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conscious where he had been dragged into the shelter of the eaves. The sky
exploded with fire. All across the garrison there were shouts: alarmed,
astonished, and terrified. She shook the burned soldier brutally and shouted,
Was it the general who helped you? Which way did he go?
The man said something, and perhaps he thought it was intelligible, but to
Clement it meant nothing. She left him and ran down the nearest road, toward
the
rising shouts and the glow of fire now burning the rooftops. As she ran, she
heard a captain blow his horn in the distance, signaling his disordered
company
to follow him into battle. Cadmar would chase that sound like a hound chases
a
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rabbit and just as mindlessly, she thought grimly. She ran after him, her
pistols unloaded and her saber banging on her leg, with the sky exploding
overhead and the garrison erupting below, and as she ran she cursed Cadmar,
and
cursed even louder at the beauty of the deadly explosions that filled the sky.
She reached a chaotic knot of soldiers who seemed to be trying to fight the
fire
that threatened to burn their barracks down, though the flames were mostly
out
of reach of the water they tossed at it. She found their captain and shouted
at
him to give up and find the source of the explosives instead, but he gave her
a
dazed look as though he had lost his mind or thought she had lost hers. He
shouted that he had not seen Cadmar, which meant nothing.
She heard the distant horn again, and ran, and above the rising sound of
chaos
she thought she heard gunshots. It was a satisfying sound: at least someone
had
found something to do besides gape disbelievingly at the fire that exploded
all
around.
Rockets, she thought suddenly. Rockets, like the ones that five years ago had
burned down a garrison in South Hill, supposedly invented by a now-dead
Paladin
named Annis. Anniss Fire, the people had called the deadly stuff that
dripped
out of the sky, igniting whatever it landed on with flames that could not be
extinguished by water. Sand would work, but there was not enough sand in the
entire city to save this garrison from burning.
Her lungs ached. Cadmar was not quick-footed, and she should have caught up
with
him by now. She slowed her pace; she had lost him.
She heard a horn close by. Ahead of her were flares of ignited gunpowder,
pistol
shots, the shouts and cries of battle. She had run almost onto the heels of
an
organized company of soldiers, and they in turn had run into an ambush. She
ducked into a doorway as a pistol ball plunked into wood, and finally took
the
time to load her weapons. When she peered out, she saw little more than
shadows,
but then a flaring fire nearby lit up the street in garish light and she
could
see. Some people lay wounded, and they soon would burn to death if no one
dragged them to safety. Beyond, blades flashed as soldiers and strangers
endeavored to kill each other hand-to-hand. One soldier, sapling-thin and
giddy
with excitement, was briskly rescued from her foolishness by a big, laconic
woman whose saber moved so quickly it scarcely seemed to move at all. Clement
recognized both of them: the big woman was her frequent training partner, one
of
the best blade fighters in the garrison. The sapling was young Kelin.
Get that child out of danger! she cried. She is too young for battle!
Of course it was absurd: in the screams and shouts, the clash of blades and
the
explosion of gunfire, with the flames roaring in the nearby roof, Clements
voice was like the squeak of that evenings wayfarer bat. The sapling girl
and
the laconic soldier plunged side by side into the dark tangle of blade and
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ball.
Clement ran after them.
A shout. She used her saber to cut her way through a man she presumed to be
her
enemy. A white face, she remembered later, garishly lit by flame, with black
marks on his forehead. The flash of gunpowder, the whine of a projectile. She
flung herself flat, and rolled, and saw gobbets of fire raining down, and got
to
her feet and ran. The sapling and the soldier had ducked into the shadows of
the
eaves to avoid the deadly rain. Clement coughed smoke and chased them,
shouting
hoarsely, but if they heard her they gave her cry no importance. Apparently,
they thought they were heroes.
Perhaps these two had been following Captain Hermes signals, but now they
had
left the company behind. The three women appeared to be alone in the strange
night, the fighting left behind them now, the buildings here seeming empty
and
not yet burning. Ahead lay the garden, strangely lit with lamp flame and
withoh, Clement saw it nowthe fiery rise of rockets. So this was where the
rocketeers had set up their base. And did those two heroes think that it
would
be left unguarded? Or that they alone could end the attack? Apparently, they
did.
Gasping now, for she had run across the entire garrison, Clement shouted
weakly,
Beware sharpshooters! Even as she cried out, there was a flash and the tall
woman quietly folded herself up in the middle of the street, like a uniform on
a
shelf. Clement could already see her name, written in a company clerks bold
handwriting. Another dead soldier with no one to replace her.
Kelin did not even seem to know what had happened. She would be eager, too
drunk
on excitement to be wise, imagining herself as the one who would save the
garrison from certain ruin. The girl ran straight to the garden fence and
climbed it. She seemed to hesitate only a moment as she looked back and
realized
she had lost her companion. Perhaps she was surprised to learn that death was
possible after all. Perhaps she even remembered that Captain Herme had
commanded
her never to do anything alone. Perhaps it occurred to her that she should
wait,
for the rest of her company would soon break through the battle line. But
there
was no glory in waiting, was there?
She dropped down the other side of the fence. Clement reached through the
bars
to grab for the booted heel that had already begun to run across the grass,
toward the gardens fiery center where, with a shower of sparks, another
rocket
went arcing across the sky. Clement watched her go. She dared not shout after
her, and could only watch, clenching the iron fence like a prisoner, as Kelin
all but flew to the garish ritual. A half dozen giddy people seemed to dance
and
bow, with flaming lucifers in their hands, and then they all went dancing
back.
With a deep sound like a rushing wind or waterfall, the light flew fiercely
up
into the sky, trailing sparks and a gently glowing smoke. And then Kelin was
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