The Sentinel Mage (56 page)

The witches could remove the magic from his blood, could remove the fire, the flames.

Relief surged inside him. It was suddenly easier to breathe.

Harkeld slung the waterskin over his shoulder and glanced back. He narrowed his eyes. “There’s someone behind us.”

Tomas turned in his saddle. “Who—”

Riding hard towards them, a couple of miles distant, were horsemen. Sand puffed up from the horses’ hooves.

“Assassins,” Cora snapped. “Gallop!”

T
HE CORPSES WERE
resting uneasily in their niches. Innis heard them stir, heard little rustlings as she completed a circuit of the catacombs. But her owl’s eyes saw no movement; the creatures weren’t prowling the dark, narrow aisles. Satisfied, she glided back towards the entrance.

Shouts drifted in from outside, faint and urgent.

Innis flew faster. She swept down one of the aisles, stone rising high on either side, and burst out into daylight.

She saw it as an owl does, in dull colors and shades of gray. Horses and men milled in front of the cavern as Tomas shouted orders. The two archers ran forward, readying their bows, quivers slung over their shoulders. A soldier followed, carrying an armful of arrows.

Riding across the desert, a low plume of sand billowing behind them, were five horsemen.

Cora crouched in the cave entrance, a litter of bundles around her. She looked up. “Innis! Come here!”

Innis swooped down to land, shifting into her own shape before her feet had fully touched the sand. The world suddenly became full of color. “What happened? Petrus—”

“We don’t know,” Cora said tersely. She thrust an armful of clothes at Innis. “Dress! You’re to go with the prince.”

Was Petrus dead? Innis scrambled into her underbreeches and trews. Distress tightened her throat, making it difficult to breathe. She pulled the shirt over her head. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons.

“Archers, ready your bows!” Tomas shouted.

She turned her head and watched as the archers nocked their first arrows. Spare arrows stood in the sand alongside them, thrusting up like the spines of a porcupine, ready to be snatched up and used once their quivers were empty. Behind the archers, the swordsmen waited with their blades bared.

Prince Harkeld stood in the shadow of the cavern mouth, watching the horsemen approach. His sword was unsheathed, clenched in his hand.

Innis shoved her feet into the boots.
He can’t be dead. Not Petrus!
Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back.

“Sword,” Cora said curtly.

Innis took the baldric, settling it hastily across her back.

“You know what to do?” Cora peeled open a cloth-wrapped bundle. Her plait fell forward over her shoulder. She flicked it back impatiently. “His blood and his hand on the stone.”

“Aren’t you coming—”

“I’m needed here.”

The noise of the horses was louder. Innis glanced up. The assassins would soon be within bow-shot.

“Torches,” Cora said.

Her attention jerked back to the bundle Cora had unwrapped. Pieces of wood lay on the cloth, stout and strong, bound with pitch-soaked rags at one end. Cora lit two with a snap of her fingers. “Hurry!”

Innis snatched up the flaming torches. “Sire!”

Prince Harkeld thrust his sword into its scabbard and ran towards her. “One of the hawks is here.”

Innis looked up. A pale-breasted hawk glided towards them, lopsided, trailing one leg.

“Go!” Cora said, pushing her.

Prince Harkeld grabbed one of the torches. He headed into the cave.

Innis followed at a run, passing under the broad overhang of sandstone. As darkness enveloped her, she glanced back. Petrus had landed. He half-lay on the sand, panting and naked. One of his legs was clearly broken. “Give me a bow,” she heard him say. “And arrows.”

“W
HERE’S THE STONE
?” Harkeld asked. Everything beyond the flare of his torch was as black as ink.

“In the middle,” the witch said, pushing ahead of him. “Follow me!”

They plunged into what seemed like a canyon, walls of sandstone towering on either side. The floor was littered with broken stone and mortar. Tombs surrounded them, tier upon tier, their occupants exposed—gray-white bone, parched-leather skin.

The witch stopped so suddenly that he ran into her.

Harkeld grabbed her shoulder to steady himself, and released it. “What?”

“Shh!”

He held his breath and listened. He heard his heartbeat, heard shouts echoing from outside, heard—

Furtive rustling sounds.

“Is that—” The words dried on his tongue as something moved ahead of them. A skeleton groped its way from a tomb and stood unsteadily, extending bony legs. Its head turned towards them, blind.

“They’re waking up,” Innis said. “They know you’re here. Get back!” She turned, pushing him.

They ran, stumbling, back the way they’d come. Withered hands snatched at them as they passed.

The black became gray. They were almost at the entrance. “Stop!” The witch grabbed the back of his shirt.

“What—”

“We need to climb the wall. It’s flat on top. We’ll be safe up there.”

He looked up. Sandstone loomed above him, more than twice his height. Three tiers of tombs were cut into it. Inside them, corpses stirred.

Shouted voices came from the entrance, and the thunder of hooves.

Harkeld hastily laid down his torch. He bent, cupping his hands. “Climb!”

“No, you first!”

They matched stares for a brief second.

“Sire, you’re more important—”

“Fire when in range!” Tomas shouted outside.

The witch dropped her torch and crouched. “Hurry!”

Harkeld placed his foot in her cupped hands and allowed her to heave him up. His fingers scrabbled for purchase, catching on the lower lip of the topmost tomb. He found a foothold in the next tomb down and hauled himself up. Brittle bones crunched beneath his boots. He groped for the top of the wall and shoved his knee in the uppermost tomb. Movement skittered across his thigh, bony fingers plucking at his trews.

Harkeld hauled himself up on top of the wall. He looked over the edge. He saw Innis’s pale face, her dark eyes. She held up one of the torches. “Your belt!”

