The Skull Throne

Leesha thought they came to remove the archers, but hearing the screams of men from below, she saw now that was incidental.

“They’re going to open the gate!” Leesha cried, cursing herself for a fool. All the wards in the world wouldn’t mean a thing if the Krasians simply turned the cranks.

Wonda had her bow in hand, and even in the close, chaotic space, put an arrow through a Sharum about to reach the door. She had another nocked an instant later, but another Krasian made the stairs in that time. She shot the third, but then a press of the Wooden Soldiers blocked her sight as they tackled two of the Watchers.

Leesha ran to the north windows. “Krasians in the gatehouse! To arms!”

The Mountain Spears did not budge from their positions, but Wooden Soldiers and volunteers raced for the gatehouse.

They would be too late, Leesha knew. Already she could feel the floor rumbling as the Watchers raised the portcullis. Even if the Angierians retook the gatehouse and closed it again, the damage would be done. Even indirect sunlight could suck the power from her wards, rendering them useless.

“Night,” Leesha said, rushing back to look back at the sling teams. They had the statue loaded, but continued to wait, appearing to stare right at Leesha.

There are more Watchers on the roof, Leesha realized. They gave some signal, because the sling teams leapt to action. Leesha watched Thamos’ father flying through the air, and could only consider the irony that Araine’s husband should be the instrument that ended her rule.

The entire gatehouse shook with the impact, roaring with the sound of splintered wood and twisted metal. Leesha stumbled, but again Wonda was there to steady her. The last Watchers had disappeared, barricading the door behind them. Archers, not always the heaviest of men, threw themselves against the heavy portal fruitlessly. It had been built to keep invaders out, but it served just as well turned on the defenders.

She could hear the fight in the gatehouse intensify as the Wooden Soldiers desperately tried to close the heavy iron portcullis before the gates gave way.

On the outside, a group of chi’Sharum were tasked with the ram. Leesha could not believe her eyes as the men, born and raised in Thesa, took up the great goldwood trunk while others surrounded them, shields held high to form a tortoise shell over the rammers. Despite the complex formation, they picked up speed as they crossed the open ground. Archers on the wall fired helplessly, arrows splintering off the shields. Men with cauldrons of boiling oil had been positioned on the gatehouse roof to defend against this, but the Watchers had taken the roof, leaving them defenseless.

The boom as the ram struck carried the sound of breaking wood, and Leesha knew the gates would not last much longer.

The rammers drew back, readying for another charge. Leesha looked down at the cluster of men below sadly. “Creator forgive you.”

They charged again, but Leesha had reached into her basket and produced a thunderstick by then. She put match to it and threw, blasting the tortoise apart and splintering the ram.

Men screamed, and when the smoke cleared, Leesha saw them, bloody bits of humanity scattered across the ground like an abattoir.

They weren’t all dead. That was perhaps the worst of it. Some wailed in such agony that Leesha felt sick to her stomach.

These are the secrets of fire Bruna protected for so long, she thought, the ones she trusted me with on Gatherer’s oath to do no harm.

And I’ve turned them into death.

It made no difference in the grand scheme, as there were new men with a fresh ram making for the gates even while Leesha tried to keep from sloshing up. The gatehouse shook, and there was a cheer from the Krasian army as Jayan waved his flag, signaling the charge of his heavy cavalry, right through the city gates.

Rojer screamed himself hoarse as Watchers scaled the gatehouse, but none could hear him so high up. Next to him, Sikvah stiffened, and he fell silent, hearing the sound of footsteps climbing the tower.

Were they coming to free him, at last? Perhaps it was Amanvah’s demand for negotiating a surrender with her brother.

Sikvah coiled and sprang, scaling the wall with handholds he couldn’t even see. In seconds she was back in the shadows of the rafters.

The cell door slammed open, but though Amanvah was on the other side, she was not there to oversee his release. Her hands and feet were shackled, and from the bruises on the faces of her captors, she had not taken the manacles willingly.

Amanvah was shoved roughly into the room, stumbling over her chains and hitting the stone hard. Rojer rushed to her side.

He expected the guards to leave, but they pressed into the room, two, four, six. All told, a dozen men crammed themselves into his tiny cell, until it seemed he could not reach an arm in any direction without touching one.

All were palace guards, like the ones that had struck after the Bachelor’s Ball, armed with heavy batons. Rojer knew their faces, but not their names.

“Sorry for the press,” their sergeant said. “Minister din’t send enough men last time, but Janson don’t make mistakes twice.”

“Should’ve known Jasin couldn’t pull that off without help,” Rojer said.

“Jasin couldn’t pull his boots off without help,” the sergeant said. “Won’t say any of us miss the little pissant, but you’ve gone and made the minister very cross.”

“You can’t possibly think you can get away with murdering me right in the cathedral,” Rojer said.

The sergeant laughed. “Whole city’s eyes are on the gate, sand sticker, and it ent demons on the other side you can charm with your fiddle. No one gives a rip about you or your Krasian bitch right now. Your guards are all cowering downstairs, ready to barricade themselves in the crypts if the Krasians break the gate.”

He tilted his head, leering openly at Amanvah, her silks pulled tight over her curves. “Not that I can blame you. P’raps the men can have a bit of fun before we cram you two through that little window.”

“No!” Rojer cried.

The sergeant laughed again. “Don’t worry about being left out, boy. Got a few men gonna be more interested in your arse than hers. It’s a holy house, after all.”

There was a blur across his throat, as if a shadow had fallen across him, but then he was falling toward them in a spray of blood. Sikvah flitted like a fly across the room, stabbing another man in the throat as she used him as a springboard back into the shadows above.

“Night, what in the Core was that?!” one of the guards cried. All of them were staring upward now, Rojer and Amanvah forgotten.

“You all right?” Rojer asked her.

“No,” Amanvah said. “I have reached the end of my patience.” Something about the words was more frightening than anything she had ever said.

There was another blur, Sikvah dropping from above like a wood demon to put a blade in a man’s chest. She killed two more in the chaos that followed, again vanishing into the rafters.

“That’s it, I’m getting out of here,” one of the men said. He and two other men ran for the door, but it slammed shut, the lock clicking loudly.

“Janson wants them dead!” a voice on the other side barked. “You want the door open, get it done!”

The men turned from the door angrily, but then Sikvah fell like a spider on the one in the center, shattering his spine. She hit the floor with a bounce, using the momentum to power the knives she stuck into the men on either side.