“Yes, I want you to tell me what we’re facing.”
Thorne stepped nearer the wall and peered over. “Enough power to take this keep more easily than you did.” He nodded at the skeletons of the uncompleted trebuchets and poked his chin toward the newly shored-up gate. “Despite the attempts at improvements to the defenses.”
“If I’d had more time, I could have made something of this place.” An accusation there, but so be it. Thorne had had years to build a better wall.
“I’ll admit I’ve relied on my neighbors’ strength too long.” Thorne met Torch’s gaze steadily, and Torch understood. If Belwin Thorne had seen to his own defenses, Torch would never have taken this keep in the first place.
“And yet you will fight for your home.” A statement—an order, really—not a question.
“I will fight for my home as I ever have. I will not see it destroyed while two factions quarrel over it.” An honest reply, if an enigmatic one.
“You swore by the Three,” Torch reminded him.
“That I did.”
“I want you and Blackbriar’s men to man the main gates.”
“Sir?” Surprise was evident in Thorne’s tone.
Torch was taking a risk, perhaps, but a calculated one. “You would not be so bold as to throw open your main gate to my enemy. In any case, my bowmen have orders to keep watch and shoot anyone who opens the gates—from within or without.”
Thorne nodded, a single sharp jerk of his head. They understood each other, then. “And what of the postern?”
“Yes, I’ve arranged to have it covered as well.” Torch had learned of its existence thanks to Calista’s little visit to the Acolyte cloister.
“It cannot be opened from without. The Blackbriar men know that.”
Truth? Or a stratagem to trip him up? Torch gestured to the hordes lined up at their feet. “Tell me who we face. Surely Magnus does not lead his own troops.”
“It is well known he does not take the field.” He never had in all the years since he took the throne.
“Then who has he sent us?”
Thorne studied the ranks about the king’s banner. “From the armor, it looks like the king’s justiciar.”
“Justiciar,” Torch scoffed. “That’s no more than a vaunted term for executioner.”
—
Calista narrowly missed colliding with Tamsin on the stairs as the white-faced girl clattered down from the keep’s upper reaches. At the last moment, Calista pulled up short, and Tamsin jumped back, one hand to her heaving breasts.
“Have you seen Mama?”
“I’ve not seen anyone.” Tamsin’s reply was weak-voiced. “Beyond the enemy massed at the walls. Do you think—”
“No.” Best to cut off that line of query before it started. To someone like Tamsin, Blackbriar was home, and anyone who attacked was the enemy. Torch’s men had treated her well, but any army tended to have a fearsome reputation when it came to girls of Tamsin’s standing.
Or even the higher born.
Calista shook herself. Such dark thoughts would do her no good, either, but she also knew it would take a miracle for Torch’s men to hold the walls.
“Go on,” she added more gently. “Get belowstairs.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find Mama.”
“I told you no one’s up there.”
But Mama hadn’t retreated to the relative safety of the kitchens, either. Nor was she in the stillroom taking stock of what medicines they would surely need before the day ended. Or the great hall. “Let me check, and I’ll be along.”
Calista rushed upward, pointedly ignoring the windows she passed. She was already too well aware what the view would offer. Magnus’s soldiers standing in rank upon rank outside the walls, awaiting the order to attack.
The upper stories lay under an almost unnatural, muffled silence, like the heavy air before a summer storm, broken only by Calista’s panting breaths and the rush of blood in her ears. They’re coming. Magnus is coming to take back the keep. And then he will wish to claim you. What will he do when he learns you gave yourself freely to his enemy? As for Torch…
No. She lengthened her stride in hopes of outrunning her train of thought. Door after door crashed open beneath her hands. Behind them, the bedchambers lay empty and silent—hers, her parents’, the closed-off room reserved for guests.
Tamsin was right. No one here.
Only one door remained, at the far end of the passage, the entrance to a tiny chamber meant for a guest of little standing—or the servants of some more distinguished visitor. Hopes fading, Calista raced toward it.
