by Karen Chance
It took him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t hit the ground at all, but the edge of a cart full of woven cages of chickens. Half of them had broken open in the battle and the contents were floundering around in the mud or getting roasted mid-flight by the spells crisscrossing the air. Except for the one which had somehow gotten its claws trapped in the wool of his doublet.
The witch had righted herself and her daughter and was hunkered down beside the cart, watching in disbelief as he did battle with the guards’ dinner. Kit had the distinct impression that his credibility might have just taken a hit, especially since he seemed to be losing. And then wounded dignity was the least of his problems when a dark-haired mage jumped off the stairs and landed on the cart’s other end.
Kit went flying into him, bird and all, and the three of them tumbled off the back of the cart. The mage was cursing and trying to raise a shield, while Kit attempted to drain him before he could manage it. They were both half successful. The mage snapped his shields shut, but they didn’t completely stop the flow of blood that Kit was leeching out of him through the air.
In a panic, the man sent out a cluster of levitating magical weapons. Half of them collided with crazed birds while the rest attempted to bury themselves into Kit’s flesh. He swatted at them, but like a storm of angry bees, they kept buzzing around, rushing in to stab at him whenever they got the chance.
“You’re losing as much blood as you steal, vampire!” the mage crowed, attempting to gut him with a sword.
“But I can replace mine,” Kit said sweetly, sending the sword spinning across the fight with a well-aimed kick. “How about you?”
“Well said,” the man replied, and kicked him in the square in the groin.
Kit stumbled back, fervently wishing that padded cod pieces hadn’t gone out of style, and landed in the cages of squawking fowl. His impact burst most of the ones left intact and sent up a whirlwind of flapping wings and clawing feet. He fought his way free, finally tearing his own damned passenger loose and tossing it aside. But by the time he got back to his feet, the mage was gone.
And so was the witch.
“God’s Bones!” he hissed, staring around wildly. But she and the girl were nowhere in sight. That could mean that a mage had her, but he doubted it. The spells the Circle’s men had been casting weren’t the kind they used when they wanted to take prisoners, and he didn’t see her body.
No, it was a safe bet that she’d run off somewhere while he was distracted. The question was, where?
He glanced at the secondary gate, or what he could see of it through drifting clouds of smoke. It was temptingly close, and the mages hadn’t yet managed to lower the portcullis. It looked like they’d tried, but the witches had hit it with something that caused the metal to run like honey. And enough had dripped into the crevices of the track to cause the gate to stick partway down.
There was room to squeeze out underneath, but that required getting to it first. And that didn’t look likely. The Circle had placed a double line of guards across the opening to act as a human buffer, leaving their own men free to slowly decimate the witches who were gathering in force nearby. In between the two groups was a hell pit of smoke, spells and running, screaming people.
If she’d headed that way, she wouldn’t last long.
It had seemed such an easy task, Kit thought grimly, as he ducked and dodged his way through the melee. Interrogate Lady Isabel Tapley, a coven witch lately apprehended by the mages who was suspected of being in league with the Black Circle. There were rumors that another plot was brewing against the queen, whom the dark blamed for sheltering their enemies, and Kit had been sent to find out if there was any truth to them.
But nothing had gone right from the beginning. Lady Isabel had poisoned herself before he arrived, leaving him to question a corpse, and not the animated kind. The fact that she’d resorted to such extreme measures made him that much more convinced that the plot was genuine, but she’d left no papers behind and her servants knew frustratingly little about their mistress’ plans. The only thing he had been able to glean was that she had a meeting in three days’ time with several men newly arrived from Spain.
And that one of them shared the name of a noted Black Circle member.
Kit needed to be at that meeting. And for that, he needed a credible Lady Isabel. But young, red-headed, coven witches were a little thin on the ground these days, thanks to the Circle. And his request to be allowed to borrow one had been flatly refused. He had therefore gone to the source and bribed the guards, only to land in this mess.
