THIRTY-NINE

IT TOOK US an hour to travel to the northeastern wall, where hills and forest backed up close to the Turholm. It took Sepp a further twenty minutes of casting around to find the tunnel’s entrance, twenty minutes full of dark glances from the soldiers, their knuckles turning white as grips shifted and tightened on sword hilts.

At last Sepp found the remnants of the pony’s tracks, deep-cut crescents indicating how much she’d laboured under the weight of me, unconscious on her back. Following the tracks brought us to the entrance, a chink of darkness hidden slantwise behind a fallen boulder.

‘There,’ he said, pointing.

Sidonius eyed it doubtfully, but a soldier slipped through with a scrape of metal on rock, and pronounced it true.

moments later I was ducking my head forward into the darkness, the air damp with the smell of limestone and earth. Every fifth man carried a torch, the guttering red light deepening the walls to black and setting off a hissing when water dripped into them. The rest of the world was cut off as we walked.

There was no telling how the battle overhead progressed, whether Dieter had unleashed any disastrous new tricks, whether the Iltheans were scaling the walls or ramming the gates. There was only the steady tramp of feet through echoing stone passages, the squeak of studded sandals, the drip and hiss of water, the flutter and gutter of flames from the torches.

At last the tunnel climbed steeply, grooves cut into the rock floor aiding traction. The stable was nigh. Every nerve felt on edge.

Sidonius must have guessed we were close, for he motioned me back from the lead before he and a handful of men approached the rear of the false wooden wall. They paused, listening, then Sidonius motioned to me: be ready.

I had no weapons other than my strange power, and no Roshi to help me guide it forth. If the door was guarded by one of Dieter’s golems or some other arcana, it would be up to me to overcome it. I shivered, terrified.

The door swung open, and a half-dozen Turasi faces turned towards the movement, hands reaching for their weapons.

The Iltheans were faster, Sidonius spitting two of them before they’d even drawn their swords. His men swept by on either side, their short, brutal blades driving through the lungs or stomachs of the remaining four.

The bodies slumped to the floor, their blood soaking into the straw, giving a coppery note to the warm, rich air. Down an aisle a horse whickered, then fell quiet.

I held my breath, but no one came.

Sidonius gestured the rest of his force into the stables behind me.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any other way out of here?’ Sidonius asked in low tones.

I shook my head, uncomfortably aware of the short, claw-like swords unsheathed at my back.

‘Figured not. Right, then, lad. Your turn,’ he said, hooking a hand under Sepp’s elbow and jostling him towards the courtyard, where every Turasi worth his salt would be waiting for them.

Fear twisting my guts at the thought of Sepp caught in the midst of Turasi fire, I hurried to keep up. With aching care we crept the stable’s length towards the square of daylight tumbling in from the courtyard. Just inside the door, still in the safety of shadows, Sidonius stopped.

The upper courtyard appeared empty. All the men were on the walls. By the cries and the clash of metal and the whistle of arrows, the Iltheans outside were keeping them occupied. Stepping into broad daylight felt like walking to my doom. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the sky, transfixed by the threat of death falling from the pale blue sweep overhead.

A faint whistle built around us, flowering into a whine, then rocks exploded down into the courtyard, a scattershot of fist-sized stones which tore through flesh and chewed into wooden beams.

I screamed and ducked, arms over my head. No one else so much as flinched.

‘You didn’t call off the ballistae?’ I asked, indignity heating my cheeks as I straightened.

‘If I did that, they’d have more time to notice us,’ said Sidonius.

‘It’ll be hard enough getting to those gates unseen without having to dodge missiles.’

‘I can hardly call them off now,’ he pointed out. ‘If you’re worried about being hit, figure out a way to protect us.’

This time he let the bulk of his force precede us, a rush of Iltheans borne forward by the ferocity of their weapons, stabbing and hamstringing Dieter’s men from behind. Blood flowed and splashed, and we followed in the wake of a red mist curling on the breeze.

We kept to the stable wall and, for one long moment, while the surprise lasted, it looked easy. Effortless. Like stabbing unarmed nobles in the midst of Aestival.

But it couldn’t last, and in the next moment the Turasi rallied, turning to face the new threat, rushing from the walls and into the courtyard. Like ants swarming from a kicked nest, their numbers seemed endless as the hot swirl of battle pressed in on us, hemming us in on all sides, crippling our progress.

