Flower grabbed the pot and went to the door. As she opened it, lightning flashed and thunder shook the windows.
‘How did you light the fire?’ Crystal asked.
‘Luck,’ Meg replied. ‘How long have the Ranu been in the city?’
‘Five days now. They kept us up at the Bog Pit ruins until one of their leaders said we were all free to return to our homes.’ Crystal glanced at Flower before repeating, ‘How did you light the fire?’
Meg adopted a solemn expression. ‘Magic.’ Crystal waited for further explanation. ‘Have you seen a black rat?’ Meg asked.
‘Why?’
‘Just wondered.’
‘There was one perched on your chest when I found you. Can you remember that?’
Meg smiled at the thought that Whisper had escaped. ‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘Ugly creatures,’ Crystal muttered, repulsed by her memories of the Bog Pit.
Flower returned with a bowl of rainwater. ‘I saw people catch and eat rats raw there,’ she said.
‘The one sitting on you was the biggest I’d seen,’ Crystal added.
‘Where did it go?’
She shrugged. ‘Disappeared down a hole.’ She reached for a knife on the sideboard and started chopping the vegetables, while Flower found a brick and a stone and balanced the pot of water above Meg’s fire.
‘Why were you in the Bog Pit?’ Flower asked as she sat back from the heat.
‘I was looking for something somebody doesn’t want me to find.’
‘And what’s that?’ Crystal asked.
‘A canvas bag.’
The silence following her answer surprised Meg. Then Crystal asked, ‘What does it contain?’
‘A relic. Something the Seers are very afraid of,’ said Meg, and she looked straight at Crystal. ‘Something your grandfather knew a great deal about.’
‘How do you know about it?’ Crystal lowered the knife and the chopped vegetables into her lap.
‘Chase is my grandson.’
Astonishment and understanding flowed together across the young woman’s face. ‘When I came to your bookshop wanting to know about the Demon Horsemen I had no idea you knew about this.’
‘I didn’t know then,’ Meg explained. ‘I didn’t know about Chase or the bag.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Flower intervened, confused.
Meg glanced at Flower and said, ‘Who is she?’
‘She befriended me in the Bog Pit.’
‘We need to talk,’ Meg said, ‘and quickly.’
‘I don’t like secrets,’ muttered Flower.
‘Then watch these boil and don’t listen,’ said Crystal, handing the vegetables to Flower, and she winked at Meg.
The storm was stronger than anyone had anticipated. The wind roared out of the west to batter the coast with mountainous waves, smashed ships against the docks, tore tiles from rooftops, and wailed like a tortured creature through the new ruins on the bluffs. Huddled in the tiny room, shutters and doors rattling, listening to the rain lash the roof, Meg stared at the sleeping figures of the two women in the soft amber light she had created with a warming spell on the living room hearth. The pieces had come together in the hours since her talk with Crystal. Crystal had passed the bag to Inheritor just before Shadow’s assassination attempt against the king, his usurpation of the throne and Crystal’s imprisonment. The mind that had probed Meg when she was imprisoned and drugged belonged to a Seer, and that mind had known nothing about the bag’s whereabouts or its contents. Shadow had never passed the bag to the Seers. That was the only logical conclusion. So it was Shadow she had to hunt to retrieve the bag.
Thunder rattled the earth and Crystal stirred in her sleep and rolled onto her left side. Everyone loses in this struggle, Meg mused. How different the world must be for her. Her thoughts turned to Whisper. The rat had always survived, sustained by the embedded amber. Where is she now?
Here, came the reply.
Startled, Meg searched the shadowed room with her eyes. Where?
Above.
Meg peered into the rafters until she discerned a dark shape and the glint of rat eyes staring down at her. How long have you been up there?
Always, came the rat’s reply.
Meg should have known. Going, she communicated.
Whisper scampered along the rafter and descended a post before dropping nimbly to the floor, her movement masked by the wind and rain. Meg rose and glanced at the sleeping women, then crept into the adjoining kitchen space. She waited for Whisper to squeeze through the gap in the door, then chose a space between the wall and the chimney bolster to form a portal. First she would return to the others and tell them what she had learned. Then she would find Shadow and retrieve the bag.
