Chapter Forty-One
A Destiny Foretold
Bernice ran among the fighting men in the courtyard. Why she had followed after Kai-Tai she no longer knew. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now she realised how stupid and dangerous it was. She had managed to find a discarded shield and held it over her head as she ran among the fighting men, darting this way and that, trying her best to avoid the worst of the battle as she made her way closer to the North Tower.
All around her men shouted and fought, swords clashed and blood was spilled. Men were ran through and fell right next to her, and others would sometimes strike at her with their swords, crashing them down on the shield she held above her with loud thuds. She would scream and run on.
Soon Bernice had reached the wall by the North Tower. She could see Kai-Tai. She stood near Prince Harold, fighting with another Knight. The other Destroyers all fought together near one of the other towers. Bernice moved closer.
High on the wall, Nan-Po crouched on the ramparts aiming her arrows carefully. She let the arrow fly, and far below her, another man fell.
When the moaning from the pit ceased there was a sudden silence in the cavern. But it didn’t last long. The moan was quickly replaced by a scrabbling, raking noise. Jo stared into the pit with round eyes, and the man who had poked at her with his pike stepped forward on to the plank once more to see what caused it. In an instant, Gil-Yan appeared and snatched him up in her jaws, her huge teeth slicing through the plank in the process.
SNAP!
Jo fell with a scream into the pit.
It was the cue for a mass panic as all the men gathered on the ledge around its edge began to shout and run, pushing and shoving at each other in their attempts to get to the corridor and escape. Several men fell with a scream into the pit, while Gil-Yan turned and snapped at the others as they tried to rush passed her.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
It was a suicidal race for life.
But Gil-Yan’s close position by the entrance to the cavern made escape impossible. Like sheep the men ran in panic to their fate, and one after another fell to her scissor-like teeth.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
Slavering and biting, turning this way and that to snap at her victims, Gil-Yan soon devoured all who tried to pass her in an animal ecstasy.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
Blood splashed the walls and spilled over the edge of the pit.
At the sight of Gil-Yan gobbling up their comrades, the guards who stood by the children just turned and ran. The children all screamed and ran with the rest. There were no more prisoners and guards here now, just frightened humans running for their lives from a beast from the very bowls of Hell.
Gil-Yan heaved her growing bulk over the edge of the pit. She was much larger, her belly filled with fresh meat that would soon become her own flesh. She ignored the bodies of those who had fallen to their deaths in the pit behind her. She could smell those who still lived, see them fleeing up the darkened corridor.
With a mighty roar, Gil-Yan hurled herself into the corridor in pursuit, her claws tearing at the flag-stones and dislodging them, scattering them behind her.
Soo-Kai stood at the entrance to the gatehouse, staring into the courtyard. Everywhere men fought and died, and although she looked anxiously for Bernice, it was her mother who she saw first.
By the steps of the North Tower, Prince Harold and Sir Malcolm fought with L’Roth and Sir Edmund. They fought amid a sea of other men. Swords clashed and men screamed in pain. Then Soo-Kai saw a shield with legs running in the shadow of the wall behind them.
“I see her!” she said.
Rolf appeared behind her. “Can you get to her?”
“Yes, but there will be much risk.”
Rolf looked at the carnage. “Stupid!” he said. “This is all stupid! They kill each other for nothing!”
“Is this not always the way? Animals kill to eat, but only those who are intelligent wage war. Do you wish me to retrieve her?”
Before Rolf could reply, Vanessa said, “Of course we do! The silly cow’s going to get herself killed!”
Rolf turned in surprise and saw that Vanessa wasn’t alone. Becky and Jane had come with her. “I thought I told you to stay in the trees and wait! What are you doing here? Go back at once!”
Vanessa was stubborn in her reply. “I want to find my sister! And I’m not waiting back there with the men and the horses while you two go looking for her! So either we get on with it or I’ll go and look for her myself!”
Rolf looked at the other two girls. They stared back at him with the same stubborn expression as Vanessa. He sighed in dismay. At least it was only three.
“Oh, alright then!” he said. “But stick close to us, and do exactly as Soo-Kai says.”
As soon as they saw Sir Henry had been killed, the two men who had been dragging Anne up the staircase dropped her and went for their swords. A battle quickly developed around the open grating with L’Barr and his men.
Anne sat on the ground in the midst of the fight, staring around her in absolute shock. Then she looked up and saw a woman with dark brown hair staring down at her. She was quite tall, with an oval face and features that were soft and delicate. Her eyes were a deep brown, and they seemed to be filled with confusion.
Jai-Soo held her sword aloft but didn’t strike. Instead she stared back at Anne with a most puzzled expression, her head tilted at an angle. Then she held out her hand. Anne took it without hesitation and Jai-Soo pulled her up.
