Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(179)

Kaden recognized the knives first, the same knives he had seen in the merchant’s pack three nights before, the long, oiled killing knives. Lakatur held one in either hand, loosely, as though she could scarcely be bothered to keep her grip on them. Gone was the brash merchant’s swagger, the easy grin and expansive manner. Gone, too, were the cringing and doubt she had shown when Ut put the sword to her neck the day before. If Pyrre was concerned about the Aedolian’s huge broadblade, or the soldiers massed before her, or the whistling crossbow bolts that struck like hail all around, she didn’t show it. She walked into the killing with all the concern of an atrep entering her own ballroom, nodding to the baffled soldiers as though they were young gallants, sweaty-palmed and twitchy at the thought of their first dance.

“Ananshael will be pleased,” she said, surveying the carnage with a sober eye.

Tan’s words of caution shoved into Kaden’s mind: Somewhere this woman has learned to suppress the most basic imperatives of the flesh. Overhead the moon still shone, but the night seemed to have grown darker, heavier.

Ut gestured curtly, and two of the Aedolians took a step forward, tentative now. The first collapsed with a bolt through the eye. Seeing his companion fall, the second roared, raised his sword to strike, and charged. Though the man stood half a head taller than her and wore steel to her leather, Pyrre Lakatur didn’t break stride. She stepped easily into the space beneath his raised arms, driving, as she moved, one of her knives up into the soldier’s armpit. As her foe crumpled with a sickly, rattling cough, Pyrre rotated past him, eyes locked on Ut. The other soldiers rushing to intercept her might as well have been wheat for all the attention she paid them.

In the explosion of activity, Tan had caught up with Kaden, seizing him by the forearm.

“We go now,” he barked, “if I have to knock you over the head and carry you.” Adrift in his own shock and confusion, Kaden allowed himself to be led, looking back over his shoulder at Pyrre as he went.

The other soldiers were down, either fallen beneath the merchant’s blades or the quarrels of their invisible assailant. With a growl, Ut swung his sword in that wide terrible arc that had almost taken off Pyrre’s head the day before. Kaden stared, unable to tear his eyes from the inevitable. This strange woman had defended him, saved him, and now she was going to die. The sword sliced through the air and Pyrre simply … wasn’t there. Even as Ut tensed for the blow, the merchant rolled beneath the attack while the Aedolian’s blade swung harmlessly into the night. Then it was Ut’s turn to look shocked, and a moment was all Pyrre gave him.

The merchant’s knives flashed, first high, then low, probing, pressing—so fast, it seemed she must have five or six spinning between her fingers rather than the two Kaden had seen when she walked so calmly into the slaughter. Ut was quicker than his men, however, and wearing heavier armor.

As the two circled each other in the center of the yard, a man’s voice hissed from the shadows. Kaden turned to see Jakin, a crossbow in his right hand, Triste’s arm clasped roughly in his left. He was dressed in his customary tunic and breeches, as though he never went to bed, as though he had expected the sudden outburst of violence.

“Worry about yourselves,” he snapped. “Pyrre Lakatur has lived long in the shadow of Ananshael. She will meet us later, if the god wills.”

Kaden felt Tan stiffen at his side. He looked over at the monk, surprised to see his mouth twisting with some sort of emotion. Tan started to speak, but more soldiers were already flooding into the square, slowed for the moment by the sight of their commander locked in a duel.

“I need to find Akiil,” Kaden insisted. “He’s in the dormitory.”

“The dormitory is crawling with Aedolians,” the man shot back.

“Then kill them!” he replied, gesturing to Jakin’s crossbow.

“This is useless indoors,” he spat. “Your friend’s dead, or he will be dead. I’ve been paid well not to let you join him.”

Kaden hesitated, but Tan took him by the arm with that implacable grip.

“Now!” he said. With a wordless shout of rage, Kaden turned, and the four of them rushed past the stone dormitory, past the screaming and bellowed commands, past the flames licking from the meditation hall, and into the night.

They raced up the trail to the Circuit of Ravens, Tan keeping pace despite his bulk, Triste and Jakin stumbling every so often on the unfamiliar stones. Kaden tried to shut out the sounds echoing at his back: harsh orders barked in the darkness, the clash of steel on steel, screaming. The scene of Pater’s death kept running through his mind, and he realized sickly that the boy would not be the only one murdered that night. Kaden thought back to his words—I heard them, Kaden, “Make sure they’re all dead.…” Jakin had insisted that the monks in the dormitory were already dead, but Akiil was no ordinary monk. He was fast and smart. He’d learned to stay alive in the alleys of Annur before he was ever carted off to Ashk’lan. He would have been sleeping in the dormitory with the rest of the monks, but surely he’d heard something. If he could win free of the immediate carnage, he could lose himself in the rocks for days. Had he escaped? Or had Kaden already heard his dying scream? Nausea filled him.