However, no elderly grizzled face with a cheerful smile met us. The door proved unlocked and unattended, open to invaders. Candy wasn’t necessary, but I frowned, concerned. Twenty four hours a day, every day, he stood at this door, guarding against unlawful entry and mischievous boys. This was his only duty, his life’s work and he wasn’t here.
An unlocked portal and no guard. Not good. Not good at all.
Craning my neck, I peered up the castle’s sheer stone walls to the ramparts above. I thought I saw a shadow fly past, but perhaps it was a wisp of cloud. Other than that, nothing moved. The hairs on my neck rose and Dra’agor growled.
My sword filled my hand though I don’t remember drawing it. At my ear, Buck-Eye muttered something, a curse or a prayer, and the troll-child mewled. Keep it quiet, I silent thought, hoping Iyumi got the message. Whether she received it or not, I’ll never know. It remained quiet for the next several, heart-pumping moments, anyway.
Leaving the horses, I edged my way into the chamber, half-expecting attack. I half-turned, gesturing impatiently. Get in, get in. As Lyall, the last, followed me into the castle proper, he shut the door and dropped the bar. Thus none might follow after and perhaps attack our rear. Before I asked it of him, Buck-Eye called flame to his fist. I glanced around. The chamber was comfortably appointed: a bed, a table with the remains of a meal, a hearth with no fire. And no elderly serf to affectionately hail me as ‘you young scoundrel’.
“Shall I go first, m’lord?” he asked, taking a step toward the stairs.
I shook my head and raised my hand. “I will. But I’ll ask a favor of you. Not a royal command, Buck-Eye.”
“Anything.”
I tossed my chin toward Iyumi. “You look after her, micha’na. No matter what happens, you keep her safe.”
“I will, m’lord. As I live and breathe, nothing will come between her and me.”
I nodded, my throat suddenly thick. “If we survive the next hour, I’ll reward you. All of you. Somehow.”
“The service be its own reward, m’lord.”
Quickly turning about so none might see my face, I led the way up the twisting, turning staircase, my own flames burning without harm on my left palm. Having trod these myriad corridors in play or wild escape from a beating, I’d trod these stone flags since I first learned to walk. Anyone new to the place got lost easily, for the turns and twists of these unchanging slate vistas played havoc upon one’s ability to navigate.
On the first level, torches burned in their sconces along the grey stone walls. So there were people here, after all. Extinguishing my flame, I dropped the need for secrecy and quickened our pace. A huge monstrosity built over the course of several centuries, Castle Salagh offered many high-ranking officials and servants their own small, private chambers. Decorated with tapestries here and there, a pot of flowers set lovingly outside a room. Yet, if the occupants remained on this dark night, they’d long barred their doors against the sign of the great power.
I led the way around the inner keep, a city unto itself built into the castle walls. Past kings determined walls might contain valuable storage rooms in the case of famine or siege. When neither appeared, those room evolved into chambers for visiting nobles, travelling merchants seeking a royal decree, or military officials needing rooms for themselves, their families and their entourages. I ignored these chambers as useless, as I charged up a flight of stairs only to trot down the next in order to reach the stairwell that wound its way to the floor above. The higher you resided in the castle, the higher your rank. Although the official royal apartments were at the top of the west tower, the north had once been home to my ancestors. I hadn’t been up there for years, though I remembered the topmost chamber was huge, with a tremendous glass wall that faced east. Every tower had the same glass panel, each facing the direction to its immediate right. Our family tower, the west, owned one that gazed down to the gentle southern lands and rolling hills to the south of the castle.
A see-through wall that faced east – my skin suddenly crawled, pimpling like a newly plucked goose. A chill ran down my spine, and I felt cold, icy, all over my body. My heart thudded in my chest. The sun rose in the east, as did the black moon. The time of prophecy. The time of evil. Both would rise as one within that weird, glass wall.
Folks heard our approach, our boots on the slate flagstones, and ventured forth from hiding. Liveried servants, court officials, nobles bearing the insignia of minor houses, cooks, houseboys, and other lower class folk who kept the kingdom running huddled in frightened groups or peered around half-shut doors. They gaped as I loped past, my entourage at my heels, nudging one another and whispering. Soldiers and castle guards, on duty or not, offered salutes and rapid questions, all of which I ignored.
