The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER THREE





HARKELD WRENCHED FREE of the witch’s grip. “No. This way.” The tall double doors would only lead them to the main corridor and more guards. He headed for one of the side doors at a run.

The gray-haired witch followed. Harkeld didn’t look to see whether the others came. Grotesque perversions of human and animal. Better that they died in the throne room.

He jerked the door open. The corridor was low-ceilinged and unadorned. A bondservants’ corridor.

Harkeld ran. The door slammed shut behind him. Footsteps echoed in the corridor—his and two others, boots slapping on the flagstones.

He focused on what was simple: a route out of the palace. The events of the throne room—the witch’s revelation, his father’s reaction, the magic—clamored in his head, so shocking, so huge, that he had to push them aside. Don’t think. Just run.

The corridor branched. He turned left and ran down the stairs, taking the steps three at a time, turned left again, pushed open the door at the end of the corridor. They were no longer in bondservants’ territory. The walls were hung with tapestries. Windows looked out over manicured hedges and flower beds.

Harkeld slowed to a fast walk. In the distance a bell rang frantically. “There’ll be guards here.” He glanced back. Two witches followed him—the gray-haired man and a middle-aged woman. Behind them were a pair of long-legged hunting dogs, one silver-white, the other black.

Human beings in the form of dogs. Monsters. Harkeld jerked his gaze ahead again.

Three guards turned into the corridor, striding. Their eyes flicked to him and they halted, snapping to attention.

Harkeld halted too. To these men he was still a prince. “My father needs you in the throne room,” he said, authority ringing in his voice. “Hurry!”

The guards obeyed without hesitation, breaking into a run, not stopping to ask where his personal armsman was or who the strangers following him were.

Harkeld began to walk again, almost jogging. “The gates will be sealed,” he said, not looking back at the witches. “They’ll have heard the bell. Our best chance is to go through the gardens.” Ahead were double doors, embossed with gold. He pushed them open and stepped out onto a marble terrace. The sun was high overhead. He slowed, strolling.

“The outer wall?” the gray-haired witch asked, lengthening his stride until he was alongside Harkeld. Despite his age, he was barely out of breath.

“It’s less heavily guarded at the eastern corner.”

They went down the steps into the garden. The paths were made of crushed pink and white marble that crunched beneath their feet. Above that small sound, the bell tolled urgently.

“I’ll have the horses meet us there.” The witch snapped his fingers. “Petrus!”

The silver-white hunting dog trotted up, ears pricked.

“Tell Gerit to meet us at the eastern corner. Hurry!”

The dog nodded.

“How heavily guarded is the outer wall?” the gray-haired witch asked.

“In the eastern corner, two men in each tower.” Harkeld glanced back. The silver-white hunting dog was gone. A hawk rose in the sky, gaining height with each flap of its wings.

He jerked his gaze forward again. They were between the clipped hedges now, out of sight of all but the topmost windows of the palace. Harkeld lengthened his stride into a run. The witches followed.

The gardens stretched for more than a mile, a labyrinth of groves and flower beds and secluded, sunlit lawns. Harkeld took a route that avoided the courtyards where the ladies liked to sit and gossip, heading for the outer wall, running fast, listening for sounds of pursuit behind them. The bell pealed loudly, but beneath that sound he heard nothing—no shouts, no baying hounds.

Ahead, the wall towered high. He was close enough to see the blocks of stone, close enough to make out the steps leading up to the guard tower—

“Harkeld!”

He swung around, panting.

Behind them, where the path branched to a rose bower, stood his half-sister Brigitta and her armsman.

“Harkeld, what’s happening?” Brigitta stepped forward. The sunlight caught her hair, making it gleam as brightly as the golden crown woven into it. She shone with youth, with beauty. “Why is the bell ringing?”

Her armsman stepped forward too, one pace behind her. He had the dark hawk-like features of an Esfaban islander. A silver torque gleamed at his throat.

The black hunting dog came forward to stand in front of Harkeld. It was panting, its tongue hanging from its mouth.

The armsman laid one hand on the hilt of his sword.

Brigitta stared at the dog and the two witches. Her brow creased. “Harkeld, where’s your armsman? What are you doing?”

For half a second he considered lying, then rejected it. Britta deserved the truth. “I’m leaving.”

Her eyes widened. “Leaving?”

“Now. Over the wall.” Harkeld caught the armsman’s gaze, held it. “Don’t try to stop us,” he told him.

The armsman hesitated, then raised his chin in a slight nod.

Brigitta stepped forward, ignoring the dog. “Take me with you.”

“I can’t, Britta.”

Her hands clasped together, white-knuckled. “Please, Harkeld.” He heard desperation in her voice. “You know what will happen to me if you go. Duke Rikard—”

“There’s a bounty on my head.” He glanced at the armsman again. Would the man attack? “That’s why the bell’s ringing.”

“I don’t care! Take me with you. Please!”

The armsman stood, still and watchful. He made no attempt to move.

