The stark, snow-reflected light from the tall windows along the upper hallway stung Chel’s eyes, and by now his weakened legs were aching, begging for rest. Only the little Nort fared worse; his shuffling steps were timid and unsteady, and a rough sack of belongings gathered from shelving beside the iron cell was slung over his shoulder, clinking with each halting pace. Rennic was doing better – Chel wasn’t sure if he’d never abandoned hope of rescue, or if he was too bloody-minded to change his routine, but the big man had kept himself as fit and strong as possible during their stay in the cells. Chel’s early attempts to match him had led only to sharp pain from his ruined shoulder, and he’d felt too cold and hungry to try again since.
‘Come on, Bear, keep moving!’ Sab’s arm wrapped around him.
He nodded back at the Nort. ‘Think our friend needs help more than I do.’
‘“Our friend” flinches whenever I get near him, so you’re all I’ve got.’
They struggled on in awkward synchronicity.
‘Where are we heading?’
‘The gatehouse. I’ve stashed some cloaks and things there, we should be able to slip out of the side door, mingle with the crowd at chucking-out time, get down the hill with the masses.’
‘At the end of the confession?’
She paused.
‘Yes.’
‘Where are all the guards?’
‘Prince Tarfel told them it was fine to go and watch the confession. Only that beast in the cells looked twice at us.’
Chel nodded, wincing at the burning sensation in his legs. He’d not walked so many steps in a row for weeks, nor climbed anything more than his creaking pallet.
‘How did you get Tarfel to help? How did you even come to speak to him? How …’ He fell silent. There were too many questions, too many things he felt eluded him.
She sensed his mood, the tide of enquiries dammed by his silence. ‘Don’t fret, Bear. You know I can be persuasive. We can go into detail later, once we’re clear. If you want, that is …’
He nodded, waved her words away.
‘How long do we have?’
A scream rent the air, something awful and animal and in utter agony. It lasted far longer than Chel thought possible, its pitch and intensity shaking his bones, making his guts tremble.
Sab’s eyes were wide, her breath sharp.
‘Not long.’
Rennic was already at the window, peering into the courtyard below, but keeping as low as he could. Chel thumped down next to him as the next scream ripped across the citadel. It subsided into sobs, screeching, mewling, pleading.
‘Any chance they’re just skinning a goat down there?’
Rennic shook his head. His expression was grave-cold, his years wearing as heavy on his face as Chel had ever seen.
‘Dalim,’ he said.
Chel nodded, because he could think of nothing else to do. Then he said, ‘Palo will give them nothing. She’ll make fools of them all.’
Rennic took a long breath, steadying himself to stand.
‘I doubt it.’
***
At the door to the frozen battlement, their burning climb behind them, Tarfel stopped to wait. ‘The gatehouse is at the far end. Just stay out of sight until the confession ends, then go for the side door. I need to get back upstairs, before they notice I’m gone,’ he said. ‘We both do.’ He was looking at Sab.
Chel looked back in horror. ‘Get back? What are you talking about?’
The prince shrugged, apologetic. ‘I’m technically under house arrest, confined to chambers, you see. If your sister hadn’t got me out, I’d still be stuck there.’
‘But people saw you, you sent them to watch the confession!’
‘Indeed, indeed. My status is all a bit hush-hush, a bit need-to-know. Corvel’s not keen to explain why he’s imprisoned his own brother, you understand.’
‘And you’re going back?!’
‘Plausible deniability, Vedren. Best big bro never finds out I’ve been on a jaunt.’
‘And you?’ Chel turned to his sister. ‘Why would you stay here?’
‘Nobody knows about me,’ she said, jaw set in an expression he remembered from years before. ‘I can do more good here, working on the inside.’
‘Corvel knows a thrice-damned sight more than anyone ever believed,’ he said, skin prickling with inner heat. ‘He knows I have a sister, and he’ll sure as day-old shit know that we’re gone and his gaoler is dead. He’ll know we had help. He’ll look.’
Another scream tore through the morning air, this one layered thick with madness.
‘And everyone confesses in the end.’
Rennic elbowed his way into their huddle. ‘It’s guarded,’ he snarled. ‘The fucking gatehouse has three men I can see and who knows how many more within. What the fuck are we supposed to do about them? Cough our way past? Why do you have no weapons?’
