‘Tahir, take the boy, get the hell out of here. We’ll buy you some time.’ He gripped Tahir’s arm, saw the indecision in the young man’s eyes. ‘One of us must live,’ he hissed. ‘We are the last of the Gadrai. And we swore to protect the boy. Stay and you make us oathbreakers.’ Tahir stood a heartbeat longer, then nodded curtly, tears filling his eyes.
‘I’ll see you again, on this side or the other,’ he said.
‘I’m not dead yet,’ Maquin said. Tahir took the boy and ran; Maquin slammed the door shut. He turned and yelled as he swung his sword, stepping into line beside Orgull. ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ breathed Orgull, glancing at Maquin as he swung his axe, severing an extended arm just below the elbow.
‘I’m too old for all this running,’ Maquin said. He lifted his shield high and stabbed a warrior in the gut, one of Jael’s from the way he was dressed. I’m going to die here, Maquin thought as he blocked and stabbed. The thought did not scare him. The thought of failing Kastell hurt far more. At least Tahir has taken Gerda’s boy. That is one oath I have kept, unto death. He smiled grimly. Come then, Death, take me across your bridge of swords, but know this: I won’t be coming alone.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
LYKOS
‘Gerda, where is your son?’
Gerda was tied to a chair, rope burns on her wrists and ankles where she had struggled. Blood speckled her face and one eye was mottled and bruised. It appeared that Jael was not one to spare the rod during questioning. Lykos looked on approvingly.
They were in the feast-hall, corpses strewn about and the stink of death thick in the air. Lykos and his Vin Thalun had used grapple-hooks to scale a high unguarded tower in the fortress. What little resistance they’d met had been surprised and cut down without even slowing them. They had swept into the great hall as Jael had been assaulting the gates, the following slaughter quick and fierce. Gerda had been discovered leading a counter-attack in the corridors. When Lykos arrived the fighting had been furious, her shieldmen savage in their defence of her. And she had not been shy with her blade, either. He might have admired her as a warrior, but for the fact she was a woman. Still, they had been outnumbered, attacked from two sides. It had not taken long.
‘Where is he?’ Jael demanded.
‘Far from your reach,’ Gerda said through swelling lips.
‘Where?’ Jael repeated.
‘I don’t know.’ Gerda’s head lolled, her eyes flickering. Jael slapped her hard with the back of his hand.
‘You’ll not leave us yet,’ he said, then nodded to a man at his side. ‘This is Dag. He is my huntsman, a skilled tracker. He also has other skills, such as how to skin an animal. Usually this skill is reserved for the dead, for good reason. Apparently the pain is unbearable, like nothing else this side of death. He is going to skin you. Going to peel the skin from your fat body, piece by bloated piece, until I have an answer. It will take some time, I should imagine.’ Laughter rippled the room.
Dag stepped forward, a tiny knife in his hand. A warrior clamped Gerda’s wrist, her eyes bulging with fear.
‘First the nails have to come off,’ Dag said as he bent over Gerda. Lykos felt the urge to look away, but resisted. Gerda screamed, a trail of sobs and spluttered half-words between each crescendo of pain.
‘Then the skin is cut, just a little,’ Dag said over Gerda’s ragged breaths.
Footsteps from beyond the feast-hall clattered, and a warrior hurried to Jael’s side.
‘We have encountered strong resistance, my lord,’ the warrior said as he bowed.
Jael waved a hand. ‘Take more men and crush it.’
‘It, it is not so easy,’ the man said, looking uncomfortable.
‘How many,’ Jael snapped, eyes still on Gerda.
‘Two, my lord.’ That got his attention. ‘They have barricaded the corridor.’
‘With what?’
‘Our dead. It is hard to explain, but I do not think it will be easy to finish them.’
‘Where are they?’
‘In the cellars, my lord.’
Gerda’s head snapped up at that, noticed by Lykos as well as Jael.
‘Let’s have a look at this resistance, then,’ Jael said, striding to the tower. ‘And bring Gerda,’ he called over his shoulder.
Lykos walked beside Jael, warriors behind them, and further back a handful of men carrying Gerda still strapped to her chair.
The corridor was high and wide, with flickering torches breaking up the darkness. Ahead of Lykos stood a dozen or so men, all with weapons held ready. They parted for Lykos and Jael.
The floor was slippery, covered in blood, gore, bodies, severed limbs. It was thick with them. Two men stood further up the passage; Lykos recognized them instantly. The bald giant and his companion from the bridge. The ones who had slain Thaan. Deinon knew them as well; Lykos heard his shieldman draw in a sharp breath and felt his weight as he made to push past.
‘Wait,’ Lykos barked at Deinon, holding a restraining arm out.
Jael recognized them too, by the look on his face.
‘Ironic. The last time I saw you, Maquin, we were underground,’ Jael said.
The smaller man took a step forwards, a look of such hatred sweeping his face that Jael took an involuntary step back.
‘Question is, what are you fighting so hard to keep us from?’
‘Why don’t you come and take a look?’ Maquin invited. Grey streaked his hair, where it wasn’t gore splattered, but judging by the corpses piled high about him he was not too old to use a blade.
Jael raised an arm, summoning Gerda’s chair-bearers forward. They placed her before the two warriors. Lykos studied her face, saw a question bleeding out through her pain. The big man gave an almost invisible nod and she sagged back in her chair.
‘You know where her boy is, then,’ Jael said. It wasn’t a question. ‘Spears,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘They cannot kill him,’ Deinon whispered to Lykos. ‘The bald one — he is mine, for Thaan. .’
Lykos stepped forward, uncurling the grapple rope that was wrapped about his waist. He swung it once over his head, flicked his wrist and then its end was snaking forwards, wrapped around Maquin’s sword wrist. Before the warrior realized what was happening Lykos tugged hard, dragging the man forwards, and Deinon was surging towards him, knocking the sword from the man’s hand and placing his own blade at the warrior’s throat.
The big man took a step.
‘No, Orgull,’ Maquin snapped.
‘Deinon,’ Lykos said, and Deinon had a knife in his other hand, had sliced quicker than Lykos’ eyes could follow. Blood spurted and then Deinon was holding up a scrap of flesh.
Maquin’s ear.
Orgull took another step forwards.
‘My man can keep cutting chunks out of him all day,’ Lykos said. ‘Want him to stop — you drop that axe.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CORBAN
Corban shouted a warning, seeing wolven everywhere, leaping into the hollow. Instantly all was madness. The wolven were not on a side, did not care who was from Ardan or Cambren; they were here to feast, and they were taking meat where they found it. Horses screamed from where they had been hobbled, wild and terror stricken, the sound echoing around the rock walls. Craf exploded upwards in a burst of feathers and squawks as a wolven snapped at him. Corban saw men wrenched from battle, mauled in slavering jaws, saw hounds scattered like flotsam and two wolven rolling in savage battle. One dark, one white. Storm. He felt a rush of fear, the thought of Storm dying launching him into movement. The two wolven were a mass of fur and teeth and claws. For a moment they separated. Corban saw blood on Storm’s white fur. He lunged at the other wolven, burying his sword in its belly. It yelped and writhed, a claw slicing his shoulder. He pushed harder, deeper, his sword-point piercing the creature’s heart. It sagged, its heart’s blood a hot flood.