Harkeld looked at Brigitta. Tears were bright in her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous.” He stepped past the dog and pulled her into a hug. She was slender in his arms, fragile. He tightened his grip, hearing the strident peal of the bell, smelling the scent of roses. His half-sister, his friend. I love you. He bent his head and kissed her soft hair and said it aloud, so that she could hear, “I love you.” The golden crown pressed against his cheek.

He lifted his head and looked at the armsman. “You keep her safe.”

This time the man spoke. “I will.”

Harkeld stepped away from Britta. He couldn’t say goodbye; his throat was too tight. He was trying to protect her. Why did it feel as if he was abandoning her?

Because I am.

He turned and ran, paying no attention to the witches or the dog. He glanced back once. Brigitta stood in the middle of the path. Behind her was the armsman, watching.

The wall loomed ahead, cliff-like. It was easy to turn grief and guilt into rage, to take the stairs three at a time, to burst out onto the rampart, to take advantage of the two guards’ hesitation when they recognized him. He took the closest guard, bringing him down, slamming the man’s head against the stone parapet, knocking him senseless.

Harkeld pushed to his feet. The second guard lay on the floor. Standing over him were the two witches, man and woman. The black dog was gone. A pair of hawks soared above the guard tower.

Harkeld bent and removed the guard’s sword belt, buckling it swiftly around his own hips. The weight made him feel less vulnerable. Now he could defend himself.

The baying of a hound rose from the garden.

The wall was too high to jump from, too sheer to climb down, but the rope for hoisting the tower’s flag, hastily cut, was long enough for their purposes. The female witch went first, a small, middle-aged woman with her sandy hair in a thick plait down her back.

Harkeld leaned over the battlement, watching. A mile away, to the right, was the town, its slate roofs gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. Ahead and to the left was the royal forest, a sea of trees. Between forest and wall was a furlong of cleared land. Horses galloped towards them from the town. “Yours?” he asked the gray-haired witch.

“Yes.”

Harkeld followed the woman, landing jarringly on the hard-packed dirt at the base of the wall. He spun to face the riders. Five horses bore down on them, four riderless. Above swooped the hawks.

The gray-haired witch clambered down the rope. He jumped the last few feet, landing lightly in a crouch. “Take the bay.”

Harkeld nodded, glancing up at the guard tower. He heard shouting. A guard peered down. The rope twitched.

The horses halted. “Quickly!” the gray-haired witch cried, thrusting reins at him. Above, a guard was already scrambling down the rope.

Harkeld grabbed the reins and swung up into the saddle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the guard push away from the wall, arcing towards him.

The man’s weight knocked him from the saddle as the bay surged forward. Harkeld struck the ground hard. He rolled, pushing up on one elbow. There was a ringing sound in his ears and no breath in his lungs. Dimly he heard the guard shout. Sunlight gleamed on an uplifted sword.

Harkeld raised an arm in defense. He had time for one thought—I’m dead—and for one emotion—astonishment—before a lioness barreled into the guard, knocking him off his feet.

The guard released his sword as he fell. The blade sliced past Harkeld’s upraised hand and smacked into the dirt.

Harkeld lowered his arm. He coughed, tasting dirt and blood, and inhaled deeply. The guard screamed. The sound echoed in Harkeld’s head. He blinked, trying to focus his eyes, and rose unsteadily to his knees. The smell of smoke was strong. He looked up. The rope was on fire, flames licking upwards. Above, on the parapet, a silver-maned lion roared.

The lioness suddenly pushed her face into his, her eyes golden. She turned her head and uttered a sound—part grunt, part roar—that sounded like a summons.

He raised his hand to push her away. Foul creature.

Blood dripped from his fingers.

Harkeld shook his head to clear it. He turned his hand palm-up. For a second he stared dumbly, seeing red flesh and white bone. Blood spurted from the wound.

Someone gripped his collar and hauled him to his feet. Harkeld jerked away, almost stumbling, before he realized it was the gray-haired witch.

He stood, blinking, trying to get his eyes to focus fully as a man he’d never seen before, with a grizzled brown beard and bristling eyebrows, ripped off a shirtsleeve and tied it tightly about his wrist. The spurting blood slowed to a trickle. The man tore off his other sleeve and bound Harkeld’s hand roughly.

“Mount!”

Harkeld did, clumsily, and sat swaying in the saddle, gripping the reins in his left hand.

They rode at a slow canter, the lioness loping alongside and a hawk flying overhead. By the time they reached the cool shade of the forest, the ringing in Harkeld’s ears had lessened and his head had begun to clear. He looked back before the trees closed around them. A line of fire ran up the wall as the rope burned. Figures clustered on the battlement, and behind them were the gilded roofs and gleaming marble of the palace.

Home.

Not any more.

He waited for an emotion—loss, rage—but all he felt was disbelief.

Movement drew his eye. Guards on horseback, at least a score of them, with a pack of hounds streaming in front of them.

He dug his heels into the bay’s flanks.

The lioness kept pace with him, but when he glanced back he saw that the other riders followed more slowly. Behind them, flames rose high. The forest was on fire.

Harkeld brought his horse to a halt. He twisted in his saddle. The flames spread as he watched, to the left and right, an impregnable wall of fire. And as the flames spread, so did his disbelief.

This isn’t happening to me.