“We’re not alone,” Morwen said.
Berengar gritted his teeth. What now?
Men in armor swarmed into the atrium. All wore the insignia of the Acolytes of the True Faith. The monster hunters outnumbered Berengar’s companions and the goblins alike. Berengar recognized a few faces among them, including the three who threatened him upon his arrival at Kilcullen. He thought again of the man he caught spying on them the day before. They must have followed us to the secret door and forced their way inside.
The mercenary ranks parted for a man in steel armor and a black cloak. The man’s eyes glowed with hate in the torchlight. When he opened his mouth to speak, a loud, baritone voice filled the atrium. “Well, lads, look what we have here. Heretics, inhuman vermin, a witch, a thief, and a greater evil than the lot of them.” His gaze lingered on Berengar. “It’s been a long time, Warden Berengar.”
“Winslow,” Berengar said.
The Acolytes’ leader turned back to his men. “This man cut down your brothers in cold blood and gutted my son like a dog.”
“Your son had it coming. I’m glad I took my time with him.”
The corners of Winslow’s face twitched, but he remained calm. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.” He gestured to his followers. “Time to do the Lord’s work, lads. Exterminate the vermin and the others, but leave the warden for me.”
Morwen cast a sideways glance at Teelah. “Given the circumstances, I say we put our differences aside for the moment and work together.”
The goblin looked less than pleased at the prospect of allying herself with Berengar. “Agreed.”
Berengar and Azzy charged the enemy. Teelah and the goblins rallied to them as Winslow’s soldiers converged on them. Berengar’s axe connected with an attacker’s sword arm and took the limb off halfway up the forearm. He pushed the swordsman out of his way and cut down the next man in his path. Faolán outpaced him and leapt on an attacker before the man could get his sword up. She tore out the monster hunter’s throat to silence his cries.
Elias fired at advancing foes with his crossbow while Morwen deflected enemy arrows with defensive wards. Berengar quickly lost track of Azzy, who seemed to be everywhere at once. The thief darted from one spot to another, using her knives to devastating effect.
Chaos broke out across the atrium as the fighting continued in disordered pockets. Arrows from goblin and human archers alike sailed in either direction. Bodies littered the ground, and flames from fallen torches began to spread. Although the Acolytes’ losses were greater, they had advantage enough in numbers to bear it. For every man Berengar struck down, two more seemed to take his place. He didn’t care. The warden gave himself over to his rage and let the fury of battle take hold. He chopped through an enemy’s neck with his axe and fought his way closer to Winslow, who waited ahead, longsword in hand.
“Stop!” Elias shouted among the cries of battle. “If the flames reach the alchemy laboratory…”
Before he could finish his warning, there was a deafening roar, and an explosion tore through the upper levels, sending the tower crashing down from above.
Chapter Eight
Blood trickled down his forehead. The world slid in and out of focus. A voice called to him above the chaos, but the ringing in his ears was too loud for him to make out the words. Berengar coughed, only vaguely aware of his surroundings. The air was thick with smoke. He was laying on the stone floor in dust and debris. Apart from that, the last few moments were a haze.
“Berengar, wake up!”
Fingers grazed his forehead, and a foreign consciousness brushed against his own. Berengar woke with a start and instinctively lunged for the unseen threat, only to find himself gazing upon a familiar face.
“Morwen?” Faolán sat perched at her side. Berengar moaned and rolled over onto his side. His entire body hurt.
Morwen withdrew her touch. “You have to get up—now.” She was worried.
When he coughed again, he tasted blood. Morwen said something in a foreign tongue and reached toward him again, but Berengar brushed her away. “I’m fine.” The words came out jumbled. He stumbled to his feet and leaned against her for support. He thought she might buckle under his weight, but she proved stronger than he expected.
His vision sharpened to reveal a scene plucked from a nightmare. The Institute was ablaze. Bodies were scattered across the atrium, barely visible in the dense smoke. Men and goblins alike were crushed under fallen debris or consumed by the flames. Most of those who survived attempted to flee while a precious few continued fighting.
Berengar spotted his axe among the ruins and stooped to retrieve it. A shout echoed above the roar of the flames as a monster hunter emerged from the smoke and swung his sword at him. Berengar’s reflexes were slow, and he barely brought the axe up in time to bear the brunt of the blow. He disemboweled the man on the spot.
“Winslow!” The ground shifted under his feet as more rubble fell from above.
“Berengar, we have to go! This place could come down on our heads at any moment.”
He wanted to continue his search for the Acolytes’ leader, but Faolán barked to get his attention, and he hobbled toward Morwen instead. “Where are the others?”
“Azzy was behind me a moment ago. I don’t know what happened to Elias or Elazar.” Her tone indicated she feared the worst.
New openings to the outside formed as the Institute continued falling apart. Moonlight stole inside through fallen sections of wall. A horn reverberated outside, where the city watch, drawn by the mayhem, approached in full force.
Blast it. The last thing he needed was for his involvement with the goblins and the Acolytes to be made known. Whatever his differences with Teelah or Winslow, they would have to wait.
