Fifteen

As Ruha and her companions galloped into the shadow of Temple Hill—a barren, stone-flanked tor towering high above the city’s close-packed heart—they met a wall of jabbering, frightened townsmen. It was the first sign of dragon-spawned fear they had encountered. Until now, the people of Elversult had leapt into nearby doorways and hurled insults at the battered foreigners charging up Snake Road. This mob barely seemed to hear the clattering hooves.

Ruha reined her mount to a walk, slowing the whole column. Counting Hsieh, there were thirteen riders behind her. It seemed likely that more Shou had survived the battle with Cypress, but neither the witch nor the mandarin had thought it wise to spend time regrouping. They had simply turned their horses toward the heart of the city and urged them into a gallop, trusting that any warriors who could would follow.

The mob began to swirl around the column of riders. Ruha saw no blood or horrible acid burns, and the crowd appeared more determined than panicked. The witch stopped her horse and caught a swarthy man by the shoulder of his embroidered merchant’s robes. He cried out and whirled around, glaring at the witch as though she had tried to rob him.

“Sir, please tell me what is happening.”

“Haven’t you heard? They say a dragon’s coming!”

“Where?” Ruha asked. “Is he ahead?”

The merchant shrugged. “Don’t know. No one’s seen him, and the Maces don’t mean us to. They’ve ordered everyone out of town.”

“How much farther is …”

The man turned away and vanished into the crowd before Ruha could finish the question. She urged her horse forward. The mob reluctantly parted ahead of her, alternately shouting warnings and curses. The witch ignored both and cast thoughtful glances down the empty alleyways that occasionally separated one wattle-and-daub tenement from the adjacent one. She was tempted to search for a faster route to the Jailgates, but she had seen the back streets of enough Heartlands cities to know most were confusing labyrinths of filth and dead ends.

Hsieh edged his horse alongside Ruha’s, drawing several vehement curses from the river of people coming in the opposite direction. The mandarin leaned over and grabbed the rope holding the witch’s skin of ylang oil, then deftly looped it an extra time around her saddle horn.

“Someone follows us.” He did not point or turn his head, but his eyes flickered toward his far shoulder. “I think they are not Vaerana’s men.”

Ruha turned as though speaking to the minister and glanced down the avenue. It did not take long to discover their stalkers. There were at least five of them, pressed close to the buildings and scurrying along against the crowd. They wore plain cloaks that did a poor job of concealing the breastplates beneath, and they carried swords and axes on their belts. Though they were not wearing the black caps Ruha had seen in Pros, she felt sure they were cult members; their faces all had the dark, gluttonous look of pillagers and murderers.

“Have you seen more on the other side of the street?”

“Many more.”

Ruha looked forward again. “Cypress has called out his militia.”

“Then he discovers trick. Soon he comes for us.”

Ruha filled her lungs, and then spoke the incantation of the same wind spell she had used to attract the Ginger Lady’s attention on the Dragonmere.

“Stand aside!” Ruha’s horse reared at the thunder of her voice. She maintained a secure grip on the reins and spoke again, “Clear the road!”

The command blasted a dozen nearby people off their feet. Many more covered their ears and cast terrified glances skyward, confident that such a thunderous sound could only have come from the heavens. The largest part of the mob froze in their tracks and stared at each other with dumbstruck expressions.

“Stand aside, I say!”

A few people drifted toward the sides of the street, but most of crowd remained too stunned to move. Ruha glanced back and saw that the cult members were drawing their weapons.

“Make threat.” Hsieh, who was holding his hands over his own ears, shouted the suggestion. “Fear moves what kind words cannot.”

“Move, or I shall move you!” Ruha commanded. “You have to the count of three. One …”

By the time she reached two, even the people who had been knocked to the ground were scrambling out of the way. A brief clash of steel sounded behind her as the cult stalkers rushed to attack. The witch dug her heels into her mount’s flanks. The trembling beast sprang forward, leaping four people who had not been quick enough to gather themselves up.

Ruha continued to yell. The mob split before her, creating a narrow canyon down the center of Snake Road. Trusting her mount to pick its own path, she glanced back and was relieved to see the tail of her horse slapping the nose of Hsieh’s. The rest of the Shou were close behind, several holding blood-stained swords in their free hands. The witch turned her attention forward again, doing her best to search the crowd ahead for any sign of an attack.

