A Burning Sea Theodore Brun (ebook reader that looks like a book .txt) 📖

‘Take this.’ She handed him the knife. ‘You haven’t much time. Dawn is close.’ She stooped and swept up her discarded girdle from the floor. ‘And this.’ He only noticed now how long the thing was, far longer than it needed to be to hold her robe in place. ‘There is a walkway high on the north-west wall of the palace. No watchmen go there at night. Use this to let yourself down.’ While she dressed herself, she explained how he could find his way there from his cell, through the warren of courtyards and colonnades to the city outside and freedom. ‘When you reach the street, the Golden Horn lies straight down the hill. The gates open at sunrise. Be ready. After that you’re on your own.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked, buckling his belt and shoving the blade inside.

‘I told you. Because Arbasdos hates you. Tonight, that is enough. Good luck, ágrios.’ She turned to go but he caught her arm.

‘Tell me your name.’

‘Lucia,’ she smiled and shook him loose, and in another eye-blink she was gone.

Erlan sprang from his cell after her, but as she disappeared down the corridor he turned aside into the grille door opposite, just as she’d told him. Inside, he flung himself into the corner, sweeping aside a heap of soiled straw. He felt a thrill of triumph as his fingers closed on the metal ring she had described. He pulled it and a trapdoor flew open and he found himself staring down into shadow. Just visible was the first rung of a ladder.

He shot down it like a fleeing spirit, then onwards, down staircases, along colonnades, through courtyards, slavishly following the instructions of his unexpected ally. Most of the household were lost in happy oblivion after the excesses of the night’s revelry. Now and then, a laugh echoed out of the corner of some deserted courtyard but the few watchmen still on duty had no more notion of the fugitive shadow than they would a ghost. At last he came to the stairs that led up to the walkway on the outer wall. Gaining the parapet, he limped to the edge, leaned over and looked down at the drop on the other side. Thirty feet at least. He had rope enough for perhaps fifteen.

Then he looked out over the rooftops. The setting moon’s light was glinting silver off the waters of the Horn. Freedom lay that way. He was about to tie off the rope and chance his luck when a whisper sounded in his ear. ‘Turn around.’

He spun around. There was no one there, though he would have sworn he had heard a voice. Instead what he saw transfixed him. A huge, monstrous shadow rising up over the city on the summit of the hill above him. It was bigger than the mightiest hall, taller than a mountain, the vast black dome soaring as high as Ymir’s skull. He froze, gawping like a man who’d lost his wits.

A shout from the courtyard below jolted him to his senses. ‘You up there! What’s your business?’ Erlan cursed; his outline atop the wall must have stood out clear as a beacon-fire against the greying sky. ‘Stay where you are!’ But Erlan was already securing a knot in the girdle and flinging the tail of it over the wall. He followed it over the edge just as a javelin looped over his head and clattered against the wall of a facing building. Erlan could already hear the outcry behind him, scuffled footsteps multiplying in the courtyard below as more watchmen arrived on the scene. ‘Thief!’ someone yelled. But he was already slipping down the rope so fast his fingers burned. The end came fast though there was another fifteen feet to the cobbled street below. Reaching the knot, he hesitated. There was a shout above him. He glanced up and was shocked to recognize the face of the second spatharios – whose friend he’d killed in front of Arbasdos.

He let go, losing his stomach for a dizzy second before he hit the ground hard. Fire shot up his right leg and exploded out of his knee. He yowled in frustration and pain. With a crippled ankle and a twisted knee, he wasn’t going to be winning any foot races.

‘Northman!’ the spatharios bellowed into the predawn gloom. ‘You can’t run!’

That might be true enough. Nevertheless he forced himself to all fours and was about to get up when something across the street stopped him. Something watching him from the alleyway opposite, one eye glinting bright and solemn in the moonlight.

‘Aska?’ he murmured, sure he must be dreaming. But the darkness shifted, a scrap of chain rattled, and for a second he saw the outline of a dog.

A spear clattered on the cobbles beside him. A torch appeared at the corner of the street. He dragged himself to his feet, gritting his teeth against the pain, as more projectiles rained about him. ‘Aska!’ he called, but the wolfhound was gone, and Erlan could only blunder after him into the dark alley, while behind him the cries of pursuit rang across the city.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Mist covered the water as the ferry set out from the port of Chalcedon and nudged around the headland. Lilla stared ahead. Sunbeams were making strange shifting patterns through the mist. Under the hull, the stream flowing south through the straits felt strong. She listened to the dip and gnaw of the oars. She smelled the boatman’s sour sweat and her own hair blowing about her face unwashed, mingling with the salty sea air.

‘You can’t see it yet, but up that way there’s a long inlet,’ said the Greek, pointing across the straits to the north-west. ‘Chrysokeras. The Golden Horn. The entire imperial fleet is crammed in there, safe as bugs behind a huge chain they pull across the mouth of the bay. Each link as fat as that one’s belly.’ He jabbed a thumb at Einar