At that moment, a host of monster hunters headed their way, barring the path forward. Morwen used her staff and the purple rune to manipulate the smoke to shield them from the hunters’ sight. Berengar lowered his axe. There were too many to fight in his disoriented state. Besides, the city watch would be there soon.
“Let’s go.” There was still time to make it out through the underground corridor. With any luck, they could escape and return to the Coin and Crown unseen.
Morwen caught sight of the hidden chamber, all but buried under fallen stones, and ground to a halt. “The elder tree!” Fire spread toward the elder tree, which produced a painful, shrieking cry as its glowing leaves shriveled to ash in the midst of the inferno. “We can’t just leave it.”
Berengar grabbed her by the shoulders. “It’s too late. There’s nothing we can do.”
Morwen clutched her staff a little tighter and cast a final, remorseful glance back at the chamber. Like the tree, the scrolls and enchanted items were quickly consumed by the flames. The explosion had finished the rioters’ work. Soon, nothing would remain of the Institute’s vast stores of knowledge.
Together they returned to the passage that led to the trapdoor. Berengar killed two monster hunters they met along the way. Even with Faolán’s help, the effort cost more energy than he had to spare, and it was all he could do to keep going.
Exhausted, he didn’t bother closing the trapdoor behind him before starting down the ladder. Morwen, whose senses were more attuned than those of an ordinary human, led him through the darkness rather than waste time fishing for her lightstone. Each step seemed harder than the last. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself and fought to remain conscious.
“Stay with me, Berengar. We’re almost there.”
Moonlight loomed ahead at the entrance, and the world again started to blur.
He woke in his room at the Coin and Crown with no memory of how he got there.
Berengar coughed and sat up in bed. He had a splitting headache, but other than that, everything seemed in working order. Faolán watched from the foot of the bed with a look of relief. Morwen was absent from the room. Most likely she was either waiting for him below or still asleep herself.
&
nbsp; Natural light seeped inside through the curtains. How long was I out? Berengar rose from his bed, lumbered to the window, and threw back the curtains. He winced, sensitive to the bright light. It was probably somewhere early in the afternoon. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so late. Then again, considering the night they’d had, it wasn’t surprising.
His thoughts were clear—apart from the headache—but everything that happened after their escape from the Institute was a haze. He put on his cloak and leather armor and retrieved his weapons before leaving the room behind. As expected, Morwen waited below.
“Good morning,” she said with cheer after affectionately greeting Faolán. “Or afternoon, I suppose. I’ve been working at charms and enchantments for my new staff. I fear it’ll take ages to finish, though it’s still a vast improvement over trying to work magic without one.” She held a spellbook in her hands, and her staff lay across the table beside the purple runestone.
Berengar grunted and took the seat across from her. “Why on earth do you have that thing out in plain sight?”
“Oh, this?” Morwen laid a hand on the staff and glanced over her shoulder. “Anyone who looks at it will see an ordinary walking stick.”
“Then why am I able to see it?”
“You already know its true nature. The trick is to charm the staff itself, rather than anyone who might happen to see it—which would be an impossible task for a magician, I might add, even with a rune of illusion. Quite a useful spell, wouldn’t you agree?”
Berengar, massaging his temples in a futile effort at relief from the throbbing headache, found her abundance of enthusiasm off-putting. “All the same, you should take more care. You saw what those monster hunters wanted to do to you.”
Morwen returned the runestone and her spellbook to her satchel. “Are you feeling alright?”
Berengar took a tankard from a barmaid and lifted it to his lips. “It feels like I’ve got goblin drums banging around in my head.”
“I’m not surprised. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt worse. Not many people have a tower fall on them and live to tell the tale.”
“I’m hard to kill. I don’t suppose you have something for this, do you?” Berengar wasn’t particularly fond of putting strange substances into his body, but at the moment he would do just about anything to quell his headache. “You know—that potion of yours that tastes like cherries?”
Morwen squealed with delight. “You remember! I’m touched. I think I have the elixir in question, but like you said, it’s probably too dangerous to risk drawing attention.”
“Morwen, please.”
“Well, since you asked so nicely…” Morwen fished around in her satchel until she found a vial filled with a red liquid. She pried the top loose and casually looked around the room before pouring a portion into Berengar’s tankard. “Drink up. It should help.”
He did as she instructed, and within moments the throbbing pain subsided. Berengar let out a relieved sigh and allowed himself to relax. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome—for that, and for getting you back here in one piece. You could hardly stand by the time we made it to the secret entrance. On top of that, the wagon was gone when we got there. I’ll give you three guesses who took it.”
“Azzy.”
“She may not have found whatever it is she was looking for back at the Institute, but the fairy dust is worth plenty. Not that I think she’ll sell it, mind you. She seemed aware of its danger.”
“She’s a thief,” Berengar reminded her. “Gold is the only thing they care about. Still, she had her uses, and she was handy in a fight. Not so bad as far as thieves go, all in all.”
“There was something about her I never could quite put my finger on, but I suppose we’ll never know now. Anyway, I worked a little magic and found us a horse cart that brought us here with the city watch none the wiser. I patched you up before getting some much-needed sleep myself. I don’t think your forehead will scar, by the way.”
