The Gauntlet (4 page)

She rolled over to try to free herself, and
then had to roll again as a knife flashed down, ripping through her
gown and missing her by inches. As he wrenched it out of the
ground, she caught a glimpse of Elinor behind him, her face pale
and her eyes huge. And then the guard dropped his knife and started
screaming.

Gillian scrambled to her feet, ready to grab
her daughter and bolt, assuming he’d been hit by a stray spell. And
then she realized—it was a spell, but it hadn’t gone astray. A
coiling ribbon of reddish gold flame had snaked out of a burning
hut and hit the man square in the back.

At first she thought Elinor must have done
it, despite the fact that it was years too early for that. But a
searing pain in her arm caused her to look down, and she saw the
fire glyph on the staff glowing bright red. She stared at it in
disbelief, because she couldn’t call Fire.

All coven witches had to specialize in one of
the three great elements—Wind, Fire or Earth—when they came of age,
and hers was Wind. She’d never been able to summon more than one;
no one could except the coven Mothers, who could harness the
collective power of all the witches under their control. But she
could feel the drain as her magic pulled the element through the
air, as she called it to her.

She just didn’t know how she was doing
it.

And she didn’t have time to figure it out.
The guard had made the same assumption she had and spun, snarling,
on Elinor. Gillian had a second to see him start for her daughter,
to see his fist lash out—

And then she was looking at the hilt of a
knife protruding from the burnt material of his shirt.

The smell of the charnel houses curled out
into the air, mixing with the tang of gunpowder and the
raw-lightning scent of spent magic. The guard fell to his knees,
the blood gushing hot and sticky from a wound in his side, wetting
her hand on the hilt of his blade. She let go and he collapsed, a
surprised look on his face and blood on his lips. And then Elinor
was tugging her away, shock and pride warring on her small
face.

Gillian didn’t feel pride; she felt sick. She
wiped her sticky hand on her skirts, feeling it tremble, like her
the breath in her lungs, like her roiling gut. But the guard’s
death wasn’t the cause. She pulled her daughter into her arms and
hugged the precious body against her, her heart beating frantically
in her chest. She’d almost lost her; she’d almost lost Elinor.

She crouched down beside a nearby well, the
only cover she could find that wasn’t burning, and stared around
desperately for some opening in the crowd. Panic was making it hard
to think, but she shoved it away angrily. She couldn’t afford
weakness now. Weakness would get them killed.

A group of nearby witches was attacking the
stables, but Gillian couldn’t see the point. The horses’ faster
pace might get them beyond range of the archers before their
shields gave out, but that was assuming they made it out at all.
And while the portcullis wasn’t completely down, a mob of guards
and who-knew-how-many protection spells stood in their way.

No. No one was getting through that.

But they might cause a great deal of
commotion trying.

She blinked, her heart drumming with sudden
hope. She stared from the battlefield to the high, gray walls
surrounding it. And then she scooped up Elinor and took off,
weaving through the remaining sheds and outbuildings that hugged
the castle walls.

She stopped when they reached the far side of
the castle, squatting beside a wagon piled with empty barrels and
breathing hard. She didn’t think they’d been seen, but she couldn’t
be sure. There were guards here, too, although not as many. Most
had joined the fight and the rest were staring at it, as if
watching her people be slaughtered was great entertainment.

She probably had a few minutes, at least.

She tugged Elinor behind the wagon and
started working on the ropes holding the barrels, tearing her nails
on the tight knots. “What are you doing?” Elinor was looking at her
strangely.

“Getting us out of this place!”

“There’s no door here,” Elinor said, staring
past her at the carnage.

“Don’t look at it,” Gillian told her harshly.
“And no door doesn’t mean no exit.”

But not getting one of these barrels loose
might. The knots must have been tied before the previous night’s
rain and they’d shrunk. Try as she might, she couldn’t get them
loose, and while it would be easy with magic, she didn’t have it to
spare. She was ready to scream from frustration when she spied a
little barrel on one edge of the cart that no one had bothered to
strap down.

She rolled it onto the ground and stood it on
its end, glancing about. She didn’t know if she could do this once,
but she certainly couldn’t manage it twice. The moment had to be
perfect.

