The Grave thief

'Your Grace, please let me fetch you a seat,' Lady Ki

Natai waved the woman's protests away. The sting from her dozen small hurts wrapped her better than any bandage could. The pain took her away from the horrors of the day. Her torn and damp clothes meant nothing; changing them would change nothing.

The view had once thrilled her, as a little girl she'd been content to spend hour after hour staring out of the window at the city

beyond. Now it merely echoed the numb emptiness in her stomach. What she saw was distant and blurred, not quite real.

Again her thoughts turned to Ruhen and the child's calming effect, but then she remembered Ki

'I still ca

Natai let the woman chatter on; it was preferable to lonely silence. Gripping her hand tight enough to turn her knuckles white, Natai looked down at the open gate where she could make out the solitary figure of Major Feilin, loitering uneasily.

'They ca

'They do not think,' Natai said dully. 'They have lost all reason. The temples are places of madness now; we must close them until sense returns. We will quarantine them so the people are not infected by this evil.'

'A quarantine?' Lady Ki

'Better they look to Ruhen than seek answers in the temples,' Natai said with sudden vehemence. 'In his eyes you will find peace, in the temples there is only madness.' She stopped suddenly as she saw sudden activity in the street below.

'Look, here they come.'

A column of dark shapes, men huddled against the rain, trotted with surprising speed towards the main gate. A number split off and went in different directions, forming up in neat lines across the alleys and avenues that adjoined the main street.

Lady Ki

Natai found herself holding her breath, waiting for Sergeant Kayel to appear. The mercenaries continued to stream into the courtyard, scores of men, a hundred, two hundred, all desperate to be off the rain-soaked street for fear of Ushull's savage daughter, Kiyer of the Deluge. Finally knots of robed priests followed. Though she strained to see, the tower was too high for her to make out any of the faces.

'How many of them do I know?' she murmured softly, leaning forward. 'How many have laid blessings on my head?'

'Your Grace, don't stand so close to the window,' Lady Ki

'It is too far, they will see nothing.'

'What if they use magic?'

'They don't have the strength. Peness would be able to do so, but there is not one cleric in Byora who approaches his skill.'

As the soldiers continued to enter, a distant voice in Natai's head told her she should be afraid, that there were so many her guards would not be able to hold them, but the emotion would not come.

'Look,' Lady Ki

Natai followed the direction of Ki

Somewhere down below the message was passed to the soldiers, and the rest piled inside the compound wall. They left a respectful gap around the priests who were standing in the centre of the compound, facing the grand entrance to the tower. For a moment she couldn't see what they were looking at, until a figure lurched out towards them. Sergeant Kayel was walking none too steadily. He carried something in his hand. A club? No, a clay bottle.

Natai heard Lady Ki

Kayel took a moment to return the stares he received, then lurched around and headed back inside. She knew they would follow him, and as he disappeared from view again, Natai turned for the door, throat dry and heart pounding. She ignored the urgent voice of Lady Ki

She could hear the tramp of boots starting on the stairs further down, but she went on regardless. The floors in between were the largest, with dozens of rooms each; they wouldn't reach her before the roof fell in and they raced back to find their leaders dead. With Lady Ki

The landing, painted with garish murals, was positioned immediately above the main entrance to the Ruby Tower. Tall windows looked over the entrance and down into the Duchess Chamber. The hanging shrine was suspended from the ceiling: a wrought-iron frame from which dangled a mass of feathers, brightly coloured ribbons and small icons bearing Erwillen's image.

As she passed, the items trembled and she stopped to look at them. The colours were faded and weak. Natai touched the nearest feather lightly and it crumbled under her finger. She stared at the ash-like remains that fell into her palm for a moment before grabbing one of the painted wooden icons and crushing it in one hand as easily as if it were paper.

'You're dead. This shrine is drained and empty. This is only the first of many in Byora,' Natai promised.

Looking down into the Duchess Chamber, all she saw was her vacant throne. The fixed stone seat, large enough for a child to sit comfortably beside Byora's ruler, was set on apedestal. There was a tall wooden frame behind, painted with the city's livery. The scene was as still as a painting – until Sergeant Kayel staggered into sight and began to follow a meandering path towards a door behind the throne. Two penitents in black-painted mail followed briskly behind. They caught him with ease, one dodging a drunkenly swung bottle as the other cracked a club over Kayel's head. The big soldier dropped to one knee with a grunt.