Kevin felt a surge of wild hope as he crested the last rise to the concourse. The archway that led through to the street lay barely a dozen strides ahead. ‘Is that true?’ he gasped to Mara. ‘Can Milamber free a slave?’
Mara returned a stark look of fear. ‘He can do anything. He is a Great One.’
An overwhelming sense of imminent upheaval stirred the beginnings of panic. Spectators started erupting out of their seats and shoving onto the concourses. But their flight began too late.
One of the Warlord’s Great Ones arose to challenge Milamber. Aware of mass fear, and the crowd like a rising wave behind him, Kevin pushed Mara toward the exit. Lujan raised his sword to stem the rush, while his warriors shouted, ‘Acoma!’
But not all in the mob fled the magic. Shouts sounded to the rear, and five warriors in maroon armour raced to engage Kenji and the two soldiers. The Acoma Strike Leader never hesitated. Rather than be attacked in full flight, he spun back with a cry of ‘Acoma!’ and charged the Sajaio attackers.
The warriors rushed with him.
Kevin and Mara raced ahead, with only their Force Commander left in reserve to defend them.
Sajaio and Acoma met between stairs. The clash of their weapons passed unnoticed amid the vast upswelling of sound – the cries of awed spectators and the calls of warriors and guards who sprang to their masters’ protection. Other folk cried out in amazement at the interplay between Milamber and the Warlord’s pets that developed in the imperial box.
Then above such cries came screams of pain and terror.
Poised on the brink of the stair, Kevin risked a glance back. From the area beside the magicians’ box, a sizzling discharge of energy. cracked out. Milamber’s presence disappeared in a searing dazzle; golden light entangled with blue in a fearful, blinding display. In the unearthly play of shadow and light, the faces of the crowd were etched sharply. Each expression held a reasonless need to flee. People pushed, shoved, jostled and stumbled in a frenzy to climb the stair. The combat initiated by the Sajaio soldiers was overwhelmed, swept away by the roiling thousands who fled the magicians’ wrath.
Kevin gripped Mara tightly. ‘Run!’ Barely ahead of the stampeding masses of spectators, he plunged with her down the stair. In the flickering, incandescent flash of sorcery, the plume on Lujan’s helm shone an unearthly green. His repeated cry of ‘Acoma!’ vanished into the angry shouts and terrified cries from behind.
The stair plunged endlessly down. Mara ran and stumbled on her clumsy pegged sandals. Scared beyond propriety by the danger, Kevin bent and caught her in his arms. ‘Kick your shoes off!’
Mara said something. Words could not be distinguished over the noise.
‘I don’t care about the emeralds! Kick them off!’ Kevin commanded.
Her weight made him awkward on the stair. Despite his best efforts to run, they were falling behind Lujan, and now Kevin felt himself battered by pushing hands and buffeted by fleeing bodies.
Mara shed her sandals. In desperation, Kevin set her down, his hand like a vice on her arm. He towed her relentlessly against the jostle and pull of the mob.
Someone fell to his left. In an instant a thousand remorseless feet stamped over the hapless body. The victim never screamed. The crushing weight of the mob rolled over him, pressing air from his lungs and bruising him into a pulp. A frightened, witless commoner jammed hard against Kevin’s linked arm, tearing at his hold upon Mara. By reflex he drew Arakasi’s knife.
His Lady’s wrist slipped through his grasp; now he held only her fingers. Over the shoulder of the man who still shoved, Kevin glimpsed her expression of sheer terror before he lost sight of her completely.
His hand, joined to hers, all but loosened; he wept as he drove the knife through the back of the person who thrust into them.
The weight fell away, and he jerked in merciless desperation upon the one bit of Mara he still held. She reeled free of a wedge of panicked craftsmen and tumbled into his arms.
‘Acoma!’ The shout sounded near; Kevin stared out over the heads of the mob and blessed his Midkemian stature. At once he spotted a pair of soldiers in green armour hammering a path through the rush.
‘Here!’ he screamed. ‘Here!’ He waved his hand, forgetful that he held a bloodied blade. ‘I have Mara!’
The warriors changed course toward him, their beacon his unmistakable red-gold head.
Suddenly Lujan was with him. ‘Put that away!’ he screamed, pointing to the knife. He fell in before the barbarian and used his bracers like clubs to fend off the worst of the crush.
Kevin hid the knife. He pressed on, burdened with a trembling Mara, who yet bravely struggled to stand. ‘No!’ he shouted in her ear. ‘You’re too small, and barefoot, also. Let me carry you.’