Keeper of the Black Stones

by P. T. McHugh

  “One more thing. If he asks you a question, don’t say a word. Just let me handle it, okay?”

  “What if something happens?” Paul asked.

  Reis’ mouth grew firm. “Then you run like hell and wait for me on the southwest side of town. If I don’t find you after thirty minutes, you stick to the plan. Head to Bosworth and find your grandfather, and forget about me. Understand?”

  We nodded wordlessly, watching as he turned back toward the gate. He walked forward, slipping his assault rifle under his robe and leaving us to follow at our own pace.

  19

  Reis crept along the path ahead of us, sticking to the wall as he approached the gate. Paul, Tatiana, and I followed, doing our level best not to be seen or heard. The gate towered above us, built from rough-hewn logs and iron spikes. More spikes lined the top to create a solid layer of razor-sharp metal, ensuring that people went through the gate rather than over it. We slid into the darkness below the wall and I gulped, the eerie silence of the shadow creeping slowly up my spine. The gate to the courtyard was where we’d find the most soldiers, I knew; it was a feature designed to keep intruders out, and was manned as such. But I had no doubt that it was just as effective at keeping prisoners in. And if we couldn’t get out, if we were still here come day break…

  We made it through the partially open gate and onto the path outside the castle before we were caught. I heard a sharp gasp behind me, followed by the sound of a struggle, and whirled around to look back the way we’d come. A tall, dirty soldier in a tattered red and white uniform stood behind Tatiana, his arm around her body and his hand across her mouth. He was at least a foot taller than the girl, and marked with the scars of many battles. A rusty, bent sword hung loosely at his side, but he held a sharp dagger in his hand, close to Tatiana’s side.

  “A lady shouldn’t be out this late in the day,” he slurred, turning his mouth toward her ear and grinning. “I’ll need to know exactly who you lot are, and what you’re about.”

  I sucked my breath in, glancing quickly from the dagger to the sword, then up to the soldier’s face. I saw Reis to my left, moving his hand slowly toward the knife I knew he had in his boot, and heard Paul mumbling under his breath. My gaze flew back to Tatiana’s face, and I caught her wide eyes.

  She looked at me for a moment, raised one eyebrow, and then winked.

  “Oh no,” I breathed, my voice catching in my throat.

  Before anyone else could move, Tatiana threw her hand over her shoulder and grabbed the man’s wrist, crouching down and spinning in the same movement. The soldier flew over her folded body, hitting the ground on the other side with a sickening, bone-crunching thud. He shouted and jumped to his feet, snarling in surprise and anger. Tatiana pressed her lips together in displeasure and circled her opponent, looking for another opening. When she saw him pause, she dove in and grabbed his dangling left arm, shoving it up toward his shoulder. The shoulder popped loudly as it dislocated, and the man screamed. She drove her foot into the soldier’s knee, bringing him to the ground, and finished him off with a solid blow to the head with her other foot. The solder fell on his back, out cold.

  Tatiana looked down at the man, her mouth quirked to the side. “The name’s Tatiana, mister,” she said clearly. “I’m no lady, and I stay out as late as I want.”

  “What the–” Paul cut his statement short as another soldier came rushing from the wall next to us, armed with a 6-foot lance. Reis swore under his breath and stepped quickly between Tatiana and the second soldier. He sidestepped the soldier’s strike, planted his right foot in the dirt, and swung his left leg up toward the man’s face. His foot connected with the soldier’s temple and sent the man crumbling to the ground, the lance falling harmlessly at his side.

  For a moment, no one moved. Then we whirled as one toward the wall, waiting breathlessly for a third attack. Reis kicked the lance away from the unconscious soldier, swung his rifle from his back to his chest, and aimed the weapon at the half-open gate in anticipation. Tatiana remained in a fighting stance, both hands held up in front of her and legs slightly bent. I bent down and picked up two likely looking rocks, trying to remember anything I’d ever learned about throwing. Beside me, Paul stood slack jawed and staring.