The more sensible side of his brain offered the observation that, really, there had to be other witches who fit Lady Isabel’s description. And some of them might be found in somewhat less trying circumstances. The other part of his brain, however, the one that was always getting him in trouble, was dead set on this woman. He’d bled for her; he would have her. And the Circle would not.
Assuming he could find her before they did.
Chapter Four
S o much for my knight errant, Gillian thought, watching her rescuer getting beaten up by a half-roasted bird. She was about to go rescue the creature when one of the war mages dove off the side of the ramparts, flinging a curse in front of him. She acted on instinct, dropping her all-but-useless shields and throwing up a declive instead. It took most of her remaining strength, but it worked; the protection spell acted like a mirror, reflecting the caster’s magic right back at him.
It caught him in the middle of his leap, popped his shields and sent him crashing headfirst into the cart. The vampire had landed on the other end, and the two-hundred-pound mage smashing down at the edge of the cart caused him to go flying, chicken and all. And then she didn’t see any more, because strong arms clapped around both of hers from behind, lifting her completely off the ground.
She tried to mutter a curse, but found she couldn’t draw a breath. The guard—and it had to be a guard, because she was still alive—was doing his best to squeeze her in two. She couldn’t aim the staff with him behind her, so she brought it down on his foot instead, as hard as she could. The man bellowed and dropped her, and Gillian scrambled away, only to be dragged back by the ankle.
She rolled over to try to free herself, and then had to roll again as a knife flashed down, ripping through her gown and missing her by inches. As he wrenched it out of the ground, she caught a glimpse of Elinor behind him, her face pale and her eyes huge. And then the guard dropped his knife and started screaming.
Gillian scrambled to her feet, ready to grab her daughter and bolt, assuming he’d been hit by a stray spell. And then she realized—it was a spell, but it hadn’t gone astray. A coiling ribbon of reddish gold flame had snaked out of a burning hut and hit the man square in the back.
At first she thought Elinor must have done it, despite the fact that it was years too early for that. But a searing pain in her arm caused her to look down, and she saw the fire glyph on the staff glowing bright red. She stared at it in disbelief, because she couldn’t call Fire.
All coven witches had to specialize in one of the three great elements—Wind, Fire or Earth—when they came of age, and hers was Wind. She’d never been able to summon more than one; no one could except the coven Mothers, who could harness the collective power of all the witches under their control. But she could feel the drain as her magic pulled the element through the air, as she called it to her.
She just didn’t know how she was doing it.
And she didn’t have time to figure it out. The guard had made the same assumption she had and spun, snarling, on Elinor. Gillian had a second to see him start for her daughter, to see his fist lash out—
And then she was looking at the hilt of a knife protruding from the burnt material of his shirt.
The smell of the charnel houses curled out into the air, mixing with the tang of gunpowder and the raw-lightning scent of spent magic. The guard fell to his knees, the blood gushing hot and sticky from a wound in his
side, wetting her hand on the hilt of his blade. She let go and he collapsed, a surprised look on his face and blood on his lips. And then Elinor was tugging her away, shock and pride warring on her small face.
Gillian didn’t feel pride; she felt sick. She wiped her sticky hand on her skirts, feeling it tremble, like her the breath in her lungs, like her roiling gut. But the guard’s death wasn’t the cause. She pulled her daughter into her arms and hugged the precious body against her, her heart beating frantically in her chest. She’d almost lost her; she’d almost lost Elinor.
She crouched down beside a nearby well, the only cover she could find that wasn’t burning, and stared around desperately for some opening in the crowd. Panic was making it hard to think, but she shoved it away angrily. She couldn’t afford weakness now. Weakness would get them killed.
A group of nearby witches was attacking the stables, but Gillian couldn’t see the point. The horses’ faster pace might get them beyond range of the archers before their shields gave out, but that was assuming they made it out at all. And while the portcullis wasn’t completely down, a mob of guards and who-knew-how-many protection spells stood in their way.
