“When we’re through here, I’ll let your father go,” Mirra said with feigned warmth. “Walk that pretty stallion over here.”
Mirra lifted a long sickle in her other hand.
Mychall approached, his shoulders shaking in silent sobs, face wet with tears.
Kathryn shifted and motioned to the others. She lifted her hand and dropped her shadows enough for the two knights to see. She pointed where she wanted them to strike. She didn’t need to see their acknowledgments.
She raised her hand, fingers out. She counted down. When she formed a fist, small flashes of fiery Grace ignited the wicks of two small barrels, one held by each knight. They were lobbed down into the lower floor, landing precisely where she wanted.
The first struck the dead horse, bursting up with fire, separating witch from boy. The second flew and struck the clot of ghawls by the pinned horsemaster.
The three knights followed the flight of the flaming barrels, hitting the floor about the same time the fires burst. Stoked with shadows, Bastian and Tyllus dashed toward the horsemaster. They had an oiled brand in each hand, dipping them into the fresh fire as they passed, igniting the torches.
Kathryn did the same with a single brand, but she also whistled sharply.
Stoneheart had reared when the barrels blew, yanking Mychall off his feet. But he responded to Kathryn’s whistle, desperate for the familiar. He swung toward her. She still had enough shadows, despite the fires, to leap onto his bare back. She guided him with her legs, turning toward Mirra, her sword in her other hand.
But Mirra was not one surprised into inaction.
She had shifted and grabbed Mychall by the hair, and now had the sickle at his throat.
“No!” Poll moaned.
Below his toes, the two knights fought the ghawls among the fires, armed with their two brands. But they could not hold off the daemons long enough to free the father.
Atop the horse, Kathryn watched more daemon knights boil out from the far passages. Cloaks rustled behind her. The stairs they had come down flowed with a river of darkness.
A trap.
She gaped at the sight. She had never imagined the witch’s legion numbered so many. Tashijan would be overrun.
Mirra must have sensed her despair. “You surprised me, Kathryn.” Her voice sounded so familiar. “I thought I’d have to kill more than one horse-or at least the boy-to draw you down here.”
“Why?” she finally choked out, the one word encompassing so much.
The answer, though, was quite small. Mirra nodded her chin toward Kathryn. “I want my diadem back.”
Kathryn stared into the face of madness.
“And to make you suffer-all of you suffer-for the pain you’ve caused me-that oily-tongued rub-aki.” She spat on the stone. “I was going to simply send my legion through you like a fire through chaff, but after this cruel burning, I want you all to end your lives screaming.”
She met Kathryn’s eye squarely.
“We’ll start first with this boy.”
Laurelle shook her head. “I can’t light you on fire.”
Orquell turned to Kytt, holding out the torch. The boy backed several steps, almost knocking himself flat on the altar before catching his legs. The master turned again to Laurelle.
“You must, Mistress Hothbrin.”
Laurelle kept her hands clasped together between her breasts.
Orquell lowered the torch and stepped closer. “Look at me, Laurelle.”
She reluctantly met those milky eyes.
“What god do I bow down to?” he asked, teasing her eyes more firmly to him. “Fire is my comfort. Flame is my passion. What I do, I do willingly. I’ll not say gladly. I won’t lie to you. But often life asks much of you, and you either honor life by answering with all your heart, or you cower your way into your grave.”
Laurelle took a shuddering breath.
Orquell read her reluctant hesitation. “I know what I ask of you is horrible. But I am rub-aki. We are trained to withstand a fire’s burn and still hold our minds. Only I can do what must be done here.” He glanced up. “Lives already end above because we hesitate below.”
She searched upwards with him, not so much looking for answers as asking for forgiveness. As Orquell lowered his eyes, he met her gaze. A smile formed as he read her decision.
“Very good, Mistress Hothbrin.”
Kathryn could do nothing to save the boy.
She sat atop her horse amid a sea of black ghawls. Bastian and Tyllus were trapped in a corner. She suspected the pair lived only at the whim of the witch. More fodder for her cruel games.
“Do not turn your face,” Mirra warned, “or I’ll make him suffer worse.”
Kathryn would not have looked away. Mychall was frozen in terror. All she could do was offer her vigilance, her witness. She met his frightened gaze, his weeping eyes begging her to save him.
First Penni, then the squires, now Mychall…
“What? No tears for the boy?”
Kathryn shifted her eyes to Mirra. “You taught me well,” she said. “Tears are for later. After you’ve killed your enemy, only then do you mourn your fallen.”
Mirra cackled at her words. “Then I’ll give you much to cry about.” She lifted the sickle high.
“No!” the horsemaster moaned.
Kathryn merely stared into Mychall’s eyes, letting him see her love.
It was such focus that alerted Kathryn to a shudder along Mirra’s raised arm. Kathryn felt something rush through the room like a gust of wind, but the air didn’t move. Still, the passage stoked the fires momentarily brighter, knocking back the ghawls.
Kathryn responded. She kicked Stoneheart, but as usual, he somehow read her intent, knowing her heart or sensing her hips tilting forward. Either way, he burst forward under her.
He leaped the edge of flames that separated her from the witch.
Mirra looked up, a cry on her lips. The sickle fell from her fingers.
Surprised now, are you?
Kathryn whipped her sword down in a savage swipe, but Mirra leaned back at the last moment. The tip of Kathryn’s sword sliced through the witch’s mouth, splitting her cheeks ear to ear as she screamed in rage. But it was not a fatal blow.
Mirra tripped back, sporting a mouth as wide as her face, blood pouring in a river down her chin and jaw. She howled and revealed the full gape of her mouth.
She lifted both arms, ready to unleash her legion upon Kathryn.
It left her belly exposed.
Mychall rose up from the floor, forgotten by the witch. He bore her sickle in hand. Using both arms, he hacked the blade through her gut.
She screamed anew, stumbling back, spilling intestine.
Kathryn had Stoneheart turned. She leaped back to the witch, but instead of attacking, she bent down and scooped Mychall one-armed up to her. He had been about to be skewered by one of the ghawls.
Not this night.
Mirra fell to her knees. She crawled to her staff, but the fire dimmed out of it. She grabbed it like a drowning man might a floating log. But the fires in it continued to die. And as the glow ebbed, the flames in the room brightened, as if a smothering smoke had lifted.
The ghawls shifted about in confusion.
Mirra rocked back, holding her staff, almost shaking it.
One last cry, and she fell back in a pool of her own blood and entrails.
Dead.
Laurelle knelt on the stone. The torch lay nearby, forgotten, still burning. She held her hands over her face. Kytt crouched over her, an arm around her shoulders. He squeezed her tight. She leaned into him.
“Come,” he said. “We must go.”
Laurelle still could not stand. She could still picture Orquell smiling through the flames as he burnt, seated on the witch’s throne. The powder over his body had spread the flame quickly, wafting hay and sweetness. Laurelle suspected she would never again enter a barn without retching.