Shouting and screams break out on the seating terraces as Efean soldiers swarm up from the court, climbing into the tiers. People race for the exits but the Firebird Guard controls the gates and aisles with its intimidating shield walls and spears. Their job is merely to hold so no one can get out or come in. It’s the Efeans who take charge.
Each highborn clan has guards; it’s how they display their importance. Those who kneel and surrender are allowed to live but the guards who draw their swords and fight are cut down as the Efeans wade in with fierce resolve and a supple and disciplined fighting style honed by the menageries.
Two more arrows flash past me from different directions, one hissing so close to my face I can taste its iron. A bolt from the first archer scrapes my left thigh and slides away across the planks. Across the distance he cranks back the crossbow, lowering his sights on me yet again. Then he’s hit from behind by a sword thrust, so intent on harming me that he failed to notice Efean soldiers storming the balcony.
A shout from below: “Spider! Get down!”
I flop down, face against the platform, as more arrows whistle over, where my head just was. One stabs into the plank next to my shoulder, quivering from the force of its impact. A thin rail of blood leaks through ripped cloth on my thigh but my pulse is pounding so hard I don’t feel any pain except in my wrist. Up here I’m a target and yet if I try to climb down the ladder while they’re still fighting I’ll be even more exposed. I have to hang on.
Pockets of resistance drop back toward the royal balcony, hoping to join up with the sea-phoenix soldiers who have frantically set up a perimeter around the royal household. But Efean squads swarm the retreating Saroese guardsmen time and again. Each clash of swords and spears leaves broken bodies bleeding out onto stone, some Saroese and some Efean.
The royal balcony has become an island of shocked calm isolated amid the chaos. My scan of the terraces reveals how comprehensively we have ambushed them, how many people kneel with hands on heads, shaking as they beg for mercy. Parents clutch children to their breasts. Women strip themselves of jewels and gold braid to throw at the feet of their assailants in the wild hope that all the rebels want is loot. From up here I see a few Efean soldiers grab a ring or necklace for themselves but most kick the baubles aside to officers who are collecting the valuables into bags. Trust Mother to have made the demand that everything be accounted for so she can disburse it fairly later.
All through the seating terraces that have come under the complete control of the Efeans, the Saroese are driven into lines and roped up like criminals.
After a bit, when no more arrows fly past, I risk rising to my knees, then to my feet. I turn toward the royal balcony. The king has not budged from his throne. He sits rigidly as he watches the end of his world. A last few knots of loyal guardsmen trying to fight their way to the royal balcony are overwhelmed and slaughtered.
The women and children and unarmed officials of the Garon household have been pressed back under the balcony’s awning, protected by a last circle of sea-phoenix and fire dog soldiers standing three deep. A captain daringly tugs on the king’s arm, trying to get him to move back so he won’t be so exposed, but he shakes him off. He doesn’t budge. A single well-aimed arrow could kill him.
A noise grinds on the floor of the court, and it seems every gaze fixes there. Four big platforms are winched up through the open trapdoors. Normally they would hold a change of equipment for Rings. But today brass carapaces gleam as spiders emerge into the sunlight.
The king stands, in defiance or in welcome. A great shout arises from the Patrons, because for one moment they believe the spiders have come to rescue them.
The spiders scuttle up the tiers in a terrifying display of flashing limbs. I’m sure that the spider scout leading the way is Father, risking himself at the forefront as always. They slam to a halt as they crash over the railing onto the royal balcony. There they loom above the royal guards, their bladed forelegs held ready to slash through the massed line. But they wait.
Meno? bravely tries to go forward to stand beside her brother but Lady Adia holds her back. In a show of courage I wasn’t sure he possessed, Lord Gargaron walks from the group hiding in the back and right up to the exposed throne. He speaks sharply to the king. Kal raises a hand to gesture Gargaron away. Briefly Kal’s gaze drifts to where I stand atop the tower but there’s no relief or lightness in his posture. How can there be?
Thousands of highborn Saroese have been taken prisoner and hundreds killed, and he had a hand in it, even though none of them know that he’s complicit in their defeat. That’s part of the plan: That they believe he, too, has been taken by surprise, betrayed by his lover.
Out of the mass of Efean soldiers the Honored Protector in his lion mask pushes forward. Beneath the sheltering shadow of a spider he faces the royal Saroese. Astoundingly, no one in the Garon household appears to recognize Inarsis in his mask and armor.
The honored poet at his side speaks. His actor’s voice carries easily to all the tiers. He speaks Saroese as well as those seated there do, because we must learn the language of the conqueror while they can remain ignorant of ours.
“There has come this day when truth will bloom and Efea will rise. You are done, you who have walked on our bones and nourished yourselves on our blood for so many generations. I counseled that we kill you all. But she who is rightful Custodian of the land desires mercy, so she makes this offer: Let the heads of your highborn clans make a formal surrender in your own Temple of Justice under the gaze of your god Seon. These clan heads alone will be held responsible. Do this, and your households will be allowed to embark on ships waiting in the harbor, which will take you to the lands of old Saro whence you came.”
Gargaron actually laughs. “Do you mean to cleanse every person of Saroese ancestry from Efea? Most of us were born here, just like you.”
“That is Efea’s offer to the highborn clans,” says the honored poet. “Take it, and most of you will live. Refuse it, and you will surely die.”
Meno? yanks free of her mother’s restraining arm and comes forward to Kal. The girth of her pregnancy gives her the weight of authority.
“Esladas will turn the Royal Army home to come to our rescue. Our West Saroese allies will return.” She looks ready to spit in Ro’s face although she wisely restrains herself as she turns to her brother. “Let them have their way for now so no one else dies. I counsel surrender because it will be temporary. These Commoners will rue the day they dared to defy us.”
The king has gone as ashy pale as if all the blood has been drained from his body, but he refuses to look away. In fact I think he is staring at Ro as if a crawling suspicion is worming its way through him, as if he is wondering if I have played these Rings against him, if it was Ro all along I favored. If I will actually stab him in the back as I did once before on this very Fives court.