It felt like a dream, the simple sleeping kind, in which one dreams of what one wants most. First Per and then my father were with me, dragging me away from smoke and flame. Per spoke to me, and I heard the voice of my first and only true friend. ‘I’ve come to save you.’ The words I’d been longing to hear someone say ever since that wintry night at Withywoods. I could not breathe for smoke and I could not see him but I knew his voice.
But then, magically, it was my father bending over me. He touched my face so softly. Then he picked me up and he was carrying me. I was safe, safe in his arms. He would protect me. He would take me home. He carried me, and I knew his swinging stride from when he had perched me on his shoulders. I put my face into the angle of his neck and smelled strength and safety. His hair was greyer and the lines in his face deeper, but this was my Da and he had come to find me and take me home. I lifted my head to smile down at Perseverance. He was taller than he had been, and he looked stronger. He carried his knife before him, as my father had taught me a knife should be carried.
He turned his head and looked up at my father. ‘Fitz? What are we doing? They will kill us!’
Then the dream became nightmare.
My father carried me toward Vindeliar. Not just walking, hurrying, as if he could not wait to get there. Capra, Fellowdy and Coultrie walked with Vindeliar, and all of them were smiling. Capra clutched her belly, and a slow leak of blood showed on her garments, but still she smiled. They were so pleased with Vindeliar, so certain they had won. I stared. Did they know of my fires roaring two floors above us? I suspected not; Vindeliar had gathered them and brought them here. They knew only what his will was, and his will was my death.
‘Papa!’ I shouted at him.
‘Hush.’ He patted my back. ‘You’re safe Bee. I’m right here.’
I had held my walls so tight and so strong for so long that only now did I touch them and feel the force beating against them. I allowed myself to hear Vindeliar’s lure. Come to me, come to us. Everything will be well. We are your friends. We know what is best. We will help you.
And my father was believing them!
‘Papa! Walls up, walls up!’ I shouted the words desperately as I wriggled to get out of his arms. He looked down at me and slowly a furrow grew between his brows. I think he was starting to realize what Vindeliar was doing to him, but he was doing it too slowly. I kicked free of him, fell as I hit the floor, stood up and pulled his big knife from its sheath.
‘Kill her!’ Vindeliar shrieked as he saw me seize the weapon. ‘Kill Bee now!’ Not only his voice but his magic pushed that thought, and the eyes of every person advancing toward us narrowed with hatred as they looked at me. The guards drew their swords and even Capra drew a little belt-knife. I looked up at my father, fearing to see that he, too, would have been turned against me by Vindeliar’s magic, but instead I saw a terrible blankness on his face. I turned to face them, alone.
‘No!’
Perseverance pushed me to one side as he charged forward. Not for an instant did he hesitate. The full force of his body was behind his knife as he drove it into Vindeliar. Both went down, and Perseverance planted a knee on Vindeliar’s chest. I saw Per’s elbow draw back and then punch the knife forward again. Vindeliar’s terrible pain burst in my mind, edging my thoughts in red. His desperate magic leapt in a new direction.
No! Stop, drop the knife, no, don’t kill me, don’t hurt me!
So powerful was that sending that my father’s knife fell from my suddenly nerveless hands. I was seized with the necessity of not hurting Vindeliar.
But no such compulsion stilled Perseverance. Vindeliar’s magic did not touch him. He stood up, drawing out the bloody knife as he did so, and shouted, ‘No one will kill Bee while I live!’ He had grown stronger than the boy I had known at Withywoods. The terrific slash of his blade had the force of a swinging axe. The edge crossed Vindeliar’s throat, and blood flew out in an arc as it ripped free of his flesh. As Vindeliar’s magic failed and stilled, Per sprang back. He spun to stand in front of me, knife lifted in one hand and the other pushing me protectively behind him. ‘Behind me, Bee,’ he commanded. Chaos broke out in the force facing us.
‘Why are we here?’ Capra wailed, while Fellowdy danced backward into his own guards in his desire to flee.
‘’Ware!’ my father shouted, and took a great stride past us. He stooped, snatching up the knife I had dropped. He had a hatchet in his other hand. He drove himself into the ranks of befuddled guards. He was suddenly among them, using both knife and small axe against their swords. I saw him hook a man’s blade with the hatchet and force it down while he thrust his knife into the man’s unguarded throat. His only hope was to be closer to them, inside the thrust or swing of their blades. His face was alight, his teeth bared and his eyes brighter than I had ever seen them.
Per remained between me and the melee. ‘Stay back!’ he warned me, but I cried, ‘They are too many for him! We must help him or we will all die!’ They were engulfing him as if he were a boot sinking into mud. In the back of their force, something else was happening. I heard a woman screaming, not in pain but in fury as her filthy curses rang out in the hall. A man’s deep shouting cut through her words. ‘Drop him! Let him be!’
Symphe’s knife! I scrabbled to get it from under my shirt, then ducked under Per’s arm and went for Fellowdy with it. The great coward had turned away from the battle and was trying to get past the knot of fighters and flee. Perhaps I was as great a coward, for I tried to drive my knife into his back. The short blade skittered down his ribs as if they were a pole fence, and then found a soft place below his short ribs and above his hip. I sank the blade as far as I could, and then seized the haft with both hands and shook it from side to side. I accidentally pulled it free as he jerked away from me.
I was much better at biting than knifing.
Then Coultrie hit me. His open palm slapped the side of my head with tremendous force and my crumpled ear roared at me. Fellowdy was crawling away from me, making short, sharp shrieks. I turned to face Coultrie. ‘You dirty little traitor!’ he shouted at me. Madness was in his eyes. ‘You killed Symphe and you killed poor, dear Dwalia!’
Vindeliar’s body was twitching on the floor behind him. I sprang at Coultrie, leading with my knife. He retreated to avoid me, stumbled on Vindeliar and fell backwards. He kicked at me as I jumped at him, a glancing blow that still pushed me sideways and made me lose some of my breath. But I paid no attention to his flailing, slapping hands I would put my knife into the middle of him, into his belly where coiled the parts he needed to live. Wolves always tore for the belly.