She tugged it out of the pocket and held it in her palm. ‘He gave me this.’
Leon wasn’t angry. A strange look had come over his face, a serene calm. Almost as if he’d expected it.
A small object sailed out from the doorway that led to the tunnel, bounced once, and rolled across the floor to the centre of the room. It sat there innocently, like a drinks can tossed from a passing car.
‘Cover your eyes!’ Leon shouted.
LII
A bolt of lightning splits the world from the heavens to its core. Thunder rolls over the hill and hits me like a wave. I feel weightless, snatched off the hilltop, caught in the sound. I see the whole hill, a single instant of the battle frozen in the blue-white light.
Then the light goes out. Lazar reels away screaming, clutching his side in agony. Something stings the back of my hand. I think it must be a raindrop, but when I look down I see blood. Is it Lazar’s? A little way off, a spent arrow lies on the ground. But none of Malegant’s men were archers.
Something plucks at the sleeve of my hauberk. Another arrow. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but if I don’t find cover it won’t matter. I dive behind the rock altar. Behind me, Hugh’s crouched by the stone pillar cutting the King loose. The moment he’s free, they run across and join me.
An arrow rattles off the surface of the stone. Grit rains down on us.
‘What —?’
‘Morgan’s men.’
There’s a broken shield lying on the ground behind me. I reach back and drag it to me, then lift it over my head and peer over the rock. Two arrows strike almost at once: the shield shudders as they stick in it.
The battle seems to have been decided. The only men I can see are ours. It’s a pitiful sight — of the thirty who set out, only a dozen are left, crouching under their shields as the arrows rain down. Corpses litter the ground around the fire. Some twitch as the falling arrows make redundant wounds.
I can’t see Malegant anywhere.
‘Where —?’
‘He escaped.’ Another flash of lightning seizes the hilltop. Arrows seem to hang in mid-air. The thunder follows, more slowly this time. The storm’s moving on. A cool wind brushes my cheek; I can smell rain coming.
Hugh gestures to the lance lying at my knees. Trampled in the mud, it looks like any other weapon lost on the battlefield.
‘Take that and make for the coast. We’ll follow when we can.’
‘What about the King?’
‘William can take him to Harlech — the garrison there are loyal.’
‘And you?’
Hugh wipes his sword and rises to a crouch. ‘You didn’t kill Lazar. He’s still got what we came for.’
Even with her arm shielding her face and her eyes screwed shut, Ellie saw the brightness of the flash. A white light more brilliant than anything she’d imagined, searing through her eyelids, like staring into a lightning bolt. At the same time, or so close she couldn’t tell them apart, came the loudest noise she’d ever heard — not rolling like thunder, but a single sharp clap that went straight through her skull.
She smelled smoke and opened her eyes. Most of the lightbulbs had blown, while the ones that survived cast eerie beams through the dust and grit trickling down from the ceiling. Her nose was running — when she wiped it on her sleeve, she saw blood — and her ears were ringing. She could feel fluid in them, like water trapped after a swim, and wondered if that was blood too.
Ellie looked at the door. Five figures stood there in the swirling smoke, machine guns couched in their arms and torches on their heads. She tried to raise her arms, but she was trembling so badly she couldn’t move.
One of the men stepped into the light and pulled off his head-torch. Through weeping eyes, Ellie saw the familiar, brutal contours of Destrier’s face.
‘In a puff of smoke …’ He laughed. ‘Got you at last, you bitch.’
He turned his head, as if he’d heard something down the tunnel, though Ellie couldn’t hear a thing. Even his voice sounded impossibly distant, as if the words had been poured through some viscous liquid.
A new shaft of light beamed out of the tunnel. A moment later, Blanchard stepped through the carved stone doorway, a torch in his hand. He surveyed the hall, saw Ellie and smiled. But he didn’t move. He seemed to be waiting for something else.
A wheelchair rolled into the hall and stopped. Ellie stared at the man in it. His body seemed impossibly frail — gaunt and pale as bone, his skin almost translucent with age — but the sky-blue eyes that stared at her were fixed with purpose. She wondered how badly he must covet what she had, to risk crossing the boulder field and being lowered down that narrow crevice by the waterfall.
‘Eleanor Stanton.’ The box on his throat machined out whatever humanity survived in his ravaged body. The cough that followed sounded like a death rattle. ‘You have done everything we expected.’
She realised the ring was still clenched in her fist. She opened her hand. Blanchard saw it.
‘You kept it. My ring of power.’
For the second time that day, she found herself asking, ‘Is it magic?’
Her voice sounded thick and sluggish. Blanchard gave her a pitiless grin.
‘There’s a GPS transmitter in it. A beacon, to help me find my little bird when she flies away. The battery is so small it only lasts twenty-four hours when activated, but it was enough.’
He crossed to the stone table. Beside Ellie, Leon stiffened, though the guns at the door kept him rooted to the spot. The lance still swayed gently from the explosion’s aftershock. Blanchard reached out to take it — but paused. He pulled back his hand, stepped around the table and picked up the black box out of the fireplace. He smiled at Ellie.
‘You brought it back. So thoughtful. We expected you would try and steal it — but even I didn’t think you’d succeed.’
‘Is that why you hired me — so you could use me as a pawn in your game?’
‘Surely you didn’t think we hired you for your financial expertise?’
He took the box to Saint-Lazare and laid it on the old man’s lap. Saint-Lazare’s withered arm shook, but his hand stayed firm as he pecked out a sequence from the glowing symbols on the lid. It swung open.
Blanchard looked uncertainly at the old man, who gave a curt nod. It was the first time Ellie had seen Blanchard defer to anyone. He reached in with both hands.
Rain changes the face of the battle. As it falls harder, the arrows gradually disappear. Clouds of steam billow off the dying fire, which has sunk to a bitter red glow. The roar of battle gives way to spattering water, softening the ground and puddling with the blood.
I wait until the arrows stop falling, then run out from my shelter. I find a body — it isn’t hard — and hoist him on my shoulder, then start the treacherous descent. I pray there’ll be no more lightning. I try to go quietly, but on that slope, with the full weight of a mailed knight on my back and the lance trailing from my free hand, it’s impossible.
Thirty yards down from the summit, I hear movement, the rasp of a blade being drawn. It sounds like a knife — I guess it’s one of the archers. The rocks are steep and slick, and they don’t know what’s waiting for them at the top. They’re in no hurry to storm the hill.
‘Help me!’ I shout in Welsh. ‘He’s wounded.’
He can’t see me in the dark, but my voice sounds right. I see a figure coming towards me. I walk on, muttering encouraging words to the dead man on my back.
The knife slides back in the sheath. ‘What happened?’
‘He tried to go up there.’ I let the body swing round. The archer puts his right arm under the corpse’s shoulder, taking the burden.