The Last Rune 5: The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  “There could be another explosion,” Durge sputtered, staring after Grace, brown eyes wide. “What is she doing?”

  “Helping,” Travis said. “Come on.”

  He started after Grace. Dimly, he was aware of the others hesitating, then following after him.

  Travis lost sight of her, then a knot of peasants broke apart, and he saw her kneeling over a crumpled form, blood on her hands. It was a young woman in a serving maid's gray dress. Travis started to move to Grace, wondering if he could help. Grace stood, shaking her head. Much of the young woman's lower body was gone; she must have been close to the blast.

  “Sir Tarus!” Beltan called out behind Travis. “What news do you have?”

  The red-haired knight ran toward them, several men-at-arms on his heels. “The southeastern tower was abandoned,” Tarus said, breathless, as he reached them. “And it broke away clean. There were a few minor injuries, that was all, but the castle wall has been breached—there's a hole in it you could march an army through.”

  “What of this tower?” Durge said. “Surely it was not abandoned. It is too much to hope any within might yet live, yet we must try.”

  Beltan exchanged grim looks with Durge and Tarus. “We'll get them out of there.”

  “And I will see if any intruders yet remain within the castle,” Vani said.

  Travis felt a twinge in his heart. Beltan and Vani were each so strong, so brave. What had he done to deserve the love of one of them, let alone both? Except maybe they didn't care for him after all. Both had avoided him on the journey back to Calavere. Had he done something to drive them away? But it didn't matter. Whether or not they loved him, he loved them. That was the one thing in this fabulous disaster of a life of which he was certain.

  “I can't possibly do this alone,” Grace said, taking in the sight of the wounded. Her words weren't despairing, but rather factual, frustrated.

  “I'm here, sister,” Lirith said, touching her arm. “I'm not so skilled a healer as you, but I'll do what I can.”

  Grace met the witch's dark eyes. “I'll also need help with triage—someone to sort and prioritize the wounded.”

  “Tell me how, and I'll do it,” Sareth said.

  Falken nodded. “And I.”

  Moments later the two men picked among the wounded, determining who was alive, who was dying, and who was already dead. Grace bent over a blackened form, and Lirith grabbed a guardsman, instructing him to fetch supplies they needed—cloth, water, needle, thread, and wine. Melia, holding Tira, rushed after the guard to make sure the order was filled swiftly.

  Travis hesitated, unsure what to do. This wasn't a task he could help with. After all, his power was not about healing, but about breaking. To his surprise, he found he was not alone. Aryn stood beside him, her blue eyes filled with sorrow, but with conviction as well.

  “If there are men trapped beneath the rubble of the guard tower, they will be difficult to find,” she said. “Beltan, Durge, and the others will need help sensing where they are.”

  Travis understood. Healing wasn't Aryn's strength either, but she had other abilities, just as he did. He exchanged a look with the young witch, then together they raced toward the listing tower and into the archway where Beltan, Durge, and Tarus had vanished minutes earlier.

  Dust and smoke closed around them, blinding and choking them. After three steps, Travis lost all sense of direction. He groped, trying to find a wall to guide him, then a slender hand closed around his wrist, and a shimmering green net of light appeared, outlining floor, walls, ceiling.

  This way, said a voice in his mind.

  Next to him, the green threads spun themselves brightly around the slim figure of a young woman. Aryn. Was this how she and the other witches saw the world with their Touch?

  After a dozen paces, they reached a cavernous space. The smoke was thinner here, escaping through the large breach in the tower's shell, and Travis was able to see even after Aryn released his wrist. All of the tower's upper floors had collapsed into a mountain of rubble rising up from the cellar. Beams stuck out from the wreckage at odd angles like broken bones.

  Beltan, Durge, and Tarus had heaved one of the fallen beams into place, creating a makeshift bridge to the mountain of debris, and now they picked at the rubble.

  “They're looking in the wrong place,” Aryn said, opening her eyes, her face white with dust. “The men are trapped beneath the other side of the pile, down deep. I can see their threads, but they're already getting dimmer.”

