by Kevin Sands
Both Tom and I thought she was just trying to put off the inevitable—and both of us were perfectly fine with that. We chose the closest house that was still intact. The door, hanging precariously from one hinge, creaked as we pushed it open, groaning as we woke it from its centuries-long slumber.
The interior was just as ruined as the rest of the village. Heaps of snow lay below the windows, blown through where the shutters had rotted and fallen long ago. A tattered banner hung from one water-stained wall, its lower half chewed into threads. The furniture was ravaged, too: wood gnawed from table legs, cushions torn apart, the straw and stuffing beneath stolen away for rats’ nests. A shelf against the wall sagged and split, spilling ceramics, broken, to the floor.
Sally linked her arm in mine and pressed close. “Look,” she said.
She motioned to the table in what had once been the dining room. A large wooden bowl rested in the center, with smaller bowls set around it, a thin black film of decay covering them all. Knives—or what had once been knives—lay beside them, the blades barely recognizable beneath the rust.
“They left their things,” Sally said. “When they fled the village, they just left their things behind.”
I imagined their terror, and my own heart thudded in response. Tom looked miserable, like he’d rather be anywhere but here. Moppet, surprisingly, seemed the least perturbed. She regarded the rot around us with distaste, but not fear. If anything, she seemed mildly curious. Could she not feel it? The presence? Its wickedness?
“What now?” Sally said.
“Let’s look around,” I said.
“For what?”
I wasn’t really sure. “See if anything’s been disturbed recently. Just don’t take it.”
No one needed the reminder. Even if one of us was foolish enough to test the village curse, there wasn’t anything left worth stealing. None of us dared climb the rotting stairs. Nor did we try the cellar, where what little light spilled down revealed that water had seeped through the foundation. A half dozen barrels, and what looked like the edge of a wine rack, were frozen in a black sheet of ice. In an old bedroom, I found a candle whose wax had survived the centuries. I didn’t bother with it; I didn’t have any way to set it alight.
I rejoined the others by the entrance. “Anything?”
They shook their heads.
On to the next one. I stepped outside, planning to check the house across the way. Just then, Tom grabbed my arm. “Christopher.”
He pointed with a shaking finger. My own panic rose as I saw what he’d spotted.
Footprints.
CHAPTER
32
A SET OF FOOTPRINTS TRACKED across the snow. They led straight from one of the flat-roofed houses to the tower’s door. And they hadn’t been here before.
Someone—or something—had joined us.
“Tom,” I began, but he was already ahead of me. Steel slid against leather as he pulled Eternity from its scabbard. The tip of the blade trembled in his hands. A holy sword, handed down from knights of ancient blessing, I’d told Sir Edmund. I wondered if it could harm the undead.
I drew my vial of oil of vitriol, though I didn’t know how effective that would be, either. Sally placed a hand against my back as she looked around the village for other signs of life. Tom pushed Moppet behind him. She seemed confused at what was happening, though she sobered at Tom’s caution, his naked sword a clear sign of danger.
“What do we do?” Tom whispered.
Run, I wanted to say. But those footsteps were why we’d come. “The house first,” I whispered back.
Cautiously we went forward. When we got to the house, I motioned to the windows.
Tom took the one on the left. I took the right. Slowly, I peeked inside.
Nothing.
Like the place we’d just left, this house held nothing but rotting furniture and snow. I saw no sign that anyone had been in there.
So who—or what—made those tracks?
Whatever had come from the house, the tower was where it was now. We’d delayed as long as we could. It was time to face it down.
We stepped forward, eyes everywhere. I listened, but I heard no movement, no voices—just the slow, squeaking crunch of our boots. We walked beside the footprints, careful not to step into them, afraid of walking in the White Lady’s shoes.
I glanced up at the tower, at the arrow slits that ringed it.
And I froze.
“Did . . . did something move inside?” I whispered.
Tom shook his head, uncertain.
“I didn’t see anything,” Sally said.
A shape flitted over the tower. I ducked before I saw: It was Bridget. She’d flown to the battlements from the woods.
She swooped down. Moppet, scared now, held out her hands to catch her, but the pigeon only circled us, cooed in alarm, then flew toward the woods. Was my imagination running away with me? Or was the bird trying to warn us of something terrible waiting inside?
I didn’t really need a warning—I was already sure something terrible was in there. Yet still we inched forward, until we reached the door.
The footprints ended here, as if someone had stood there and waited. I had a crazy thought—do we knock?—then we moved to the sides, pressed against the wall.
I reached for the handle. Tom, terrified, drew back his sword, ready to strike. I took hold of the rusted iron ring. Then I pushed.
The door groaned. Its moan rolled over the hills, breaking the silence like thunder. I cringed, ready.
Again nothing. Nothing called to us; nothing came out, except the stale musk of mold and the coppery tang of rust. I edged my head around the door and peeked inside.
The tower was dark, the only light spilling through the arrow slits, giving the circular chamber a hazy glow. In the gloom, I could see a table in the center, a single chair of matching wood toppled next to it, the cold, empty hearth behind. A spiral staircase wound along the far side of the wall, disappearing into a narrow opening in the ceiling.
