Suddenly they were surrounded by a full dozen White Rose wizards.
“Mr. Wylie, sir, Dr. Longbranch is waiting for these two,” one of them said.
There was nothing to do but be hustled along toward an elaborate peaked tent flying the banner of the White Rose. Wylie and his wizards trailed unhappily behind. Jason stared straight ahead, but kept a hard hold on Madison’s elbow. Madison couldn’t help looking back at the gate. What was Jason thinking? Did he really think he’d have better luck with Longbranch?
Dr. Longbranch’s tent was guarded by a dozen more wizards in White Rose garb. One of the guards disappeared inside. He returned and nodded to Jason and Madison. “You two. Inside. The rest of you stay out here.”
Wylie watched sullenly as the guards ushered his prisoners in.
Inside, it was as much like a palace as a tent can be. Fancy rugs were spread over the ground, and velvet and satin hangings draped the walls and curtained off a sleeping area on one side. At the other end of the tent, chairs were gathered around a conference table. Wizard lights cast long shadows. Soft music floated in, somehow countering the sounds of the battle at the wall, and incense burners obscured the reek of warfare.
Madison just had time to take this all in before a tall witch-woman swept toward them, the velvet hem of her gown sliding over the carpets. She had green eyes and a long fall of pitch-dark hair. Ignoring Jason, she gripped both of Madison’s hands and looked into her eyes. Unlike most wizards, she seemed to have no fear of Maddie’s touch, but was careful not to let any Persuasion trickle through.
“Madison,” she said. “I’m so pleased you’ve come. I’m Jessamine Longbranch.”
“Hel . . . hello,” Madison stammered, while her mind raced a mile a minute. She knows who I am. She was expecting me. She glanced over at Jason, who was all stony-faced except for his eyes, which glittered in the wizard light.
“I understand you’re an artist,” Longbranch continued.
“Yes, ma’am,” Madison said, reclaiming her hands.
“I’m something of a patron of the arts myself. Perhaps I could make some introductions.”
“Well. Sure,” Madison said. “That’d be great.” All of a sudden, everyone was interested in her art. Because they had another agenda.
“But first, we have to end this war,” Longbranch continued. “So much bloodshed. So unnecessary.”
“You’re getting ready to attack?” Jason asked.
“We are.” Dr. Longbranch nodded. “We were waiting for you.”
“Right,” Jason said, squeezing Madison’s arm: a warning. “So we’d better get going.”
Dr. Longbranch raised her hand to quash any notion of an imminent departure and turned to Madison. “The rebels won’t surrender as long as they hold the Dragonheart. That’s where you come in.” She paused. “Jason says you can go into the sanctuary and bring it to us.”
It was like a punch to the gut. “What?” Madison looked from Jason to Dr. Longbranch.
“Hey, Maddie. You know. The stone we talked about, remember?” Jason said quickly, facing Madison and putting his hands on her shoulders, looking intently into her eyes.
“All we have to do is bring it to Dr. Longbranch, and the war’s over. We’ll have more money than we’ll ever need. We can go wherever you want. Paris. London. Bali. You can paint full time. We can be together.” And then he kissed her again, probably to quiet her mouth.
Dr. Longbranch laughed. “You are a piece of work, Haley. Does McCauley know you’ve stolen his girl?”
Everybody’s crazy, Madison thought, as Jason released her. But it doesn’t matter. I have to get into the sanctuary. And if this is the way to do it, well . . . She’d have to make it up as she went along.
“Seph never had any time for me,” she said, wishing for the hundredth time she’d inherited the lying gene. “It’s his own fault if someone comes along who knows how to treat a person.” I sound like Mama, Madison thought. Always trading the devil she knew for the one she didn’t.
“Right,” Dr. Longbranch said, smiling. “It is his own fault.”
“Should we go, then?” Jason asked, jumpy as always when he had to wait.
“Yes and no,” Dr. Longbranch said. “Madison will go and get the Dragonheart. Haley, you’ll stay here to make sure she comes back.”
