Magebane (69 page)

. . . and pulled the trigger.

THE FLAT, explosive crack of the rifle, a sound never before heard in Evrenfels, rang out across the city, echoing through the streets, bringing those few who had found an uneasy slumber upright and staring in their beds.

Brenna, nearing the top of the chimney, able to see nothing but the curved brick wall in front of her nose, flinched, but kept climbing, as did Karl, close beneath her.

Only Falk, looking almost directly at it, Mother Northwind, invisible behind him and at that very instant reaching up to touch him, and one or two of the guards actually saw the flash of yellow flame from the barrel of the rifle. It lit the underside of the airship's envelope and Anton's pale face for just an instant, suddenly revealing the presence of the flying machine and making the guards who saw it wonder how they could have failed to see it earlier.

Falk had no time to wonder anything of the sort, no time even to realize that Anton had returned, because before his eyes had finished registering the flash the spinning lead ball expelled by the rifle ripped through his throat in an explosion of blood and tissue, almost severing his head from his shoulders.

Falk's crossbow fired as his hand tightened reflexively, the bolt zipping past Karl and striking sparks off the curve of the chimney before ricocheting off into empty darkness.

Mother Northwind had just laid her hand on Falk's back, letting the invisibility fall away as she reached for his mind . . . but even as she touched it, that mind vanished, and in the same instant the rifle ball, barely slowed by its passage through Falk's neck and continuing on its sharply descending path, smashed her shoulder in a second spray of blood, spinning her around to fall facedown on the cobblestone.

Still not spent, the ball ricocheted off the cobblestones and followed the crossbow into darkness, terrifying a cowering Mageborn baker in his room an instant later by punching a hole through his window and burying itself in a the beam over his bed.

Mother Northwind, her mind a haze of pain and shock, realized she was bleeding badly. She gathered her waning strength together, tried to Heal herself . . .

. . . and failed. She had nothing left. Even the energy from her restoratives had fled, sucked away as her magic had been pulled from her into Falk's dying brain. All she could hope to do was staunch her own bleeding, buy herself a little more time, hold on until the guards found her and brought another Healer . . .

She managed to heave herself over onto her back, crying out with the pain and effort, then lay there, desperately trying to hold her torn tissues together with the last of her waning strength, staring up at the chimney.

She heard another sound new to her, then, a throbbing, chopping roar, as the propeller on the airship, now visible as a dim bulk almost directly on top of the chimney, came to life. The airship swung around and faced into the wind, descending as it did so, until the gondola touched the chimney. She watched as first Brenna, then Karl, climbed the rope ladder into the gondola . . . and watched as the frustrated guard just below Karl foolishly hurled magic upward, only to fall screaming as the blast intended to strike down the airship ripped him from the chimney and hurled him away. He disappeared behind the buildings, but the wet crunching sound he made when he struck the cobblestones carried clearly.

The next guard, smarter, reached for the crossbow at his belt, and raised it . . . but Anton leaned out of the gondola with something small in his own hand. There was another flash of yellow light, another of those strange, sharp cracks, and the second guard fell from the ladder with most of his head missing.

There was no one else close enough to even attempt to stop the airship as its burner roared to life and it lifted into the night sky, illuminated from within like a giant blue lantern. It made a wide, sweeping turn, and then headed west . . .

. . . back to the Great Barrier.

The Magebane still lives
, Mother Northwind thought.
Brenna still lives. My Plan still lives . . .

. . . but if she did not get a Healer soon,
she
no longer would.

I will hold on
, she vowed grimly.
I
will
hold on. The Barrier must fall. Falk is dead, but the MageLords still rule. I will not die until I see them overthrown!

She closed her eyes, drew on every last bit of her fading inner strength, and concentrated on not bleeding to death, as, at last, she heard boots pounding across the cobblestones toward her and Falk.

Brenna couldn't believe it when the airship suddenly appeared above her, even closer than it had been that day on the hillside above Falk's manor when it had first roared over her head. Its propeller chopping the air, it turned. The gondola bumped up against the chimney. A moment later a rope ladder appeared over the side, and she saw Anton's face, ghostly in the dim light from the city streets. “Get in!” he cried. The rope ladder danced just to the right of the metal one she'd climbed; she managed to snag it with one hand, then held on to it while keeping her feet on the last few rungs of the metal ladder before transferring herself entirely to the rope one. The gondola sank a few feet as she climbed aboard. Karl, as always, was right behind her. He was just clambering over the edge when blue light flashed. Someone screamed down below, but whatever the spell had been, it had left them untouched.

Anton, pulling up the rope ladder, yelped, dropped the ladder again, and from his belt grabbed a strange metal object, a short tube projecting from some kind of handle. He pointed it over the side, and there was a flash of light accompanied by an enormously loud bang that made Brenna flinch and clap her hands over her ears. Then Anton spun back into the gondola and cranked the lever that fired the burner. Yellow-and-blue flame exploded upward into the envelope, the heat searing her face, and almost at once they began to rise. Letting the burner roar, Anton reached for another lever, and the propeller at the back of the gondola began to spin twice as fast, adding its own throbbing beat to the noise in the gondola and making it quite impossible to talk.

Not that Brenna had anything to say. She huddled in the gondola, knees pulled to her chest, arm wrapped around them, and shook . . . in reaction to everything that had just happened, because she was cold, because the strain in her arms and legs had been relieved, because . . .

She didn't know all the reasons. But she trembled just the same.

Karl crawled over to her, put his arm around her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said. Then, “No.” And suddenly she found herself weeping, and turned and buried her head in Karl's shoulder.

Karl felt a bit like weeping himself, but he held Brenna close, trying to warm her trembling body and provide what comfort he could . . . all the while aware of Anton watching the two of them with a stony face. He wanted to assure the Outsider that this wasn't what it looked like, that he and Brenna weren't . . .

. . . but then he thought,
To hell with that
, and put his other arm around her for good measure.

So
, Anton thought, looking at Karl embracing the weeping Brenna.
It's like that. I should have let Falk kill him.

He almost meant it.

Well, time enough for him to beat Karl to a pulp later. The important thing now was to get all three of them out of this accursed Kingdom and into the safety of the Outside.

Through the cold, clear night, with only a light westerly breeze to fight, the airship flew steadily toward the Anomaly.

Davydd Verdsmitt had been confident the King would agree to see
anyone
who arrived at his doorstep with that ring. He wasn't disappointed—although the secretary certainly seemed to be, giving Verdsmitt a sour look as he ushered him through the big doors into the inner sanctum of the King's sanctuary.

Verdsmitt had never been there. Few MageLords had, Falk and Lord Athol . . . Verdsmitt never allowed himself to think of the Prime Adviser as his father . . . being the obvious exceptions. The King was reclusive, disengaged, hedonistic . . . it was no secret to anyone that he had frittered most of his reign away on his own pleasures, leaving the sordid business of the actual running of the kingdom to Athol, Falk, and the rest of the Council.

Not that the Kingdom would have been any better off to have Kravon fully engaged with it, Verdsmitt thought bitterly.

He'd loved Kravon once. Now he hated him. But he suspected even if the love had continued and they had remained together, he would not be blind to Kravon's deficiencies. Kravon could be funny and charming; he could have been a professional clavierist had he not been the Heir, and his artistic ability with pen and ink and brush and paint was every bit as notable. But he was totally unsuited to running the Kingdom . . . or even his own household, a task he left to men like the secretary.