On and on I ran, sliding around corners, stumbling up stairs, always leading with my sword. If we hit this passage, it’d take us straight to the fourth level, where the King’s royal council took rooms and called their home-away-from-home. Eyes peeked around partly opened doors as we streaked past, voices calling strident questions at my back.
Dra’agor trotted at my hip, his tongue lolling. His toenails clicked sharply across the grey-blue flagstones in perfect rhythm of my heart. Toward the rear of my party, I heard Iyumi’s labored breathing as she hustled in my wake. Though fit, Iyumi’s burden of the troll hampered her ability to run. After Buck-Eye’s third offer to carry the brat, she handed the infant to him. Never once did she offer complaint or demand respite. With only her bound hands to constrain her, she inhaled sharply and no longer faltered her pace.
“Your Highness!”
I skidded to a halt as the small man burst from the shadows, his arms high. Boden all but bounced off my back as Lyall slid on the slick pavestone, cursing, nearly falling on his butt. Under better control, Buck-Eye stopped abruptly and his hand on Iyumi’s arm prevented her from tumbling to her tiny ass in a royal heap.
“What the – Sergei?”
The skinny, balding right-hand of King Finian rushed toward me, his damp hands seizing mine. Or at least the hand not holding my sword. He surged into my private airspace, breathing hard. The cloying scent of his perfume stung my nostrils. At once disgusted by his unseemly display and fawning behavior, I pulled my hand out of his grip. “What do you want?”
“It’s terrible, Your Highness,” Sergei all but wept. Sweat slid in tiny rivulets down his sunken cheeks. “That dreadful, dreadful man, he’s gone stark raving mad. He’s going to kill us all!”
Backing away a step, I tried stepping around him to escape. “What dreadful man?”
“That awful Commander Blaez, of course.”
I stopped cold. Catching Iyumi’s weary eye and Buck-Eye’s instant frown, I half-turned back. “What do you mean?”
“Just that, Your Highness,” Sergei cried, tears of fright standing in his pale eyes. “He laughed and laughed, he’s mad, I tell you. He said his toys would explode a half hour after dawn and the gods could sort us all out. I think he means to blow up this castle and everyone in it!”
“Where did you see him, Sergei?”
“Near his chambers, Your Highness. Almost an hour ago.” Sergei wiped his cheeks with his handkerchief. “I tried to find His Majesty, to warn him. But I can’t find him anywhere. Nor the Queen, your blessed mother. Someone has to stop him. He’s mad!”
“Blaez is bluffing,” I said, hoping I told the truth.
“I shall endeavor to find your father, the King,” Sergei said, hustling away, taking his perfume and sweat with him. “Someone in charge should know about this.”
I watched Sergei’s back until he turned the corner, my own sweat rank in my nose. What could Blaez be up to? He hadn’t the power – Sergei has to be wrong. Of course he is. I frowned, rubbing my brow until I realized it yet held Sergei’s noxious sweat. Blinking, I wiped my damp fingers on my cloak. Blaez loved my mother – he’d never risk harm to her. Or Fainche.
“Flynn.”
Iyumi’s exhausted yet sh
arp voice broke me from my thoughts. “I’ll make you a bargain. Turn back and I’ll marry you, freely. I’ll bear your children and be your queen. Without protest or constraint. Just walk away now.”
I gaped at her. “You don’t get it, do you? I can’t turn back.”
“There’s nothing here for you.”
“I have to save my sister, my mother. And my wife.”
“You don’t know they aren’t already dead.”
I shook my head. “This way.”
Taking the opposite direction Sergei took, I led the way around another corner, down a narrow passage and up a steep flight of steps. Remembering my military history, the back-then royal family could retreat to the topmost chamber in the tower and hold off an army. None might take the tower unless it captured that room. The thin, almost vertical, stairs meant one man at a time, in single file. Any halfway adept archer with an endless supply of arrows might choke that staircase with corpses.
