No Present Like Time

Wrenn stood his ground. A sailor tried to pass his sword to Wrenn, but Gio severed his hand still clutching the hilt. Numbly, the sailor bent to retrieve his sword but he had no hand to pick it up with.

I circled above Wrenn, calling encouragement. He looked desperate; blood flowed down his face. He searched out the last of his strength and stood tall as if he had found hope, but I thought he was acting because Gio didn’t respond. Wrenn feinted. Gio attacked with a move like a sneer. Wrenn evaded, left his dagger arm exposed, too low. Gio’s rapier penetrated between his fingers, slid through his hand and up his arm under the skin. The point issued from his elbow in a patter of blood. Wrenn’s hand opened, his dagger fell.

It’s over, I thought; but Wrenn had trapped Gio’s sword. Wrenn’s rapier forced Gio’s other blade far to the left, disengaged and thrust. His hilt slammed into Gio’s chest.

Gio hunched; about a meter of bright steel projected from his back. A red patch darkened his coat around it. Wrenn pulled the hilt down, tearing his lungs. Gio staggered, blood spitting from his mouth. Wrenn couldn’t hold Gio’s weight on the blade and dropped it, leaving him sprawling transfixed by the rapier. Gio’s blade snagged in Wrenn’s arm tore out through the muscle making a gaping wound.

Gio lay curled up. He coughed around the blade. Blood sprang from his mouth onto the pavement, dribbled from his lips. He didn’t breathe in again. Died.

Awndyn soldiers rushed to Wrenn and supported him. His fingers scrabbled, trying to stick the edges of the gash back together. Blood ran down into his mouth and he smiled. He had deliberately caught Gio’s blade in his arm, in a furious variation of the same attack that had won him immortality a year ago.

Wrenn struck out with his fists at the soldiers trying to calm him. He fainted, so they picked him up and I led them to the Stormy Petrel.

I picked up a sheaf of arrows and a bottle of water, and my horn that I sound to give commands on the battlefield. I flew back to Fifth Street and landed near Lightning. He looked exhausted but grateful as I sprinted past, called, “Gio’s dead!” dumped the ammunition and bottle while still running, took off.

I swept low over the rebels and shouted, “Gio has fallen; give yourselves up!”

The whole front of the column who had seen the duel, and several more, especially the girls, surrendered to the Awndyn Fyrd. The rear dissolved, rebels becoming looters or fugitives. Many became disoriented and I saw them running farther into the meshed streets. But the leaderless center of the column and the men who had killed Mist knew they were doomed. A new sort of aggression flared among them, affected by desperation, the strangeness of Capharnaum and the rum they had drunk.

There was a tangible atmosphere of possibility and menace. Instantly the five hundred rebels in the main street acted as if they were a single being, powerful, euphoric with it, and mad. I sensed their vigor and my pulse raced. Anything could happen; everything was happening-the riot obeyed no laws at all. The youths were at home with it; it was their atmosphere. They ran in large ragged groups. They all thought: why not take the wealth that surrounds us, in an abundance we’ve never been allowed before? The strength of individuals was nothing compared with the violence of the crowd-they tore the shopfronts apart. They were bent on spending everything in the town in one hysterical surge. They brought out bakers’ trolleys and smashed them into caryatid statues. They infected each other to screaming pitch rejoicing at their own bodies’ force, their freedom and their sudden riches. No future prospects Capharnaum could offer them were as good as the fun they could have trashing it. From the air I saw a mass of people sweeping away from the boulevard. They spiraled around ransacked shops like the eye of a storm.

The burning crag’s jumping unnatural light lit the quay. Gio’s men were now just pirates, plundering the surrounding houses. They dragged out tables, threw lamps into sheets and bundled them up. Fights broke out between them: men stabbed and punched each other over any precious-looking metal. They broke furniture and hefted the pieces as clubs.

Bricks were hurled against the houses’ upper windows, and when a Capharnai man leaned out and shouted, they threw bricks at his face. The pirates gathered cutlery and amphorae but discarded them when gold gleamed. So much gold, it was like the Castle’s treasury. They hastily lashed together enormous packs of objects with their belts. When each had plundered all he could carry, he set off to the Pavonine leaving wailing and raging Capharnai families behind them.

Some Capharnai defended themselves. A group of fishermen threw a huge weighted net over thieves escaping from a house. As they struggled under it, the fishermen stabbed them with marlin-spikes and tridents that sloughed dried white scales.

A group of Trisian lads came out of one house carrying sacks to loot food, kicking the door of a restaurant. Thick olive-oil smoke ribboned from its cellar grating. Little fires had been kindled at irregular intervals on the boulevard. The rioters set alight waste bins and chairs; I could see no reason why, apart from the lust to cause as much havoc as possible. I yelled, “Stop destroying this wonderful town!” The ones that heard me started laughing.

There was no hope of catching the rioters without abandoning our own wounded men. I ordered the fyrd to pull back to the Petrel. At the foot of the gangplank the Awndyn unit had formed a barricade. They leveled pikes above a shield wall. Some fyrd regrouped there, but in equal numbers those who spied the gold were unlinking their shields and deserting to join the looters. Archers on the Petrel’s fore-and rear-castles sent sporadic volleys down at the pirates crossing the quay, who had no choice but to run through the hail of arrows to the Pavonine.

Thieves poured up the Pavonine’s gangways carrying their prizes or dragging their wounded friends. I flew over the Stramash and Cuculine, puzzled; their decks were on the same level as the water. They had been scuttled; they sat empty and perfectly upright, their keels on the sea bed. Their main decks were swamped with lapping waves, from which their castles projected like four square islands.

The crews of all three ships were at work unfurling and setting the Pavonine’s sails. Others, yelling, waved their friends aboard. Poleaxes and spears looked like metal hackles standing up on the ship’s back.

I glided above Pavonine’s deck and saw Tirrick, and Cinna. Tirrick had Cinna Bawtere at rapier point, forcing him to steer the ship. Cinna clung to the wheel, shaking visibly, his porcine face set in a grimace. Tirrick, however, smiled rapaciously. He shouted, “Climb aboard! We’ll sink the Petrel, then pack provisions and sail for Awndyn! I’ll be the next Serein and fatty will be the next Mist!”

Cinna glanced up at me and scowled. He had a length of chain around his middle, worn by fearful sailors so if they fell overboard their suffering would have a quick end.

I shouted, “Cinna, don’t you dare leave!”

He told me to go and do something unspeakable with a goat.

Sailors on the harbor cast Pavonine’s mooring ropes loose and swarmed up. The ship grated along the quayside with looters still chucking bags onto the deck and catching lines to haul themselves up.

Those left behind turned their attention to the Petrel. Small groups of rebels gathered out of range on the villa verandas; they began to coalesce, ready to attack the Petrel’s gangway in a desperate bid to hijack her. I thought of Rayne; I would not let anyone hurt the Doctor. She was my adviser, Lightning’s confidante and devoted friend. Lightning would be even more shattered than he already is, if anything happened to Rayne.

I have seen Mist die and Serein badly wounded. I have left Lightning faltering his way through the outskirts of town. The only books to escape the firestorm are in my pocket. I don’t know how many Trisians have succumbed but their houses, their shops and the harbor are despoiled. Cinna was sailing off with their belongings, surrounded by pirates and protected by Tirrick. The remnants of Gio’s men were completely beyond control. Our forces were disheartened and either retreating or deserting.

I needed everyone in the riot to listen to me, to stop and look up so I could shatter the hysteria that gripped them. I must attract their attention with a gesture more powerful than Gio’s last stand. But how? None of my