She thrust open the heavy plank to a darkened chamber. An overheated blast of air gusted over her. A fire roared on the grate. But why in an empty room?
“Mama?”
She ventured into dark stillness. Heavy draperies blocked the light, but she knew a bed dominated this chamber. She put out a hand and touched velvet. The hangings were drawn. For all the world, the arrangement reminded her of a sickroom, but no one was ailing.
Were they?
She nudged aside the bed-hanging. In the flickering firelight, she could just make out a reclining figure, hands folded over his chest, still as death. A sour stench of sweat and unwashed body filled her nostrils. A pair of bare feet poked from beneath rough robes.
An Acolyte. And how did he come to be here?
Turning, she pulled the drapery from the windows. The man’s face came into focus as her eyes adjusted. She gasped. “Brother Tancrid. Oh my goodness.”
She laid a hand over his, the flesh beneath her warm and living. His chest rose and fell, the movement nearly imperceptible. Cool relief washed through her.
“Brother Tancrid, wake up.”
No reaction. Not even a hitch in his shallow breathing.
“Please, Brother Tancrid. You must wake up before we’re attacked.”
The Acolyte slumbered on undisturbed.
Cautiously, she felt for the pulse at his wrist. Even though he was breathing, she might discern something from the speed of his heart. The gentle throbbing came even and steady, though oddly slow, as if his blood ran sluggishly through his veins at half the usual rate.
She turned his hand over in hers. The unusually long nail on his forefinger was edged in grime. He slept on, clearly unaware of her touch.
“You must wake up,” she tried again. “I have to get you to safety.” Or as safe as they could be under the circumstances.
She leaned in and studied his lined features. Two days’ growth of graying stubble roughened his chin. His nostrils were red-rimmed and swollen as though he’d been suffering a cold. Carefully, she raised a thumb and rolled an eyelid back to reveal pure white.
Outside, shouts echoed from the walls. Damn. She had to get him out of here.
Taking his shoulder in hand, she gave him a firm shake. “Brother Tancrid.” Fear sharpened her tone. “Wake up. Urgently.”
Nothing, and nothing for it. She patted his cheeks, harder and harder, the taps turning into slaps, until, at last, she detected a glimmer of response.
“Brother Tancrid, you must wake up.”
A shudder passed through his body.
“That’s it. Come on, now.”
His eyelids fluttered before opening with a snap. In the space of an instant, he was awake and blinking at her. “The dream,” he muttered, his voice rasping and cracked. “So close. I was so close. Need more blood.”
“What?”
He shook himself. “Who are you?” he croaked. “And why did you call me back?”
“It’s Calista.” Her gear. That had to be the reason why he didn’t recognize her. He expected her in gowns. Except she’d set aside the helmet that hid her face. “The keep is under attack. Please, you must come with me.”
“Water.”
She cast about. A pewter pitcher stood at the side of the bed, but its contents must have long since gone stale in this overheated room. Still, she handed it to
him. He passed over the offered cup to gulp directly from the ewer.
When the liquid was gone, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Then he groped at the length of rope that served as his belt. His fingers shook as he clutched at his robes. “Gone,” he muttered. “All gone.”
At least his voice had strengthened, even if he seemed to take no heed of the danger outside.
“If you’ll come with me,” Calista tried once more, “I’ll take you belowstairs, where it’s safer.”
“I must return to my journey.” He laced his statement with harsh tones Calista had never heard from her gentle old tutor. “Why did you take me from the road?”
What in the name of the Three? “Magnus’s army is attacking the keep.” Please let her get through to him. “We cannot stay here.”
“No, we cannot.” Thank the gods. “I must get back to my journey. My destination was in sight—nearly upon a secret none have discovered since the Days of Dawn.” He continued to pluck at the rough, brown fabric of his robes.
She spotted a small cloth pouch on the mattress beside him, its sides sunken, and picked it up. Black dust coated her fingers. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
He snatched it from her, upended it over his palm, but all that appeared was a sprinkling of the powder, like pepper. “Gone. It’s gone.” He cast the scrap aside, and wrapped his arms about himself. “So cold.”
