2 Book of the Lost Swords 8 - Shieldbreaker's Story by Fred Saberhagen

Author:Fred Saberhagen [Saberhagen, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 1995-06-14T17:00:00+00:00

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Amintor’s methodical, Sword-guided advance was now bringing him very near to the main plaza and the palace. He detoured, without stopping, closely around a building that was burning fiercely, while a handful of people with buckets made an effort, only desultory, to wet down the neighboring structures.

But the fire had not drawn a crowd. It was attracting no more attention than did the bodies of the victims of violence. Plainly, on this strange morning the majority of the good citizens of Sarykam—presumably a majority still survived—had little thought or emotion to spare for the death and destruction which had been wrought among them overnight. Looking into the glittering eyes of some of the survivors, the visitor thought that another and transcendent excitement consumed their minds and spirits.

At least half of the people he had seen so far, living and dead, were still in night-dress, and one or two stark naked, with no one paying much attention. A number of other folk, the traveler noted, had hastily improvised a livery of black and gold for themselves to wear. Many had been marked by the night’s festivities with soot and ashes, and some with blood. Not just your city riff-raff either. To judge by their generally well-fed appearance and neat barbering, they might have been until very recently among the city’s most prosperous and reasonable inhabitants. Now the good burghers marched and chanted, even while some of their houses stood freshly ruined and others were burning down before their eyes. Folk of the Blue Temple (although the Blue Temple had only a very modest foothold in this city), the Red Temple, and the White, were all behaving uncharacteristically.

On one streetcorner stood a group of a dozen people singing, or trying to sing. The syllables they were chanting so hoarsely rang plainly in the visitor’s ears. They made up a man’s name and title, and they, like the livery of gold and black, belonged to an individual he recognized. Nay, one he thought he knew quite well.

Hand on his Sword-hilt, his own eyes now glittering with hopeful ambition, Amintor advanced. Now the palace was only two blocks ahead.

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