It came an instant later, when the guards on
the ramparts above them reached the farthest end of their patrol.
It left a brief window with no one on the walls directly overhead.
Gillian stepped back, pointed the staff at the barrel and cast the
strongest levitation spell she could manage.

For a long moment, nothing happened, the
small container merely sat there like a stone. But then, as she
watched with her heart in her throat, it quivered, wobbled slightly
and sluggishly lifted off the ground. She breathed a brief sigh of
relief and jerked the staff towards her. The barrel followed the
movement, but slowly, as though it weighed much more than empty
wood should. But she didn’t start to worry until it began to shake
as if caught in a high gale.

And then to start cursing.

A stumpy little leg suddenly poked out the
bottom, with a big toe sticking out of a pair of dirty, torn hose.
Then a plump arm pushed through the side and a head topped by wild
red curls appeared where, a moment before, the round wooden lid had
been. The head was facing away from her, but the barrel was slowly
rotating, so it wasn’t but a second before a small, furious face
came into view.

It had so many freckles that it was almost
impossible to see skin, but the militant glint in the hard green
eyes was clear enough. “Goddess’ teeth! I’ll curse you into
oblivion, I’ll gouge out yer eyes, I’ll cut off that bald-headed
hermit twixt yer laigs and feed him to—” She paused, getting a good
look at the woman standing in front of her. “Gillian?” Her gaze
narrowed and her head tilted. “Wot’s this, then?”

“Winnie,” Gillian said hoarsely, her brief
moment of hope collapsing as the barrel resolved itself into a
stout, four-foot-tall woman in a green Irish kirtle. “I didn’t
recognize—”

“I should demmed well hope not,” Winnie said,
flexing her small limbs. She gently floated to the ground while
rooting around in her voluminous skirts. “’Ere. You sound like you
need this mor’n I do.”

Gillian took the small bottle her friend
proffered and downed a sizeable swallow before realizing it wasn’t
water. Now she couldn’t talk
and
she couldn’t breathe.
“What?” she gasped.

“Me special brew.”

“Didn’t they take it from you, when you came
in?” Elinor asked suddenly. Seeing a familiar face seemed to have
done her good, and she had always liked Winnie.

“Naw. Made it look like a growth on my thigh,
I did. Hairy.” She nodded archly. “Lots o’ moles. The guards din’
want ter get too close.”

Elinor looked suitably impressed.

Gillian gave Winnie back her “brew”--her wits
were addled enough as it was—and she tucked the possibly lethal
concoction away. “Right, then. Wot’s the plan?”

“The plan was to levitate one of these and
ride it out of here!” Gillian croaked. “There’s about to be an
assault on the front gate. If it draws enough attention, we might
be able to slip away while the guards are—”

“Don’t matter,” Winnie broke in, shaking her
head. “The Circle’s got charms on the walls, don’t they? Try ter go
over and poof,” she gestured expressively. “The spell breaks and ye
fall to yer death. Saw a witch try it a minute ago.”

So much for that idea, Gillian thought,
swallowing. But Winnie’s wouldn’t work, either. “They’ll check for
those in hiding,” she said, trying to keep the panic out of her
voice. “As soon as they’ve rounded up those who chose to
fight!”

“Aye,” Winnie said, imperturbably. “And mebbe
they’ll find me and mebbe they won’t. But fightin’ war mages is
nothin’ but a quick death—if yer lucky.”

“If we had our weapons, they wouldn’t kill us
so easily!” Gillian said passionately.

“But we don’t. They’re up there,” Winnie
pointed at a nearby tower. “And ain’t no reaching ‘em.”

“What?” It took a moment for her friend’s
words to sink in. And then Gillian turned her face upwards, staring
at the massive cylinder of stone that loomed above them, blocking
the sun. “They’re right there?”

“Don’t go getting any ideas,” Winnie told
her, watching her face. “I know how ye are about a challenge, but
this one’s a beggar’s chance. There’s a mass o’ guards on the door
and probably more inside. I heard a couple talkin’ about bein’ kept
on duty to help secure the place.”

