CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

CYWEN

Cywen lay in her cot, staring at the Vin Thalun guard by the door. It was dark, probably the other side of midnight by now, and still the guard sitting in the hospice was awake.

You’re usually snoring by now.

She heard a creak behind her, someone shifting in their bed.

Hild. Maybe she senses something. Cywen had been desperate to tell her of the plans. She wanted to tell everyone, to run through the hospice and warn them that tonight was the night. Over two hundred prisoners were in the hospice, none really unwell or needing treatment, now. Two were without limbs—one on a crutch, the other missing an arm to the elbow—but all were in their right minds, capable of making a decision, capable of leaving.

I have thought of this moment for so long, and now that it is here I am terrified. Only two options.

Escape or death. She gulped, because she knew failure and capture did not just mean death, it meant impalement.

Do not think on it. She knew that would lead to fear and indecision, and then it would be sunrise, and the time would be gone.

She pulled her blanket high, up to her neck, and beneath it she very carefully and slowly took Corban’s wolven claws out from her cloak and buckled them onto her wrist.

She waited, watching through half-closed lids. The Vin Thalun guard shifted, eyes drooping, then a hoot of laughter from beyond the doors jolted him fully awake.

Now or never, Cywen thought and slipped from her cot.

The guard scowled at her and she pointed at the bucket in the room’s corner, what passed for a latrine for them.

He gave her a surly nod and she walked across the room, out of his line of sight. She kicked the latrine bucket over, gripped her stomach, groaning, doubled over.

“What is it?” the Vin Thalun asked irritably as he strode over to Cywen, putting a hand on her back. She punched the wolven claws up, into his throat, pushing him stumbling backwards into the wall. He tried to scream, only a gurgling hiss escaping from his lips, then he was sliding down the wall, a bloody smear upon it, eyes rolling up into his head.

Cywen stood there, frozen, listening to her heart thumping in her skull, eyes fixed on the doors, expecting them to burst open and Vin Thalun to pour in.

“What are you doing?” a voice hissed: Hild, rising from her bed. Others were sitting up, blinking, men and women from Gramm’s hold, warriors who had been part of Jael’s warband.

“Put these clothes on, quickly,” Cywen hissed as she stripped the dead Vin Thalun of his leather vest and belt. She took the knife for herself, scowled as she felt its weight—all wrong for throwing—passing the rest to Yalric, a warrior from Gramm’s hold. His beard grown long while he’d been unwell, he was the closest amongst them to a Vin Thalun. The grin on his face as he buckled a sword-belt around his waist said he was ready for this.

“Help me,” Cywen grunted, dragging the dead Vin Thalun into the shadows. Hild hefted his ankles and they carried him into a corner, dropping him into darkness. Others were gathering around them, faces shocked, confused, blinking sleep away.

“What’s going on?” one asked.

“We are getting out of here, now,” Cywen whispered.

“No—the stakes,” someone said, too loudly for Cywen’s liking.

“There’s just as much chance of that tomorrow and every other day while we stay here just waiting to be picked off,” hissed Cywen. “I’m going, and I’ll take as many as want to come with me.” She looked at Hild.

The stern woman returned her gaze, then gave a stiff nod.

“How?” Hild said.

“Out of the back window, across the herb gardens. There is a tunnel—”

“How do you know this?” Yalric asked her.

“I’ve seen it. No time to explain. We must go now.”

There was a moment’s silence, then they were all moving, quietly waking any who were still asleep, whispering instructions, moving on. Cywen went to Brina’s cupboard, selecting vials and pouches that she knew would come in useful. Soon they were all gathered at the foot of the wide stairwell that led to the balcony.

A shout of victory and a burst of laughter drifted through the doors, someone obviously winning on the throw-board in the courtyard beyond.

“We could just rush the guards,” Hild told her. “We outnumber them.”

“No,” Cywen said, “the noise. Others would come. We must get out, fast, silent, and be gone from here before any of them know about it.”

Cywen looked to Yalric, who was sitting in the guard’s chair, dragged back a little from the fire so that he was more in shadow than light, a cloak pulled up around him. It would fool a cursory glance, nothing more. He held her gaze, nodded to her. He knew what would happen if any Vin Thalun walked through the door.

I’ll get them all out.

With that she turned and sped up the stairs, twisted into her room, where bright moonlight was shining through the unshuttered window, ran to her cupboard, lifted the loose board and grabbed Brina’s book, secreting it into a pocket in her cloak. By then others had followed her and Cywen started helping them climb through the window. Each one scurried into the herb garden and hid amongst the leaves, waiting in the shadows.

Ten out.

Hild went next, Cywen’s heart thudding like a drum, and for an instant she smiled, thinking of Hild’s reunion with Swain and Sif.