  “Beltan!” Travis called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Stop!”

  The blond man stopped and turned. Travis and Aryn scrambled to the beam the knights had wedged into place. Travis edged over slowly, trying not to look down—there was a deep crevice between the mountain of rubble and the cellar walls—but Aryn raced across lightly, holding her gown up around her ankles.

  “What are you doing here?” Beltan said when they reached the other side.

  Travis glanced at Aryn. “You're digging in the wrong place.”

  “You have to get to them,” the young witch said. “They're trapped in a—Durge!”

  Stones shifted beneath the knight's feet and he lost his footing. He would have gone tumbling down the slope along with several tons of rock if not for Tarus's grip on his arm.

  Travis bent and laid his hands on the stones. “Sar,” he murmured, and the rubble shuddered to an uneasy halt. The stones knew their ancient name.

  He could feel it—the broken stones wanted to sink down, to rest against the ground. However, there was a hollow space within the mound—that must be where the survivors Aryn had sensed were trapped. Crossed beams pushed the rocks up, while the rocks sought to crush the beams.

  “Sar,” Travis said again, willing the stones to obey him. Then he gripped the end of a broken beam that protruded from the wreckage. “Meleq.” Power resonated through the wood. Hold strong, bind together, do not break.

  Tarus gave him a curious look. “What are you doing?”

  “I think I've stabilized the debris.” Travis leaned back, wiping sweat from his brow. “For now at least.”

  Beltan gazed at him, only what his look contained—love? pride? fear?—Travis couldn't say. “Where do we dig?” the knight said to Aryn.

  She scrambled around the side of the rubble heap. “Here. They're under here. Six of them. You have to hurry.”

  Some of the guards had fetched shovels and picks, but they were worthless against the heavy stones. Instead the men used bare hands to push aside the rocks, as well as levers fashioned from broken planks. It was dreadful work. Acrid smoke rose from the still-smoldering beams, and dust caked their faces and filtered into their lungs until all of them were coughing.

  Travis was awed by the tirelessness of the three knights. Beltan and Tarus stood shoulder to shoulder, working together to move stones that had to weigh a quarter ton or more. Durge moved stones nearly as heavy on his own. Soon the dusty mask of Durge's face was creased from effort, and his knuckles were raw and bleeding, but he didn't stop. None of them did.

  As Aryn guided the diggers, Travis kept his hands on the debris, speaking Sar and Meleq under his breath. He felt every vibration through the beams, every shift in the blocks of stone. The more wreckage the men removed, the more unstable the heap became.

  You must hold on, Travis. He wasn't sure if the voice that spoke in his mind was his own, or that of Jack Graystone and the other runelords whose power flowed in his veins. If you cease speaking the runes, the stones will come crashing down, taking all of you with it. It will be your burial mound.

  Travis kept muttering runes.

  It was only when Beltan called out “I need light!” that Travis realized it was growing dark.

  “Lir,” he croaked, his lips cracked and dry from his endless litany of runes.

  Silver radiance sprang into being, shining into the gap in the rubble the men had made. Frightened eyes peered out. Beltan and Tarus reached in and pulled out a
guardsman, scraped and battered but alive. Five more times they reached in, and five more men came out. Some held broken limbs or clutched the stumps of missing fingers, but all were alive.

  A groan rose up through the debris mound. Travis felt terribly heavy. “You have to get out of here,” he gritted the words through his teeth. “I can't hold on much longer.”

  Tarus barked orders. The guardsmen who had been digging helped their wounded brethren over the beam and down the passage that led outside. Tarus and Durge accompanied Aryn, then it was only Beltan and Travis.

  Travis was so weary. All he wanted was to sink to the ground with the stones, to let them bury him. It would be cool beneath, and still. He could never hurt anyone there, he could never break an entire world. “Go, Beltan. I'll hold the stones back until you reach the other side.”

  “That's not how it works, Travis. We're going together or not at all.”

  Travis looked up, and the light in Beltan's eyes was so fierce and so tender that his breath caught on his lips, and he could speak neither runes nor mundane words. The magic he had forged with Sar and Meleq shattered. The mound slumped in on itself.