She ushered Whisper through the blue haze and was about to step in herself when a voice stopped her.
‘What is that?’ Crystal Merchant was peering around the door.
‘It’s a portal,’ Meg calmly replied. ‘I have to go.’
‘Where?’
‘My family,’ she answered and stepped into the light.
The wind rushed through the trees and lightning split the starless night, but the wild centre of the storm was away to the north-west when Meg appeared at the edge of the bushmen’s camp. Whisper scampered across the dark ground to the false hut and Meg followed. Inside the hut she felt for and found the ring handle to the trapdoor into the underground labyrinth. She conjured a sphere to light the narrow corridor, but extinguished it when she saw the warm glow of firelight and heard the quiet murmur of voices. She listened until she identified familiar voices before she entered the common chamber.
Passion greeted her with surprise and delight. ‘What’s the news? Is the battle over?’ The other three women with Passion broke into further questions that immediately confused Meg.
‘What battle?’ she asked. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Gone to trap Shadow’s army between us and the Ranu,’ Passion explained.
‘When did they leave?’
‘Three days ago,’ another woman told her.
‘We saw the storm coming and wondered if they would be safe,’ said Passion. ‘Everyone was wondering what had happened to you.’
‘I had a few complications,’ Meg explained.
‘Why the Jarudhan garb?’ a woman asked.
Meg tugged at her yellow smock, a replacement for her lost clothing scavenged by Crystal after her rescue from the Bog Pit ruins. ‘Disguise,’ she explained. ‘How’s little Jon?’
‘He’s good. Asleep,’ Passion told her. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘I’m fine,’ Meg replied.
‘What will you do now?’ Passion asked as they sat down together near the low fire.
‘I’ll sleep tonight to gather my strength,’ said Meg, ‘and tomorrow morning, before sunrise, I’ll join the others. Where did they intend to set their camp?’
‘We only know a little of the plans,’ another woman said. ‘Inheritor wants to establish peace, but he also intends to call Shadow to account for what he’s done. He’s hoping the Ranu will negotiate a treaty.’
Whisper climbed onto Meg’s lap and curled up as she listened to Passion and the others tell what they knew. Time was rapidly running out. If she was lucky, Inheritor and his army would stop Shadow and the Seers. If not…No, there was no alternative. She wouldn’t let it happen.
‘This storm is a curse,’ Shadow complained as he took his seat at the table in the tavern with the Seers and Warlord Fist. As if taunting him, the wind rattled the wooden shingles and doors.
‘It could also be a blessing,’ Word suggested. ‘It keeps the Ranu battened down in the city and we have time to prepare our strategies.’
‘It also gives my scheming brother time to regroup his rebels. How could he have marshalled an army in so short a time?’
‘It’s been reported by reliable observers that the old Shessian warmaster is coordinating his troops,’ said Warlord Fist.
> ‘Who would have been long dead had it not been for your incompetence and that interfering Abomination!’ snarled Shadow.
‘At least the Abomination is dead,’ said Fist.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Word asked.
‘I was there,’ said Fist. ‘There was nothing left. The Ranu bombardment blew the gaol to smithereens.’
‘You saw her body?’ Word asked.
‘There was no body to be seen,’ said Fist. ‘The whole upper building disintegrated in a massive explosion. When we searched the area there was nothing but a crater full of shattered stones.’
‘She has escaped death before,’ said Word.
‘If she escaped this time, then it’s Jarudha’s work and she’s not meant to die,’ said Fist with vehemence. It was a taunt to the Seers that Word could not misunderstand.
‘She also should have been dead before this,’ Shadow noted angrily, with a steady eye on Word. ‘From this point forward, all orders I give will be obeyed without question.’ He cleared his throat as if emphasising his determination and addressed Fist. ‘Any news from our special forces?’
‘I haven’t heard from them,’ said Warlord Fist, raising his voice to be heard above the drumming rain on the wooden shingles.
