For Want of a Fiend

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “Then it’s down to Pennynail to either tie the vote or cast his for the hay cart,” Starbride said. “Pennynail, if you agree with Averie and me, say absolutely nothing.”

  That got a soft chuckle from everyone again. They hit another bump, there was another collective huff, and Hugo said, “I’d like to vote for the party now.”

  “Ha, Hugo’s with us,” Starbride said softly. “Fete it is.”

  “Pennynail’s fine for a fete if he still has your old dress,” Katya said.

  A finger poked her in the leg, and she grinned.

  The road from Marienne to the forest had no cobblestones, but it bore a number of potholes, and the slight hill had Katya and her friends bunched against the front and the back of the cart. Brutal murmured sorry over and over as he squashed them, particularly Averie against the driver’s seat. She told him it was all right, but Katya could hear the strain in her voice.

  When the cart finally stopped, Katya felt both Brutal and Starbride tense, all of them ready to be out in the fresh air. When Castelle rolled back the tarp, they all sighed at once.

  Castelle grinned. “Good ride?”

  Katya glared at her and knew she wasn’t the only one. They filed out and finally got a look at Captain Ursula’s troops and the horses that would be theirs for the day.

  Ursula had brought fifteen officers of the Watch including herself. In Castelle’s band, there were six besides her. They sat in the cart as Katya and the Order took their horses. Katya had never been so glad that her position allowed her to commandeer what she wanted.

  The twenty-eight of them started into the woods. It would take most of the day to reach Lady Hilda’s secret hideout. They set off at a steady clip but not so fast that they’d wear their horses out before they reached their destination.

  It was late afternoon when they skirted the small village closest to where Lady Hilda’s house rested. Harvest season was almost over, and the fields farthest from the town had already been stripped, so Katya’s party could travel on the edges without being seen. The locals probably didn’t even know who owned the small house near their town. Unlike Lady Hilda’s estate, no one here would pay her taxes, so they probably thought it was any old noble staying there. That was good. No one would notice that she’d gone.

  The road was no more than a grassy track with two dirt ruts, but anyone coming down it would be visible from the house, and Katya wanted all the surprise she could get.

  They picketed the horses where they could graze, and Ursula chose one of her party to guard them. The young man looked distinctly unhappy, but he couldn’t argue. If they caught Lady Hilda, Katya promised herself she’d give him a gold crown for his trouble.

  Under the forest’s canopy was a maze of shadows. Katya and her team walked almost silently, even Hugo and Starbride, who’d spent a little time among trees. Castelle’s friends seemed equally noiseless.

  Ursula’s Watch officers sounded like a troop of three-legged bears; they managed to find every pile of dead leaves, every half-rotted branch, and every snagging bramble. Katya had to watch them to make sure they weren’t actually rolling through the underbrush to make as much noise as possible.

  Katya crept to Ursula’s side. “We’ll circle around the back. You keep coming from this side.” She glanced at the officers again. “Slowly.”

  Ursula nodded. She had to know how noisy they were.

  Katya inclined her head toward her people. Castelle tiptoed over and whispered in her ear, “We’ll sneak clear around to the other side of the house.”

  Katya nodded and gestured for her team to follow her. Brutal grimaced every time he had to bend low. Katya considered telling him he could hang back, but he knew his limits. He wouldn’t want to miss a chance at combat, nor would he want his friends to go into danger without him. Even injured, he hit like a horse and cart. After all the guards she’d committed to ambushing the decoy Starbride in the woods, Lady Hilda couldn’t have many left. But they hadn’t caught her pyradisté. They needed everyone.

  The house seemed small for a noblewoman, only five or six bedrooms. The exterior was stone, covered in ivy, probably very old. The windows held bubbles of imperfection. The shutters were closed on the second story, a sign that the servants had already started closing part of the house for the winter and that they weren’t expecting guests.

  Some of the shutters on the first floor had been reopened hastily, not fully secured against the house. Someone was in there, and she’d come unexpectedly. There was no one in the small garden, though, no one under the iron gazebo that had already had its awning packed away. No candles or lamplight shone from the windows.