How in the name of the Three could he be cold? Even with the window unblocked, the fire pumped heat into the chamber, making it hotter than a forge. The All-Mother only knew what ailment gnawed at him. He was raving, pure and simple. He’d become unbalanced, when but two days ago he’d been the mild-mannered tutor she recalled.
She bit her lip. Since he was beyond reason, she was going to have to figure out how to cajole him into obeying. “You’ll be warmer in a trice if you come with me.”
The instant the words left her mouth, an arrow flew through the window and buried itself in the bedpost. Its fletched tip vibrated a few fingerbreadths from Brother Tancrid’s temple. Calista choked back a screech. The Acolyte did not so much as flinch.
“We must go.” She managed to get the words past her tightening throat. The gods only knew what they’d find in the great hall if stray arrows were finding their way through the upper-story windows. Please let it be a stray.
“I can’t go. Not without blood.” And she definitely didn’t want to know what that referred to.
“There will be blood to spare below.” Hopefully the enemy’s. Not any of Blackbriar’s people. Not Tamsin, not Owl, not Papa. Not Torch.
“Not the right blood.”
For all Calista’s mounting sense of urgency, Brother Tancrid still had not moved from the mattress. He lay there, hugging himself, his fingers twitching, his spindly legs protruding from beneath his robes.
“Are you able to walk?”
“Need blood.”
An arrow thunked into the door. If they were going to get out of this at all, they had to move now. Calista bent over the Acolyte to help him up. The moment her hand made contact with his shoulder, he clutched at her.
His gaze drifted to the base of her neck. “Not there,” he muttered. “Where is it? Where did you put it?”
With wiry arms, he yanked her to the mattress. His fingers scrabbled at her throat.
She screamed, the echo of her voice coming back to mock her. There’s no one to hear you. No one. No one.
“Hush!” Brother Tancrid barked. His eyes were on a level with hers. Not a hint of kindness reflected in their depths. Nothing but a strange, flat emptiness that froze her heart.
He clawed at her. The delicate skin of her neck stung and tore beneath his nails before his fingers tightened. She gasped for breath, trying in vain to pry his hands from her, but his thinness belied a fearsome strength. One she could not overcome. She could barely move. She couldn’t even scream—screaming required air. Black splotches swam in her vision.
“I need blood to walk the road.”
—
“To the bailey! We’re breached!” The cry reached as far as the walls over the din of battle.
Shite. A quick sword thrust dispatched Torch’s opponent. He ducked beneath an axe stroke and sprinted for the stairs. “To me! To me!”
Below in the yard, the enemy poured in. On all sides, his men were beset. He swung his blade and crashed into an armored soldier from behind. Metal shrieked as his weapon sheared through mail, sinew, and bone.
Then a shriek of a different sort rent the clangor and chilled his blood. High-pitched. Feminine.
Calista.
Fear seized him, followed by a hot rush of anger. If the women were threatened, all was lost. He must get to his wife. Protect her. Save her.
With a roar, he carved his way toward the sound. Amid the mayhem, a buxom maid dodged the grasping arms of an enemy soldier. Not Calista. Tamsin.
The sight brought no relief. Before Torch could engage the would-be captor, Owl leapt into the fray, clutching a sword in his bandaged fists. A snarl twisted scarred features as the enemy raised a mace. Owl’s parry went wide, his blade spinning out of his grasp, and he crumpled beneath the attack.
No!
The moment of distraction cost Torch. A blow out of nowhere rang through his helmet. He stumbled, head pounding, stars swirling before his eyes. The ground flew toward him. Rough arms grappled him, sparing him the fall. His sword dropped, useless, to the packed earth of the bailey.
This was it, then. For the second time in less than a moon’s turn, Blackbriar Keep had fallen—and with it, all of Torch’s plans.
Chapter 20
Torch’s head pounded as if his armorer had decided to use it as an anvil. The bite of dank stone served as the only cushion for his body. The feeling, at least, told him he was alive. That and the stench that rivaled a midden heap.
