by A. E. Rayne
They had waited for hours in the secret room at the back of the stables. Jumping at every sound, worried by every rustle.
Edela kept Eydis close. Her body felt weak but her mind was alert, and she knew that they were surrounded by danger. She could feel it approaching like a cloud in the distance. It was a black cloud, and it was low in the sky, and it threatened death and destruction, and so Edela remained alert, trying to calm her mind but awaken all of her senses.
She was determined to be ready.
They had come here for her. She had to help them leave safely.
But in the end, it was Eydis who called out. ‘Fire!’ she whispered hoarsely, gripping Edela’s hand. ‘Fire!’
46
Kormac and Aron were not in the temple.
They were not in the secret room either.
They had been roaming the streets, waiting for the soldiers to wake up; desperate to see if the binding spell was broken; hoping they could convince those men to go with them to the temple and help Jael defeat The Following.
When the fire started, Kormac and Aron had seen flames rising over the buildings in the distance. They had raced to the house, quickly sliding into the shadows at the sight of the temple guards who were standing around, watching the thatch burn. Kormac could hear the frantic bleating of his goats, the panicked clucking of his chickens – all of them sensing the danger in the hot, smoking flames that were destroying his house. He turned to Aron. ‘Go back to the gates. See if any of the soldiers are awake. Get help now!’ He pushed his son away and took a deep breath, stepping towards the guards.
There were four of them; only four, but he could feel the quickening thud of his heart in his chest. ‘What are you doing?’ Kormac bellowed.
The red-breasted men turned in unison, blinking in confusion, looking back to the house, surprised that Kormac wasn’t in it.
‘Get him!’ one of the guards yelled, drawing his sword and charging.
Kormac turned and ran, the desperate pleas of his animals ringing in his ears as he slipped between the houses.
They were still bound! They were still bound!
‘Where?’ Entorp asked breathlessly, kneeling before Eydis. ‘Where’s the fire?’
He was sniffing the air, listening for any sound, but he couldn’t smell or hear anything.
‘Here!’ she cried, struggling to her feet. ‘We must free the horses! We have to escape! The fire is here!’
‘Tig!’ Biddy grabbed Branwyn’s arm. ‘Give me the key!’
Edela was silent, visions of an old dream flashing past her eyes anew. She remembered seeing Jael and Aleksander fleeing Tuura.
It was in flames.
She couldn’t breathe.
And then she smelled the smoke.
The door to the scroll room was the same as every other: wooden panels, iron handle. Nothing unusual, apart from the four big locks running down the right-hand side.
Jael frowned at Marcus, impatiently twitching her toes.
Marcus pulled his spare set of keys from his pouch and carefully inserted each key into each lock.
It took some time.
Jael kept glancing up and down the corridor. The only noise she could hear was the squeak and moan of Marcus’ keys. What had happened to Beorn and the men? She would have expected to hear swords clashing by now.
Screams.
Anything.
Marcus finally pushed open the door, then lifted a torch out of its sconce and ushered Jael inside. The scrolls were tightly packed into thin shelves that rose from the floor to the ceiling. It was dark, musty, and tiny, with a passageway between the shelves that was barely wide enough for Marcus to squeeze through.
But squeeze through it he did.
Heart pounding, he walked quickly to the back of the room, to the chests where the elders secured items of great value.
Jael squeezed in behind him.
There were six chests. She tried a lid. They were locked as well.
Sighing impatiently, she turned to Marcus, who handed her the torch as he fiddled with his keys, bending over to unlock each one.
Jael stared into the flame, a sudden image of Aleksander bursting into view. He was sitting against a tree in a forest, his head flopped to one side, sleeping. A fire was burning low before him.
And lying all around him were men she knew.
The Brekkan army.
Aron started screaming as he raced across the face of the gates. ‘Fire! Fire!’ He didn’t know who would respond; if anyone was even awake. Were the soldiers freed from their spell? Would they return to being the good men, the friends he had known?