“You will die if you sit there,” Jai-Soo told her. “I can smell the Outsider. She comes.”
Before Anne could say anything in reply, Jai-Soo darted down the staircase. Anne was left to shout after her.
“What outsider? What’s going on? What about my girls?” Without thinking, Anne followed her back down the staircase.
Ahead of Anne, Jai-Soo quickly came upon the men who carried Prince Carl. She struck at them straight away, and one of them fell with a tumble down the steps, going over the top of Prince Carl and knocking Sir Morgan over. They both tumbled down the steps together, and quickly disappeared.
Prince Carl and the remaining guard also both fell down the steps. They got tangled together as they fell, and Prince Carl seized his chance, grabbing for the other man’s sword and struggling with him. The man didn’t put up much resistance, but instead fled back up the steps the first chance he got. Prince Carl let him go, his interest was elsewhere. Holding the sword in both hands, he stared in anger down the staircase at Sir Morgan.
“L’Ajarn! You cur! Face me!” he demanded, walking quickly down the steps.
Below him, Sir Morgan kicked aside the body of the man who had knocked him over as it lay on the steps in front of him and walked slowly back up the staircase. He drew his sword as he came closer to the Prince.
“I am no coward, L’Hage! And I am no Destroyer struck down with arrows! Aye, I will face you! And I will kill myself a Prince this night if I have to pay for it in Hell here after!”
With a shout, the two men rushed at one another, and their swords clashed, ringing and echoing in the narrow staircase.
Bernice had reached the North Tower when the fighting was at its height. Kai-Tai fought alongside Prince Harold, joining in his fight with L’Roth, but also protecting his back from those who would strike at him. She fought long and hard, as all those around them knew who fought in their midst, and constantly rushed forward to strike. For either side, the instant L’Roth or the Prince fell, the battle would be over. But until now, the balance had been kept.
Sir Malcolm and Sir Edmund had fought up and down the steps in a wild frenzy, and at the very moment Sir Malcolm finally got the upper hand, he fell to an arrow in his back. It was a desperate moment, as Sir Edmund wasted no more time on the fallen Knight, but quickly turned his attention to Kai-Tai, hurling himself at her, and forcing her back.
Prince Harold and Kai-Tai were now separated. L’Roth smiled.
“Your vixen guard dog is gone! Now you fight alone, and your strength is no match for mine!”
“My strength is matched by my honour, while yours is matched by none!” Prince Harold replied.
“Proud words! They will be your last!”
For all his bravery, Prince Harold could not match the strength of L’Roth on his own for long. L’Roth was a seasoned campaigner, living only for war and glory. His blows were heavy and accurate.
As the Prince and L’Roth fought, Kai-Tai tried to get near to them, but Sir Edmund forced her back with a flurry of blows that she could only parry with her sword. Then a shield rose up behind Sir Edmund and struck him on the head. As he fell, Kai-Tai ran him through the chest.
It is the Atlantian! Kill her now! No one will know!
I will not! The Atlantians were allies to the Tun-Sho-Lok! She fights at my side as they once did!
Liar! That was before we came! They were never our allies! She is incorrect! Disgusting! Kill her!
No! She is tall! Strong! Perfect! She would be a fine seed to any Destroyer!
Your words are incorrect! You want her! You bask in her attention! Your mind is already turned by the bond!
And it is my bond I fear for now! I have no time for you or the Purpose! Be silent!
Bernice lowered the shield and smiled at Kai-Tai over the rim. Kai-Tai wasn’t impressed. She quickly grabbed Bernice by the arm and shook her violently. “Foolish child!” she snapped. “Why do you come here?”
“Don’t shout at me!” Bernice protested, dropping the shield and anxious to explain, anxious for Kai-Tai to understand. “I wanted to be with you, that’s all! I want to be like you, Kai-Tai! You said we were almost the same! We are! I can feel it!” She was almost tearful now.
Kai-Tai stopped shaking Bernice and pulled her close, feeling her face as she had done before, but now her eyes held a different look.
“What you ask is impossible,” she told her more softly. “You must stop this fascination with me or it will kill you. And I tell you now that your death would hurt me. So do as I say.” Without waiting any longer, Kai-Tai ran back towards Prince Harold, dragging a surprised Bernice with her.
The Prince had fought valiantly, but in the end his strength failed him as L’Roth had predicted. L’Roth smashed him to the ground and stood over him in triumph, his sword raised.
“Now you die!” L’Roth roared and struck.
Kai-Tai screamed, “No!” and letting go of Bernice she hurled herself between them. L’Roth’s sword caught her across her back and she fell on top of Prince Harold.
L’Roth swore, grabbed Kai-Tai by her tunic and threw her aside like a child’s doll.
“Out of the way, witch! I have business to attend to!”
