Abomination (45 page)

It nudged her, and looked to the one exit from the rotunda that was not blocked by Edgard’s men. A stairwell leading upward.

She knew where it went: all the way to the high ramparts that surrounded the cathedral. There was as little chance of escape up there as where they stood. But the beast shuffled toward the stairs, and as a group of Edgard’s men moved to block its path, she quickly cut them off, positioning herself between them and the stairway. “No farther,” she warned, holding them at bay with the point of a sword, her other held ready to strike.

Edgard marched forward, what remained of his patience coming apart. “Indra! Enough! What do you hope to accomplish here?
One more step and I swear I will make you regret it. Indra, listen to me!”

But she did not listen, or look at him, or even acknowledge that he was there. She kept her eyes fixed on the men closest to her, those who posed the most imminent threat to the beast as it started its slow climb. Then she backed onto the steps behind it and followed, never once lowering her swords.

She broke open the locked door with her shoulder and emerged onto the rampart’s walkway. The sun was now fully up in a cloudless sky and she shielded her eyes as she stepped outside. The beast was behind her, lurking in the darkness at the top of the stairs, as though afraid to come out into the light.

“It’s all right,” she said, beckoning it to follow. Hearing footsteps on the stairs below, she gestured more urgently. “Come on.”

Slowly, warily, it stepped out into daylight. Immediately it shrank from it, rolling its head and trying to cover its lidless eyes. Knowing that Edgard’s men were not far behind, she took it by one of its claws and led it out onto the walkway. And she saw it clearly for the first time in the light of the sun. Separated from its hateful, violent nature, the creature itself was beautiful, in its own strange and terrible way. Perhaps not something God would create, but a thing of beauty nonetheless.

Edgard and his men spilled out onto the walkway and closed in. She looked around; there really was nowhere to run up here. This outer wall ran in a closed loop around the entire cathedral and was nearly a hundred feet high. If there had been a moat below, perhaps they could have jumped, but as things stood, the only way off this wall was a sheer drop to certain death.

The beast seemed slowly to be adjusting to the light. It looked up at the blue sky above, breathed in the warm, clear air. It turned to take in the beautiful rolling hills and plains of Canterbury that
spread out in every direction beyond the wall. And looked at her, the girl who had risked her own life to try and save it. To try and save
him
.

Tears welled in her eyes. Edgard was just a few yards away, and behind him a small army that crowded the walkway eight men deep.

“I’m sorry,” she said, all that she could find in herself to say.

The beast let out a roar and swept her up in one of its clawed limbs, pressing her tight against its body. Edgard and his men surged forward, but the beast was moving fast now, scuttling backward toward one of the towers that ran along the ramparts and scaling it, quickly climbing beyond the reach of any sword or pike. An archer nocked an arrow and made to aim but Edgard pushed his bow aside. “Idiot! You could hit her. No arrows!”

The beast climbed to the top of the tower and perched there, twenty feet above the ramparts. It looked at the dozens of armed men crowded and waiting below, and clutched the girl more tightly. She felt its strong, muscular limb squeeze around her waist, but did not struggle or resist. Impossible though it seemed, she had never in her life felt safer.

And then the beast flung itself, and her, from the tower and over the wall.

Edgard ran to the parapet and watched as they fell away from him, down through the air, tumbling as they went but never separating, falling together as one.

She saw the world whirling around her as they plummeted. She thought to close her eyes but did not. She thought that she might panic but did not. In her final moments, she knew that she was at least to die as she had always hoped to live: without fear, without surrender, and with her true family. And so she watched, unafraid, as the ground came rushing up to meet her, closer and closer—and suddenly away from her again. Now she was swooping upward, the ground receding beneath her, the horizon falling lower and lower as she rose higher and higher into the air.

It was difficult to look up, with the beast holding her so tightly, but she craned her neck enough to see the outer span of two great wings sprouting from its back, beating as rapidly as a hummingbird’s, so fast they were a blur. As she marveled at the wind rushing past her face, at the sight of their shadow passing over the tiny villages and farms far below, at the horizon, farther away than she had ever seen it, she could think only a single thought:
What a thing it is to fly
.

She was still gazing in wonder at that distant horizon when she began to realize that something was wrong. The beast’s flight was becoming unstable, the beating of its great wings erratic, and those little fields and farms below were fast becoming larger, closer. Then the beast dipped forward and dove toward the ground, barely clearing the roof of a dilapidated barn, and, with just a few feet of altitude left, released her to fall safely into a patch of earth before it finally crashed to the ground, plowing a deep furrow as it pitched end over end, battered and broken, and came to a stop.

She hauled herself up, winced as she realized her right ankle was badly hurt, and hopped lamely across the field to where the beast was slumped, unmoving. She shook it, trying to rouse it back to consciousness, but it would not stir. Then, as she tried once more, she felt the hard shell that encased its body grow warm, then hot, beneath her hands. She backed away, and the beast began to glow, then ignite, flames of ethereal blue fast consuming its entire body and burning it to cinders.