He removed it hurriedly, threaded the tongue back through the buckle to make a loop, and dangled it down. Light bobbed and flared around him as he pulled the torch up. He could suddenly see the top of the wall—as wide and flat as a road, stretching into the darkness.

He thrust the torch aside and lowered the belt again. Innis reached up with the second torch flaming in her hand.

“Leave it!” he cried, seeing movement flickering at the edges of the ring of torchlight. “Climb!”

One of the corpses stumbled forward as he spoke, reaching for her. Innis turned and struck at it with the torch, slashing like a sword. In the flare of light he saw a gaping, gap-toothed mouth and leathery skin stretched over a gaunt skull. The corpse had been a woman; long, brittle hair hung down her back.

“Climb!” he shouted again.

Innis dropped the torch and grabbed the belt, heaving herself up, stretching to get her foot on the edge of the first tomb.

Harkeld helped as best he could, hauling on the belt as she climbed. More corpses lurched into the circle of light cast by the fallen torch. They reached gnarled hands after her.

When Innis was close enough, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her up. She lay for a moment on her belly, catching her breath, her legs dangling over the edge. “Thank you—” She uttered a choked cry and began to kick. The corpse in the topmost tomb clung to her legs. “Get it off me!”

He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her fully on top of the wall. The corpse came too, its arms clasped around her legs. Its teeth snapped savagely at him.

Harkeld kicked, breaking the creature’s neck, sending the head ricocheting down to smash on the ground. He kicked again. The torso disintegrated in a cloud of dust and bone shards. Only the arms clung to her now, the skeletal fingers digging into her trews.

He ripped them off, snapping the brittle bones, sending the pieces spinning down to the torch burning on the floor.

“They’re wearing mail,” he heard one of the soldiers cry outside.

“Aim for the horses!” Tomas shouted.

The witch pushed to her feet. “We must hurry!”

I
NNIS LED, HALF-RUNNING,
holding the torch aloft. Their footsteps echoed back from the cavern roof. Dark chasms yawned on either side, filled with the sound of corpses moving.

Urgency pushed her to run faster. Her thoughts were full of Petrus, Cora, the two archers standing bravely to confront the Fithians.

The canyons on either side became narrower. Innis slowed. “We must be near the end.”

A dozen more paces and their path ended abruptly, dropping away like a cliff. In front of them, darkness swallowed the torchlight.

Innis crouched at the edge, holding the torch out. The space ahead was filled with milling corpses. In the dim corona of torchlight, it was a vast sea of gray and brown, surging, moving in eddies and currents, with the shadow of Ivek’s curse floating blackly on top.

Prince Harkeld crouched alongside her. “Where’s the anchor stone?”

“In the middle.”

The prince was silent for a moment, while the sea of corpses heaved and rustled below them, then he said: “How do we get there? Could an oliphant—”

“There are too many of them.” Scores, she could cope with, perhaps even hundreds—but this cavern must hold thousands of tightly-packed corpses. They’d overwhelm her, as a swarm of ants overwhelmed a single beetle.

A strong fire mage could clear a path to the stone.

She turned her head and looked at the prince. She knew what his reaction would be if she asked him to use his magic.

So, don’t ask; tell him. You’re a Sentinel. Act like one.

Innis took a deep breath and spoke: “Sire, you must use your magic.”

H
ARKELD JERKED HIS
head around. “No,” he said flatly.

“You have to, sire. It’s the only way.”

Harkeld stood. “We’ll get Cora.”

“She’s fighting.” The witch scrambled to her feet. “She may even be dead by now!”

He turned back the way they’d come. Innis grabbed his forearm, halting him. “You need to burn a path.”

“No.”

“You’re strong enough to do it.” She gestured at the milling sea of corpses. “The way you burned that assassin, you’re far stronger than Cora—”

“No!” It was a yell.

“You’re afraid of it.” She met his eyes, her gaze oddly compassionate.

Harkeld shook his head. It wasn’t fear, it was terror. A cold sweat of panic broke out on his skin at the memory of fire bursting from him, coursing through his bones and arteries, hissing over his skin—

“You can do it, sire.”

He shook his head again.
I can’t.

The compassion left her eyes. Her mouth became scornful. “I thought you were braver than this.”

Harkeld inhaled sharply through his nose. “Are you calling me a coward?”

“Isn’t that what you are?”

The words were like slaps across his face. Painful, because they were true. He inhaled again, clenching his hands more tightly, rage mingling with terror inside him. “I’m not a coward.”

“Then do it!”

The rage flared more brightly inside him, and with it, the sensation of fire igniting in his chest. Harkeld shoved her aside and stepped to the edge of the wall. Sight of the corpses seemed to fuel the flames gathering under his skin, as if the witchcraft inside him recognized what it had to do. His skin felt as if it were smoking, his ribcage as if it would burst from the heat and the fire contained inside him.

In panic, in terror, he thrust his right hand outwards. He tried to visualize what he wanted: a path, burned through the corpses below. “Burn!”

Flame roared from his palm, incandescent, searing.

I
NNIS STUMBLED BACK,
dropping the torch, falling to her knees, shielding her face with her arms. Her hair felt as if it were on fire, her clothes as though they were on the point of igniting. Roaring flames filled the space ahead of them, too bright to look at. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her exposed skin felt as if it was stretching, bursting, burning.

The roaring seemed to last forever, punctuated by sharp retorts as bones splintered in the fierce heat. When it died, silence rang in her ears, almost deafening. Cautiously she lowered her arms and opened her eyes. Prince Harkeld was also on his knees, looking outwards.

He’d done much more than clear a path. The sea of corpses was gone. Their charred remains carpeted the cavern. Fires burned fitfully and greasy smoke rose up.