Ruha rounded a gentle bend and saw more people pouring onto Snake Road from a large side street ahead. In the intersection stood a small party of stern-faced Maces, blocking the narrow pathway created by the witch’s booming threats. Their weapons were drawn, and behind them stood a blue-robed man with the impatient scowl of a sorcerer who had better things to do than deal with dragon panics and columns of careless horsemen. Beyond the roadblock, the avenue continued only two hundred paces before it passed out of Temple Hill’s shadow and opened into a vast, sunlit market plaza.

Ruha slowed her mount, bringing the column to a stop before the glowering Maces. A grim-faced man with a ruddy complexion stepped forward and pointed his mace at the witch.

“See here, Stranger. Even in the best of times, we don’t like—”

“Vaerana Hawklyn would be most appreciative if you will lead us to the Jailgates.” Although Ruha whispered the words, the leader and his fellow Maces cringed at the strength of her voice. She urged her horse forward, leaning down to offer the man a hand up. “The Cult of the Dragon is close behind, and it won’t be long before the dragon himself comes for us.”

The leader arched an eyebrow and lowered his weapon, but made no move to climb up behind Ruha. “What’s going on?”

“We lack time to explain matter, but it is of great urgency for safety of Lady Yanseldara,” said Hsieh. “Now, please to get on horse or stand aside.”

The leader jammed his mace into his belt and reached for the witch’s hand. “This had better not be some kind of trick.”

As Ruha clasped the man’s steel glove, the crowd began to churn and close. Someone clamped a hand over the old sorcerer’s mouth; then a dagger tip erupted from his chest. Hand axes and short swords appeared from under cloaks and cleaved three Elversian skulls before the Maces realized they were being assaulted. The survivors turned to find themselves facing half-a-dozen attackers each.

“Ambush!”

The angry leader clamped his mailed fingers around Ruha’s wrist and jerked, nearly pulling her from her mount.

Suddenly, he cried out in anguish and threw himself against the flanks of the witch’s horse. She glimpsed the butt of a crossbow bolt sticking through the armor between his shoulders, then felt hands tugging at her saddle straps.

“Get away from me!” she bellowed.

Her horse reared at her thunderous command, and the grasping hands fell away from her saddle. Hsieh came up beside her, at once trampling the Maces’ fallen leader and burying his square-tipped sword in an axe-man’s skull. Ruha urged her own mount forward, then led the column across the intersection, scattering ambushers and bystanders alike with the might of her booming voice.

They had barely crossed before a pair of gloom-shrouded figures appeared at the end of the street, blocking the route into the sunlit market plaza. The man was tall and broad-shouldered. He wore steel plate as black as jet and carried not a sword, but a sliver of darkness shaped like a sword. It was impossible to say what the woman looked like; she was a mere silhouette, a night phantom obtruding on the light of day.

Ruha dropped her reins and raised one hand toward the sky. She pointed the other at the phantom-woman and shook the lane with the rumbling incantation of her sun spell. Five streaks of golden flame shot from her fingers and arced down the street, twining themselves together into a crackling cord as thick as a man’s leg.

The spell took less than three heartbeats to streak the length of the street, and in that time Ruha’s galloping horse had carried her halfway to the marketplace. The fiery rope arced down to strike the shadow-sorceress. The black-armored knight stepped in front of his mistress, raising the tip of his dark sword as though he meant to split the fire.

Instead of dividing down the center, the blazing cord entered the dark blade and drained from sight. A black flash shone through the window of a street-front tenement; then the entire building erupted into golden flame. The conflagration engulfed a dozen bystanders and seared many more. The crowd erupted into hysteria, some howling in anguish and others wailing in terror. Those near the buildings, fearing more such explosions, pushed toward the center of the street, while those nearer the charging horses pressed toward the buildings. The witch rode into a cloud of greasy smoke, and the horrid stench of charred flesh filled her nose. She found herself struggling to keep her gorge down, sickened more by the knowledge that her magic had helped cause the awful smell than by the odor itself.

The column had nearly reached the end of the street. Ruha felt a horse flank brush against her leg and looked over to see a Shou warrior moving up beside her, sword drawn and eyes wild with battle lust. On her other flank rode Hsieh himself. The mandarin’s face was almost rapturous in its placidity, his square-tipped blade held loosely in his hand.

