In the explosion of activity, Tan had caught up with Kaden, seizing him by the forearm.
“We go now,” he barked, “if I have to knock you over the head and carry you.” Adrift in his own shock and confusion, Kaden allowed himself to be led, looking back over his shoulder at Pyrre as he went.
The other soldiers were down, either fallen beneath the merchant’s blades or the quarrels of their invisible assailant. With a growl, Ut swung his sword in that wide terrible arc that had almost taken off Pyrre’s head the day before. Kaden stared, unable to tear his eyes from the inevitable. This strange woman had defended him, saved him, and now she was going to die. The sword sliced through the air and Pyrre simply … wasn’t there. Even as Ut tensed for the blow, the merchant rolled beneath the attack while the Aedolian’s blade swung harmlessly into the night. Then it was Ut’s turn to look shocked, and a moment was all Pyrre gave him.
The merchant’s knives flashed, first high, then low, probing, pressing—so fast, it seemed she must have five or six spinning between her fingers rather than the two Kaden had seen when she walked so calmly into the slaughter. Ut was quicker than his men, however, and wearing heavier armor.
As the two circled each other in the center of the yard, a man’s voice hissed from the shadows. Kaden turned to see Jakin, a crossbow in his right hand, Triste’s arm clasped roughly in his left. He was dressed in his customary tunic and breeches, as though he never went to bed, as though he had expected the sudden outburst of violence.
“Worry about yourselves,” he snapped. “Pyrre Lakatur has lived long in the shadow of Ananshael. She will meet us later, if the god wills.”
Kaden felt Tan stiffen at his side. He looked over at the monk, surprised to see his mouth twisting with some sort of emotion. Tan started to speak, but more soldiers were already flooding into the square, slowed for the moment by the sight of their commander locked in a duel.
“I need to find Akiil,” Kaden insisted. “He’s in the dormitory.”
“The dormitory is crawling with Aedolians,” the man shot back.
“Then kill them!” he replied, gesturing to Jakin’s crossbow.
“This is useless indoors,” he spat. “Your friend’s dead, or he will be dead. I’ve been paid well not to let you join him.”
Kaden hesitated, but Tan took him by the arm with that implacable grip.
“Now!” he said. With a wordless shout of rage, Kaden turned, and the four of them rushed past the stone dormitory, past the screaming and bellowed commands, past the flames licking from the meditation hall, and into the night.
They raced up the trail to the Circuit of Ravens, Tan keeping pace despite his bulk, Triste and Jakin stumbling every so often on the unfamiliar stones. Kaden tried to shut out the sounds echoing at his back: harsh orders barked in the darkness, the clash of steel on steel, screaming. The scene of Pater’s death kept running through his mind, and he realized sickly that the boy would not be the only one murdered that night. Kaden thought back to his words—I heard them, Kaden, “Make sure they’re all dead.…” Jakin had insisted that the monks in the dormitory were already dead, but Akiil was no ordinary monk. He was fast and smart. He’d learned to stay alive in the alleys of Annur before he was ever carted off to Ashk’lan. He would have been sleeping in the dormitory with the rest of the monks, but surely he’d heard something. If he could win free of the immediate carnage, he could lose himself in the rocks for days. Had he escaped? Or had Kaden already heard his dying scream? Nausea filled him.
Near the top of the ridgeline, just below the notch that would lead over the saddle and into the shallow defile beyond, Jakin pulled up sharply. Kaden started to ask what was wrong, but the man glared him into silence, then inched his head up over the rise. After only a moment, he pulled back with a low curse.
“What is it?” Kaden whispered, his throat tight.
“Men.”
“With you?”
“There is no one with us,” he hissed. “When they sent us to protect you from assassins, they forgot to mention that the assassins were an entire regiment of the Emperor’s own ’Kent-kissed Aedolian Guard.”
“What about that?” Triste asked, gesturing to the crossbow.
Jakin hefted it with disgust. “Only one quarrel left. I didn’t count on having to use so many down below.” As they spoke, Kaden realized with a sickening lurch that the sounds of slaughter behind them had ceased. Sooty red tongues of flame licked against the night sky, casting shifting shadows on the rocks around them. So they were finished with the monks, and presumably their own slaves as well. It doesn’t take long to kill two hundred people, Kaden thought hollowly, staring back over his shoulder until Tan broke into his daze.