chisels that could serve the purpose. Many dangled sacks in their hands, or bore them slung across their shoulders. One fellow pushed a barrow full of bundles. The wheels squeaked and rumbled on the cobblestones.
There'd been a sentry posted at the far end of the street. He must have tried to turn these people back. Bareris wondered how badly the mob had hurt him.
He also wished he and Tammith were wearing armor. Although no one had specifically ordered them to quell unrest and protect the fleet, in an emergency, it was their duty even so.
'I'm going to try to turn them back without fighting,' he said. 'Don't hurt anyone unless you have to.'
Tammith nodded. 'My abilities aren't like yours. I can't tamper with so many minds at the same time. But I'll help as much as I'm able.'
He crooned a charm that made him appear a shade handsomer and taller, more sympathetic and commanding, in the eyes of anyone who beheld him. Then he smiled and ambled toward the mob as if they were all staunch friends. Tammith kept pace beside him.
'Good evening, Goodmen,' he said, infusing his voice with the magic of influence. 'What's going on?'
A big man at the front of the pack, a trowel clutched in one fist and both arms banded with tattooed rings, glared at him. 'We're taking a ship. Or ships, if we can't all fit on one.'
'Why?' Bareris asked.
'Because the blue fire is coming.'
'No, it isn't, and if someone told you otherwise, he was simply repeating a baseless rumor. I'm not wearing my insignia at present, but I'm an officer of the Griffon Legion. I hear what the scouts and soothsayers discover, and I give you my word, nobody has seen any blue flame moving toward Bezantur.'
'What about Szass Tam?' shrilled a voice rising from farther back in the throng. 'Are you going to tell us he isn't coming?'
'No,' Bareris said, 'he probably is, but even he won't be able to get inside the city walls. No enemy could. You'll be far safer here than trying to sail to some foreign land. The same upheavals that shake the land are raising huge waves at sea. The depths are giving birth to strange new creatures.'
'The nobles don't think it's safer to stay,' said the man with the trowel. 'Everybody knows they're getting ready to sail away and leave us 'lowly Rashemi' behind to die.'
'Once again, I give you my word. They haven't made any such decision.'
'We're done listening to you, legionnaire. We're going. If you want, you can come along. If not, you'd be wise to step aside.'
Since the mason seemed to be a leader of sorts, Bareris targeted an enchantment of persuasion at him specifically. 'I won't do that, because I'm trying to save your lives. The ships are well protected. Their crews are sleeping onboard, and the zulkirs have other troops and wizards stationed in the warehouses adjacent to the piers. If you proceed any farther, someone will spot you and sound the alarm. Then all those legionnaires and wizards will rise from their hammocks and bedrolls and slaughter you.'
The big man took a deep breath. 'Or we'll kill them.'
'There are mothers and children at the back of the crowd,' Tammith whispered. 'I can hear them talking to one another.'
'No,' said Bareris, still addressing the big man, 'you won't. You can't win. I understand you're brave and determined, but the soldiers have armor, superior weapons, and the training to put them to good use. They also have sorcery backing them. If you press on, you can only die, and watch your wives and babies hacked to pieces alongside you. Is that what you want?'
The man with the trowel swallowed. 'You said it yourself. At this time of night, most of the soldiers are asleep. If-'
Tammith stepped forward. Her eyes gleamed and she snarled, exposing her extended fangs. A sudden feeling of foulness and menace radiated from her, and even Bareris flinched back a step.
'Idiots!' she cried. 'You know what Red Wizards can do. What they
For a heartbeat, the mob stood and gaped at her. Then the big man dropped his trowel, and it clanked on the street. He turned and bolted, shoving into the mass of humanity behind him.
When he panicked, so did his fellows. They all ran.
Tammith laughed an ugly little laugh and took a stride after them. Bareris caught her by the forearm.
Fangs still bared, she rounded on him, glared, and then seemed to remember who he was, or perhaps who they were together. The chatoyant sheen left her eyes, and the long pointed canines retracted.
'I'm sorry,' she said.
'Don't be. You did that brilliantly.'
She smiled. 'We did it together. Your magic softened them up, and afterward I thought that if I could throw a scare into the leader, they'd all lose their nerve.'
'I'm glad we were able to chase them off before any of them came to grief.'
'Believe it or not, so am I. They're just frightened people trying to survive. They don't deserve punishment for that.'
Trumpets blew, and someone screamed. Crossbows clacked, discharging their bolts.
'Damn it!' Bareris cried. Prompted by instinct, he dashed toward the water, and Tammith sprinted at his side.
When he looked up and down the boardwalk at the end of the lane, with the docks extending out into the surf beyond, he saw what he'd feared he might. He and Tammith had turned back the troublemakers advancing down one particular street, but those misguided souls had been only one contingent of a far bigger mob converging on the harbor. Emerging from other points, the malcontents were trying to fight their way toward the docked vessels, while lines of legionnaires formed to hold them back. Other soldiers scrambled from the warehouses to reinforce them, and sailors leaped from the decks of their long, sleek ships.
The violence exploding on every side made Bareris and Tammith's little coup in the cause of peace and public order feel like a bitter joke. But there was nothing to do now but stand with their fellow soldiers.
So they did. Whenever possible, Bareris sang songs of fear to force rioters to turn tail before anybody had to kill them. But he still had to bloody his sword, and the necessity sickened him as it seldom had before.
Light and heat flared behind him, and he risked a glance backward. Flames leaped up from the prow of a warship.
It didn't make sense that a rioter had started the fire. None of them were anywhere near it, and besides, they wanted to steal the vessels, not destroy them. Bareris suspected that one of the wizards on his own side was responsible. He'd been trying to hurl flame at the enemy, and because of the problems with sorcery, the spell turned against him.
But that didn't make much sense, either. Bareris had seen his share of battle magic, and incendiary spells usually flew in a straight line. A wizard onboard the ship wouldn't have had such a clear path to the foe. Legionnaires were in the way.
But if someone had been trying to hit the vessel with a flaming arrow or spell, the best way would be to shoot from an elevated position. Squinting, he peered upward.
At first he saw nothing to justify his sudden, half-formed suspicions. But then he spotted a point of light like a firefly. It was an arrowhead, glowing as if the point had just been forged.
He could just make out the dark figure holding the shaft. And other archers creeping around on a warehouse rooftop.
He started a song to shift himself through space. He was only halfway through when one of the black-clad bowmen loosed a shaft. The arrow lodged in the foremast of another ship, and flames instantly roared up the spar. The missiles had to carry a potent enchantment to spark such a prodigious blaze so quickly.
The world shattered into blurry streaks, and then Bareris was standing on the sloping, shingled rooftop. He'd cast the spell to position himself behind the three archers, and moving quickly but silently despite the pitch, he stalked up behind the nearest and drove his sword into his back.
The bowman made a croaking noise as he toppled forward. Despite the clamor rising from the struggle below, it was loud enough to alert his comrades, and they both jerked around in time to see his corpse roll down