I looked at Tom. “Ready?” I whispered.
His eyes bulged. Me? he mouthed.
You’re the one with the magic sword, I thought. But it wasn’t fair to send him where I didn’t want to go myself. I ticked a count off my fingers.
One.
Two.
And three. I swung inside, vitriol gripped in my hand. Tom rushed in behind me, sword back, point forward, ready to thrust.
And still we saw nothing.
Sally and Moppet shuffled in behind us. I motioned to the stairs. There wasn’t enough room for two at a time, so I went first again, until I could just peek into the floor above.
I found myself in what remained of the armory. A rack of rusted weapons ringed the tower. There were swords, double handed and single, and polearms with wickedly curved bills; their wooden poles had cracked under their weight, leaving rusty blades corroding on the stone. A dozen longbows remained, strings hanging rotted from a single end. The crossbows had already snapped under the tension, half of them fallen to rest beside the broken halberds. Next to the stairs, four ancient firearms rested, and it was these that caught my eye most of all.
They were arquebuses: the earliest kind of firearms, not seen in over two hundred years. Little more than metal pipes with straight wooden handles, they had no triggers, just a pan for holding gunpowder. An arquebusier would have to light it himself to fire it. I was utterly fascinated by the sight of such ancient weapons, and if I hadn’t been terrified, I might have stopped to take a look.
Yet still we found no evidence of anyone inside. We continued up to the third floor, and here we found a cache of old shields, rendered useless by time.
The final floor was empty. The stairs ended here, the only way up a ladder rising to a hatch in the roof, locked with a rusted iron drawbar.
That would lead to the battlements atop the tower. Tom leaned in close. “Are they up there?” he whispered.
“Not unless they’re not human.” The
drawbar locked the hatch from inside.
Tom’s eyes went wide. He shook his head and backed away. But we had to look. Carefully I climbed the ladder; amazingly, it still held my weight. Tom gripped Eternity so tight his knuckles turned white. I took hold of the bolt and pulled.
It wouldn’t budge. I tugged at it, yanked as hard as I could. The rung beneath my boots cracked under the pressure, and I leaped up higher, bent over, head pressed against the ceiling. But I couldn’t move the latch an inch. Time had rusted it shut.
I motioned for Tom to try. Reluctantly he took my place. The rungs creaked threateningly; I had to support his weight with my shoulder so the ladder wouldn’t split. He took hold of the bolt. His muscles strained, his face turned red, and still it wouldn’t move.
The sound of wings flapping made me turn. Bridget squeezed through one of the arrow slits. She hopped down to the floor and marched toward me, cooing.
I picked her up. She flapped her wings again, cooing, insistent.
“I think she’s trying to tell you something,” Sally whispered.
If that was true, I had no idea what it was. I stroked her feathers to calm her.
Tom jumped down from the ladder. “It’s completely stuck,” he whispered. “Unless we break it off, we can’t get up there.”
“Then whoever came in here . . .,” Sally said. “Where did they go?”
You’re missing something, Master Benedict said.
I frowned. What had I missed? We’d been through the entire tower except for the battlements, and unless we climbed from the outside, no one could get up there. There wasn’t any place in the tower for someone to hide. Unless . . .
A secret passage?
I wondered. It wasn’t uncommon to build an underground tunnel, through which defenders could sneak in supplies while under siege.
That’s not it, my master said.
Then what am I missing? I said. There’s nothing in here but rusted weapons.
You’re looking at what’s there. What isn’t there?
The strangeness of the question made me pause. Why would I look for what isn’t there? What did that even mean?
We went down the spiral stairs, back to the bottom, searching. I didn’t see anything I hadn’t seen before.
I shook my head. This was getting us nowhere. We were supposed to be looking for—
“The artifact,” I said. “The artifact that binds the White Lady to the Earth.”
“What about it?” Sally said.
“It isn’t here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because of what Sir Edmund told us. He said we’d feel it. That we’d go numb with terror.”
“I’m numb with terror,” Tom said helpfully.
I was afraid, too. But no more so than I’d been outside. I was sure of it now: There was no artifact here. There was nothing at all except the remains of the knight’s weapons. In fact, I couldn’t see any evidence anyone had even been in here. Just our tracks—
And it hit me.
I stared at the stone below our feet. “Where did the footprints go?”
“What?” Sally said.
“The footprints. The ones that led us here. They came right up to the door, and then stopped.”
“Because they came inside.”
“All right. So then where did the footprints go after that?”
Tom tried to remember. “There weren’t any footprints inside.”
“Exactly.”
“But . . . why would there be? There isn’t any snow in here.”
“No, but look.” I pointed to the floor. Boot prints tracked all over the stone. “When we came in, our boots were wet. We’ve been leaving prints everywhere we go. So where are the prints of whoever came in before us?”
“You think a ghost would have wet boots?”
“If she didn’t, then where did the prints outside come from? Tracks out there should mean tracks in here.”
But there hadn’t been any. I realized something else, then, too. “The door. When we opened it. It creaked.”
