by A. C. Cobble
From the corner of her eye, she saw Duke swing his broadsword and sever the paw that had so closely missed her, eliciting a terrible wail from the first cat. Hissing at him, the second cat prepared to spring while Duke lashed his sword at the first one, trying to force the injured beast back, nicking it on the side of the head but not delivering a fatal blow. Blood pumped from the stump of its foreleg. It would be dead within moments, but until then, the enraged animal was a threat.
Duke dodged as it reared up and batted at him with its good paw, the second foe evidently forgotten behind him.
She launched herself off her knees and crashed into the side of the second cat, plunging a dagger into its throat, feeling the grimalkin jerk in surprise and then in agony as she ripped her sinuous blade free.
The giant cat took two steps and collapsed.
The one facing Duke teetered as well, held at bay by his broadsword, and unable to retreat quickly due to its missing foot. She and the peer eyed it cautiously. They watched as it dragged itself painfully backward.
“Should we go after it?” he wondered.
“I don’t think it can follow us, and it’s not going to make it to the keep before we do,” she said. “Without that foot, it’s not much of a threat to sneak up on us. It should bleed out in minutes.”
“Live and let live, then,” said Duke.
“If you say so,” replied Sam, looking over the dead grimalkin and wolfmalkin. “I didn’t think these things could work together, but that must have been what they were doing. One to distract us, the other two to close on our backs.”
“Not so different from my plan,” acknowledged Duke.
She nodded, not looking into his eyes. “We have to assume William will know we’re coming, now.”
“He will,” agreed Duke. “We already thought that he’d be on guard. Surely, he knows about Raffles and Yates. He has to think we might be coming for him next. He will have other watchers around the place. If our plan works, that could help us.”
“Depends on what the watchers are,” challenged Sam.
Duke shrugged. “It’s a simple idea that my uncle would have summoned shades to guard the entrance to his keep. They’ll have no problem finding me as I have no protection and I share a blood bond with the man. But those tattoos Kalbeth gave you? They’ll let you slip in behind me unnoticed. It worked against Yates, didn’t it? He didn’t sense you when you crossed his sorcerous trip wires. This is an almost identical plan.”
She grunted. Duke was right. Yates hadn’t sensed her approach. She hadn’t told the peer the full details of her plan against the bishop, though. She shivered, hoping that this wouldn’t end the same way. Instead, she suggested, “We’re putting a lot of faith in chance.”
“We can run to my father, enlist the help of the royal marines, but neither one of us wants to do that, do we?” asked Duke. “You want this as badly as I do.”
Frowning, she realized it was true. For him, it was personal. For her… she didn’t know. Duke was right, though. Despite the risks, despite the holes she could see in their plan, she wanted to do it. It was the path she’d been set on since she was a girl, and it was impossible to turn back now.
She skirted the edge of the towering stone structure, looking for the entrance Duke had promised would be there. Beside the massive keep, without the full tree cover, she’d hidden her fae light and was navigating solely from the light of the moon. There was plenty illumination to keep the huge fortress in sight, but not enough to read the map Duke had drawn out for her while they had been back on the airship.
There. Fifty paces ahead, she saw a black patch on the dark gray rock. It had to be the way in. Stepping cautiously, she approached it and leaned around the corner, peering inside. The tattoos inked on her back would limit shades’ ability to notice her, but they would do nothing to hinder a living guard. A wolfmalkin, grimalkin, or whatever else the prime minister could call upon would spot her as easily as she would see them. With luck, the living sentries were out in the forest, and it was only spirits from the underworld which barred the paths inside. If so, they had a chance.
It would be impossible for Duke to go unnoticed stalking through the halls, but the shades would be hesitant to attack him. He shared blood with William, the same blood that would have been used to call and bind the spirits. Whatever geas the man had laid on his summonings to protect himself would afford Duke some safety as well. The shades couldn’t help but see him, though, and when they did, they would alert their master. They were counting on William’s iron control of his minions. It was a dangerous gamble, but what else was there to do?
The pathway into the keep seemed clear, so she stepped inside the dark tunnel. Ahead, the way quickly disappeared with the little bit of moonlight that poured into the opening. She removed her vial of fae light and shook the lazy creatures awake.
Their glowing bodies brightened quicker than they had in the forest, and the light filled the glass and spilled out in front of her. With the illumination from the tiny life spirits, she saw two drifting shadows just ten paces ahead of her. The shades did not react to her appearing in the entrance of the tunnel or to the supernatural light of the fae. The tattoos Kalbeth had inked on her back were working, and the spirits of life were invisible to the denizens of the underworld. Swallowing nervously, she edged into the cylindrical tunnel then tiptoed in between the two hanging patches of darkness.
If she touched them, they would sense her. Once they did, not even her tattoos would keep her hidden. Kalbeth had explained that she would be more difficult to notice, but once noticed, she would have no protection at all.
