The Tower Broken(107)

Sarmin sat back in his chair, amazed by what he had seen with his new eyes.

Arigu’s captain had prevailed upon the hospitality of a Fryth sympathiser, who had refused to let him enter with his bounty of illegal slaves. Lord Nessen had ended up dead. But where were the slaves? If the captain had left them at Lord Nessen’s estate in the north, he thought that would have been in the letter. No, somehow the slaves had been brought to the city. Grada and the Grey Service had been watching Lord Nessen’s estate in the Holies. She had told him she saw nothing but food go in.

Sarmin stood and paced. Of course – the slaves were there. That is why she had seen nobody come out.

‘Grada!’ he called, ‘come! You will not believe what I found.’

She entered. Her face was not curious; that was not one of her usual expressions, but what she did show was patient interest. ‘You were right to watch that house and bring me this scroll. Mesema was right to investigate. The Fryth slaves are there.’

Azeem entered behind her, his hands folded around a leather-bound ledger. ‘Azeem!’ Sarmin beckoned him forwards. ‘Send a platoon of Blue Shields to Lord Nessen’s manse in the Holies. There are a number of Felting prisoners there who must be freed.’

As Grada took her place beside Sarmin and leaned down, examining the scroll, Sarmin looked up into the hall – and saw one of his sword-sons turn, place a hand on the hilt of his hachirah and begin to draw it.

‘Grada,’ he said, but it was too late for her to help; the man had already drawn his weapon and clashed blades with someone in the corridor. He heard Ne-Seth give a shout of surprise; in an instant Grada was at the door, the Knife in her hand. He heard a thud as someone fell to the rug in the corridor.

A sword-son entered, a bloody hachirah in his hand, his eyes black as night. A pattern, dark and malicious, had been laid over him, greasy, iridescent half-moons and circles rising from the floor to infect him like rot.

‘Ne-Seth!’ Sarmin called out, his stomach turning with worry, ‘Ne-Seth!’ He heard an answering groan from the corridor.

At the sight of Grada the infected sword-son slashed down at her, but hachirahs were heavy and slow to wield, and Grada was fast. She dodged away from his swing, spun and got inside the reach of his sword before he had even lifted it again. She slid the blade between his ribs with a grating noise.

The sword-son’s eyes cleared to brown as the pattern shrank away from him like a dying vine and disappeared into the floor. He blinked and looked at Sarmin, a question on his mouth, just as another sword-son came behind him and cut through his neck in a gleaming sweep of metal. His head toppled away and hid the floor with a thud, followed immediately by his body. Blood pooled around the man’s severed neck. Sarmin knew the sword-son had been himself in that last moment. He had not known what had been done with his hands, just as Sarmin had not known his own hands had murdered Marke Kavic.

Sarmin felt ill. He pressed a hand against his mouth, stood and turned to the window, taking deep breaths. To his right he could see Govnan’s fires, rising over wall and building, blinding against the night. He knew the blankness lay beyond them, a void against the stars. He closed his eyes.

‘Has the truce ended?’ Azeem asked. Sarmin remembered Arigu’s recommendation to attack first. Would anything have gone differently if he had?

‘Azeem: go, do as I asked and send the Blue Shields to the Holies.’ He did not hear the grand vizier leave, but he knew that he had. The buzzing filled his ears again; he shook it off and ran into the hallway to check on Ne-Seth. The sword-son was alive: a line of red ran from his shoulder to his groin, but it was a shallow cut.

‘Take him to Assar,’ he commanded, and the remaining sword-sons lifted him in their arms and carried him away.

He considered the spray of red on the wall. ‘Grada, I can no longer wait to question the prisoner.’ Didryk had said he did not know how to stop this kind of attack, and Sarmin believed him. But Adam was a second austere, and he might know secrets that were beyond the duke’s rank. The leader of the Mogyrk church – the ruler of Yrkmir – might be testing the Tower, and only Sarmin knew enough to begin to answer the challenge. He would have to try to meet it with all the force the Tower might have had in a better time. If the first austere had known how few the mages were, and how helpless, he would not have held back, testing and evaluating their abilities with his small offensives. He would have attacked outright, and he would have won. But Govnan’s fires in the north must give an entirely different impression of their power. Twice now the high mage had saved them.