If I remembered correctly, the huge chamber also boasted of a larger than average storeroom, a pump that brought forth fresh water from the underground cisterns below and a large balcony whereby a commander may signal his forces. If invaders took the keep, none actually held the castle until they captured the towers. To date, none ever had.
All the towers held the same narrow staircase, rooms and water. Since the time of the ancient Mage Wars, none have successfully invaded Castle Salagh. Those who tried didn’t survive to try again. Entire armies hid within the walls, tempting the enemy forward with the very same vacant corridors and hollow emptiness I faced myself. Once the enemy took the bait, the defenders fell upon their flanks. And decimated them.
My own flanks itched as I trotted past shut doors and echoing stone. The ghosts of those slain in the dim past played havoc upon my nerves. I heard their voices though I sought to ignore them, felt their fevered hands upon my arms. Save us. Save us!
Reaching the one-man-at-a-time staircase, I stopped short. No torches burned in sconces along the walls. The faint odor of tallow told me they’d been lit recently, but someone extinguished them. I peered upward into the dark, lifting my hand-held flame as high as I could. Shadows and light danced upon the stark walls, but I saw nothing villainous nor harmful. Despite the lack thereof, the hairs on my neck stiffened. The tingling on my skin told me in no uncertain terms I was being watched.
“You didn’t kill him.”
Iyumi’s soft voice at my shoulder brushed my ears and went no further.
“He’s up there, isn’t he?”
“He’s the bait and you’re fox she wants. It’s a trap.”
“I have to go up there.”
“No. You can take this baby far away until the evil dawning has passed. Let the future care for itself. Make the right choice, Flynn.”
“There’s only one choice for me, Yummy.”
“Bloody stupid – Grow up, boy! Your death awaits you if you continue.”
I nodded slowly. “I know.”
“It’s too late –”
I jerked my head. Buck-Eye pulled her, still protesting, away from me. “Give her the kid,” I said, my tone calm though my belly roiled. “Guard her, and ready your weapons. If you’re the praying sort, I’d suggest you begin now.”
I stepped onto the first stone riser. Then the second. “Dra’agor,” I whispered.
A silent shadow amidst the many cast by my flame, Dra’agor appeared from the darkness and leaned against my hip. Though his blood obviously belonged to someone else, his heart was mine. This child of the wild obviously adored Iyumi, for what creature on earth did not? Yet, he freely offered me his loyalty as he would his pack. Though I seldom prayed for myself, I offered up a quick prayer that this furry varmint survived the dawn.
I dropped my hand to Dra’agor’s head, and listened to his faint, concerned growl.
“You’re my eyes and ears, lad,” I whispered. “Lead on.”
Swiftly mounting the stairs in front of me, his bushy tail never failed its contact with my belly. As a man’s shoulders brushed against each wall, my lads were forced to step up in single file. A swift glance over my shoulder showed me Iyumi bearing the troll in her arms as Buck-Eye politely and sternly urged her upward, his hand on her slim waist.
Around and around the staircase twisted as it rose higher and higher toward the topmost chamber. No arrows hissed through the dark to shut us down. No soldiers rushed down to engage us. No, I didn’t think this a god-sent opportunity, that the tower above lay empty save one witch. I knew that whatever awaited us wanted us there.
Dra’agor’s low growl warned me. I stopped, three or four risers from the top. The stairs ended at a large antechamber, beyond which lay the huge double doors to the north tower room. I raised my hand high, calling on power to increase the flames. Light exploded and shattered the darkness.
Finian grinned down at me, flanked by Commander Blaez and a dozen soldiers. “You’re late, boy.”
I took another step up. “Been that sort of day. How are you, Father? You look – better – since I saw you last.”
Embedded deep into his dark flesh were the scars left from Dra’agor’s fangs. His right eye gleamed with malicious good humor while the left sagged sharply downward, his eyelid opening only to half-mast. His thick upper lip curled into a perpetual sneer and I saw next to nothing of his lower lip. His damaged jaws lay hidden under his beard. No handsome, heavy black growth covered his face these days. What didn’t lie as bare and ragged furrows, as naked as an earthworm, was crisped in white. As though touched by the frost. Or evil incarnate.
