Hardedge heard the booming peacemakers in the distance and stopped to see where their shells would fall. When plumes of smoke and debris erupted from the palace, he was satisfied that he wasn’t in firing range and urged his horse forward, keen to carry out the king’s express order to kill the Abomination. He saluted the guard at the gates of the Royal Gaol and strode through into the courtyard, heading for the main building. Inside, he marched to the desk where two guards looked up at him. ‘Take me to Warlord Fist,’ he said.
‘The warlord left a short time ago,’ one guard replied.
‘Then take me to where the old woman is being kept. King’s orders.’
The guards glanced at each other, shrugged, and one motioned for Hardedge to follow him into the adjoining courtyard and across to the cells reserved for special prisoners. They ascended two flights of stairs to a dark wooden door where two guards stood at attention, peacemakers at the ready.
‘This soldier says he has the king’s orders to see the prisoner,’ the guard leading Hardedge informed the two men on duty. The guards stepped aside and Hardedge entered the room to find eight soldiers, two with their weapons trained on the prisoner who was chained to the wall. They eyed him suspiciously and one man stepped up to him to demand, ‘Who are you?’
‘The king has sent me to see that this prisoner is immediately executed,’ Hardedge announced.
‘Warlord Fist ordered us to make sure she doesn’t leave here,’ the soldier said bluntly.
‘The king wants her dead,’ Hardedge repeated.
‘You got proof of that?’
‘Are you questioning the king?’
‘Not questioning the king,’ the soldier replied, ‘just you. I need proof that you’ve been given permission to kill her.’
Hardedge hesitated, realising he lacked a token to show that the king really had sent him. Between him and promotion to hordemaster was a useless thing called protocol. He scratched his head, trying to decide on his next move.
‘I’ve been given an order by the king,’ he said. ‘The king gives orders to the warlord. My orders outrank yours.’ He drew his hand peacemaker from its holster and took aim at the prisoner’s forehead. A simple squeeze of the trigger and the job was done. But he heard a series of clicks and when he looked away from the prisoner he saw the muzzles of five long-barrel peacemakers aimed at him.
‘Do your duty, soldier, and we’ll do ours,’ said the other soldier. ‘I’m sure the warlord will commend us. I’m not so sure the king will be commending you, however, because you’ll be dead.’
With reluctance, Hardedge lowered his peacemaker.
‘Back in the holster,’ the soldier suggested. Hardedge complied. ‘Now,’ said the soldier, ‘my advice is that you go back to the king and get some official authorisation.’
‘The king won’t be happy,’ Hardedge warned.
‘We’ll deal with that problem if it eventuates,’ the soldier replied. ‘If the king’s in such a hurry, I suggest you get going.’
Hardedge snorted his contempt and shot a frustrated glance at the old woman chained to the wall. ‘I’ll be back to finish my job,’ he promised, and marched out of the room, leaving the guards smirking in his wake.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Even seeing the old woman securely chained to the wall and drugged did not reassure Seer Word. Several soldiers had reported seeing a large black rat skulking through the Bog Pit and had shot at it without scoring a hit.
Word cursorily acknowledged the men guarding the Abomination as he led Moon and Newday to stand before her. Hung from the chains, her white hair bedraggled, dried blood caked along her cheek and down her neck, her green smock torn, she looked nothing like the formidable foe he had expected to meet. The euphoria drug made her head loll, her eyes struggled to focus, and she drooled out of the left side of her mouth.
‘So why are we keeping her chained up?’ Moon asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be prudent to kill her and be done with it?’
Word met the younger Seer’s gaze and nodded slowly. ‘Yes. It would be prudent.’
‘Well?’ Newday prompted.
‘Curiosity,’ Word replied. ‘She has a power well beyond what we have achieved, even with our own crystals.’ He cautiously reached forward and tugged open the torn smock to reveal the pale ridged scar between Meg’s breasts. She moaned and he withdrew his hand. ‘See that? That is a sliver of amber. It’s embedded in her. That is the Conduit for opening the gates to the Demon Horsemen. Our predecessors sought it, but the Abomination stopped their efforts.’