Would they help him?
‘Fire!’ He ran on, screaming, trying to rouse the soldiers as he passed the hall. They were either going to chase him or help him. ‘Fire!’ he cried, opening the door to the northern tower. The smoke was drifting now, thirsty flames rising into the night sky.
‘Fire!’ one of the soldiers roared as he emerged from the tower, blinking. ‘Quick!’
‘Aron!’ Another soldier stumbled outside, rubbing his eyes. ‘Where is it?’
‘My parent’s house!’
The soldier frowned, pointing to flames which were coming from the opposite direction. ‘That’s not your parent’s house,’ he said slowly.
Aron’s eyes widened in horror. ‘The stables!’ he shouted and ran.
Marcus closed the last chest and turned to Jael. ‘It’s not here,’ he whispered, frowning.
Jael tried not to let the disappointment consume her.
‘Well, maybe Gerod can tell me where it is,’ she growled, remembering his sneering face as he ordered those men to murder her. ‘Show me where he is.’
The stables were on fire.
Biddy and Entorp rushed in to release the frantic horses who were snorting and blowing, banging around their stalls, worried by the smoke; panicked by the quickly growing heat from the flames as they caught and spread.
‘Tig!’ Biddy cried. ‘Tig!’ The smoke tickled her throat and stung her eyes as she ran forward, not knowing which stall he was in.
She couldn’t see.
Entorp hurried behind her, opening every stall he came across, trying his best to shoo the horses in the direction of the secret room, but they reared up on their hind-legs, charging around the burning stables, confused, getting in each other’s way.
Panicking.
It was a complete mess.
Branwyn and Kayla raced in to help.
‘Come on, come on,’ Branwyn soothed, getting behind the horses, holding her arms out wide, Kayla on her opposite side. ‘Go, go, go!’ And they flapped their arms, trying to funnel the horses through the door to the room.
The stable doors were on fire. It was the only way out now.
Biddy reached the last stall and found Tig. He had shrunk back into the shadows, trying to escape the flames. ‘Tig!’ she croaked. ‘Let’s go, come on!’
Recognising Biddy’s voice, he tentatively stepped forward as she opened the door to his stall.
‘Come on! Come on, Tig! Let’s go!’ she pleaded, coughing uncontrollably now.
Entorp was by her side. ‘Come on, Tig! Go!’ He flapped his arms like Branwyn and Tig hurried off after the other horses who had finally all aimed in the same direction. They charged through the door in a line, Branwyn, Entorp, Kayla, and Biddy running after them as the flames chewed through the stable walls with ever-increasing hunger.
Kormac raced around the fort, trying to evade the temple guards until he came to the stables which he was horrified to see were on fire.
Soldiers he recognised were throwing water at the doors, trying to extinguish the flames. They looked him up and down but made no move towards him, so Kormac kept running until he reached the rear of the stables, looking for the door to the secret room.
The smoke was in his throat. He was struggling to breathe, not having run this much since he was a boy. But he didn’t stop. He thought of Branwyn.
He didn’t
stop.
‘Kormac!’ Branwyn screamed as he ran past. ‘Kormac!’
He skidded to a halt and rushed back to his wife, pulling her into his arms, inhaling the smoke in her hair, quickly looking around, checking who was there. They all were. And so was Aron, much to his relief. ‘The horses?’ he asked.
‘They’re all out,’ Biddy croaked.
‘We have to leave,’ Edela said weakly. ‘Tuura will burn.’
‘You’ve seen this?’ Gisila asked, her eyes watering.
Edela nodded.
‘But Jael!’
‘Don’t you worry about Jael,’ Edela promised. ‘But we must open the gates. We need help!’
Kormac looked puzzled. ‘Help?’
‘Hurry!’ Edela insisted, stumbling against Entorp. ‘We must open the gates!’
‘Fire!’
Aleksander’s eyes sprung open.
‘There was no one there,’ Beorn said hoarsely as he caught up with Jael. ‘Every room we tried was empty.’