  From the side of the house, a bird called, a starling that had no business being out at that time of year. Katya nodded to Averie, and she repeated the whistle, signaling their readiness. After a few moments in which Katya could actually hear Ursula’s officers getting into place, a poor starling call came from that side, too.

  “Someone doesn’t get out of the city much,” Brutal muttered.

  Katya only had time to grin. Pennynail sprinted toward the house, and the others ran in a line behind him. They pressed their backs against the stones, in between the windows. Two faces peeked around from both sides of the house, telling Katya they were all in place.

  Starbride slipped a pyramid from her satchel. She gripped it and closed her eyes. After a moment, she leaned to Katya’s ear. “There are pyramids active on all the windows and doors.”

  “Damn!” Katya had been hoping the second floor windows would be guarded only by shutters. “Can you disable them?”

  Starbride frowned and closed her eyes again. “He’s very powerful.”

  “He’s no match for you.”

  Starbride smiled slightly but didn’t open her eyes. “I disabled the first floor windows closest to us and the back door.”

  Katya leaned back on her heels. That was fast, far faster than Crowe and more than he’d ever done at one time. Either his age had been affecting his skills ever since Katya had known him, or Starbride was just more powerful.

  Katya held up a hand, fingers flat, signaling the watching faces to wait. Pennynail took a quick look into a window and then slipped a long metal rod between the window and the jamb. With a flick of his wrist, he had the window open, the entire thing rotating in place so that it blocked the middle of the window but let air in on either side. He peeked inside again before he slipped over the sill, his lean body easily fitting through the gap. Starbride slid through after him, though she had to wriggle a little.

  Katya leaned to Brutal’s ear. “Keep Averie and Hugo and meet us at the door.”

  When he nodded, Katya followed Pennynail and Starbride into the house.

  Her feet came to rest in a flour-spattered kitchen. The cupboards were open, hastily unpacked, utensils and globs of ingredients everywhere, as if someone with no skill in the kitchen had tried it out. Pennynail peeked into the hallway beyond. Starbride gripped her detection pyramid again and then shook her head.

  They proceeded into the narrow hallway that extended in both directions. Pennynail crept to the back door while Katya and Starbride stayed in the hall. Katya heard the quick snick of the lock, and then felt the draft as the door opened. Now Brutal, Averie, and Hugo could come inside, but if the inhabitants of the house were unaware of the intruders’ presence before, the draft surely told them now. Katya peeked around the corner, toward the front of the house. She and Starbride crept that way. After a moment of concentration, Starbride nodded. She’d disabled the pyramids on the front door. Katya unlocked it, and Castelle’s troops plus Ursula’s made their way inside.

  One of Castelle’s men looked deliberately up the staircase and shook his head. No one there, either. It seemed strange for such a suddenly crowded house to be so quiet.

  They might have been bears in the forest, but Ursula’s men were silent as thieves in the huge house. They made a quick search of the downstairs rooms. Light flooded through the open shutte
rs of the bedrooms, but Katya thought it unlikely that anyone had slept on the bare mattresses. In the downstairs sitting room, papers lay everywhere, and cabinets had their doors thrown open. If she’d found what she’d been looking for, Lady Hilda might already have flown.

  That left the upstairs. What better place to sleep, with not only pyramids but shutters to protect you? Katya would have done the same. Live on the first floor during the day and the second at night. But it was already far into the day and no one seemed afoot. Unless they were upstairs, waiting for the first intruder to crest the staircase.

  Whoever set that first foot on the stairs would be vulnerable, and a person tumbling down might knock over anyone coming up.

  Katya nodded to Starbride. After a few moments of concentration, Starbride said in her ear, “The pyramids on the windows above are still active, and I sense several others inside the house. I can’t disable them unless I get closer.”

  “Are there any on the stairs?”

  “Let me see if I can reach anything.” She closed her eyes again while their troops took cover under the staircase or in the back door entryway. “There’s something just above us, like…like it’s in the floor.” Her eyes crept open. “Why would you put a pyramid in the floor?”

