The hallway was lined with weapons, bent and rust-speckled. The weapons of armies defeated by High Kings of the past few hundred years. But there would be no victory for the High King today. From beyond the narrow windows, Koll could hear the sack of Skekenhouse. Could smell the burning. Could feel the fear, catching as the plague.
He put his head down, trying not to imagine what was happening out there. Trying not to imagine what might happen here, when Father Yarvi finally came face to face with Grandmother Wexen.
‘What if she has fled?’ snapped Skifr.
‘She is here,’ said Yarvi. ‘Grandmother Wexen is not the fleeing kind.’
High doors of dark wood stood at the end of the hallway, carved with scenes from the life of Bail the Builder. How he conquered Throvenland. How he conquered Yutmark. How he climbed a hill of dead enemies to conquer the whole Shattered Sea. Another day Koll would’ve admired the craftsmanship, if not the conquest, but no one was in the mood for woodwork now.
A dozen guards blocked the way, mailed men with frowns fixed and spears levelled.
‘Step aside,’ said Father Yarvi, Rulf and his warriors spreading out across the width of the hallway. ‘Tell them, Mother Adwyn.’
‘Let them through, I beg you!’ Adwyn spoke as though the words hurt her more than the rope, but she spoke even so. ‘The city is fallen. Blood spilled now is blood wasted!’
Koll hoped they would listen. But you know how it goes, with hopes.
‘I cannot.’ The captain of the guards was a warrior of no small fame, his silver-studded shield painted with the eagle of the First of Ministers. ‘Grandmother Wexen has ordered that these doors stay sealed, and I have sworn an oath.’
‘Oaths,’ muttered Koll. ‘Nothing but trouble.’
Skifr nudged him aside as she stepped past, raising her elf-relic to her shoulder. ‘Break your oath or meet Death,’ she said.
‘Please!’ Mother Adwyn tried to duck in front of Skifr, but the warrior who held her rope dragged her back.
The captain raised his shield to look proudly over the rim. ‘I do not fear you, witch! I—’
Skifr’s weapon barked once, thunderously loud in the narrow space. Half the captain’s shield blew apart, his arm flew off in a gout of fire and knocked over the man beside him. He was flung against the door, bounced off and crumpled on his face. One leg kicked a little then was still, blood spreading about the smouldering corpse, blood spattered across the fine carvings on the door. A little piece of metal fell, bounced, tinkled away into a corner.
‘Does anyone else wish to stay loyal to Grandmother Wexen?’ asked Yarvi.
As if by prior agreement the guards flung down their weapons.
‘Merciful god,’ whispered Mother Adwyn as Rulf stepped smartly over their dead leader, seized the iron handles and heaved on them to no effect.
‘Locked,’ he growled.
Skifr raised her elf-relic again. ‘I have the key.’
Rulf flung himself to the floor. Koll clapped his hands over his ears as the weapon spat fire, blasting chunks from the beautiful woodwork where the two doors met, splinters flying in stinging clouds. Before the echoes faded Skifr stepped forward, raised her boot, and kicked the ruined doors shuddering open.
Even for a man who’d seen the wonders of Strokom the Hall of Whispers was dizzying, elf-stone and elf-glass soaring up into the distance, a ring-shaped balcony five times a man’s height above them, another as far above that, another above that. It was all lit by a flickering madman’s glare, for in the centre of the round expanse of floor a huge fire burned. A pyre of books, and papers, and scrolls as high as a king’s barrow, the heat of the roaring flames sucking the sweat from Koll’s brow.
Statues of the six Tall Gods loomed high, flames glimmering in their garnet eyes, and standing even taller a new statue of the One God, neither man nor woman, gazing down with bland indifference on the destruction. Smaller figures were picked out against the flames. Grey-robed Sisters of the Ministry, some staring in horror towards the door, some still frantically feeding the fire, half-burned papers floating high into the echoing space above, fluttering down like leaves in autumn.
‘Stop them!’ bellowed Yarvi, voice shrill over the roar of the flames. ‘Collar them! Chain them! We will choose later who to spare and who to blame!’
Rulf’s warriors were already spilling through the doors, their mail, and blades, and eager eyes shining with the colours of fire. A shaven-headed girl was dragged kicking past, blood on her bared teeth. An apprentice like Koll, only doing as she was ordered, and he rubbed at the old chafe-marks where his own thrall-collar had sat, long ago.
Some might think it strange that a man who’d suffered as a slave himself could be so quick to force slavery on others, but Koll knew better. We all teach the lessons we are taught, after all.
‘Where is Grandmother Wexen?’ snarled Skifr, spit flecking from her burned lips.