Actually, the clanking sounds more like falling—
A hoplite crashes into the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Arrows stick out of his bare calf and underarm.
He had been carrying a tray with three bowls of thick, gloppy stew. This has splattered like gore on the walls and floors.
More footsteps, faster and lighter this time. Then a young man’s voice:
“Ayan?”
In the other cell, a gasp.
“AYAN!”
“I am here, Jaruna.”
A young man jumps down the stairs and leaps over the collapsed guard. A mystic.
In his hands is a bow, nearly as tall as him, string pulled taut, nocked with a flint-tipped arrow.
His dark eyes light up when he sees the veiled young woman—Ayan.
She says, “Have you come to kill me, brother?”
The young mystic’s eyes widen even more—now he looks confused, horrified. He unhooks the arrow and slings his bow across his back, overlapping his long quiver.
“Ayan!” he says. “Why would you say such a thing? I have come to rescue you!”
With some difficulty, he throws open the latch and struggles to lift the wooden gate from the floor. Ayan ducks underneath and then wraps her arms around her brother, burying her veiled face in his shoulder.
“Jaruna…”
“Sister, we must go! There is no time!”
Kiddu ducks under the open gate and tiptoes around the embracing pair. They don’t seem to notice her.
She lifts the latch to my cell. But she’s not quite strong enough to lift up the gate.
“Wait,” I say. “Maybe we should stay here.”
“And rot in this cell? No way! I’m getting the hell out of here, and you’re coming with me. Now help me push up this gate.”
I shake my head. This is all too fast. I need time to think about the consequences. If we run away, that’s it. The point of no return.
Jaruna pulls away from his sister and takes her to the stairs. But Ayan stops suddenly, spins around and faces the two of us.
“Come with us,” she says. “Both of you.”
Her veil conceals her expression. But her brother’s face contorts in incredulous disgust.
“Why?” I say.
“There are many reasons. But you should not stay here.”
“Sister,” says the mystic. “What is this?”
“Just help them, Jaruna.”
With only a second’s hesitation, the mystic grasps the gate alongside Kiddu. Together the two of them easily throw it open. Before I can even sit up from my bed, Kiddu ducks under the gate, grabs my arm with both of her hands, and wrenches me off my feet.
The mystic regards this with narrowed eyes.
Kiddu turns to him while hauling me up. “Thanks for the breakout, whoever you are.”
“And whoever you are, stay out of our way. Now follow me.”
The mystic grabs his bow, nocks an arrow. He holds the armed weapon in front of him as he moves, takes off towards the stairs, leaps over the unconscious—or dead—Akkadian guard. Ayan trails him. Kiddu pulls me along by the arm.
We leap up the narrow steps of the winding staircase two at a time. Beige brick walls spin around us. Satiny robes of the mystic and his sister trail behind their bodies like flowing rivers in the air.
At last, we reach the top of the stairs. A rotted, hinged wooden door. Torchlight seeps through the cracks.
“Stay down behind me,” whispers the mystic. “And do not look ahead.”
After we back away, he closes his eyes.
I watch this closely. A pale yellow aura surrounds his body, illuminating the walls. Then, like a viscous liquid circling a drain, the light flows into the arrow, sheathing it in a bright glow.
Eyes still closed, Jaruna kicks the door open.
“Suryastra!”
The arrow launches, trails a bright white streak down a long hall—
I avert my eyes too late. The arrow flashes on impact and my sight goes all white and spotted, like what happens when you stare into the sun. In my good ear I hear shouting and armor clanking, along with the twang! and thwip! of more arrows flying. A soldier screams and falls to the ground like a sack of dinner plates.
My vision clears just in time to watch a hoplite heave his spear straight towards Jaruna.
But the mystic kicks the door just in time. It bounces back on itself from its leather hinges and the spear plunges into the wood with a shower of splinters.
Not a second later Jaruna kicks the door back open and lets loose an arrow. It bites into a hoplite’s exposed neck.
I hear a commanding hoplite shouting: “Stay where you are! We can hold him! Don’t break rank, you cowards!”
His words fall on deaf ears. One after another, the hoplites detach themselves from their hastily-formed phalanx, slowly walk backwards, then scatter away down the far hall.
Now only three hoplites remain in formation, crouching shoulder-to-shoulder with their big shields held close.
Jaruna draws an arrow, aims carefully, shoots. It hits pearlstone and clatters to the floor.
The three hoplites advance in perfect lockstep. Jaruna lets fly another arrow, low this time. It bounces off a pearlstone-plated shinguard.
I see no openings in their armor or shields. Oily blackstone speartips, closer and closer—
The mystic takes a deep breath, nocks an arrow, and closes his eyes.
Deep violet light swirls around him and cocoons his arrow. Eyes still closed, the mystic aims his bow just above the soldiers’ heads—
“Yushastra!”
He vanishes—and materializes in a flash behind the hoplites, somersaulting into existence from where his arrow strikes the floor.
“Turn around!” yells the hoplite commander. “NOW!”
They turn too slow. One falls over, gasping, an arrow sticking from his side. Another hesitates for a second—I catch his eye from the stairway. Jaruna wastes no time in killing him.
The remaining hoplite stands, back to us. Desperately, he raises his spear to throw at Jaruna. Then he collapses, arrow to the underarm.
He tears this out, screaming in pain. Another arrow to his neck kills him quick.
Seven soldiers lie dead in the hallway. Jaruna runs over and snatches stray arrows off the floor.
“Come!” the young mystic says. “Before they bring reinforcements!”
He takes off. With surprising grace, Ayan quickly steps over the corpses.
Kiddu follows Ayan. I follow her.