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CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

First there was darkness. And within it, pain, clamouring in his chest. A deep dragging sensation threatened to tear him apart. Then, where he could have sworn there had been nothing, was a tingling rush as air drew into his lungs. The uneven rise and fall of his chest settled into some kind of rhythm, and he heard the flow of air, the pulsing of blood through his veins. And it was familiar. Achingly familiar.

Sounds where there had been none.

And his chest rose and fell, rose and fell. So familiar… and yet…

The awareness crept up on him almost imperceptibly: he was alive. His pulse quickened, and the rush of blood through his veins threatened to deafen him. There was something, at the edge of his consciousness, something he ought to know…

Renewed pain seared through his chest, but it burned out almost immediately, settling to a dull, dragging ache. And there were other sensations now: coolness as an unseen hand mopped his forehead, warmth as hands moved over his ribcage, dispersing the pain, and the rise and fall, rise and fall, became less laboured, until he didn’t need to think about it at all – it simply was.

And then he became aware of sounds around him: the swish of fabric as someone moved nearby; a faint grinding sound some way away – a pestle and mortar; further still, birdsong; the susurrus of leaves stirred by a light breeze. More and more sounds. His fingers twitched. And now he sensed there was light but his eyelids weighed too heavy to lift and he gave up the struggle to open them.

He couldn’t say how many days passed in this way. Sometimes when he woke it was dark, and he caught the rank smell of tallow, recognised it and understood this was not what he was used to. Other times there was light beyond his closed eyelids. But every time, as soon as he stirred, even so much as a fingertip, something damp and cool was pressed to his lips and as he quenched his thirst he slid away from consciousness once more as a deeper weariness overcame him. Until the day came when he woke more fully and realised he was in the place where he had woken the day before, and the day before that, and all those times in between.

Footsteps approached and he recognised the sweet, cloying scent of the thirst-quenching stuff he had grown used to. He parted his lips, ready to take the scant moisture. Then the footsteps halted. Fabric swished close by and a hand pressed for a few moments upon his forehead.

A soft voice spoke. “You have returned to us, at last, my lord. May the Goddess be praised for her mercy. Let us give thanks.” The voice was soft, husky. A woman’s, he realised. Still something eluded him, something he thought he should know. With a supreme effort he opened his eyes but the light was overwhelming and he had to squeeze his lids shut again.

The woman murmured words he didn’t recognise: soothing, rhythmic words. He let them carry him along, drifting on the current of pleasant sensations. He felt the lightest of motions over his chest, followed by a rush of less warm air, and realised his garments were being unfastened. The hands began to massage his upper body, kneading his chest and ribs. He relished the sensation, his chest rising and falling in time to the rhythm of the massage. Then the hands moved lower still and his body responded, hardening as she worked her fingers over him. The hands left him for a moment and he heard fabric, lifting, settling.

“It is time for us to thank the Goddess.” She straddled him. Warm flesh pressed against his own and he felt the heat in his loins grow. He opened his eyes again then, just long enough to see she was every bit as beautiful as he had imagined, with long, fair hair and firm, rounded breasts. He yearned to explore her with his own hands, yet when he tried to lift them they might as well have been made of granite.

“Save your strength,” she murmured, leaning forward to kiss him. He closed his eyes again as she teased at his mouth with her tongue and her breasts brushed against his chest. Rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and– She lowered herself onto him and began to move, slowly at first but each sway of her hips more certain than the one before, until he released himself inside her.

“Your first act on waking is for the Goddess. May she bless your offering with new life.” She spoke unevenly, her voice taking a moment to recover its earlier lyrical quality. “Now she will walk at your side always, and favour you above all men.” She lifted herself off him then. A blink of his eyes showed him her firm, neat waist, vanishing beneath a shapeless robe.