  Beltan grabbed Travis's arm and hauled him across the beam. They reached the other side just as the beam slid backward, pulled in by the cascade of stone. Hand in hand, Travis and Beltan pounded down the passage and burst into the lower bailey along with a cloud of pulverized rock. He staggered around in time to see the walls of the guard tower sheet downward, sending a gray plume into the sky.

  “I couldn't save it,” Travis said. His mouth was full of dust. “I tried, but in the end I couldn't stop the tower from falling down.”

  Beltan wrapped a strong arm around his shoulder. “It was beyond saving, Travis. And this way it can be rebuilt. Sometimes, when something's ruined, the only way to repair it is to destroy it first.”

  These words sent a chill through Travis, only he couldn't say why. He tried to speak, but his tongue was dry as chalk.

  6.

  They gathered in Calavere's great hall for a late supper, though no one had much of an appetite. However, Grace knew it was important that they eat; they had to keep up their strength. She gagged down a bite of cold venison to set a good example, though only a generous swallow of wine kept it from coming right back up.

  She surveyed the familiar faces around the high table, and it was easy to make a diagnosis: exhaustion and emotional trauma. They had all witnessed terrible sights in their journeys over the last year. Feydrim and wraithlings. Dragons and plagues. Demons and sorcerers. But it was different when the perils followed you back to the place you called home. If the darkness could reach them here, then no place was safe.

  Grace knew she should feel every bit as exhausted as the others; instead she felt strangely, keenly alive. Not since her days in the Emergency Department at Denver Memorial Hospital had she worked so hard and for so long to save so many lives. She had labored on nearly twenty patients that day, though she could never have done it without help. Sareth and Falken had made excellent triage nurses, and Lirith was able to set broken bones and stitch wounds, allowing Grace to see to the worst cases. More than that, the dark-eyed witch was able to soothe away fear and pain with the cool touch of her hand in a way Grace had never been able to do.

  Grace had kept Melia and several guards constantly running for supplies, and soon even Tira would come dashing back into the bailey, her small arms filled with bandages. By the time the sun sank behind the castle walls, it was over. Grace had lost just three of her patients—though there were nine more who had died in the explosion and whose bodies had been pulled from the rubble. A dozen in all. Still, when she thought of the crowded castle, it was hard to believe it hadn't been worse.

  It would have been, if people hadn't run into the middle of the bailey after the first explosion to try to see what had happened. But what exactly had happened? In the aftermath of the explosions, all of their energy had gone into plucking people from the debris and treating their wounds. Only what had caused the explosions in the first place?

  Just as she opened her mouth to ask the others what they thought, a tapestry fluttered, and Vani was there. She stalked toward the high table, silent in her form-fitting black leathers. She carried a small cloth sack. Grace hadn't seen her since just after the last explosion. Where had she been?

  Travis smiled at Vani, a look that was weary but warm. “It's good to see you,” he said, and at the same time Beltan said, “Did you find anything?”

  Vani gazed at Travis, and for a moment her face softened. Grace often forgot how beautiful the T'gol was. Intertwining tattoos accentuated the graceful line of her neck, and thirteen gold earrings glittered on her left ear. Then Vani looked at Beltan, and her features sharpened. “Yes, we did find something.”

  “We?” Durge said, stroking his mustaches; they were gray with dust. “Who else was with you?”

  Vani glanced at the wall. Grace saw only blank gray stones. Then the stones rippled, and a man stepped away from the wall. He was slightly built, with a pointed blond beard, and flicked back a shimmering gray cloak that had blended seamlessly with the wall.

  “There you are, Aldeth,” Aryn said, setting down her wine goblet. “I was wondering if you would show yourself.”

  “Actually, I wasn't really planning on it, Your Highness. However, it seems someone had other ideas.” He cast a sidelong glance at Vani.

  The T'gol shrugged. “I cannot be blamed because you did a poor job of hiding.”

  “I let you find me in the north tower,” the Spider said hotly.