The gates were only spans away, but between us and our object stood scores of Turasi. Though they wore different liveries, all had a single purpose – to annihilate us.

Sidonius welcolmed them with a feral cry, hefting his sword as Turasi rushed towards us.

You called up the earth as if it were a fluid. Whether the voice was Grandmother’s, Roshi’s or my own, I didn’t know. Air is not so different, surely?

I tried to imagine the air turned solid above us, like a blanket stretched taut to keep out the rain. But I found no tremor of connection inside me.

Forgetting Sepp, sidonius pushed to the front line to meet the battle. Cocooned in the jostling centre, I groped for Sepp’s hand, which was as clammy as mine. The men in front stood close enough that I could trace the muscles in their back without stretching. The squeal of iron and snarl of ripping cloth beat at me from all sides. Underneath the grunts and smacks, came the moist sound of flesh puncturing.

An Ilthean rammed his sword outward, a crimson arc exploding from the back of his Turasi opponent. At the same time hot blood sprayed across my chest as a Turasi scored his own Ilthean. The ilthean crumpled to the ground, opening a gap in the circle before me. No one stepped in to close it.

The Turasi soldier recognised me and, wrapping his knuckles tighter around the shaft, aimed the point of his spear towards my heart. A thin wail like rocks screaming sounded overhead and I looked up. The dead Ilthean soldier’s blood dripped down my chest as I saw the boulder arc towards my head.

Sepp jerked me back and the rock slammed down onto the Turasi’s head, driving him into the ground in a puddle of meat. Bone and brain splashed up at my face.

Sidonius was watching me. Swallowing hard, I bent and retrieved a dropped sword, its grip sticky with fresh blood.

‘Which is the best way?’ Sidonius shouted at me.

‘In the open,’ I replied, my voice distant and shaky. ‘Let’s finish this quickly.’

He hesitated, distrust in his eyes, wondering if I’d simply snapped, my sanity broken by watching a man struck down before me, by the sheer dumb luck of it all. Or perhaps he saw his death in my eyes.

‘Lead the way,’ he said, removing any chance I had of sticking him in the back. ‘Sepp, with me,’ he added.

I stepped into the lead, the blade heavy and awkward in my hands. Sepp walked to my right, Sidonius on his other side. The Ilthean to my left suddenly lunged forward, blocking my way with his shield. An arrow thunked into the solid wood, tail quivering.

Dust puffed from the main gates with every smack of the battering ram, the noise of it like a pulse. Blood pounded in my ears, in counterpoint to the ram’s rhythmic thudding. The winch and chain shivered with each blow.

Sidonius and his men charged at the gates and the Turasi protecting them, again raising the song of steel. As they streamed past me, I stood in the open, forgotten. No one grabbed at me or insisted I follow. The blade pulled at my arms, only the tacky grip keeping it from falling. Sepp stood at my side. He had found a blade, and held it with more confidence than I gripped mine. Swivelling on his heel, he was scanning the battle all around us for direct threats even as he said, ‘We should find somewhere safer …’

I didn’t answer.

Catching sight of my expression, Sepp followed my line of sight and found the reason.

Dieter stepped out of the swirl of people and stopped before me, his black uniform bloody, his knuckles ripped raw beneath their torn leather bindings. Fear pinned me where I stood and turned my muscles to water.

He smiled as if he knew the effect he had on me. ‘I should have slit your throat at Aestival.’

‘Do it now,’ I said.

His smile faded. ‘Tempting, thank you, but no. I think you should try living with what you’ve done, Ilthean.’

The gates creaked and groaned as, inch by inch, they swung open. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sidonius and his men momentarily besieged at the mechanism, but then Iltheans poured through the gap from outside.

There wasn’t a man who saw that gap didn’t know the truth: the Turholm was lost. It belonged to Ilthea now.

‘Enjoy the fruits of your labour, Matilde. You’ll find my brother a crueller master than I,’ said Dieter.

‘You were never my master,’ I retorted, ‘And your brother won’t be, either.’

He turned away and, swinging a white cloak over his shoulders, disappeared into the swirl of Ilthean troops.

I took a step after him, one hand raised, but he was gone amid the melee.

I had no doubt, come the end of battle, he would be vanished, counted among neither the living nor the dead.