He looked vaguely around for Sonia and caught sight of the table where, not so long ago, he had signed the volunteers’ oath of secrecy. Unsteadily, barely aware of what he was doing, he walked to the table and looked down at the clutter that told its own story of sudden alarm.
A scroll crammed with hundreds of signatures, crumpled as if screwed up by furious hands. An unfinished letter in the Warden’s small, fussy writing, ending in a blot. A pen that lay where it had fallen. The crystal inkwell overturned, a puddle of ink spreading to stain the white plumes of the Warden’s hat.
The first line of the letter caught his eye.
Citizens of Southwall …
Southwall, his old home! Why had the Warden been writing to the people of Southwall?
He focused on the words of the letter.
‘In the Keep,’ Rye heard Sholto drawl behind him. ‘I daresay the old fool was writing: “as safe as if they were here in the Keep” when the whole place began crashing down around his ears.’
As Rye turned to him, he nodded across the room. ‘It was a skimmer attack, without doubt,’ he said soberly. ‘See for yourself.’
Sonia and Dirk were standing by one of the tall windows that lined the wall opposite the fireplace. They did not turn as Rye and Sholto joined them.
Through cracked glass spattered with dust and rain, Rye looked out on a scene of chaos.
The Keep courtyard, misty with drizzle, was heaped with broken stone, shattered glass, smashed roof tiles and splintered rafters. The ancient bell tree planted by the Sorcerer Dann himself was completely buried.
Confused-looking soldiers, their scarlet leggings streaked with mud, were scooping up rubble and carrying it away in baskets. Keep workers who looked as if they would have been more at home moving official papers from one shelf to another were fluttering around trying to help. Many were in tears.
Hundreds of dead skimmers lay half buried in the mound. Their leathery wings were crushed beneath them. Their terrible claws curved stiffly, jutting into the air. Their pale eyes stared, flooded with blood.
‘The tower has fallen, it seems,’ Dirk said tonelessly. ‘But it did not drop into the courtyard entirely, by the look of things. The base must have fallen sideways—onto the attic roofs.’
‘The Keep orphans sleep in the attics.’ Sonia’s voice was as faint as a breath.
Rye took her cold hand. A terrible, helpless rage was burning in his chest. Rage at the tyrant who had sent the skimmers. Rage at the Warden, who in his fever to keep up appearances had failed to protect the most helpless of his people. Rage at himself, for believing that he and his companions had stopped the menace.
He turned to look at the door that led into the grand Keep drawing room. ‘It may not be as bad as we fear,’ he said, drawing the hood of concealment over his head. ‘It may be worse. In any case, there is only one way to find out.’
3 - The Lantern
Clustered together, hidden from sight by the power of Rye’s hood, the four crept through the deserted drawing room. They knew exactly where to go. The moment the heavy waiting room door had cracked open they had heard a dull roar of sound. It was coming from the great hallway that ran the whole length of the Keep.
They had almost reached the hallway door when it burst open. An echoing din of crashes, shouts, groans and whimpers rolled into the room, and with it came two women in filthy nightgowns. The older of the two had a thin grey plait hanging down her back. The other woman’s hair was wound up in dozens of curling rags, so that she looked as if she was wearing a shaggy white cap. The two looked familiar to Rye, but he could not think where he had seen them before.
‘Just do what the healer says, Bettina!’ the old woman snapped, seizing an armchair and pushing it back to the nearest wall. ‘Make as much clear space as you can! And be quick about it! He’ll start sending the worst cases in here any minute!’
‘The Warden will not like it, Lal,’ wailed her companion, looking nervously over her shoulder.
‘Then the Warden will have to lump it!’ the old woman retorted, shoving a dainty little table after the chair and turning to wrestle with a velvet sofa. ‘Those children need this room more than he does.’
Rye suddenly realised why the two looked familiar. They were the kitchen workers he had secretly watched talking to his mother in the Keep kitchen on his last return to Weld. But then they had been wearing starched aprons and prim white caps. No wonder he had not known them at first!
He felt Dirk nudge him and moved cautiously forward. Through the open door he could see large numbers of people thronging the hallway. Only a few were fully dressed. All looked exhausted, but no one stopped to rest for a moment.
People carrying piles of sheets and towels or hauling buckets brimming with water hurried along on both sides. A long row of small, huddled forms wrapped in blankets occupied the hallway’s centre strip. Men and women moved quietly along the row, cleaning grime, blood and tears from young faces, giving water, murmuring comforting words, and even singing lullabies.
A great love for the kind, valiant people of Weld swelled in Rye’s chest. A lump rose in his throat.
‘They need more healers,’ Sholto muttered, and darted out into the hallway. ‘Where is the chief healer?’ he snapped at an old man labouring by with two buckets of steaming water.
‘The Keep healer is up above, with the orphans who are still trapped,’ the old man quavered. ‘But there is another who seems to know what he is doing. Down there, he is, by the door to the Orphans’ Stairs. They are bringing the children out that way—lowering them down with ropes, I hear, poor little wretches.’
He jerked his head across the hallway, and to the left.
‘Thank you!’ said Sholto, and instantly he was gone.
‘I am sure you would do the same for me,’ the old man mumbled, and shuffled on.
‘The time for hiding is past, I think,’ Rye said. As Dirk and Sonia nodded tensely, he pulled off the hood.
Dirk dashed from the room with Sonia close behind him. Rye was hard on their heels. Everyone in the hallway was hurrying and everyone was untidy, so no one paid the slightest attention to the ragged trio as they ran in pursuit of Sholto.
They caught up with him quite quickly. He was crouching beside a tearful little girl, deftly replacing a bandage on her arm.
‘Now, do not pull it off again, Daisy,’ Rye heard him say.
‘It hurts,’ the child whimpered.
‘Of course,’ Sholto agreed seriously. ‘But it is not the bandage that hurts you. It is the cut underneath. The bandage will stop the bleeding and keep the dirt out. It is your friend. See?’
He pulled a pencil from his pocket and drew two eyes and a smiling mouth on the edge of the bandage. The little girl blinked, and slowly her face broke into a wobbly grin.
‘The roof fell down on us,’ she said, as if confiding a great secret. ‘But Mistress Fife said we mustn’t cry. She said it was good the roof was on us, because it kept us safe from the skimmers.’
‘Well, Mistress Fife was quite right,’ Sholto said lightly, rising to his feet. ‘I must go now, Daisy. Just remember—you take care of your friend, and your friend will take care of you.’
The child nodded and began crooning to the face on the bandage. As he turned away, Sholto caught sight of Rye, Dirk and Sonia and realised they had been watching him. He flushed slightly and stalked on down the hallway without a word. Their hearts too full to speak, they hurried after him.
In moments they had reached the centre of the rescue mission. There they found the gaping doorway that was the source of the shouts and clatters. There they found exhausted Wall workers staggering out of dusty gloom with sobbing children in their arms. There they found Tallus the healer, covered in blood, tenderly but thoroughly examining each small patient before passing him or her on with a curt order.