‘Wait,’ Alen replied. ‘Just wait.’
Lieutenant Warren’s response shocked all of them, Captain Millard most of all, as he drew a short sword and levelled its point at Millard’s throat. ‘Soldier!’ Warren barked, and the squad immediately stood to attention.
‘Sir!’ shouted the man nearest.
‘Bind this man. If he speaks again, bind his mouth. If he resists at all, kill him. Understood?’
‘Sir!’ He pulled a length of rope from his pocket and gestured at the captain, who was still gripping his winter vegetable manifest.
For the first time Millard looked scared as his hands were bound behind his back.
‘They aren’t going to kill us,’ Hoyt signed.
‘How do you know?’ Hannah asked.
‘Because they’re tying him up, not hanging him.’
Lieutenant Warren gestured to five soldiers from the squad. ‘Take the crew and get the barge unloaded.’ As the soldiers started moving, the lieutenant interrupted, ‘Not those four. They’re coming with me. Bind them hand and mouth. If they resist or speak out of turn, kill them. We need only one of them alive. Confine Captain Millard to his cabin, bound, until he learns to control his tongue or until I order his release. Understood?’
‘Sir,’ the squad responded in unison.
Hannah heard a rush of sound, like a great blast of wind that drowned out the noise of the docks and she began to shake. ‘Not inside the palace,’ she said. ‘They can’t take us in there. Please, no.’
‘Quiet,’ Alen signed. ‘It will be all right, but you have to be quiet.’ Then they tied his hands.
Churn looked to Hoyt, his hands still free. ‘Now?’
‘No.’
‘When?’
‘Not now. Inside.’
The big man relaxed, dropped his arms to his side and allowed the soldiers to bind his wrists. One of them prodded him in the back of the knees with the flat of a sword. ‘Kneel down,’ he ordered, and Churn complied quietly; the soldier was not tall enough to reach his mouth.
Before they could gag him, Alen called out, ‘Lieutenant, please.’
Warren cocked an eyebrow at the old man.
‘Can I speak?’
‘Make it quick.’
‘Prince Malagon’s daughter, Bellan, can you tell me if she has changed yet?’
‘What?’
‘Changed. Begun wearing gloves all the time? Maybe taken to her chambers and not been seen for days?’
Lieutenant Warren looked at him in curiosity. ‘Because the chances are slim that you will live through the day, old man, I’ll tell you that I have never been above the lower level of the palace, and I have only been in there once. I don’t like going up that hill, and since you are the reason I have to go up there today, I don’t like you. I have never seen Princess Bellan, nor do I care what she wears. But I will tell you that if you speak to me of her again, I will run you through myself. Do you understand?’
‘One last question?’ Alen dared.
Lieutenant Warren shook his head in mock-despair and put his band on his sword-hilt. ‘I told you, old man, I would-’
‘Get word to the palace; let them know that Kantu is here. They’ll know who I am. Just let them know. Kantu.’
‘Gag this rutter!’ Warren snapped. ‘Make it tight.’
Still shaking, Hannah allowed herself to be guided towards the sloping road that led through the village. Behind her, the waterway was abuzz as naval vessels patrolled back and forth and barges, too many to count, moved up and down the channel, some stacked high with crates, others starting their return journey unladen. Hannah saw, in the shadows, Branag’s dog, the wolfhound she had seen padding into the living room from her mother’s kitchen as clearly, lying dead, its broken form motionless.
Ahead, Welstar Palace rose above the village, a dark structure with windows that appeared to absorb rather than reflect light: depthless pools of midnight black staring out at passersby. There were three towers, and wings stretching out and back from the elaborate main gate, and a series of enclosed courtyards, but there were no pennants flying from the ramparts, no flags hoisted above the towers and no smoke rising from chimneys; no sign of life inside at all.
Hannah thought it was the most forbidding place she had ever seen. The grim facade seemed to hum, stay away, resonating out through the dirt beneath her feet.
THE BOWMAN INN
‘Beer.’
‘Beer.’
‘Beer.’
‘All right, three beers and two half-goblets of wine coming right up.’ Steven draped his cloak over the back of his chair. The Gore-tex coats were hidden in Garec’s saddlebag.
‘And aspirin,’ Mark said. ‘My leg is cramping again.’
‘I have aspirin. I took it from Howard’s place.’
‘I need three.’
‘They’re in the bottle in my pack. You can get them while I get the drinks.’
‘Good, I like them better with beer, anyway.’ Mark dug into Steven’s bag and opened the plastic container discreetly. Cupping the pills in his hand, he said, ‘I like Traver’s Notch.’
Garec nodded. ‘It’s a nice little town, clean and quiet. I’ll bet there’s good fishing too.’
‘Too bad we can’t stay,’ Mark said.
‘Time is running out on us.’ Gilmour traced the grain on their tabletop with a fingertip. ‘We have to get south. If you know where the spell table is, we must get there as soon as possible, before Nerak beats us there.’
‘Won’t he be looking for us?’ Garec asked, ‘knowing we have the key, won’t he be waiting for us out here somewhere?’
‘Perhaps not. If Nerak travelled back to Malakasia to take over Bellan and resume command of the occupation forces, then we may have some time before he comes back to the East.’
‘But why would he waste time doing that?’ The young Ronan checked the front room for eavesdroppers.
‘Because he can, and because the occupation forces are valuable to him. They are a formidable army – and don’t forget, as far as Nerak is concerned, we don’t know where the spell table is, and we are effectively trapped in Sandcliff Palace.’ At that, Gilmour smiled.
‘Unless he felt Steven killing the almor and wiping out those clouds,’ Mark said.
‘He can’t detect Steven’s magic. If he could, we’d have known by now. So if he returned to Welstar Palace to collect Bellan, to proclaim Prince Malagon dead and to restore order among the occupation forces, we may have a little time in which to travel un-accosted. He may be thinking he can take Bellan, return to Sandcliff in person, and finish us off, but with Steven’s cloaking spell-’
‘Yup, Mom’s old blanket,’ Mark said, appreciatively.
‘Well, with that we may be able to move south without him knowing we’ve escaped.’ Gilmour gestured south as if Meyers’ Vale were just across the street.
‘Could he somehow have had the almor reporting back to him?’ Garec asked.
‘Perhaps,’ Gilmour shrugged, ‘but that’s a risk we can’t avoid these days. Our best option is to get there as quickly as we can. He has no idea we’re closing in on the spell table; that’s to our advantage. We have Steven’s cloaking spell. And finally-’
‘We have the key.’
‘Yes.’
‘So someplace between here and the spell table, he’ll confront us in person, not long-distance threats or talking Larion skeletons,’ Mark said.
‘Unless we manage to get all the way down there without him detecting us, or without his spies getting word to him of our whereabouts. Although at this juncture I suppose I should say her spies.’
‘So Nerak is now Princess Bellan?’ Garec sat up straighter, half expecting the woman herself to step into the room.
‘I’m pretty sure – of course, she won’t be Princess Bellan in the eyes of his occupation leaders until someone produces Malagon’s body.’
‘Which is floating somewhere off Charleston, South Carolina,’ Mark said. Gilmour chuckled. ‘That’s right, and as long as that’s the case, Bellan will have a hard time convincing the generals they need to follow her.’
‘Won’t she just kill anyone who resists her?’ Garec wondered why a being as powerful as Nerak would spend time trying to convince mortal generals that they should follow him.