Afanan reined in beside him.With a flourish, she produced an opal and crushed it.A howl of conjured wind whirled out from her hand, bringing with it a thick, unnatural fog.
‘Hurry, Llewyn,’ she said, reaching down to him as the fog hid them from the Huntress and her rimewolf.‘Get on!’
He shook his head.‘Lead her… right to Siwan,’ he said through a gasp of pain.‘Have to… lead her away.’
He wanted to add, ‘What are you doing here?Leave me!’But every word brought a spasm of agony.Afanan frowned in worry and confusion.
‘You’re hurt, Llewyn,’ she said.‘You can’t hope to win this fight.’
‘Don’t need… to win.’He hissed again, pitched forward as a pulse of pain sapped the strength from his legs.She caught him by the shoulder.Some unspoken calculation passed behind her eyes.Without a word, she hauled him up into the saddle in front of her, ignoring his groans.
‘Take Siwan to Fola,’ she said, dismounting.‘I’ll buy you time.’He could only gasp for breath, but she must have seen an unvoiced protest on his face.‘Which of us stands a chance of surviving this fight?’
Neither of them did.This was how it was always going to end, from the moment he took off his ring and accepted Afanan’s invitation to the troupe.He had believed he could escape his fate, claw back a semblance of a life.But his life had been sold when he was still a child to a power that would never give him up.All he could do now was place himself between the Grey Lady and the people he cared for, to use his body as a barricade, slow her wrath, and give them a slim chance to escape.
It was his duty to die here, not Afanan’s.
‘Don’t… trade your life… for mine…’ he begged.
She gave him one last smile.‘I’ve already seen the City, Llewyn.You should, too.To glimpse a vision, at least, of what is possible, and what I tried to build.’
Afanan turned to face the Huntress, producing a chalcedony in one hand and a peridot in the other, even as a wash of flame swept through her conjured fog and burned it away.She slapped Midnight’s rump with the heel of her hand.The palfrey took off with a start, her pace increasing with a terrified scream as Afanan cracked both gemstones.A burst of lightning and grasping shadows lanced towards the Huntress.It took all Llewyn’s strength to face forward, to keep in the saddle as Midnight’s galloping sent wave after wave of agony through him.
She would get herself killed.And for what?To savehim?Siwan needed Afanan far more.Her magic had bound the raven fiend, and might be needed to bind it again.She was giving him no choice but to align himself with Fola and her City, against his better judgement.
The anger was a comfort.It kept grief from layering a different sort of pain over the scrape and fire of his broken rib.
A pulsing darkness filled the corners of his vision as Midnight carried him into camp.The sight of Siwan, terrified behind Damon on Mable, the chestnut mare from the wagon team, restored his clarity and focus.Harwick and Spil appeared leading Mable’s pulling partner, a roan gelding called Rusty.The horse tossed his head, frightened by the furious outpouring of Spil’s questions and arguments.
‘Llewyn!’Spil said, his attention and his anger snapping from his husband.‘What’s going on?Where’s Afanan?Why are we abandoning camp like this and scattering to the four winds?And …’ His anger bled away into worry.‘Stones, Llewyn, you look like death.’
Llewyn took a breath, wincing, and braced himself to speak.‘No time…’
‘Mount up behind him,’ Harwick said, stepping into Rusty’s stirrup.‘And keep him in the saddle.He looks fit to pitch over.Midnight can handle the both of you, for a while at least.’
Llewyn swallowed a pained yell as Spil, his objections forgotten, pulled himself into place.‘Llewyn, what is going on?’Less a challenge, now, more a hope for the comfort of an explanation.But Llewyn had spent his words.Every breath was raking fire.
‘To The Garland, then,’ Harwick said firmly.‘Fola might be able to patch him up so we can get a full bloody explanation.’
They turned the horses.Llewyn met Siwan’s eyes, full of confusion and fear.He could only nod.A paltry reassurance, but enough for her to smile weakly back and look away.And that was, to him, comfort enough.
Afanan had bought them a few moments.He could only hope Fola could buy more, and at less steep and dear a cost.
Flight
YC 1189
A fascinating question, Hierophant.‘What if the City were to go to war?’I must admit I cannot conceive of an answer.We are fierce in our own defence, and in the pursuit of our interests, but have never had need forwar.A dark day it would be.One to rival, I should think, the terror and chaos of the First Folk’s Vanishing.
Letter from Archivist Tan Semn to Hierophant Adhamha III of Goll,YC1163
‘Colm!’Fola shouted across the courtyard of the Garland Inn.An impulse, badly restrained.The templar Anwe—Fola recalled her name from her introduction to the court—shot a quick glance over her shoulder.She gave a wolfish smile.
‘I’d wondered where you were,’ Anwe said.She kicked aside trampled vines and shards of shattered trellis and circled slowly until she faced both Fola and Colm.The three horns of her corona cast her face in flickering light, as though she stood at the heart of a bonfire.Light that gleamed along the edge of her sword, a massive wedge of raw iron.Its tip drifted up, threatening.‘Hopefully things’ll be more interesting with the both of you.’
Frog whimpered and nestled deeper in his swaddling against Fola’s chest.She took quick stock of the situation.By the look of the shattered trellis, cracked window, and the broken table legs Colm hefted as clubs, their duel had started in the common room and spilled out into the courtyard.Guests peeked from the second-floor windows, their fear not yet sufficient to overcome their curiosity.
Fola muttered a curse.
