He was speaking to their backs. Murchaud’s silver rapier gleamed when the torchlight touched it, made itself a brand of darkness in between. The Elf‑knight slipped forward, half invisible in the shadows, and Ben and Tom flanked him. Will watched, fascinated, as Ben came up behind the lone man tending the braziers and broke his neck.
Kit, standing like a statue between the pillars, did not move. But Lucifer did, leaning close to Kit with a heated iron held negligently in his hand. He had not even time to turn to face Murchaud as the Elf‑knight’s advance metamorphosed fluidly into a tackle. “S’wounds,” Will muttered, limping forward, his knife concealed in the fall of his sleeve. “This is a fool’s errand if ever I’ve seen one.”
It’s no sin to deceive a Christian;
For they themselves hold it a principle,
Faith is not to be held with heretic…
–Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta,Act II, scene iii
In a moment, the heat would touch him. Kit braced himself for the pain, tilting his chin down to his chest and imagining that his weight flowed like water through his pelvis and down his legs, anchoring him to the floor. He closed his eyes–a blessing anyway, as they tended to fall on the heap of mutilated ravens at the foot of the steps–and drew deep, heavy breaths. Mehiel stirred, so close to the surface that he could feel the muscles under his skin that would move the giant wings. He heard the rustle of feathers, smelled their warmth.
We’ve done this before,Kit assured the trembling angel. It’s only the fire.
One breath and then another, and then again. The air filling his lungs was thick and sweet, invigorating, full of the scent of fresh blood and hot metal. Very similar scents, some part of his brain mused, looking for a fresh conceit. Anything to distract himself upon. Mehiel. What are we going to do?
«Endure.» the angel answered.
«Be strong, my love.» Lucifer whispered in his ear.
Kit readied himself as best he could, gritting his teeth as if sheer willpower could keep him silent against what was to come. The fine hairs on his back melted under the nearness of the iron. The Morningstar’s long fingers tangled in his hair.
Something that Kit did not see struck Lucifer from the side, knocking him away, and the iron rang on the stones and then sizzled. The blow thrust Kit forward against his restraints, shoulders wrenched as his feet came out from under him. He yelped, a startled sound, and struggled back upright, twisting in futile desperation to seek the source of sounds of swordplay and a struggle. He couldn’t turn his head far enough to see anything of use.
But a moment later a hand was on his shoulder, and that he could crane his neck to see, and gasped in shock at the worry in blue eyes and a tight, hopeful smile. “Kit, can you hear me?”
“Will ! ” Kit glanced around wildly, glimpsed shadowy combat through blurred vision. Recognized Murchaud’s dark hair and nimble grace circling a laughing Prince of Hell, saw Ben Jonson brandishing a red‑tipped iron poker he must have snatched up from a brazier, and shook his head in wonder. “Will, they’ll be slaughtered – ”
The playmaker shook his head. “Your Prince assures me he can handle this, here, now. How badly are you hurt?”
Not at all,” Kit answered, and then saw where Will’s eyes rested. “‘Tis not my blood.” He pointed with his chin, while Will produced a dagger from his belt and sawed at tautstretched silk. Something about the wasted slaughter of all those birds made his breath catch in his throat, and he choked on it, refusing to cry now that he could almost taste safety. “They slaughtered all the ravens.”
“Not all.”
Kit sagged as Will severed the left‑hand restraint, surprised by Will’s strength as his friend hauled him to his feet. Kit looked up, trying to catch Will’s eye, but Will was moving hastily to free Kit’s other hand. “Not all?”
“I left a friend in the hallway …” Will’s sawing dagger parted the final shred of cloth. He glanced sideways as silver rang on steel. “Murchaud could use thy help, 1 imagine.”
Kit looked down at his naked, blood‑covered body, the short lengths of gossamer trailing from his wrists. At his fingers, swollen and raw. And bare of their restraining rings.
He smiled. “I don’t suppose thou didst bring me a blade, sweet William?”
“Alas,” Will said, and stooped slowly. When he stood, something long and dark speared from his hand: a length of twisted rod stock, drawn to a fine sharp point. It steamed slightly in the torchlight as Will reversed it in his hand and offered the looped butt to Kit. “Thy rapier, my love.”
It weighed more than a rapier, and would be useless for a cut. But the point was sharp, and the iron was heavy. He glanced over Will’s shoulder to where Murchaud fought Lucifer, falling back steadily before the Devil’s laughing, casual advance. Lucifer had drawn a blade from somewhere, a shadowy thing that flickered like his crown and rang like steel on Murchaud’s silver rapier. None of the others came near them; Tom and Ben stood back‑to‑back at the foot of the stairs, guarding Will and Kit. Ben still held the poker, Tom a brace of pistols. Between them they had three men at bay, a fourth one bleeding among the murdered ravens. Neither Baines nor Poley was anywhere in sight.
Kit snickered. The improvised weapon in his hand, the comfort of his friend at his side, were all the strength he needed. “Now all I need is a pair of breeches.”
Will pointed at a dead man, falling back a step. “That one looks about thy size.”
Lucifer’s dark blade struck sparks from a pillar as Murchaud ducked and cursed. Kit’s head turned. “And boots more‑so,” he growled, and sprinted barefoot and unclad over wet stones and slick mud to reach Murchaud’s side.
A moment’s eagerness for battle might race his heart and pulse false strength along his veins, but his long confinement had left him unfit and he knew it. Four steps down, a wave of vertigo caught him like a trap. He stumbled, expecting the hard stones on knees and forearms, the skitter of the iron bar on the tiles. There was shouting, nearby. The clash of iron on steel, blade on bar. Tom’s voice, Ben’s. A grunt, the sizzle of coals on wet tile as someone kicked over a brazier. Kit heard it all, scented, tasted. Pushed it away and dove.
And something caught him falling, a hard slap like wings cupping air, a jerk like a harness, a blaze of light around his hands and under his skin, silhouetting the crimson sigils painted on every inch of his flesh black on hot sunlight.
He sailed forward, the dark iron in his hand burning like a spear of light, a voice like a choir of falcons bellowing Lucifer’s name somehow rising from his throat, and everything a fury of gold‑barred black and searing light. “Behold!” Mehiel?
«Be not afraid, my friend.»
Except Lucifer straightened, that dark sword still in his hand. Kit saw through the haze of Mehiel’s wrath the edge smeared red with blood, the blade itself bottomless dark: a cut in reality, whatever lay behind it gleaming with silver motes like stars. “Murchaud, strikehim,” Kit cried in his own voice, but the silver blade was falling from the Elf‑knight’s fingers, and he was settling slowly, breathlessly back against the fluted pillar he stood before, both hands clutched across his abdomen and red welling through fisted fingers.