“Simun,” he said. “Get someone with a pick up here—two men with picks, and one with a prybar. And a barrel of powder, and—” he consulted his unseen friends “—ten feet of quickmatch. Now!”
The distant thudding sounds were closer now, louder; like nothing so much as thunder. Beneath it Helga Demansk thought she could hear something far less uncanny than thunder from a clear blue sky; a snarling clamor of voices, and the harsh metal-on-metal sound of battle, with an undertone of the flat banging thumps that blades made on shields. The concubines were kneeling silently in rows according to seniority; several more of the black-armored Director’s guardsmen had come in. One of them was pale-faced and had a bandage around his forearm; another was limping. The sunlight crawled past under the dappled shade of the dome, the water splashed in the pool, all infinitely familiar sights gilded with a nearly supernatural film of horror now.
Another man came in, the metal heel-plates of his military boots loud on tile and marble, muffled where he traversed colorful rugs. He looked at the guard commander standing above the Eldest Sister, swallowed, and gave a jerky nod.
“It is time,” the commander said harshly.
“It is time,” the older woman said calmly. “I shall go first, to show my sisters that there is nothing to fear.”
She raised her chin. The soldier shook his shoulders back and raised the blade; sunlight broke off the bright edge as he took careful aim and swung with a huffing grunt of effort.
There was a wet cleaving sound. Blood splashed backward over the gilt mosaics of the wall, over young fleecebeasts gamboling in a spring meadow. Keffrine gave a breathless little scream.
“Time to get moving,” Helga muttered to herself, and took one last deep breath.
* * *
“All right,” Adrian said to the worried arquebusier. “I’m leaving you the twenty best shots, with all the loaded weapons to hand. They should be able to keep up a respectable fire for half an hour or so, and that’s all that we’ll need.”
The man nodded, saluted, and trotted away back up the stairs. Adrian looked at the other men near him: Simun; Tohmus, the commander of the Sea Striker detachment; the rest of his gunmen, now holding their cutlasses and targets.
“Everyone!” he said. “Be prepared for a very loud—”
THACRACK!
Smoke and debris vomited out of the mouth of the tunnel into the basement of the tower, shrouding its dimness and peppering them all with grit and small fragments of rock.
Adrian spoke again, his voice tinny in his own ears after the monstrous blow of the explosion in the tunnel’s confined space. “Simun, Tohmus, no crowding. I’ll go first.”
He plunged in, coughing, waving a futile hand in front of himself. The breeze was strong from the seaward, from the blocked end of the passageway—previously blocked now—smelling of patchouli oil and flowers under the sulfur stink of the powder. The plug was scattered in toe-stubbing chunks for a hundred yards back from where it had spanned the tunnel, bits of it having bounced off the curves in the walls. Beyond it was the chamber Center’s eerie sound-vision had shown, but the doors beyond were splinters hanging from twisted hinges. Ahead was a long sloping corridor, then a staircase with sunlight filtering down from above.
And barrels on either side; one was smashed, and the rich fruity odor of wine filled the confined space. Above the casks hung hams in nets, bunches of herbs, sacks of fruit . . .
“Gellerix’s cunt,” whispered Simun, beside him. “Anrew, Mattas, you pick six reliable men and guard this, you hear me?” To Adrian: “Sorry, sor—don’t want to tempt the lads mor’n’s right. And sor? Might be an idea to draw yor sword now.”
Adrian did, gripping the little brass-rimmed buckler with his left hand. He peered around. “Storerooms . . .”
Center strobed one of the lateral corridors giving off the big arch-roofed cellar. There was an ironbound door set into the wall there, with a massive lock—rare and expensive.
“Simun, put that under guard too—I think it’ll bear investigation. We’ll keep going straight up,” he said, indicating the stairwell.