The dark knight raised his black sword and rushed forward to meet Hsieh. At the same time, the shadowy sorceress drew her hands up before her body, raising an impenetrable curtain of darkness around the battleground.

There was no time to rein in. Praying they would emerge in the marketplace with at least one sack of ylang oil intact, Ruha pulled her jambiya and galloped into the darkness. From Hsieh’s side came the crackle of breaking bones, followed by the scream of a horse and the crash and clamor of armored and unarmored bodies tumbling along the cobblestones. Ruha heard the mandarin give a short angry yell; then a hand caught hold of her saddle, and she lost track of her companions.

The witch lashed down into the black murk, and her dagger sliced harmlessly through air. The cinch strap around her horse’s belly popped loudly; then her saddle came loose. Ruha felt herself slipping down her mount’s flank and grabbed for the ylang oil. The cobblestones slammed into her shoulder, and her body went rigid with pain. She bounced head over heels, feet still caught in her stirrups, and came to a rest, her head spinning.

The darkness around her exploded with clapping hooves and confused voices, both Shou and Elversian. A pair of steel horseshoes grazed Ruha’s leg; then a horse screamed and crashed to the street. The witch found her saddle horn. She untied the oil sack and kicked free of her stirrups. A sharp point tangled briefly in the thick cloth of her aba, then pushed through and bit deep into her side.

For a moment, Ruha was too confused to realize what had happened. Then she felt a fiery sting and warm, wet blood spilling down her stomach. She screamed and rolled away, lashing out with her jambiya.

The blade dragged. Something hot and sticky poured over her hand, and a rich, coppery smell filled her nostrils. The witch flipped her wrist and brought her weapon back to inflict the famous T-shaped wound that made the curved daggers so dangerous, but her foe had already vanished into the darkness.

Ruha pulled the ylang oil closer and clutched it to her breast. A clamorous clash of steel rang out behind her as the Shou turned to meet their cult pursuers. The witch weaved her dagger through the darkness in a blind defense pattern, but a stinging anguish was spreading outward from her wound, and her arm would not move swiftly. The oil sack felt warm and sticky against her breast, but she knew by its smell that the fluid was only her own blood. Had any ylang oil spilled, she would surely have been nauseated by its sick-sweet smell.

“Ruha?” Hsieh’s voice sounded shaky and weak.

“Here, Minister.” Ruha heard someone step to her side; then a small Shou hand took her beneath her dagger arm. When it began to pull her up, she asked, “They did not steal your oil sack, did they?”

The hand suddenly loosened its grasp, and Hsieh’s voice hissed, “I thought you had the oil.”

Ruha did not hesitate; she swung her arm up backward and drove the tip of her jambiya deep into the imposter’s torso. The hand opened entirely and a haggish scream filled the witch’s ear. She scrambled to her feet and stumbled away as fast as she could, clutching the ylang oil to her breast and slashing her dagger blindly through darkness. After a few steps, the witch sniffed a familiar scent. The odor was fresher and not quite as cloying as the ylang oil she had smelled in Prince Tang’s spice refinery, but there could be no doubting it. She turned slightly off her course and followed the fragrance toward its source.

A moment later, the witch stepped into the sunlight and found herself staring at Hsieh’s blood-spattered back. The mandarin reeked of ylang oil and still carried his burst sack over his shoulder, and in his hand he held the dark knight’s black sword. Ahead of him, the shadowy sorceress was groaning feebly and staggering through the deserted market plaza toward a looming, black-winged shape.

* * * **

After a hundred tries, Tang managed a flawless hurl. Flying sideways, the golden necklace hit Yanseldara’s staff, and the heavy amulet at the end whipped around and swung over its own chain. The choker slid down the shaft and stopped at the red-glowing pommel, which hung over Tang and his mother’s heads like a strange, ruby-flamed chandelier. The prince carefully pulled his rope taut, then walked around the ingot island to twine the line more securely about the shaft.

“This no time to stretch legs, Brave Prince.” Lady Feng positioned herself directly beneath the staff. “Pull!”

Tang climbed to the center of the island and hauled on the rope. The staff popped free and plummeted straight toward the head of the Third Virtuous Concubine, who stepped aside and plucked it from the air without allowing the topaz to strike the ingots. Before the prince could comment on her catch, she slipped the rope off the shaft, then took a small bundle from her mahogany chest and started down the slope.

