Like a great jutting cairn, the moonlit keep of Castle MacGillean rose into view on top of its motte, and Thomas pressed the Yvag beast to faster speed. He pushed down the chirr of pursuing Yvag. Their fury made his head throb and told him nothing he did not already know.
They were coming after him.
As had forever been the case, the gate at the outer bailey hung wide, unattended. The MacGilleans had never been attacked, never had to defend their stone tower, despite all the precautions they’d taken—tunnels dug, passages built into the walls. He was counting upon all of these.
As the beast reached the gate, he grabbed his bow and quiver and sprang from the saddle, rolled and came up running along the outside of the bailey wall, then broke away, down into a ravine. A spattering of saxifrage directed him up the other side of it in the darkness. He wove a course along the higher ground even as an ineffectual bolt struck him hard in the back. Stumbling, he kept going. The crossbows hadn’t the range to stop him, but, breathing in, he winced, the pain suggesting that the force of impact had bruised a rib.
Thomas reached the saxifrage-covered hillock and dove over the far side. The wide stone lay there undisturbed. He pushed it aside and there was the hole, hardly larger than a fox’s den. On elbows and thighs he wriggled into it, arms extended, poking his bow like a staff ahead of him. In a moment he was in the tunnel and crawling for his life. The hole would be visible to them all. They would come after him. He hoped as much.
As a child he’d crawled the other way—from the keep out. This was the exit, created for a time of war that had never occurred. Onchu and Baldie had stuffed him into it once, expecting him to scream in terror of the dark and close space, but he’d disappointed them and crawled straight out, even plucked some of the little flowers upon exiting—twenty-seven of them. He’d counted. Tight spaces didn’t bother him, as it happened. He’d spoiled their game.
It wasn’t long before the tight shaft widened. He knew where he was, and shoved the bow hard. It clattered in the dark. With both hands he reached ahead, found the lip of stone, and pulled himself out. Kegs had once stood before and below the opening; they were no longer there, and he fell the short distance to the floor, dirt raining down around him. He patted about until he located his bow, and, hunched over, quickly strung it. The space wasn’t quite high enough to stand upright, so he turned in a half crouch until he was facing the way he’d come, took an arrow from his quiver, and laid it there upon the lip of the tunnel. Then he waited, stretched his mind out, listening. The silence pressed close around him. And then it broke.
Through the small tunnel a distant sound of scrabbling reached him: someone was crawling his way in pursuit.
In numerous training sessions Waldroup had blindfolded him, to teach him to hear how sound bent around solid objects—for instance, the difference between Alpin talking to him from in front of or behind a tree—and to find targets by listening. He’d tied little bells to the center of one target, and eventually replaced them with a few dry leaves that scratched against one another in the wind. Hearing is as good as seeing, often better. You should be using it even when you think you’re not. Now that training took over and he listened. Abruptly, ahead of the shuffling, dragging sounds, an angry buzzing drone grew audible.
He snatched up the Yvag dagger and held it up in the center of the hole, edge-on. Not two seconds later, the hob flew straight into it. The bisected creature spattered against him, and plopped to the floor. He wiped off the dagger and stepped back.
The noise of crawling drew nearer. He pulled on his wristguard and fingertab, took and nocked the arrow, aimed straight into the hole, then waited. From the sound he could identify two of them crawling now. The nearest cast out “Tont-tu, what’s there?”
Thomas drew back the bowstring and let fly.
The thwock of the arrow overlapped a clipped yelp. Then silence for a moment. Then came a new unanswered call, first to the bisected tont-tu and then to the Yvag who’d preceded it. That was followed by more sounds of scuffling and scraping, this time in retreat. He couldn’t imagine backing out of that cramped tunnel, but no one else would get through it now. That left three that he knew of from the abbey. But where was Ađalbrandr? Inside the keep and waiting for him? He must assume so.
