She could only stare, terrified and fascinated, and if the steadily thickening silence from the crowd was any indication, they felt the same way.
Navaris nearly drove Tavi from the wall, and her heart caught in her throat. Then she saw him turn, somehow impossibly slipping aside from Navaris's blade, and bound through the air like a hunting cat, leaping several yards to land on the roof of another building.
Navaris followed him over, and then the pair of them were out of sight of the crowd below. Steel chimed on steel as swiftly as a drumroll, echoing strangely through the ruins. Spectral light flashed through the air, casting stillborn shadows, gone as quickly as they appeared. Stones clattered to the ground, all dull cracking sounds and heavy thumps of impact.
Isana couldn't breathe. She became vaguely aware of a sharp pain in her hands, and idly thought that her nails had begun biting into her own flesh. The crowd's growing tension and excitement felt as though it could have drawn blood as well. She stared at the roof, hoping, willing it to be over.
The swords stopped ringing. The lights stopped flashing.
Isana heard herself moan in her throat.
Silence stretched on and on.
Then there was an enraged scream, a sound so raw, so full of madness and rage that she could hardly believe it had come from a human throat.
Light flashed but once more.
Silence fell.
"Tavi," Isana heard herself whisper. "Oh, my Tavi."
The crowd remained perfectly still, as motionless as the stones of the ruins around them, and even more silent. It was unbearable to Isana, that tension, and she found herself rocking forward and back where she stood, fighting against the tears that blurred her vision.
"Tavi," she whispered.
And then Marat war cries filled the air.
The barbarians sent up a joyous howling upon their rooftop. The wild, fierce cries of their people danced among the stones. Isana stared, stunned, her mind only sluggishly processing the meaning behind the sounds.
Tavi.
They were cheering for Tavi.
Her son appeared at the edge of the rooftop, and the ruined city went wild.
Alerans cried out in a great roar. Legionares began slamming their fists to their chests in rhythmic thunder. Somewhere in the ruins, horses screamed out shrill cries of challenge. Dogs kept by the camp followers set up a howling chorus of their own. Legion drummers pounded on their instruments in glee, and Legion trumpeters sounded their horns. The noise was so loud that a section of ruined wall not far from Isana trembled and collapsed.
A burning cyclone of elation enveloped Isana and threatened to rip the consciousness from her mind. She closed her eyes against it, and only Ehren's support kept her from falling to her knees. The fire was too hot. It had to be turned aside, channeled away from her, before she went mad. She opened her eyes and forced herself to stand straight.
"Hail!" she cried. "Hail Gaius Octavian!"
Ehren gave her a glance, then took up the cry as well.
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
The legionares formed up around her were next.
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
It spread rapidly from there, from ruin to ruin, century to century, street to debris-choked street.
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
Chapter 58
The crowbegotten crowd kept on screaming his name, and Tavi wanted to tear his hair out in pure frustration.
Arnos was getting away.
The Senator had vanished from his spot on the wall, and Tavi spotted him heading into the crowd, lifting the hood of his practical brown cape. That explained why he'd worn the simple traveling clothes instead of the expensive robes, then.
Tavi pointed at him and shouted at his men to pursue Arnos, and the roar of the crowd grew louder. No one set off in pursuit, though, and Arnos was headed into the thickest part of the crowd.
Tavi turned to Kitai and screamed her name.
There was no way she could have heard his call, not over the furor of the crowd, but her head snapped around toward him, her features set in concern.
Tavi flashed her hand signs for enemy and fleeing and pursue. Then he pointed at Arnos.
Kitai's eyes widened, and she turned her head, following the line indicated by Tavi's finger. Her eyes narrowed, and she shouted into the ears of the Marat near her. The barbarians rose and began bounding from one roof and ruined wall to the next, lithe and agile as hunting cats.
One of them landed in the circle of space the detachment of the Battlecrows had cleared for his mother and shouted something to Ehren. Then he rushed into the crowd.
Tavi signaled him with stay and defend, and trusted him to work out that he was to stay with Isana.
Ehren nodded and signed back understood, which happened to be a motion very like a Legion salute, and stepped closer to Isana, who looked distracted and preoccupied. Little wonder. Even up on the roof, the storm of emotion in the crowd below was grating against Tavi's senses. His mother must have been half-unconscious from it.
Tavi turned and looked at the wall, where Araris waited. He'd never actually made a leap of that distance before tonight, and his ability to jump so far had been strictly theoretical until he'd actually done it. He wondered if he'd be able to do it without a murderous maniac at his back to encourage him.
No help for it. He'd never get through the still-roaring crowd on the ground.
So he focused on his intentions, drew strength from the stone beneath him, speed from the night breeze, and hurtled back across the same space to the battlements.
He'd leapt too hard, and he slammed into a massive stone merlon before he could stop himself. His armor soaked up much of the impact, and he pushed away from the stone as Araris came to his side.
"Amos!" Tavi wheezed.
Araris nodded once, his eyes intent on the crowd below. "I see him."
"Go," Tavi said.
Araris broke into a run, moving down the battlements, and Tavi followed him, peering down at the crowd, until he saw the brown-cloaked hooded figure roughly pushing his way through them, heading for the far side of the ruined city.
Then Arnos stopped in his tracks and began backpedaling. Tavi looked past him, and saw a pair of Marat crouched on a wall ahead of Arnos, their dyed manes blowing in the wind.
"Here!" Tavi said. He turned to another ladder mounted on the wall, took a few rungs normally, then clamped his boots to the outside of the ladder and slid rapidly down it, until he hit the ground. He turned and hadn't gone two steps before Araris hit the ground behind him. The singulare sprinted past Tavi, drew his sword, and ran forward, striking at the stones of the ground as he went. Each strike sent out a shower of sparks, a flash of light, and Araris bellowed, "Make way!" as he went.