  “A trap?” Brutal asked.

  Starbride shook her head. “You put a trap in the wall. A pyramid in the floor could get damaged by normal foot traffic.” Her eyes widened. “We need to get out.”

  Katya’s stomach roiled even though she didn’t know the cause. “Out!” she hissed. “Doors and windows, get out now!”

  As everyone hurried to obey, a boom sounded over their heads, making the floor rock beneath Katya’s feet. Wood and plaster rained down amid screams and cries of pain.

  Katya dove down the hallway and pulled Starbride with her. A beam from overhead slammed down on one of Ursula’s men, pulping him on its splintered end. Katya fought to wipe the stinging plaster out of her eyes and tried to get her disorganized thoughts together. An arm pulled her to the side, and she looked up at Averie. She’d lost her bow and was pale with plaster dust, but she appeared unharmed.

  “Where are the others?” Starbride shouted.

  “Brutal and Hugo were on the other side of the hall,” Averie said. “I don’t know about Pennynail.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Katya said. She coughed and fought to wipe the dust from her face. If she knew him at all, he was finding a way to creep upstairs.

  Katya stepped over some debris and searched the floor. She scanned the wounded and the dead, hoping that she wouldn’t see a mass of curly dark hair.

  “Katya!” someone shouted from the front, and then Katya heard the clash of steel on steel.

  Leaving the wounded until after the fight was done, Katya leapt over the remaining debris. “Averie, get people out!”

  Castelle and one of her friends fought three assailants in the front foyer. Castelle had one arm tucked into her jacket as if it was useless. She fought well with her off-hand, but she only parried and tried to stay ahead of one opponent as her friend tried to take on two.

  Katya struck at the back of Castelle’s opponent. He cried out as she scored a cut through his leather armor. When he tried to turn, Castelle slashed him across the throat. One of the other two men turned to face Katya. He swung his sword in a wide arc, driving her back. A shadow loomed over his shoulder. Katya kept her eyes on her opponent’s face.

  Brutal’s mace smashed down on the swordsman’s head. Katya turned away as his face crumpled downward, his skull crushed.

  Castelle and her friend made short work of the remaining man. Katya turned to the stairs. Ursula and one of her men were trying to get to them over the debris. As they stepped beneath the gaping hole in the ceiling, a hand shot out.

  “Down!” Katya shouted.

  Ursula dropped, but her fellow officer was too slow. Quick as a blink, the hand grabbed him by the hair and hauled his screaming, kicking form out of sight.

  “Back, back,” Ursula shouted at those trying to follow her. She launched herself over the debris to land near Katya’s feet.

  “What is it?” Ursula said. “What in the name of the spirits—”

  A strangled cry from upstairs cut her off, and the body of her officer dropped through the hole, minus his head. The laugh that echoed from upstairs had the cold tang of the Fiend in it, making Katya’s mouth fill with the taste of blood.

  Ursula wiped her lips. “Everyone stay away from that hole.”

  Katya glanced to her side. Starbride hadn’t followed her into the foyer…had she? But maybe she had, right under that hole, that grasping hand. Katya knelt and tried to peer through the dust into the cluster of people at the back of the house. “Star?” she whispered. No one answered. “Averie? Hugo?” She glanced to Brutal, but he shrugged. “Starbride? Has anyone seen her?”

  She heard only confused mutterings or cries from the wounded. Fear clenched Katya’s gut as the laugh came from upstairs again.

  Chapter Thirty: Starbride

  Starbride helped Averie pull the wounded down the hall. One young woman cried out as they tugged on her arms, but they couldn’t do anything for her while she was half buried in rubble. Just outside the kitchen, they stopped, and Averie knelt beside the downed woman.

  “I don’t know how much I can do for her,” Averie said. “I’ll look for something to use as a bandage.”

  “Right.” Starbride started back toward Katya, toward where a scream had come only moments earlier.

  Pennynail stepped toward her out of the gloom and pointed upstairs and then at one of the open windows.