Sab stood her ground. ‘If you’d let me get to it, I’d tell you I planned for this.’ She gripped his arm and led him back to the battlement doorway. She pointed at a stack of bundles, piled against the base of the wall. ‘There, see it? It’s stacked with tinder and dried wood, plenty of green piled on top for some nasty smoke. I even rolled up a barrel of brandy from the cellars. Set that lot off, nobody is going to be looking at the gatehouse.’
Rennic gave a nod of the head. ‘Impressive. How do we set it off?’
Sab went a little pale, and Rennic’s expression darkened.
‘I … er …’
‘Jingling dick-bells, are you serious?’
‘I had a lot to do, all right, and not much time to do it in! And in absolute secrecy!’
‘Shepherd’s tits, there’s no way to light it.’
Sab was flushed but defiant. ‘Hey, there are plenty of ways to light it. I could go down there, and—’
Before Chel could throw himself into the argument, Tarfel spoke up. ‘I know where they put your stuff. Your weapons and armour.’
Rennic turned to him, very slowly.
‘Yes, princeling?’
‘It’s in the armoury, above the stables. There are bows there, and crossbows. You could light the pile with a flaming arrow, right?’
Rennic stared at him for a long time, eyes burning, then he shrugged. ‘Not very subtle, but fuck it, yeah.’
Outside in the courtyard the chanting of the crowd reached a crescendo, and the final, agonising scream ended with abrupt certainty.
‘Show me.’
***
Rennic stalked along the empty hallways like a great prowling cat, sliding from one pool of shadow to the next, his fists clenching and unclenching as he went. Tarfel trotted in his wake, pointing the way in mute distress, while Chel brought up the rear, casting pinched looks back down the passageway to where his sister and the Nort huddled on the battlement. Tension radiated from the man in front. Until he held a weapon, Rennic would not relax.
Not every occupant of the keep was at the confession, and their progress was skittering and irregular as they ducked in and out of doorways to avoid the occasional squeamish clerk. Overhead, the early bell had begun to toll once more. The second confession was imminent.
The smell announced that the stables were close. They peered through a narrow window into a low, separate courtyard, strewn with straw and dung piles. A stone-walled building occupied the far wall, plumes of steam billowing from the horses tied in the stalls within.
‘Up there, above the stables. The room with the narrow windows.’ Tarfel gestured redundantly upward, and Rennic rewarded him with a withering look.
A sound pricked Chel’s ears: footsteps.
‘Someone’s com—’ he began, but Rennic was already bundling them out of the hallway and into a side room. The big man followed, staying pressed against the cold stone of the door-frame, breathing into his arm to hide his breath-fog.
Chel counted the footsteps, four sets. No, five, moving fast but heavy. Armed men, most of them. Approaching from the main keep, either heading for the stables or the walls. Rennic met his eye. They were both unarmed. He knew Rennic was perfectly capable of incapacitating an adversary with little more than his thumbs, even a couple if he had the drop, but five was pushing it.
Rennic was scanning the gloomy room, an office from the look of it, as most of them seemed to be on this floor: rolled scrolls, writing desks, quills, and ink. He plucked a quill from its holder, tested the point against his finger, then sighed in disgust, snapped it and discarded the remains.
‘… cannot be allowed to escape the citadel, you understand? There’s no way he drugged that guard himself, and if he’s loose, he’s had help.’ A voice, pompous, northern. Familiar. Chel’s gaze snapped back to meet Rennic’s. He recognized it too. ‘You two, check the walls, make sure he’s not sneaking out that way. We’ll look in the stables, count the horses. That ghastly little shit may have his brother’s indulgence, but he does not have mine.’
The footsteps split, two sets heading up the hallway toward them, the rest continuing toward the stables. Chel slid deeper inside the room, ushering the prince into the shadows. The two men flashed past down the hallway, swords at their hips and shields on their arms. Their colours confirmed his suspicions – the freshly minted Grand Duke of Denirnas, Esen Basar, was hunting the prince.
Tarfel poked his head up, jaw flapping. ‘Esen Basar!’
‘Esen fucking Basar,’ Chel growled, feeling the throb of his shoulder. The cowardly count who’d killed his own father and tried to murder Tarfel in the process.
