The warriors passed Mara between them, sending her reeling into cover under the overhang. Kevin stumbled in behind her, and, pressed on all sides by armoured men, he felt the earth fall out from beneath his feet. The warriors staggered and buckled to their knees; others fell prostrate, while the litter bearers whimpered with their arms over their heads. The force of the quake sent people reeling and falling in the street, and screams arose from inside the alehouse as ceiling beams collapsed and plaster and debris rained down. Crockery mugs spilled and clattered; buildings outside shed roof tiles, and cornices, and coping, to crash and shatter on the pavement. Balconies collapsed, and screens tore, and people fell bleeding like tossed litter.
A stone wall nearby collapsed in a grating puff of dust, and the shaking increased. A bucking, surging motion rolled the length of the avenue, and the air rang with the grinding crash of splintering timbers and masonry. Kevin fought the heave of the earth to reach Mara, but a pair of soldiers already lay atop her, shielding her with their bodies.
On and on the madness raged; the very ground writhed like a thing in pain. From across the imperial precinct, in the vicinity of the arena, the noise of wrenched stones rumbled and roared like an avalanche. The sound raged tireless as the sea, cut by tens of thousands of voices shrieking in horror and pain.
Then the earth stilled between one heartbeat and the next. Quiet fell, and sun shone down through a haze of raised dust. The street was left in wreckage, a battleground of rubble and moaning wounded. Mashed between stones, crushed under splintered falls of lumber, lay the silent, bloody dead.
Kevin pulled himself to his feet. His cheek burned with blisters, and his eyes stung from grit. As the soldiers around him also recovered their footing, he helped Mara to rise.
Looking at her soiled face, with cobwebs of charred silk dangling from her tangled headdress, and wet robes plastered to her body, Kevin repressed an urge to kiss her lingeringly on the lips. Instead he dusted a fallen strand of hair from her earlobe and wakened the sparkle of an emerald ornament. He breathed a shaky sigh. ‘We were lucky. Can you imagine what it must have been like within the arena?’
Mara’s eyes were still wide with shock. She was past all attempt to hide her trembling, but her voice held a grim hint of iron as she said, ‘We can only hope that our Lord of the Minwanabi remained too long at the games.’
Then as if the wrecked beauty that surrounded her suddenly wounded her, she gestured curtly to Lujan. ‘Back to our town house, at once.’
Lujan formed up his company and began the long trek back through the devastated avenues of Kentosani.
Arakasi appeared later, his servant’s garb dusty and singed. Far from the arena and the site of Milamber’s wrath, the Acoma house had taken only mild damage. But now a dozen warriors held the outer door, and more stood guard in the courtyard; the Spy Master advanced with cat-footed caution. Not until he sighted Lujan in the hallway did he finally relax his stance.
‘Gods preserve us, you made it,’ the Force Commander greeted in a hoarse-voiced rush of feeling.
In an instant, Arakasi was directed upstairs, where he bowed before his mistress.
Mara was seated on cushions, freshly bathed, but still pale from the day’s excitement. A scraped knee showed beneath her lounging robe, and her eyes were shadowed by an anxiety that lifted at the sight of her Spy Master. ‘Arakasi! Well met. What news do you bring?’
The Spy Master arose from his bow. ‘With my Lady’s forgiveness,’ he murmured, and he raised a stained cloth and dabbed at a bleeding cheek.
Mara motioned to a maid, who hurried off for healer’s salves and a basin. The Spy Master tried to brush her solicitude away. ‘The cut is of no consequence. A man sought to take advantage of the confusion and rob me. He is dead.’
‘Rob a servant?’ Mara questioned. The excuse was transparent; more likely her Spy Master had risked grave danger on her behalf, but she abided by his wishes and refrained from embarrassing him with questions.
When Mara’s party had arrived at the door to her town house, they had found the Spy Master absent, along with the bulk of her soldiers. Leaving a small garrison with Jican, Arakasi had made his way back toward the arena, but the madness caused by Milamber had disrupted his passage through the streets. The two parties had passed and missed each other in the pandemonium.
The maid arrived back with a basket of remedies. Mara nodded toward Arakasi, who looked irritated but submitted to having his cheek doctored at his mistress’s insistence.
While the maid dabbed at the Spy Master’s wound, Mara asked, ‘The rest of our soldiers?’
‘Back with me,’ Arakasi answered, unwarrantably peevish. He flicked a dark look at the maid, then finished his report. ‘Though one warrior took a blow to his head from falling pottery, if you can believe, and is probably going to die.’
Mara watched the filth and old blood that came away on the cloth. ‘That’s more than a scratch. The bone shows.’ She added the question that burned to be asked. ‘What of the city?’