  No one else emerged from the gate, though, and I wondered how long they would take to notice their missing comrades.

  “Let’s not stick around to find out,” Reis mumbled, echoing my thoughts. “Run.”

  We broke and ran like startled deer, racing toward the town in the distance and the shelter it offered. No one looked back.

  We didn’t stop running until we were in the center of town, and as hidden from the castle as we could hope to be. The dirt beneath our feet gave way to smooth cobblestones, and we found ourselves in the middle of a vacant street in Doncaster.

  “Wow,” Paul breathed, looking around.

  I had to agree with him. Dozens of stone homes rose up as high as three stories on either side of the street, crowding each other and blocking out what little sun remained. They were roofed with everything from stone and wood to some sort of dull gray material, and featured large wooden doors perched atop wide stone steps. Windows were lined with colorful curtains and decorative trim.

  “Definitely the rich side of town,” Tatiana murmured.

  To our left, a massive stone cathedral crested the skyline. Wooden scaffolding surrounded it and ran up its four towers; evidently the local church was still under construction.

  “Rich enough to build quite a nice church,” Paul agreed, gazing up at the buttresses.

  Suddenly Reis’ hands came down on our shoulders, bringing us back to reality. “Move!” he snapped. “We don’t have time to take in the sights!” I looked to my left and noticed several people milling about outside their homes. They’d taken an interest in us, and were starting to point. Reis was right–we had to move.

  Seconds later we were running again, racing through streets and back alleys in a mad dash to get out of the town. As we moved away from the center of the city, the homes became noticeably smaller, two stories in lieu of three, and less impressive in their construction. Wood replaced stone, the doors became less elaborate, and the windows changed in nature; holes in the walls, with barely any covering. The streets became rougher, filled with garbage and potholes, the cobblestones slick with unnamed substances.

  We were racing around a corner the first time Paul fell. He put his foot into a deep pot hole right in front of me and went down like a sack of potatoes, grunting at the impact.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, skidding to a stop and bending down to help him up. “Are you alright?”

  He nodded, dazed, and tried to stand. “I think I twisted my ankle, but I’ll be okay.”

  “What the hell are you two doing, playing in the mud?” Reis shouted from the street ahead of us. “Get up, get moving!”

  I broke into a sprint again, Paul hobbling along next to me, and glanced at the buildings around us, looking for possible enemies. On either side of the street, large wooden signs protruded from the doorways to identify the occupant’s trade. An arm wrapped in a bandage depicted a doctor’s office, a bushel on a pole with a pint of ale no doubt marked the location of a tavern, a large pig identified a butcher, a dress for a tailor, and so on. The shops, of course, were closed for the night, but it wasn’t hard to imagine how busy and full of life this part of town became during the daylight hours. No one was around at the moment, though, and I thought that we were probably safe.

  A loud explosion sounded suddenly behind me, disabusing me of that notion. I stumbled at the concussion, and Paul fell to the ground again. This time, Reis raced back to help us.

  “Canon fire,” he snapped.

  “They’re shooting at us?” I gasped. “With canons?”

  “No, it’s a warning. They’re letting everyone in town know that we’re here. This way!”

  He threw Paul’s arm over his shoulder and darted forward, half dragging my friend into
the closest alley. We raced toward the opening at the end, where we could see fields and trees. If we could get out of the town, I thought, we’d be safer.

  The canon fired again and I instinctively ducked, then increased my speed. Tatiana appeared suddenly at my side, matching my pace. We raced past piles of garbage and rats the size of small dogs, barely noticing our surroundings in our panic.

  Then the alley, along with the densely packed buildings around it, was gone, and we were outside the city. Reis pushed us over the small wooden bridge beyond the last building, and we sprinted forward until at last the city and its stench fell behind us.

  We reached a small copse of trees several minutes later. Without a word, all four of us darted into the underbrush, paused, and collapsed.