‘This weather could suit their purpose,’ Shadow said. ‘If they eliminate my brother and his mad warmaster, half our battle is won.’ He motioned with his hand to dismiss the warlord.
His expression showing that he was peeved to be asked to leave like a minion, Fist rose and took his oilskin coat from an attendant before he plunged into the pouring rain with his bodyguard to return to his quarters across the street.
Shadow waited for the discussion in the room to settle before he addressed the assembled Seers. ‘The existing situation is intolerable,’ he began. ‘My brother intends to dictate the future and, if I know him, he will negotiate terms with the Ranu that will isolate us from what is ours. Our dream of Paradise will be lost.’
‘That is not Jarudha’s plan,’ said Word.
‘Isn’t it?’ Shadow queried, sick of the Seer’s excuses being couched in terms of Jarudha’s greater plans. ‘Then why has He let the Ranu drive us from the city? And why has He brought my brother against me? Answer that.’
Word retained his solemn expression. ‘A test and nothing more. He tests our resolve.’
‘Then our resolve should be to act. I have made plans for my brother’s imminent demise. What are you intending to do?’
‘What would you have us do?’ Word asked.
‘Scourge the city of these Ranu,’ Shadow told him. ‘Call down the Demon Horsemen.’
He noticed the nods of approval from Word’s colleagues, but Word remained implacable.
‘This should only be a last resort.’
‘We are at a last resort!’ Shadow snapped. ‘The city is lost. The artefacts are lost. What else will it take for you to call them?’
‘Calling the Horsemen is…It comes at considerable cost,’ said Word wearily.
‘And I will meet that cost,’ said Law, ignoring Word’s angry glance.
‘Then it is decided,’ said Shadow with a grim smile. ‘When the storm is broken and my brother’s brief effort at heroics has been terminated, we will end this farce with the Ranu once and for all.’
Word went to argue, but Shadow held up a warning hand and said, ‘I am the king and I have spoken. I will not be contradicted.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It was what she knew best—preparing for the swift and lethal strike. Lying on her stomach on the river bank, ignoring the rain seeping into her clothes, Swift studied the lights scattered through the township. Inheritor’s spies had located Shadow in the Shepherd’s Rest tavern, guarded by fifty of the best-trained palace guards. A pale slice of moon appeared between the clouds and briefly washed the river silver. The rain had eased since the wild storm of the previous night, coming in waves now rather than as a constant downpour, but travel on foot from the rebels’ camp to Princestown had been slippery and slow, the only compensation being that the enemy were struggling with the same difficulties.
Assassinations in the city were easier, Swift thought. The prey could be isolated, led into a trap, caught out in an unfamiliar place. Her target this time was in his self-made lair; he had no intention of emerging and she had no time to coax him out. Instead, she had to get past his traps and guards and strike where he least expected to be taken: in the heart of his sanctuary. The move was bold—it was madness—but time was against her. Shadow’s assassins were still hunting Inheritor and the weather would eventually clear enough to allow the usurper to renew his attack on Inheritor’s inadequate army. If she could strike now, she could stop the slaughter.
The key to her success would be the men she’d trained as assassins for Inheritor’s army. They were to stage an attack against the Seers, who were lodged a street away from Shadow’s residence, to distract attention from Shadow. The alarm they caused would be her signal to strike. But first she had to get into a viable position—somehow.
Voices alerted her to approaching soldiers. She slid her knife from its sheath, her fingers caressing its familiar leather handle, and waited. Four shadows sloshed through the puddles on the narrow roadway, trailing miserable horses in their wake. A fifth shadow trudged behind the party, his peacemaker slung loosely across his shoulders. Barely old enough to carry it, she assessed as she measured his build and decided his uniform would fit. She tightened her grip on her knife and rose silently out of the darkness.