‘Prick-weasel escaped me once at the winter palace.’ Rennic was already moving, padding out into the hallway. ‘Not going to let that become a habit.’
‘Two of his men are going to the wall, Rennic. They’ll find my sister!’
‘No shit.’ He changed direction. ‘I’ll deal with it. Stay here, keep princeling quiet.’
Rennic’s hand moved to the knives at his belt.
He had no knives. He had no belt.
Chel held his gaze. ‘What are you going to do?’
The big man paused only a moment.
‘Improvise.’
***
Rennic came barrelling back into the office only a short time later, before Chel had started to really panic. One side of his face was sprayed dark and a guard’s sword hung loose and bloodied in each hand; he left dark footprints in his wake. He looked out of breath.
Chel was on his feet immediately. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’
Rennic pushed one of the weapons into Chel’s grip. Its hilt was sticky. ‘Fine. Where are Count Pig-Dog and his minions? Have they left the stables?’
Chel shook his head. ‘We haven’t heard—’
‘Fucking hells. Fine. Princeling! Take us to the armoury.’
The thick door to the armoury was unguarded. Tarfel fished around for a set of keys, gabbling the whole time.
‘Borrowed these from the seneschal’s office, didn’t even have to use subterfuge, turns out nobody wants to refuse a prince, well, aside from that monster in the dungeon. I suppose, that could have been—’
‘Shut up.’ Rennic cuffed the back of his head.
‘Righto.’
The armoury was less impressive inside than Chel had hoped: a rack of spears that had seen better days, some rusted mail and low-grade swords. Wherever the confessors were keeping their blessed blades and fancy new breastplates, it wasn’t here. Chel poked at a pile of unstrung bows, their wood cracked and snarled. Through the narrow windows, voices drifted up from the stables below. Pressed to the wall at the window-side, Rennic’s scowl deepened. ‘Basar is down there, he’s searching the stables.’ He looked up at the others. ‘Find me something that can shoot.’
Chel went back to the cracked bows, hoping to find one he could salvage. Tarfel began to sift in the room’s other corner, looking under canvas coverings and rummaging in crates. A moment later, he cried in triumph. ‘Crossbows!’
‘Levers and quarrels?’
‘Er …’
‘Keep looking, dung-muncher!’
Rennic marched to a long, low chest that sat beneath the windows. He ripped it open then crowed with delight, reaching in a gleeful hand to make sure. Chel looked up from his search. ‘What, what is it? Quarrels?’
Rennic withdrew an armful of interwoven panels of leather and steel, a little frayed but still robust. His lamellar armour. He shook it out, then slung it straight around his shoulders.
‘Little man, come and give me a hand with this.’
Tarfel piped up. ‘I’ve found crossbow bolts, I think. And some kind of rod.’
‘Good, good, now … Oh …’
Chel peered over Rennic’s shoulder into the chest. Under the grotty collection of mail and broken blades piled within lay something long and slender, one end thick and tightly wrapped. Rennic reached in and levered up one end, sliding it out with great care. The shaft was carved, inlaid and ornate. And under the wrapping would be a long, sharp blade, inscribed with swirling patterns.
‘Dalim’s glaive,’ Chel murmured, his gaze fixed on the gleam of the day’s grey light on the shaft’s carvings.
‘He won’t be needing it.’ Rennic hoisted it over his shoulder.
‘Anything else in there? My good knife?’
‘Come on, let’s get back to the battlements while those dick-heads are rifling the stables. Keep a tight hold of that sword, eh?’
Armour hanging open, wrapped glaive over his shoulder, Rennic strode back toward the door, waving for Tarfel to bring the crossbow, quarrels, and lever. The prince stumbled along behind them, bent double over his load, and Chel went back to assist him. Rennic sighed, turned and marched out through the doorway and straight into Esen Basar, Grand Duke of Denirnas.
Both stood in shocked silence for a moment, agape. Then recognition bloomed in the young duke’s eyes, an instinctive hand going straight to the puckered scar across his otherwise perfect cheek. Rennic had given him that, Chel remembered with satisfaction.
‘You!’