A noise rippled through the fortress like distant thunder, constant, repetitive, like hammer-blows upon a wall. Then horn blasts were echoing from the stone and bark, men’s voices shouting, yelling. The slap of feet on stone.

What in the Otherworld’s going on?

Everyone froze, inside the room, on the balcony, out in the herb garden, the same thought filling all their minds.

They know.

But then Cywen realized it all seemed a long way off. Yes, men were rallying from the streets around them, but they were heading away from the hospice, not towards it.

“Keep going,” she said, pulling on the next person.

Then the doors to the hospice were opening, an order barked. Shouting, the rasp of iron hissing from scabbards.

Cywen sprinted back to the balcony, saw Vin Thalun crowding through the doorway, Yalric on his feet, sword swinging, blood spraying. The first Vin Thalun fell back with his throat open, a dark jet. Yalric strode after the falling body, stabbing at the men crowding behind him, but in heartbeats too many men were surging through the door; Yalric was forced to step back. Another Vin Thalun fell, howling as he clutched his belly, then Yalric was spinning, stumbling back, swords chopping and stabbing at him. He tripped and disappeared as the guards closed about him.

Other Vin Thalun swarmed through the door, eyes searching the shadowed room, many of them running to the stairwell. Someone was frantically blowing a horn.

We have no weapons. It will be a slaughter.

“Move,” Cywen yelled, running back into the escape room. The window was crowded, too many trying to cram themselves through at the same time.

No, it cannot end here.

Some panicked, bolting from the room back onto the inner balcony of the hospice, Vin Thalun yelling and giving chase. Cywen took a step back, flexed the wolven claws on her fist, her other hand disappearing into her cloak, searching, grasping.

“Escape or death,” she muttered to herself, repeating it like a mantra.

Vin Thalun loomed in the doorway and she slashed at the first, sending him reeling with three red stripes across his face.

Others pushed past him, grabbing for her. She severed fingers with one swipe of the claws, raked across a thigh, stabbed into a throat, each time retreating a few steps, then she turned and ran, diving straight at the open window, even though there were still a handful of figures climbing through it. She slammed into them, sent them all hurtling through the opening, falling.

Cywen crashed into leaf and stem, moist earth exploding into her face, up her nose. She clambered to her feet, grunting with pain, saw Vin Thalun staring out of the window after her, some already clambering through.

The herb garden was chaos, her fellow prisoners, well over a hundred of them, milling and unsure what to do. Vin Thalun were appearing around the side of the building, coming from the main courtyard, the drum of many more feet behind them.

Cywen saw Hild and grabbed her hand.

“This way!” she yelled, everyone following her across the herb garden. “Stay with me.”

Vin Thalun warriors blocked her path and Cywen skidded to a halt.

“Come quietly,” one of them said, “and we won’t kill you.”

Cywen reached inside her cloak, found what she’d been searching for, an oddly shaped vial. She hurled it at the man who had spoken and it smashed against his chest, liquid soaking into his jerkin, spraying those about him.

“What are you trying to do, soak me to death?” He grinned, his companions laughing.

Cywen threw another vial, this one dark, smashing and splattering.

“That’s enough, now,” the Vin Thalun said, stepping forwards. “I won’t kill you. Might hurt you a little, though,” he added with a leer.

“Fuil agus tine, salann agus lasair,” Cywen hissed. A spark rippled across the Vin Thalun’s chest, blue flame igniting, engulfing him in heartbeats. He spun, arms windmilling, crashing into those behind him, and the flame eagerly leaped between them, the stench of charring flesh suddenly thick in the air.

On Cywen ran, Hild behind her, the slap of other feet, then another Vin Thalun was leaping at her from the shadows, barrelling her to the ground.

Cywen bucked and slashed at him, but he punched her in the face with the buckler strapped to his forearm.

“Saw what you did, you witch,” he snarled, hatred and fear in his voice as he dragged Cywen to her feet. “You set my lads on fire.”

He heaved her back towards the courtyard at the front of the hospice, where the Vin Thalun guards had been playing knuckle-bones around a fire, but were now rounding up the escaped prisoners. A glimpse over Cywen’s shoulder showed Hild and a handful of others hovering in the shadows, watching her. Cywen tried to signal for them to go.

Go where? They don’t know where I was taking them.

Cywen’s captor threw her to the ground before the main doors to the hospice and, snatching up a spear, rammed it into the ground between two flagstones.

They’re going to impale me, here and now.

She found some strength, then, throwing herself between her captors, hissing and spitting, kicking, biting, but they held her tightly, clubbed her across the head, sending her dropping to her knees, vision swirling.

She was hauled back to her feet and they bound her to the spear, smashing up stools and scattering the shattered wood around her.

“Set fire to us, will you? Well, you’ll see what kind of a death that is,” her captor muttered as he stuck a wooden brand into the fire.