Bernice saw Kai-Tai fall. A moment before and Kai-Tai had said something that meant so much, and now she lay blood-spattered and still. Bernice was filled with sudden anger, and before she had time to think clearly, she had picked up a sword that lay among the dead and dying and ran forward.
L’Roth raised his sword once more, his face twisted in anger, when Bernice almost ran into him, the sword she carried going into his side. L’Roth grunted and staggered on his feet.
It was as if the world stood still.
Bernice stepped back, leaving the sword sticking out of L’Roth’s side. Both Prince Harold and L’Roth turned to stare at her, the Prince in amazement, and L’Roth in plain fright.
“‘Tis the witch of the night,” L’Roth muttered in horror, and fell to his knees. “The prophecies were right…I am killed by witchcraft…”
“They were wrong!” Prince Harold announced. “Your life is ended not by witchery, but by a Prince of the Realm!”
Prince Harold sat up and lunged with his sword, stabbing L’Roth in the chest. There was a clang as the blade punched through L’Roth’s breast-plate.
L’Roth gasped, dropped his sword, and fell back. There he lay on the ground, the two swords still in his body.
By the time Anne had caught up with Jai-Soo, the Destroyer had despatched the last of the guards as he tried to run passed her, and now she was about to continue on her way down the staircase.
Anne quickly grabbed her arm. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why are you helping us? Who are you?”
Jai-Soo looked back at her and answered her in a tone that suggested that she should already know the answer.
“We have a treaty with the Prince. We have attacked the castle to kill all within and free the prisoners. I am Jai-Soo.”
She would have turned to go on, but Anne grabbed her even more tightly.
“I have some children with me! Young girls! They’re down there! Help me get them back! Please!”
Jai-Soo stared down the staircase. “Then we must be quick, or the Outsider will eat them. Come!”
They ran down the steps together. Anne’s thoughts were filled with fear, but she had to find the girls. Why did everyone keep talking about them being eaten? And what was it that had tried to get in their dungeon? Anne remembered the smell and the sight of that tongue under the door. It made here blood run cold, but she kept up with Jai-Soo.
They hadn’t gone far when they found Prince Carl and Sir Morgan in their way. Jai-Soo raised her sword, but Anne quickly held her back.
“No!” she cried. “That’s Prince Carl! He’s a friend!”
Jai-Soo lowered her sword. “Then he must fight alone, because he stands between us and the other, and there is no way passed.”
Jai-Soo was right. The passageway the staircase ran down was too narrow to get passed the fighting men, and the two of them were so busy trying to kill one another that even if it had been wider, trying to get passed them would have been foolhardy.
Sir Morgan and Prince Carl hacked and sliced at one another in a demonic frenzy. Their swords sparked as they scraped against the stone walls as they struck blow after blow. Each man sweated and panted with their efforts, their faces twisted in anger, and the blood from sliced wounds on their arms and chests mixing with the sweat.
Anne wanted to stop it. She feared for Prince Carl, she didn’t really know why, but he had been their only friend, and, and– Oh, Hell! Why did they have to fight? Why did they have to hate each other so much? Why did this have to happen now? She shouted at them to stop, worried sick that Carl would be killed, but they both ignored her.
Sir Morgan’s sword sliced across Prince Carl’s face, leaving a large cut in his cheek. Almost a moment later, and Sir Morgan received a slice across his left thigh. It was a deep wound, and it caused him to lose his footing and he stumbled down the steps. Prince Carl hurried after him, striking at him repeatedly with his sword. Sir Morgan parried the blows, but he was forced further down the steps.
As Anne continued to shout and scream at them, Jai-Soo suddenly grabbed her and pulled her backwards, and began to push her up the steps. Anne tried to struggle free, but Jai-Soo kept pushing her up the steps until she finally fell back and sat on one of them.
“What are you doing?” Anne demanded.
“She comes!” Jai-Soo almost hissed at her in a hoarse whisper. “Our time is lost. Go! Go! Before it is too late!”
Something in Jai-Soo’s expression made Anne realise the urgency of her words. She began to back slowly up the steps. But she had hardly moved before the sounds of distant screams began to fill the narrow passageway.
In the distance, shadows appeared on the steps, indistinct at first, then suddenly, vividly, apparent. Screaming, running men, their eyes wild in terror. And behind them and among them were children. Girls, boys, some young, some older, all of them filled with the same wild panic.
They appeared suddenly out of the dark, and in an instant they had reached Sir Morgan and Prince Carl and bowled them over. It was like a sudden wave of on-rushing water. Men and children knocked them aside and enveloped them, totally oblivious of their swords and uncaring of their fight. Most of them stepped on
them and over them, rushing on without delay, while others tripped and fell over them, causing a sudden bottleneck and an even greater panic.
