by Trisha Telep
At least, he didn’t think he could, having never before tried. And he discovered that he wasn’t all that keen on finding out. He decided some subtlety was in order and started shuffling his little party towards the ruined door.
He thought their chances of making it out undetected were reasonably good. He’d used one of the talents he’d manifested since becoming a master and gone dim as soon as he heard the men approaching. Dim wasn’t invisible – he could still be seen if someone was looking right at him. But even then he’d be only a faint, indistinct outline, like a haze of black smoke. And with all the real smoke choking the air, who was going to notice?
A war mage, apparently. He’d almost reached the door, where only a single mage stood guard, when one of the nearby searchers suddenly changed direction and grabbed a fold of his cloak. “Sir! They’re—”
So much for subtlety. Kit seized the man’s arm and slung him into the mage guarding the door, hard enough to send them both staggering backwards off the ramparts. Then he snatched the child into his arms, grabbed the witch by the waist and bolted.
It wasn’t the most elegant escape he’d ever made, but a lifetime of close scrapes had taught him not to be picky. He dodged a spell that came blistering through the air after him, sidestepped a small battle, and headed for the stairs. And then pulled up abruptly and spun them back against the wall.
“What is it?” the witch demanded. “Why are we—” She stopped, catching sight of the same thing he had.
The stairs were choked with guards and the courtyard of the castle had turned into a particularly colourful hell. The flimsy wooden shacks that housed the kitchen, stables and blacksmith had caught alight and were burning merrily, with spell-fire tinting the billowing smoke in glowing colours. Horses were neighing, people were screaming, and spells were exploding on all sides.
In other words, it was the usual battlefield chaos, which was what gave him pause. On any given battlefield on any given day, there were about a hundred ways to die – and that multiplied tenfold if it was a magical battle. He was going to have to—
A spell he hadn’t seen coming hit them broadside before he could finish the thought, sizzling against the shield the witch had managed to raise before flaming out in a burst of acid green sparks. And while no one might have been able to see them, that spectacle had been all too visible. Even worse, the effects didn’t dissipate; instead, a glowing nimbus pulsed in the air around them, like the corona of the sun on a foggy day.
“Marker,” the witch gasped, before he could ask. “They used it to hunt us in the forests, to make it impossible for us to hide. You can’t conceal us now and I cannot protect all three of us!”
She started struggling, probably deciding to use her remaining strength to save herself and the girl. But it wouldn’t be enough and Kit knew it. They had to stay together, and they had to get out that gate, but the stairs were impossible. He could probably survive the assault of the guards but not the witches.
That left only one option.
“Hold on,” he said grimly, renewing his grip on them.
The witch was quick; he’d give her that. “Are you mad?” she stared from him to the chaos below and back again. “We can’t go down there!”
“And we cannot stay here! We’re sitting ducks. The smoke should hide us.”
“Hide our bodies, mayhap,” she snarled, struggling to get away.
Kit held on and dragged her to the edge of the rampart, trying to spot the least lethal landing place. But mages were converging on them from all sides, and there was no more time. He jumped, right before a bolt of pure power tore through the air he’d just vacated.
It hit the side of the stairs behind them, blowing a hole in the stone and sending sharp shards raining down on to the crowd below. The screaming and cursing and spell-throwing from the surrounding witches increased four-fold, but Kit barely noticed because at that moment, something hit him full in the face.
It wasn’t a spell, unless the mages had invented one that smelled like burnt feathers and tried to peck your eyes out. He cursed, but couldn’t do much more with his arms full of witches. But whatever-it-was went into a frenzy anyway, squawking and flapping its wings wildly, as if he was attempting to murder it.
And then the ground tilted under his feet and he landed on his arse.
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 been 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 that 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 knock, 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 Kit was leeching out of him through the air.
In a panic, the man sent out a cluster of 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 square in the groin.
Kit stumbled back, fervently wishing that padded codpieces 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 looked to be 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 rumours 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, redheaded 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 Isobel’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
So much for my knight errant, Gillian thought, watching her rescuer getting beaten up by a half-roasted bird. She was about to rescue the creature when one of the war mages dived 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, popping his shields and sending him crashing headfirst into the cart. The vampire had landed on the other end, and the 200-pound mage crashing 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 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 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, grey 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 castle, squatting beside a wagon piled with empty barrels, and 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 being 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 these 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 on to 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 brief 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 it started cursing.
A stumpy little leg suddenly poked out t
he 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 facing away from her, 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, getting a good look at the woman standing in front of her. “Gillian?” Her 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 her “brew” – her wits were addled enough as it was – and she tucked the possibly lethal concoction away. “Right, then. Wot’s the plan?”
“The plan was to levitate one of these 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—”