Flight Into Darkness (29 page)

“Leave it to me,” she said.

Celestine's hand closed around the leather pouch. If she could just edge close enough to the monks—

“Charge!” yelled Adjutant Gurval, running forward. The ringing clash of metal sent the crows sitting on the chapel roof scattering, cawing into the air.

Jagu wheeled round, his hand raised to stop the attack. But it was too late; the Guerriers had drawn their swords and followed Gurval. One of the monks fell to his knees, run through the throat by Gurval's blade. Jagu swore.

Celestine was staring, transfixed. She had never seen action at such close quarters before. The shouting, the sudden stink of blood, terrified her. This was all going wrong.

Jagu drew his pistols. “If we get out of this alive, I'll have that young hothead demoted!”

The monks had formed a tight knot, attempting to beat back the Guerriers with pitchforks, hoes, and rusty swords. Only Abbot

Yephimy wielded his weapon like a trained warrior. Before the dazzle of his scything blade, the Francians began to drop back.

A sudden explosion beyond the walls made Celestine flinch.

“Reinforcements?” Jagu, grim-faced, signaled frantically to Viaud to check it out.

I have to act now or it's all for nothing.
Celestine plunged a hand into the pouch, feeling the sleepdust tingling faintly against her fingertips.
Faie. Protect me.

“
I will be your shield.”
As the Faie's bright energy went sizzling through her body, she set out, zigzagging through the fighters, making straight for the abbot.

One moment Celestine was at Jagu's side. The next, she was gone. To his horror he saw her running into the very heart of the battle, right toward Abbot Yephimy.

His heart stopped.

And then he noticed the translucent shimmer of light about her. Her guardian spirit must be protecting her.

With a dexterous flick of the wrist, she cast a fine glittering powder into the air about the abbot's head. As the abbot's broadsword came slicing down, she neatly sidestepped the blow and darted clear.

The broadsword dropped from Abbot Yephimy's grip with a sonorous clang. The abbot fell to his knees, then crashed forward onto his face, his big body slowly rolling down the steps. The brothers nearest to Yephimy began to sway and collapse to their knees.

The Forbidden Arts.

Celestine turned and beckoned to him. Jagu had no choice but to follow her into the shrine.

The clatter of the Guerrier's boots shattered the candlelit peace of the shrine. Beneath the dark eyes of the painted saints staring down from overhead, Celestine lifted the lid of the wooden box containing the golden crook. She looked up at Jagu. In the gloom, her eyes blazed bright with that same strange crystalline gleam he had seen only when the spirit had taken possession of her body.

“It's ours,” she said.

“Let's get out of here,” Jagu said tersely. He hoped none of the
other Guerriers had noticed her appearance. But as they came up the stairs into the main body of the chapel, the sound of frenzied shouting arose from the courtyard.

“Listen.” Jagu put his hand on Celestine's shoulder, holding her back.

“Drakhaon!
Drakhaon!”
It was a war cry.

“Lord Gavril's men.” He primed his pistols. “Get ready to fight your way out of here.”

“Open the doors.”

Jagu's men pulled the chapel doors open, revealing an extraordinary sight. Most of the monks lay unconscious. One of their lookouts was dead, a crossbow bolt through his throat. But instead of the hordes of
druzhina
Celestine had expected to find, there were only two, wielding their sabres like madmen as they attacked. And behind them, she spotted Viaud's men returning from their reconnoiter.

“Put down your weapons,” she ordered in the common tongue. “You're surrounded.”

Jagu stared at the carnage below. Bodies lay sprawled across the chapel entrance: both monks and his own Guerriers. He could see blood trickling slowly down the steps. The air stank of gunpowder.

“Drakhaon!” yelled a defiant voice again.

There, surrounded by his Guerriers, stood three strangers; one wore a Tielen uniform, the other two looked like barbarian warriors, with tattooed faces and war braids.

