She opened her eyes, and slowly focused on the object on the stones before her. It was a human head, facing her, eyes open. Long black hair. The eyes, the features, were Alythia’s.
Sasha screamed.
A long time later, she was still screaming.
There was a commotion when they dragged her next from the cell. The first flight of steps did not go down, as before, but up. Dazed, Sasha realised she was being led out of the catacombs entirely. A cloak was thrown about her bare shoulders, covering her to the knees.
She registered a broad hall, filled with light, blinking and squinting as she was shuffled across the flagstones. Men were shouting, footsteps running, weapons clattering…and was it her imagination, or could she hear the distant sounds of battle? Yes, and then, clearly, there came a clash of weapons. The Justiciary was under assault. A thousand Civid Sein defenders, Rhillian had said. Who was assaulting? The feudalists? The Steel? Kessligh’s Nasi- Keth? All three, she hoped.
She was pulled up more stairs, three flights in total…the Justiciary was no taller than four floors, surely? She could not recall. Despite the chains, the sleepless night, the lack of food, the horror, her head felt clear. The stairs seemed to help, as exercise always did…but mostly, she thought, it was the prospect of battle. It made her nostrils flare, like some old warhorse.
On the upper floor, her guards handed her to Perone, whose two Civid Sein companions dragged her down a corridor and into a small room that might have been a study. They threw her down on a chair beside a bookshelf, and one man stood by to guard her, his sword out. Perone gave that guard a harsh instruction in Rhodaani, then left, slamming the door behind. By the guard’s stance, Sasha guessed those words had been to the effect of: “If she tries anything, kill her.” Chained hand and foot, she did not fancy her chances.
There was an arched window nearby. With gritted teeth, she heaved herself from the chair and shuffled to the window, hunched like an old woman. The guard did not protest, but watched her all the way, his blade ready.
She had a view of the Ushal Fortress, across a jumble of tiled roofs. It was morning, she saw from the light. It had been just one night then, that the Civid Sein had occupied the Justiciary. Possibly Kessligh knew what that would mean, for her. Possibly that knowledge had forced his hand. She knew better than to assume so. Kessligh had far more on his plate than just concern for his wayward uma.
The sounds of battle were clear from this height. It was difficult to discern their location. Sasha guessed that was partly because the battle was all around. The Justiciary was being attacked from all sides. The feudalists would have the numbers for such an attack, but not access to the eastern approaches, which were away from feudalist heartland and currently strong with Civid Sein. The Nasi-Keth lacked the numbers, and were no good for massed combat anyway. It had to be the Steel. True to her word, Rhillian had lost patience.
The door crashed open and an angry-looking Perone strode back in. He paced across the room, apparently aimless, then reversed. Then kicked at a table, furiously, and snapped at the guard. Perone, Sasha noted, was wearing a swordbelt, good boots and a wide-collared leather jacket. The stylish attire of a wealthy Tracatan. Curious choice, for a Civid Sein revolutionary.
The argument with the guard continued. The guard looked a genuine country lad, tall and blond, freckled and missing some teeth. Sasha caught a few words, and knew enough of young men and warfare to guess that Perone had been told to stay here, and not to go out and fight. Guarding her, no less.
Perone saw her watching. He stopped and gave an exasperated laugh. “Look at her,” he said, in Torovan. “Thinking this all so amusing.” Abruptly he made toward her. Sasha backed away from the window, her ankle chains nearly overbalancing her. Perone caught at her wrist chain, and Sasha lashed back. Perone’s blow struck her head, and suddenly she was on the floor, seeing stars.
Perone and the guard picked her up and dumped her on the table. “You should be grateful,” Perone told her, unbuckling his sword belt, as the other man held her arms down over her head. “I am a great man of the revolution. If you are fortunate, you may die with my bastard in your belly.”
They were going to kill her, Sasha realised, blinking her vision clear. Or at least, they had moved her upstairs so that no sudden breakthrough on the lower floors could liberate the dungeons.
“Pity to waste her,” said the blond man above her. “Can I have a turn?”
“We’ll invite the whole fucking movement,” said Perone, placing his swordbelt aside, and unfastening his pants. “If they won’t let me fight, they must at least let me fuck.” He pulled a knife, inserted it into her underwear leg, and slashed.
