THE SONG OF STEEL

She was in.

She’d slipped in through the wicket of the keep’s gate, following right behind those who had tended the livestock outside in the pass, and then through the second gate at the rear of the guardhouse. The plan was to retake the keep, and Karigan’s part was essential.

She pressed her back against the inside of the curtain wall that, with its battlements and towers, sheltered the bailey and protected the keep. Her head pounded with the use of her ability and she longed to rest, but she must continue with her mission to find her way to the sally port located deep within Stormcroft Mountain. It was a door of escape from the keep, which could only be opened from the inside. A contingent of Sacoridian regulars would be waiting on the outside for her to open it.

Hinges creaked as the wicket was closed; then the drawbar clunked into place, securing the gate.

One of the guards shouted, “Gate is barred.”

Chains and gears click-clacked and groaned as the portcullis was lowered. The entire process would be repeated with the secondary gate. Karigan did not have to see what was happening to identify the sounds as they were ubiquitous in fortified structures such as the castle. Soon the portcullis thudded into position and everyone, including herself, was locked inside. Her fate was sealed. There was no way out save the sally port, and to get there, she must enter the keep unseen and pass among whatever remained of Second Empire.

She took in her surroundings. Chickens pecked the cobblestones near her feet. A dog followed his master into a small stable. Livestock lowed and bleated, and were so numerous that it was no wonder some had to be left outside. Somehow children found space among the milling sheep for a game of tag. Torches and lanterns provided some light, but there were enough shadows that it appeared the keep’s occupants were being sparing in their use of whale oil, candles, and wood, which was not surprising in a siege situation. It was all for the better in terms of her fading ability remaining effective. Zachary would also distract the enemy by moving his army forward while she went about her business.

She gazed up at the battlements and spotted only a few guards silhouetted against the sky. Megan had been right—there was only a skeleton crew taking care of the defenses. It was always possible there were many more soldiers hiding in the keep, but she suspected this was not the case, and fervently hoped she was right.

She clung to the shadows of the curtain wall. Before entering the keep proper, she must cross the baily, and it would not do to scatter the chickens or cause the sheep to move in unexpected ways, or otherwise draw attention to herself. She set off with careful steps, wending her way through spaces between woolly bodies, cursing silently as she stepped in droppings. She stopped several times so as not to cause a stir among the milling animals, before finding another break through which she could slip. Fortunately, she didn’t have to pass anywhere near the children and risk their detection. When she reached the front of the keep, she let out a long sigh and kept snug to the stone wall.

Getting inside the keep would be trickier. There was a lantern hanging by the door. She crept closer, halted when a man trotted outside and headed for the stable. After a quick glance at her surroundings, she darted through the open door. If anyone saw the blur of a person passing by the lantern, she hoped they thought it was a trick of their eyes. She had been given black to wear, lent to her by the Weapon, Erin, in hopes that she would blend in with the shadows even more. It was not the first time she’d worn Weapon black, but it felt strange not to be in her usual green uniform.

She stepped aside from the door and away from the torchlight. The entry opened right into a greathall. At the far end, a hearth crackled with a fire, and a woman tended a cauldron. Above the hearth, where some insignia of the garrison or the realm must have once hung, the dead tree of Second Empire had been painted in black. Stray drops of paint tracked down the wall from the branches in spidery runnels.

Another woman sat in a chair beside the hearth to breastfeed her baby. Others moved about among the tables and in and out the entrance to the kitchen. An air current carried the scent of baking bread to her and her mouth watered.

When Zachary and his officers had gone over the mission with her, they’d shown her the plans to the keep so she would know its layout. She had committed it all to memory. Barracks were on an upper level, and above that were more battlements. This level was the kitchen and greathall, and other rooms that could be used as storage or expanded into more barracks. Below were more storage rooms, and the armory, cisterns, and access to the sally port. There were many more miles of corridors burrowed into the mountain that could shelter an army, but they had been closed off centuries ago, and were not of concern to her at the moment. Unless, of course, they were inhabited.

A pair of armed men approached. She held her breath until they’d gone well past her, then she darted into a side passage that would take her to the stairs that plunged into the keep’s depths.

Doors lined the passage. Some were closed, but others were open to chambers. With no windows, the chambers were lit with candles. They appeared to be occupied by families. A toddler screamed in one as his mother tried to calm him.

Karigan moved carefully, but almost stepped on the tail of a cat. The tom glared at her. Even if people couldn’t see her, the cat could at least sense her.

“Sorry,” she whispered, and she continued to edge along the corridor, avoiding people coming and going, and the flickering of the torches. It was a bit of a dance as she wove and turned and tiptoed all the way.

Finally, with a sigh of relief, she came to the end of the corridor. A doorway led to stairs that spiraled downward. The walls were rough here, entirely carved from the rock of the mountain.