Tang gathered up his rope and empty waterskin and followed. “The passage is long one, Esteemed Mother. It would be better if you also had air.”

“Cypress does not provide prisoners with sacks for air.” She opened her bundle and sat at the edge of the water. “But not to worry. With you doing work, I do not need breath.”

Lady Feng began to breathe quick and shallow, forcing her body to absorb as much extra air as possible.

Tang sat at her feet and tied her ankles together. “What of your spellbook?”

“Even small amount of water ruins it.”

“Your chest is waterproof.”

Lady Feng glowered at him. “You already pull too much. Spellbook is safe enough here, with my other treasure.” She snatched the rope from his hand, then untied the jewelry he had used to weight the end. She tossed the necklace on the ingot pile. “With all my treasure.”

Tang sighed, resigning himself to a return trip after Lady Feng recovered her senses and wanted her spellbook. He snatched his rope back, finished binding his mother’s ankles, and fastened the other end of the line to his waist. The prince filled his waterskin with air and tied it around his neck, then helped the Third Virtuous Concubine seal her mouth with a gag of waxed silk. She picked up Yanseldara’s staff, and soon they were in the water. Tang helped her out into the lake and swam over to where the treasure vault’s ceiling sloped down to meet the water.

“Are you ready, Esteemed Mother?”

Lady Feng took a few more breaths through her nose, then nodded and mumbled something that might have been, “No dawdling.”

She plugged her nostrils, and Tang dove beneath the surface, dragging the Third Virtuous Concubine behind him. The light from the glowing spirit gem in Yanseldara’s staff illuminated the watery cavern in shimmering scarlet light, revealing a huge, winding passage that was not so much a single corridor as a confluence of smaller tunnels arriving from all directions. Despite the labyrinthine appearance, there was no doubt about which passage Cypress used; even if the other tunnels had been large enough to hold him, his stony scales had scoured hundreds of shallow furrows along the proper route.

Although Tang could not be certain, the trip out of the treasure chamber seemed to go much faster than it had coming in. A slight current carried him forward even when he did nothing, while the light from the spirit gem made it much easier to find handholds. The prince drew himself yards at a pull, and he had just drawn his second breath from the air skin when the first brown hints of bog rot began to cloud the water. The rope grew slack as Lady Feng drifted toward him.

Tang glanced back and saw his mother’s pop-eyed stare locked on his kicking heels. Her waxed gag and nostril plugs remained in place, but her cheeks were puffed-out and her face was crimson with the desire for breath. She scowled and waved him forward, then clamped her free hand over her mouth and nose.

The prince looked ahead and pulled through the passage with renewed vigor. To his dismay, the water did not grow any murkier. The gentle current that had been pushing them forward died away. He started to worry that he had somehow lost his way, but that could not be. They had passed no side tunnels large enough to hold Cypress, and the walls in this passage still showed the deep scouring marks left by the dragon’s scales.

Tang began to sense a dark presence ahead. For a moment, he feared it was their foe swimming up the passage; then he saw a curtain of gray stone at the end of the tunnel: Cypress had blocked the exit. The prince did not waste any of his precious breath lamenting the dragon’s foresight. He simply pulled himself to the boulder, then turned to take Yanseldara’s staff from his mother so he could search for gaps around the edges.

Lady Feng’s pop-eye was fluttering in its socket. Her cheeks were no longer puffed out and her face had turned more purple than crimson. Though she still held her free hand clamped over her mouth, a small stream of bubbles was rising from between her fingers. Tang knew she had pulled her gag aside to expel her breath and was struggling not to fill her lungs with water. Only one gulp of air remained in the air skin. The prince’s own lungs were burning with the desire for another breath, but he pushed the sack toward his mother’s mouth.

Lady Feng caught his arm. Her squinty eye rolled forward and looked Tang up and down, and the Third Virtuous Concubine smiled. She shook her head and pushed the air skin back toward the prince’s mouth, then pointed from his lips to hers.

Tang nodded and expelled his breath, then sucked the last of the air from the skin. He held it in his lungs only a moment before placing his mouth over his mother’s and blowing a long gasp into her lungs. It was the third time the air had been used, and he did not know how much good it would do her, but he hoped that it would at least reduce the temptation to open her mouth.