‘Then we should cut it out of her,’ said Moon. ‘We can retrieve it.’
Word shook his head. ‘Look closely at the scar. The amber’s melded into her. It’s become part of her.’
‘How do you know that for certain?’ Newday challenged.
Word shrugged. ‘I don’t. It’s an intuitive guess.’
‘Then why keep her alive?’
‘To find out what she’s doing here,’ Word replied. ‘I want to know why she was so determined to see Scripture.’
‘How will you do that with her drugged?’ Newday asked.
‘Go inside her head,’ Word replied. ‘That’s why you two are here. I need you to give me the strength to look inside her mind.’
‘Is that wise?’ Moon asked.
‘How else would you do this?’ Word said. Moon shrugged. ‘Now you understand my dilemma and why I have to do it this way. Any other way, she would resist.’
‘She might still do that,’ Moon warned.
‘Then we might have to reconsider what I’m trying to do,’ Word told him. ‘For now, I need you both to focus on your crystals and let me amplify the Blessing through you.’
Meg sensed shadows at the extreme of her consciousness, vague movement and voices on the far side of a thick stone wall. She tried to gather her thoughts, but it was as if she was caught in a net in a fog, unable to shift her focus, unable to tell which direction was the right one to follow, unable to move. Her thoughts circled like leaves in a wind, erratic and changing form. Dull pain emanated from points connected somewhere to her body, but like her thoughts the pain was impossible to understand or locate. A face came and went; as hard as she tried she couldn’t hold it in her vision. I am…she thought, but the name eluded her. Memories danced out of order. Children ran towards her, but then the landscape caught fire and was washed clean by a surging wave, leaving an orange dragon egg suspended over a cliff, a baby dangling from its ropes. As she reached out, the baby vanished and a man in silver armour raised an axe over her head. Behind him, the world glowed with blue light, and a gigantic creature with wings flapped until the breeze it generated obliterated everything.
She also had memories of another presence—a rat—that came and went, sometimes accompanied by shouts and yells.
Meg, she remembered.
Fingers held her nose and squeezed open her mouth and poured an oily liquid down her throat. She choked and swallowed and gagged, and glimpsed armed men and a grey stone wall before the fog and the net enveloped her again. Sensations ebbed and flowed as if she were stranded on an island—no, on a ship, bobbing on an ocean of unfathomable depths. Voices murmured. Someone tugged at her and yet all she felt was the pull but not the pressure. I can’t stay like this, she screamed inside her floating prison, but nothing changed.
And then she felt his presence. He was a thief poised at the edge of her consciousness, a shadow more than a reality, but she sensed him. He was hesitant, cautious, uncertain, a novice at the entrance to an unknown and mysterious cavern, and she could feel him testing the atmosphere as if he was afraid his own fear would be palpable to others. And then he was moving silently through the darkness, searching her store of treasures, a presence but only as a thought, as a probing fear sorting through her memories, becoming as frustrated with the randomness of her intoxicated mind as she was.
With supreme effort she pushed outwards and into the intruder’s mind, a single question in her subconsciou
sness, a question she’d asked somewhere else. The mind she encountered was astounded by her arrival and it gave up the answer before it could shut down its defences. Then she was pushed out again, unable in her drug-induced stupor to sustain her will against the shocked resistance to her presence, and she wallowed in confusion, drifting back and forth, disconnected from meaning.
Then she felt the other presence continue its cautious probing. I know you’re here, she projected, the thought forming of its own volition. The intruder froze. I need coherence, she murmured. Who are you? The presence did not respond, just remained still, like a startled animal realising it is too far from its burrow to run for safety. She fought for more words, but the fog and the net drew her under and she felt like a drowning person thrashing in the water to stay afloat, trying to keep land in sight.
When she surfaced again, the sensation of another presence was gone and she was alone in a thick mist. The pain at its extremities was dull, like faded colour on sun-bleached cloth. She tried to marshal her memory of the intruder, the answer that the question had dredged, but the thoughts fell apart like a wave over rocks and she sank into the depths of sleep.