She stepped through the doorway onto the top landing of the stairs, and with no one in sight, she paused to catch her breath, and dropped her fading. The pain hammered through her skull from using her ability for so long. She stood there with her eyes closed to ease the ache. When she opened them again, a young boy with a ball in his hands stood before her. She had not heard his approach so severe was the pounding in her head. He stared at her, his mouth agape. Startled, she could only stare back at him.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

Oh, no, she thought.

Yes, her other self said, stepping up beside the boy. What are you going to do? The darkness of the keep suited the other. It sculpted the planes of her face into sharp angles, shadowed the eye not covered by a patch. You must kill him before he alerts everyone to your presence.

Karigan’s fingers twitched as she wrapped them around the hilt of her longknife. It was true, that if she did not kill him, the whole of the keep would be brought down on her and Zachary’s plan foiled. They were depending on her.

Do it, her other self whispered. A swift slash across his throat before he can scream.

The small, fresh graves in the farmyard in Boggs.

The sound of children laughing down the corridor.

Could she take the life of a child to ensure the greater good?

Do it, her other self pressed. They are not all innocent. Remember Lala.

Karigan glanced at the other, the darkness that surrounded her, the eagerness in her face, and shook her head. She let go the hilt of the longknife.

I am not all dark, Karigan thought. Perhaps that was why the Eletians called her Winterlight. They recognized the light within her, and to murder this boy who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time would be to extinguish the light. Perhaps not all at once, but in a way that it could never be fully recovered.

She bent toward the boy and placed her finger over her lips. “Shhh,” she said, and she faded.

The boy froze for a moment before tearing out of the stairwell and into the corridor. “MAAA!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Now you have done it, the other said.

Karigan ignored her and ran down the stairs, the boy’s voice echoing behind her. With any luck, it would take some time for the adults to figure out what had upset him. Maybe they’d think it his imagination, or that he was lying.

She blew past doorways to other corridors that were sealed off as she descended and continued to the bottom landing. She paused, breathing hard. The landing opened into a rough-hewn tunnel with wooden posts and beams to brace the low ceiling. She would not have to use her moonstone for there were just enough torches to show the way.

She moved stealthily forward. Guards were more than likely stationed at the sally port. The tunnel angled downward, and she walked at great length, pausing now and then to listen for pursuit. Much to her relief, she heard none. Perhaps no one believed the boy, after all.

When the tunnel leveled out once more, she saw it, the sally port. It was a great steel-bound door, and it was indeed guarded. Two armed fellows diced before it, joking and laughing. So far, they appeared unaware of her presence.

She drew her sword and crept forward, then paused again and picked up a stone. She threw it as hard and as far as she could back in the direction from which she’d come. It clacked and clattered to the ground.

Both of the guards looked up.

“What was that?” one asked.

“Nothing, I expect,” the second said, and they resumed dicing.

Exasperated, Karigan searched for a larger stone and hurled it as well. The guards looked again.

“That was something,” the first said.

“Aye. I’ll go check it out,” the second said.

He stumped up the corridor toward Karigan and she slunk into the shadow of a post. A ring of keys clinked on his belt. When he was past her, she hurried toward the door, then slowed as she neared the other guard. She halted to decide how to proceed. When he bent over to scoop up his dice, she knocked him over the head with the pommel of her sword. He fell face first onto the ground.

The other guard was still looking around up the passage, so she turned to the door. To her dismay, it appeared to have a complicated set of locks, and a crank-and-gear system.

“Hells,” she muttered. The keys were with the other guard. She searched the unconscious fellow just in case he had his own set, but with no success.

She bounded back up the corridor with the hope of dealing with the guard the same as she had the first. She was running right up to him when he turned around.

“Whaaa—?” he began, and unsheathed his sword. “What are you?”

Hells. She was faintly visible in the light of a nearby torch. She sidestepped into darker shadow.

He swept his sword this way and that, walking in a circle. “I know you’re there. Show yourself.” The keys jangled on his belt.

When he turned away from her, she went after him and raised her sword to hit him over the head, but at the last minute, he turned again and saw her, and blocked her blow with his sword. This had now gone beyond knocking him out. She skittered backward and dropped her fading. Cold seeped through her veins. Could she do this? Fight without her back giving out? The doubts returned despite her good training sessions with Fastion and Donal. The fear of weakness, of failure.

What saved her was the guard seeing her in Weapon black. He froze in place and blanched. The tip of his sword dipped.

Then, in an instant, they both jumped to, swords clashing. The ring of steel was like a song to her, one she knew and loved. It took her back to a time when she was herself, back to a time before the Lone Forest and the whip of Nyssa Starling.

The guard, she thought, had believed himself overmatched when he saw her in black, and he now knew it as she made her sword sing. There was, in truth, nothing “honorary” about her ability, or the fierce joy that surged through her veins.