The shouts and screams in the passageway rose tenfold at the sudden delay. Those at the back kicked and pushed, desperately trying to climb over those who lay in their way, while those at the front scrabbled at the steps in an effort to get away, crawling under those who stepped on them and fell on them.
Anne stared at it all in rising panic, watching as men and children rushed passed her on the steps. She was pressed flat against the wall, doing her best to keep out of the way. Jai-Soo was doing the same further down. She had not bothered to strike with her sword at any of those who rushed by, content instead to let them run.
Then Anne saw a familiar face.
“Linda!” Anne screamed and grabbed the girl as she ran by. “Where are the others? What’s happening?”
Linda looked terrified. She struggled madly as Anne held on to her. “Run, Miss! It’s coming! It’s coming! Run!”
She broke free, tearing her blouse, and instantly disappeared, bounding up the steps. Anne called after her.
“Linda! Linda!”
The girl ran on. Anne would have given chase, anxious to have found at least one of her charges, but instead she stopped, as if rooted to the spot.
Anne wasn’t sure if she heard it first or whether it was the smell. No, she definitely smelled it first. It was that same almost familiar odour she had smelt in the dungeon. Something she knew she recognised but couldn’t quite place. But whether she recognised it or not, it suddenly filled her with a colossal fear. Her whole body went cold, and she just couldn’t move her legs.
Anne slowly turned her head and stared down the steps at the writhing mass of people jammed in the passageway. She watched as they struggled and fought to get free. Then the whole jammed mass of them suddenly burst forward as if they had all been hit by a gigantic plunger. Such was the force of the impact that three people flew passed her and landed on the steps further up. She knew one of them was Paula, but somehow she seemed uninterested. Only what now revealed itself in the darkened passageway held her attention.
At first there were two red lights that grew in size and intensity, and then Gil-Yan’s head emerged from the shadowy darkness until it completely filled the passageway, her huge jaws gaping wide, and her blood-spattered mouth filled with the dead and the dying. Even as Anne stared, her jaws closed on her hapless victims and her teeth severed arms and legs, crunching on bones.
Almost beneath her, the surviving men and children jumped to their feet and ran. And as they all disappeared, Prince Carl and Sir Morgan were suddenly visible once more.
Prince Carl stared up at Gil-Yan in complete shock, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
“What demon is this?” he muttered as he climbed to his feet.
Sir Morgan stood next to him, their fight forgotten. “It is Sir Henry’s pet Destroyer! And for her to be here, he must be dead! Run, for she will care nought for royal blood any more than that of commoners!”
Prince Carl and Sir Morgan backed slowly up the steps, picking up Anne on the way. She found herself being pulled up the steps by both men, the strangeness of it after their fight lost in comparison to the ghastly sight in the passageway behind her. Only Jai-Soo remained, standing on the steps almost right in front of Gil-Yan. Anne saw her step closer, her sword raised, and she was suddenly filled with fear and quickly shouted at her.
“Jai-Soo! What are you doing? Jai-Soo!”
Anne hardly knew Jai-Soo, but from the moment their eyes had met, Anne had somehow known that she could trust her. The possibility that she might now be eaten by this monster was too much to bear.
Jai-Soo hesitated at the shout. She wanted so much to run forward and strike at Gil-Yan with her sword, to fight with her and kill her. It was the same urge she had had in the forest. It was an urge the Outsider had shared with equal hatred and intent. But now Gil-Yan stared back at her almost lazily, her bright red eyes fixed on hers as she chewed and crunched on those she still consumed, their blood spilling noisily from her jaws and running down the stone steps in a red torrent. They were so close that Jai-Soo could taste the hatred that came from the Outsider. She knew that Gil-Yan hated her with the same ferocity, but unlike her, Gil-Yan’s hatred held no urgency. No urgency and no fear. Gil-Yan knew that she couldn’t be killed, even if Jai-Soo ran forward and stabbed at her it would be no use. Gil-Yan waited, almost daring her to attack.
Jai-Soo backed away, quickly catching up with Anne, Sir Morgan, and Prince Carl. And like the rest they turned and ran up the steps in panic.
Gil-Yan watched them run away. She had stretched and narrowed her body until she resembled a long sinuous snake. In this form she had oozed her way up the staircase, eating all those who had failed to run and climb the steps fast enough. Now she swallowed those she had caught, passing them down her stretched gullet. There they would join the rest, increasing her mass, making her bigger and stronger. For a while she paused, closing her eyes and remaining still. Seconds passed. Still she remained motionless, silent as the grave. Still more time passed and still she lay unmoving. Then her eyes opened, flashing brightly in the darkened passageway, and with a sudden heave, she oozed her great bulk further up the steps.
In the Shadow of Mountains: The Lost Girls Page 42
