“More knights,” Cazio clarified. “Maybe many more.”
“I’ve two horses,” z’Acatto said. “We can ride double.”
Cazio crossed his arms and gave his swordmaster a dubious look. “It’s fortunate you brought horses,” he said. “Also very odd.”
“Don’t be an empty bottle, boy. The road to the coven goes near the well at the edge of Orchaevia’s estates. I saw them arrive.”
“What were you doing there?”
Z’Acatto grinned and drew a narrow bottle of green glass from beneath his doublet. He held it up to the light.
“I found it,” he said triumphantly. “The very best year. I knew I would smell it out.”
Cazio rolled his eyes. “At least we were saved by a good vintage,” he said.
“The best,” z’Acatto repeated happily.
Cazio made a weak bow to the two women.
“My casnaras Anne and Austra, I present to you my sword-master, the learned z’Acatto.” He hesitated and caught the old man’s eyes. “My master and best friend.”
Z’Acatto held his gaze for an instant, and something glimmered there Cazio did not quite understand. Then he looked to Anne and Austra.
“My great pleasure, casnaras,” z’Acatto said. “I hope one of you will not mind my company on horse.”
Anne bowed. “You’ve saved us, sir,” she said. She looked at Cazio significantly. “The two of you. I’m in your debt.”
It was then Austra shrieked at something behind Cazio. Cazio sighed and turned, ready for anything.
Anything except for what he saw. Slowly, tremulously, the gilded knight was trying to rise. Blood ran from his visor like water from a fountain. Cazio raised his sword.
“No,” z’Acatto said. “No. He’s not alive.” Cazio couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question, but z’Acatto drew his own sword and jabbed it through the other eye. The knight fell back again, but this time started to get up immediately.
“Diuvo’s wagging—” Z’Acatto didn’t finish the curse, but instead picked up the knight’s abandoned broadsword and hewed off the man’s head.
The fingers continued to claw at the dirt.
Z’Acatto watched that for a moment. “I advise rapid flight,” he told them. “And later, some wine.”
“We’re in agreement,” Cazio husked.
The rage had almost left Neil when the horz exploded. The Sefry archer on the point of his sword was gaping at the otherworld, and with no other enemies at hand, the red cloud was lifting, allowing reason back into his head.
He had heard of the rage before; his uncle Odcher had had that gift. In all of his years of battle, Neil had never experienced it before.
Watching the Sefry slowly relinquish his life, he stared at the carnage around him, trying to remember what he’d been doing when the lightning had entered his soul.
The sound of shattering stone turned him, and he saw what appeared to be turbid coils of black smoke billowing through the rent walls of the garden. He staggered toward the horz, remembering that he had left the queen and Fastia within. It was only when he actually plunged into what he’d believed to be smoke that focus came, though not comprehension.
Black tendrils groped past him, gripping at his limbs, fastening to the stone of the walkway. He cut at them, and they fell writhing to the ground, but they were merely the vanguard of the thicker vines they sprang from, wide as a man’s legs and growing larger with each moment. The sharp points of thorns tore at Neil’s armor. The briars pushed him back to the edge of the causeway, though he hacked at them with Crow. It had been a long while since he’d understood much of anything, and he no longer cared. He’d left the queen in the horz; he had to return for her.
So he pitched himself forward, sweat and blood sheening his face and stinging his eyes, slowly fighting through the impossible foliage, until his sword hit something it would not cut. He looked up and green eyes stared back down at him.
It was far taller than a man, the thing, entirely wrapped about in the black vines. They tugged at him, as if trying to pull him into the earth from which they sprang, but he ignored their grasping just as he ignored Neil after a single glance.
Neil smelled spring rain mingled with rotting wood.
The green-eyed thing strode past the young warrior, snapping the vines and tearing them from the stone as he went, but wherever his feet trod new growth sprang up. Neil watched him, gape-mouthed, as he stepped into the canal, the deepest waters of which came only to his waist.
He’d never seen a monster before, and now he’d seen two. Neil wondered if the world was coming to an end.
The queen, you fool. The end of the world was not his concern. Muriele Dare was.
He turned to what was left of the horz, slashing at the thick vines with Crow, weeping, for what could tear apart stone must be able to do much more to human flesh.
But he found the queen untouched upon the stone from which the largest of the vines had emerged, staring at where the dark briars had crept over Fastia’s form. Numb of all human feeling, Neil took the queen in his arms, stumbling through the path he had cut in the vines, through the courtyard full of corpses and out the front gates. He saw the thorn-giant again, striding up the canal where it bent around toward the front gate of Cal Azroth, where others stood watching. Neil lay the queen on the grass and fumbled for Crow; they were surely more of his enemies—
But Saint Oblivion beckoned, and he had no power to resist her.
The greffyn rolled and pitched beneath the water, and Aspar’s lungs would stay shut no longer. His hold loosened, and he was flung away. He struck toward the surface, the dirk still in his hand.
He came up near the edge of the canal and clambered at it, pulled himself from the water with little more than strength of will. He fought to stand, tremors running through his entire body, watching the roiling water for a quicker doom he felt certain would emerge.
Everything in him felt broken. He vomited, and saw that it was mostly blood. Far away he heard his name, but he hadn’t time for that, for the greffyn did come out of the water, sinuous and beautiful, like something a poet might sing made flesh. He marveled that he hadn’t seen it that way from the start. That he’d wounded it seemed almost a shame—except that of course it had to die.
“Come here,” Aspar told it. “There’s not much left of me, but come get what’s here, if you can.”
It seemed to him that it moved a little slower, this time, when it lashed at him with its great beak. It seemed he shouldn’t have had time to drive the dirk into its eye, but he did.
Just like Fend, he thought, wondering where the Sefry had gone. Then the greffyn hit him with a weight like a horse in full barding. Everything went white, but he kept hold of consciousness, flexing his now-empty hands, knowing they would do him no good at all, but happy he could at least fight to the end.
But when he turned, he saw that the beast lay still. It had hit a stone piling, and its neck was crooked at an implausible angle.
Well. Easier than I thought. Grim, if that luck was sent by you, my thanks. It’s good to see your foe die before you. Now if Fend would be so good as to drop dead nearby …
Aspar lay there, coughing blood, the now-familiar feel of poison deepening. He hoped Stephen would keep Winna away, but then she had enough sense not to touch his corpse anyway, didn’t she?
He turned his head and saw her there, standing beside Stephen, on the other side of the canal. She was weeping. He raised his hand weakly but didn’t have enough strength to call out. “Stay there, lass,” he whispered. “By Grim, stay there.” There must be poison every place the greffyn had spilled blood.
But now something else went across Winna’s face, and Stephen’s, as well.
A shadow fell over him, blocking the morning sun, and Aspar wearily raised his head to look once more upon the Briar King.