“We’re lost,” she said.
“No.” I glanced behind, expecting soldiers to appear around the corner. Instead, down the corridor, I saw the priest of Xus, clothed in black robes and with a face eternally locked into a half sneer/half smile. He was bent over the corpse of the crossbowyer. I froze. He straightened up and raised his head, exposing a milk-white throat to me, then pushed aside a tapestry and vanished behind it.
“Come on, Master.”
I pulled her down the corridor and behind the tapestry was a door—a secret passage. I caught a glimpse of a black robe vanishing into the darkness ahead of us and followed, letting the tapestry fall back into place behind me and plunging us into a darkness so complete I could not see my own hand in front of my face.
“Shh,” said my master. I could hear water dripping and something scraping rhythmically against stone. Faint voices raised in anger, though they seemed to be a long way off, and somewhere in front of us the pitter-patter of footsteps.
My master’s warm hand found mine.
“Well done, Girton,” she gasped. “I did not even know this passage was here.”
I was about to say something about the priest of Xus but realised my master had not seen him, even though she had been looking straight at him.
“Are you badly hurt?” I asked.
“No.” She spoke through pain-gritted teeth. “The bolt passed through, but I am bleeding freely.” I heard the ripping of material and then a gasp as she pulled a tourniquet tight around her leg. “I should be able to walk now, Girton. You lead.”
I followed the sound of the priest of Xus’s steps.
“Stairs,” I said as my foot probed the ground before me. “Careful, Master, they are damp and slippery.” We moved down and along, always following the footsteps, which skittered away in front of me. Occasionally the priest would stop to allow us to catch up, and sometimes I heard strange and inhuman laughter—though it sounded like it came from very far away.
“Hedgings, master.”
“Stories for children, Girton. Keep moving.”
Round and round we went, feeling our way along damp walls and down slimy stairways. These tunnels felt different to the ones Adran had taken us through to see Kyril’s body: older, so old it was almost like we travelled through another world. When I finally opened a door back into the keep a blinding light flooded the tight space between the walls, and though it felt like we had walked a long way, I realised we had only gone down two floors.
We crept along a corridor until we found two guards wearing yellow and purple tabards identifying them as loyal to the ap Mennix line. They were on edge, jittery, but all their attention was focused on the door to the stairway in front of them.
“Tomas’s lot going to come up or down the stairs, Girron?” said the guard on the left. Despite her wound my master still managed to be utterly silent as we limped towards the two guards.
“Whichever way they comes, we’ll not let ’em any further.”
I slid my blade from its scabbard.
“What if they win?”
“They won’t. Some o’ ours been sent to take the stables. Who has the mounts wins the fight, everyone knows that.”
The one called Girron, tall for a Tired Lands man, turned—only a little but it was enough—and he saw us. He barely had time to shout. As he brought round his pike to face us in the narrow corridor he tangled himself up in his friend. I lunged, my Conwy blade cutting through his leather armour and the flesh beneath, silencing him in one swift move. At the same same my master slashed her blade across the throat of the second guard, who fell, coughing as she bled out.
Come, Girton,” said my master, reaching for the door to the stairs. “It may be clear further down now.”
“No, Master.” Down the corridor the priest of Xus pulled aside another tapestry and vanished behind it. “This way,” I said, pulling her after me and into more tunnels, more darkness, slimy walls and crumbling stairs. We went round and round, listening to men and women fighting and dying for Aydor and Tomas. Sometimes, as we made our way through the tunnels, I had the oddest sensation we were surrounded by huge crowds of people, it was not unlike the dizzying claustrophobia I had felt at Festival. But this time I had not been drinking and when I put my hand out it met only cold and empty air.
We left the black tunnels and this time there was no shadowy mocking figure waiting for us, only the sound of war and the bite of the air, cold and thick with mist. The passages had led us outside the walls of the keep and we had exited near where I had entered the dungeons. There were bodies scattered around and shadowy figures half hidden in the mist. I saw Aydor, with Celot by his side. He had gathered some troops and arrayed them across the courtyard, their shields locked into a wall bristling with spears and pikes. Opposite them, Tomas, his squires and guards, all with red material tied around their arms. Both sides were working themselves up into a frenzy, beating swords and pikeshafts against shields to attract their fellows. More guards ran from the keep, pulling on armour as they rounded the water clock. The castle was like a disturbed lizard hive, disgorging defenders to the beat of the shields. Aydor had the bigger of the two forces and had placed his shield wall across the courtyard to stop Tomas getting to the gatehouse and from there to the stables. Behind them the great gates were shut.
“Stay in the shadows, Girton. We can’t fight them all.” I nodded, glad she wanted to avoid a fight. My master was in no state for combat and my muscles were burning with fatigue. “We need to get out. Our best option is to get to Festival, claim sanctuary.”
“The gate is shut.”
“I am wounded, not blinded, Girton.”
“You have a plan, Master?”
“No, I didn’t expect we would live this long.” She let out a hiss of pain, and I glanced at her leg. It was awash with blood. She pulled on the tourniquet around her thigh, tightening it. “We must open the gate. Rufra will need it open for his Riders.”
With a shout of “Huh!” Aydor’s guards beat their swords and pikes against their shields in unison and took a step forward. Tomas’s troops gave an answering shout and advanced. Insults began to fly across the narrowing gap between them. From the windows above arrows began to fall, but there were not many and in the mist and the darkness they were poorly aimed. We hugged the wall as we worked our way around the two sides, they were too intent on each other to notice us. When we neared the towers that flanked the gate my master switched to sign language.
“Guard me while I work the windlass.”
We skirted the tower, keeping low, and found two guards in the windlass room watching the shield walls from a small window and exchanging bets on who would win. We cut them down before they knew we were there. My master put her back against the windlass that opened the gate and took two deep breaths, stealing herself for the pain.