Lady Feng accepted the gift, then pushed Yanseldara’s staff into his hand and pulled his dagger from his belt. Tang scowled in confusion. Before he realized what she was doing, the Third Virtuous Concubine grabbed his free arm and drew the blade across his empty palm. As blood clouded around his fingers, she opened her mouth and spoke. Water rushed into her lungs, and her body began to convulse instantly as it instinctively tried to cough. Horrified at the sight of what he took to be his mother’s fast-approaching death, the prince reached out to draw her close.

Lady Feng pushed him away and pointed at the bloody cloud in the water beside them. To Tang’s surprise, it was coalescing into the shape of a man’s head.

Suddenly, the Third Virtuous Concubine threw her arms around the prince’s neck. A series of powerful convulsions racked her chest; then her body went limp and her lips fell open. Tang clamped his hand over her mouth and tried not to think of the terrible burning in his own chest.

When the prince turned back to the crimson head, he was amazed to see the familiar grim face of General Fui D’hang floating in the water beside him.

Fui’s head tipped forward, as though bowing, and floated toward a small side passage. Tang jammed Yanseldara’s staff into his belt, then grabbed a handhold and pulled himself after the loyal general.

* * * **

Cypress stood in the heart of the sunlit plaza, towering high above a sea of tent-roofed stalls. His empty eye sockets turned in the direction of Ruha and Hsieh. The dozens of lances and arrows hanging from his thick scales hinted at the fight Vaerana’s Maces had put up before—before what? The witch had no way to guess whether the dragon had killed the Lady Constable and all her men, or had simply discovered the ruse and flown away.

Save for the groaning shadow-sorceress and the meat animals clucking and snorting inside their cages, the market was silent and deserted, with bolts of cloth strewn through the narrow lanes and dried legumes spilling onto the ground from open sacks. Ox wagons and pushcarts sat abandoned upon the road that circumscribed the plaza, and all the buildings that fronted it had their windows shuttered and barred against the impending acid storm. On the far side of the bazaar, almost directly behind the dragon, loomed a handsome building of marble pillars and arched entranceways that could only be Elversult Hall.

The clang of steel against steel still rang from the darkness at Ruha’s back, but it seemed wiser to risk that battle than to venture into the open with the dragon. The witch reached for Hsieh’s shoulder, then groaned sharply as her bleeding wound protested with lances of pain. She settled for the mandarin’s arm and pulled him into the blackness after her.

They took no more than two steps before Cypress’s deep-voiced incantation rumbled across the marketplace. The sunlight burned the magical darkness into ash, which fell to the ground and spread a grimy layer of soot over the many corpses—Shou, cult, and horse—piled atop the cobblestones. Five blood-covered Shou were bouncing between three and four attackers each, striking as often with a driving elbow or flying foot as with whirling blades. The street beyond was clear as far as the intersection, but beyond that it remained thickly choked with refugees.

The cobblestones trembled with the heavy thud of the dragon’s step. Seemingly oblivious to his wounds, Hsieh leapt a mangled horse and charged toward his outnumbered men.

“Stay close, Lady Ruha!”

The witch clenched her teeth against the pain in her side and circled the dead beast, shuddering with fear each time she felt the ground tremble with Cypress’s heavy step. Hsieh reached the battle and swung his sword at the nearest cult member. The man raised a long-handled axe to parry. The minister’s dark blade passed through both weapon and armor with no more effect than a shadow. The instant the black sliver touched the fellow’s skin, however, it grew as solid as steel and cleaved him down the center.

After that, Hsieh wielded his weapon as though it were black lightning, felling one, then two, three, and four more enemies in as many eye blinks. The remaining Shou quickly seized the advantage and began to slay their attackers.

Ruha was beginning to have visions of turning the remarkable weapon against Cypress when the last cult member fell. The witch stepped over a Shou corpse and rushed to follow Hsieh toward the intersection; then she heard the dragon’s voice rumbling with another magic invocation. She scooped a handful of bloody pebbles off the street and turned, hurling them at her foe and uttering her briefest stone spell.

The rocks streaked straight into Cypress’s empty eyes, striking with a loud, sharp crackle. The dragon’s head snapped back; then a spray of bone shards and shattered scales erupted from the back of his skull. He roared, spraying a fine black mist into the air, and then began to shake his head.

Ruha turned to follow Hsieh. She was not disappointed; it would take a hundred such attacks to destroy Cypress, but at least she had interrupted the dragon’s spell—or so she thought, until a corpse’s lukewarm hand caught her by the ankle.