  “You mean in the same way a sheep graciously allows a wolf to catch it?”

  The Spider glared at the assassin but seemed unable to formulate a rejoinder. Grace shot Aryn a questioning look. How had the baroness known Aldeth was here in Calavere? The last time they had seen him had been many months ago in Castle Spardis. He was a Spider, one of Queen Inara's personal spies; surely he was a long way from home. It seemed Aryn had not told Grace everything in their conversations over the Weirding.

  “I'd like to know what you uncovered,” Falken said. “That is, if you two can stop hissing and spitting long enough to tell us.” The bard held his lute but had yet to play a note. As usual, a black glove covered his right hand. Melia sat next to him, amber eyes thoughtful, Tira on her lap. The girl hugged a black kitten with eyes the same color as Melia's.

  “We found this,” Vani said, setting the sack on the table.

  Aldeth rubbed his neck. “Actually, I found it, and you shook it off of me like a common cutpurse.”

  Despite all that had happened, Grace found herself smiling. Something told her two shadowy types were one more than a single castle could comfortably contain.

  “What is it?” Tarus said.

  Vani untied the sack and turned it over. Fine black dust poured out in a steady stream.

  Durge shoved back his chair and leaped to his feet. “Get the candles away!”

  Lirith and Sareth hastily snatched a pair of candles from the table and snuffed them out. Most of the others looked at Durge in confusion, but Grace understood. She had smelled the sharp, acrid odor on countless gunshot victims in the ED.

  “It's gunpowder,” she said.

  Durge nodded. “I worked with black powder such as this in Castle City. It is a perilous alchemy, one used to power dangerous weapons called guns. There is enough powder here to kill many men.”

  “Or to destroy two towers?” said a booming voice.

  They all looked up to see Boreas striding across the hall toward the high table. Behind him came a pair of guards and Prince Teravian. All those around the table leaped to their feet. Aldeth wove first one way then another, hunting for a path of escape.

  “Don't act as if I don't see you there, Spider,” Boreas said as he ascended the dais. “No matter what you might believe, I'm not that dense. Besides, Queen Inara told me in her last missive you were here.”

  Aldeth stopped in his tracks and stared at th
e king. Aryn stared as well.

  Boreas gave them a smug smile. “I'm not the only one around here who has secrets.”

  “You should be resting, Your Majesty,” Grace said.

  Teravian rolled his eyes. “That's what I tried to tell him.”

  “And when you're king, if you should be so fortunate, people will obey you,” Boreas snapped, and the young man turned away, his shoulders crunching in.

  Lirith gave the young prince a worried look, and Grace agreed that the king's words seemed harsh. Then again, it had been anything but a good day for Boreas. Grace moved to him, probing the bandage on his head. Belatedly she realized she should have begged his permission to touch him, but it was too late now, so she finished her examination.

  “You're going to be fine,” she said. “I imagine you'll live forever.”

  “That's an ill curse for a warrior, my lady,” Boreas growled. “I'm not familiar with this g'hun powder you speak of, Sir Durge, but it's capable of working great deviltry, as we saw today. I wonder how it got into my castle.”

  “Perhaps we should ask the one who brought it,” Aldeth said, and all eyes were instantly on the spy.

  Vani advanced on the Spider. “Did you see someone? Why did you not tell me?”

  “It's surprisingly difficult to talk when you're being strangled,” Aldeth said, giving her a sour look. “I saw him not long before the explosions, leaving the room where we later discovered the sack of black powder. Several guardsmen were passing nearby, making a good deal of noise, and the fellow ran off. I suppose he left the powder in his haste.”

  Beltan stole the uneaten venison from Lirith's trencher. “So that's why there was only one explosion in the guard tower instead of two. He hadn't finished his work.”

  “It seems to me he did well enough,” Sareth said, gazing at his hands. He had washed them clean, but the sleeves of his shirt were still spotted with blood.

  Grace rubbed her aching temples. There was something peculiar about Aldeth's story, and not just the fact that someone in a medieval castle had managed to acquire large quantities of gunpowder and fashion it into bombs.