The Copper Promise (17 page)

The good humour on Fane’s face seemed to disappear. He took the black helm in both his hands and turned it over in his fingers.

‘Demands? When held at sword point? I thought the Ynnsmouth knights were known for their wisdom.’

Sebastian took a step forward.

‘The man standing next to me is Lord Aaron Frith, the last living heir of the Blackwood.’

There was a flurry of noise from the slowly gathering crowd; gasps, murmurs and questions. Frith thought he heard swearing from someone who sounded suspiciously like Wydrin, although he could not see her.

‘Can it be?’ Fane moved slowly from the statue, coming towards them both. Now his eyes were trained on Frith, and the man moved like a cat hunting something small and warm-blooded. ‘The Friths all died, running from my men like cowards. I cannot tell you the number of arrows we pulled from their backs …’

‘YOU LIE!’ All of a sudden the hot fury thundered back into life, and the guards were straining to hold Frith back. ‘You murdered my father and my brothers. You tortured them to death!’

Fane paused, and a slow grin slid across his face like blood seeping into a bandage.

‘It
is
you,’ he said, and suddenly all the warm, friendly tones were back, just as though he were greeting an old friend. ‘Bethan said you nearly died in the dungeons but some peasants with delusions of bravery smuggled you out. She assured me that you would have died from exposure in the heavy snows, but here you are – yes, take away that white hair and old Lord Frith lives again. You know, I was most displeased that I didn’t get to Blackwood Keep in time to meet you. How utterly perfect this is.’

‘I will kill you,’ said Frith, no longer shouting. The anger had closed his throat and left him unable to raise his voice. The hot feeling of it prickled all over his skin. ‘That is a promise. I will kill you and tear you to pieces and when I am done I will leave your remains in the forest for the rats to eat.’

‘Roki, Enri, take our young lord here to the Queen’s Tower. I’m sure Yellow-Eyed Rin is anxious for a reunion.’ He turned back and winked at Frith. ‘He has so many new tricks to show you. Guards, kill the big one and don’t be making off with his sword. I like the look of it.’

Several things happened in the space of a few seconds. The prickling heat swarming over Frith’s skin increased in intensity and seemed to combine with the cold churning in his stomach. All at once, an eldritch-green fire flickered into life along his hands and arms. There was a pause, a moment of kindling, and then he was consumed with the emerald fire. The guards holding his arms leapt back, shouting, and there were answering shouts in the crowd.

‘Don’t let him go,’ bellowed Fane. ‘It’s just some conjuror’s illusion,’ but it wasn’t, Frith realised with a sudden fierce joy. The fire leapt from his body and streamed in several directions at once, and what it touched exploded with hot, yellow flame. The guards who had been closest to him were now screaming, their faces melting and their clothes on fire.

Sebastian stumbled away from him, too surprised to reach for his own sword, while the guards who weren’t on fire came to carry out Fane’s wishes. There was a flash of silver amongst the crowd and Wydrin flew out from the front row, her first dagger ripping through one man’s throat as though it were a bushel of hay at harvest time, and her second clashing with a short sword, driving the blow away from the big knight.

‘I will kill you!’ Frith shouted again. The guards were falling away, some of them desperately trying to beat the flames out with their hands. Fane had retreated to the statue again and all that stood between Frith and his revenge were the two men with long hair and identical faces. He would burn them too.
Burn everything and everyone
.

The people were screaming.

Sebastian moved as though he were in a dream. His body fell into the old patterns, the routines he’d spent years learning; they were a part of him now, so entrenched he barely had to think. He parried a blow there, took out a man’s ankle in one low stroke, felt the bones there shatter, and caught another guard under the chin with the back swing. There was blood, and screaming, and the scent of scorched flesh. It was here, and it was real.

She is not here
, he told himself firmly, but a cold hand seized his heart and panic started to build.
She is
not
here.

The swarming guards were falling back now, parting to let some newcomers through. The two men from the dais came forward, drawing their weapons. Sebastian pushed his rising fear aside and tried to concentrate on these two, because these two were clearly very different from the poorly trained men that had fallen to his sword so easily. One had drawn a pair of exotic-looking swords – long straight blades with edges that looked sharp enough to slice bone – and the other carried the bullwhip that killed Rognor, still red with his blood.