And Jagu remembered the enigmatic words that Ruaud had whispered to him before they set sail for Azhkendir.
“You'll be in the Drakhaon's lands; don't neglect to gather any intelligence that could be of use to us in the war to come.
”

“The war to come,” he repeated under his breath. He looked at the two warriors and saw that, in spite of their ferocious appearance, they were very young, one scarcely more than a boy.

What better way to learn about the Drakhaon than from his own men?

“Take those two alive.”

“Are you mad, Jagu?” Celestine cried. “Let's just get out of here before reinforcements arrive.”

“I'm merely obeying instructions.”

“You'll never take us alive!” yelled the taller of the two Azhkendi
warriors. Whirling his sabre about his head, he rushed toward the steps.

Jagu saw the Tielen raise his hand in a vain gesture, as if to stop the boy. He heard the dull thud of pistol-stock blows on flesh and bone. The two Azhkendi warriors toppled and fell at the feet of their attackers. The Tielen slumped to the ground, unconscious.

“Bind them, hand and foot,” Jagu ordered, “but leave the Tielen behind.”

“They'll only slow us down.” Celestine pushed past him, daintily lifting the hem of her robes to avoid soiling them in the spilled blood. She turned at the gateway and said, “Well, what are you waiting for, Jagu? The Drakhaon? Didn't you hear? They called for him.”

The sails of the
Dame Blanche
filled with the fresh evening wind, as Captain Peillac set off south toward Arkhelskoye.

“The Drakhaon!”
Celestine suddenly heard the Faie cry out in warning. She ran to the ship's rail, gazing up into the sky, which was fading to the purpled hue of moorland heather as the sun sank.

“The Drakhaon's coming after us!” Her skin crawled and tingled as she sensed the Drakhaon approaching, even though she could not yet see the wings that were darker than night's shadows above the forest.

“It's just your imagination,” Jagu said, more brusquely than usual.

She rounded on Jagu, her fear and fury spilling out. “We have the crook; we have what we came for. Why did you take the Drakhaon's men hostage?”

“Because the Maistre wanted me to.” His voice came back to her gratingly.

“But we stand no chance against him out here on the open sea—”

Jagu reached out and caught hold of her by her shoulders. There was a grim and dangerous look in his eyes that silenced her. “He won't attack us while his men are on board.”

“Can you be so sure?” Even as she challenged him, she sensed the dark vibrations of the Drakhaon's wings drawing nearer. Shouts came from the lookout; Philippe Viaud had taken out a telescope and was training it on the shore. She felt Jagu's hands tightening about her shoulders and saw a look of genuine dismay extinguish the anger in his eyes. “He will come for us and kill you all, you Francian filth,” the red-haired boy had spat at them before Viaud struck him across the mouth, hard, to silence him.

“He's here.”
The Faie's voice radiated through Celestine's mind like a pale flame. Looking up, she saw great serrated wings soaring above, briefly silhouetted against the white sails of the cutter. Jagu gasped and drew her into his arms, pressing her tightly to him, as if he could protect her with his body against the Drakhaon's fiery breath.

Crushed against his chest, she could feel his heart pounding as fast as her own. He must be as terrified as she. On the deck, the Guerriers ran to and fro in panic, hunting for their muskets.

“Hold your fire!” Jagu ordered. “The Drakhaon won't attack while we hold his men prisoner. If he sinks the ship, they'll drown too.”

The great dragon circled slowly above them, shedding a dim starry radiance from its scales of midnight blue.

“But it's…
beautiful,”
Celestine heard herself whisper in spite of her fear. And, as Jagu had predicted, it suddenly swiveled around in the air and began to wing back toward the shore.

How to begin to write an accurate report for the Maistre of the events at the monastery?

Jagu scribbled a couple of introductory sentences, then paused.

Celestine had acted rashly, and yet her use of Linnaius's sleepdust had prevented a bloodbath. But if he penned a truthful account, he would be furnishing the Inquisition with enough evidence to accuse her of sorcery.