“So?” Sally said.
“Did you hear a creak when we were checking out the house?”
She frowned. “No.”
“No prints,” I said. “No noise. They didn’t open the door.” Which meant either they’d never come inside the tower, or— “There has to be a secret passage.”
Tom looked around dubiously. “I don’t see anywhere a passage would go.”
He was right. Though the walls were thick stone, they were too narrow to fit a person. So if they hadn’t come inside . . .
Where had they gone? Had we missed some tracks? Had the person doubled back?
I opened the door to the tower and looked at the footprints we’d followed here. They were easy enough to distinguish, made by hobnailed boots. I could see where the nubs of the nails had pressed into the snow.
They came from that house, I thought. And then they tracked here. The person stood outside the door, and—
“LOOK OUT!”
Tom didn’t even give me time to flinch. He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me inside, nearly wrenching my arm from its socket.
I felt something slice across my forehead and heard a crack against the stairs behind me. Then I went flying, sprawling hard on the stone.
The fall rattled my brain. “What—?”
“Get away!” Tom shouted, and Sally dove next to me, landing with a squeal. Tom dropped Eternity, the blade clattering on the floor. Still dazed, I saw something fly through the door, and again came the crack from the stairs. I looked over, staring dumbly as something bounced off the stone.
It was a pair of . . . sticks? One had bronze-colored turkey feathers attached. The other had a broadhead blade—
An arrow?
Tom crouched, shielding Moppet with his body as he kicked at the door. I saw one more arrow thud into the wood before it slammed shut. Tom slipped the bolt, sealing us in. Then he stared at me, wide eyed.
An arrow.
Someone had shot an arrow at me.
Three arrows, in fact. And one of them had just about got me. I pressed my fingers to the sting in my forehead. They came away wet with blood.
“The woods,” Tom said. “Someone shot at you from the trees.”
“Who?” I said, dazed.
“I couldn’t see them. They were wearing a hood. I just saw them let loose an arrow, and then I threw you down.”
He’d saved my life.
“We have to get out of here,” Sally said.
“How?” Tom said.
My master returned. How, indeed?
There was only one way from the tower: the door. The door, where I’d nearly been skewered.
Yes, he said.
And the footprints . . .
“The tracks,” I said. “They led us right to the tower.”
We’d thought that meant the person had gone inside. Instead, they’d stopped at the door.
But how could footprints go nowhere? Whoever had made them hadn’t turned around; we’d have seen it. Unless—
“Oh no,” I said.
Unless he’d walked backward. Walked backward, stepping in his own tracks. Then it would look like he’d entered the tower, even though he’d never gone in. We’d follow him, and then—
I understood.
“We were led here deliberately,” I said. “This tower is a trap.”
CHAPTER
33
“WE HAVE TO GET OUT of here,” Tom said, panic rising.
“We can’t,” I said. “That’s the point. He’s cut off the only way out.”
“What about the battlements?” Sally said. “If we could pry off the latch—”
“It’s fifty feet up, with nothing to climb down. We’d break our necks.”
I cursed. We’d been drawn into this snare so easily. We couldn’t even fight back; all we had was Tom’s sword. Whoever was shooting at us was in the woods; we’d never reach them without getting hit.
“What about the weapons upstairs?” Sally said.
I doubted they’d be of any use; they were too old. Nonetheless, we returned to the second floor, where I looked skeptically at what time had left us. “Let’s try a bow.”
Tom pulled one from the rack. He placed the curve behind his thigh and slowly began to bend it into shape. The wood creaked, protesting at its first strain in two hundred years.
I looped the string, still attached at one end, around the other. As slowly as he’d bent the bow, Tom relaxed the pressure.
The string shattered into fragments. The bow snapped back, cracking the wood across the middle, and giving Tom a whack on the thigh that left him limping.
Heart sinking, I scanned what was left. The crossbows were in even worse shape than the longbows. The arquebuses were rusted so badly that they were as likely to explode as fire. I found a pair of spears we might be able to throw, but the odds of hitting someone in the woods were so unlikely, they might as well have been useless.
“Forget it,” I said. “We’ll kill ourselves with these before we do anyone else—what are you doing?”
Sally crept to one of the arrow slits. “Seeing if the archer is—eek!”
She dove for the floor. An arrow buzzed her head, slicing through a stray curl of hair before snapping on the wall opposite.
Tom’s eyes were wide. “That’s a good shot.”
Too good. Through an arrow slit? I shivered as I remembered the broadhead whistling past me. If Tom hadn’t yanked me out of the way . . .
Despair filled my guts. He might have saved me, but we were completely stuck.
Tom helped Sally from the floor. Moppet cowered behind him, holding Bridget. “Did you see the man?” Tom asked Sally.
She nodded. “He’s in the trees to the south, in a brown cloak.”
“Is he alone?” I said.
“I think so.”
We peeked through different arrow slits, checking all around. No one shot at us there, and I saw no one else in the trees. It seemed clear: We were held here by only one man. That was better than facing an army—but not much better. The archer still cut off our only escape.
