The King Slayer Part 24

Malcolm nods. Turns to me. And there, in the field around us full of men and revenants and hybrids, the sky full of black, seething, impenetrable fog, is my clue.

"Blackwell once told us the best way to achieve one objective is to make your opponent believe you're trying to achieve another." Realization drops my voice low. "In a battle, this means chaos, disorder, feints, misinformation. You're so preoccupied with what's in front of you that you don't see what's happening around you. He called it the fog of war."

"What is his objective, then?" one of Malcolm's men says.

"Rochester Hall." Keagan jerks around to look at me, her eyes wide.

I should have sensed it, known it; as soon as I saw Blackwell's men, his creatures, all here in front of me: It was a diversion. A way to concentrate all our men here, too, so he could reach the one place he really wanted.

But not only that.

I think of how John disappeared the moment the battle began.

I think of Nicholas's warning to him, the one that felt more like instruction.

And I think of Blackwell's constant advis.e.m.e.nt: Warfare is based on deception. This time, I wasn't deceived by Blackwell, someone I expected. This time I was deceived by two people I didn't, people I trusted.

Maybe Keagan can see it in my face; maybe she's realized it, too. But she turns to me, her blue eyes wide, the black s.m.u.ts from the burning revenants stuck to her face.

"Let's go." She gestures to Malcolm, his men. "Stay behind me. All of you. If he's trying to keep us away, he'll try to stop us. I'll burn what I can, but keep your weapons out."

With only a precious few knives left, I yank my bow from my shoulder, an arrow from the quiver at my waist. Malcolm readies his sword. The three of us plunge into the organized disarray, dodging men and arrows and rain, running back the way we came. We don't get more than a few hundred feet before a flapping noise, like wash on a laundry line, fills the air. Dark shapes fill the darkening sky: winged, oily, sharp. I remember them, these hybrids, from training. We killed them once but now they live again, this time en ma.s.se. Five, ten, then fifteen of them a.s.sault the sky.

At once, they swoop. Onto the fields, claws out, pointed, deadly, snapping up man after man indiscriminately, slas.h.i.+ng them open, some of ours, some of his. But I know Blackwell doesn't care. He won't be satisfied until we're all dead and he's the last one standing, because a king over nothing is still a king over everything.

They come with a caw, dipping and wheeling and grasping, picking up men the way birds pluck worms from the ground, wriggling and trying in vain to escape. Keagan holds up her palms and at once the air is filled with threads of fire, wrapping around three of the hybrids, consuming them in flames.

I raise my bow and take aim. As with most of Blackwell's hybrids, their eyes are the weakest spot, and that's where I fire. Once, twice. I miss the first but land the second, then the third. The thing shrieks and plummets to the ground in a jumble of leathery black wings and purplish-black blood. Malcolm finishes it off with a clean slice of his blade to its neck, severing the head from the body.

I reload; Keagan readies her fire. But for every hybrid we kill, three more appear and descend on us, as if they've been sent straight for us. That's when I see it: a ma.s.s of white across the sky, as thick as a cloud but faster, denser. And then I see her, sitting in the highest branch in the highest tree, a silhouette of a girl in white against the marbled black sky. Coll, the girl who can control animals.

She sees me watching her and grins, c.o.c.ky and sure. Coll raises her hand skyward and curls her fingers slowly, as if beckoning. I see her lips moving, muttering, speaking an incantation to that ma.s.s in the sky. Then she slices her hand through the air, a blur.

The birds dive. Into the ma.s.s of blood and limbs and screams, and unlike Blackwell's hybrids, they attack only black: pecking at faces, ears, mouths, gouging out eyeb.a.l.l.s. The air is filled with the sounds of flapping wings, screeching beaks, feathers and leathery skin and death.

We start to run again, Keagan beside me, Malcolm and his men behind me. I need to get to Rochester. I need to find Blackwell, I need to stop John, to stop Nicholas, from whatever it is they think they're doing, from whatever mistake they are undoubtedly making.

We make it a couple hundred yards, maybe, when suddenly the ground begins to buckle and jerk beneath us. It trembles and rumbles, as if something from far beneath is pus.h.i.+ng its way through, shaking the trees from the ground, me from my feet, my weapon from my hand. Keagan spins one way, I fall the other, plunging face-first into a damp smear of leaves, Malcolm skidding beside me. There's a crack like thunder, a sway I can almost feel. I s.n.a.t.c.h my bow with one hand, Malcolm with the other, and roll us both over as an oak tree smashes to the ground with another earth-shattering tremble, where the pair of us lay not a half second before.

"That was too G.o.dd.a.m.ned close." Malcolm's lying beneath me, his mouth pressed against my ear. "How is he seeing us? How does he know where we are?"

"Don't you know this yet, about your uncle?" I jump to my feet, pull him to his. "He always knows everything."