‘Pair of posers,’ muttered Wydrin next to him.

As he watched, the dull grey metal of their gauntlets began to glow with a soft, orange light, tracing shapes that had previously been invisible. Sebastian blinked a few times, sure it must be a trick of the light, but the glow only intensified. It grew so bright that they were difficult to look at, and then through squinting eyes Sebastian saw the twins double, so that there were four blond men approaching. He shook his head, absolutely convinced for a bare second that his vision had failed him, but when he looked again they were still there; four men where there had been two, a pair with swords, and a pair with whips.

‘What is this now?’

Sebastian glanced at Wydrin, whose face was rigid with shock, and then the men were on them.

Wydrin had perhaps a handful of seconds to process what had happened before she found herself dodging a shining blade as it whistled past her ear. She moved, smooth as silk, light as foam, and brought Frostling up and round to bury it in the blond man’s head, but her dagger passed straight through him and out the other side just as though he were made of mist. He grinned at her, his teeth very neat and white next to his pink lips.

‘I am Roki, little girl. I shall enjoy playing with you.’

Wydrin glanced over to Sebastian to see his own sword passing through another of the blond men.
The Children of the Fog
, Dreyda had called them.

‘They’re not really there!’ she called to Sebastian and Frith. ‘They’re just made of vapour. Ignore them and go for the big man!’

The words were barely out of her mouth before the blond man called Enri flicked the bullwhip at Frith, the end of the lash catching the young lord across the top of his forehead. In an instant the green flames that surrounded him winked out of existence and he was thrown to the floor, a bloody gash staining his white hair crimson.

‘Forget I said that!’

She jumped back to avoid another strike from Roki’s blades only for the end of the whip to grab her arm in a viper’s embrace. Even through her leather armour she could feel the burning points of metal digging into her skin. Ashes dropped from her fingers and she could do nothing but watch with horror as the dagger skittered across the cobbles away from her. There was a sharp tug and she was off her feet and on her knees, being dragged towards the grinning form of Enri. Sebastian came at him, the long sword flying in a deadly silver arc, but Roki moved in front and met the giant blade with two of his own. Another tug, and Wydrin could see blood seeping up through the torn leather.

‘Some more of that green fire wouldn’t go amiss, princeling!’ Wydrin pressed the edge of her remaining dagger against the whip and was dismayed to find it barely made a mark on it.

‘Bezcavar enjoys your suffering!’ called Fane from his space between the stalls. He was wearing his black helm now and that was glowing too, with the same strange markings as those adorning the gauntlets of Enri and Roki, but there was still only one of him.
What does it do?
Wydrin sensed this was an important question if they wished to survive the next few moments. Fane hadn’t even drawn a weapon.

She turned back to see Frith picking himself up from the floor, his face a sheet of blood, and Sebastian working hard to keep back the three identical men, the muscles in his neck and shoulders bunched like grapefruits. As she watched, his sword passed harmlessly through the body of one of the Rokis, only to meet the solidity of the sword with a discordant crash.

‘Bring them in, that’s it,’ Fane was bellowing now. Distantly Wydrin could hear shouts from the crowd, but whether it was encouragement or mockery she couldn’t tell. ‘Keep the girl alive too and we’ll have some entertainment tonight.’

Ignoring the agony in her arm, Wydrin pulled back on the whip and forced herself to her feet. She raised her dagger, preparing an over-arm throw she hoped would find Fane in his thick chest and split his rotten heart, when suddenly the young man from the crowd with the untidy hair was in front of her. He winked.

‘What are you …?’

He produced a strange knife from an inner pocket; it was clear and sparkled as if made of crystal. The young man pressed it against the whip and it snapped almost instantly. Wydrin staggered back and he caught hold of her hand.

‘We must run now,’ he said. He had an accent she couldn’t place. ‘If you and your friends wish to live, keep with me.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Wydrin.

