Fisher, Catherine - The Hidden Coronet #3

“Galen!”

The keeper slammed him against the wall, eyes black with rage. “I should kill you now,” he snarled.

Marco slew his head sideways. “But you won’t,” he gasped, trying to grin.

“Since the beginning you’ve been an evil weight on us!”

“Don’t blame me that you had to leave those people,” Marco spat. “Blame the Watch. Or shouldn’t the Crow be able to make it all better with one magic word?”

Galen hissed. He hauled the man up and struck him hard in the face.

Marco staggered, pulled back and whipped a long knife from his belt.

“No!” Solon cried. “Stop this!”

“Stay out of it, Holiness. It’s been coming a long time.”

“Galen! I insist!”

The keeper was silent, breathing hard. There was a terrible wrath in him; it churned like a black pain. Even though he knew Galen’s temper, Raffi was appalled at the depths of this; it was an abyss, like the dark between stars, like the pits of Maar.

Marco crouched, his hand waving the knife. “You may have your own weapons, keeper, but that’s never stopped me. I’m waiting.”

In the charged room no one moved.

Then a cool voice spoke from the doorway. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. Galen, it’s not him you have to worry about.”

Raffi whirled around.

The Sekoi stood there, looking travel-worn.

Galen didn’t move. “Isn’t it?” he said, his voice hard.

“No, it isn’t. And we don’t have time to waste.” It walked right up to them, took the knife swiftly from Marco’s hand, and tossed it down.

Confused, Raffi looked at the door. “Where’s Carys?”

“Not here, small keeper. I’ve got things to tell you that you won’t like, Galen, but first we have to leave this place. At once. The Watch know we’re here.”

Galen turned and looked at it. He seemed barely to understand, his eyes still black with anger. “How?” he asked.

“Later. We need to go. I’ve sent messages on—they’ll be waiting for us.”

“Who will?” Solon asked.

The Sekoi scratched its fur, yellow eyes sly.

“My people. At the Circling.”

CARYS MOVED QUICKLY. A few miles inland she found a village and stole a horse, riding it relentlessly north all night. In the rain it was hard to tell direction; she used her old Watch lodestone and grinned as she thought of Jeltok’s boring lessons.

For hours she pushed on, through mud and rutted tracks, climbing into the hills. The horse was a poor beast; by early the next morning it was too winded to do more than stagger, so she sold it heartlessly at a roadside farm for food and directions, then set off on foot, half running, in the Watch pursuit pace.

The Sekoi had a day’s start, but it must have gone on foot. She had to catch up with it. Fury drove her, fury at herself and it. Of course the creature didn’t trust her. Why should it? Why should any of them, after all the tricks she’d pulled? And who had told the Watch about Sarres? Because the Sekoi was right. That could finish them.

Scrambling wearily through wind-blasted woods and flooded fields she brooded on that, their one safe place lost. It drove her on through exhaustion and mud and swarms of bloodflies and the aching stitch in her side. She had to find Raffi. She had to tell him it wasn’t her.

At midday she limped past a cave, low on Mount Burna. A man came out of it and stared at her. She gripped the crossbow tight.

He looked like a hermit, gray and starved, his hair clotted and uncut. A wildness about his eyes warned her. A string of small bones rattled around his neck.

“Has a Sekoi passed this way?” she gasped. “Gray, striped?”

The man clutched his ragged sleeves. He seemed witless, so she strode on toward the trees, but after a second his voice drifted after her, hoarse and strained.

“There are none left, not anymore.”

She turned, wary. “What?”

“There are none anymore.”

For a moment she looked at him. His skin was crusted with dirt. The bones chinked. From the cave a pregnant skeat wandered out, yelping.

“None of what? Tell me what you mean.”

He shook his head, his eyes filling. To her horror he clawed at his face with one hand, leaving long scratches of blood. “They’re gone,” he whispered. “All of them. All lost, all dead. There are none anymore.”

Carys stood rigid.

Then she turned and raced into the trees.

All afternoon she climbed, not looking back, desperate to get the madness and despair out of her mind. By sundown she knew she had to be close, but the fog had come down, yellow and rancid-smelling. It closed around her, blurring the gloomy plantation of firs to complete darkness, so that all she could do was keep climbing, breathless and sore and ready to scream with frustration.

Until she saw the light.

Nebulous and vague, it hung above the treetops, fog wisping over it in drifts.

It had to be the observatory.

She struggled through sharp branches, tripped over humps and anthills, then slammed suddenly against something hard.

A wall.

Groping around, she found a great door ajar, and slid inside. Fog filled the damp stairwell; she raced up, hearing the murmuring of voices, an argument, a thump high above.

The door to the top room was open; breathless she walked straight in.

Talk stopped.

All the men sprawled about the room turned to stare at her. Each of them wore the black uniform of the Watch, and they smelled of beer and sweat.

Carys turned like lightning.

The man behind the door had already kicked it shut.

He grinned, showing black gaps between rotting teeth.

“Well!” he leered. “And who’s this then?”

The Circling

22

Obedience to seniority of rank will be complete and unquestioning.

Insubordination is not tolerated.

Rule of the Watch

NO ONE SAID ANYTHING.

Strange oily rain cascaded in sheets from the clifftop beyond the overhang. The Sekoi folded its long fingers and waited.

It was Raffi who exploded. “She wouldn’t! She’d never have gone back to them!”

“She’s never left,” the Sekoi said calmly. “The wanted list is an age-old ruse.” It flicked an anxious glance at Galen. “I’m sorry. I know you thought . . .”

“She rescued Galen from the Watch! And Sarres! She loves Sarres! She’d never betray it.” Raffi leaped up. He couldn’t bear this. “And she’s not even here to argue for herself. How could you leave her in some dream? She’ll die!”

“She won’t.” The creature grimaced. “And I left her because I will not risk taking her to the Circling.”

Raffi gave a hiss of disgust. He walked to the edge of the overhang and stared angrily out into the crashing rain.

Still Galen had not spoken. He looked bleak.

Solon said hesitantly, “Of course I did not know her as well as you. She always seemed . . . astute.”

“As sharp as a needle,” Marco muttered. “I always suspected there was no way out of the Watch.” He folded his arms. “Still. At least now you know it wasn’t me.”

Galen ignored him.

“It is Sarres I mourn most.” Solon rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. “The Watch riding in there . . .”