‘Come on, Selik, killing me would serve no purpose. I mean, I still owe you.’ Will backed up further, knowing there was a door a few paces behind him. He sent a prayer that it was not locked.
‘Yes, you do. Once it was just money, and now it’s your life.’ Selik ducked under the doorframe. Will swallowed hard. The equation was simple: if the door behind him was locked, he would die. He slid back another step.
Selik was Will’s greatest mistake. He’d seen a farmer’s boy who’d be an easy take and he’d never been more wrong. He’d owed the gifted swordsman ever since.
‘I’ve got a lot of money coming, Selik. All I need is a little more time.’
‘You have never fooled me, Begman, and you never will, because time is something you just don’t have any more.’ Selik advanced, drawing his sword. ‘Try and offer some resistance.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Will. He turned and ran for the door, yanked it open and headed for the stairs, his relief turning to dismay as Selik barred his way, appearing from the door Talan had used earlier. The Black Wing shook his head. Will skidded to a stop and fled in the other direction, racing through the first door he found. It let into a narrow passageway and he heard voices ahead. One was female. He ran on. It was too late to turn anyway, and company was about the only chance he had.
Alun hauled open the door at the top of the spiral staircase, rushing in to live his dream but discovering his waking nightmare.
A man stood with his back to him, leaning over a double bed on which two children lay, the blood and their stillness telling its own story. Alun’s breath caught in his throat, his legs weakened and his sword point struck the floor as his arm lost the strength to hold it aloft.
He’d contemplated no other scene but his boys rushing into his arms, their faces alight, their mouths chattering identical delightful gibberish, their bodies warm against his face. But they would be silent for ever. He couldn’t move, not in or out, until the man turned, talking as he came.
‘I was just making sure they were de—’
Alun mouthed the word ‘you’ and attacked with his sword, his feet his hands, his teeth - a frenzy of raw fury. The guard fell back, fielding blow after blow on stained dagger blade and armoured forearm, taking cuts, bruises and scrapes all over his body. But Alun’s frenzy had no clear purpose and one wild sweep of his blade left him hopelessly exposed. The guard simply swayed inside and stabbed him through the heart.
Relief flooded Alun’s dying mind, his children called him and he thought he heard the man say sorry.
Isman’s face loomed in Ilkar’s field of vision and once more the mage found himself wishing it was all over. The sounds of combat were distant yet intrusive in Ilkar’s ears and he wanted them to stop.
‘And now you, Ilkar of The Raven.’ Ilkar merely raised his eyebrows and waited for the blow which never came. Instead, with a startled grunt, Isman fell to his knees, then on to his back, an arrow puncturing his right eye.
There was the sound of footsteps coming towards, past and then back to him and finally Ilkar saw another face, this one a stranger. An elf.
‘Who are you?’
‘Jandyr. No time for talking. Hirad needs help. You are a mage, I take it.’
‘Hirad is dead,’ said Ilkar, a cold dread filling his heart as he uttered the words.
‘No, he is not. Not yet.’
It wasn’t until he sat bolt upright that a searing pain reminded Ilkar his lung was torn by his broken ribs. It was going to be a flip of a coin who died first.
Thraun barged past Erienne as they entered the guardroom and was first on to the spiral stairs. At the top, he found Alun’s body and a man staring at him, confusion all over his face.
‘Oh, no,’ said the man.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Thraun and swept his blade through the man’s ribs, where it lodged in his spine, sending new blood spraying over the corpses of the boys. He wrenched his sword clear and took in the charnel house the moment before Erienne reached the door to see her slaughtered family.
‘I—’ began Thraun, but the look in her eyes silenced him as surely as a blow. She stepped over Alun, not sparing him a glance as she moved to the bed, Thraun edging aside to guard the door.
Erienne said nothing. She reached a steady hand to each of her children, smoothed matted hair from their faces, stroked their cheeks and brushed her fingers over their lips.
Thraun gazed at her, pity clashing with admiration at her bearing. But then she turned and if fury had been light, he would have been blinded by it. The air around her seemed to crackle, almost bend as her eyes sucked it in. Her mouth, a thin line below her nose, was still, but beneath, the skin of her cheeks moved as her jaws pressed together over and over.
The sound of running footsteps brought Thraun to himself and he swung to face the door, sword ready.
‘Stand aside.’ Erienne’s voice, like the sounding of a death bell, brooked no argument, and Thraun took a pace backwards. He turned to her, saw her hands, palms together in front of her face, felt the room chill and smelt frost.
The power was frightening and his pulse quickened. He tore his eyes away and focused again on the doorway. Feet clattered on the spiral staircase, then another set, the sound of laboured breathing, a shadow and then a figure, small, wiry and scared. Thraun’s heart missed a beat.
‘Erienne, wait!’ But her hands were outstretched and the spell was ready. Her eyes snapped open, her mouth framed the command word and the room temperature plummeted.
‘Will, duck! Get down!’ Thraun threw himself at Will’s legs, bringing him down in a confused heap. Erienne’s IceWind roared over both their heads, catching Selik square in the chest as he reached the door. The warrior staggered back a pace, dropped his weapon then collapsed, lips blue, eyes glass, hands white, shattering to a thousand fragments as he hit the ground.
Thraun clambered to his feet, hauling Will with him. Erienne brushed past them and started down the stairway.
‘Erienne, wait,’ said Thraun, but she shook her head, not pausing in her stride.
‘Travers is next.’
Chapter 16
Ilkar wept. He didn’t know how, but Hirad was still alive. The wound in his stomach was deep and surely fatal, yet he wasn’t dead. And now Ilkar would have to sit and watch him fade into the grave because Travers had taken away his capacity to save him.
Even if he and Denser had uninterrupted sleep for a dozen hours, it was debatable whether they would have the combined strength to heal him, such was the damage to all three of them.
And so he knelt by Hirad, his hands on that awful wound, ignoring his own pain as he fed mana directly into his friend’s broken, mercifully unconscious body while his tears dampened his cheeks and dripped to the cold stone floor. It would keep him alive for now, but Ilkar was so weak himself he knew it was ultimately hopeless.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘Ilkar, I share your pain.’ He hadn’t heard Denser move. He’d assumed him already deep in restoring sleep.
‘I can’t save him, Denser,’ said Ilkar. His voice, cracked by his sobs, was rendered unsteady from sheer fatigue. ‘He’s going and I can’t save him.’
‘There might be a way.’ Denser’s voice too was barely recognisable. His battered face stopped him framing his words with anything close to accuracy.
‘And what would you suggest, Xetesk man? There’s no magic wand we can wave!’ Ilkar jabbed the words out, coughed and spat blood.
‘But there is another mage in this castle.’
‘Erienne,’ said Jandyr.