Pulling the bodies aside, he opened the door and ascended the stairs he found. At the top, another door was bolted shut. He slid the bolts back then paused in the act of turning the handle.
‘Erienne?’ he ventured. He heard a movement. ‘Erienne?’ he repeated. Nothing this time. He continued. ‘It’s Thraun. Can you hear me? Don’t prepare or cast. I am here to help.’ He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
For a second time, Talan slithered on the blood-slick floor and took a pace back from the three bodies already at his feet. Another trio were advancing, albeit without much conviction, having seen the short work Talan had made of their comrades.
But The Raven man was damaged. A cut on his right thigh was bleeding well and beginning to ache, and a slash across his chest made him very conscious of his breathing. And worse, he felt a heaviness in his limbs as if he’d been fighting all day. It was growing steadily and he wasn’t entirely sure he could fend off the next attack for too long. Still, there was one more ace up his sleeve. None of them had seen Will. The little man was behind them now and Talan didn’t think he was the kind of man to ask them to face him before he struck.
The three Black Wings closed. Talan breathed deep and squared up. He shook himself to relieve his tiredness, feinted right and struck left. His intended target blocked the blow, forcing his blade downwards as he jumped up and back. He was in no position to defend a second attack but Talan couldn’t risk exposing his right flank. He turned, fielded a clumsy overhead, and drove his blade deep into his assailant’s neck. One down.
He shuddered as he stepped back, ready for the attack he knew would come. The muscles of his back felt as if they were about to lock and his next breath was constricted and shallow. His eyes lost focus for a second and he slipped as he put his foot down. Seeing him off-balance, both men moved in. Talan braced himself, cleared his vision and roared to try to clear his mind.
From his left came a stab to the stomach which he blocked with a cross-sweep, left to right. Even so, blade on the right side of his face, he only half blocked the strike from the other man, deflecting the blade aside but allowing the fist to crash into his jaw. He staggered backwards, tripped and fell, the base of his skull connecting sharply with a pillar—
Will speared a short sword into the nearest man’s kidney, knowing that even if he lived through it, the wound would cripple him for enough time to allow an escape. He glanced up as Talan fell like a bundle of rags, surely dead. His killer made the mistake of stopping to survey his handiwork, unaware for a fatal second that someone was behind him.
Will wiped his blades on the body of the second man and stopped to listen. Outside, he thought he could hear voices, though he wasn’t sure he recognised them. He decided to lie low for a while and take in the atmosphere. No sense in them all dying after all.
Courtesy demanded that he be sure Talan was dead, though it seemed a mere formality; the warrior hadn’t moved. Will took a pace towards him and heard a door open behind. He spun round, blades ready, and for the second time in a matter of minutes, his eyes widened. Even as he backed away, the excuse was forming on his lips.
Alun had reached the big open room. It was cold and dark but he could see a shattered chair and the door was open at the other end. There was fighting and he could hear shouting. He could hear it all around him. His sword hung limp from his hand. He had absolutely no idea what to do. At least he understood the look that Hirad had given him when he talked about the Rage. Not contempt, but worry. And a lack of confidence in him. He sat in a plush chair and shook all over.
Travers didn’t wait for the outcome. He shambled back down the narrow passage and opened the door to the main corridor on the upper level. He had walked out and shut it behind him when he was attacked. From the stairs dead ahead it flew like an arrow and, with a flurry of leathery wings, spiked tail and fangs, it hit him. Its claws tangled in his hair, its tail coiled around his left arm and its face appeared, upside down, in front of his own. It was no larger than a market monkey.
He recoiled but the face came right back with him. He would have sworn it was smiling but it couldn’t be human. Indeed, he knew it was not human, and the stench of its breath chilled his spine. Yet he could not take his eyes off it.
It was completely hairless, its scalp taut and shining, its brain pulsing in its skull, sending rivulets of movement through the veins in its face. It cocked its head slightly to one side and then it did smile, revealing upper and lower sets of needle teeth that knitted as its mouth closed, but not before its pointed tongue had darted out to lick Travers’ mouth.
He thought he would vomit but its eyes held him in thrall. They were black and sunk into hard ovals of bone. And deep. Deep enough to fall into and drown in the depths of his terror. Travers could feel his heart pounding as he stared at the thing, its flat slits of nostrils sucking in air, its tiny ears pricking at the slightest sound.
And then its hands came down and gripped his cheeks, its claws digging deep, bringing blood to his face. It leaned in closer, firing its stinking breath into his eyes. He blinked and tried to lean away.
‘Come,’ it said. Its voice rattled in his throat, soft like an old man’s, yet brimful of malice. Travers shivered and squirmed, hanging on desperately to his bowels. ‘Walk with me.’
‘Where?’ he managed. Again it smiled - a hideous movement. Travers closed his eyes but it was still there, etched in his mind.
‘My Master demands your presence. It is not far. Walk.’ The face disappeared but the talons tightened in his hair. Its tail constricted his right arm, which was held up and away from his scabbard so that his forearm dangled parallel to his face.
Travers began to walk, knowing with complete certainty that it was the last one he would ever take.
Alun came to his senses with a start that made his head spin. He could hear fighting above him, the sounds of men dying. And some of them were fighting and dying for him. His boys were in here. His wife was in here.
He stood up, an anger as pure as a virgin’s kiss flooding his body. He wanted to make someone pay for the anguish and loss they’d put him through. The days like months, the months like years. But today it would end and his sword would spill blood for the first time.
They’d be held upstairs, of this much he was certain. He ran to the open door and took the stairs at a sprint, pausing when he reached the top. Someone was at the other end of the corridor and walking towards him, something on his head. He ran towards them, the man never once focusing on him. He stopped again and raised his sword to strike but then locked eyes with the cat he’d seen Hirad carrying. Something in those eyes stopped him cutting the man down and instead they turned him to look at the door at the end of the corridor.
Alun nodded and ran on again, dimly aware of fighting to his right and the flap of wings behind him. His trophy was close. He could feel them. Gods, he could almost smell them! They were his boys and he would rescue them.
He stormed through the door and up the narrow passageway, bursting into the guardroom and all but knocking the solitary guard from his seat. Before he could react, Alun opened his throat with a furious swing and, not daring to think about what he had just done, clattered up the spiral staircase.
She came at him, a rage of blonde hair in a shabby and torn dark nightshirt, her arms outstretched, hands gripping at his shoulders.
‘My boys?’ she shouted, eyes darting all over his face. ‘Have you got my boys?’
Thraun shook his head. ‘No . . .’ he began, but she was past him, screaming.
‘Fools. They’ll kill them. They said they’d kill them!’ She flew down the stairs, across the room and out into the corridor, Thraun right behind her. She tore left and through a door into a narrow passageway. There was a cry from up ahead, then a clash of swords. Erienne increased her pace.