Chapter 41
Elianor drew her pistol. The horse holding the execution cart shrieked, kicked, and ran. The panicked animal struck Harran, and the guard lost control of the reins when he put his hands to his face. The cart shot forward. The two guards in the cart fell backwards. Harran fell before the wheels and there was a sickening crunch. Derec dropped with a sharp crack. Then the rope caught and suspended him, kicking the air.
Gwyion Garn screamed.
The crowd bulged, but nobody ran. Nobody knew which way to run.
The first guard from the cart crashed to the ground. From the prison charged the two new guards; they grabbed the remaining escort and dragged him kicking and fighting to the floor. The scuffle tore the larger of the new guard’s helmet from his head. It was Fyrsil, the mine foreman.
Elianor charged her pistol. Sergeant Rees pushed past her, towards Derec and the guards. Persephone held Gwyion still as she shouted something Elianor couldn’t hear. Tannyr barrelled towards the centre of the crowd. Above them, the Warden stood but did nothing. Elianor looked for the shooter. She scanned the roofs, the walls, the windows. The echo made it hard to tell from where the shot had come.
A second exploded across the courtyard.
People ran. They panicked and screamed, turned in different directions and trampled on one another. The horse and cart thundered past Elianor. She stepped out of the way, pushing a shrieking old peasant woman into the dirt. The second shot had come from the battlements above the main gate. Tannyr, running at full pace, crossed her view, his arms stretched towards the cart. Sergeant Rees drew his sword and attacked Fyrsil. The second new guard drew his sword, and the three men duelled, steel on steel, as Derec swung on the noose.
“Lord Vile is hurt!” Lena shouted.
Vile was prostrate against the Manor door. Persephone released Gwyion Garn. Too much was happening at once.
Anton had arrived, Elianor saw not from where, barging past the sword fights that erupted between guards and miners to grab Derec in a bear hug. He strained to lift Derec high enough he could breathe, but Anton’s twisted body limited his reach.
“Help me, Gwyion!” he shouted.
The battle at the cart or the shooter on the wall? Elianor made her decision and ran towards the main gate. Persephone passed her in the other direction. A third rifle shot sounded. Elianor ran faster. Tannyr wrestled with the side of the cart and threw himself against the frenzied horse, turning its head and dragging the reins to one side. It was an extraordinary act of courage, one Elianor hadn’t imagined the fat man had in him. The horse turned and the cart smashed into the boiler. There was a thunder of cracking metal. Tannyr’s children, Dale and Eira, scrambled away from the falling shards. Elianor ran past them and up the steps to the battlements.
Behind her it was utter bedlam. People streamed out of the main gate or tried to force their way into the smithy. Where people were not running, they were fighting, farmer against miner, guard against guard. Lena crouched over Lord Vile and shook his shoulders. Persephone charged towards Anton, Gwyion just behind her, when suddenly Gwyion was intercepted by a man in a hood who thrashed at him with a walking stick. Persephone tackled Anton full force, shoulder into his chest, driving him away from Derec, whose weight fell back into the noose around his neck.
Elianor had a clear view down into the courtyard and her pistol in her hand. But who to shoot? She caught her breath by the first tower, taking cover at the corner right before the battlements, and checked her pistol. Whoever had the rifle would have reloaded by now. The walled section above the gate was maybe four metres across. If she was fast, the shooter could not aim and fire in time. If she was fast. The shouting in the courtyard intensified, amplified by the walls, the panic turned into battle. She heard Nathaniel call his sister’s name. Elianor pressed the cool gun metal against her forehead, then rolled her shoulder around the corner and ran onto the battlements.
There was nobody there but the Warden.
“Did you see the shooter?”
It did not turn its head. The Warden’s black mask gave the impression it was looking at Demon’s Pass. The blue helmet gave the impression it heard nothing at all.
“Gods, get out of my way!”
