“Just shut up and listen,” I snapped. It was all coming out of me now, and I didn’t want to stop. “This mission, this is my chance to do something good. That’s what knights-errant are supposed to do, right? But so far all I’ve done is get my neck broken and be tricked into helping Fallon fight his monster. But this is something big. Maybe Diriel will kill us on sight. But maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll listen, and I can make peace for a change instead of war. Just once I want to be a diplomat instead of a soldier.”
Cricket said nothing. I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or shocked. Malator was quiet too. At that moment I would have gladly left them both behind.
“I won’t leave you here, but I won’t turn back, either,” I told Cricket. “I’m going to Akyre. Right now. If you turn back that’s your choice. But don’t tell folks I sent you away.”
Here’s how Cricket reminded me how young she was: She didn’t cry but struggled against her tears. She didn’t argue or curse me. She just looked at me, helpless.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said, as her voice cracked. “I want to go with you.”
“And we can talk about Sky Falls after this is done?”
She nodded and wiped her cheeks with her palms. This is where I usually give in to her, I thought. Where I tell her I’m sorry. But not this time.
“Good,” I said. “Now follow me. From now on I take the lead.”
* * *
We rode for nearly an hour more, until the mountains cast their shade upon us. The river bent eastward but the road bade us north, so we parted with the water and drove deeper into a sparse forest of stunted trees and rubble. With Cricket following and Malator silent, I studied the mountains looming ahead of us, watching as the road wound up the granite face toward Diriel’s castle. Yet there was no town to greet us, no hint of anyone along the way, and I began to doubt we were really in Akyre at all. Until at last I saw the flag.
My one good eye is sharper than a hawk’s. I noticed the flapping bit of green long before Cricket did. Halfway up the mountain, upon what I realized now was a turret built into the stone, waved the flag of Akyre. A squint brought the castle into relief.
“I see it,” I announced, pointing the way. “There.”
Cricket looked harder, finally noticing the flag. “Yeah. You think they see us?”
“Maybe not yet, but they will.” Except for the thin trees, we were out in the open. “We don’t want to hide anyway. Make them think we’re friends.”
I didn’t ask Cricket if the castle looked familiar, or even if she was afraid. None of that mattered now. We rode straight and steady for the castle, each step drawing us higher as the road began sloping upwards. Now I could see the pitted walls of the place bulging out from the rock, the broken ramparts crenellated like old teeth. Two watchtowers stood at either end of the castle, one oddly shorter than the other and both caked with moss. A bridge connected the main gate to the road, a narrow passage of planks and ropes spanning a lethal gorge.
“We have to cross that?” asked Cricket.
Even from a distance, the bridge made her blanch. I pretended not to be bothered.
“It just looks small from here,” I said. “It has to be safe.”
“That place is crumbling, Lukien. Look at it.”
“They get across somehow, Cricket. If they’re not afraid of it, neither will we be.”
Cricket gave a groan but kept on following, up and up on the serpentine road. Finally the road leveled, spitting us onto a ledge high above the whistling gorge. Ahead waited the bridge, and beyond that Diriel’s castle. Now we could clearly see figures along the walls and watchtowers, armed men, mostly, staring at us. In the courtyard-if you could call it that-women toiled in a shriveled garden, their knees bloodied from the hardscrabble earth. A dozen naked men shoveled stones from an enormous ditch, each one chained by the neck to his neighbor. A one-armed sentry with a whip watched over the prisoners. At his feet a child drank from a water-filled hole.
One look at the place, and I knew I’d made a mistake.
“Cricket,” I said softly. “I want you to stay close to me. Don’t wander off, don’t say a word.”
Cricket barely nodded. I guided her toward the bridge. On the other side a man waved a burning torch, shouting of our coming. The women and prisoners looked up. Cricket and I paused at the very edge of the bridge, taking one regrettable look down. Had the road really brought us up so high?
“Lukien, if this thing breaks. . we’ll never survive!”
Well, you won’t, I thought.
More soldiers gathered along the crumbling walls, but all I could hear was the wind and the wild ululation of the man with the torch. I wasn’t sure if he was warning us off or inviting us across. But none of the soldiers moved to stop us. Sure the bridge would hold our horses, I urged Zephyr onto the span, then saw a figure scramble across the courtyard. A small, bizarre-looking thing, I thought at first it was a boy, running toward the bridge. He was dressed like a nobleman in a velvet cloak that didn’t fit him properly and a chain of office around his neck. His outrageous red hair reminded me of candy, but despite his clearly aged face he was barely taller than a toddler. He grabbed the ropes on the other side of the bridge, swung onto it like a monkey and stuck his face out.
“Who are you?” he cried.
Cricket peered at him in shock. “What is that? A man?”
I’d spent too long with the Inhumans to be surprised-or offended-by any aspect of the human condition. “Respect,” I cautioned. “Remember, Minikin was small.”
“Minikin was a friend, Lukien. That one looks like a lunatic.”
“I am Lukien,” I called back. “From Liiria. May we come ahead?”
“From the continent?” The man bounded onto the bridge, shaking it with his bouncing. “Yes, come across! The master will be happy and pleased! Most happy and pleased! Come! Don’t be afraid!”
“Ask him if the bridge will hold us,” said Cricket.
“And offend him? Don’t you think that’s implied by the invitation?”
“Fine,” said Cricket. “You first then.”
I had thought about surviving the fall. But I really didn’t think I could, not even with Malator’s help. Still, Zephyr didn’t blink at my order, putting one hoof in front of the other as I ordered him onto the bridge. The midget at the other end waved to encourage us.
“This bridge is over a hundred years old!” he declared.
“He’s bragging?” quipped Cricket. Halfway across, she hurried me by bumping the butt of my horse. I urged Zephyr a little more, eager to get across. The midget sent to greet us made way, taking the reins of my mount and looking overjoyed.
“I’m Grecht,” he said. “Lukien! Oh, I’ve heard of you. Yes I have! The Bronze Knight comes to Akyre! So lovely, lovely. .”
His babbling made me think Cricket was right. Insane. And starved by the look of him. All bones and skin and yellow eyes. Bands of cloth kept the velvet cloak he wore from tumbling down his legs and arms. I took a breath and tasted dust. The skeletal prisoners looked my way, wondering who’d wandered into their hell, barely able to carry themselves under the weight of their shared chain. Up along the battlements, the soldiers watched without blinking. Each wore an elaborate uniform of gray and crimson, some studded with ribbon, others threadbare and torn, their faces painted a skull-like white.
Cricket and I dismounted. The tiny man took my sleeve and pulled.
“Master knows you’re here,” he said excitedly. “No one ever comes here from the continent!”
“Your name is Grecht?” I asked. “What happened here, Grecht?”
The midget acted puzzled. “I don’t take your meaning. Is something wrong?”
“This is Akyre, isn’t it?” asked Cricket. “This is where the king lives?”
Grecht beamed. “Emperor! This is Diriel’s palace.”
I gestured toward the prisoners. “And those men over there?”