CHAPTER THREE
NOY'S COMMANDO
Of thirty Dacoit commandos to dare the assault on New Adathen, only one returned alive. So it had been intended; a suicide mission. Three squads of ten had entered the fortress; one to assault the gatehouse, one to firebomb the Riflewomen's barracks, and the third, most daring, to massacre the wounded in the infirmary.
Captain Anayis Fell, leader of the mission, fought her way out of the infirmary and fled. The slaughter of her troops, trained for long weeks in readiness, troubled her not at all.
The fortress was on full alert now; already besieged and patrolled day and night, the garrison had stood to at the first sign of danger. Anayis had barely descended to the second floor of the keep before she met the first soldier on guard. The Riflewoman barely even saw her killer: Exiting the stairwell at a dead run, Anayis launched a flying tackle, breaking the woman's neck as they both hit the ground. Rolling to her feet, she ran on without a backward glance.
The interior of New Adathen's keep was a maze, the stairwells from one floor to the next situated with no discernible logic. Anayis did not attempt to negotiate the keep's passages more; the main gate was impassable in any case, by now filled with more Riflewomen than even she could take alone.
Instead, she found the first window wider than an arrowslit, and slithered out with the agility of a contortionist. Clinging like a fly to the wall outside, she took a neatly-rolled rope from a pocket in her black jacket, unfolded the collapsible hook and secured it in the corner of the window.
New Adathen's keep stood on a sheer crag deep in a mountain valley; the drop from the window encompassed two stories of the castle and a full sixty feet of natural cliff beyond. The ground below was lost in darkness; Anayis abseiled down in ten-foot hops, oblivious to the height and the chaos in the fortress all around.
On every parapet and rampart, lights had come up. Soldiers ran to secure every sensible escape route, but none thought to look up at the unclimbable walls of the keep itself. None would have seen Anayis in any case, merging with the night in her black Dacoit garb.
She gained the ground within a minute. In the darkness at the foot of the cliff, she quickly stripped off her clothes. Her uniform was double-sided, black on one side and dark green on the other. Reversed, Anayis' jacket and trousers were identical to those worn by the Riflewomen defending New Adathen. This was not odd; Anayis was a Riflewoman herself, like every one of the thousand soldiers laying siege to the fortress.
The war was a schism within the Women's Regiment itself, leadership divided between those loyal to the Lord Protector of New Adathen, and Colonel Noy of Fort Jiar. But the Lord Protector was questing far away, and had no idea that his castle lay besieged.
Anayis quit the shadows and ran across the grounds of the fortress below the looming keep. On her left, a natural causeway buttressed with towers and ramparts swept down to the valley floor. Torches burned along the causeway, lighting on the figures of Riflewomen racing to the keep like bees to the defence of their hive.
Anayis permitted herself the ghost of a smile, but did not slow her run. The darkness ahead was lit by the burning barracks-town, firebombed in the opening moments of the midnight assault. Beyond the flames lay the outer curtain wall and beyond that, no-man's land and the trenches of the besieging army.
Within a few moments' run, Anayis discerned the figures of Riflewomen silhouetted against the flames, fighting the blaze. She changed course, not slowing but avoiding the firelight until the wall itself was before her. Since escaping the keep, she had considered herself in no danger. Even now, crouching invisible in the darkness, watching the enemy running to and fro in the flickering light of the burning barracks huts, she held her peril very slight. Born to the most brutal terrain of far northern Kellia, she had absolute contempt for the sons and daughters of easterly Silveneir.
Flights of stairs at intervals led to the top of the wall. Anayis waited, patient and calm, breathing and heart-rate only slightly accelerated, her metabolism under complete control. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her mind, trusting her instincts and most subtle senses to pick out the movements of the enemy all around.
The slightest psychic prompt set her moving again, the way momentarily clear. In the brief seconds when no Riflewoman was in her way or even looking in the direction of the wall, a shadow raced up the stairs and gained the ramparts.
Here, there was no hiding; torches lit the wall and Riflewomen stood on guard, tensely fingering their weapons lest the midnight raid precede the onset of a full assault.
Clearing the final stairs at a run, Anayis was spotted immediately. Half a dozen rifles came to bear at once; Anayis felt their aim paint her as surely as a physical touch. She did not hesitate, did not even miss a step, but launched herself forward and vaulted the ramparts.
The astonished Riflewomen still taking aim saw only a lithe figure take a flying dive over the ramparts; not one them was quick enough to get off a shot.
Flipping acrobatically as she fell, Anayis dove, landed with a roll and came to her feet already running. No-man's land, between the fortress and the siegelines, was a broken terrain of earthworks and craters, the footing uncertain even by daylight. Anayis ran at a dead sprint through the dark, presciently avoiding ankle-breaking tussocks and leaping unseen hazards of the broken ground.
The siege-lines ahead were in darkness, but Anayis sensed the trenches and their defenders as clear as sight. A hundred yards out, she dropped flat to the ground and crawled, still moving quickly, taking a zig-zag route through the final stretch of no-man's land.
