“Run!” Nikandr bellowed. “Run!”
He turned and sprinted for the skiffs. Sensing the danger, his men followed, as did most of the Maharraht. They’d gone only ten strides before an explosion ripped through the night. It tossed him like a rag doll onto the snow.
Groaning with the pain running through his chest, he turned and saw stones flying outward from the rear of the building as a fireball, black and roiling, curled up into the air.
He scrabbled backward as stone blocks and burning wreckage plowed into the ground around him. Some sizzled against the snow. A piece of stone the size of a mastiff fell on top of Jonis, the young boatswain, killing him instantly.
More musket shots rained in as the few soldiers who’d made it to their feet descended on the remaining akhoz. Their mewling cries rose above the sounds of the fire. The acrid smell of their breath mixed with the bitter smell of burnt gunpowder.
“Hurry, My Lord!”
Nikandr turned. It was Styophan, and he was pointing toward the skiffs.
“You’re coming with me.”
“ Nyet, My Lord. You’re needed on the skiffs”-he pointed to the Hratha coming slowly up the hill-“and I’m needed here.”
Nikandr looked to the Hratha. They were many, and if they weren’t slowed, they would overrun the skiffs before they had a chance to leave.
“Retreat when you can,” Nikandr said. “Lose yourself in the forest, and then meet us at the Spar.”
“ Da,” Styophan said as he reloaded his musket, “now go!”
He turned and ran forward, pausing once to fire toward the line of dark-robed men that were now halfway up the hill.
Nikandr moved to the skiffs where Anahid waited. She began calling upon her dhoshahezhan immediately.
Two more skiffs were loaded, each holding fewer men than before. Part of this was out of necessity-each barrel weighed nearly a stone-but part was the sheer number of men that had died in the furious battle.
Nikandr helped Soroush up and into his skiff, and they were off. Musket shots tore into the hull, and Nikandr was worried that one would ignite the gunpowder. He heard two shots puncture the hull and the barrels, and then a third, but the ancients were watching over him, and nothing happened.
Soon they were high enough and far enough that the Hratha gave up firing upon them.
By the moon’s pale light, he could see the battle raging, but his men, along with the Maharraht, were already beginning to retreat.
Nikandr put his fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly three times, and soon after, the men turned and ran toward the tree line. He tried to find Styophan but could not. They were too far away, the night too dark.
But then Nikandr recognized something, or some one, through his soulstone. He pulled it from his shirt and held it tightly in his hand.
It was Atiana.
And she was near.
She was out there in the night, with the akhoz and the Hratha. But there was something terribly, terribly wrong. He knew this, for he knew Atiana, and this was not she.
“What is it?” Soroush asked.
Nikandr did not want to admit it to Soroush, but he saw no reason to withhold it. He pointed toward the base of the hill, at the black shapes of the nearest buildings. “Atiana is out there.”
The firefight continued in the distance, but it was softer now, like a memory beginning to fade. Soroush looked to the city of Vihrosh, to the Spar beyond. And then he turned to Nikandr. “Had I not been so blinded with rage, I might have listened to my heart, and Rehada might have been saved.”
Nikandr looked to the Spar himself, the shadows of its arches barely visible against the dark gray of the white cliffs. By the ancients who guide, what should he do? But when he gripped his soulstone and felt Atiana, felt the taint upon her, he knew what he must do.
He nodded to Soroush.
Soroush took up a coiled rope and tossed it over the side. “Anahid, lower the skiff.”
After only a brief pause, Anahid did.
Nikandr felt like he was abandoning them, but he could no more deny this need than he could the need to breathe.
“I’ll find you at the Spar.”
Soroush nodded.
And Nikandr slipped over the side.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
N ikandr padded along snowy ground with the twenty or so men who remained of the battle trailing behind. Styophan moved alongside him with an awkward gait that spoke of the pain he was experiencing. He was wounded. His shoulder had been bound hastily, but he had strength in him yet to fire a musket, and that was all Nikandr could hope for at a time like this.
They had headed deeper into the forest to the north of the city and circled back in the hopes that Atiana would be held at the rear of the train marching steadily toward the Spar.
Among the chill and distant calls of the akhoz, Nikandr’s anxiety had grown worse. Normally when he felt Atiana-or anyone else with whom he’d touched stones-he could sense, however faintly, their mood. Whether they were happy or sad or angry, it shone through their shared connection like a scent upon the wind. But in Atiana he could feel nothing-only her presence-and it terrified him. It was as if she were dead, lying in a room so that he could see her, feel her, but could not communicate with her.
As they left the forest and entered the fields surrounding Vihrosh, he could tell that she was close. She might be near the center of the city now, and he was sure that if she were there, then so would be Muqallad and Sariya. They pushed, marching at the quick, and came to the edge of the city as the sound of battle on the far side of the straits rose to new heights.
As they entered a square with decorative trees, a bird winged down and landed on the cobbled street. It was the gallows crow. “She has been taken,” it said. “You must hurry. You must save her.”
The way the bird spoke those words, it reminded Nikandr of someone, but the thought seemed preposterous. “Ishkyna?”
The crow cawed over and over, a low, sad sound. “Speak not her name!”
Nikandr didn’t understand, but he knew better than to question her. “How?” he asked. “How can I save her?”
“I failed her. Sariya’s hold on her was stronger than I had guessed-much stronger-and now the Atalayina has her in its grasp. She is lost in its depths.” The crow stumbled and fell to the ground, its wings trying ineffectually to help it remain standing. He could see something clutched in one of its talons, which it dropped onto the cobbles. The thing clinked and made a shink sound as the crow hopped away. “Take it to her, Nischka. I hope it will return her to herself.”
With that the crow shivered along its whole length. It regained its feet and flew off in a rush, as if it had just then awoken to find itself among men in a place it had never been.
Nikandr reached down and found a necklace, a soulstone necklace, and he knew just by touching it that it was Atiana’s. How the crow had come by it, and how Atiana had lost it, he didn’t know, but he was glad to have it. It gave him hope.
“Hers?” Styophan asked.
“ Da.”
“What do we do now?”
Nikandr pulled Atiana’s soulstone necklace over his head. It felt good to have it resting next to his own.