She ran past the Warden and up to the barbican. From over the battlements she could see the hangman’s rope, but Derec had been cut free. By the scaffold, Nathaniel had Persephone’s arm and was shouting at her. She looked blank, far away. Elianor ran across the barbican. The miners had gathered around Gwyion Garn and bundled him towards the exit, but the farmers had regrouped. At the guardhouse door, Rees swung his sword and sliced open Fyrsil’s throat. The spray of blood drenched them both.
Elianor took the final corner wide, pistol raised, ready to fire.
Uwen Brek sat back against the wall of the second tower, the rifle in his mouth, the back of his head blown out.
Chapter 42
Elianor stood as far to the back as possible. Lord Vile’s bedchamber was a small room, a soldier’s room, functional, sparse, a third of the size of Elianor’s guest chamber in the high tower. Vile lay on the bed, eyes closed, breathing but not moving. He was pale. A bowl of hot water spread steam into an already too hot room, and a pile of bloody rags accumulated by the bed as Lena changed his dressing. His remaining children, those who had not betrayed him, stood about the room, Nathaniel by the window, Persephone against the door. Elianor did not understand what good she was doing here.
The noon sun glared through the window like a magnifying glass aimed at Elianor’s head. The miners had fled back towards town with the Garns. Nobody knew if Derec was alive or dead. Their best guess was that Anton had gone with the miners. Tannyr Brek and many of the farmers were still here. Sergeant Rees was organising repairs while the remaining guards sorted and identified bodies in the courtyard. Persephone had barely spoken three words since the attack. Elianor put her hand over her eyes and tried to see through the thick window glass but the shapes beyond were bleached and unclear.
Lena stood. She wiped her hands on a rag, front and back, between the fingers; she polished her palms as if they were the brass in the audience chamber, then tossed the rag into the bowl. A splash of red-stained water sploshed onto the surface of the dresser.
“Is he going to die?” Nathaniel said.
Elianor still squinted at the window. If Arbalest Vile died, who would come with her to the Senate? Nathaniel might, but would he have any authority with his father dead and Shadowgate in a state of virtual civil war? She had been so close to extricating herself, and now…
“He needs to rest,” Lena said. “You all have other things to do.”
“Nathaniel?” Lord Vile croaked.
They turned, surprised. Vile’s eyes were barely open. He reached out with his left hand as if towards a light. He was reaching in the wrong direction. The window was behind him, above the head of the bed.
“Father?” Nathaniel said.
“Let me speak with my son,” Vile said. “Alone.”
“Who shot you, my lord?” Persephone’s shoulders lifted from the door as she spoke. Lord Vile glared at her as if she were a schoolgirl speaking out of place, then rested his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.
“It’s not important.”
“Not important?” Persephone said. “Tannyr Brek is downstairs, and his men don’t know if we’ve arrested him or invited him for dinner. Anton is out there somewhere, and he could be…He might be…You must tell us if you saw Uwen.”
“Uwen?” Arbalest coughed. “It was Haf. Haf Garn.”
A crooked smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“I saw her on the battlements when we stepped out from the Manor. Didn’t you?”
Nobody answered. He opened his eyes and looked at Lena.
“Didn’t you?” Slightly different emphasis on the word didn’t.
Lena bowed her head. “Yes. I saw her. But I didn’t see the rifle.”
“What about Uwen?” Persephone s
aid.
Lena shook her head.
“Now,” Arbalest said. “Out. Except Nathaniel.”
Lena opened her arms, her palms outwards, ushering noisy children. Persephone leaned in to say something but then turned, snapped her heels, and marched out. Elianor stayed, looking out of the window.
“Come and find me when you’re done,” she said to Nathaniel.
He nodded. She left the room slowly enough that Lena almost tripped on her heels. Elianor spoke as soon as the door closed behind them.
“You appreciate that your survival is conditional on his?”
“Since before you were born,” Lena said. “Don’t you want to go check on your victims?”
“My victims?”
“The bodies in the courtyard. Just make sure you lock your rifle up before you go.”