Here was the greatest danger; the risk of being shot by her own side as she made her way in. None saw her, however, until she vaulted the lip of the first trench and dropped down into the muddy passage. Here, a Riflewoman on guard immediately lurched to the attack.
Anayis swatted the lunging bayonet aside, snatched the rifle, hit its owner in the face with the stock and seized her for a human shield. The trench was full of soldiers, half a dozen Riflewomen with their weapons at the ready.
“Stand down, scum,” Anayis snapped, and shoved her hostage away with disdain. All in the trenches knew Anayis Fel, and feared her. Recognising her now, the squad of Riflewomen facing her gave way at once.
She advanced along the trench, through the muddy labyrinth to the back of the siege-lines, and there climbed out to proceed into the woods beyond. Here, the main force of the army was encamped, safely out of range of the cannon lining New Adathen's walls.
Anayis passed through the woodland with the stealth of a hunting wolf, ignoring the encampments and sentries scattered among the trees. None saw her; now that her mission was done, she took a quiet satisfaction in avoiding the notice even of her own side.
Only when she had cleared the camp and gone deep into the woods did she stop. Alone in the darkness, she let her mind reach out again, searching the darkness and the forest for something she knew could not be found. The slightest moue of irritation creased her lips. Only when she had utterly dismissed it, and her mind was again as still as the forest, did she proceed. She sought nothing and held no intentions, letting her identity fall away with every step until she was as empty as the dark void of the sky above the trees.
On an impulse so slight even she barely felt it, Anayis stopped. Returning to herself, she found that she stood in a deserted forest dell. Anayis kissed her teeth in annoyance, the first sound she had made in hours. A soft chuckle in answer spun her around, hands tensed instinctively into killing claws.
Behind her, where she would have sworn no one had been before, sat an old woman, cross-legged on a patch of turf, dressed all in black. Anayis relaxed, approached, and sat down, matching the old woman's cross-legged pose.
Colonel Noy was over seventy years old, but her face was without wrinkles and her midnight eyes still sharp. Anayis too had midnight eyes, the sign of Kellion heritage. Though she had been born to the Kraag and owned herself entirely of their blood, Anayis' father had been a Kellion swordsman. Few now living knew his name; if anyone so much as speculated on her parentage, Anayis killed them on the spot whoever they might be. Even Colonel Noy did not know for sure, but she suspected.
“Grand Mother,” Anayis said, when she sat before her teacher.
Most of the army and indeed the world knew Noy only as the Colonel of Fort Jiar and the Riflewomen who served there. Anayis was among a handful of officers who knew the truth: Colonel Varris Noy was one of only two surviving Dacoit Masters. There had never been more than five, and the fates of the rest were known only to Noy and the one other who yet lived. It was no easy thing to kill a Dacoit Master; Noy knew that, having herself slain two of her peers.
“Anayis,” Noy smiled. “Well done.”
Anayis said nothing. Her teacher was not referring to the mission, but to the nigh impossible feat of finding Noy.
Anayis Fel was thirty-three years old, having joined the Women's Regiment some three years ago. Many recruits came to Fort Jiar, most stayed, some left; very few rose through the ranks, combining the popularity and competence required to achieve authority in the semi-democratic Regiment. But Noy had noticed Anayis at once, recognised her, in the Dacoit fashion, as having the potential to achieve far more than a mere officer's commission.
She had not known then who Anayis was or where she came from, but the young woman's every movement, even the glance of her midnight eyes and the rhythm of her breath, spoke of wild danger and savage self-control. To this inborn or inculcated quality, Noy had added the discipline of Dacoit training, forging Anayis like a sword until she stood alone, sole candidate as the Colonel's best student; her greatest creation.
“I have another task for you, Anayis. There is a man who must soon be killed.”
“What is his name?”
“He was once a knight, Sir Barton Vick, a great hero of our enemies. But he was once a Dacoit too; beware, he is no ordinary foe.”
“Why must he die?”
Anayis, for herself, did not care; she lived only to kill at her Colonel's command. But Anayis asked why, that the most subtle powers of a Dacoit would be hers to command and the mission more certain to succeed.
“It is inevitable,” Noy replied, “that our enemies will call upon him; he is a mighty man, and they will soon learn their need of him. But they will hesitate to summon such aid, for he is Windigo, besides being both a Daishenic Knight and Dacoit Warrior.”
Anayis was silent for some time, knowing as few others could what it meant for a man to be Windigo, and how dangerous a foe she was now commanded to destroy.
“Where does he dwell?” There was no sign of fear in her voice; Noy would have sworn that in Anayis she had found a spirit like her own, immune to all terror.
“Far out upon the Moruna; no more do I know, save that he has in his possession a certain potion that you must retrieve and bring to me. The way of Dacoi will guide you, my daughter.”
“Grand Mother.” Anayis bowed again; Noy placed her hand upon the young woman's head and spoke the ritual words of their order against a perilous foe: “Alzar Kali. May the gods themselves stand against you, for by no other aid will your enemy survive. I will see you again at Fort Jiar.”