Ruha twisted to avoid landing on the ylang oil and came down on her wounded side. The impact drove spikes of pain deep into her body. The witch found herself struggling for breath, and she knew she was dangerously close to blacking out. The corpse grabbed hold with its second hand and dragged itself forward. She looked down and saw that her attacker was the dead Shou over which she had stepped earlier. She tried to kick free, but it felt no pain from her blows and would not let go.

Hsieh appeared at Ruha’s side and brought his sword down across the corpse’s shoulders. The dark blade passed over the zombie’s body like a shadow, causing no harm at all. The mandarin’s narrow eyes grew as round as saucers; then the arms of a dead cultist grabbed him from behind and hurled him to the ground.

The cobblestones shuddered as Cypress resumed walking. Ruha craned her neck and saw that she and Hsieh were not the only ones in dire circumstances. The dragon had animated all the corpses in the street. Though the zombies were slow and clumsy, they were pressing the Shou survivors by virtue of their numbers alone.

Ruha’s attacker grabbed hold of her belt, then slammed its free fist into the pit of her stomach. She tried to scream in pain, but the blow had driven her breath away, and she could do no more than grunt. The zombie raised its fist to strike again. She released the oil sack and deflected the punch with her forearm. In the same motion, the witch drove the heel of her free hand into the side of her attacker’s head and heard the temple snap. Pushing with all the strength in her legs, she rolled onto her side and threw the dead Shou off.

Ruha grabbed the oil sack and leapt up. As she turned to flee, the dragon’s huge shadow fell over her body. She sprinted for the intersection. The pain in her side was excruciating, but she managed to ignore it and rush forward at a pace that would have made a hare-hound proud. She kept expecting Cypress to say something, to command her to stop or at least to taunt her, but he held his tongue. Ruha found the silence even more alarming than the hiss of his lungs filling to spray acid. The dragon was thinking of only one thing: killing her. To comment on his intentions would have been a meaningless waste of breath.

The street trembled again, and Ruha knew she had no hope of outrunning her pursuer. She summoned a wind spell to mind and darted toward the street side, then heard the whoosh of the dragon’s huge talons slicing through the air behind her. The witch forced herself not to look toward her pursuer’s face; the last time she met his gaze, he had nearly taken over her mind.

Ruha angled toward the entrance to the nearest tenement. In the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Cypress’s other huge claw sweeping down to pluck her up. She slammed her feet against the street and managed to slow herself, allowing the black hand to sweep past without catching her. Then, feeling like a spiny iguana dodging a hungry Bedine boy, she darted forward again.

The tenement was barely three paces away. Ruha took a deep breath, then uttered her wind spell and exhaled. A ferocious gust of air howled from her lips, blasting the heavy oaken door into splinters. The witch rushed blindly into the building’s deep-shadowed interior. Three paces inside, she stumbled over a step and slammed face first into a wooden staircase.

Ruha gathered herself together and spun around, then barely leapt aside in time to prevent Hsieh’s dark sword from piercing her heart. The mandarin stumbled over the same stair as the witch, but managed to recover more gracefully by picking up his feet and landing two steps up the stairwell. Behind him came two of his men, who also displayed their incredible agility by managing to catch each other when they also tripped over the step. The witch did not know how any of them had escaped the zombies—in a manner similar to how she had, she supposed—but she was glad for the company.

“Where now?” Hsieh squinted at Ruha with his uncovered eye.

“I do not know.”

Ruha stepped around the stairwell and ran down a broad, dirty corridor toward the back of the building. As Hsieh and his men moved to follow, Cypress’s hand burst through the doorway and caught the last one in line. The warrior howled in pain, and Hsieh raised his sword to charge the doorway.

Ruha caught him by the shoulder. “If that blade did not affect the corpses, it will not harm Cypress. He is also undead.”

“Thank you. I would feel most foolish.” The mandarin gestured down the corridor. “Please to make most of soldier’s sacrifice.”

Ruha turned down the hall and tried a dozen barred doors before the captured man finally stopped screaming.

There was a brief silence; then the warrior behind Hsieh said, “Dead men follow us.”

“Cypress fears to destroy oil sack,” Hsieh observed. “Otherwise, he sprays us with acid.”

“True, but I doubt he is willing to let us escape.” Ruha started down the corridor again, judging they had less than forty paces before it ended in a windowless stone wall. “And we will soon run out of room. I fear the back of this building stands against Temple Hill.”