Turning, he crouch-waddled through the cramped storage room to the far wall with one hand extended to catch himself. He smoothed his palm along it until his hand felt the opening in the wall. There was a narrow path between jutting rockfaces that led him to a larger opening on the other side. A flight of stone steps went up on his left, the darkness of another low tunnel showed to the right. At the base of the steps lay six more arrows, wrapped in a skin. He’d placed them here more than a week ago, and added them now to his quiver. Then he carefully ascended the tight steps.
The exit, in the stable, lay in a clever niche between the upright posts of the outer bailey and a matching section inside. Viewed from the inner yard, it appeared to be a single line of posts without an opening.
Thomas crossed to the edge of the stable roof overhang, and stood behind a thick supporting upright that kept him in the shadows. The keep stood before him, on top of its motte. The yard and hill appeared to be deserted except for one of the Yvag beasts, possibly his own that had wandered as far as the yard and now stood as still as a statue.
He wondered, had they not come in, or were the remaining three inside the keep already and waiting for him? If he tried to climb the motte and they were in the keep, they would slaughter him. Slowing down attackers was the purpose of a motte.
Then a knight came running through the open gate. Dust and dirt flew off it, and Thomas guessed this was the second one that had crawled into and backed out of the tunnel.
He carefully drew back the bow as the Yvag started up the hill, then called out, “Ay!” The knight turned, confused, and Thomas fired three arrows in quick succession. The first caught the Yvag in the head. The second and third bounced off its armor. At the same time, a crossbow bolt thunked into the upright not an inch from his own head. He jumped away on instinct. Something moved in the doorway of the keep, probably the crossbowman reloading its weapon. They didn’t dare come down the hill now, but he was satisfied he’d been right not to cross the yard. They would keenly focus upon the stables awhile. It was time to pop up someplace else.
He’d left another bundle of arrows at the top of the passage steps. He didn’t need it yet, so left it in place but carefully slid aside the wall panel, then stepped in behind the musty tapestry. He stood in exactly the same place where he’d listened to the skinwalkers of Baldie and Stroud discuss his imminent demise. With the panel open, however, the tapestry was now fluttering as air was drawn around him and into the passage. There was no point in waiting. They would shoot him through the tapestry. He stepped out, bow drawn.
The great hall lay dark, save for speckles of moonlight that penetrated through the torn parchments covering the windows. No fire in the wall niche, no candles burning. He crossed to the niche and knelt, put his hand in the ashes.
As cold as winter.
He listened. From the doorway below, a whispery discussion pushed into his head—two Yvags, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. No other communication flowed to or from anywhere else in the keep. No sounds came from the upper floor. It was all too simple. It was as if these knights were expendable, were here to lure him in or keep him occupied.
If Ađalbrandr wasn’t here, then there could only be two other places the Yvag had gone. The Lusks might seem the most obvious, but that one-eyed knight had a personal desire to make Thomas suffer—and the conclusion he was coming to terrified him more than anything. It meant that the elves had known the truth of him, of Janet, of Morven, or at the very least they did now. It meant that the mill and the miller were compromised, not safe at all, and he had to get out of here as soon as possible. The longer these two inhuman stalkers kept him in the castle, the more horrible the carnage elsewhere. Moment by moment he became certain of it. Ađalbrandr hadn’t needed to know his plans, only to know what his plans were not. You don’t pursue someone who will deliver themselves to you anyway, and more the worse for wear. Thomas, leading these creatures a chase, had become his own diversion.
He crept across the great hall. The main door lay below him, down a straight flight of stairs. The two knights there focused upon the bailey palings. He stepped out and took careful aim, at which point something struck him from behind hard enough that he stumbled. His shot went wide, skittering along the wall.
It was at his hair, tugging. It bit his neck. It screeched. He furiously batted at it. How had the damned hob sneaked up on him?
“The tont-tu has him!” came the unvoiced cry from below, and a crossbow bolt punched into him just below his left shoulder, knocking him sideways and onto the floor. The bolt remained in his upper arm, a strangely cold pain as if it had frozen his biceps. The vicious imp clawed at his face. He grabbed it with his other hand and flung it away.
