“It’s trapped.” Lady Placida sighed. “Anyone can open it from the other side, but…”
Amara turned back to the High Lady. “I’ve come to-”
“Rescue me, obviously,” Lady Placida said, nodding. “And none too soon. The pig is returning sometime today.”
“He arrived but moments ago,” Amara said, crossing to Lady Placida. “We have little time, Your Grace.”
“Amara, anyone who rescues me from this idiot’s soulless little bower should feel free to call me Aria, “ Lady Placida said. “But we have a problem.” She gestured up the chain fastened to the ring on her neck. “It’s not a lock. The chain’s been crafted into place. It has to be broken, and if you’ll look up…”
Amara did, and found four stone figures glaring down at her, carved shapes of hideous beasts that rested atop the stone pillars at each corner of the room. The gargoyles had to have weighed several hundred pounds each, and Amara knew that even though they would not move with speed any greater than that of a human being, they were so much heavier and more powerful than any human that it would make them altogether deadly to anyone who got in their way. One could not block the unthinkably powerful blow of a gargoyle’s fist. One could get out of its way or be crushed by it. There was no middle ground.
“According to my host,” Lady Placida said, “the gargoyles are set to animate if they detect my furycrafting.” Her mouth twisted bitterly and she glanced significantly at Rook and the little girl. “Moreover, he assured me that I would not be their first victim.”
Amara’s mouth firmed into a hard line. “The bastard.” More screams and shouts came to them from the central stairwell, muffled a low mutter by the thick door. “He’s on his way up, by the sound of things.”
“Then your team does not have much time,” Lady Placida said. “He’ll pull out his men and pour fire up the stairwell. He won’t mind sacrificing a few of those poor fools in the collars if it means he gets to incinerate a team of the Crown’s Cursors.”
Amara coughed. “Actually, I’m the only Cursor. This is Rook, lately the head of Kalarus’s bloodcrows. She helped us get this far.”
Lady Placida’s fine, red-gold eyebrows arched sharply, but she looked from Rook to the child, and an expression of comprehension came over her. “I see. And who else?”
“Count Calderon, Aquitainus Invidia, and two of her retainers.”
Lady Placida’s eyes widened. “Invidia? You’re kidding.”
“I’m afraid not, my lady.”
The High Lady frowned, eyes calculating. “There’s little chance that she intends to play this through entirely in good faith, Countess.”
“I know,” Amara said. “Could you handle the gargoyles if the child wasn’t part of the equation?”
“I assume there’s at least a chance I could,” Lady Placida said, “or Kalarus wouldn’t have needed to take the additional measure.” She glanced at the child again, tilted her head at each of the statues, and said, “Yes. I can deal with them. But these are close quarters. There won’t be much time for me to act-and I can hardly fight them if I am chained to the floor.”
Amara nodded, thinking furiously. “Then what we must do,” she said, “is determine exactly what your first furycrafting will be.”
“One that will free me, put me in a position to destroy the gargoyles quickly, and allow you to leave the chamber so that I don’t kill you both while I do so, “ Lady Placida said. “And let us not forget that Kalarus will come for me with blood in his eyes if he realizes I’m free.”
“It is my hope that you and Lady Aquitaine will be able to neutralize his crafting until we can escape.”
“Gaius always did favor optimists in the ranks of the Cursors,” Lady Placida said in a dry tone. “I assume you have a brilliant idea of some sort?”
“Well. An idea, at least,” Amara said. She glanced back at Rook to make sure she was listening as well. “There’s little time, and I’m going to have to ask you both to extend some trust to me. This is what I want to do.”
Chapter 45
The night fell, dark and thick beneath the ritualists’ shroud of storm clouds. The night made the Canim battle cries even more terrifying, and Tavi could feel the primal, inescapable dread of fangs and hungry mouths rising in the back of his thoughts. No furylamps lit the walls as he ran to his position above the gate, and the orange band of a fading sunset was the only light. He couldn’t see the men on the wall well enough to make out expressions, but as he walked past them he could hear restless movement among them-and noted that they were uniformly far more slender than most of the more mature ranks of veterans. The First Spear had kept the cohort of fish on the wall.
“Marcus?” Tavi asked as he reached the center wall.
“Sir,” growled a dark form near him.
“Everything set?”
“Yes, sir,” the First Spear said. “We’re ready.”
“Men know the signal?”
“Yes. Sir,” Marcus growled, tone tight. “That’s what I mean when I say we’re ready, sir.”
Tavi started to snap a reply but held his tongue. He stood on the wall in silence as the light continued to fade. Drums rattled outside. Horns blared. Night fell, blackness only broken by flashes of scarlet lightning.
Then there was a sudden silence.
“Here they come,” Tavi breathed.
Howls rose into the air, louder and louder. The ground began to shake.
“Stand by furylamps,” Tavi barked. The order was repeated by spear leaders up and down the wall. A flash of lightning showed Tavi a mass of black-armored Canim closing on the gates, and he called, “Furylamps now!”
A dozen large furylamps, suspended by chains to be hung five feet down the outside of the walls, flared into light. They cast a cold blue light out over the ground before the walls, illuminating the ground for the Aleran defenders while glaring into the eyes of the attacking Canim.
“Engage!” Tavi cried, and legionares snapped into two-man teams, shield-man and archer. Arrows darted down into the heavily armored Canim warriors, but this time, many of the warriors carried heavy shields of scarlet steel, and arrows struck with small effect. The deadly, heavy javelins came next, striking legionares standing between the merlons. One archer took an instant too long to aim, and a spear struck him, its tip exploding from his back, while the force of the impact threw him from the battlements entirely to land on the stones of the courtyard. Another legionare had not properly secured his shield to his arm, and when a spear struck it, the top edge of the shield spun back, striking him in the face and wrenching his arm from its socket in a burst of crackling pops.
“There,” Tavi said, pointing at a tight group of Canim approaching in two rows. “Their first ram. Ready pitch.”
“Ready pitch!” bellowed Marcus.
The ram closed on the gate and slammed against it once. Then the men over the gate dumped pitch down upon the attackers-but something went wrong, for no howls of pain came up. Tavi risked a deadly second leaning out over the battlements to peer down. A long section of wood, no thicker than Tavi’s leg, lay smoldering beneath the splashed pitch, but it was far too light to have been an actual ram. The Canim must have abandoned it after a single strike against the gates for the sake of showmanship.
It had been a decoy, Tavi realized.
A second group surged forward, several Canim beneath some kind of portable canopy constructed from overlapping shields, and made for the gates. Tavi clenched his teeth. Even if they’d had more pitch ready, it might have been useless against the ram’s canopy.
Excellent.
The ram slammed into the gates, hard enough to rattle the battlements beneath Tavi’s boots. Again, in half the time it would have taken a team of Alerans wielding a ram to swing again. Boom, boom, boom, then, with the next strike, there was a single, sharp crack as one of the timbers of the gate gave way.