupting debris of broken brick and shattered wood. He caught glimpses of pockets of fire raging through the city. Thank all the gods the gas seemed to have been cut.

‘You have a quick-release,’ Galene shouted. ‘Pull it and jump when we land.’

‘Yes,’ he answered, though he had no idea what he would do after that. Re-join the Council was what Galene had suggested.

She began her run, angling for Majesty Hill, jerking the quorl from side to side, rolling and swooping. Torvald gripped the sunken handles with hands almost numb. The ribbed thorax of the insectile beast was hot beneath him; the poor thing was probably worn out and couldn’t have carried them much further anyway.

Galene had started to climb when an invisible fist struck them. The air exploded from him in a wet grunt. Galene’s helmed head struck him in the chest. For an instant his vision went black. When he could see again they were spinning sickeningly. Galene yanked the jesses but the quorl responded only fitfully, wings hardly fluttering.

‘Hang on!’ she yelled.

The side of the hill came up suddenly and they struck it a glancing blow, then slid backwards down the slope. They came to rest in a grassy parkland between the hill and the city wall.

Torvald pulled his quick-release and fell from the saddle. ‘Let’s go!’

Galene remained slumped in the saddle. He reached round to pull her release then dragged her down to lie in the tall grass.

‘Galene!’