He shrugged lazily. He tried a smile but bared his teeth instead. Several were missing, I noticed. “Can’t complain. Did you bring the sacrifice?”
“Of course. How’s Mother? Fainche?”
“You’ve no need to worry about them, boy,” Finian replied, his scarred brow lowering. “You should be concerned with keeping your own skin intact.”
Dra’agor growled low in his throat, his fangs gleaming in the firelight. Though I rested my hand on his head, hoping to offer calm, he didn’t respond in kind. Instead, his teeth clicked together several times in sharp snaps, menace oozing from his aura not unlike Blaez’s sweat gushing from his pores.
Finian pointed his long finger down at my friend, his scowl deepening. “By noon, my tanners will be curing that beast’s hide.”
His upper lip curled. “I’ll have a wolf skin to warm my feet come the winter.”
“Dead men don’t care if they’ve warm feet, Pa,” I sneered. “Come the noon, your corpse will feed the moat’s reptiles their lunch.”
I flicked my magic and sent the flame high, spreading its light throughout the chamber. Finian made no indication he felt surprise at this display of power. At his side, no weapon in his hand, Blaez watched me. His pudgy face, devoid of all expression, told me far more than open anger or hate. That he fully intended to fight with his other weapons informed me my noble father not just knew of them, he approved. I didn’t waste precious thought by cursing his hypocrisy. Instead I focused on the men behind them. Typical of my sire, he chose men with brawn but not much thinking ability. Though they’d fight without panicking, none had an original thought among them. I hadn’t quite decided if that worked for or against me.
With both hands on my sword hilt, I took another step up, Dra’agor at my hip. He never stopped his deep-throated rumbling growl. Behind me, blocked by my body, I heard Boden’s bowstring creak in the stillness. Good lad. Although we faced an uphill battle against a superior force, a couple of good bowmen might even the odds.
“Tell you what,” Finian said, grimacing more than grinning. “Give me the girl and I’ll let you live.”
My lip curled. “How about I keep the girl and not let you live?”
The grin faltered. “You can’t win here, boy. Should you kill me, now, she still has your loved ones to hostage. Surrendering is your only hope of keeping them, and yourself, alive.”
“You’ve always underestim
ated me, Father. You’ve never given me much credit.”
“I beat you, boy. You’re no swordsman. I had you dead to rights until yon mongrel saved you.”
I grinned, unsheathing my blade and stepping higher, on the balls of my feet. “Ah, but I’ve learned so much since then. Are you prepared then, Pa? Have you made your peace with the gods?”
“You’re nothing more than a royal coward,” he sneered. “Run, boy, run and hide. There’s no fight in you.”
I watched for it, saw it for what it was. Blaez stiffened. That was their pre-arranged signal. Finian just ordered Blaez to cut me down, and his men would decimate mine. I read his intent in his eyes. Blaez readied his own powers, preparing to set me on fire. He’d always loved fire. With me and my lads dead in our own blood, he’d seize Iyumi, and turn the troll child over to his Red mistress. I didn’t have to look into his brain to know what he’d do to Iyumi. He’d rape her over and over, merciless.
Let it be done, I thought.
Unleashing a fist of raw, black power, I hurled it, not at Finian, but at Blaez. Take out the most powerful first, I’d been taught, kill the biggest threat. My magic, shaped into an iron mace, complete with razor-tipped spikes, rushed from my upraised fingers. Though I felt tempted to keep it invisible, prevent him from seeing it, I wanted him to see it. I desired most to see the panic fill his muddy eyes, and witness him witness his own death approaching at roughly the speed of sound.
At the last second, Blaez realized I didn’t attack my father, as he fully expected me to do. He recognized my intention to take him out first. With a tight cry, he tried to raise a swift shield, his fingers up and moving into shaping the necessary spell. It rose to protect him a nanosecond too late. My spiked mace struck him at chest level and knocked him backwards, crashing into the arms of the soldiers. They knew better than to catch him, and let him fall to the floor, dead or unconscious. Dark blood coursed from his eyes, nose and mouth, his body twitching spasmodically.
Finian raised disbelieving eyes from his friend’s body to meet mine. “You bastard.”
The Unforgiven Page 53
