First Lord's Fury (Page 72)

Amara stared at him hard for a moment, blinking tears from her eyes. "Those weren’t feral furies," she said. "They were yours, disguised."

"Obviously, Cursor. Honestly, do you think I would stand about completely unprotected when the slightest disturbance would result in my death? When a person with a great deal of dangerous personal knowledge about me is running about with the vord during an assault?" He paused reflectively. "I regret that I couldn’t tell you or your Count what I was doing, but it would rather have defeated the point."

"You risked our lives," Amara said. "Wounded some of your own bodyguards. And you didn’t even know that she would show herself."

"Incorrect," he replied. He knelt to begin picking up the unconscious Bernard. "Invidia has an acute talent for sensing weakness and exploiting it."

There was a hissing sound, and a slender sword, its blade a shaft of vord green fire, abruptly emerged from the stone beneath Attis’s feet and thrust up into his groin. Attis screamed and flung himself away from the blade, which cut its way free of his body with a sizzling, hissing wail. He only barely managed to stumble aside as a three-foot circle of stone roof exploded upward and outward.

A figure emerged from below, all black chitin and scorched flesh, holding the blazing green blade in its hand. It was bald, its scalp burned black. Amara could scarcely have recognized Invidia if not for the quivering, pulsing, agonized movements of the badly scorched creature that clung to her over her heart. "I do know how to exploit weakness," she hissed, her voice a rasping croak, "such as your insufferable tendency to gloat after a victory, Attis."

Attis lay on the rooftop, white as a sheet. His right hand twitched in what seemed a complete lack of controlled movement. Both legs were limp. He wasn’t bleeding, but the white-hot blades the high Citizenry employed almost always cauterized wounds. Only the fact that he was propped up against the roof ‘s stone rim prevented him from simply lying supine.

His left hand moved jerkily to his jacket, then emerged with a paper envelope. He flicked it weakly across the distance to Invidia, and it landed touching her feet. "For you. Love what you’ve done with your hair."

Invidia bared her teeth in a smile. Blood ran from her burned lips. Her teeth and the whites of her eyes were eerie against the unbroken black scorching of her face. "And what is this?"

"Your copy of the divorce papers."

"How thoughtful."

"Necessary. I couldn’t legally be rid of you until I had served them."

Invidia’s smile didn’t waver as she walked forward, sword hissing as its flames caressed the cool air. "You’re rid of me now."

He inclined his head in a mocking bow, his face a mask of calm disdain. "And that not soon enough."

"For either of us," she purred.

There was a raptor’s cry and a small falcon of white-hot fire hammered into the rooftop at Invidia’s feet, spreading in an instant into a blazing wall between her and Attis.

Amara’s exhausted gaze rose to the skies, where half a dozen fliers, the weapons of each and every one of them ablaze with fire, were already stooping into a dive that would carry them down to the embattled rooftop. They dived in an irregular wedge, and Placidus Aria led the way, burning sword in hand, the hems of her skirts snapping and tearing in the speed of her flight.

Attis began to let out weak, choking, scornful laughter.

"Bloody crows," Invidia snarled. She spun and flung herself off the back side of the building, vanishing from sight even as wind began to howl, carrying her into a heavy smoke cloud.

Amara clung to Bernard as three of the new arrivals settled on the roof while the other three stayed aloft. Old High Lord Cereus, his white hair orange in the firelight, came down beside the Lord and Lady of Placida, while Phrygius, his son, and High Lord Riva stood guard in the air.

"Aria," Amara called. "The Princeps needs a healing tub, immediately."

"Hardly," Attis said, his tone calm. "That’s rather the point of firecrafting the sword’s blade, after all. It’s all but impossible to heal a cauterized wound."

"Oh, be quiet," Amara snapped. After clenching her jaws for a moment, she added, "Your Highness."

Aria went to Gaius Attis, took a brief look at his injuries, and shook her head. "The city is lost. We’re rendezvousing with the Legions’ rear guard now. We’ve got to move."

"As you wish," Attis said. "Thank you, by the way, for intervening. I’d hate to give her the satisfaction."

"Don’t thank me," Aria replied tartly. "Thank Amara. Without her warning, I might not be alive at all." She bent over, grunted, and hauled the wounded man up and over one armored shoulder.

"Hurry!" called one of the men above them. "The vord have breached the wall!"

Without a word, High Lord Placida picked up Bernard. Cereus slipped one of Amara’s arms over his shoulders and lifted her to stand beside him, favoring her with a kindly smile. "I hope you don’t mind letting me do the honors, Countess."

"Please," Amara said. She felt quite dizzy. "Feel free."

The six of them lifted off the roof in a roar of wind, and Amara saw little point in staying awake for what followed.

Chapter 22

The ice ships flew over the bitterly cold miles at a speed that, at times, beggared the wind that drove them. Marcus felt fairly sure that such a feat was mathematically impossible by any reasonable standard. The captain of the ship he rode upon had been to the Academy, or so he claimed. He said something about the momentum upon the slight downhill slopes gradually adding up, and that the pressure on the ships’ steel runners actually turned the ice immediately beneath them into a thin layer of water.

Marcus didn’t care about explanations. It all seemed awfully shady to him.

The fleet stopped every six hours, to make repairs that were inevitably made necessary by the battering the wooden hulls endured and to give ships that had been forced to stop for repairs a chance to catch up with the rest of them. Marcus savored the rests. The entire fleet had seen the wreckage of the ships that had overbalanced and failed, and there wasn’t a thinking being among them who hadn’t realized exactly what condition his corpse would be in should his own ship run afoul of bad fortune.

But the most recent rest period had been a mere hour ago. The next would not come until after dawn.

Marcus stood in the prow of the ship as it followed its companions east. The night sky had not yet begun to brighten with the approach of dawn, but it couldn’t be far away. He watched the fleet soar over the endless ice road before them for a time, his thoughts turning in circles that slowly grew quieter and less important. A little while later, when the first blue light had begun to form in the east, Marcus yawned and turned to pace back down the deck toward the closet-sized room that was his cabin for some sleep. He didn’t know if the jolting ship would allow him any rest, but at least, for a change, his own thoughts wouldn’t be keeping him from his sleep.