He stepped forward into the darkness.
‘What in His name is all the noise?’
Engir and Yehna turned to face the inquisitor, who had just emerged from a doorway at the far end of the passage. He came towards them, head craning forward, eyes narrowed.
‘Lord Rannick?’ Engir almost whispered his ques-tion. His mouth and throat had suddenly become dry, and he was shaking.
‘Who else, you dolt?’ Rannick replied. He stopped some distance away, his hand pointing towards the fallen man, but his eyes flickering from Yehna to Engir.
‘We’re new recruits to Captain Nilsson,’ Engir man-aged to say. Again Rannick craned forward. ‘No,’ he said, very softly. ‘You’re his kind, but there’s a foulness about you that he’d choke on, just as I am now.’
No, Lord,’ Engir said, stepping forward.
With a cry of rage, Rannick extended his hand to-wards him. Engir cried out and clutched at his throat. His mouth working desperately for air, he staggered into the open doorway. He collapsed part way into the room, his eyes signalling frantically to Levrik and his right hand circling strangely. Yehna drew her knife and rushed at Rannick, but she had scarcely taken two paces when the same fate befell her.
‘No need to take you to him. He’s here,’ Saddre gasped to Levrik as Engir tumbled across the threshold. Saddre’s eyes were gloating, despite the hand and the knife at his throat. ‘Your turn to account now, I think. I’ll enjoy this.’
‘Saddre!’ Rannick’s voice rasped along the passage.
A vicious blow in the stomach doubled Saddre up before he could reply, though Levrik stopped him from collapsing to the floor. He thrust the gasping figure to Aaren then pulled a leather thong from his belt and took a stone from a pocket.
Long schooled in each other’s fighting techniques, a brief hand signal told Aaren of his intention. She was very pale, and her eyes were unashamedly fearful, but she nodded. Then, seizing the gasping Saddre by the scruff of the neck, she yanked him upright and charged with him to the open doorway. He tripped over the choking Engir but Aaren kept up their joint momentum, and as they burst into the passage she swung him round, and, using him as a shield, charged at Rannick, screaming.
Taken unawares by this explosive response, Rannick instinctively held out his hands to prevent the collision. He was partly successful in that he deflected Saddre with a sweep of his arm, but in doing so he lost his balance and staggered heavily into the wall.
Yehna and Engir were released.
‘Down, now!’ Levrik’s terse command rose above the frantic gasping of his recovering companions as he stepped into the passage. In his right hand he was spinning the leather thong. Before Rannick could react, Levrik’s arm came forward and he released the sling. The stone flew from its soft leather saddle towards Rannick’s throat.
Levrik had dropped the sling and was drawing a knife even as Rannick’s hands came up again to protect himself. The stone caught his wrist and, bouncing up, struck him on the temple. With a cry of pain, he stumbled backwards.
Levrik was moving forward when suddenly Ran-nick’s eyes seemed to burst into light. At the same time Levrik saw his own shadow leaping violently ahead of him. Then something hit him powerfully in the back, lifting him off his feet. Reflexes curled him up, rolled him over and brought him upright almost immediately to face his unexpected assailant. But there was no one there except his three companions. Aaren was dragging Yehna and Engir to their feet. At the end of the corridor however, bright flames were pouring out of the doorway they had passed through only minutes before. Black, flame-filled smoke was rolling along the ceiling of the passage.
As Levrik took this in, he became aware of Aaren pointing. She was shouting, too, though her voice was hardly audible above the noise of the flames. He spun round, recalling their true enemy. Saddre was reeling around drunkenly, and Rannick, too, had been knocked over by the concussion from the now blazing hall.
Simultaneously the four moved towards him; dark, menacing and swift against the roaring flames, black knives glinting. But it was too late. Rannick may have been downed but he was sufficiently recovered to defend himself once more. He held out his hand. ‘No!’ he roared. ‘Whoever you are, I shall show you what happens to blasphemers.’ The firelight shone in his eyes again, making it seem as if some internal fire were rising up in response to that now consuming the castle.
The four hesitated.
‘I shall show you the true fire,’ Rannick cried. A thin, nerve-wrenching screech rose above the noise, and in front of Rannick a shimmering light appeared. ‘Thus starts your death,’ he said, clambering to his feet, his arm still extended. He turned to Levrik, the light growing ever more brilliant. Abruptly a figure lurched between them. It was Saddre, still stunned from his fall. As he stepped in front of Rannick, the light streamed forward, enveloping him.
He burst into flames.
For a moment there was silence. Then Saddre was screaming. The four watchers stared, unable to move, so horrific was the sight.
And, just as suddenly, the screaming stopped. Sad-dre pivoted with an eerie grace to face Rannick. ‘Lord?’ he said, his voice oddly calm through the clamouring flames.
Rannick’s face contorted with rage. His arm swung out and struck the blazing figure sideways with appalling force. The floor shook with the impact as Saddre struck the wall, and the flames about him flared angrily. Then he crashed forward on to the floor and lay still.
Staring through the flames still rising from his erst-while lieutenant, Rannick’s appearance was hypnotically terrifying. The four warriors stood motionless, trans-fixed.
The shimmering light appeared once more, but, abruptly, it flickered uneasily. Rannick cocked his head on one side, as if he had heard a far-distant sound. The action seemed to waken the watchers. ‘He’s only a man!’ Engir shouted hoarsely. ‘And there are four…’
Before he could finish however, a furious cry of rage and desperation filled the passage. It was Rannick. He made a wild gesture and, with a great roar, the shim-mering light burst along the ceiling of the passage to join the flames in the blazing ball. The four hurled themselves flat on the floor as the flames passed over them, but, the immediate danger passed, Engir’s command still carried them forward, intent on the destruction of Rannick at any cost.
But Rannick was gone and the sounds of his scream-ing flight were echoing up the staircase as the four reached it.
‘What happened?’ Yehna shouted.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Levrik replied. ‘It’s not finished yet.’ Then his eyes widened in horror and he pointed along the passage. As the others turned, it was to see the flames that Rannick had released, licking over the walls and ceiling like living creatures.
They were consuming the very stones.
When he had arranged with Aaren a diversion to keep the castle gates open, Gryss had deemed blundering incompetence to be their best ally. It had certainly not been his intention to have his few trustworthy volun-teers become involved in actual combat with Nilsson’s men. There were several reasons for this, not least being the fact that none of them were fighters, and most of them were past their most vigorous youth.
Jeorg however had precipitated events, when the weeks of simmering anger could be contained no more and he felled the gate guard. Two more swift blows had stunned two other men, and, to their credit, Gryss’s impromptu force had read the situation with consider-able alacrity; rage is not the sole province of the young man. Soon the courtyard around the gate was a mass of struggling bodies and flailing wooden staves.
Nilsson’s men, however, were experienced enough not to be afraid to retreat when caught by surprise, and this they did remarkably quickly. A lull developed. Gryss managed to keep his men together, blocking the gate and waving their staves menacingly, while Nilsson’s men were strung out in a thin semi-circle at a safe distance. Some of them were calling out abuse, but most of them were just watching silently. Gryss had seen several of them run towards the buildings across the courtyard. They’ll be armed when they come back, he thought. We won’t stand a chance.