Kam shrugged. 'Get out. This place is a maze — we'll find a window to slip out of and make for our horses.'
'That's the extent of your plan?' The duke sounded angry.
'Stop bitching,' Kam said calmly, 'we're not going to get that far, not if Lord Isak's as good as they say he is.'
As though in response, a flurry of shouts came from the staircase, immediately followed by the clash of swords.
'We're trapped.' Kam went to the door and saw his remaining comrades gathering at the foot of the staircase, their weapons at the ready. No one spoke, not even Petril Corast, who generally had something foolish on his lips. Kam could almost see the man's two children rolling their eyes every time Corast spoke — but they'd not he embarrassed by their da now. He was lined up with the rest, blood running freely from the wound in his shoulder. He'd transferred his axe to his left hand.
'See you in the Herald's Hall,' Kam said quietly.
Beside him, Boren nodded and roughly embraced his oldest friend before joining the others. Trying to fight off that awful sinking feeling in his gut, Kam walked over to one of the dead men and pulled a pair of short-swords from his swordbelt. He returned to the cell, dropped the swords at the duke's feet and used his axe to bash at the chains binding the young man to the wall. The links were thick and well-made, and even with Kam's sharp axe blade and the strength of desperation, it took too long to sever the first chain.
He paused and pulled a vial from his pocket. It was made of thick glass and bound with wire. 'Take this,' he said.
Duke Certinse looked at it in confusion. 'What is it?'
'Poison. You want to be sure they don't take you alive, then drink it. The swords are so you can die fighting; poison's in case you don't.'
Certinse gave a grim nod, suddenly looking less of a child. He prised out the wax stopper, lifted the vial as if in silent toast and downed the liquid. They both tried to ignore the sounds of men screaming in the guardroom as he fought back the urge to vomit up the poison.
Kam picked up his axe again, but before he could attend to the other chain, Certinse, stopped him. 'Arm's no good, it's not healed right.' He gestured at the swords and Kam handed them up to him. He grasped one in his manacled right hand, then hefted the other in his left.
Kam nodded approval and turned to face the door. He could hear Boren's roar, and recognised Tol's nasal cry of pain over the commotion.
'Hope your mother's as good as her word,' he said, raising his own glaive and stepping slightly away from Certinse to give them each room. 'If she's not, I'll haunt the Dark Place itself for the pair o' you.'
There was no time for a reply as the Ghosts charged in.
CHAPTER 8
Haipar needed no help to look desperate. No longer the proud mercenary, the shapeshifter, the leader; the years had finally caught up with her and now she was just a broken relict. Where once she had proudly smeared ash in her hair, now there was only grey, both natural and unnatural. Her limbs, once corded with hard muscle, were now as brittle as those of a starving refugee. Only her prominent nose and brow looked almost unchanged by their trek and an all-too-brief pregnancy. Ilumene had treated her kindly on the journey south, surprising even himself. Unlike that snivelling wretch Jackdaw, whom Ilumene had been glad to see head north with Venn, Haipar had been too fragile, too broken, to really incur Ilumene's contempt. It had been easy for the former member of the Narkang Brotherhood to restrain his vicious nature. If nothing else, King Emin had taught him the importance of self-control when on a mission.
Haipar's mind was fractured, unable to follow any thought to its conclusion, but something unconscious, primal, made her check the bundle in her arms. When she looked at the child, her own face lit up with wonder and fear. He looked back, the curl of a smile on his lips and shadows in his eyes — watching, always watching.
The crowd around her had swelled in the last hour. She had been one of the first to arrive in the big square in the city of Byora, just where the main highway led out of the quarter. Byora was the largest and most prosperous of the Circle City's four self-governed quarters that nestled around the huge shape of Blackfang Mountain.
Sipping disgustingly sweet tea from a dirty cup, Ilumene continued to watch his charge as she shielded her child from being buffeted as a sudden swell ran through the assembled beggars. They assembled there hoping — mostly in vain — for casual work of any sort. Ilumene had told Haipar to go there and there she'd gone, but she most likely had no idea why she waited there now. There was no recognition in her grey eyes, only bewilderment at a Land she no longer recognised.
The square was unremarkable save for its location on the highway between the main gate from the upper districts and its equivalent in the quarter's wall. Ilumene raised his eyes and looked at the upper districts, snug behind a high wall of stone and looking down on the rest of Byora with gentle disdain.
The huge structures that gave the Eight Towers district its name were just about visible against the low winter cloud. Flanking that, like squabbling children kept apart by a parent, were the imposing buildings of the districts of Hale and Coin. In contrast with Byora's southern neighbour Ismess, where religious law ruled and no building could stand taller than a temple, the eight towers looked down on their neighbours, much to the ire of the priests of Hale and the merchant-princes of Coin. In the shadow of Blackfang, height was the province of the powerful, and Eight Towers made a statement to the low-born of Byora.
Behind them loomed the mountain. Ilumene found it impossible to ignore its presence; he had been born in the coastal city of Narkang, miles from any mountains, and he was unsettled by the jagged bowl-like cliffs and the thin black spire that rose from the crater within those cliffs. He felt crowded, and more than once he had found himself leaning away from Blackfang, as if it were physically oppressing him.
A sound broke his reverie and he turned to see the bobbing heads of the retinue of the Duchess of Byora, Natai Escral. The scarlet tunics of the Ruby Tower Guards were an abrupt splash of colour on such a drab day. They had been seeing to the duchess's defences, no doubt. Everyone in Byora had heard that the Menin were marching north towards Tor Salan, and if they continued on after defeating the mercenaries defending that great trading city, the Circle City was surely the next prize in Lord Styrax's sights.
'And you know you don't have anywhere near the strength Tor Salan can bring to bear,' Ilumene whispered as the duchess rode closer, 'despite Aracnan and the Jesters awaiting my command.'
He finished his tea, glad for the warmth no matter how vile the taste, and eased his chair back a little so when the time came there would be no obstacles in his path. 'Don't worry, your Grace,' he murmured, 'you're about to be introduced to your Saviour.'
As the noblewoman's retinue reached the square, the beggars surged forward to meet them, hands outstretched for alms and a wordless keening filling the air. The shivering poor were filling the road; it was almost as if the winter wind had robbed them of any sense of danger. Haipar found herself being pushed along with the crowd. She heard a cry and looked up to see a mounted soldier bearing down on her.
'Back, back! Clear the road!' he roared, reining in at the last moment to avoid trampling the beggar in rags; he scarcely noticed the tiny bundle in her arms. It was no concern to him. The wind caught his cloak and swirled it open to reveal his pristine crimson uniform adorned with gold braiding as noticeable as the weapon at his hip. The crowd ignored his words, shrinking together to avoid the cold, moving almost as one as those at the front pressed forward.
Ilumene sat forward, watching intently. The wind had a flavour he knew, a subtle touch on his mind he recognised. Aracnan was following Ilumene's orders. The immortal would be standing at a window, somewhere within sight of the crowd, naked and holding his Crystal Skull in shivering hands. His stomach would be growling with hunger.