“What?” Madison swung round and glared at the wizard. “No way. I’m not going without Jason.” She latched onto his arm as if the two of them were soldered together.
At a nod from Longbranch, two White Rose guards stepped out of the shadows and grabbed Jason’s arms, pulling him free of Madison’s grasp. “Take him to our detention area and keep him close,” she ordered.
She turned back to Madison. “My dear, be reasonable,” Longbranch said. “Go and get the Dragonheart and bring it to me. Your young sweetheart will be free in a trice, and you’ll come away with a fortune in walking-around money. Refuse, and I’ll kill him now.”
“Go on, Madison,” Jason said, giving her a Shut up kind of look. “I’ll be fine. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back.”
“Just be sure you give the stone directly to me,” Longbranch said. “We don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”
Madison looked from Jason, who jerked his head toward the gate, signaling her to get moving, to Longbranch, whose cold, direct gaze said Jason would pay in blood for any kind of double cross.
One thing was clear: Jason Haley had been lying to her since the moment he set foot on her porch. Was he really plotting with the Roses? Or had he decided to sacrifice himself to get her into the sanctuary?
Madison threw her arms around Jason’s neck as if she couldn’t face being parted from him and whispered fiercely in his ear, “You lying lunatic bastard. They’re going to kill you.”
“I love you, too,” he murmured. “Go find Seph. Help him.”
She let go of him and turned and stalked toward the gate, flanked by a wedge of White Rose soldiers, oblivious to the chaos around her.
It was a mess. An absolute, total mess, since no matter what she did, she’d end up with blood on her hands.
Because there was no way she could bring the Dragonheart back to Jessamine Longbranch.
* * *
Geoffrey Wylie watched as White Rose soldiers escorted the elicitor Madison Moss toward the gate, hands twitching as he fought back the impulse to incinerate them. Moments later, more of Longbranch’s wizards hustled Jason Haley off the other way, toward the middle of the White Rose camp.
The stench of betrayal was in the air. And it centered on Haley, the girl, and the Dragonheart. He could feel power building behind the walls, like a cataclysm in the making. What would happen if they breached the wall? Would they be vaporized, annihilated in an instant?
Longbranch was up to something, and Wylie didn’t plan on being the sacrificial lamb.
He turned to his Red Rose captain, Bruce Hays, who stood, awaiting orders. “How many wizards do we have?”
“For the Red Rose?” The officer considered. “About three hundred, give or take a few infiltrators and spies for the other sides.”
Wylie smiled. Three hundred wizards was an army larger than any seen since the Wars of the Roses.
“Here’s what we’ll do. Collect the Red Rose wizards and get them to the gate. We’re not waiting for Longbranch’s signal. The White Rose can fight the rebels while we go after the girl and the Dragonheart.”
Longbranch’s jailers didn’t seem to consider Jason much of a threat. Though they clapped sefa manacles around his wrists, they didn’t bother to disable him or search him for heart-stones before they hustled him between the tents.
So he figured if he was going to make a move, he’d better do it before they threw him in whatever dungeon Longbranch had contrived. He had a feeling it was the kind of place it’d be hard to get out of. But he didn’t want to tip off Longbranch before Madison was well away.
The camp had been emptied out, most of the soldiers having deployed to the wal
l in preparation for the upcoming assault. Just as Jason and his guards reached a secluded spot where he thought his escape might go unnoticed, the White Rose wizards on either side of him crumpled silently to the ground and a band of Red Rose liveried wizards jerked him around and dragged him back the way they’d come.
Jason felt like the fricking princess in a video game.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Wylie has some questions for you. Now shut up.” As they neared the boundary of the camp, shouts erupted behind them. The White Rose had discovered that their prisoner was being stolen.
The Red Rose wizards let go of Jason and turned to defend themselves. As the shields went up and charms began to fly, Jason left his captors behind and charged toward the gate.
Chapter Thirty-five
A House Divided
Fitch peered down through the witch’s brew of smoke and flame into no-man’s-land, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Yes. There was furtive movement at the outer gate, the shapes of several dozen figures crossing the open field.
