Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter 34

~34~

During the sack of Death's Head

Leramis led them through fire and death and twisted shadows. The stench of the dying city—burning timbers, thatch, garbage, gardens, flesh—choked his nostrils and his mind and his heart.

He rode, and he rode, and he rode.

Somehow they escaped the Centerspach. One moment there were armored men in front of him reaching for his legs, his reins, his horse. The next they were flying aside or being trampled. Steelhill cursed loudly. Ense Pendilon roared. The king was a constant presence behind him, his massive charger thundering over the cobblestones.

Leramis rode for the closest entrance to the Atar. Burned into his mind below the level of logic was the idea that the caves were safe. He needed safe. Needed it more desperately than he'd needed anything before.

"Serethon!" barked a voice behind him.

"Your Grace!"

"Where are your men?"

They crossed into the valley of The Dell. A thin river, dyed red in the firelight, barred their way. Boulevards of burning shops stood empty on its banks. Leramis veered along the river walk. A hulking, house-covered hill rose on the other side of the water.

Hidden on that hill were most of the city's entrances to the Atar.

They passed by one bridge, two bridges, three.

"In the harbor, Your Grace, if they still li—"

A tendril of souls reached for them. Leramis felt it coming and bent it savagely, desperately. An explosion wracked a building behind and to his right, and he heard it crumble and fall. Leramis turned onto the fourth bridge, saw as he galloped over the churning river that to his left Twelfthmen on horses were crossing the other bridges, trying to cut them off, racing hard across the burning streets after them.

"Run," he whispered. "Run."

He dug his heels into his horse's ribs. Its mouth frothed. Its eyes rolled.

But it ran as hard and as fast as it could.

There was an entrance to the Atar just ahead, but the Twelfthmen had a good angle on it. They were closing in, had cut them off, would reach them in a matter of seconds.

Leramis cursed and shot away from the river and into an alleyway, heading toward another entrance farther up the hill. He heard the horses behind him struggle to follow, the sound of heavy-shod hooves sliding over stone, the fearful squeal of a horse about to fall.

"Hentworth!" snapped Steelhill. "Slow down, damn you! Hentworth!"

But Leramis didn't. He twisted and turned again, running parallel to the river once more, where the lightness of his horse and his knowledge of the back ways would serve him best. With every jag, he felt fewer Twelfthmen coming. They were falling behind, losing themselves in the labyrinth of a city they didn't know.

Almost there...

A quick look back showed the lords still present. Molte was riding right off the hindquarters of Leramis's horse. Steelhill was just behind, armor stained with blood, face red with effort. Farther back old Lord Serethon and Ense Pendilon puffed along heavily on their mounts.

Another entrance to the Atar was just ahead, hidden in the bottom of a building Leramis hoped was still standing. He angled his horse up the hill again. The light up high was dimmer; the fires hadn't yet reached the black heights. The Citadel rose like a ghostly hand to the right. The moon shone wide and bright behind it, only half visible below the thick cloud of smoke above the city. The ocean glinted below.