He would have struggled to sit up at that point, to call her back to him, but the sweet-tasting sponge was applied to his lips again and he slid away into a deep sleep, vaguely aware he still had not recalled the thing that was so important.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Weaver wasn’t prepared for the scale of devastation that greeted them at Highkell. They’d halted their horses in the cover of trees on the ridge opposite the citadel. Or rather, what remained of it. It was as if a giant’s fist had punched a hole through the cliff on which the citadel stood. The cliff beneath the breach was soused with water seeping from myriad cracks. Below stretched a scar of freshly exposed rock. Soil stripped from the slope had been swept down to the bottom of the gorge and come to rest in a jumble of uprooted trees and fallen masonry. Above the breach…

Weaver swore.

Above the breach the whole of the King’s Tower had gone, taking with it one wall of the great throne room which now stood open to the elements. The curtain wall gaped either side, revealing a great gash in the ground cut away by the collapse of the tower. A section of soil still topped by turf curled out over the drop – all that remained of the washing green. The curtain wall to the town side of the citadel leaned drunkenly out from the cliff top. Further up the gorge, the main city gate opened out onto a sheer drop, the bridge carried away in another landslide, along with several hundred yards of the approach road on their side of the gorge. Highkell was effectively cut off from the south.

Despite Drew’s insistence something was badly wrong, Weaver had never quite believed it. Now he struggled to comprehend the scale of destruction. “Where in the name of the Goddess do we begin?”

Curtis shook his head. “No one could survive in that.”

“She’s here. I know it.” Drew studied the rubble below them, intent on something none of the rest of them could detect. “There.” He pointed down the gorge, some distance below the point where the tower had stood. “We need to get down there.” He sounded sure.

Weaver studied the citadel. Labourers moved among the wreckage, clearing fallen masonry and shoring up damaged walls with timbers, but there was no evidence of archers or other guard patrols. For the time being the only way down from Highkell would be by rope, or a circuitous route over the steep ground from the west gate. There seemed every chance they might search the rubble without interference.

“Weaver, how do we get down there?” Drew was insistent.

“We’ll need to go further downstream, to where the bank hasn’t washed away. There’ll be sheep trods we can follow. We’ll leave the horses up here, out of sight among the trees.”

Drew nodded. “Then let’s not waste time.”

Once they’d reached the mounds of rubble, their task looked impossible. The debris shifted underfoot, however carefully they tried to pick their way through it. Drew, lighter than the others, took the lead. “She’s here, I tell you.” Drew clambered up the precarious pile of rubble, teetering over loose blocks of masonry, searching for something only he could sense. Then he doubled back and crouched down, setting one hand against a huge stone lintel which jutted from the rubble. “Here. This is it.” He beckoned urgently to Weaver, and he and his comrades clambered up the fallen masonry to his side.

“She’s here. She’s alive, Weaver. I’m sure of it.”

The lad believed it. Weaver daren’t. But he began clearing the fallen stone aside, and they worked to uncover the lintel. It formed the top of an ornate window, and was still attached to one jamb. A few panes of leaded glass still hung from one mullion. The big window from the throne room? She might well have been there.

They worked in silence, alert for any sudden movement of the loose stone surrounding them. Weaver and Blaine between them heaved a large block aside, revealing a cavity formed by the fallen lintel and door jamb. And beyond the trickling dust, something moved. There was the faintest of sounds, little more than an exhalation. Drew still insisted it was Alwenna. It could be anyone in there. They worked faster, clearing more rubble away until an accumulation of loose mortar rushed inside the cavity and there was a yelp of protest.

At last Weaver believed.

The rubble around the spot was becoming increasingly unstable. They’d cleared enough to allow light into the cavity, revealing dust-covered fabric – a silk gown. They worked swiftly to clear the rubble from about her. At one point, Drew stepped back, frowning, and looked around before returning to their work. A fallen timber had come to rest across her legs and it took some time to clear away enough stone to lift it. She moved, twisting around in an effort to get to her feet. Drew reached inside the cavity and helped her scramble out.

Weaver caught a glimpse of the girl’s fair hair, and his disappointment was crushing. It wasn’t Alwenna.

The girl held one hand over her eyes as she squinted in the daylight. “Thank the Goddess…” Her voice was dry and cracked even on those few syllables. She held her left arm awkwardly against her side and trembled with exhaustion.