Keagan screams at us to keep moving, her voice dampened by the smoke that rends the air; somewhere, something is burning, from her magic or from Blackwell's. She directs us away from the trees, into the open field. I turn to follow but as I do, I catch a glimpse of him. Malcolm sees him, too, and then he's at my side, his sword raised as we look at him, standing at the mouth of the forest, alone, as still and rooted as the trees around him.

Caleb.

HE WATCHES ME-ONLY ME-HIS EYES as gray and restless as the Severn. And, as the Severn, there is no telling what may lie beneath the surface. I hesitate a moment, studying him as he does me, wondering what he plans to do. I can feel Keagan beside me: the heat s.h.i.+mmering around her, ready to attack him, to kill him before he can kill us.

But I don't think he will. Caleb can hear me, he can feel me. He's known where I've been ever since this battle began. I didn't wear Fifer's necklace, not today; I needed Schuyler to be able to hear me. If Caleb wanted me dead, he would have done it by now; there's nothing or no one that could stop him. So what does he want then, standing there, staring at me, if not to kill me?

I start for him.

"No." Malcolm steps in front of me, to try to stop me.

"It's all right," I say. "I don't think he'll hurt me. I think"-I glance at Caleb, see his slight, almost imperceptible nod-"he wants to talk to me."

Malcolm and Keagan exchange a rapid glance.

"Revenants aren't much for talking, are they? No." Keagan answers her own question. "But if he's got something to say, it might be worth hearing. As long as he doesn't get any other ideas."

A burst of flame leaps from Keagan's palm; she lobs it across the field toward Caleb. He's fast but the fire is faster; he spins out of the way but not before the flame grazes the side of his head. He turns back to us, eyes gleaming with malice.

"Antagonizing a revenant," I say. "That wasn't wise."

"It's wiser than you think," Keagan replies. "Now go, before I change my mind and set him alight like St. Crispin's Day fireworks. We'll be watching from the woods."

I cross the ruined field to where Caleb waits for me. He's dressed in uniform, as the last time I saw him: black tunic, black trousers, Blackwell's badge on his sleeve and the insignia of the Knights of the Anglian Royal Empire on his chest. His blond hair is singed black over his left ear, smoking slightly.

"Elizabeth." Those gray eyes flick over me, empty, but not with hostility. "You're alive."

"Yes." But then, because I can't help it-I never can-I add, "Are you planning to change that?"

Something then, a glimmer behind his cold expression. If this was the Caleb I knew, I'd almost think it was amus.e.m.e.nt. Then it's gone.

"No," he says. "I don't plan to hurt you."

"What are you doing here?" I say. "You should be fighting. Killing. It's what he wants, isn't it? It's what he would order."

A pause. Then: "That's not what he's ordered me to do."

It's the things they don't ask that can be taken advantage of. Schuyler's words play in my head.

"What did he order you to do?" I ask, knowing as I do he can't tell me.

"Your friends," he says instead. "They know what has to be done. They all do."

"My friends?" I want to ask Caleb what he means, but I know he can't tell me that, either. Instead, I think about why he's here. It's not to help me; Caleb has always only wanted to help himself. It is as Schuyler said: He is beholden, but he doesn't want to be held. He is disloyal without being disobedient. But all of these things are in service of a goal that, for once, is the same as mine. So I try and frame my words in a way that will help us both.

"If I go to Rochester Hall," I say, "what will I find?"

Caleb's eyes flash, an acknowledgment of my guile. "What you are looking for."

I turn then, and I run. I don't wait to see if Caleb follows me, or if Keagan and Malcolm and his men do. It scarcely matters. All that matters is reaching Rochester Hall, to find what Caleb wants me to find, to play my part even though I don't know how it's written.

To confront whatever is happening there before I'm too late to stop it.

I thread through the woods, through the trees until the smoke ends and fire dies and the rain runs out, until I reach the other side, plunging into the open rolling valley and heading north toward Rochester. Now that the battlefield is behind me, I see how little progress was made. So much destruction for so little direction.

Thirty minutes of hard, flat-out running and I finally reach Rochester. Whatever magic Blackwell used to keep us corralled in battle doesn't exist here, where the air is pale blue and clear, sweet and silent. The barrier does not exist here, either: It was altered before the battle to allow our side in but Blackwell's side out in the event of a retreat. But no magic can stop Blackwell, I knew that even then.

And now I know it was never meant to: that the plan all along was to bring him in.

Rochester Hall stretches in front of me, that bastion of red brick and beauty and safety: the safest place in all of Harrow. The surrounding grounds are empty of men, the lake serene and smooth. No shrieking from the monsters above, no crying from the bodies below, only the third-quarter moon, half black and half white, hanging low in the horizon. Even my footsteps across the road sound m.u.f.fled, a tiptoe instead of a crunch, a sigh instead of a groan. This is a relief to me; it means the women and children-and Fifer and George-remain safe inside. But then, they are not who Blackwell is after.