“That’s never stopped us before,” Gillian
murmured, feeling a little dizzy at the sudden return of hope.

“This ain’t a job, Gil,” Winnie said,
starting to look nervous.

Gillian rounded on her, eyes flashing and
color high. “No, it’s not
a
job, Winnie. It’s
the
job. Our last, if we don’t do this!”

“But we can’t—”

“It’s just another robbery! Only we need this
one more than any gold we ever took.”

Winnie put a small hand on her arm. “Gil,
stop for a minute. Stop. Yer’re not gettin’ through that door.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Gillian told her, staring
upwards. “I’m not planning on it.”

Chapter Five

Kit reached the hell pit only to have to jump
aside to avoid a group of stampeding horses, which some
enterprising witches were using to try to storm the gate. And then
a rogue spell blistered past, caught the edge of his wool cape and
set it on fire. He flung off the now deadly garment and started to
stamp out the flames, when he caught sight of a nearby guard.

The man had taken a break from combat in
order to besport himself with a pretty blond. He had the struggling
girl on her back, her dress over her head and his knee between her
thighs—until Kit tossed the length of burning wool over his head.
It was rather more pleasurable, he decided, stamping out the flames
this way, although the guard didn’t seem to agree.

The girl did, though. She scrambled to her
feet and kicked the man viciously before sprinting off. But after
only a few yards, she turned around, came back and kicked him
again. Then she looked at Kit, dropped a small curtsy and fled.

He stared after her, shaking his head.
Witches. He was starting to think they were all a bit addled.

And then he was sure of it, as he caught
sight of his own particular lunatic attempting to ride a levitating
barrel over the walls.

For a moment, he just stared, sure his eyes
were playing tricks on him. Until he spied no fewer than five mages
heading for the cask and its glowing cargo. Devil take the woman!
He sprinted across the battle, cursing, as his witch floated gently
to the top of the East Tower.

About halfway across the courtyard, he
realized what she was doing. That tower was used as the armory, and
it was a safe bet she was trying for the weapons. But he didn’t
give much for her chances. The Circle surely had a ward on them, if
not on the—

It was on the window. He watched her reach
the only one on this side, an elongated type barely wider than the
average arrow slit, and cry out. Then a burst of power flared and
the barrel shot away from the tower like a ball out of a
cannon.

It went sailing off through the air with the
witch’s slumped form miraculously still attached. Not that that was
in any way positive. She’d have been better served had she fallen
off; she might have only broken bone or two that way. As it was,
she was headed straight for the heart of the battle.

Kit’s eyes flicked around, even as his brain
told him that it was over, that there was nothing to be done, that
this was
not going to happen
—

And then he was running and leaping and
grabbing for her as she shot past. Because he’d obviously gone mad
at some point and hadn’t noticed. But at least it couldn’t get any
worse, he thought, as he hit the side of the cask and held on for
dear life.

And then it rolled over and he ended up
dangling upside down.

The only reason they weren’t spotted
immediately was the thick smoke cover, but there were alarming gaps
in it and a hovering cask with two glowing riders was a bit hard to
miss. But, on the positive side, his impact had caused their mad
conveyance to change course slightly, allowing them to miss the
thick of the fight. On the negative, they were now careening for
the west wall of the castle at an alarming rate.

He tried to grab the witch and jump off, but
she wouldn’t budge. It took him a vital few seconds to realize that
she’d lashed herself in place with rope, and by then, it was too
late. A huge gray expanse filled his vision and, even with vampire
reflexes, they were out of time. He threw his body to the side,
causing the barrel to spin—right into the wall.

The impact didn’t break the wood, because it
never hit the cold, unforgiving stone. Kit did, at a rate of speed
not recommended for vampire-kind. For a moment, it felt like his
body had actually merged with the rock, and he wasn’t sure it
hadn’t. Because when the barrel suddenly jerked and pulled away
from the wall, he was sure some of his hide stayed behind.

There was no time to check, because they
weren’t slowing down. The impact should have absorbed most of the
forward momentum, but they hadn’t simply wobbled off a few yards
and stopped. Instead, the barrel seemed to have a mind of its own,
and it was quite obviously demented.