It took only moments, and when the flames died, all that remained was a smoldering pile of embers with Wulfric’s naked body at its center, curled into a fetal ball and covered in a coat of gray ash. She went to touch him, but the ashes on and around him still burned hot, and she drew her hand away, cursing. She knew that it would be a while longer before she could pull him free and even longer before he woke.

She heard the distant thundering of hooves and looked back toward the cathedral, now just a miniature on the horizon, to see
a lone figure riding toward them. The man was too far away to recognize, but there was no mistaking the horse he rode on. The brilliant white steed was the only one of its kind at Canterbury, and it belonged to Edgard.

No, no, no
 . . .

She had no sword, no weapon of any kind, no horse on which to make an escape, nor even two good legs with which to run. And there was her father, unconscious and helpless. Even if she could get away, she would not leave him. She stood in front of Wulfric as Edgard drew closer, until the approach of his horse shook the ground beneath her feet.

At several yards’ distance, Edgard reined in his horse. He dismounted before it even came to a halt, and marched toward her with sword drawn.

“Stand aside, child. I am in no mood.”

She stood firm. “You will not touch him.”

He paused for a long drawn-out breath. She recognized the calm before the storm, the look that would come over him before the thrashings he had dealt out when she was younger, before she taught herself how to fight back. “My patience with you is at an end,” he said, flat and expressionless. “You are coming back with me, you and him both. Or do you intend to fight me, injured and unarmed?”

“I intend to fight you,” she said. “Injured and unarmed. Let’s see which one of us kills the other. But I will not go back with you, now or ever.”

Edgard just shook his head sadly as he started toward her. “What a pity.”

She had learned to fight with fluidity and grace, but she had neither the ability nor the inclination for that now. Her ankle would not allow her to move nearly as well as she would need to if it came to trading blows; her only chance was to surprise him and take him down quickly. She waited, and when he came close
enough, she launched herself at him headfirst, barreling her shoulder into his chest and sending them both down into the dirt.

Before Edgard could recover, she was on top of him, fists raining down, breaking his nose and bloodying his lip. She was furious, and relentless, yet Edgard was able to break the attack, grabbing her wrist with one hand and striking out with the other. He hit her hard across the jaw and knocked her off him.

As she floundered groggily on the ground, Edgard staggered to his feet and recovered his fallen sword. Then he made his way to where she was still struggling to get up and drew back his sword to strike. He was about to swing when something swooped out of the sun and hit his face, scratching and tearing and sending him scrambling backward in a sudden, desperate panic. From down on the ground, she saw Edgard batter at the bird with his free hand, then drop his sword to fight it off with both. She clambered to her feet and hobbled over to pick up the sword.

“Venator, to me.”

Only then did the hawk break off his attack and fly to her shoulder.

Edgard was still holding his hands to his face, but she saw that his right eye had been put out, leaving just a bloody socket. He slumped to his knees and saw her standing over him, holding his sword in her hand. He spat out a bloody tooth and glared at her with loathing. “All I ever wanted was to be a father to you, Indra,” he said feebly, his lip cut and swollen. “And this is how I am repaid. With a disrespectful, disobedient, hateful little bitch for a daughter. I rue the day I ever found you.”

She thought about what he had said. Thought about how easy it would be to take his head from his shoulders right now. One clean swing and it would be done. She brought back the blade, and, as her shoulders turned, caught sight of Wulfric, lying in the ashes behind her.

“You are right,” she said to Edgard, as she rotated the sword in her grip a quarter turn, “in every thing but one.”

She swung the sword. The flat of the blade caught Edgard hard across the face, knocking him cold. She watched as he slumped sideways and fell to the ground, then tossed his sword down next to him.

“My name is Beatrice.”

There were more horses coming now, more men. Not yet within sight, but she could see the cloud of dust on the horizon. She limped to Wulfric, and though the ashes around him had only partially cooled, she reached in and pulled him from them anyway, ignoring the pain as the embers burned her hands. Once he was free, she hauled him up onto her shoulder and did her best to carry him to Edgard’s horse.

He was far less heavy than the beast but still more than she could carry easily on two strong legs, much less one. Twice she stumbled and fell; twice she got back up and lifted him again. Finally she was able to sling his body over the horse. She glanced toward Canterbury to see the riders approaching. Less than a minute out now.

She climbed into the saddle and set the horse running. It was renowned as the fastest at Canterbury; those pursuing would have little chance of keeping up, even with it carrying both of them.
Finally, an advantage
. She put her heels into its sides and the cathedral receded into the mist behind her until it was no more.

Miles and hours later, they sat together by a babbling stream, Wulfric wincing as Beatrice gently eased his arm into a sling she had fashioned from part of her shirt. It was broken, but not so badly that it would not mend. He bore a fresh scar also, just to the right of the beetle-shaped brand on his chest—the remnant of the pike wound the beast had sustained that morning. But like the older one, lower on his belly, it had been well on its way to healed before Wulfric woke. He shivered, naked save for the horse blanket
he wore around him. The horse it had come from, Edgard’s own white stallion, idled nearby, drinking from the stream as Venator sat watchfully on a branch overhead.

“We’ll have to find you some clothes,” said Beatrice as she adjusted the sling. Wulfric nodded, but something else was preoccupying him.