I peel yet another arrow from the quiver at my waist, and nock it into place before stepping from the main road onto the footpath, then to the bridge that leads across the lake. I'm vulnerable-too vulnerable-and it's in every move I make. My slow, careful footsteps; the way I swing the bow up, down, left, right; the way I control my breath in an effort to contain my careening pulse.

The path ends at the ma.s.sive iron door, barred shut. There are only three ways, that I know of, to access the grounds from the outside: across the lake on boats, through the main door, and through the tunnel specially allowed for John.

But the tunnel will be closed to me, because John is not with me. I need to find another way. Rochester is so highly protected magically that I think there may be no other way. I turn left, walking along the parapets, searching. Nothing, just an endless stretch of red brick. Then I see it: a tiny stone monkey crouched on a parapet, its head c.o.c.ked to the side, staring at something directly below it. I remember the gargoyles at Ravenscourt, how they marked secret entrances, pa.s.sages that led into and out of the castle.

I run my hand along the surface and soon enough I feel it, buried in the tracery, the intricate lacework of stone that decorates the wall. A latch. I hook my finger into it, pull. There's a low, echoing click and a s.h.i.+fting of brick: a door. It creaks open, leaving just enough room for me to slide through.

Inside is a tunnel, perhaps an adjunct to John's, perhaps different; it's hard to tell in the dark. But I push my way through it, a thousand twists and turns and dead ends, until I find another panel that slides open behind a marbled bust, one of a dozen I pa.s.sed in the east wing on my way to visit Malcolm the week before.

Where could Blackwell be? Nicholas said he would not hesitate. That he would not risk the time to go back to Upminster to perform the ritual. Once he has John he won't need much to perform it: a ritual room and four elements; an eight-pointed star and a sacrifice.

My footsteps are m.u.f.fled by the thick carpet underneath as I dash through the west wing, forgoing bedchambers and solars for great halls and music rooms: s.p.a.ces that are bare enough to allow for adornment, private enough to discourage discovery.

Even disallowing half the rooms in Rochester as options, it takes ages to search them all. There are so many floors, so many hallways, so many twists and turns that I lose my way, only to search the same spot twice.

Still, nothing.

I stop and I think. Try for a moment to put myself into Blackwell's frame of mind, his insane desperation. He's in a place he doesn't know. He doesn't have time to learn about it, to walk from room to room and risk getting lost, as I have.

I walk to the window, staring out at the late-afternoon sky. From here, the trees are blocking my view of the horizon. Nicholas said the moon was not necessary for the ritual, only preferable. But he also said that this time, Blackwell would not take any chances. If I were the gambling type-I'm not, at least not with lives that aren't my own-I would wager that Blackwell will want to see it; to be close to it. He will want the security it brings him, when he's in a place and a position that gives him none.

I turn in place, trying to align myself with the direction where it will be visible. If the sun is to the west, the moon will be directly north. A room facing north could be both in the east wing and the west, but those in the west face nothing but hills; I remember seeing them the day I visited Malcolm. Besides, they're all chamber rooms there, and carpeted: difficult to draw a star upon. The east wing, then.

Keeping an eye on windows as I pa.s.s, I race through the ma.s.sive entryway into the east wing until I reach the stretch of rooms Fitzroy kept open for his troops to visit. I pa.s.s the library-a too-crowded s.p.a.ce for a ritual; the chapel-too holy; the dance hall-too windowless. Finally, I reach the dark, polished door at the end. Small, quiet, facing due north and banked with windows for visibility: the music room.

I hesitate, just a moment. I fear what I'll find when I open the door; I fear what I will not find. Raising my bow, I shoulder open the door.

Inside: wood-paneled and tapestried walls, a grid of parqueted floors, a bank of stained gla.s.s windows casting around fractured, jewel-toned light from the fading sun. In the center of the room stands a group of figures, gradually coming into focus as my eyes adjust to the darkness.

The first I antic.i.p.ated, tall and deadly and dressed entirely in black: Marcus. The second I expected, slashed and twisted and st.i.tched back together, dressed as a king in crimson and gold, ermine and jewels, sewn with his coat of arms and always, always, that d.a.m.ned strangled rose: Blackwell.

But the third I neither expected nor antic.i.p.ated, standing sacrifice in the center of the room, his ivory robes ripped and pulled apart as if by a beast, blood blooming fast against his chest: Nicholas.

If they're surprised to see me, none of them shows it. Marcus regards me with gleeful malice; Blackwell with feigned disinterest. But Nicholas doesn't regard me at all, eyes fixed intently at a spot somewhere over my head, as if he doesn't even see me.

I blurt out his name, start toward him, but stop when Blackwell pulls a knife from nowhere and holds it to Nicholas's throat.