Word stopped in the street, with the crowd, to watch the explosions erupt along the bluff. The Ranu were systematically destroying the palace and the temple with their dreadnought peacemakers. The Seers had constructed a portal to escape into the countryside, and were hiding in the catacombs beneath the main temple, awaiting Word’s order to leave. Their plans for Jarudha’s Last Days were in jeopardy because of the greed of men. Somehow the Ranu had to be eliminated.
‘How will we return to the temple?’ Moon asked.
‘We must be patient,’ Word replied. ‘The bombardment comes in waves. We will enter during a lull, just as we came out.’
The truth was, they had left the temple after the first round of shelling thinking the bombardment was a brief show of strength, unaware that the Ranu intended to reduce the Kerwyn stronghold on the northern bluff to rubble. Only when they reached King’s Bridge and the second round of shelling began, and later a third round commenced as they walked along the Main Way, did Word understand the Ranu strategy.
‘We should call the Demon Horsemen,’ said Newday, echoing the argument that had erupted among the Seers earlier in the day when the bombardment started. ‘The Ranu must be destroyed before they destroy us.’
Word wheeled on him, glaring, and said tersely, ‘The Demon Horsemen are not our servants!’
Newday retreated a step, startled by Word’s vehemence. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said.
‘You know the cost,’ Word reminded him. ‘The power of the Demon Horsemen must not be wasted on trivial matters. Creator will help the king resolve this interruption and Jarudha will bless their work.’
‘I’m sorry for my lack of faith,’ Newday offered, and bowed his head.
Word placed a hand on the young Seer’s shoulder. ‘And I’m sorry for my anger,’ he said. ‘Lift your face. I am not your superior. Bow only before Jarudha.’ He noticed that a handful of passing citizens were staring at the confrontation between the Seers. ‘Come. Let’s get back to our brothers.’
They walked on towards the Northern Quarter, ignoring the frightened people hurrying past with their bundles of meagre possessions, escaping the city and the Ranu threat. If the Ranu continue their bombardment, Word thought, then it is a certainty that they are determined to take Port of Joy. Creator was overseeing the building of two more airbirds and the manufacture of more star-reachers in the vain hope that another burst of inventive resistance would dissuade the Ranu from their intention, but Word was no longer sure the defensive strategy could be successful.
He glanced at his younger colleagues who were watching the smoke and dust swirling above the palace. They’d pestered him to describe what he’d experienced when he penetrated the Abomination’s thoughts, but he’d told them that the old woman’s mind was so riddled with the drug she was an incoherent mess and that he’d learned nothing of value. He’d lied. What he’d found in her mind had surprised and saddened him. Instead of the twisted evil he’d anticipated, the mind of a creature bent on the destruction of good, he had stumbled into the memories of a woman who had suffered great personal tragedy—loss of family, loss of love, loss of hope—unhealed emotional wounds that made him wonder who she really was. He had found a grieving soul, confused, lost. And he had also encountered a latent energy, a potent presence able to see him through the thick mist of her drug-induced submission. The recognition was brief, a heartbeat, but he knew that she had seen him and entered his mind and he had run from her, terrified. The memory made him shiver. What could he tell the others when they demanded to know what he had discovered in his mind search?
Shadow slid his hand across her breast and paused at the pink nipple, teasing it with his fingertip. She smiled and pulled his hand onto her stomach. Overhead, a new round of Ranu shells pounded the palace; the earth trembled and the wire-lightning bulb flickered.
‘How long will they keep that up?’ she asked, her hand resting on his.
Shadow sighed and sat up on the makeshift bedding on the cavern floor. ‘Until they’ve driven us mad,’ he muttered.
‘I’m already going mad,’ she complained and pulled on his arm. ‘You have to cure me.’
Shadow let her draw him down onto her, savouring the tingle of her soft, pale flesh against his own. As her mouth opened and their lips met, he closed his eyes, shutting out the world that had grown too dangerous and too claustrophobic for his liking. Lin was a necessary distraction.