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes to darkness. A paler gray square high in one wall, traversed by bars of black, confirmed what his nostrils already knew. He’d been confined to a dungeon. With that thought, memory came flooding back.
He’d lost Blackbriar. He’d allowed himself to be taken. Yes, and Magnus’s men would have orders to keep him alive, no matter that the king’s executioner was leading them. True, the justiciar could claim his head and be done with it, but the Ironfist would reserve the pleasure of dealing personally with an upstart like Torch.
The clink of chains broke the silence, as Torch lifted hands weighed down by heavy shackles to finger his Stone. It remained cool. Useless chunk of rock. The least it could offer was advice.
It had led him to this. He required a way out—not only for himself, but for his men. They’d trusted his leadership, and this was where he had dumped them. As long as they were still alive. And then there was Calista. She’d come to him convinced of his cause, hadn’t she?
Kingsbane. The word echoed through his mind like a curse. Were the Thornes playing a deeper game, pretending to believe his claims, the better to turn him over to the Usurper in the end? Was his wife in on it? Did she even realize what sort of punishment Magnus might deal her once he discovered she’d betrayed him in body?
There, at any rate, Torch had prevailed. He’d taken that much away from the Ironfist. A small enough victory if it cost him his life and his revenge.
“Sir?” The voice croaked to his left. “Are you awake?”
Torch raised himself on his elbows to look around. Dark lumps of deeper shadow, each more-or-less human-sized, surrounded him. “Who’s there?”
Chains rattled as one of the shadows loomed closer. “Hawk.”
“And who else has joined our little gathering?”
Hawk rattled off several names before adding, “I don’t know if we’ve lost anyone, although some are in a bad way.”
If that statement was true, the Brotherhood would be fortunate, indeed. Or perhaps not so much. Not if Magnus was planning them a warm welcome in Highspring Moor. “Who?”
“They brought in Owl a while
ago. He hasn’t come back to us.”
An image flashed through Torch’s brain of the boy foolishly trying to defend Tamsin against a fully trained man-at-arms. Torch’s stomach churned, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with the smell in the dungeon. “Can someone see to him?”
“We’ve been doing what we can. He took an awful blow.”
Once again Torch relived the moment where he stood by, helpless, while that mace came crashing down. “I know. Where is he?”
“We gave the lad a spot by the door.” A metallic clink indicated Hawk must have been pointing. “The air’s a bit better next to the grate.”
“Good thinking. What chances do you give us on coming up with an escape plan?”
“They’re about the same as a high-and-mighty bastard ever sitting on Magnus’s throne,” scoffed an unfortunately familiar voice. The last time Torch had heard it, he’d been beating an oath of fealty out of Rand, for all the good it had done.
“Someone make sure he keeps his gob shut,” Torch called.
Chains clinked, followed by a thump and a muffled oof before silence fell again.
“Anyone offers us food or drink, we don’t touch it,” Torch went on. “Not unless we make our friend Rand here taste it first.” He didn’t think Magnus’s men would stoop to poison—not when they likely had orders to deliver him, at least, alive. But he had no idea about the Blackbriar faction.
“So are we all in here together?” he asked Hawk.
“A goodly number of us, both Brotherhood and Blackbriar men.”
“What are our odds if we lure the guards in here, rush them, and cosh them with our shackles?”
“I’d say there’s a chance you’d get a few breaths of fresh air, but how far you’d make it after that is anyone’s guess.”
“I think we ought to try.”
“To what end? If they’re keeping us for the Ironfist, they’ll have to transport us. We’ve a better chance at escape on the journey.” Hawk had a point, but Torch didn’t want to leave Blackbriar until he learned what had become of Calista—and whose side she was ultimately on.
“Do you have any idea what the tipping point in the battle was?” Torch searched his memory. All he recalled was a cry that the walls had been breached, but he didn’t remember the pounding of a ram or the boom of explosive trickery.
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