"Let him go," I say, a useless plea.

"You found me," Blackwell says. "Although it's not me you're looking for at all, is it? You came for your healer, didn't you, to bid him one final good-bye before I take back what is rightfully mine? I have to say, Elizabeth, I'm surprised. Giving up your power, your own life, to save his?" He shakes his head. "A pity you didn't show me half that loyalty."

By way of response, I raise my shaking bow and aim it at the gaping hole that holds the remains of a milky, ruined eye.

"Charming, as always." The s whistles serpentine through his cavernous cheek.

I glance at Nicholas once more, to try to get a sense of how injured he is, if he can move, if he can help me somehow rescue him. But he still does not meet my gaze.

"Set down your weapons," Blackwell commands. "All of them."

I don't.

"Do it," he says, "or his blood will be on you." As if to ill.u.s.trate his point, he slides the tip of the knife into Nicholas's bare, vulnerable neck. A line of blood dark as ink appears, joining the rest on his tunic.

"Don't!" I throw out my arm, the one holding the bow, and it drops with a thunk to the parquet floor. One by one I lay down my sword, my knives, my quiver of arrows, and back away.

"You forgot the one in your boot," Blackwell says.

Unwillingly, I reach into my boot and toss my knife-my last-into the pile. Before Blackwell, before Marcus, I am completely, utterly vulnerable.

Blackwell releases Nicholas then, throws him to the ground. He lands on his stomach; there's blood on the back of his cloak, too. He's injured worse than I imagined; he may even be dying. Marcus-I suspect this is his work-could have so easily finished the job. Why didn't Blackwell order him to?

A breeze of a warning makes the hair on my neck stand on end.

"Nicholas." I keep my voice low to disguise its trembling. "Listen to me. Look at me. Don't let him-"

"That's enough of that," Blackwell barks. "He cannot hear you. Even if he could, he would not reply. Nicholas is under my command now, and he must do what I say. Exactly what I say." Blackwell snaps his fingers and Nicholas rises, puppetlike, to stand by his side. Another snap and his eyes s.h.i.+ft to mine, finally seeing me. They narrow to hard, obsidian slits.

Blackwell circles around him, the hard soles of his polished boots a staccato against the floor.

"We have some unfinished business, you and I," he says to me. "And I thought it fitting that the one who once saved you"-a dismissive wave at Nicholas-"should be the one to end you."

Another snap, and Nicholas raises his arm, points a finger in my direction. And with the unseen force of a battering ram, I'm lifted off my feet and thrown backward across the room. I slam into the hard, paneled wall, my breath and half my consciousness knocked out of me.

I drop to my knees, try to breathe. Try to stand. Another snap and I'm thrown forward to the floor. Another snap: backward into the wall. My head rings from the force of the blows, I cannot breathe, and I cannot think fast enough to know what to do. So I do the only thing I know how: I lunge for the pile of weapons on the floor.

I don't make it.

Yet another snap of Blackwell's fingers propels Nicholas once more into action.

He turns to the window, throwing his arms wide, conducting the bank of stained gla.s.s panels as they bow and crackle and then, with an explosion like thunder, a kaleidoscope of deadly shards hurtles toward me.

I run-I almost don't make it-to the wall and the tapestry before me, diving beneath it just as the gla.s.s shatters around me, a dull thud against the thick, dense wool. A few larger pieces pierce the fabric like daggers, stabbing my cheeks and my arms, drawing hot drops of blood I don't bother to wipe away. Because the warning I felt before, the slight breeze of a caution, has now turned into a torrent with understanding.

In the first, failed ritual attempt, Blackwell offered up a raven as sacrifice: its death an oblation for his own, to be forever withheld. Now, in his second attempt, Blackwell needs another sacrifice. He could have chosen anyone or anything, another humble raven, perhaps; it needs only to be a living, breathing thing. Instead, Blackwell chose Nicholas. An act of revenge, perhaps, or twisted symbolism: to extinguish Nicholas's light in order for Blackwell to shroud the world in dark.

But for him to risk capturing the only man with power to rival his own at a time when he cannot risk anything, that tells me the real reason: Blackwell is out of magic.

Just as the Azoth gives power, the way it gave to me when I used it, it takes power, too, from those it injures-and from those it curses. A curse can deplete magic, Nicholas said. And while Blackwell's got enough power left to control Nicholas, it's not enough to carry out the ritual. Not with whatever magic he used up to be here in Rochester, to control his army, his creatures, his revenants.

Caleb must have known this. It must have been why he sent me, at least in part. Because maybe-maybe-if I'm able to bypa.s.s Marcus's malevolence and Nicholas's capitulation to get to my weapons, I can take advantage of Blackwell's weakness. Before he sacrifices Nicholas, before he finds John, before he can carry out his insane plan of immortality.

To do the impossible. Again.