‘I’m sorry,’ broke into his pleasure and he rolled to his left to discover Gift in the doorway.
‘Don’t you know how to knock?’ Shadow snarled, glaring at the teenage prince.
‘I didn’t realise you’d be busy,’ Gift replied, grinning as he assessed Lin’s languid body.
Shadow glanced at Lin and snapped, ‘Cover up!’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Jealous of a little boy?’
Shadow climbed off the bedding, pushed Gift out the door and shut it. ‘I’ll be out when I’m ready!’ he shouted, then grabbed his trousers and began to dress.
‘What did he want?’ Lin asked, curling her fingers through her ruffled blonde hair.
‘How would I know?’ Shadow answered gruffly.
‘You should’ve asked. We could finish what we started.’
‘I’ve had enough of this noise,’ he told her as a new tremor sent dust tumbling from the ceiling. ‘I have to see what Fist is doing to stop this.’
‘And what will you do if the Ranu don’t stop?’
‘It’s only a city,’ he said, and grunted as he pulled on a boot. ‘They can have it.’
‘Everything?’
‘Just the city. They try taking anything else, we’ll fight them to the death.’
‘What about the people?’
‘The people can go to the hells. They’re already running away.’
‘And me?’ she asked coquettishly and cupped her breasts provocatively.
Shadow ceased buttoning his shirt and knelt to bury his face between her breasts, kissing the warm flesh. When he leaned back he said, ‘You’re coming with me.’
‘Won’t your friends the Seers be put out?’
‘I gave up those stupid vows of chastity when they made me king.’ He finished buttoning his red shirt.
‘You never kept them before that,’ she said, grinning.
‘My father had decided I was a man’s man, and I let him think so,’ he said. ‘No one knew the truth, and no one needed to.’
‘Crystal knew.’
‘She thought she knew,’ he said, buckling the peacemaker holster onto his belt.
‘You flirted with her all the time.’
‘You slept with her all the time,’ he retorted and slid his sword into the belt. ‘I didn’t get that pleasure.’
‘Jealous again?’
Shadow frowned at her, and yet relished her beauty. ‘On
ly if you enjoyed it.’
She returned his gaze with a deliberately cheeky pout. ‘You know I did.’
‘I got what I wanted. You got what you wanted. She got the Bog Pit.’
‘Is she still alive?’
‘Does it matter to you?’
‘Just curious.’
‘Last I heard she was alive. I had her moved from the special cells to the women’s dungeon. She’s tougher than I expected.’ He went to the door, but as he opened it he turned back to Lin and asked, ‘Are you missing your old lover?’
She rolled onto her stomach, leaving his question unanswered. He smiled at her bare back, stepped out and closed the door. Another explosion shook the earth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
‘There’s no sign of her or Whisper anywhere,’ Swift told the group.
‘But where would she have gone?’ Chase asked. ‘It’s been days.’
‘To get the canvas bag,’ Inheritor said as he entered the chamber. They all turned to him. ‘She asked me what I’d done with it,’ he explained. ‘I told her that as far as I knew, the Seers had it.’
‘Then she’s opened a portal into the temple,’ said Swift. ‘She’s gone to retrieve it herself.’
‘Alone?’ Cutter asked, although he already knew the answer from his past adventures with her.
‘She wouldn’t take us because we’d be a liability,’ said Wahim.
‘Speak for yourself,’ Swift retorted, green eyes flashing defiantly.
‘I was referring to Chase,’ Wahim said, grinning at the mousy-haired youth, who glared with feigned anger at his friend.
‘So what do we do?’ Swift said.
‘We get on with our tasks here,’ Inheritor replied. ‘If she can get the bag, then she’ll return with it.’
‘What if she gets caught?’ Chase asked.
‘She won’t get caught,’ said Cutter. ‘She has a knack of avoiding capture.’
‘We won’t be helping her by standing around here,’ Inheritor insisted. ‘The sun will set shortly. The people need us.’
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