She snatched Ashes up from the cobblestones and shouted at her companions; Frith and Sebastian followed readily enough, but so did the four identical men, whooping and howling as they came. The crowd parted for them and the young man led them deep into it, amongst the stalls and boxes, turning wildly here and there. All the time he kept Wydrin’s hand in a vice-like grip, which normally would have annoyed her, but she was afraid that if she pulled free she would lose him instantly in the swarms of townspeople. There was a clatter of wood against wood and she realised the guards on the walls were loosing their longbows, and only the shelter of the stalls protected them.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Keep close, little cat! Run where I run!’

They passed a cart filled with a towering heap full of mouldering pumpkins. There was a shout, and suddenly the pumpkins were tumbling from the cart onto the ground, directly into the path of the pursuing guards. Wydrin glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Dreyda back there behind the cart, her long thin face pinched in triumph, and the young man tugged her another way, moving towards the back of the market. The rolling root vegetables gained them a few seconds, enough to get out of sight of the Children of the Fog.

‘Who are you?’ said Wydrin, between gasps.

‘My name is Crowleo.’ He did not turn to look back at her, instead dragging her towards a ramshackle stone building across from the main bustle of the market. A pile of old leaves had collected in the doorway and the small windows were broken. ‘Are your friends still with us?’

‘We are,’ said Frith. His hair was stuck to his forehead with blood. Sebastian looked sickly and distracted. ‘What is going on?’

He gave a brief bow, and swung open the door.

‘No time to talk. Inside now.’

‘How do we know this isn’t a trap?’ asked Frith, but he followed them in just the same. Inside they could just make out an altar surrounded by broken wooden benches, and there was a slight smell of incense, like an exotic ghost.

‘A disused temple?’ said Wydrin.

‘No time, no time.’

From outside came the sound of men shouting, obviously trying to decide in which direction they had run. Wydrin thought they’d figure it out in less than a handful of heartbeats, and she could see no doorways out of the temple.

‘Listen, friend, if you’ve led us into a dead-end …’ She patted the dagger on her belt threateningly, but Crowleo was ignoring her. He walked up the centre aisle with his eyes on the floor, and then dropped to his knees in front of the stone altar. There was a mouldy rug on the floor which he picked up gingerly and moved to one side. Beneath it were flat grey flagstones. As she watched, he took a slim object from an inner pocket and pushed it against a small gap in the floor. There was an audible click and the flagstones swung away into the darkness below.

‘What was that?’ said Wydrin. Crowleo held up the object for her. It was a narrow rectangle about as long as the palm of his hand, apparently made of pink glass. Now the voices outside were very loud.

‘A secret key for a secret door,’ he said, smiling slightly. ‘Now, down here, if you please, or we’ll all be flayed alive. If we’re lucky.’

The three of them followed him down into the dark. There was a short drop and a strong smell of earth and leaf mould. Crowleo reached up behind them and did something with the glass key that made the flagstones swing back into place, and they were standing together in the pitch-black.

‘So, I don’t suppose anyone thought to bring a torch with them?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Funny you should say that …’ There was a flicker in the dark, and Crowleo’s face was lit with a warm, sunny glow. He held a glass globe in his hand, and inside it was a hot ball of yellow light.

‘Oh, what is this now?’ said Wydrin, starting to get a little annoyed. This Crowleo character was a bit too confident for her liking; she liked to be the confident one.

‘It is a remembrance of light, that is all.’ Crowleo looked up at them all. The light made him look older. ‘You have questions.’

‘I certainly do,’ snapped Frith. ‘Where do you think you’ve taken us? And what do you know about Fane?’

‘And who is this Bezcavar bastard?’ added Wydrin.

‘We will walk and talk,’ said Crowleo, and with that he set off ahead, his ball of light revealing mould-encrusted stone walls to either side. They were in a tunnel. As he walked he spoke softly. ‘You are the young Lord Frith, returned to us, it seems, from a shallow grave. My mistress saw your arrival here in one of her glasses, and knowing you would meet with difficulties sent me to retrieve you.’

‘How could she possibly know that?’ said Frith. ‘We arrived here entirely at random. No one could have known we were coming.’