(eng) Martha Wells - Ile-Rien 01 by The Element of Fire

Author:The Element of Fire [Fire, The Element of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

AS KADE TRIED to reach the partial shelter of the wall of the house, a clawed hand caught her hair and the back of her cloak, hauling her around. It was a bogle, a short squat ugly thing with muddy gray skin and harsh yellow eyes, and it was grinning at her. She pulled a handful of glamour out of the cold air and flung it into its eyes, giving it an all too temporary blindness, and it fled away shrieking. Damn things, she thought, dodging one of the coaches and its plunging horses. Why anyone allows them to exist is beyond me. If she ever got back to Fayre she would consider dedicating the rest of her life to removing its inhabitants from the face of the earth.

Kade fetched up against the wall of the house, just as the carriage doors slammed open and men poured out. Private troops... No, there were sprigs of white and red tucked into some of their hatbands, the colors of city service. A trained band.

She could feel the iron mixed into the mortar of the wall behind her as a distant heat. The proximity of so much iron made her wary, but she hadn't felt any real emotion she could identify since early this morning. She hadn't been able to leave. The idea of returning to Knockma and being alone with her thoughts was difficult enough to face, and the lump that had been in her throat for hours seemed to be keeping her from any decisive action.

Men came to the aid of the small group formed into a defensive knot between the two wrecked coaches and the house, and the fay began to disperse. The bulk of the house was probably what had saved many of the Guards. The flighted fay large enough to carry off humans had not been able to reach them. A thick haze of white smoke from pistols and muskets hung over the street now, but Kade could see that the glamour that formed her illusion was beginning to dissipate. The reflective quality of ice and snow had produced glamour in abundance. A trick on Grandier, that his foul weather produced material for her illusions.

Kade slipped inside the door with the others as the house troops withdrew. In the large stone-floored room within were half a dozen coaches, stabling for many horses, and the confusion of wounded and dying men.

She made her way across the chamber. Nearly to the bottom of the stair into the main house, she saw a dead man on the floor in Cisternan colors. She recognized him as their commander, Vivan, who had helped her in the palace hall battle. She hesitated, but there was nothing to be done, and in another moment the crowd pushed her on.

She couldn't see any of the Queen's guards, or Thomas, anywhere. With nothing else to do, she decided to look for them.

She made her way up the stairs and into the maze of rooms on the second floor.

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