Sam paused in the tunnel, staring at the shades. Could they hear? She didn’t know. A curious thing for Thotham to leave out during his instructions on how to battle the summoned spirits. Holding her breath, she moved farther down the tunnel, and they didn’t hear her. Twenty paces past them, she glanced back. They were still hanging there, floating listlessly, just like when she first spotted them.
So far, so good.
She turned and started up the pathway. The floor changed from dirt, likely debris the wind blew into the opening, to raw stone. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of the same dark rock that Northundon’s keep had been built from. There were no signs of joints and no tool marks. It gave her the uneasy sensation of passing up an artery, something built to transport fluid or another substance that she could not fathom. Maybe it was a drain, though certainly it couldn’t be active with so much sediment accumulated at the bottom. It was smooth and easy to walk along, though, and as she ascended there were no branches, no ways she could get lost.
She kept her fae light out because otherwise, the tunnel would be pitch black. Shades from the underworld would not be able to detect the light from the life spirits, but anything from the living world would. She strained, trying to listen ahead, but all she could hear was her own breathing and soft footsteps. If there was something alive with her in the tunnels, it was certain to see her light flickering in the pitch-black long before she came into view. Nothing that could be done about it, though. She had to see to know where she was going. Muttering to herself, she hurried. If she was going to be found, there was no sense taking it slowly.
The Cartographer XXV
A brush of bitter cold touched his shoulder, like icy fingers tracing his collarbone and down his arm. He swallowed and kept walking. It wasn’t the first frozen stroke he’d felt, and he was driving himself mad trying to determine if they were becoming more frequent. Shades were tracking his progress as he climbed higher inside of the ancient fortress.
It was awful, knowing the summonings were shadowing his footsteps, hanging close beside him. It reminded him of his progress through Northundon, except now, the spirits did not keep their distance. They passed around him, through him, causing him to shiver constantly, both from the cold of their touch and the fear of their presence.
This was the plan, though, and somehow, it seemed to be working.
There were rooms there, giant, open ones that his light would not reach the end of, and tiny ones that would quicken his breath. There was no reasoning to the layout that he’d been able to determine. Paths snaked about randomly like roots of a grand tree. Rooms opened beside or above each other, rarely connected in any rational way. Few of the spaces retained purpose that he could understand. They’d been fashioned hundreds, maybe thousands, of years earlier. Much of the organic material that had been inside was long ago rotted to dust. In other places, it was curiously preserved. The stone gave few clues to the past, aside from a few obvious points where there was seating or a table. The entire keep was a nearly endless maze of jumbled, untouched passageways.
Or at least, it had been. As he walked higher, he saw evidence it was not as it once was. There were the signs of man, now. His uncle or his minions had left their mark.
There were stands sprouting unlit torches, and some of the larger rooms showed evidence where huge fires had burned. Markings and patterns graced some of the walls, drawn in white chalk that blazed with the reflected light of the fae globe he carried. Most of the chalk patterns obscured older ones that seemed to be naturally formed as part of the rock, except nature never formed with such intent. He did not know if the new designs were meant to counteract the ancient ones below or somehow enhance them. It did not seem to be chance.
As he walked, he found other grim testimonials of his uncle’s occupation of the place including scattered bits of rope and iron. Bindings, he realized after seeing several of them. Blood was smeared on some walls and the floors where captives might have struggled and had been overwhelmed. Newly installed steel gates spanned several of the passages.
Higher into the keep, Oliver had a horrible realization. There was no way his uncle, busy with his duties as prime minister, did all of this alone. Perhaps he had drawn a few chalk patterns, but the man had little time for construction work in an abandoned keep. The blood on the walls and the broken bindings hinted at a steady flow of captives through the passageway, and one man could not be responsible for all of that.
Sorcerous minions, perhaps adherents to another secret society. Oliver hated to guess who else had been involved. He dreaded finding out his uncle was not alone in the ancient druid fortress.
Alone. He shivered. Clinging to him like lines trailing from a fishing fleet were countless shades. He could feel the chill of their touch, and his skin crawled as they watched him continue upward.
Halfway up the structure, the nature of the tunnels and rooms began to change. Where below the paths were organic, above some sense of logical structure was evident. Rooms were connected to each other rather than only through the tunnels. Space was delineated in ways that made sense for human occupation. The strange artifacts he recalled from his youth became prevalent.
In one room, high on the wall, moonlight shone through crystal-covered windows. It sparkled, reflected and refracted by the crystal, illuminating giant contraptions of wood, glass, and raw metals. They were fitted together seemingly seamless, suspended a dozen yards above the stone floor. He remembered looking for hours at the odd constructs, wondering what their purpose was, but alone as a youth, he couldn’t carry a ladder tall enough to reach the objects. His one attempt to pack climbing gear and scale the glass-smooth stone walls had ended nearly the moment it started.
His uncle, it seemed, had not been so easily deterred. One of the strange devices lay on the floor, broken open, showing nothing inside but wadded tufts of what looked like stripped tree bark. Some of it was scattered on the floor, as if a person had tossed it down in frustration after making the considerable effort to retrieve the worthless artifact.