Berengar doubted any additional scarring would make much of a difference. “I owe you.” He hesitated. “About the other night…”
Morwen waved a hand in the air. “I’ve already forgotten it. We both said things we regret. You can be a real grouch sometimes, but it’s just your way. I’ve learned to live with it.” Her expression brightened. “And now that I have a new staff, it’ll make our search for the thunder rune much easier.”
“Aye. Once the ceremony is out of the way, we can leave Dún Aulin and resume our hunt.” The two clanked their cups together, and Berengar permitted himself a rare smile. Things were finally looking their way. “Speaking of your staff, did the tree show you anything when it spoke to you?”
“It did.” Morwen shuddered and averted her gaze. “It’s probably nothing.”
“It’s not nothing if it has you looking like you’ve seen a ghost. What did it show you?”
She stared off, as if recalling the details of a troubling dream. “I saw a man surrounded by a great henge, surrounded by stones and skulls. He dressed in green robes and wore the skull of an elk over his face.”
“The man with the face of a monster,” Berengar muttered.
“What?”
“It’s something Horst said to me. Go on.”
Morwen shuddered. “He looked right at me. It felt as if he was watching us. There were monsters nearby, but I couldn’t see them. And in the center of the henge, there was a towering tree, like the elder tree—but it was withered and diseased. Blood poured from its bark, and skeletons were trapped within its vines…” She stopped. “That’s all I can remember. It was horrible.”
“Did the tree say anything else?”
“Nothing of importance.” She was clearly holding something else back.
Berengar shrugged and took another drink of his tankard. “Go ahead—keep your secrets. You blasted magicians are all the same.”
Morwen grinned. “I wasn’t aware you knew any other magicians.” She caught sight of something among her things, and her smile faltered.
“What is it?”
Morwen held up a small piece of rolled-up parchment that bore a black seal. “This wasn’t here a moment ago.”
“What does it say?”
Morwen broke the seal, and her eyes widened in alarm as she read the letter’s contents before passing it to him.
Warden of Fál,
The hour of reckoning is upon you. With the contract fulfilled, you are no longer protected. Our eyes are everywhere, and our hands are a thousand knives. You will never leave this city alive.
The letter was unsigned, but Berengar knew its sender all the same. “Reyna. It seems our business with the Brotherhood isn’t finished after all.” He crumpled the letter and cast it aside. “The sooner we’re out of the city, the better.”
“You two certainly seem in good spirits.” Friar Godfrey approached with a flagon in his good hand. “What’s the occasion?”
“Berengar’s been ready to leave since we got here,” Morwen replied good-naturedly.
Godfrey slapped his knee with his wooden hand and smiled at her. “You should’ve seen him at Castle Blackthorn. Prowling around like a restless wolf, waiting to get back to the road.”
Berengar was in such a good mood that for once he didn’t mind being teased. “What would the two of you do for sport without me?”
Godfrey laughed. “I’m not long for the city myself. With Bishop McLoughlin’s funeral over with, I’ll stay for the ceremony and then head west to look into the matter we discussed yesterday.”
A brief silence fell over the hall as a number of guards filed inside the Coin and Crown. Berengar watched the guards question the bartenders and barmaids for a prolonged interval before departing, and the noise from the crowd promptly resumed.
“I wonder what they wanted,” Morwen said.
Godfrey leaned forward in his chair. “Haven’t you heard? Someone brought down the ruins of the Institute last night. Some are even calling
it divine judgment. The city watch arrived in time to put out the flames but too late to catch the perpetrators.”
Berengar and Morwen exchanged glances.
“With the ceremony close at hand, the business has the whole city on edge.” Godfrey shook his head. “Word is the Acolytes were involved, and some witnesses claim to have spotted goblins in the area. Can you believe it—goblins, here in Dún Aulin!” He stopped suddenly, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “Say, weren’t the two of you tracking a band of goblins here? I don’t suppose…” His eyes widened in realization.
“Do you know what happened to Winslow?”
Godfrey shrugged. “Escaped, most likely. The city watch is in full force looking for him, but even if they find him, he’ll most likely end up back on the street again. I hear he has powerful friends.”
Morwen glanced at Berengar with an amused expression. “Everyone here seems to have powerful friends—except us.”
“Friends are overrated.” Berengar put a hand on the hilt of his blade. “I’ve got all I need right here.”
“In happier news, Vicar Flaherty emerged victorious from the conclave, even if his margin over Father Valmont was razor thin. Flaherty’s one of the old guard, and he plays politics like the rest of them, but he’s not a bad sort overall as far as I’m concerned.”
Given his disinterest in church politics, Berengar could hardly have cared less. One was just as bad as the other as far as he was concerned. Still, the prospect that Flaherty might revoke his excommunication was reason enough to give thanks.
“I’ll drink to that.”
There was plenty of time for a respite before the ceremony. They had earned it.
Things were finally going their way.
Berengar had never seen so many people gathered in one place. The numbers made the crowds that had gathered to witness the bishop’s funeral look almost small in comparison. The grand square was packed full, and the swarming masses occupying the streets brought traffic across the city to a complete halt.
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