“That’s disgusting,” Alric said.
There was more there than cockroaches. Hadrian spotted something white and spidery darting across the surface—a crab, and there was not just one, but hundreds all scuttling along. There was a faint squeal lower down and he saw a rat. The rodent was scrambling to escape the pile as a horde of beetles swarmed it. The rat toppled and was pulled onto its back, where it floundered, struggling in the soft guano. It squealed again. Its feet, tail, and head quivered and thrashed above the surface as an endless mob of beetles pulled it down, until only the trembling, hairless tail was visible, and then it too vanished.
“ ‘Crawling, crawling, crawling. They eat everything,’ ” Myron quoted.
“Anyone want to try walking across that?” Royce asked.
Wyatt replied with an uncomfortable laugh, then said, “No, seriously, how do we get down?”
“What if we jump and run real fast?” Mauvin offered.
This idea garnered several grimaces.
“What if it’s not solid? Can you imagine it being so soft that you went under, like water?” Magnus muttered.
“You’re thinking something,” Hadrian said to Royce. “You saw this from above. You wouldn’t have come down if you didn’t have some kind of plan.”
He shook his head. “Not me, but I was hoping she would.” He gestured at Arista.
All eyes turned to the princess and she returned the looks with an expression of surprise and self-doubt.
“You need to provide us with a path or something,” Royce told her. “Some means of getting down the slope of this pile. There’s an opening over there, a crack in the wall—see it?” He pointed. “It will be tight, but I think we can get through. Of course, we’ll have to crawl, possibly even dig our way out. So really, anything you can do to distract the meat-eating beetles would be nice.”
She nodded and sighed. “I really don’t have a lot of experience at this.”
“You do what you can,” Hadrian told her.
“The only other alternative is Mauvin’s idea—we run for it and hope to get out before we’re completely eaten.”
Arista made a face and nodded again. “Everyone should stand behind me. I don’t know exactly what will happen.”
“What’s she gonna do?” Gaunt asked. “What’s going on?”
“Just do as she says,” Royce told him.
The princess took a position on the edge of the rock and faced the mound. The rest gathered behind her, shifting their feet so as not to fall. Arista stood with her arms at her sides, rotating her palms out toward the mound, and slowly, softly, she began to hum. Then the light of her robe went out.
Darkness swallowed them.
Their only reference point was the tiny circle of starlit sky that lingered overhead, and in the absence of sight, the chattering sounds of a million roaches echoed. They all stood close to each other, huddled against the black, when tiny lights began appearing. Pinpricks flashed and died in the air before them. While the sparks lived, they swirled and drifted, riding currents of spinning air. More appeared, until Hadrian felt he was seeing the top of a giant campfire. There was no flame, only the swarm of sparks that rose high into the air, carried up as if the shaft were an enormous chimney.
In addition to the sparks, there was heat. It felt as if Hadrian stood before his father’s forge. He could feel it baking his clothes and flushing his skin. With the heat came a new smell; far worse than the musty ammonia scent, this was thick and overpowering—the gagging stench of burning hair. As they watched, the pile before them began to radiate light, a faint red glow, like embers in a neglected fireplace. Then spontaneously flames caught, flaring here and there, throwing tall demonic shadows dancing on the walls.
“All right! All right!” Alric shouted. “That’s enough! That’s enough! You’re burning my face off!”
The flames subsided, the red glow faded, and the soaring sparks died. Arista’s robe once more glowed, but fainter and with a bluish tint. Her shoulders slumped and her legs wavered. Hadrian grabbed hold of her by the elbow and waist.
“Are you all right?”
“Did it work? Is anyone hurt?” she asked, turning to look.
“A little seared, perhaps,” he said.
Royce ventured a foot out onto the pile. There was an audible crunch, as if he were stepping on eggshells. The surface of the mound looked dark and glassy. Nothing moved anymore.
Royce took two steps, then returned promptly to the island. “Still a tad warm. We might want to wait a bit.”
“How did you do that?” Degan asked, astonished, while at the same time shifting away from her as far as the tiny perch allowed.
“She’s a witch,” Magnus said.
“She’s not a witch!” In the otherwise silent cave, the volume of his own voice embarrassed Hadrian. It echoed twice. He noticed Alric looking at him, surprised, and he felt suddenly crowded. He stepped off and started walking.
He felt the surface of the pile crackle beneath his weight, the heat under his boots as if he were striding across sunbaked sand. He shuffled down the side of the pile, kicking the roasted remains of crabs aside. Light bobbed behind him and he knew at least Arista followed. They reached the crack. It was larger than it had seemed at a distance, and he was able to pass through without so much as ducking.
CHAPTER 9
WAR NEWS
The two girls sprinted along the parapet, their dark winter cloaks waving in their wake. Mercy jerked to a halt and Allie nearly ran her down. They bumped and both giggled into the cold wind. The sky was as gray as the castle walls they stood on, their cheeks a brilliant red from the cold, but they were oblivious to such things.
Mercy got to her hands and knees, and crawling between the merlons, she peered down. Huge blocks of unevenly colored stone formed a twenty-foot-high wall, the squares seeming to diminish in size the farther away they were. At the bottom lay a street, where dozens of people walked, rode, or pushed carts. The sight made Mercy’s stomach rise, and her hands felt so weak that squeezing anything caused a tickling sensation. Still, it was wonderful to see the world from so high, to see the roofs of houses and the patterns formed by streets. With the snow, almost everything was white, but there were splashes of color: the side of a red barn on a distant hill, the three-story building painted sky blue, the bronze patches of road where snow retreated before the heat of traffic. Mercy had never seen a city before, much less one from this height. Being on the battlements of the palace made her feel as if she were the empress of the world, or at least a flying bird—both of equal delight in her mind.
“He’s not down there!” Allie shouted, her voice buffeted by the wind so that her words came to Mercy as if from miles away. “He doesn’t have wings!”