Lena slipped away through a door to Elianor’s right, before the Magistrate had the chance to put the old woman back in her place. To Elianor’s left, a grand staircase swept into an open hall that served no purpose whatsoever. There were no paintings on the walls, nor the chests, crates, or boxes to store the junk that accumulates in people’s homes. Elianor ran her finger along the balustrade. There was no dust. So why did it feel like a mausoleum?
Chapter 43
A spear. The odd stabbing, sword and knife. Beaten with clubs, fallen from horses, fists to the face, and years of mysterious drinking injuries when he was too young for the hangovers to bother him. A gunshot wound was new, but after all this time, one hole felt pretty much the same as another. And nothing could be as bad as that long summer, under the care of soon-to-be-Abbot Bayard, unable to get out of bed or stay awake for long, as he tried to understand how he had survived the fight with the Kindred Prince when everyone else was dead.
Sometimes, looking at his youngest son, Arbalest felt he’d found an old mirror, his youthful image caught looking back. He wanted to warn him how it would be. He wanted to explain. But he remembered enough of his own youth to know it wouldn’t make any difference. He had certainly never listened to the various of his mother’s men that attempted to be a father to him.
Arbalest watched Nathaniel turn his head to nod at Lena and wait until she closed the door behind her. Then Nathaniel stood and let go of Arbalest’s hand.
“Something to say, Father?”
Arbalest could feel fluids drain out of him through the hole in his back. The bandages had formed an uncomfortable knot. He should roll onto his side, but his limbs were heavy and the discomfort less pressing than the weight of his own body.
“Nathaniel, it’s time to show me you can be a leader.”
“Really?” Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. “What about Anton? Or Persephone?”
“Failures. It has to be you.”
“You’ve changed your tune from the last time we had this talk. What if I don’t want to?”
Arbalest wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. He tried to look Nathaniel in the eyes but found his head back on the pillow. Nathaniel rifled through the materials on the cabinet.
“Is this what Lena was giving you to make you sleep? Perhaps she didn’t give you enough.”
“There shouldn’t be Shifters on the mountain. If it is a vanguard, you are the only one who can stand against them. You have to stop the Kindred!”
Nathaniel’s blue eyes narrowed to azure slits.
“I don’t have to do anything,” he said, calm as a butcher slaughtering a lamb.
“But I made you for this!”
Nathaniel took the hypodermic needle from the case behind the bowl.
“I made myself. And even if it were true and you did raise me to be some sort of super Kindred fighter, who cares? I certainly don’t.”
Nathaniel refilled the needle with a brown fluid from the medicine chest. He put it to one side on the cabinet, then took Arbalest’s arm and rolled up the sleeve. Arbalest tried to pull away but his fingers barely twitched.
“It was you who contacted Théophile Carada.”
“Of course,” Nathaniel said.
“And you who had Derec Garn meet the Magistrate at Durançon?”
“I suggested it to Anton. He was bound to do something stupid.”
“But you couldn’t possibly know this would happen!”
“You pile up enough barrels of oil, it doesn’t matter how the fire starts. Now hold still.”
“Why?”
Nathaniel sighed.
“Look at this,” he said, waving the needle around the midpoint of Arbalest bare left arm, where dozens of old pinpricks had left the skin puckered and pockmarked. “Abacus gives you more than painkillers.” Nathaniel pushed the needle through the skin. Arbalest’s head fell deeper into the pillow. The room darkened around the edges.
“Listen,” Nathaniel said. “The oil is this odorous little town of Shadowgate, that has accreted around the mountain for reasons surpassing understanding. The matches are Tannyr Brek and Gwyion Garn. Anton has been moving them into place for years, without even thinking about it.”
“Anton…knows?”
“Of course not. Anton has dedicated himself to not knowing things with an admirable focus. Now, no more interruptions. Shadowgate is oil, the peasants are the kindling, and the Magistrate is a fire that will burn it all down. One of my siblings will kill you—it doesn’t matter which, really—and Miss Paine will be there to smash up the pieces.”
“Don’t care…about peasants,” Arbalest panted. “I made you…to be Lord—"
“Lord of a pile of rocks? Lord of squabbling farmers and miners? A waste of my time.”