Oliver glanced at the debris, but his innate curiosity was overwhelmed by the urge to keep going, to keep climbing, to find his uncle.
He came to an enormous room, one he recalled speculating whether it was a grand reception chamber, a ballroom, a sports court, or perhaps something he could not imagine. His light made it only halfway across, but he knew the room was braced by twenty-yard-tall openings on each of its four sides. Four doors for four compass directions, arranged perfectly in the circular room. He didn’t know if the druids had a talent for cartography, but according to his measurements, they’d accurately situated the room on north, south, east, and west axes.
Oliver paused. In the distance, he heard the first sounds of life that were not his own. Wails of desperation, shouted orders, the noise of strife. Captives, he guessed, and their guards.
He stood in the entrance to the huge room and frowned. If he was able to free the captives, perhaps they could assist him. If he left the noises unexplored, guards might come after him from behind. Knowing there were people there but ignoring them seemed contrary to everything he thought and every instinct he had.
After a moment, he decided he had to ignore them, though.
Sam was ascending through the twisting tunnels and open rooms just as he was, taking a different path, the one he’d sketched out for her. If he paused and went off on another mission, what would happen when she reached the top of the keep? Would his uncle be there? Would she have to face him alone, without the element of surprise they hoped their plan would bring?
No, he had to keep going. He had to ignore the sounds of suffering coming from down the unexplored hallways.
Oliver traced the wall of the room until he found the door to his right, to the south. He wondered if the direction had any relevance to sorcery.
He stepped through the looming opening and glanced up the slope. From his previous exploration, he knew the path spiraled several times to a room hundreds of yards up, directly above the one he was leaving.
And in that opening, he ran into his first serious problem.
The Priestess XXIII
She let her breathing slow, inhaling and exhaling through her mouth to minimize any chance of noise. She flexed her toes, feeling the soft boots resist as she did. She opened her hands, her fingers spread wide, stretching the joints and tendons but stopping short of letting them pop. Slowly, like ice melting, she drew one of her kris daggers. The steel whispered softly against the leather of the sheath as, inch-by-inch, the sinuous blade emerged. With her other hand, she unwound a thin wire from her waist, a yard and a half long, terminating on both ends in weighted, wooden handles.
Ahead of her, facing down a dark hallway, were two wolfmalkin.
The creatures’ ears were twitching and their heads were tilted back. She heard snuffing and knew they were smelling something, trying to understand what they were sensing. It wasn’t her, though. They were watching a pathway ahead of them, one she knew Duke was to climb up. The intersection was one of the few where he’d marked that they might meet. It was lit, unlike the tunnels she’d been traveling. Did that mean William was waiting for them, or was it merely illuminated for the convenience of the prime minister and his minions? She didn’t know.
She’d hidden her light in anticipation of passing the main thoroughfare, and between that and the lights ahead, the wolfmalkin hadn’t noticed her approach. Were they waiting for Duke in ambush? Had they already let him pass unmolested? She could not tell, but it was clear they were aware someone was inside the keep and that they’d been stationed as watchers.
It didn’t matter what their intentions with Duke were, because they were blocking her way forward. It was critical to their plan she adhered to her route and was able to approach the top independently, away from the notice of the shades they expected would be clustered ar
ound Duke.
Moving as silently as the shades scattered throughout the tunnels, she crept behind the creatures. They stood half again as tall as her and three times as wide. They held massive battle axes. Swung with their muscle-bound arms, the axes would surely cleave her in twain. The creatures were alert, waiting for a trespasser in their domain. The heavy slabs of muscle on their backs and necks prevented her from simply tossing a blade into them from behind and making a quick kill.
She supposed an assault on a sorcerer’s stronghold shouldn’t be easy, but she’d been trained to attack from behind. This was something she could do.
Half-a-dozen paces from the backs of the wolfmalkin, she knew she couldn’t draw closer without alerting the beasts to her presence. Thotham had taught her how to sneak up unnoticed on a victim, and had taught her that no matter how good she was, there was only so close one could approach before being noticed.
So, she charged.
Three quick steps and then she leapt into the air, slinging one end of her wooden-handled garrote around the neck of the wolfmalkin on her left. The weighted handle whipped around the surprised creature’s throat, and when it came back, she looped the wire she was holding around the flying bit and yanked it tight, the flung handle snug against the back of the wolfmalkin’s neck, the wire digging into the beast’s flesh. She set her feet against the creature’s back and leaned hard, hauling on the garrote with all of her weight. Then, she stretched toward the other creature as it was spinning around, raising its axe, its eyes wide in surprise.
Lashing out with her kris dagger, she brought the blade across the unprepared beast’s throat, slicing open a deep laceration that cut nearly to the bone. The blow severed the wolfmalkin’s windpipe, and it fell back, gargling an attempted howl.