Fyn gulped. He felt sick. His arms were shaking. Thankfully, it was too dark for anyone to notice.
Jael looked at Marcus. ‘Do they know we’re coming?’ she whispered.
He shrugged. ‘I’d say it makes little difference now.’
‘How many guards in the temple?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe thirty? Forty?’
‘We broke the binding spell tonight, so perhaps they won’t be against us now?’ Jael suggested hopefully.
Marcus shook his head, feeling his body tense. ‘The temple guards are bound in a different way, I think. Most of them are Followers.’
Jael squeezed her fingers tightly around her shield grip, trying to force open her swollen eye. ‘And the elders? The dreamers? What can they do?’
‘It depends on what they might have been told. I honestly don’t know anymore. But they will work together to stop you leaving. Know that.’
Jael turned to Beorn. ‘We have to kill everyone we see. And quickly. We can’t give them an opportunity to cause any trouble. Take your men and go for the guards. Aedan, Fyn, we’ll go for the dreamers.’ She smiled at the men whose eyes glowed eagerly back at her in the gloomy passageway; boots shuffling on the flagstones, sweaty palms tightening around swords and axes.
They were eager to begin. Tired of feeling like prisoners.
‘We kill them, we go home,’ Jael growled. ‘Think of Oss. They need us to get out of here. We can’t help them until we do.’ And turning back to Marcus, and thinking of Eadmund, she nodded. ‘Let’s go!’
The temple guards were going to be a problem.
There were more of them than Kormac had realised and they were lining up across the gates in a great red row, blocking their exit. He turned to Aron, feeling the heat from the flames as they edged closer, sensing the oppressive clouds of smoke drifting towards them.
It was getting hard to breathe.
They needed to open the gates.
Gisila was keeping the puppies close, wrapping their ropes around her wrist. Branwyn had Edela, and Edela had Eydis. Entorp had managed to secure Tig with a rope he had found, and Alaric was there too, cowering behind Kayla, who was jiggling her grizzling daughter.
But while the gates were blocked, there was no escape.
‘Where have you been?’ one of the temple guards yelled, turning to the straggling bunch of sleepy-eyed soldiers who emerged from the guard tower by the gates. ‘Seize them!’
Horsa blinked, looking around at Aron and his family, then back to the row of guards. He turned back to his own men, searching for a commander, but he couldn’t see one.
He felt as though he had woken from the longest dream.
And suddenly, everything was clear.
‘Why?’ Horsa wondered.
And Kormac drew his sword. ‘They’re all in The Following!’ he cried, pointing to the temple guards. ‘The Following had you bound to them! We broke the spell! You’re free now, but Tuura will burn! My mother-in-law, she’s a dreamer, she’s seen it! We must open the gates! Now!’
‘Horsa, please!’ Aron begged as more soldiers arrived. ‘You have to help us!’
Horsa looked confused, his eyes widening as he caught sight of the flames sparking against the dark sky. He strode towards the guards. ‘We need to open the gates,’ he said simply. ‘They’re not our prisoners. Clear the way!’ He saw people running towards them, trying to escape the fire, dragging their terrified children, clutching their possessions to their chests, pulling their animals behind them. Screaming, coughing, panicking people. He frowned, disturbed by the guards’ reluctance to move. ‘Clear the way!’
The guards didn’t move.
Horsa drew his sword.
The grand chamber was full as Jael and her Osslanders strode into it.
Full of dead-eyed, red-breasted guards lining the walls and black-robed dreamers and elders surrounding the fires. And in the very centre of them all stood Gerod Gott.
‘Ahhh, you’ve come!’ he smiled, licking his red lips. ‘I was growing impatient.’
He had no sword, but nor did he need one, flanked as he was by a shield of kneeling dreamers and a circle of guards.
