Anne took Austra’s hand, her heart picking up a few beats. The world seemed to whirl as everything that was happening realigned itself.
This was about her.
“I warn you once more,” Secula told the knight. “Trespass is beyond bearing. No man may set foot in this coven.”
Anne couldn’t see the mestra’s face, but she could imagine it, and wondered if the nameless knight was actually meeting her gaze.
“I regret what I must do,” the man said. “But you have forced me to it.”
He gestured, and the ranks of his cavalry parted, and through it came ten archers and as many men bearing a wooden beam clad at one end in a head of steel. The archers trained their weapons on the sisters on the wall.
“Open the gate,” the knight said. “For the love of the saints, open it and let us in.”
For answer, Sister Secula spread her fingers, and Anne felt a sudden prickling across her skin, a sensation akin to and yet different from facing a fire. Something dark spun out from the mestra’s fingertips, like a spiderweb but more gossamer and insubstantial. It drifted onto the men below. When it touched the tallest, they shrieked and threw hands up to their eyes. Anne saw blood spurting from between their fingers, and her belly tightened in horror. She had heard rumors of the encrotacnic sacaums, though she had never quite believed in them.
In response the knight lifted up his arms and shouted, and again Anne felt a surge of force, this one passing through her like a cold shock. The mestra’s sacaum shredded, floated up on the night air, and vanished.
“So,” Secula said. “Now you show your face, brother. Now I know the truth.”
“A truth perhaps,” the knight said. “This matter is beyond your understanding, Mestra.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I may not.” He gestured, and his men surged forward; the ram crashed against the gate. At the same moment, the knight’s hands flashed white, the air crackled with sudden thunder, and blue fire twisted in a helix from below the wall. Anne couldn’t see the gate from the side that was struck, but she could see it from the courtyard side, and gasped as the fire crackled through its seams like the reaching tendrils of a vine.
On the second blow, the gate collapsed, and the knight rode through, his men behind him.
Anne couldn’t feel her body anymore. She felt detached, outside, a presence as frail as a specter witnessing what followed.
The sisters tightened into a bunch and spoke dark words, and knights fell, tearing off their helms to reveal faces gone azure. They bit off their tongues and crushed their own teeth as their jaws spasmed, weeping green tears as they crossed the waters of death.
The leader strode unaffected through the unseen veil of slaughter. His heavy sword lifted, and in an instant one of the nuns was headless, her body sinking to its knees slowly as her neck seemed to stretch up and out, blooming like a red orchid. The bloody sword came back, and back, hewing into the sisters of Cer. At first the women held their line, and warriors continued to fall like ants marching into a fire, but suddenly the sisters broke before the murdering blade. Arrows whistled up into the battlements, where Sister Secula was raining black sleet that fell through armor as if it wasn’t there. Savitor and Curnax collapsed, staring at the arrows standing in them. Sister Secula grimly clapped her hands and seemed to slip into a shadow that wasn’t there. Then the shadow wasn’t there, either.
“Oh, saints,” Austra shrieked.
“This is because of me,” Anne said numbly. The words didn’t make sense, but there they were.
“We have to get to the wine cellar,” Austra said. “We have to get somewhere safe. Anne, come on.”
But Anne couldn’t move. Blood was everywhere, now. She had never dreamed so much blood existed in the whole world, or that headless bodies could twitch so, or the eyes of the dead seem so like glass.
“Anne!” Austra screamed in her ear.
The leader of the knights heard and looked up. His visor was still open, but the only thing Anne noticed about his face were eyes so blue they seemed almost white.
“There!” he shouted, thrusting his mailed finger at her.
“Anne!” Austra was weeping uncontrollably with fear and grief, tugging at her arm.
Anne found her legs, or they found themselves, and in a rush she was running, tripping along the battlements, all of her senses gone to feed her fear. Austra was close behind, nearly pushing her. They found the stair they had ascended and stumbled down it. Anne slipped and her knees smacked hard into the stone but she scarcely noticed, for as they entered the courtyard there came another hoarse male shout.
“The wine cellar!” Austra cried, gesturing.
“And be trapped? No!” Anne turned into the refectory, not daring to face the sound of mailed feet slapping the stone behind them. As they rounded past the entrance to the larder, however, Austra shrieked again, and Anne was forced to turn.
Their pursuer—a man in half plate with long black hair gathered in a tail—had Austra by her hair and his sword leveled at Anne.
“Stop your running,” he commanded. “Come with me.”
Austra’s eyes had lost all semblance of sanity, and Anne was suddenly more furious than terrified.
The nearest thing at hand was a hammer used for nailing up kegs. She snatched it up and threw it.
It wasn’t a strong throw, but it was surprisingly true. She had a glimpse of the astonishment spreading on the knight’s face, just before the mallet crushed his nose. He swore and stumbled back, and Austra was free.
The two girls started running again. Behind them, Anne heard the knight howl and stamp, and then something struck her hard on the head. She went light and then heavy, and her cheek crushed against the floor. She spit blood and tried to rise, but a boot came down on her back.
“Little bitch,” the man said. “I’ll teach you—saints!”
The last word rose into a scream so high pitched it sounded like a horse dying, and the pressure came off Anne’s back. Confused, she came groggily to her hands and knees, turning to see that the knight lay dead, with vapor drifting from between his lips.
“Get up. Quickly.”
Anne looked toward the new voice. Next to her, Austra was struggling up, as well. Sister Secula stood looking down at them.
“Come along,” she said. “The sisterhood can’t keep them back much longer.”
Anne nodded mutely, rubbing her head, which was still ringing from the blow. She fastened her eyes on the back of the mestra’s robe, wondering again if this was all actually happening.
Too fast. All too fast. Things blurred.
The next time she noticed where they were, they were standing before the pit that led down to the fane of Mefitis.
The mestra took her by the shoulders.
“I didn’t expect this,” she murmured, in a strangely soft voice. “I’m not done with you and you aren’t ready, but what is, is.”
“What do those men want with me?” Anne asked.
Sister Secula’s dark eyes narrowed. “To take hope from the world,” she said. “To take you from it.” She gestured to the harness. “Get in, the both of you.”
“Wait,” Anne said. She felt there was something she ought to ask.
“No time,” the older woman said. “Grasp the ropes firmly.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Anne asked, as she and Austra arranged themselves in the twining cords. “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.”
“Stay alive,” Sister Secula advised. “The rest will unfold as well as it can, saints willing. Leave here, and quickly, or they will find you. Keep moving, and do not trust any illusion of safety.” She began letting off the winch, lowering them down, and her face receded above Anne. Something began thudding against the door above them.
“You know the way out,” the mestra said. “Go, the moment you reach the bottom.”
“You knew?” Anne blurted.