  “You want to go in an upstairs window?”

  He nodded.

  Starbride shook her head. “I’ll need to be close to disable the pyramids.”

  He raised his arms above his head, palms flat, as if he would lift her, and then patted his shoulders, saying she could stand there.

  “Well, if I lose my balance at least I’ll fall in the bushes.” She followed him toward the window just as Hugo caught up to them.

  “Someone’s pulling people up through the hole in the floor,” he whispered. “Katya is looking for you.” A scream sounded down the hall again. “Sounds like it got another one.”

  Starbride bit her lip. “I’d be of better use upstairs. Can you tell Katya?”

  He shook his head. “I’m coming with you.”

  Starbride let out a breath, annoyed at his insistence yet glad to have him along. She knelt next to a female officer slumped against the wall and holding a bloody elbow. “Can you move?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Go back down the hall, stay away from that hole, and see if you can get a quiet word to the princess. Tell her Starbride is all right and trying to get upstairs.” She left without waiting for an answer.

  The three of them climbed out a window, and then Pennynail and Hugo boosted Starbride up on their shoulders. She wobbled, and her stomach turned over, but she leaned her knees against the stones and gripped her pyramid, fighting to concentrate.

  She disabled the pyramid guarding the window, picturing it as a soap bubble she could pop. She tried to search farther inside the house and spotted an active pyramid, there and then gone. Someone was on the move. Starbride focused harder and tried to determine the type of pyramid, maybe even disable it, when pain stabbed through her skull. Her pyramid went dark, and she lost her balance. She tumbled onto the two beneath her.

  “Starbride?” Hugo asked. He gently untangled himself from her. “Are you all right?”

  “He…he disabled my pyramid.” She stared at the dark, useless thing, all of its magic stripped away, turning it into so much junk. “He disabled the damned pyramid that I worked so damned hard to make!”

  Hugo actually took a step back. Pennynail’s mask was as cheerful as ever. Starbride glared into it. “The window is safe. Can you get us inside?”

  He hesitated but then nodded. Starbride took a deep breath, glad he hadn’t gestured f
or her to stay put. He scampered up the wall, balanced in cracks in the stone and the window lintel, and jammed his dagger into an upstairs shutter.

  After it swung open, he dropped straight down. A burst of flame shot from where he’d been, catching his long red ponytail. When he hit the ground, he rolled, and tried to smother the flames. Starbride tackled him just as Hugo threw a cloak over his head. They stifled the flames, and when they uncovered him, he tugged them flat against the house before fingering the remaining inches of his mask’s hair.

  “Are you burnt?” Hugo said.

  Pennynail shook his head. They all stared upward.

  “He found the window I disabled,” Starbride said, “the clever bastard, and waited for you there. Two can play that.” She fished around in her satchel and found a flash bomb. “Temperance.” She lobbed her pyramid through the upstairs window.

  When the flash went off, they were rewarded with a little cry. Pennynail was up the wall and through the singed remains of the window in a heartbeat. He appeared a moment later and dangled both arms down, gesturing for them to hurry up.

  Hugo boosted Starbride into the air. She heard him grunt and felt him shake under her weight; she fought the urge to stand on his face. She grasped Pennynail and pushed off the wall as he pulled.

  The room was bare of furniture, and black scorch marks dominated the walls. A man in a chain shirt lay in the corner, a neat wound in his neck. His dead eyes still bore the red rims that came from looking at a flash bomb. Starbride searched him, grimacing at the dead flesh, but she didn’t find a pyramid. She went through her satchel again; she’d only brought one disabler. Crowe would have called her shortsighted. She readied another flash bomb instead, the one pyramid she’d gotten really good at creating.

  A thud came from behind her as Pennynail pulled Hugo inside. When Hugo caught his breath, he nodded at the hallway. Starbride didn’t want to take any chances peeking around corners, but she didn’t have enough flash bombs to chuck them around. She took a piece of crumbled plaster from the floor and tossed it into the hallway. A gout of flame answered her actions, just as she suspected.