  Reis didn’t let us rest long. Less than ten minutes later we were back on the road, now under cover of darkness, jogging quickly toward a farm that sat several miles from the city of Doncaster. I quickened my pace to catch up with Reis, who was moving with a long, steady stride that ate the miles. In the end, I had to sprint to keep up with him.

  “What are we going to do?” I huffed quietly.

  Reis grunted and pointed toward the barn ahead. “We’re going to get to that barn and find some sort of cover. I don’t like being on the open road when people are chasing us with canons and guns.”

  “I don’t think canons move that fast, actually,” Paul called from behind us. “They’re … you know … heavy.” His voice faded off at my quick glance, and he looked down.

  “Not the point, Paul,” Reis muttered. “We’re fairly limited on time, here. We can’t afford any delays. And that includes hiding for too long from thrill-seeking soldiers with heavy–but definitely deadly–canons.”

  His final words brought us abreast of the stable, and we slid down to the ground gratefully, our backs resting against the crude wall of the building. A full moon had swung into the sky, and the landscape was relatively clear before us. From this distance, we could still make out the towers of the castle, as well as the church, jutting up against the moonlit sky. The stars scattered across the darkness were brighter than any I’d ever seen in my life, with the country around us smooth and dark. The land around us was relatively flat, and appeared to be tilled for farming. Farther away, I could see stalks of wheat or corn, gently swaying in the breeze. No skyscrapers rose into the blackness, no streetlights ran along the roads. Of course there were no streetlamps, I realized suddenly. There was no electricity. These people counted on fire–candles, torches, and bonfires–to cut through the darkness. This deserted area, and the barn behind us, were lit only by the moon.

  It would have been peaceful, if we weren’t running for our lives.

  Reis had been leaning against the wall behind me, scanning the scene for soldiers or danger. Now he jumped back into action, grabbing a compass, flashlight, and the map from various pockets in his ensemble.

  “Don’t move!” he snapped at Paul, scooting toward him. He grabbed the end of Paul’s robe, then bent forward and threw it over his head. Within seconds he–and the flashlight–had disappeared.

  Paul, Tatiana, and I were left staring stupidly at the space where he had been.

  “Checking our position,” I muttered, answering the question before Paul could ask. It made sense–we had to know where we were, and we couldn’t risk anyone seeing the light from the torch. Not out here in the middle of nowhere.

  “Well I’m glad somebody has a plan,” Paul said with a shake of his head.

  I snorted. He’d evidently forgotten that we’d talked about this before we left home. We waited tensely, our eyes trained on the landscape around us, while Reis figured out where we were.

  “If my mother could see me now…” Tatiana murmured, pulling her hair into a tighter bun. “Running from people with guns and swords, watching a road for signs of attack… I’d be getting a strong lecture on the meaning of ‘lady like.’” She laughed at some memory, shaking her head.

  “Tatiana, is that a Russian name?” Paul asked suddenly, breaking the silence. “Is your mother Russian?”

  Tatiana looked at him and paused a moment before answering. “It’s a Russian name, but I’m Romanian,” she said.

  “Kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”

  Tatiana shook her head. “No, Russia is a Slavic country. Romania is Latin based. Also, they’re different countries. For those who care about geography.”

  Paul nodded, trying to pretend he knew what she was talking about. “Fleming, though, that’s your last name, right? Isn’t that–”

  “Fleming is not my name,” she snapped, her voice low and intense. “My last name is Lazar. My mother’s name.”

  Paul held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, wildcat, I was just asking. Sheesh.” He turned to me and raised his eyebrows. “Talk about oversensitive.”

  I looked past him at the girl, wondering where all that anger came from. “What exactly happened between you and your father?” I asked quietly.

  “What’s it to you?” she snapped back.

  I shrugged. “You have your mom’s last name. You hate your father. Insisted on coming with us, just to make sure he was stopped. Seems like the obvious question.”

