ducked and darted and killed in a gradual movement towards the very edge of the rooftop.
Around him his opponents fell shooting blood – without feet, hands, arms. They fell without heads. They fell with their stomachs unravelling into their cupped palms. They fell in silence as though asleep. They fell in shouted protest.
They did not stop falling.
‘Back!’ Ash snarled as he spun from the edge of the roof, his feet tottering dangerously over the side.
‘Back!’ he spat again with a shake of his blade, gore sheeting off it.
They listened, at least enough to hesitate, to pull up short. Ash gulped down air as men joined them with crossbows, a few pistols. He wiped the blood from his face, spat it from his mouth. Every part of him drenched in it.
They panted and eyed the crimson-soaked vision with something approaching awe.
A soldier pushed quickly to the front, an officer by the tattoos on his face. ‘Who are you?’ the man enquired.
He sounded genuinely curious.
Ash took in the ragged assembly around him, the crossbows and guns aimed at his body. They looked scared, most of them. Scared and tired.
‘Drop your weapon,’ ordered the officer. ‘Do it now, or die.’
Ash thought it over for a moment, then straightened from his fighting stance and lowered his sword. A flight of geese were crying somewhere in the night sky. He looked up, but couldn’t see them for all the clouds. He felt the breeze run across his face like a breath from the World Mother. His expression softened.
‘You should know,’ he said, looking up at the officer as he sheathed his sword. ‘That I would take my own life first.’ And with the guns and crossbows aimed squarely at his chest, he did the only thing left to do.
Ash jumped.
CHAPTER FORTY
Lonely Ends
It was the water that saved him, not only in breaking his fall but in helping him escape.
Flush with the success of his supreme dive from the warehouse roof, Ash swam beneath the surface until his lungs were burning from lack of air. When he resurfaced the Imperials took some pot shots at him, but he ignored them, and submerged again, kicking hard.
He swam in that way until he was clear of the marina, and continued to swim along the littoral of lakeweed until the sights and sounds of their searching faded away behind him. It grew darker as the clouds massed even thicker overhead. For a time he lay on his back and floated there as the sickness of exhaustion slowly diminished.
Out over the lake the flares continued to rise and fall. It would be risky, trying for the far shore; snipers were no doubt watching the surface for signs of escaping Khosians.
What are you worried about? he asked himself. In your condition you’ll most likely drown first.
Ash trod water and breathed calm breaths until he felt ready. He looked back at the island city. He looked at the far southern shore.
The old farlander began to swim for it.
It was raining now, and the fat drops were bursting against the surface all around him, the chorus of it deafening his ears to all else. The water seemed aglow wherever the drops collided with it.
Ash spat and chanced a look ahead. His last strokes had brought him past the dark mouth of the Chilos while the current had tried to sweep him into it. He could see fires on both sides of the river mouth, and lanterns strung along its banks, throwing their light across it. Men hunkered down next to upright rifles, gazing out at the passing flow.
He kicked and swam on, long past the limits of his endurance. Only his will kept him going now.
The shore here was a flat and treeless floodplain. Ash squinted through the falling rain, saw a glimmer of flames surrounded by the glowing canvas of a tent. Other tents too were clustered across the floodplain. Riders ambled back and forth in the darkness, huddled in their cloaks as they watched the water’s edge.
His limbs were starting to cramp badly now. He could hardly breathe for the fire in his lungs. Ash knew he was going to drown if he stayed in the water any longer. He turned for the shore, paddling like a dog now, his body numb and almost useless. The fall of rain masked any sounds that he made. He felt mud beneath his hands and he scrabbled at it desperately, relief flooding him for a moment. On all fours he crawled out of the water onto a beach of silty mud, and lay for a long time catching his breath.
When he at last rose to his knees he looked left and right along the shore. He was facing a vertical bank of earth topped with straggly grasses, and the beach of mud ran up into deep runnels carved through the bank, water running out of them.
He heard something jingle in the darkness, and lay flat against the mud as he stifled a cough.
A soldier stood on the bank staring outwards. Ash pressed himself deeper into the mud, waited until the man turned away and disappeared in the darkness, calling out to someone beyond.
Quickly, Ash scrabbled up to one of the runnels in the bank. He looked into it, seeing nothing but blackness. Felt the chill of the water running out over his hands.
As he began to slither along the chute, mud splashed into his mouth and his nostrils and his eyes. It covered him and it filled him, until he became one with it, a creature of dirt, a thing still living, still fighting, because it did not know any other way.
She was dying, and the reek of her poisoned body was enough to make the eyes water.
Even with his mask on, it filled Sparus’s mouth with saliva and made him want to spit. He looked down at the panting form of Sasheen, her swollen features, her blue lips. He looked at the head of Lucian sitting silently on the table, and its jar now empty of Royal Milk.
‘Matriarch,’ he said, quietly.
Sasheen stirred, fluttered her eyes open. A wheeze escaped her parted lips. He waited a few moments for her to focus on him.
‘We have trouble,’ he told her plainly.
‘Romano,’ Sasheen replied with a sigh.
‘He’s making his move. His people have been approaching the lower officers of the army with offers of promotion if they will support his claim for Patriarch.’
Her eyes blazed with sudden anger. ‘I’m not even dead yet.’
Nor was Anslan, he recalled, when you slit the Patriarch’s throat in his bed chamber.
She fluttered her hand, beckoning him closer. Her anger was robbing the breath from her, and she spoke in a whisper.
‘And you, Sparus. Has he approached you yet?’
The Archgeneral faltered, taken aback by her bluntness. He supposed she had little time now for subtleties.
‘Yes,’ he confessed, his head low. ‘He has asked for my support.’
Sasheen glanced at the head of Lucian. His eyes were closed, but Sparus had the sense that the man was listening to everything they said.
‘He sees his chance,’ added Sparus. ‘You have not yet named a successor.’
‘I care not… who takes my place in this. Only that it should never be Romano, or one of his clan.’
‘ Holy Matriarch,’ tried Sparus, and he used her title quite intentionally. ‘If we contest his claim it will divide the Expeditionary Force in two. We will be stalled here in Tume fighting amongst ourselves. For the sake of the campaign, we must have this settled now.’
‘You forget yourself, Sparus. There is more at stake here than this venture in Khos. Listen to me. Kill Romano if you can, but do not concede to him.’
‘He would be dead already if it was possible. Our Diplomats are still missing though.’
‘Sparus!’ she spat, and her hand lunged out to clutch his wrist. He felt the burning heat of her touch through