He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. Was this it? The assault they’d been waiting for? It wasn’t exactly an army. But a few wizards could do a lot of damage. He squinted through his field glasses, picking out the White Rose emblem on several of the invaders.
He turned, looking for Will, and saw that his friend had fallen asleep, leaning against the scaffolding at the end of the curtain wall. Fitch couldn’t remember the last time they’d slept, other than accidentally.
“Hey, Will,” he said. “Wake up.”
Will instantly came awake, pulling hastily away from the wall. “What? I was just resting my eyes.”
“Go tell Jack. Something’s going down.” Fitch pointed off the wall with his chin.
Will crept forward on his hands and knees and peered over the battlement, then scrambled backward like an oversize crab. Giving Fitch a thumbs-up, he picked his way along the scaffolding and disappeared into the darkness. He could be amazingly quiet for a jock.
Fitch resumed his surveillance, feeling like a member of the INS border patrol. He fished the remote out of his pocket and clutched it in one hand. He’d laid explosive devices all along the outer wall, in a modern-day version of the method medieval sappers used to undermine a fortification.
The first party was midway across the field when another, larger group poured through the bad-guy gate, following the first wave of White Rose wizards. From what he could see through his binoculars, this second group seemed to be Red Rose wizards.
The White Rose advance party didn’t notice them at first. When they did, they didn’t seem happy about the reinforcements. After a moment’s jostling confusion, half the group continued on, increasing their pace, while half hung back, turning to confront the oncoming army.
When the two groups came together, wizard flame erupted all along the line. The Roses were fighting each other!
Fitch fingered the remote nervously. If this was the assault they’d been anticipating, it was show time. But he didn’t know what to make of the events on the ground.
Seph had found a quiet place from which to monitor the boundary of the sanctuary in one of the many drum towers Mercedes had built into her elaborate wall. It was good to be enclosed in stone, since he tended to set things on fire otherwise.
There he hung silently like a bat in a cave, his magical sonar lightly fingering the concentric walls of the inner fortress and the outer wizard wall, scouring the disputed space in between. He’d been on the wall for three straight days—putting out fires and creating conflagrations of his own.
Con-fla-gra-tion. A perfect word for a perfect storm of death. His enemies vaporized like mosquitoes who’d blundered into a high power line.
What time was it? He stood, stretching his overused muscles, massaging the base of his spine. He rubbed his grainy eyes and tried to spit out the awful taste in his mouth. Failing that, he pulled the flask from his pocket and washed it away with a long swallow of flame.
He had no idea whether he was really addicted to the stuff or if pain and exhaustion had made it temporarily necessary. At one time that distinction would have seemed important. If Mercedes wouldn’t make it for him, there were plenty of sorcerers who would. They’d seen what he did on the wall. They knew he stood between them and hundreds of wizards, and they knew what would happen if he failed.
The flame coursed through him, and he was okay again. Totally. In fact, he felt almost giddy. Impervious. There was another perfect word.
The world crowded in and he welcomed it, each tiny blade of grass and leaf of tree and power-crazed wizard. Once again, he felt embedded. Connected.
Somewhere behind him, the Dragonheart throbbed like a toothache. His own heart seemed to keep time. He was the energy that connected and destroyed.
He sensed the intruders before he saw them, felt the raw power of hundreds of wizards exploding through the wizard wall and streaming toward the sanctuary.
Leaving the drum tower, Seph ghosted forward until he could look over the curtain wall. The sun had not yet crested the horizon, and no glimmer of dawn had penetrated between the walls.
I know you’re down there, Seph thought, pushing back his sleeves. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? He was primed, bristling with power. They’d be history before they ever made the wall.
They came in two waves, the one rapidly overtaking the other.
Flame erupted between the walls as they came together, a ragged line spewing a fume of ruddy smoke like lava hitting the cold sea. Wizards were fighting each other down below. But a handful of invaders came on, heading for the Weirgate. Too close.
