Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [193]
"Could we make it?" I asked Joscelin.
"No," he said grimly. "Not with this many of us. There are barracks within the walls, outside the palace proper. The secondary garrison would cut us up piecemeal. Our only hope is to take Daršanga and bar the doors."
"Joscelin!" It was Imriel's voice, high and piercing, echoing off the walls. He approached at a dead run from the corner of the corridor.
"You had him posted as a sentry?" I hissed to Joscelin. "You call that safe?"
"It was his idea," he said to me, and to Imriel, "What is it?"
"It's starting." He drew up, panting and white-faced, delivering his words in a breathless mix of D'Angeline and zenyan. "Jolanta . . . Phèdre! . . . Jolanta killed a man, in the hall, and they're . . . they're . . .
and one followed . . ." He turned and pointed. "Behind me."
Someone screamed as the Skotophagotis following Imriel appeared at the end of the corridor, near-invisible in the darkness save for his skull-helm and girdle, and his outraged face. He leveled his ebony staff at the assembled crowd, who scattered for the walls.
Joscelin whirled. I never even saw him draw a dagger, only the flash of it as it flew end-over-end, burying itself in the priest's throat. The Skotophagotis crumpled.
And that was when all hell broke loose.
I don't know who began it, only that once begun, it was unstoppable as a tide. Angra Mainyu's thwarted rage, deprived of its avatar, found an outlet in madness that night—and madness it was. I had seen truly. The walls of Daršanga would run red with blood. There are people who say women are the gentler sex. They would not say it if they had been there the night Daršanga fell.
It began with a long, ululating cry, and if it was a single throat that uttered it first, it was a dozen in the next instant, and thrice as many after. I could not see who led the mad dash, for it seemed they all went at once, unarmed Furies in ragged attire, running wild for the festal hall, and most of the eunuchs with them.
Joscelin cursed and caught Uru-Azag by the arm. "You," he said in Persian. "Bar the doors. Can you manage it alone?"
"Yes." The Akkadian raised the blade of his curved dagger to his lips and kissed it. "My blade," he said reverently, "is sworn to Shamash. I have consecrated it in blood tonight."
"Imriel!" I saw it too late, the fierce glitter of the boy's eyes, his bared teeth. The same feral madness that had taken the others was on him, born of long months of hatred and abuse. Like a flash, he was off, coursing the hallway. "Go," I said to Joscelin, panic-stricken. "Go!"
He was already on his way.
Cold with fear, I followed.
FIFTY-SIX
A NIGHTMARE was taking place in the festal hall.
It was a bloodbath. There is no other way to describe it. And a good deal of the killing had been done by the women of the zenana.
By the time I arrived, the first wave of bloodshed had already occurred. I heard about it, later, from those who survived. The effects of the opium had become evident by the time I had left with the Mahrkagir, and more pronounced with every moment that passed, men growing heavy-lidded with dreams, smiling, talking nonsense. One or two had passed into unconsciousness.
And the Âka-Magi who remained, new initiates for the most part, grew nervous.
It had begun when a Uighur Tatar with a dreamy look on his face put his hand between Jolanta's thighs. It was as Imriel had said. Jolanta had plucked his dagger from his belt and planted it to the hilt beneath the Tatar's ear.
For long moments, no one had reacted. The men gazed stupidly, slow to comprehend. The women stared at one another, unsure what to do. Imriel., lurking outside the door, turned to flee—it was then that one of the Âka-Magi, a Skotophagotis, had caught sight of him and followed, beginning to suspect.
What happened to him, I already knew.
After that, the zenana descended in fury.
How many did the women kill, in that initial shock? Scores, at least. It was the