Glenn stared back hard. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else,” she said, forcing a small grin of her own.
Abbe’s eyes blazed. “Yes,” she said to Garen, and then turned to Aamon. “But the traitor dies.”
“No!” Glenn tried to stand, but she was pushed hard onto her knees.
Garen glanced at the men behind them and then strode to the gallows platform. Five soldiers seized Aamon from behind and began wrestling him to his feet. Glenn looked all around, but there was no one to help her. She tore aside her sleeve and grabbed the bracelet. Before she could tear it off, Aamon’s hand clamped down over hers. He was half standing, surrounded by a phalanx of terrified but determined guards. He leaned in to her as the soldiers struggled to pull him away.
“Give them anything they want,” he said. “And then go home.”
“Aamon …”
The soldiers tried to pull him back again, but Aamon flexed his shoulders and drew his face alongside Glenn’s ear. His breath was warm and close.
“Hopkins,” he whispered to her.
More soldiers came then. Glenn watched helplessly, an awful lump in her throat, as their hands wrapped around his arms and shoulders and he was dragged away toward the gallows where Merrin Farrick stood. His eyes never left hers, though. The deep bright green of them, the only handhold she had that kept her from drowning.
Finally they turned him around and pushed him onto the stand beside Merrin. He was surrounded by men now, each one of them with a spear at his side, and Abbe watched from nearby. Too big for the gallows, the company of soldiers forced him down to his knees, and a man stepped forward with a sword.
A white-hot spot of anger burned deep in Glenn’s chest. She reached for the bracelet, but before she could remove it, there were sounds of confusion all around her. She opened her eyes. The soldiers were frantic, disorganized, searching the roofs and alleyways around them, swords in hand. There was a sharp whisper, like the flight of a hornet, and one of the soldiers dropped with a scream, the bolt of an arrow driven through his neck.
The band of soldiers spread out, shouting and hunting for the archer. Three more of them fell, then four. It was chaos. There was a scream far off on the other side of the square, and Glenn turned as twenty bodies came pouring out of a side street. Men and women, old and young, rushed headlong into the line of soldiers. They wore rags and carried sickles, machetes, bows and arrows.
24
At the head of the pack ran Kevin Kapoor.
Glenn grabbed a dead soldier’s spear off the ground. It was broken in half but was perfect for what Glenn had in mind. Abbe Daniel turned when she heard Glenn approach, but was too late. She swung the butt of the spear and caught Abbe square on the back of her head. The witch crumpled to the ground.
All but two of the soldiers had left Aamon’s side. Garen was on his way to him, roaring, claws out. Aamon pushed the soldiers away and ran to meet him. “Go!” he shouted at Glenn. “Destroy it while you can!”
Aamon and Garen fell into a blur of claws and fists. Glenn
scooped an abandoned knife off the ground, but she knew there was nothing she could do to help Aamon. All she could do was run.
Glenn caught sight of Merrin Farrick as she fled. He was writhing and gasping at the end of his noose, his face shading from red to a deadly blue. Someone had pushed him off the platform as they ran to the fight. Glenn paused, knife in hand.
His people are here now, she thought. If they want to rescue the man who murdered her grandparents, they’re welcome to.
Glenn tucked the knife in her belt, keeping her eyes locked on the green of the border, until the fighting was behind her and she wound into a warren of buildings.
To her left rose a rattle of footsteps, the leading edge of a squad of metal-clad soldiers. Glenn dodged right and through a set of iron-banded double doors. The company passed outside and continued on up the street.
The inside of the building was dark and hot. The sounds of
fighting were muted by its stone walls. Everything smelled heavily of smoke. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw orange flames glowing in iron ovens set along the walls. Piles of coal and metal and lines of heavy wooden tables sat all around her. She was in one of the foundries. Who knew, maybe even Kalle Bromden’s? Wherever she was, it seemed the perfect place to hide while the battle blew over. She could wait until dark, slip out, and cross the border. Glenn retreated into a corner and dropped down in the darkness, pulling her knees up into her chest and waiting for her heart to stop pounding.
She could hear the war outside dimly. She tried to guess the story of the fight, but it seemed impossible. The Magisterium’s forces fought Farrick’s, Farrick’s retreated, only to surge again with Kevin in the lead?
It didn’t matter. All she had to do was wait. It would be over soon.
Glenn buried her face in her knees and closed her eyes. She kept seeing Garen launch himself at Aamon, whose last words were still echoing in her ears. “Hopkins.” Her small knight. His nose tipped back to accept her appointment. She tried to brush the images away, but it was no use, and soon it was joined by the picture of Kevin running into town and throwing himself into the fight. Where were they both now?
In pain? Dying while she fled for home?
The doors to the foundry creaked open, letting in a bright shaft of light and then closing again. Glenn’s hand went tight on her knife as she pushed herself farther back into the corner. One set of footsteps scratched tentatively across the dirt floor. Glenn tried to stay still, to slow her breathing, telling herself that whoever it was would soon be gone.
But the visitor didn’t leave. After exploring the far corners of the foundry, the footsteps grew louder. Glenn was wedged between two rows of heavy workbenches, a wall at her back. The rear of the building was to her right. She searched it until she saw a few thin lines of daylight that marked a back door.
The footsteps moved closer, stopping two rows of benches down to Glenn’s left, maybe twenty feet away. Glenn held her breath. A man’s body was outlined by the orange fire of the ovens. His head slowly moved side to side, reminding Glenn of the slink of a cobra as it searched for prey. Glenn tipped forward onto the balls of her feet, ready to bolt to the door. With the wall at her back, if he got close and turned down her row of benches, she’d be trapped. The man shifted, paused, then moved toward her.
Glenn ran from her hiding place and made for the door. She
pulled at the handles, and the door gave slightly but didn’t open.
Locked. A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and spun her around.
Glenn cried out until a hand slapped onto her mouth, silencing her. A face loomed out of the darkness, a wrinkled gray plain lit by the fires and the sliver of daylight behind her.
Merrin Farrick.
“Who are you?” he said, his voice a horrible rasp. The scarlike line of the noose encircled his throat. He slowly moved his hand aside and Glenn gasped for air.
“No one. I’m just — ”
Merrin grabbed Glenn’s wrist and jerked it up into the firelight.
The red jewel glowed between them. When Merrin saw it, his eyes sparkled with greed. “This is what Kapoor was talking about, isn’t it?
What does it do?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Please let me — ”
Merrin shoved her into one of the wooden tables. Glenn’s spine slammed into its corner and she cried out in pain.
“We have lived for too long under that monster’s boot,” Farrick said. “If you think I’ll let our chance at freedom get melted down to slag, you’re out of your mind.”
Glenn’s hand slipped behind her to the knife at her back. There was a crash outside the foundry. Merrin turned to investigate it, and Glenn saw her chance. When Merrin turned back, Glenn’s blade was hovering at the rise of his Adam’s apple.