Seph lifted his hands, meaning to send flame roaring into the group charging for the gate. And stopped, sensing a familiar tear in the fabric of magic. A memory.
Instead, he launched a rippling arc of light into the sky. It illuminated an apocalyptic scene.
Hundreds of wizards battled each other between the walls. Most bore emblems of the Red or White Rose. Near the gate, a small group of White Rose wizards had stalled, stymied by the barricade. And, amid them, Seph saw someone that stopped his heart.
Madison.
She was at the center, carried along by the flow of bodies like a chip of wood on a flood, buffeted and jostled by the wizards around her. Her hair glittered in the wizard light, twisting in the hot winds generated by the flames. Was she a prisoner? Hostage?
Seph vaulted over the battlement, landing halfway down an interior staircase that led to the courtyard at the bottom. Then raced down the steps, his feet touching every third or fourth one.
“Commander! Sir! Wake up!”
Jack surfaced from sleep, wondering who the commander was and wishing he’d respond so he could go back to sleep—until he remembered that he was the commander. He sat up, banging his head on the bunk above. It was the first time he’d actually lain down in a bed in a week, and now ...
“Will’s here.” It was Mick. The tall Irish warrior had been assigned to be his bodyguard.
Will Childers pushed past Mick. “Jack. They’re coming. They’re attacking. Or something. Hundreds of them. Heading for the gate.”
Jack had yanked on his boots and was on his feet before Will finished speaking.
“They’re ready for you, Commander,” Mick said.
“Where’s Stephenson?”
“She’s out there in the middle of it.”
“What’s she doing?” Jack snatched up his baldric and strapped it in place. He pushed his way out of the tent and loped toward the gate, leaving Mick and Will to catch up as they might.
The plan was, there’d be no heroic sorties outside the wall, where their small numbers would put them at a disadvantage. Instead, they’d line the top of the Weirwall and rain destruction down on any among the enemy brave enough to approach it.
Ellen was the strategist. What was she thinking?
They were waiting for him, his ghost warriors. They’d trained for months for this momen
t. Somewhere out there in the dark were Ellen and her hundred. Against hordes of wizards pouring into the gap. Why would she leave the relative safety of the sanctuary and wade into an unwinnable battle?
“They’re already hard at it, sir,” Brooks said, scraping his hair into a ratty-looking queue and tying it off with a strip of leather. “It’s a melee.”
Outside the Weirwall, Jack could hear the thud of bodies colliding and the cries of the wounded. It seemed like a lot of noise. Even given the fact that Ellen was involved.
“Why’d she go out there?” Jack demanded. “Why didn’t you stop her?”
Brooks spat on the ground. “Have you ever tried to stop Captain Stephenson from anythin’? She was looking off the wall and she seen somethin’ out there, and went out after it. The others followed.” He paused. “We need to go after her, I reckon. She wouldn’t go out there ’athout good reason.”
It was what Jack wanted to hear. He tried to close his mind to the possibility that he was putting his warriors in danger in order to save Ellen’s life.
“All right, I’m going out after Captain Stephenson. If anyone wants to come with me, they’re welcome, but it looks like a bloodbath out there.”
His warriors crowded forward. All of them.
“Well.” Jack tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. “Um, at least half of you need to stay here and hold the walls.”
In the end, he had to force them to count off. Brooks was selected to stay behind, but he called in a gambling debt and joined Jack in the barbicon.
“Let’s go.” Jack and his fifty passed through the long tunnel of the gate, under Mercedes’s murder holes, and waded into chaos.
Visually, it was a sea of bodies—some jammed so closely together it was impossible to swing a blade, let alone tell friend from foe. Other twosomes danced and dueled, as oblivious to the battle raging about them, as if they were all alone on the practice field. Wizard on wizard, warrior on wizard—but no warriors on warriors since none were fighting for the other side. Flames spiraled into the sky and roared along the ground like a seriously malfunctioning fireworks show. Some of the fighters were clearly marked with emblems of the Red or White Rose, yet they seemed to be doing their best to kill one another.
The Heir Chronicles Omnibus Page 106