Blaine helped her away from her precarious perch among the loose rubble. “Easy now, lass. Lean on me.”

“You’re not from these parts.” She squinted at them a second time through streaming eyes. “Those aren’t Vasic’s colours…”

Nearby, a quantity of masonry subsided with an ominous rumble and a couple of stones rolled loose and clattered away down the gorge.

“We’re here to find the Lady Alwenna.”

The girl caught her breath. “Then you’ll need… She saved me, pulled me from the edge…” The girl drew a ragged breath.

Weaver’s heart seemed to stop beating.

“She was right beside me, I know she was. I heard her, in the dark.”

After a few more minutes’ effort they uncovered more fabric. Green, this time. Ornate, such as an important bride might wear on her wedding day.

Drew, slightest among their party, peered through the gap they’d cleared. “Her feet are pinned. It’s–” He twisted round, then pulled his head and shoulders back out of the hole. “Bring me a length of timber, two if you can find them. We need to be sure it doesn’t cave in.”

A block of stone shifted beneath Weaver’s foot. He froze. Every shift of weight was now fraught. Drew peered inside the cavity once more, speaking calmly to the trapped woman. “Not long now. We’ll shore up this rubble to be sure it’s safe before we free your legs.” He withdrew again and pointed to the section of rubble against the window jamb. “Keep clearing away there, Weaver. That window’s wedged solid at the back, it’s going nowhere. I need room to get inside with the timber props.”

Weaver attacked the fallen stonework with renewed vigour. One of the others returned with a length of timber that had once formed a window lintel.

Drew hefted it. “Perfect. Another of these, two if you can find them. That should do it, Weaver – be ready to pass the prop to me when I’m inside.” Drew lowered himself feet first through the gap Weaver had created. He paused partway in, twisting round and feeling his way with his feet, pausing again as small stones cascaded inside, then ducked out of sight.

The moments stretched as Weaver waited. Drew appeared at the hole. “She’s doing well. Her leg hurts, but that’s a good sign. Hand me the prop.” Weaver passed it to him, supporting the end until Drew had moved out of sight and took it in after him. Weaver faced another anxious wait punctuated only by clunks and thuds as, presumably, Drew wedged the prop in position. Drew’s head popped out of the hole once more after what seemed an impossible wait. “Begin to clear this section here. When it comes to this stone you’ll need me to support it from this side.” He set his hand on a large block of stone at shoulder height.

The men worked swiftly, without wasting energy in conversation. Inside the rubble Alwenna remained quiet. Weaver redoubled his efforts. If they were too late… They couldn’t be too late. Drew would have said something, surely.

A moment later and the huge block Drew had pointed out began to shift. “Wait!” he yelled, straining to hold the block in place. “Take the stone from beneath it so we can roll it away.”

The three of them scrabbled frantically and a moment later Drew heaved the block out over the top and they dragged it down in a controlled slide. A few small stones to one side of it toppled into the cavity.

“Give me more daylight to free her legs.” Drew stooped, scrabbling in the debris they’d just uncovered, and picked up an ornate dagger. He tucked it away in his belt and continued clearing stone.

Finally Weaver could see inside the cavity where Alwenna lay trapped. And it was Alwenna. She lay with her eyes closed, trembling. Her breathing might have been unsteady, but she was breathing.

Drew worked by her legs. “We’re nearly there, my lady. We’ll have you out of here in a matter of minutes. Keep still now, it’ll just be a moment.”

There was no visible response from Alwenna. Were they too late after all?

Weaver clambered over the remaining rubble, leaving the other two to clear more space, and stooped at Drew’s side. A large cornerstone pinned Alwenna’s leg to the rubble beneath.

“Take that end, Weaver. We need to lift this clean away without causing any more damage. On the count of three.”

He counted.

They lifted.

Alwenna uttered a stifled cry as they lifted the block clear of her leg.

From somewhere on the tumbled hillside there came a shout of warning.

The servant girl screamed. “Get down!”

A volley of arrows rained down nearby, clattering among the stones several yards short of where they worked.

There was a muffled curse from Curtis as he dived for cover. “The whoreson bastards are firing on us.”