“The Magistrate…”
“Elianor Paine? She’s arrogant, aggressive, and painfully naïve. She reacts predictably under pressure and tends to lash out at whatever’s nearest, which makes her perfect. This would have been much more difficult without her.”
Somewhere, from a place far, far away, Arbalest found the motor skills to move his arm. He grabbed Nathaniel, but his hand slipped from his collar, across to his shoulder, down to his biceps.
“You have to stop the Kindred. I made you to stop the Kindred.”
“No. I have to make a bigger fire. I will burn my way to the truth.”
Nathaniel paused.
“Why do you keep on saying you made me? What is that supposed to mean?”
Arbalest tried to tell him, but the room had gone, his body had gone, and his son had gone, swept away in the darkness.
Chapter 44
Eleven corpses lined up in three rows across the courtyard. Elianor’s stomach growled, loud enough she thought the others might hear. Only Eira Brek was close enough, knelt crying over the body of an old woman, and Elianor doubted she was paying much attention. She wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, tell her to buckle up, that worse was coming. She couldn’t plan a way out of this mess with Eira’s sobs buzzing around her head.
Instead, Elianor walked along the line, some faces half-recognised, most blank and gone. She knew the dead old peasant woman from somewhere. The only name she could place was Harran, the guard crushed under the wheels of a cart, a blanket over his mangled remains. There was no time for proper burials or a less ugly arrangement: there would be more dead by the end of the day. Once the surviving guards were done tallying casualties, they would stack them in a cart around the back of the prison.
At the end of the line, Sergeant Rees examined the body of a dirty old man.
“Knife wound,” Elianor said. “Who is it?”
“Hodri. Begw and Seren’s father.” Rees snorted through his beard. “Go on. Say something clever. Say something smart.”
Well that solved one problem: no need to apologise to a dead man. Another avenue of investigation closed. Someone was either very lucky or very meticulous.
“Do you realise, Sergeant, that if I shot you, in the face, right here in the courtyard, not one person would dare complain?”
She rested her hand on her pistol and waited to see if he was stupid enough to reply.
<
br /> “Don’t stop being useful, Sergeant,” Elianor said. “I haven’t forgotten what you are.”
She joined Persephone in front of the Manor.
“If Lord Vile dies,” Elianor said, “Anton is the heir to Shadowgate.”
“I saw him help Gwyion cut down Derec.”
“This can’t have been their plan.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t. Even when Anton isn’t thinking, he’s never that stupid.”
“I didn’t see the foreman’s body amongst the others,” Elianor said. “I thought Rees killed him?”
Persephone took a long, slow, tired breath. “I didn’t know it was Rees. That could make for trouble, later.” She noted Elianor’s incomprehension. “We put Fyrsil’s body in the guardhouse. He was our cousin.”
“That’s how he got the job as foreman?”
“That’s not…That’s not how it works, but yes, Anton got him the job.”
They walked together up the steps to the Manor door. Elianor was wondering what Persephone meant by “cousin.” She knew for a fact that Fyrsil was not an acknowledged blood relative of the Viles. He could be someone’s bastard, and cousin a simple euphemism. But Elianor had worked in communities where cousin could mean a foundling taken in, the birth child of somebody’s wet nurse; the children of childhood friends, families that lived close together, someone who simply hung around long enough to feel like family. Hells, there was an over-familiar Southern coffee seller in Lutense who had taken to calling Elianor cousin and somehow remained totally immune to the sullen glare she gave him through the steam and the caffeine. It was a word that could cover a multitude of sins and hide a multitude of sinners. People wanted allegiances to be simple: my side and your side, my family and your family, my town and your mountain. How you want things to be is often the greatest obstacle to seeing how things are. Elianor paused with her hand flat on the wooden door.
“We aren’t doing a very good job of protecting them, are we?”
Elianor drove through the little entrance hall and into the Manor audience chamber. The long table, the empty dais, the daylight filtering through windows high on the east side. Lord Vile’s absence haunted the chamber.
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