Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

Legate Amadou Barry reined up beside us, accompanied by a dozen Roman guardsmen in swirling red-and-gold capes and carrying burnished round shields more decorative than useful. Amadou bent from the saddle with the ease of a man accustomed to horseback and reached for Bee, meaning to sweep her up. She leaped back, the kitchen knife flashing as she took a swipe at him.

“I’m not yours to take!” she cried.

“You must get out of here! A riot’s about to break out. It isn’t safe.”

“Safer here than in a golden cage.”

“Beatrice, you have no idea of the cruelties of the world. I will protect you.”

“Legate, you have no idea of how condescending you sound. I’m not interested in your kind of protection.”

Had I ever thought him a diffident and humble young man? He was not even arrogant. He was simply a man of such exalted rank that he existed above considerations like arrogance and humility. He grabbed Bee’s wrist and twisted until she dropped the knife. “You’re coming with me.”

Rory leaped. He slammed into Amadou, and Bee jerked free as both men went tumbling to the ground. Guardsmen converged. A sword flashed down at my brother’s head. I parried with my cane as Rory rolled away. A cane made of wood would have been riven by steel, but the soldier’s blade shivered to a dead stop with a ringing shringgg. Rory jumped to his feet, yanked the rider’s leg out of the stirrup, and heaved him off the other side.

Bee grabbed the knife and sliced the bridle of Amadou’s mount. The harness slipped. We retreated toward the gate as Amadou Barry got to his feet, his expression so blank I wondered if he had actually lost his temper. The bridle was a loss.

On the other side of the gate, the crack of firearms split the air, punctuated by furious howls and the stiffly barked commands of a military captain: “Turn! Make formation!” More reports answered, sharp and short. The Roman guardsmen looked startled. Those were not muskets.

“Rifles!” shouted a male voice from afar. “Fire again, lads! We’ve got the muscle now! They’re only got swords and pistols!”

From the militia, in answer: “Charge!?”

“Run!” I cried.

We pelted up the lane away from the old gate. The roar of a full-fledged battle crashed over us. People squeezed through the archway, disrupting the Roman guardsmen as they tried to assemble around their legate. With swords drawn and crossbows leveled, the men drew into a tight formation. Bricks flew from the crowd. The curve of the lane took us out of sight.

“Blessed Tanit!” cried Bee, near tears, “let him not be harmed! Oh, how hateful he was!”

“I wish you would make up your mind!” The noise of a district ablaze with fighting echoed around us, as if every lane, alley, and dank alcove had gone up in flames. “He’s not at all what I first thought he was.”

“That’s why it makes me so angry!” She looked ready to carve her anger into one of the houses we passed. “I thought I could trust him, but I can’t!”

A deep vibration knifed through my body. The somber bass of the bell dedicated in the temple of Ma Bellona, he who is valiant at the ford, cried across the city. The authoritative tenor of the bell dedicated in the temple of Komo Vulcanus, who keeps his secrets, answered. The sister bells joined, followed by the droll bass of Esus-at-the-Crossing and Sweet Sissy’s laughing alto. Last and most unexpectedly, because it was so rare, the raw contralto of the queen of bells, the matron of plenty and protection who guarded the shrine of Juno Lennaya, filled the air with a din that shook houses. Through the voice of its bells, Adurnam had joined in the conflagration.

We pressed on. The cursed lane tossed us straight back into the churning chaos of a street as wide as Enterprise Road. Its pavement was lined with the newest gaslight fixtures, although half of the glass shades had been shattered. The sheer mass of people surging along the street brought us up short. Everyone was shouting and cursing, the buzzing of voices like a nest of angry bees.

Rory used the bags to batter a way through the crowd. We plowed in his wake.

“Watch it!” A man threatened me with a cane. My blow broke it in half, and he fell back.

As we reached another intersection locked with wagons and carts, thunder rumbled.

Rory cocked his head. “That’s not horses.”

Bee pointed to a shop whose sign bore a clock-faced owl. “There! We have to go in there.”

We reached the awning. Bee opened the door and went in with Rory. An icy taste ground through the gritty flavor of coal smoke. My ears popped as the air changed. My sword’s hilt burned. I shut the door hard behind us, shop bell jangling.

The man at the counter had silver hair, spectacles, and a shop full of ticking clocks, no two of which showed the same time. He set down calipers.

“Maester,” I said, “begging your pardon for the intrusion, but if you have shutters, I recommend you close your shop now. A storm’s coming.”

“Maester Napata, they’re here,” he called, not to us. “Just as you said they’d be.”

A howl of wind shook the windows. Hail pummeled the streets like the peppershot of muskets. People scattered, seeking shelter anywhere they could. The shop door burst open and a dozen weathered toughs in patched laborers’ coats staggered in. One had a bloody nose, which he was staunching with a crumpled handbill. Another held a hand over his ear. A third brandished a brick, cursing magisters and princes in equal measure. They fell silent as a young man stepped out past a curtain.

The man’s uncanny blanched features might have been those of a ghost called from the miserable gloom of Sheol. Then he saw Bee, and he blushed, easy to see because he was an albino. He was no ghost. He served the headmaster of the academy.