her just yesterday; Lene’s baby, whom she had held while Lene combed her hair. She tried to look away. No use. Nothing but blood and death.
And her father stood silent like the others, his mouth half-open, fear and hope in his eyes. She sawed at the ropes that bound his hands behind his back, working clumsily with her numb fingers.
He wore a sleeveless night-robe, not like his children, who had been wakened early to be dressed in Festival robes. As he clenched his hands more tightly, the deep sword cut in his arm sprang open again, and blood flowed down his brown arm. The dagger slipped and cut his wrist, a tiny trickle of red. When he was free, still he stood and stared, till she tugged at his arm and said, in the common tongue, “Come, I cannot hold them long.”
In that moment, a mind more subtle than the others tugged at its leash and almost twisted away. She held it fast, but in her fright and weariness she let loose two others. They were quicker-thinking than many of their kind would have been—their swords were out the instant that they were freed. As she tried to recapture them, more minds fought their way out of her grasp. Then they were all free.
It would have been a quicker and surer slaughter if there had been one fourth the number of soldiers. That would have been enough for two people, one wounded and weary, the other a child. But as it was, the soldiers blocked each other; they wounded each other. Swords rang fiercely; Andiene heard her father shout “Run!” It was his last command, and she obeyed it. The gate-bar was almost beyond her strength as she fought at it, sent it crashing to the pavement, flung her weight at the gate. It scraped open, and let her go staggering out into the crowded and unfamiliar street.
In the courtyard, Ranes Reji fought his last fight, wielding a sword snatched from one of his enemies, knowing it was a hopeless fight, but filled with a sort of joy that he could die free, not bound like a calf for the butcher. His last thought, as Kallan’s sword went through his body, was that what he had seen was only part of the delirium before death.
Out on the street, Andiene ran through the crowds of Festival rejoicers. They still sang, but not so loudly. Some who saw her running thought, in their fondness, that a young girl ran in fun from her lover, or merely ran for the joy of youth and strength. Others knew the truth when they saw the grim soldiers pouring from the palace. It had happened before; it would happen again.
They did various things, as their natures inclined them. Some eagerly pointed the way that the fugitive had run. Some joined in the hunt. Some shrugged and were silent when the harsh-faced men questioned them. Some awkwardly stumbled into the path of the soldiers, or innocently pointed down alleyways where none had passed in many days.
Andiene had never been in the open city unless carried in a litter on the days of High Festival. She knew none of the winding ways. Still, something led her from the crowded ways to the less frequented streets, to the dim alleys close to the sea cliffs, narrow ways smelling of fish and salt and rotting seaweed, almost empty on this festival day.
It was not so strange that she eluded her pursuers. Almost all in the city had pale hair, and darker skin. All, men, women, young, old, rich and poor had put on white robes and crowded into the streets to celebrate the healing rain, the cleansing cold, the patterns of the sky mended and made whole again. It was a day when there was no work, and all people filled the streets rejoicing. On a day like that it is not easy to follow one girl as she dodges from group to group like a grasskit hunted by coursers.
Andiene crouched in a doorway, her breath coming in gasps. The horror of what she had seen, and the strangeness of what she had done, began to mingle in her mind. The shouting was distant and faint, but the unlearned knowledge which had come to her told her that if she once slept, or even rested, she would be helpless. She looked around her. This place would offer her no refuge.
Will, not strength, drove her on. Every breath knifed into her