In his agitation Jagu pressed too hard and his pen nib blotched the paper. He reached for a rag to mop up the ink. It was hard enough writing in this choppy sea as the cutter's captain took advantage of the fresh wind off the Spines to speed away from the Drakhaon.

“Lieutenant.” Philippe Viaud appeared in his cabin. “We're approaching Arkhelskoye.” Jagu laid down his pen. “And we've spotted two Rossiyan frigates. Looks like they're maneuvering to cut off our escape.”

Jagu rose. The report would have to wait. “We need backup. Time to fire the flare. Tell the men to take up battle stations until our men-o'-war show themselves.”

He and Ruaud had anticipated meeting resistance from the Rossiyans. Three Francian men-o'-war had been waiting off Arkhelskoye to cover their getaway. The arranged signal for them to show themselves was the firing of a flare.

Before he had even reached the deck, he heard the rushing whistle
of an incoming broadside and a cannonball smacked into the waves yards off their bows. The cutter rocked; he was thrown backward, grabbing at the ladder rail to stop himself from falling.

“Fire the flare!” he heard Viaud yell at the top of his lungs as he emerged.

“Where are our ships?” Celestine cried out from the rail of the upper deck.

Jagu's heart missed a beat. She was in danger from any flying splinters of timber sheared off by the Rossiyan cannonballs. And if they dared to fire alchymical missiles at them, she could be overwhelmed by poisonous vapors in a matter of seconds, her lungs seared beyond repair.

“Get below, Celestine,” he shouted above the whiz of the flare as it spun upward into the cloudy sky. His voice grated, rough with fear for her safety. Guardian spirit or no, she was not invulnerable.

Another shot whizzed across their bows, closer this time, the ball hitting the water with such force that they were flung to the deck as the sea splashed up over the side.

“Let me help, Jagu.”

The flare burst into emerald light above their heads, staining her white face green with lurid light as he pulled her to her feet. He felt the pulse of aethyrial energy in her as he touched her and snatched his hands away as if he had been burned. Her guardian spirit must have been awoken by the commotion.

“No, Celestine!” A show of aethyrial power might save them from the frigates, but when help was so close at hand, it was far too dangerous to risk in front of so many witnesses.

“I'm not going to let anyone take the crook from us.” When she turned to him, he had to look away from the brilliance of her eyes that blazed, no longer blue but dazzlingly pale, like milky crystal.

It wasn't Celestine speaking anymore. He had to bring her back. Jagu acted on instinct, pushing her back against the bulkhead. As the distant boom of answering cannons rang out, he pressed his mouth to hers.

“Mm—Jagu!” She hit him, hard. “Have you gone mad?”

Still he held her, in spite of her struggles, gazing into her eyes. But the unnatural brilliance had gone; the shock must have jolted her back to herself. He relaxed his grip.

“They've got the Rossiyans on the run!” shouted a sailor from the rigging overhead. Rowdy cheers arose from the crew on all sides.

Jagu let go of Celestine. He was shaking. The immediate danger was past. But how could he trust her? She had let the spirit take control of her.

“Go below,” he said, “and stay in your cabin until we're out of their line of fire.”

She stared at him, mouth open as if to answer him back. And then as another Francian broadside thundered out across the waves, she turned and did as she was told without another word.

Dazed, confused, Celestine stood, her back pressed against her cabin door. The timbers of the ship reverberated to the deafening explosion of the cannonfire, shuddering through her body. The air stank of gunpowder fumes. She closed her eyes, trying to regain control of herself. She was trembling, but not from fear.

Jagu had kissed her, so forcefully that her mouth still felt bruised.

How
dare
he!

But if this was anger she was feeling, self-righteous fury at the way he had treated her in view of the crew, why was her body still trembling? Had he merely acted to stop her unleashing the Faie's powers? Or had she tasted something else, something fierce, passionate, hungry in that hard, lingering kiss?

And—most infuriating of all—why had her body responded so readily? Could she have fallen in love with Jagu?

CHAPTER 16