No. No one was getting through that.
But they might cause a great deal of commotion trying.
She blinked, her heart drumming with sudden hope. She stared from the battlefield to the high, gray walls surrounding it. And then she scooped up Elinor and took off, weaving through the remaining sheds and outbuildings that hugged the castle walls.
She stopped when they reached the far side of the structure, squatting beside a wagon piled high with empty barrels, breathing hard. She didn’t think they’d been seen, but she couldn’t be sure. There were guards here, too, although not as many. Most had joined the fight and the rest were staring at it, as if watching her people be slaughtered was great entertainment.
She probably had a few minutes, at least.
She tugged Elinor behind the wagon and started working on the ropes holding the barrels, tearing her nails on the tight knots. “What are you doing?” Elinor was looking at her strangely.
“Getting us out of this place!”
“There’s no door here,” Elinor said, staring past her at the carnage.
“Don’t look at it,” Gillian told her harshly. “And no door doesn’t mean no exit.”
But not getting one of the barrels loose might. The knots must have been tied before the previous night’s rain and they’d shrunk. Try as she might, she couldn’t get them loose, and while it would be easy with magic, she didn’t have it to spare. She was ready to scream from frustration when she spied a little barrel on one edge of the cart that no one had bothered to strap down.
She rolled it onto the ground and stood it on its end, glancing about. She didn’t know if she could do this once, but she certainly couldn’t manage it twice. The moment had to be perfect.
It came an instant later, when the guards on the ramparts above them reached the farthest end of their patrol. It left a brief window with no one on the walls directly overhead. Gillian stepped back, pointed the staff at the barrel and cast the strongest levitation spell she could manage.
For a long moment, nothing happened, the small container merely sat there like a stone. But then, as she watched with her heart in her throat, it quivered, wobbled slightly, and sluggishly lifted off the ground. She breathed a sigh of relief and jerked the staff towards her. The barrel followed the movement, but slowly, as though it weighed much more than empty wood should. But she didn’t start to worry until it began to shake as if caught in a high gale.
And then started cursing.
A stumpy little leg poked out the bottom, with a big toe sticking out of a pair of dirty, torn hose. Then a plump arm pushed through the side and a head topped by wild red curls appeared where, a moment before, the round wooden lid had been. The head was turned the other way, but the barrel was slowly rotating, so it wasn’t but a second before a small, furious face came into view.
It had so many freckles that it was almost impossible to see skin, but the militant glint in the hard, green eyes was clear enough. “Goddess’ teeth! I’ll curse you into oblivion, I’ll gouge out yer eyes, I’ll cut off that bald-headed hermit twixt yer laigs and feed him to—” She paused, finally getting a good look at the woman standing in front of her. “Gillian?” The tiny woman’s gaze narrowed and her head tilted. “Wot’s this, then?”
“Winnie,” Gillian said hoarsely, her brief moment of hope collapsing as the barrel resolved itself into a stout, four-foot-tall woman in a green Irish kirtle. “I didn’t recognize—”
“I should demmed well hope not,” Winnie said, flexing her small limbs. She gently floated to the ground while rooting around in her voluminous skirts. “’Ere. You sound like you need this mor’n I do.”
Gillian took the small bottle her friend proffered and downed a sizeable swallow before realizing it wasn’t water. Now she couldn’t talk and she couldn’t breathe. “What?” she gasped.
“Me special brew.”
“Didn’t they take it from you, when you came in?” Elinor asked suddenly. Seeing a familiar face seemed to have done her good, and she had always liked Winnie.
“Naw. Made it look like a growth on my thigh, I did. Hairy.” She nodded archly. “Lots o’ moles. The guards din’ want ter get too close.”
Elinor looked suitably impressed.
Gillian gave Winnie back the “brew”—her wits were addled enough as it was—and the small woman tucked the possibly lethal concoction away. “Right, then. Wot’s the plan?”