Footsteps came charging up the steps. Thomas slapped one arrow to his bow, gritted his teeth. He sat up and fired.
The iron-tipped arrow caught the ascending Yvag in the forehead and flung it back down the stairs. Thomas dropped quickly flat as another bolt whipped over him close enough that he felt its draft on his face. He fired his third arrow blindly, rolled, and got up. He fled across the great hall and back beneath the tapestry. In close pursuit, the angry chittering hob thumped against the heavy drape, battered at it, then tried to pull the tapestry aside. Thomas grabbed another arrow from his quiver and stabbed straight through the rotting material. The battering stopped. He peered out.
The little monster dangled lifeless and dripping, impaled upon the shaft of the arrow.
In the same moment, the remaining Yvag stepped through the doorway. Thomas’s bow was beneath the tapestry, useless. As the knight brought the crossbow to bear, he jumped back into the passage and tried to shove the panel closed. A bolt suddenly split the panel and drove into the stone beside his neck.
He gripped the blood-slick bolt still in his arm and pushed it through, roaring at the pain. In that moment only the narrowness of the passage kept him upright. There was nowhere to fall, but he sagged against the walls. Stars spangled and danced in the darkness. He thought he would vomit. His arm felt like a dead thing hanging off him.
Then the Yvag knight was slapping at the tapestry, seeking the way in as if it thought the tapestry might evaporate and let it through. Thomas came to his senses. Hardly a moment had passed, but the knight had finally shoved its way behind the tapestry. It banged on the secret panel. Thomas let go his bow, drew the barbed Yvag dagger. The knight started to pull the panel out of its way, and as the wood slid aside, he thrust his blade in hard, pierced straight through its armor. The creature’s buzzing screamed in his head, as loud as his own voice, but he gripped the blade tight and tore it upward, slicing the armor like mutton, opening up the creature’s entire left side. Something long and wet flopped out around his hand, dangling from the breathing holes—surely one of its lungs. Black blood coated his arm. Thomas clutched at the tapestry, which tore, carrying him and the ripped tapestry onto the elf. They both crashed to the floor of the hall. The Yvag wheezed, and its thoughts raced frantically, overflowing with terror. Death to it was an alien notion. Even though it had watched and heard comrades die, it had imagined itself impervious. Its panic now assaulted him, almost as if by being inside his head it could hold onto life. It pleaded with him for something he could not grant. The whirling thoughts began to slow. He floated within them like someone lifted by an ocean wave and tossed against a shore. The whirl diminished and finally dissipated. He rolled upon the imagined beach alone. The wave had receded, never to return.
Thomas groaned and rolled over. His own left arm was slick with his and the Yvag’s blood, most of it invisible upon the slick black armor. He summoned the energy and made his elbow flex, grimaced as the armor pulled at his wound. He’d been stabbed through but nothing had been severed, thank God. He could still use the arm. With difficulty, he returned the dagger to its sheath.
Whether or not he and his armor would knit as before, he couldn’t lie here and wait to find out. The real targets by now would be imperiled if not murdered. He’d given Ađalbrandr more than enough time to strike.
Standing, he clung to the shredded tapestry, resting his face beside the goggle-eyed tont-tu dangling off the shaft of the arrow. It suddenly kicked and flailed, its thoughts screeching at him: “Kill you, you. Not one of us. You a lie, a trick!”
He almost let it be. But the specter of Waldroup whispered, “It’ll tell them who you are, Tom.” “Too late for that, Alpin.” He lowered his head, groaned. “They already know.” Nevertheless, he grabbed the hob and yanked it back down the shaft, letting the arrowhead slice it cleanly in two.
XXXVIII. Ađalbrandr
Janet sat paralyzed. The elven knight had done this to her as Forbes sought a wood cup for the ale. The scarred elf had reached over with its long inhuman fingers as if to pat her arm and before she could pull away something stung her. Forbes didn’t seem to realize it had occurred, but made nervous conversation with the iron-skinned creature.
