Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [314]
"Surrender your swords," I said softly.
This time, they did.
"Imriel!" Canis pushed his way through the members of Barbarus squadron as they collected Valpetran arms. He ran lightly across the plank, balancing his shield with ease. "They're coming. You've got to get out of here."
"They're sodding well here, Canis," I said. "Where do you expect me to go?"
He shook his head impatiently. "Not just Valpetra. Help from Tiberium. Didn't you hear the horns?"
"What?" I gaped at him.
Inside the baths, Barbarus was whooping with unexpected triumph. Our ambush had been a success. Dead Valpetran soldiers blocked the doors and temporarily barred further pursuit; live ones splashed and floundered in the pools. The tiled floors were awash with blood and water, and it stank of death and mildew. It was a scene out of some macabre farce. Outside, the sound of battle continued to rage, too fierce to be limited to a handful of resistance.
"Go!" Canis began shoving me back along the plank. "This will be over in an hour, but if you don't damn well get out of here and hide, you're like to be dead before they get here."
"You want me to desert?"
He bared his teeth at me. "I want you to live!"
Others were beginning to stare. I glanced around desperately for Eamonn; as my friend, as my commander. We needed him. I didn't know whether to believe Canis, whether to heed him. No one knew whether we should attempt to hold the baths or retreat out the rear entrance to the fabric warehouse that was our next stronghold. Remembering my earlier reget, I snatched a helmet discarded by one of the Valpetrans who had surrendered.
"Eamonn!" I shouted. "Where's Eamonn?"
There was a surge at the door. Two Valpetrans burst through. Constantin and another Barbarus member killed one; the other retreated. Outside, it was getting louder. I craned around, looking for a glimpse of copper-bright hair, half a head taller than anyone else.
"Imriel." Matius touched my arm. "Eamonn never made it to the baths. He—"
His lips continued to move, forming words I couldn't hear. There was only a high-pitched ringing sound, the sound of fury. It coursed through me in waves, filling my veins with dark fire. I could taste it on my tongue, acrid as steel.
Enough.
I don't know if I thought the word or spoke it. I tore away from Matius' grip, from Canis' urging, and made for the arched doorway at a dead run. Members of Barbarus squadron turned their heads slowly. I plowed past Constantin and hurdled a Valpetran corpse. There was another Valpetran in the doorway, a live one. He stared at me open-mouthed. I ducked under his raised sword and slid past his shield, dropping to one knee and executing a one-handed backward thrust. As though from a great distance, I heard him bellow as my sword pierced the back of his thigh. Without pausing, I yanked my sword free and continued onto the portico.
"Eamonn!" I shouted.
It was madness outside the baths. The streets were clogged with almost two hundred Valpetran infantry and mounted men, and hundreds of Luccan soldiers. Hundreds. They must have rallied from every quarter of the city. As though a door had been flung open wide, my hearing returned, and the sound of it slammed into me: clashing, grating, deafening. Over the top of it all rode the sound of the horns calling out an alarum. Somewhere through it ran the thread of a familiar roar. There was a mounted figure amidst the advancing Red Scourge, clad in gilded armor, a crest of crimson horsehair bobbing.
Lucius, alive. Not Eamonn.
"Eamonn!"
I couldn't hear my own voice in the din. I shook my head in frustration. Another Valpetran charged across the portico toward me. Realizing I still held the useless helmet, I flung it in his face. When he staggered backward, I plunged the point of my blade