The soldiers closed around them, trying to form a front against their chaos, but then came the crowd. They crashed into the soldiers, some fueled by panic, others by rage. No imperial could focus anymore, for their foes were everywhere, and even if unarmed, the people thrust fingers into their eyes and pulled at their arms in desperate struggles for their weapons. Rayan separated from the defensive formation beside Keles. Unlike the crowd, he sought not to escape, only to fight. He waged war against a backdrop of smoke and bleary sky. He fought amid a gray world, and within it, he was a light.

“Damn it, Paladin!” Arn shouted as he smashed two soldiers’ heads together. They cracked like eggs within their helmets. “Leave some for me!”

But the line had already broken. The crowd fled, men and women sprinting past the fires and then scattering. Rayan lowered his sword, and the entire world dimmed. The light upon the steel faded. It was done. The people were safe.

He looked back to the gallows, and to the bodies that littered the street.

No, not all of them. But those he could help, he had helped. Nothing less, yet sadly, nothing more.

“Time to go,” Arn said, patting Rayan across the shoulder. He jogged off into the smoke without waiting for an answer. Keles lingered, and he followed her gaze to the bell tower overlooking the intersection. High above, Cyrus and Magus faced each other, their duel seemingly halted so they might speak.

“If we hurry, we can reach the tower before more soldiers arrive,” he said.

“No,” Keles said. “We’ve done our part.”

Rayan shook his head. Cyrus was the last living member of the Lythan bloodline. The one man his family had sworn their honor and reputation to protect.

“We can’t leave him,” he protested.

Keles sheathed her bloody sword. Hand now free, she touched his face with the fingertips of her gauntlet, and she peered up at him with her dark eyes.

“Hold faith in him. He has earned that much from us.”

Rayan stared at the tower, wishing he could be up there with the young prince, wishing he could hear the words spoken between the two most important and powerful people on all of Thanet.

“‘Hold faith,’ says the woman calling herself Doubt.” He smiled. “What fool shall listen?”

But he followed her nonetheless, joining the surge of the crowd to flee into Vallessau, to vanish amid the smoke and the fires to where the soldiers of the empire could not find them.

CHAPTER 45

VAGRANT