Quite strangely, it occurred to Sasha that her hands, pulled back over her head, were close to the blond man’s belt. Did he keep a knife there? Her hands reached and found a hilt. It seemed he did.
She pulled it hard and stuck it in his belly before he could notice what she’d done. The pressure on her arms ceased, and she flipped her legs up, wrapped her ankle chain about Perone’s neck, and pulled as tight with her legs as humanly possible. Perone’s hands grasped the chain, trying to pull it off. Sasha slammed her feet down on the tabletop, and took Perone’s head down with them. His flailing arm struck her, reaching for her throat. Sasha stuck the other man’s knife in it. Perone flung himself sideways, pulling her off the table. They hit the ground together, Sasha careful to brace her legs and not lose the tightness of that loop around his neck. Perone tried to roll away, and Sasha took the opportunity to make a second loop, hooking her ankle again around his head. Then she braced both feet on the floor, and tried to stretch out from the knees as hard as she could, pulling the chain tighter and tighter.
It was a big-link chain. A small-link chain would have been more supple, and cut more tightly. The big link chain took longer, and required more effort. Sasha thought that perfectly fine. Perone’s horrid choking, his desperate agony, his flailing hands and spluttered attempts to beg, scream, cry for help, were all blissful music to her soul.
“I told you I would,” she told him. She had never hated like this. It felt indescribably wonderful.
Perone died sooner than she’d hoped. She didn’t trust it, and stuck the knife in his neck just to be sure. She got up, and found the other man slumped against the far wall, clutching a bloody wound just below his heart. She hadn’t expected to have stuck him so well, but it seemed she was so good with blades these days that her hands knew what to do, even if the mind was elsewhere. He was sobbing and frightened, apparently in too much pain to risk inhaling, and cry out for help. Coward, Sasha thought, searching Perone’s body for a key. She found a ring of them on his belt, dropped with his pants now about his feet. A few moments’ searching found the right key, and she unlocked manacles from wrists and ankles.
No sooner had she done so than the door clanked open once more. Sasha was on her feet in a flash, taking Perone’s sword from its sheath, and was onto the new arrival in quick strides just as he realised what had happened. The man’s reach for his sword ended with Sasha’s blade tearing his throat, the head nearly severed, blood jetting in violent sprays as he fell. It trickled down her face, warm and sticky, as she walked to where the wounded man sat, staring at her in helpless terror.
Sasha knew of no graceful stroke that would kill a seated man, or she would have done it then and there. There was a lot of blood on his hands. She’d driven the knife in almost to the hilt, and none of these Civid Sein wore armour. So close to the heart, there was no surviving such a wound. Better that he died slowly, anyhow.
She took his blade, a short sword like the Steel used, sheath and all. She also took Perone’s coat, as it fitted her better than the big cloak, and would not impede her movement. The knife, she put in the coat’s pocket. Then she padded lightly into the corridor, a naked midlength blade in her right hand, a sheathed short one in her left. Pain blazed with every motion, but it was a welcome price to pay. As against the joy of revenge, pain was nothing. She had tasted the blood of enemies, and like a drunkard sniffing the scent of a brew, she wanted more.
She moved quickly, bare feet soundless on stone, pausing to peer into open doorways before passing. Footsteps gave her warning to duck into one room, as several Civid Sein came into the corridor, then opened the door through which she’d last seen Reynold Hein disappear. She caught a glimpse within before it closed-it was a command room of some sort, perhaps it had a good view of the fighting. There could be quite a few men inside such a room. The thought brought her no pause, only cheer.
She strode calmly to the door, testing the balance of her blade. It had not the length of a svaalverd weapon, its hilt barely long enough for her accustomed two-handed grip, and the balance felt all wrong…but she knew enough one-handed svaalverd extensions to think she would manage. As for the rest, well, she had always liked to improvise. She changed the sword to her left hand, holding it and the sheathed short sword together, and opened the door. There were three high, arched windows on the right wall, before which four men were gathered, behind a large desk. Another three stood about a small table, poring over some parchments. None looked up immediately as
