Jarvis Coe gasped as he drew rein before the wrought iron gate. It was open, but only a sliver; they had to slow almost to a halt from their pounding gallop to get through it.
Particularly since it’s as dark as a yard up a sewer rats’ nest, Jimmy thought. The saddle had pounded his hams back into pain, and the rapier had caught him under the ribs with a couple of good whacks as well; he hadn’t wanted it out of reach if he had to dismount in a hurry. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked the older man, peering through the gate at the manor; distance and rain hid everything but a wavering light from a high window.
‘Very,’ Coe said tightly. ‘We’re late. We’re very late. Things have already begun.’
They threaded their way through the entrance and booted the tired horses into an unwilling canter. They pulled up at the entrance to the manor, next to a dog cart with a horse patiently enduring the rain. ‘That’s Flora’s aunt’s horse!’ said Jimmy. ‘I’ve seen him in the little shed behind the house. Flora and Lorrie must have come here looking for us!’
‘Or looking for the young man you encountered,’ said Coe.
The main doors of the manor were slightly ajar, and Jimmy felt an unwilling grin curve his lips—Flora hadn’t wasted time, or forgotten all she’d picked up as a thief before she went into the mattress trade. They swung down from their saddles, looping the reins over rings in the low wall that flanked the bridge across the moat.
Might have to get away in a hurry, he thought.
‘I’ll go first,’ Coe said, alighting and drawing his blade.
‘You go first,’ Jimmy agreed, doing likewise.
A muffled shout came through the outer door of the sacrificial chamber. Bram heard a man shout in alarm, and the clash of steel on steel, and a high shriek that could have come only from a woman’s throat, and then a cry of pain that could have been made by anyone.
The man in the velvet jacket spoke a sharp command. Skinny and Rox were standing by the door; one opened an eyehole cover set into it and peered out cautiously—not wanting to be stabbed through it, probably.
‘Probably the little rats again, my lord,’ Rox said. ‘Otto’s down—not bleeding, that I can see. Looks like the others have taken off after them.’
‘Get out there, but stay close to the door,’ Baron Bernarr said. ‘Let no one by, on your life.’ He turned back towards the magician..
‘Timing is very crucial now, my lord,’ the man with empty eyes said. ‘We must strike at precisely the right moment; and we will have only a few seconds while your lady lies between life and death. If you would take your position?’
Baron Bernarr came closer; the magician offered him a long curved knife, and he took it with a disturbing familiarity. The blade was also inscribed with symbols and, like the ones on the floor the young man could no longer see, they were somehow obscurely repulsive and unnerving.
‘Be careful,’ the magician said. ‘The best symbolic representation of a sharp knife is a sharp knife.’
The other man chuckled a little, in a perfunctory manner. The way a man laughed at a joke he’d heard often before.
The room was cold, but Bram could smell his own sweat, and feel the prickling itch of it as drops ran gelid down his face and flanks. He’d always thought himself a brave man—he’d faced dangers before, fire, flood, a few fights working for caravan-masters—but right now he suspected he’d be begging and pleading if it wasn’t so obviously useless.
Lorrie saw the guard’s eyes go wide as they turned the corner.
‘Hey, you aren’t Forten and Sonnart,’ the man with the polearm said. He had a bandage on one hand, from what was probably a burn.
‘Damn me!’ the other halberdier said. ‘It’s a girl!’
Flora blew across her palm.
The halberdier collapsed with a limp finality. The two men on the bench sprang up with yells of alarm, reaching for their swords. Lorrie already had hers out, both her small hands clenched on the long leather-wrapped hilt. She managed to get it around in time to hit the head of the polearm as it stabbed at Flora. Steel clanged on steel, a harsh unmusical shriek; then her sword slid down the spike on top of the halberd until it caught in the notch between that and the axe. The man grinned and twisted his weapon with all the strength of his heavy arms and shoulders and the sword flew out of Lorrie’s hands and over his head; his comrades danced aside to let it clatter against the door behind them.
Then the man yelled and leapt: Flora had stabbed him in the thigh with her belt-knife.
‘Run!’ she shouted.