Hsieh caught Ruha by the shoulder. “You stop dead men. We find way out.”

Ruha glanced down the corridor at the long line of zombies. The closest was only ten paces away, but was slow and shambling. She nodded. As Hsieh’s warrior began hacking at a door, the witch picked up a small stone lying among the refuse against the wall. She used it to scrape a line up both walls to within a few inches of the ceiling. She connected them with another line on the floor, then laid the rock upon it. The leading corpse was only two steps away.

A muffled clamor sounded somewhere in the structure far above, presumably Cypress tearing the roof away. As much as Ruha wanted to glance at the ceiling, there was no time. She spoke the incantation of her stone spell. The rock on the floor disappeared, then a shimmering gray wall formed between the three lines the witch had traced on the floor. The first corpse, a dark-haired cult member with an ugly skull wound, arrived at the barrier. He managed to push his head and one arm through before the magic wall turned as solid as granite. The zombie remained there, reaching for the witch’s oil sack and moaning in the plaintive, incoherent voice of a tormented spirit.

Another crash reverberated down from above, this time followed by the clatter of falling rubble.

“He is digging his way down through the building!” Ruha cried, spinning toward Hsieh.

She completed the turn in time to see an iron bolt shoot through the breach Hsieh’s man had hacked in the door. The dart buried its head in the opposite wall, and the muffled clatter of a bow crank sounded from inside the chamber. The warrior reached through the hole and lifted the crossbar off its supports.

“Get on with you!” cried the man on the other side of the door. His voice sounded both fearful and old. “The next one won’t miss!”

Hsieh’s soldier shoved the door open and stormed inside, yelling, “You dare to attack Shou mandarin!”

A heavy thud shook the building; then the ceiling began to crack and groan beneath a great weight. Ruha and Hsieh followed the warrior into a small, windowless shop filled with the cluttered shelves of an apothecary. The soldier was leaning over a chest-high counter, holding his sword to the throat of a mousy, squint-eyed man. On the counter lay an empty crossbow and a crucible heating over the flame of an alcohol lamp.

As soon as she saw the lamp’s blue flame, Ruha’s heart skipped a beat. If she could use such a hot fire to cast her most powerful sun spell, even Cypress would be helpless to defend himself. She stepped toward the apothecary, but Hsieh spoke before she could ask the old man if he had any brimstone.

“Where is Number Two Exit?” Hsieh demanded, his gaze darting from one cramped corner to the next.

“Isn’t one.”

“What is this material?” Hsieh stepped to the outside wall and ran his fingers over the smooth, white-washed surface.

“Wattle and daub,” the apothecary answered.

When the mandarin did not seem to understand, Ruha said, “A sort of mud plaster.”

The planks above their heads creaked, then began to pop and crack. The chandelier above the apothecary’s counter started to swing, and Ruha looked up to see the exposed joist logs bowing directly over their heads. The dragon knew exactly where they were, and it took the witch only an instant to guess how. If the smell of ylang oil had led her to Hsieh earlier, then certainly the dragon, with his much larger nose, could track them by the same scent.

A tremendous splintering filled the room as five huge talons pierced the ceiling. The apothecary wailed and dropped to his knees behind the counter, and Hsieh shoved his warrior toward the outside wall.

“Kick hole.”

The claws began to rip through planks of thick wood as if they were made of paper. Hsieh’s soldier sheathed his sword and stepped back to get a running start, and Ruha leaned over the counter to look at the cowering apothecary.

“Have you brimstone?” When the man only looked at her with terrified eyes, she yelled, “Brimstone powder—now!”

The dragon’s fist closed around a joist log and started to tug. The beam, a rough-hewn pine trunk as thick as an ogre’s leg, groaned and bowed, but it would not break—at least not easily. Hsieh’s man charged across the room, then picked up both feet and attacked with a flying, two-legged stomp kick. The daub cracked beneath his heels, and he crashed through the wall to disappear outside.

The apothecary shoved an open bottle of yellow powder onto the counter and ducked out of sight again. Ruha grabbed the lamp from beneath the crucible and pulled the wick stopper. The cloth was still saturated with alcohol, so the flame continued to burn as she poured the fuel into the brimstone bottle.

