The next few hours were a long dark nightmare of fire and blood and smoke. They edged through the palace, killing as they went, the building slowly burning around them, the silk wall hangings going up like kindling, shrieking with flames that ran like liquid across the walls, and they walked into it, covered in blood, cutting down the men they met as they did so until their arms ached.
They came at last to a great pair of cedar wood doors, inlaid with gold, wider than a man’s outstretched arms. A heap of bodies was piled before them. Some of the bodies were burnt, their skin blackened, their armour soft and sweating, glowing with heat. The room in which they lay was itself on fire, the walls and ceiling burning and covering everything with ash and silk and tiny fragments of gold leaf. But it did not seem to Marith that these men had been burnt by those flames. He thought again of the fire around the head of the statue in the Court of the Broken Knife, flames dancing in a ghostly wind.
‘So, we … we go through there, then?’ said Alxine slowly. They all looked at the great doorway. It looked like the doors of a tomb, or the doors to the city of the gods in a children’s tale. There was something behind it that would hurt them.
The room they were standing in was on fire. There were shouts echoing through the chambers they had come through, men coming nearer. Could be friend, could be foe. If they turned to fight, they’d have their back to the doors. That might be worse.
‘Oh, for gods’ fucking sake.’ Tobias gave the doors a push. ‘I thought you were descended from bloody demons, boy. Scared of a man on a gold chair, are you?’
The doors opened. They stepped through.
There was indeed a gold chair. A huge gold chair, so vast it would swallow up any man who sat in it. It gaped like an open mouth. And a man was indeed sitting in the chair. A bored-looking man with a sour face. He was dressed all in black with a thin band of yellow silk round his head. He didn’t look remotely dangerous. He looked half-terrified and convinced he was about to die.
Squad commander Gethen was lying on the floor in front of the throne. At least, it bore a passing resemblance to Gethen. His face was seared across with fire, one half perfectly smooth and untouched, the other charred down to the skull. Eyes and lips burned off. He still seemed to be vaguely alive. There were two other men lying with him. At least, they bore a passing resemblance to men. Mostly to cooked and gnawed bone. The air stank of roast meat.
Better than steak.
A troop of ten guards stood around the man on the throne. Their armour was not gold and their swords were not jewelled. They wore black armour that gleamed in the coloured light streaming down from the mage glass windows behind them. They held long black swords, whose blades flickered with blue flames. Their helms covered their faces, so that only their eyes showed, dark and cold.
Two other men stood by the side of the throne. One was an ageing man with thin, grey hair framing a heavy, jowly face. He wore a long white robe, torn at the hem with a flash of blood down the front. The other was dressed in a simple robe of white cloth, his face ageless and impassive, smooth as obsidian. He was holding a long wooden staff.
They all looked at each other for a long moment.
And then the world exploded in flames.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Blue fire licked and crackled around Marith’s face. It tingled, like sea spray cold on the skin. He felt his face warm slightly. A faint smell of singeing from his hair and clothes.
Rate and Tobias and Alxine were burning. Screaming. He looked at them a moment. Their armour glowed red.
He took a slow step forward, pushing against air as thick and heavy as water. The heat on his face intensified, uncomfortable, stinging, scalding him. He took another step. His hands shook on the grip of his sword. The air was thick as honey. Like fighting against a strong current. The men behind him screamed and writhed. Burning. Dying. The room stank like a funeral pyre.
A third step. It was harder to keep upright now than it had ever been in his life. He felt pressure pounding on him, pushing him down, his back and knees buckling. His face was hot with pain. Breaking him. Ruining him. Crushing him like stone. Drowning him. The others were on the floor, thrashing about. They screamed like he had never heard anything scream before. He felt himself falling: with gritted teeth he took another step, half crawling, bent under a weight like the weight of death. Dying isn’t easy, he thought. It’s hard. It’s so very hard. It hurts. He clung to his sword blindly, though the hilt was hot in his hands, stung him. Blue flames filled his vision. Everything beyond them flickering shadow-dark. Another step. Another. Another.
The black-clad guards shifted towards him. The man on the throne cowered back. He took another step, his body howling with pain. Somewhere in the fires he could feel the mage staring at him. Angry. Frightened. Incredulous. Slowly, agonizingly, he raised his head.
The men behind him were probably dead by now. He was dying. Drowned in fire. Nothing left of him but the grip of his hands on the sword. Another step. Another. The guards were all around him, he could see them as black shapes moving beyond the flames. They held out their swords to him but did not strike him. His eyes filled with tears, the heat of the fire drying them as they poured down his cheeks. Another step.
He could see the mage through the fire, through the tears, see him even with closed eyes, a blazing light in the shape of a man. Raised his sword, holding it two-handed like the mage held his staff, trying to keep it from falling from his hands.
‘I will not burn,’ he whispered through clenched teeth. His voice rasped in his throat. ‘I will not burn. I will not burn.’
A crash like a clap of thunder, so loud it almost knocked him off his feet. He closed his eyes and clung on to the sword, willing his body not to collapse. I will not burn. I will not burn. I will not burn. Took another step forward, his eyes pressed shut against the pain.
I will not burn. I will not burn. I will not burn.
A great roar. Something howling in pain. So loud he could see it, white in the vision of his closed eyes. Pain. Fear.
The fire and the pressure broke off. Sudden, like a candle snuffed out, from light to dark with nothing in between. The lack of pain was so violent he almost fell forwards, gasping, half stunned. Deaf and blind and witless, conscious only that he still held his sword in his hands.
I won, he thought dimly.
The mage was crouched on the floor at Marith’s feet, skin bubbling and smoking, raw red burns opening up across his face and hands. Threw back his head and howled again, and Marith saw fire dancing in the back of the mage’s throat. Flames began to flicker out from behind his eyes. Smoke and fire poured from his mouth and nose. Writhed and thrashed and screamed and spouted fire. Fire bursting out of him. Cracks of fire opening. Jerked and fell and lay still, smoke rising, black and charred through like a lump of burnt wood.
Better than steak.