‘Impatient to die?’ Jael wondered, quickly sweeping the room with her eyes. Marcus appeared right in his assessment. She guessed that there were about thirty guards and she had about thirty men. Those were better odds than she’d hoped for. ‘I can help you with that. Kill them!’ And raising her shield to her shoulder, she charged the circle of guards, Fyn and Aedan running behind her.
The Osslanders fanned out on either side of them, clashing against the temple guards who rushed up to meet them.
The cavernous temple was suddenly filled with noise.
And Marcus slunk away.
‘Aron!’ Branwyn screamed as her youngest son drew his sword and rushed to join his father and the melee of soldiers fighting against the guards.
‘Branwyn, take everyone back!’ Kormac cried. ‘Get back!’ His cry was muffled as he dropped his chin to his chest, ducking a sword blow.
Soldiers scattered; some rushing back into the tower for swords; others scrambling to defend themselves with what they had to hand.
Blood-curdling cries rose into the night.
Branwyn panicked, blinking through the smoke, glancing around at the burning buildings. Kayla looked terrified, trying to soothe her crying baby. Eydis was frozen, feeling the heat from the flames as they got closer; the puppies’ ropes tangling around her legs.
Everyone was petrified, desperate to escape the rapidly approaching fire.
With one last look at Kormac and Aron, Branwyn shepherded them all away, searching for a safe place to shelter.
Jael was confused.
As she fought her way to Gerod with Fyn and Aedan by her side, she was certain that she’d killed three guards, but each one was on his feet again, his wounds gone.
Jael spun, frowning and came face to face with Baccus.
She blinked in surprise.
‘Thought you’d killed me?’ he spat, gripping his enormous sword in both hands. There were no marks on his throat that she could see.
The fires were high. It felt unusually hot in the temple.
She smelled smoke.
‘Well, lucky me,’ Jael breathed, quickly realising how much trouble they were in. She backed away from him, glancing around. Gerod stood defiantly in the centre of the dreamers who had their eyes closed, their lips moving.
Chanting.
Jael’s head felt hazy as she inhaled more of the smoke.
She knew that smoke.
Baccus charged, swinging, and Jael pushed back her foot, catching his sword on the edge of her blade. The vibration shot up her arm. She ducked his next blow and sliced across his waist. He jerked back, growling at her, shaking his head.
Lunging again, Jael slashed quickly from side to side, trying to keep him busy while she thought of what to do. She had to stop the dreamers.
‘Arrrhhh!’
&nbs
p; Jael’s eyes darted to the right as one of her men fell, a sword through his middle. She looked back, swaying to the right, avoiding Baccus’ blow, dropping to the floor, sliding, slicing across the backs of his thighs. He stumbled, and she was up, kicking in his knees, knocking him to the ground, jumping onto his back, her sword through his neck.
She checked on Fyn who was struggling, grunting loudly with the effort of holding off the quick moving axe of the thick-necked guard that Jael was certain she’d already killed.
They were all struggling. It was like fighting statues.
Men who would not die.
‘Go for their heads!’ she screamed. ‘Take off their heads!’
Lunging to her right, she tried to do just that to a guard who was thankfully shorter that Baccus. He swayed away from her blade, snarling at her, spittle flying everywhere. Jael leaned to the side, taking all her weight on her left leg, then snapped her right leg up, into his cheekbone, listening to the crack as the knife down her boot broke it.
The guard shrieked, falling to the ground, clutching his broken face. Jael was over him quickly, teeth gritted as she swung back her sword and hacked the blade down across his throat.
Taking off his head.
Wiping the blood out of her eyes, Jael was up, ducking a whirling spear as another guard approached. She skidded across the floor, out of his reach, behind him, stabbing him in the back. His legs shook, and he staggered forward but not out of her reach. Jael kicked him in his gaping wound, and he tipped over, his face hitting the flagstones with a wet slap. She rushed to him, sword in both hands and cleaved his head from his neck.
Spinning around, she looked for Marcus, but he had gone, and all she could see was Gerod’s shining face, confident in how it would all end.