In the end, she decided the red overcoat, feathered hat and long-barrelled peacemaker slung over her shoulder were enough to carry off her disguise, and hoped the darkness and steady rain would hide her softer boots and the hem of her black trousers from attentive eyes. Walking through the enemy camp was unnerving and it took all her self-control to act casually, as though she was meant to be there; but few men looked at her, and those who did dismissed her as just another tired soldier trudging back to his tent. She entered the town unchallenged and her confidence grew. Now she understood why Inheritor’s spies were able to bring information so easily out of Shadow’s camp. The security was lax. But when she turned a corner into the main thoroughfare the circumstances dramatically changed. The street was well lit and lined with armed soldiers, and barricades had been erected to prevent anyone moving around freely. The only access into the portion of street where the Shepherd’s Rest was located was through a narrow checkpoint guarded at each end by five soldiers. There was no point trying to bluff passage. She would have to resort to her training to get closer to Shadow. A smile creased her lips. She wanted a challenge.
The catch eased apart. She slid her knife back into its soft leather sheath before she opened the wooden shutters and climbed through the window. Crouching in the darkness, she listened, aware of the light spilling around the outline of the door into the adjoining room. Voices rose and fell.
‘I put three pennies out there.’
‘Bullshit you did!’
‘He did, Handgrip. I saw it. Those three.’
‘I didn’t see it.’
‘Play your card, Handgrip.’
She crept across the room to the door. Four men playing cards, she estimated. She moved to the bed in the room and felt it—a single bed with a crumpled blanket. She crept back to the door, slipped out of the wet overcoat, sat against the wall on the hinge side, put her knife on her lap and waited. Her only concern now was that the card game ended before her fellows staged the fake assassination attack.
The scrape of boots startled her and she tensed as the door creaked open. She must have dozed. Dangerous. Lantern light spilled into the room and she rose silently. In one motion she pushed the door closed and stabbed the astonished victim, once, twice, her hand snapping across his mouth to stifle his groan. The lantern tumbled from his hand and he crumpled, not quite dead, but she plunged the knife into him a third time, deep under his sternum and into the heart. He stared at her, his cont
orted and shocked face exaggerated by the shadows from the guttering lantern, before his head fell to the side.
She waited in breathless anticipation until she was satisfied no one had heard the body or the lantern fall, then she cleaned her knife on the dead soldier’s red tunic and went to the door. She eased it open to reveal a dark room. The card game had ended, but she hadn’t heard the others leave. Not good at all. I’m losing it, she mused. She retrieved the lantern, which luckily hadn’t been extinguished or broken in the fall, and entered the room.
Using the lantern light to assess the structure of the room and the beams holding the roof in place, she planned her approach. She sheathed her knife, extinguished the lantern, and climbed a cupboard to reach the first beam. She’d chosen the two-roomed cottage because it abutted the tavern, like an annexe, and its steeply pitched bark shingle roof sat beneath a window into the tavern’s second storey. It was the only indirect entry she had found in her long and careful reconnoitre of the Shepherd’s Rest.
It was still drizzling outside as she used her knife to pry a few shingles loose, taking care not to let them fall or slide down the slippery roof. When the hole was large enough, she squeezed through, the soft cold rain stinging her face, and perched precariously on the roof peak. The street was still lit and she could see the manned checkpoints. The treacherously wet roof threatened to escape from under her as she reached for the tavern window’s broad wooden sill, and it took her three attempts before she could get a reliable grip and haul herself up to peer through the shutter slats.
The room was dully lit with a low-burning lantern, and a woman lay in the bed. She hadn’t expected to find a woman in Shadow’s retinue, and her presence in the room was an added complication. Swift eased back onto the roof peak to consider what to do.
She prised loose four more shingles and piled them one on top of the other with those she’d already removed to form a wobbly platform, which she climbed onto to bring her shoulders up to the sill’s height. She adjusted her balance as the shingles threatened to collapse, knowing they would slide off the roof the moment she left them and determined that they would fall into the dark and empty yard behind the cottage. There was a good chance no one would hear or see them fall on that side, especially in the rain. From this moment, there was an absolute risk of being caught. She could only work quickly, and her heart was racing with the possibilities.
The Demon Horsemen Page 30