Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

As far as I could tell, the bailey itself was deserted. The drainage canal was blocked by rubble, which left us either the more exposed route straight across the bailey to the grate in the outer wall or a series of shorter jaunts between gallows and stocks and prison cages. For the time, Osriel’s magic was spent. We could not depend on his power to hide us.

Still undecided, I touched the corners of the warded grate and quickened its unlocking spell. The grate fell smoothly into my hands. So far, Max’s route had worked perfectly. But he would never trust me to show up with Gildas at our rendezvous three streets away. Warned by his wards that we were coming out, he would be waiting, and he would insist on knowing everything about my companions. Best go for speed.

“Only two bits still to go,” I said when I returned to my companions. “Straight across the bailey and through another grate will take us under the outer wall. Do you need me to carry you, Gram? This is no time for pride. We must be quick.”

“Saverian is very good at potion making,” said the prince, already sounding stronger than he had earlier. “Just don’t ask me to conjure a rat’s squeak along the way. Hadn’t you best take this and cover up? My attire is less…conspicuous…than yours.”

I stayed his hand before he could shed the filthy blanket. “I—uh—hear better when I’m like this,” I said. “The blanket’s not big enough to hide all of me anyway. When you see I’m across with no disturbance, come after. Once we’re outside the walls, the nearest cover will be to the right. Go as fast as you can and stay low. I’m hoping that only friends will be waiting, but…” I shrugged.

We moved to the hole. One careful listening revealed no change; a careful observation revealed no eyes turned inward from the walls. I crawled through and dashed across the bailey. My bare feet made no sound, and I caught the third grate as it toppled inward, lowering it carefully into the hollow under the wall. I scuttered through and across the blessedly short distance to the outermost grate, then quickened its spell. A glance beyond the wall showed me naught but night in Riie Doloure. I left the grate leaning against its hole and crawled back the way I’d come.

The two hunched forms moved steadily across the bailey in my direction, not invisible but dark and quiet. They had crossed three quarters of the distance when the doors of the great hall burst open, and torchlight flooded the steps. A patrol of ten Harrowers emerged and ran for the gates. More men took positions on the steps and spread slowly outward, approaching the gallows platform, searching on and underneath it.

Osriel and Jullian had flattened themselves to the ground at the first disturbance and blended well into the mottled landscape of rubble and refuse. But if they remained where they were, the searchers would surely find them. I considered ten different plans and discarded them as quickly. If I set one foot out of the hole to distract the hunters, every eye would be on me. Osriel and Jullian might reach the tunnel, but I never would.

Under, through, or over a wall, thieves and lovers learn them all. The tavern reel’s chorus defined my dilemma. There would be no way through a gate so well guarded, and no way to get back to the tunnel and under the wall faster than Harrowers could be outside it waiting for me. Which left over…

My stomach lurched. I closed my eyes and recalled the layout of the bailey as I’d seen it from the inside. The stair to the wall walk was some halfway between my position and the gates. No time to think. No time to doubt. Holy Erdru, god of drunkards and madmen, preserve your faithful servant.

I crawled out of the hole and darted up and over the wooden platform where Sila’s judges had mandated death and mayhem, crouching low and putting as much distance as possible between me and the open grate in the corner. I was halfway to the gallows when they spotted me.

“Look!” Twenty voices at once screamed out. Everything seemed to stop for that moment, just as on the day Voushanti and I had stormed this same gallows under the shield of Osriel’s enchantment to rescue Brother Victor. I spun in place. Searchers backed away. Some weapons clanked to the ground—not all, sadly.

Murmurings rose through the hush. Sorcery! Ghost! Spirit!

Stubbing my toes on broken planks and mounds of crusted snow, ignoring splinters that pierced my blistered hands, I climbed up onto the gallows. I quickened my simplest, crudest lock spell and touched the chains on the bloodstained drawing frame, where Luviar had been splayed and gutted like a boar. The iron shattered in a shower of red sparks. And then I did the same to the hinges on the gallows traps.

Angel! Guardian!

I dared not look to the corner. How long would it take for Osriel and Jullian to understand and move?

Somewhere behind the glaring torches, a snapped order imposed discipline. Boots crept toward me from the direction of the gates. I gripped a post, swung around it, and leaped off the platform, mustering what grace I could so as not to eternally sully all legends of the Danae. I landed on the balls of my feet with only moderate jarring of spine and limbs. Then I sprinted for the stair to the walls.

“Magnus!” Sila cried from the doors. “You will not escape! Your destiny lies with me!”

I had no breath to answer as I took the stairs three at a time. No wit to create some memorable farewell. I was too busy trying to remember what Kol had told me. Drive thy spirit upward with the leap. Hold it firm and soaring. It is will that counters the forces that draw us to earth.

For my king and my friend, I thought as I topped the stair and bounded across the wall walk with ten Harrowers charging from each flank. Stearc died to keep Osriel safe.

But it was not such noble thoughts that drove my spirit upward as I leaped from the wall of Fortress Torvo, or held it firm and soaring as I fell toward earth, but the remembrance of my uncle’s healing grace as he danced, and a stubborn will that Ronila’s malignancy would not destroy the beauty he had wrought.

I landed on one foot and one knee. Breathless. Not with fear, though I would have sworn I’d left my stomach on Torvo’s wall. Not with pain, though grit and gravel and all manner of foulness had most uncomfortably embedded themselves in my knee. Exhilaration starved my lungs. I felt as if angels had borne me on their wings, as if I had lived my life in a cave and only now had glimpsed my first sunrise.

But four men with swords pelted toward me from the gates, Torvo’s portcullis ground upward with a troop of Harrowers ready to burst from behind it, and five well-armed riders in Registry colors blockaded Riie Doloure. Their commander sat astride a very large bay, perhaps ten paces from me. Only my conviction that he would be waiting kept my eyes from sliding away from him. Max was a master at obscuré spells.

I could not but grin when I saw his face illumined by Torvo’s torches. Not even when we were boys had I seen Max completely unmasked—which had naught to do with the pureblood silk that clung to half his face.

“Balls enough?” I called across the distance between us, opening my arms.

A slow grin broke through his awe. “Balls enough, little—Little bastard. Did you accomplish whatever you came here for?”

“Beware of Jakome,” I said, grinning back at him. I would not take his bait. “He’s false. But I’ve left you clean, do you but go now. If these Harrowers identify you…take my word, they will be out of humor.”

Whether or not he believed me, he must have decided he could work no more advantage from the situation. Laughing robustly, he wheeled his mount and rejoined his men. With a snapped command of dismissal, they vanished into the city. I sprinted back toward the hole in Torvo’s wall.