A deep, rumbling grunt shook the shop. The joist log snapped with a mighty crack, and the ceiling sagged beneath Cypress’s weight. The dragon tore a handful of wood away, creating a hole twice the size of a door.

Hsieh stepped to Ruha’s side. “You must come now!”

“In a moment.” Holding the saturated brimstone in one hand and the flickering lamp wick in the other, Ruha turned to face Cypress. “First I must stop the dragon.”

“That will not be so easy as you think!” Cypress’s voice boomed through the empty hole as loud as thunder. I have learned to be wary of you.

The dragon’s second sentence tolled through Ruha’s head like a striking bell, shattering her concentration. She tried to summon the incantation of her most powerful sun spell, but could not.

Did you think I had to see your eyes to attack your mind? The words echoed back and forth through Ruha’s head, building on each other, growing louder and sharper with every reverberation. Any contact will do.

Ruha tried to bring the flickering wick to the brimstone bottle, but her body did not seem to hear her wishes. Her hands remained a foot apart, shaking with the memory of what she had intended, yet unable to obey. The wick in her hand sputtered and smoked darkly as it ran out of alcohol and began to consume itself instead.

“Why do you wait?” Hsieh demanded. “Cast spell!”

The sound of cracking wood filled the chamber once again, and the ceiling sagged almost to their heads as the dragon lay on the floor above. When Ruha did not move, Hsieh apparently realized what was wrong. He pulled a lasal leaf from his pocket and slipped it between her lips. The witch allowed it to fall from her mouth; if they were to have any chance of escaping the dragon, she could not allow a lasal haze to cloud her mind.

Hsieh watched the leaf flutter to the floor, then pulled his dagger from its sheath.

“So sorry, Lady Witch.” He cut the rope hanging over her shoulder and took the sack of oil. “Must not let dragon have ylang oil.”

The dragon’s withered hand came through the hole and snaked toward the witch. The mandarin quickly stepped away, then turned and threw himself through the opening in the wall.

Cypress’s talons stopped a foot short of Ruha, and the din assailing her head quieted to a dull roar. The lamp wick hissed and flickered and began to shrink. The witch considered trying to resist the dragon’s mind attack, but he was too powerful to defeat. Instead, she let all her defenses down, envisioning her mind as the great hall of an empty Heartlands castle, where even the slightest sound reverberated like a drum.

What is happening to you? Cypress demanded. Where is the oil?

Ruha made no reply, allowing the dragon’s words to crash through her mind with such force they shattered the walls of the hall she had envisioned.

The ruse worked. Cypress’s hand suddenly pulled away, and the cacophony in Ruha’s mind quieted as he sniffed out the ylang oil. Her hand obeyed when she tried to move it; even the dragon could not focus his attention in two different places at once. She pushed the bottom of the wick into the mixture of brimstone and alcohol. The flame quickly returned to its steady blue gleam, but the witch forced herself not to think about her sun spell. The dragon was still inside her head, and he would feel the effort of summoning the incantation from her memory.

Ruha had to wait only an instant before Cypress’s head shot through the hole, his nostrils flaring as he tried to sniff out the fading scent of Hsieh’s oil-soaked body. The witch hurled her bottle at an eye socket. The dragon flinched away, and the glass shattered against the side of his head. The burning wick instantly touched off the mixture of alcohol and sulfur, filling the chamber with a searing blue-yellow flash.

Cypress bellowed in shock and pulled his burning face out of the chamber. Ruha stepped over to the hole, summoning her incantation as she went. She saw the dragon’s head more than two stories above, shaking madly from side to side, trailing long tails of sapphire and amber flame. The witch thrust her hand toward the fire and spoke her incantation.

The blaze erupted into a blistering orb of white-hot flame, as brilliant as the sun in the sky and twice as large. The dragon wailed in anguish. When he raised his claws to his face, they caught fire and started to burn with a flickering yellow flame. He started to dance about, and Ruha heard a tremendous crash in the next room as one of his heavy feet came through the ceiling. Burning scales began to flutter off his head and touch off fires on the floors above. Cypress raised his wings, then roared in fury and launched himself into the air.

The witch turned away from the conflagration and saw the astonished apothecary standing behind his counter, his rheumy eyes fixed on the fiery hole over his head. She pulled him from behind the counter.

“Come along. We had better leave this place,” she said, dragging the old man toward the hole in the wall. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to guide me to the Jailgates?”

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