“The plan was to levitate one of these barrels and ride it out of here!” Gillian croaked. “There’s about to be an assault on the front gate. If it draws enough attention, we might be able to slip away while the guards are—”
“Don’t matter,” Winnie broke in, shaking her head. “The Circle’s got charms on the walls, don’t they? Try ter go over and poof,” she gestured expressively. “The spell breaks and ye fall to yer death. Saw a witch try it a minute ago.”
So much for that idea, Gillian thought, swallowing. But Winnie’s wouldn’t work, either. “They’ll check for those in hiding,” she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “As soon as they’ve rounded up those who chose to fight!”
“Aye,” Winnie said, imperturbably. “And mebbe they’ll find me and mebbe they won’t. But fightin’ war mages is nothin’ but a quick death—if yer lucky.”
“If we had our weapons, they wouldn’t kill us so easily!” Gillian said passionately.
“But we don’t. They’re up there,” Winnie pointed at a nearby tower. “And ain’t no reaching ‘em.”
“What?” It took a moment for her friend’s words to sink in. And then Gillian turned her face upwards, staring at the massive cylinder of stone that loomed above them, blocking the sun. “They’re right there?”
“Don’t go getting any ideas,” Winnie told her, watching her face. “I know how ye are about a challenge, but this one’s a beggar’s chance. There’s a mass o’ guards on the door and probably more inside. I heard a couple talkin’ about bein’ kept on duty to help secure the place.”
“That’s never stopped us before,” Gillian murmured, feeling a little dizzy at the sudden return of hope.
“This ain’t a job, Gil,” Winnie said, starting to look nervous.
Gillian rounded on her, eyes flashing and color high. “No, it’s not a job, Winnie. It’s the job. Our last, if we don’t do this!”
“But we can’t—”
“It’s just another robbery! Only we need this one more than any gold we ever took.”
Winnie put a small hand on her arm. “Gil, stop for a minute. Stop. Yer’re not gettin’ through that door.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Gillian told her, staring upwards. “I’m not planning on it.”
Chapter Five
K it reached the hell pit only to have to jump aside to avoid a group of stampeding horses, which some enterprising
witches were using to try to storm the gate. And then a rogue spell blistered past, caught the edge of his wool cape and set it on fire. He flung off the now deadly garment and started to stamp out the flames, when he caught sight of a nearby guard.
The man had taken a break from combat in order to besport himself with a pretty blond. He had the struggling girl on her back, her dress over her head and his knee between her thighs—until Kit tossed the length of burning wool over his head. It was rather more pleasurable, he decided, stamping out the flames this way, although the guard didn’t seem to agree.
The girl did, though. She scrambled to her feet and kicked the man viciously before sprinting off. But after only a few yards, she turned around, came back and kicked him again. Then she looked at Kit, dropped a small curtsy and fled.
He stared after her, shaking his head. Witches. He was starting to think they were all a bit addled.
And then he was sure of it, as he caught sight of his own particular lunatic attempting to ride a levitating barrel over the walls.
For a moment, he just stared, sure his eyes were playing tricks on him. Until he spied no fewer than five mages heading for the cask and its glowing cargo. Devil take the woman! He sprinted across the battle, cursing, as his witch floated gently to the top of the East Tower.
About halfway across the courtyard, he realized what she was doing. That tower was used as the armory, and it was a safe bet she was trying for the weapons. But he didn’t give much for her chances. The Circle surely had a ward on them, if not on the—
It was on the window. He watched her reach the only one on this side, an elongated type barely wider than the average arrow slit, and cry out. Then a burst of power flared and the barrel shot away from the tower like a ball out of a cannon.
It went sailing off through the air with the witch’s slumped form miraculously still attached. Not that that was in any way positive. She’d have been better served had she fallen off; she might have only broken bone or two that way. As it was, she was headed straight for the heart of the battle.
