It’s the scene from every nightmare I’ve had in the last five years. The bound victim, ghostly white; the executioner and the spear. I can’t let it happen again. I dig my palms into the soft ground, push myself up and launch myself forward like a wolf. Malegant’s so close to the King I’ll never reach him in time. I pull a dagger from my belt, grip it by the tip and throw it — straight through the flames. It strikes Malegant in the back and bounces off him, too weak to penetrate the chain mail, but hard enough that he feels it. He spins around.
So does the man in front of me. He saw the knife fly by his face and turns to see where it came from. The fire lights me — standing there, empty-handed, I don’t look much of a threat. He steps towards me.
I reach up to my shoulder as if I’m surrendering. My hand closes around the hilt of my sword, strapped across my back for the climb. The knight can’t see it. I wait until he’s in range, then whip the blade out of its scabbard. I run him through the throat in a single motion.
Forgive me, I whisper to the hermit.
The hilltop becomes a battlefield. Men move like shadows around the firelight, hacking and punching and kicking. Some of William’s knights have gained the summit, but not enough. It’s all they can do to keep from being driven back over the cliff. At the far end, I see Malegant grab a man by the scruff of his coif and hurl him over the edge.
Malegant turns back to the king, but he’s under attack again. Hugh’s managed to get through. He charges at Malegant; Malegant sees him come and puts up his sword. The two trade blows: Hugh’s a big man, but Malegant dwarfs him. The first strike shatters his shield, the second almost takes off his arm.
I run towards them. I’m halfway there when someone steps in my way. I see a grey face, red in the firelight, and the puckered eye-socket like a screwhole. Alberic. He’s got a sword, but I doubt he knows how to use it. I make the merest of feints, then reverse direction and drive the sword into his shoulder.
I suppose he screams, though in the fury of the moment I don’t hear it. I just remember his mouth, stretched almost to breaking; his good eye wide open; the skin around his dead eye pulled so tight I think it might rip apart. He wheels away, and in my surprise I let go of the sword. Straight away, I lunge to get it back — but Alberic’s staggering backwards. All I do is push him further. One more step, a horrible second as he teeters on the brink, then he’s gone.
So’s my sword. I spin around. It’s impossible to say who’s winning the battle, only that it’s still as furious as ever. Malegant has Hugh pinned against the rock altar in front of the fire. Hugh’s clutching something to his chest with his left hand, while fending off Malegant’s strokes with his sword.
You’ve got what so many men never get — the chance to atone for your sins.
I grab a brand from the fire and run towards them. Malegant beats Hugh’s sword aside and pins his arm back against the rock. With his other hand he wrests away the thing Hugh’s holding, an egg-shaped white stone. Hugh bucks and writhes like a bird in a trap, but he can’t get free.
As casually as if it were a piece of fruit, Malegant tosses the stone aside. His gauntleted hand pulls away Hugh’s sword, reverses it, and puts it to Hugh’s throat.
The brand in my hand blazes like a comet. Malegant sees it and steps away, turning to face me. He has a sword in each hand now, a death-angel coming to claim me. Away on the next mountain, a flash of lightning illuminates the sky. I power on, swinging the torch wildly towards him.
Those swords could have cut off my head like a pair of scissors, but Hugh launches himself up and crashes into Malegant, hugging him so tight the swords can’t touch him. Malegant tries to shrug him off, but Hugh clings on. The two men wheel away, locked in their embrace.
Now it’s my turn to rescue Hugh. But as I run on, my foot catches something on the ground. I fall forward and land on my knees. In the flow of battle I almost ignore it, but some sixth sense makes me look back to see what tripped me.
It’s the lance.
Malegant must have dropped it when Hugh attacked him. I reach down and prise it out of the mud. Almost before I have it in my hand, I sense a movement from my right. The whole hilltop is a mêlée of breakneck violence and motion, but I have an instinct, honed in the chaos of the tournament field, for when it’s coming at me. I wheel round.
Lazar is running towards me. His hood’s fallen back; his bony face looks skeletal in the firelight. He moves quickly, despite his age. His silver hand presses the white rock to his chest; the other holds a curved knife.
Sheer reflex makes me lift the spear. It’s heavier than I expect — I don’t know what it’s made of, but it seems to soak up the light. Lazar doesn’t see it in the flickering darkness. All I have to do is hold it steady. Lazar does the rest.
Ellie followed the man down the slope. There were no marks that she could see, but he led her unerringly between the rocks to a hollow on the far side of the valley in the shadow of a vast boulder. A torrent of water poured down over its face and vanished into a crevice. Peering down, Ellie saw white foam bubbling far below.
‘It’s a bit of a squeeze,’ her guide apologised. ‘Try not to touch the water.’
She gazed uncertainly into the hole. ‘You want me to go in there?’
‘It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m Leon, by the way.’ He stuck out his hand and Ellie shook it. He was older than she’d expected, probably in his fifties, but thin and wiry. With his thinning hair and his rimless spectacles, he reminded her of her fifth-form geography teacher.
‘You’ve done an extraordinary job. We’re almost there now.’
Following his instructions, Ellie knelt down on the rock and slid her legs backwards until they dangled into the hole. A weathered groove gave her a handhold in the rock — she wondered if it was natural. Her legs hung in the void. Icy water spattered her calves where the waterfall roared down inches behind her.
‘Let go.’
She stared up at him, his anxious face staring down against the dark sky. He gave a worn smile. ‘Trust me.’
She dropped — but not as far as she’d expected. A couple of feet, no more, landing on a ledge invisible in the darkness. Through her shoes she could feel criss-crossed lines hatched into the rock, giving her grip.
A red-hooded head appeared above her. ‘If you shuffle in, you should find a tunnel.’
Ellie crouched and stretched a hand in front of her. She touched nothing but air. She crawled forwards, sweeping her arm in broad arcs to check the way. She heard a thud and a splash; the dim light at the opening disappeared completely as Leon dropped in after her, then came back artificially bright as he switched on a torch.
‘You can stand up now.’
She did, feeling gingerly for the roof. She walked on; she counted thirty paces, then felt a change. The air was colder and somehow clearer. She could sense space around her.
Leon came out beside her. The head-torch strapped to his forehead played over the space as he looked around, showing flashes of carefully mortared stone walls, fragmentary images of knights and damsels rendered in plaster, lancet windows filled in with earth, fan vaults spreading into the inky darkness above.
Ellie gasped. ‘Where are we?’
‘The Chateau de Loqmenez.’
The torchbeam came down again, crossed a flagstone floor and came to rest on a shiny petrol generator sitting in an alcove. Leon bent over it and yanked back a cord. It coughed three times, roared into motion, then settled into a regular hum.
The room came to life. Bare bulbs strung between the walls filled the space with light. They seemed to be in some sort of great hall, with a fireplace at one end and a carved stone doorway opening on to the tunnel they’d come through. The only sign of modernity was the lights, and the tangle of cables around the generator. Further back, she could see a tower of stainless-steel scaffolding on wheels. She wondered how they’d got that in.