Traitors' Gate (Crossroads) Read Free

storerooms. A struggle raged within the gate house, and outside the gates a crowd screamed words Kesh was pretty sure meant something like “Kill the foreigners! Kill the traitors!”
    “They haven’t given us up,” said Kesh suddenly.
    “What do you mean?”
    “The sergeant and his guards could let that mob in. But they’re defending us. Eiya! We’ll need oil of naya.”
    He expected Eliar to protest, but the other man swung down his bulky packs. Keshad ran to the cistern in the middle of the courtyard and climbed up.
    “Heya! Heya! Get your weapons! Move! Our guards are defending us against a mob that wants to kill us. If we don’t help them, we’re all dead. I need rags. Anything that will burn easily. Hurry, you cursed fools!”
    He ran to the forecourt. The guards had abandoned the watch platforms that flanked the gates. Access to the platforms and the wall walk was from inside the guard house, now being fought over.
    Merchants came running with weapons, with rags, one dragging a thin pallet. Two carried lamps. Eliar brought three leather bottles. Muffled crashes and shouts came from the guard house. Someone was taking a beating.
    Keshad indicated the platforms above. “We’ll splash oil of naya over the crowd, light rags, and throw them down on top. That should drive them away.”
    “Heh. Just like the battle over Olossi,” said one man.
    “I’ll go up,” said Eliar immediately.
    As Kesh slung a bottle over his shoulder he called the other merchants closer. “Those who can fight, brace yourselves. Form up around the inner gate. Tip carts over, under the arch, to make a bottleneck. One of you roust out the cowards. We need everyone. Now, hoist me up.”
    Kesh and another man climbed up on a cart. The man laced his fingers together and, when Kesh set a foot into the makeshift stirrup, raised him up so he could throw rope around one of the poles making the scaffolding of the platform. He clambered up and crouched on the platform as Eliar was helped up on the other side. The mob below hadn’t yet spotted them. Men surged past the guard house door, pushing inside only to be cut down by the armed guardsmen. But the mob was growing, howling and barking like animals, or so it seemed to his ears. Workingmen who had, Kesh supposed, filled up with fear and now had to take it out on someone else, they were armed with torches, sticks, tools, and other such humble implements. None seemed to have bows. He licked his lips, tasted smoke. Elsewhere in the market district, compounds were burning.
    The top of the twinned gates was broad enough to walk across if you didn’t mind the height. Eliar hauled up a basket and crouched beside it, lifting out a burning lantern. Below, within the mob, a face looked up. Down along the street about ten men came running carrying ladders.
    Keshad unsealed the first bottle. This was the dangerous part! He shook the vessel, oil spraying on the men crowded up below. Eliar set fire to a rag and flung it outward, but it fell to the ground and was stamped out. Men threw sticks and debris up at them. The first ladder was pushed up against the gate. Keshad emptied the first vessel on top of the men at the base of the ladder. He unsealed the second and ran out along the top of the gate, flinging oil out as far away as he could. Men cursed athim, wiping away the oil that splashed on their faces. Spreading it. A second flaming rag fluttered down, and a third—
    Fire touched oil on skin.
    Shrieking, the man staggered, slamming into the men around him, half of whom had been splashed by oil of naya. The conflagration spread. The mob disintegrated as men fled in terror. The stench was horrible, and the screams were worse. But the street was clearing fast.
    Keshad ran back to the platform, swung his legs over, and paid out the rope to let himself down to the forecourt. When he touched earth, his legs gave out. He pitched forward as the merchants babbled and cried.
    Eliar bent over him. “Keshad?