Rennic unfroze, swinging the glaive off his shoulder and tearing at the blade’s wrapping. The duke’s eyes moved from Rennic’s face to the weapon and back, his nostrils flared, then he turned and ran, jostling past the two guards filling the hall. ‘Kill him!’ he screeched as he fled, soft boots slapping against the flagstones. Chel tried to step in to help, the sticky sword heavy in his hand, but Rennic blocked the door. The wrapping wasn’t coming free. The two guards closed, shields up, swords drawn.
‘Fuck,’ Rennic snarled. ‘Fuck, fuck fu—’
Chel lunged forward and swiped at the last of the bindings around the glaive, narrowly missing Rennic’s fingers. The blade abruptly freed, the big man feinted a back-step then pivoted, slashing the razor-sharp blade in a tight arc below the shield-line. Both guards, caught mid-advance, buckled and squealed. One managed to keep his shield up, the other took the blade’s driving point in his neck. As he fell, Rennic was already shifting, spinning the haft around to crunch the pommel into the surviving guard’s helmet, then slashing the blade again to his undefended legs. He collapsed, and Rennic moved fast to cut both throats.
‘Can we—’
‘Shh!’
Rennic cocked his head, and Chel did likewise, trying to quiet the pounding of his pulse in his ears. He could still make out the soft slap of the duke’s boots, now half-muffled by straw.
‘He’s back downstairs. Crossbow!’
Rennic pushed the glaive toward Chel and snatched the crossbow from the prince’s hands, along with the lever and a handful of bolts, and raced to one of the arrow-slit windows. Chel was an instant behind him, glaive and sword cradled uselessly in his hands, eye pressed to the next window along. There was the duke, sidling across the stable-yard, his step hesitant, his gaze over his shoulder at the lower door. Presumably waiting to see if it was safe to come back, or if he was being pursued.
Rennic dropped to one knee, working the lever into the crossbow’s notch and drawing the creaking string, then slotted in a bolt. He sighted along its length, through the arrow-slit, at the oblivious duke. Chel looked down at the weapon. The quarrel was warped, the string fraying.
‘It looks pretty old, are you sure you can—’
‘Princeling,’ Rennic growled over him, ‘find another crossbow and load it.’
He pulled the trigger.
The bolt twanged from the bow, swishing through the air and smacking off the packed, frozen dirt several feet from the duke. The duke squealed and took to his heels, making for the wide gate that led to the main courtyard.
‘Fuck! Rancid fucking crossbows! Give me another!’
He slung the crossbow aside, and Tarfel scurried over to press another into his waiting hand. Chel could only watch, his arms already full of weapons. Rennic checked the quarrel, raised and fired. The bolt skittered away, pinging over the duke’s shoulder and into the ground, setting him squealing anew.
‘Another!’
Tarfel passed him another weapon and he sighted along it. The duke had reached the wide gate and was trying to open it. It was shut fast, and the noise of the confession beyond appeared to be drowning out his hammering wails. Rennic lined up the bolt and pulled the trigger.
The string snapped.
‘Fuck! Another!’
The duke had spotted the wicket gate.
‘Another!’
The duke ran to the wicket gate, first trying to push, then pull.
‘Another! What the fuck!’
Rennic swung around. Tarfel had the last crossbow, feebly trying to lever the string back. He looked up in misery. ‘I think it’s stuck, I can’t—’
In the stable-yard, the wicket gate swung open, and the duke darted inside. He was gone.
Rennic’s gaze swung back to the prince, and his knuckles went white.
‘You useless fucking shit-heap!’
He threw himself at the prince, fists swinging. He landed only a couple of blows before Chel was on his back.
‘Stop!’
Rennic stood, levering Chel clear of the ground, spinning and wrenching. He threw him clear, but Chel leapt straight back, a fresh scrape along one arm and a nasty throb in his shoulder.
‘Stop! Stop. Hitting. Him.’
Rennic swayed on his feet as the rage seemed to drain from him. He seemed at once very tired. Tired and old. Chel pressed his advantage.
‘He risked his life for us. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to do a thrice-damned thing.’
Tarfel cowered behind him, whimpering. Chel kept himself between the big man and the prince. He could feel a hot trickle of blood leaking from his nose.
‘We need to leave. And he’s coming too.’
Rennic nodded, the fury gone from his eyes as suddenly as it had come.
‘Then let’s go.’