Her arm and the blade were one. Red scales covered her right hand and arm. The blade was so hot, it seemed to shine like a small sun.
The chariot was more agile than it looked, stepping quickly out of her sword’s path. She managed to land a blow to its side, taking off one of its legs, but that wasn’t enough to make it fall. Its pincers swung to hit Loran, who found herself rolling on the ground of the square from the force.
Another rain of bolts. This time, they didn’t come at once, the Scorpios chariots shooting in waves as they repositioned and recharged. Loran took refuge behind the stone pedestal in the middle of the square.
A shot had found its way into her left shoulder. Loran gritted her teeth and scanned the square, taking in the position of the chariots and the legionaries once more.
Then she saw the people.
The citizens of Kingsworth were spilling from the alleys. Evenmore than had congregated in the square before. They came armed with kitchen knives, sewing shears, and garden hoes. In Arland, non-Imperials weren’t allowed to possess weapons without a permit, but evidently if the people were angry enough, almost anything could be a weapon.
The centurion realized what was happening.
“Do not approach the square! If you do, we will shoot!”
The formation momentarily took its focus off Loran, and this was her chance. Loran charged the chariot that the centurion was on, and with a swing of Wurmath, the lead chariot lost one of its pincer arms.
With the one it had remaining, the Powered chariot attempted to grab Loran’s waist, but she leaped backward, avoiding it. Her body felt light, as if she had sprouted wings.
The nearest Scorpios chariot fired its cannon at her, a weapon reserved for monsters, fortress walls, or massed infantry. An ordinary man hit by a cannon would die an unspeakably mangled death, but the cannon was a slow thing and Loran had already been tracking the movement of the turret; instead of hitting her, the cannon created a large hole in the blacksmith’s shop behind her. Thankfully the blacksmith was not inside—he was already in the square with his largest hammer in hand.
Loran found herself grinning, baring her new sharp fangs. The roads and alleys slowly filled with the Arlanders of the city, and the enemy had less and less room to maneuver.
Emere had told her that the chariot that held the centurion would also be carrying the Power generator, its Power being sent out to the other chariots. If she could destroy that, all the chariotswould be helpless, and she would have a chance at victory. Loran brandished Wurmath as she charged the lead chariot once more, a veil of sulfuric smoke from the sword cloaking her. Her left eye could see clearly through the smoke; the centurion was shouting orders, growing ever more frantic.
Loran did not know where the Kamori army was, but it did not matter. The people rising up with their tools and even broomsticks to resist the Empire were Arlanders, and this was their home. The battle waging in these streets was not just between the Twenty-Fifth Legion and Loran but between the Empire and Arland. Loran realized she was no longer an ordinary woman. She was now a true princess of Arland. A representative of the fire-dragon.
Two cannonballs missed Loran by a hair as she soared into the air. Crossbow bolts that were shot blindly into the smoke grazed her cheek and thigh midair. But when she looked down at her leg, she saw only unharmed, pristine scales through the tear in her leather armor. She grinned and showed off her fangs once more.
The centurion in the lead chariot drew his sword and struck a defensive pose. His sword and gauntlet glowed violet as Marius’s had in Dehan Forest. But at this moment, such things were meaningless to Loran. Landing on the lead chariot with a heavy thud, she raised Wurmath, staring down the centurion.
The centurion was a northerner, perhaps from as far north as Hyberia, his hair as white as snow. He was cowering, murmuring in a guttural language she did not understand. She looked into his scared eyes. They were the color of the sky on an overcast day. For a very brief moment she pitied this man, who was taken from his homeland only to die in this unfamiliar country. Then there wassomething else, her fury, her grief, and her thirst for vengeance tightly lumped into a savage red thing. It decided the matter for her. She sliced the centurion in two, along with his sword.
Loran then pierced the hull of the chariot and summoned dragonfire. Black smoke issued from the puncture, and violet light seeped out. Just as Loran flung herself off the lead chariot, it exploded, fragments deflecting off the scales on Loran’s face and body. The Power generator destroyed, the remaining three chariots went limp.
The square was now filled with people. With their Powered machines rendered useless, and with a woman before them whose left eye was blue fire and whose sword was the color of the sun, the remaining legionaries put down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender.
Kingsworth roared.
13CAIN
Cain followed the silent observer from the graveyard past the cabin-like houses and frost-crusted gardens that made up the outskirts of the Capital. There was nothing remarkable about the man’s appearance. He seemed middle-aged and wore a nondistinct black coat very much like Cain’s own. He blended effortlessly, changing his gait and posture to match whatever crowd he was moving with. A part of Cain admired his quarry’s craft, while another part cursed it as he summoned up all his skills to keep up with the silent man.
It was a long pursuit, and the bustling streets were tinted blue with Powered lamps under the evening sun by the time they neared the city’s central port. Walking along the docks, Cain wondered if they were heading to Gladdis’s house. But the silent man took a different turn and entered the port’s popular food street instead. Cain avoided this area—too many pickpockets hovering to prey on newcomers looking for a peck after a long sea journey. Half of the broad street was taken up with food stalls, the smell of spices fromall over the world mixing in a strange yet mouthwatering bouquet that never failed to slow the movement of the crowd. Cain struggled around pedestrians who stopped without warning to buy or even just smell the food, but the silent man walked on as if nothing had changed.
Then, without slowing his pace, the man looked over his shoulder. They almost met eyes, but Cain managed to sidestep into a tented food stall, nearly knocking over the smoking grill. His spectacles slipped off, but Cain reflexively caught them before they could hit the ground. The silent man looked ahead again and walked on. The startled Cassian woman in the stall selling the mysterious skewered meats shouted in an unfamiliar language, but Cain could tell that it was likely curses. He put his spectacles back on, apologized in what few words he knew in one of the Cassian languages, and quickly left the stall.
There was quite a lot of distance between them now. Still, Cain doggedly pursued the man, going against the river of the crowd. People bumped into him and occasionally he had to fight through an especially thick eddy of passersby, but the man from the graveyard moved as if he was melting and flowing through the crowd, almost as if he could predict the motion of every person within the current. Did he know he was being followed? If he did, thought Cain grimly, he could have shaken Cain ages ago. Cain felt a swell of anxiety every time the silent man turned a corner. Was this where he would lose him? Or worse, would the man be standing there, facing him, expecting him?
Something in Cain’s guts whispered that if Gladdis had a killer doing her bidding, it would be a man like this.
They had reached a remote end of the city docks when theman finally stopped, miles away from the nicer side of town where Gladdis’s house was. The man went inside a run-down house, and after making sure no one was watching, Cain approached the house himself. He crept around the side, looking for an alternate entrance, afraid at any moment he would turn around to find the silent man staring at him with piercing eyes.
Cain spotted a ventilation window that opened into the basement, but not only was it too small, it was also locked shut.
Suddenly, the door to the front creaked open again. Cain dropped to the ground in the alley. From where he lay, he could see the man walking away from the building and back toward the market. Cain sighed.
The dagger he had used to stab Devadas of the Ministry had never been returned to him, and he felt its absence keenly. Were there other people inside the house? It would be prudent to retreat and come back later, but perhaps this was the perfect time to break in, as he was sure the silent man at least was not there. Cain intuited that the man was not one he could win against in a fight or fool with his wits. Despite the cold, he could feel nervous sweat soaking his tunic.