  She frowned and looked like she was going to snap at me again, but then sighed. Her face softened, and she opened her mouth to answer.

  Before she could say anything, a scream ripped through the still night air.

  Tatiana’s mouth shut with a snap, and she jumped to her feet. “What on earth was that?”

  “Someone’s crying,” I said, rising quickly to my feet as well. “Where’s it coming from, can you tell?”

  Reis emerged from under Paul’s robe, grasping the map and flashlight to his chest. “Okay,” he muttered quietly, “if the coordinates you gave us are correct, I know which direction to go, if we–”

  The scream sounded again, cutting Reis off mid-sentence, and his mouth dropped open. Now that I was listening for it, I could hear exactly where it was coming from. A girl was in the barn we’d been sitting against. She’d been quiet when we first got here, but now she was sobbing. And screaming intermittently.

  “Stay here!” Reis said. He stood up and made his way slowly toward the corner of the stable.

  I watched him for a moment, then started after him. “Stay here,” I said to Paul, pushing past him.

  “What, with the ice princess? I don’t think so,” Paul muttered. He stepped into place beside me, and we crept along the wall. I didn’t have to look back to know that Tatiana was following us; I could feel her breath on my neck.

  We walked quickly around the corner of the barn, accompanied by the nameless girl’s cries, and found ourselves half standing, half kneeling beside the back door of a stable, adjacent to the cottage. Now that we were closer, I could hear that the girl was actually crying for help. Begging for someone to save her. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see that the farm was deserted. The door to the house hung wide open, and broken furniture was strewn across the yard.

  No one was coming to save the girl.

  “Are we going to just hang out back here, or are we going to do something?” Paul whispered suddenly.

  Reis turned around and was about to answer when another sound interrupted him. Several men were laughing at the girl’s distress, and it wasn’t pleasant. The sounds of their voices made my blood run cold and the hair on my neck stand up. Beside me, Tatiana grew tense and stifled a snarl.

  We dropped as one to the ground behind the half-open door of the barn. It was built of dense, heavy boards, but the construction was poor; there were half-inch spaces between the slats. The light from inside the barn spilled though these openings, and we bent greedily to peer through. I’d never been in a barn before, but I suspected that this one held what most of them would–a horse, multiple piles of straw, two pigs, and several chickens, with some tools lining the walls. A few torches sat in holes in the bracings, throwing their light over rough dirt floors, which were
strewn with manure and dirty straw. But it wasn’t the tools, straw, or animals that grabbed our attention as we peered intently through the slatted door.

  A short, round man dressed in bright green and blue robes, his hands flashing with jeweled rings, stood over a small girl in the center of the room. I couldn’t see much of her, but she didn’t look much older than Tatiana. She was certainly much smaller than the girl at my side. Two ugly, rough-looking men with dark features stood behind the fat man. They too wore robes, but in darker, more muted shades of brown and black. All three men were gazing intently at the young girl, who lay helplessly in front of them.

  The girl’s dress, face, and hands were covered in mud. Her hair was matted and tangled with blood and dirt, which also covered most of her face. There was blood on her knees and elbows, which she clutched against her ribs. She was down on the ground, as though one of the men had hit her and she’d fallen. She turned over now, and looked up at the three men who stood over her. Her expression was a mixture of fear, hatred, and outright rage.

  20

  The Bishop’s mouth curled into an even uglier smirk and he swept his heavily booted foot toward her ribs again. “Your father was just hanged for treason, girl. You have no hope of salvation,” he snarled.

  Katherine curled inward to avoid the worst of the blow, and forced her mouth shut on the scream. It would do her no good, she knew; the men were here to beat her into submission, and her moans and cries would only goad them on. They had been here for some time already, and no amount of talking on her part had stopped them. She was bruised, cut, and bleeding in several places. She could no longer see out of one eye, and thought that several of her ribs might be broken. But her pain wasn’t going to stop these men either. In fact, she believed that it would get worse before the end.