Icefall (37 page)

‘Nice to see you too.' Rory was grinning happily at Sionnach.

‘Her?' Sionnach raised his new sword to point its tip at Alainn.

‘She's okay. With us,' said Iolaire. ‘But Hannah won't leave without you.'

‘Yes she will. Hannah?'

‘Too right she will.' Rory's fingers tightened on mine.

‘You
have to go,
' snarled Iolaire. ‘No time. Everything rests on getting you away. You
have to.
'

I took a breath to argue, then caved in. This time it wasn't cowardice: I'd felt that often enough to recognize it, and anyway I felt safer with Sionnach than anywhere else. It was just that there was no point being self-indulgent. I'd only get them killed. And Iolaire sounded like that so rarely, I believed every word he'd said. ‘Okay.'

‘I'll take her out.' Alainn kept flicking glances over her shoulder into the tunnels.

‘And Rory.'

She shrugged. ‘And Rory.'

Iolaire looked suspicious. ‘Sionnach, you go with them.'

‘As if.' Sionnach snorted. ‘I've scores to settle. Iolaire, you go. You know the place better. If she's going the wrong way. Yeah?'

‘If she goes the wrong way?' Iolaire gave Alainn a level stare, then drew his finger across his throat.

She laughed. ‘Drama queen.'

‘Go, then.' Sionnach didn't wait to see us go, but ran into the tunnel's darkness and towards the sounds of battle.

 

Finn

In Kate's hall there was more than quietness. There was that strange vacuum of sound where the ring of blades and the flying bodies and the screams and grunts of the dying and their killers had been like a solid, living force.

Every entrance forced. Every passageway taken. Seven narrow battles won, and the war still to come.

Our fighters were exhausted. So were hers. But ours had won the ground.

Kate sat white-faced on her dais, gripping the arms of her silver chair. I'd never seen anything so ornate, so beautifully carved and chased. When had she ordered a throne? The sheer demented vanity of the woman. Seth stepped slowly forward, bloodied sword held in front of him.

‘Heretic,' she hissed. ‘Traitor. Vermin. Filth.'

He didn't answer, only watched her eyes.

My brain hurt so much I thought it would explode. I could barely stand it. I didn't think I could stand it. I certainly couldn't fight. I couldn't stand alone. I could only prop myself against the wall, Fearna and Sorcha and Orach in a protective circle in front of me.

But Kate's teeth were clenched, and her temple throbbed. The pain wasn't all mine.

Her gaze skittered quickly to me, then back to Seth.

She screamed,
‘Langfank!'

Seth gave a low laugh. ‘When did its oath expire, Kate?'

‘
LANGFANK!'
Kate's eyes were wild.

‘I have its oath,' said Seth. ‘And the oath of a Lammyr is binding.'

Once more, Kate turned to look at me. How many souls had she taken since we'd last met? Oh, she was strong with them, and she oozed with the power of the dead. And when she had the otherworld, how much stronger? Her hatred seared my mind, and the pain of it was so bad I had to bite my mouth till it bled. But at least I didn't scream.

‘You distracted me, Caorann. You blocked me. You
deceived me
.' She hissed it through her teeth, and I had a sudden, terrible foreboding. As if our duel had been gameplay to her. As if she'd been passing the time while she waited for her Lammyr to come from behind and slaughter us. As if she'd only just realized the seriousness of her position, and she was only now going to defend it. Only now.

‘How dare you.' Her lips formed the words, silently, directly at me, and her pupils ignited with cold flame.

‘Stand back,' she ordered her fighters. ‘
Stand. DOWN.
'

They hesitated, but her eyes were pure silver. Swords lowered; bows lowered; their fists clenched tight on daggers but stayed at their sides.

Kate's mouth stretched in a grin. She stood up, and opened her arms to Seth.

‘Come and get me then, Murlainn. Son of the hound Griogair. At last. Come here and get flesh.'

 

Hannah

Why was I leaving? My friends were dying. My friends were fighting and dying for
me
up there and I was leaving.

‘You think I like it?' whispered Rory. ‘You and I need to stay away from Kate, because she'll use us. I don't want to go but it's all that'll let my father win.'

‘He's right,' said Iolaire behind us.

‘Would you three shut up?' hissed Alainn. She seemed more furtive now, more scared, if that was possible. She was on a knife edge, she was. The passageways were narrowing and darkening, but they were definitely rising under our feet. I could almost feel the outside world. Air, daylight, freedom. So close I could taste it.

So close I could
see
it. That light wasn't torchlight any more, and it wasn't the flickering glow of wind-generated electric strips. It was the light of a starlit sky and the open moor. Safety must be round the next corner. Alainn held up a hand to stop us.

She edged into the next tunnel and was gone, her raised warning hand the last thing to slip out of sight.

Silence. She seemed to be gone for a very long time. I watched the place where she'd disappeared, till I began to wonder if she'd abandoned us. Behind me I could feel Iolaire's anxiety growing, and he'd silenced his breath. His muscles tensed.

When Alainn reappeared, I let out a shuddering sigh of relief. Her left hand rested against the wall, her right still held her sword. She stood stiffly, her expression unreadable.

And then a figure stepped out beside her. Tall, powerful, ugly as sin.

‘No!' I shouted.

‘Bitch,' said Iolaire, and raised his sword to kill her.

It was struck from his hand, from behind. He lunged for it with his slashed hand, but the ambush was too tight, there were too many of them. An arm went round his neck and a blade pressed against his throat. He rolled over and kicked once, the blade nicking his neck, then looked up into the eyes of his captor.

‘Cluaran.' He swore.

‘Renegade.' The blade tip pressed harder.

Rory grabbed me, pulling me behind him, snarling. ‘You're dead, Alainn!'

She gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders, and a coughing laugh, and opened her mouth to say something. All that came out was blood.

I looked at her belly. The blade impaling it drew back into her, vanished. That awful, soft, sucking
thwick
as it left her flesh.

And then the man behind her thrust it though her neck. It flashed out of her throat, sending a dark spray of blood across Rory. Reflexively he turned to cover my body, but beyond his shoulder I saw our attacker kick Alainn hard in the back, jolting her off the blade. She pitched forward, her face hitting the rock floor, stone dead as Darach so many months ago.

The blade was still held out towards us, glistening prettily with Alainn's blood. Her killer eyed us along it, smiling.

‘Drop your pathetic weapon, Laochan, and I won't kill the girlfriend.'

Rory's breath rasped through his teeth. He still held me protectively behind him.

The Wolf rolled his single eye. ‘Look, if we do this now, you know I won't kill
you
. Just her. Give yourselves time to say goodbye. Hm?'

Rory's blade clattered to the floor, and I buried my face in his shoulder blades.

*   *   *

Too much silence, and yet I knew in my heart the real fight was on.

Please God please let Seth kill her NOW before we come

We were thrust stumbling along the passageway. I tripped on a corpse—
Diorras, who liked Blackadder and buffalo wings—
and the Wolf grabbed my hair and hauled me to my feet. Rory, stumbling to keep up, his wrists bound behind him, snarled a curse but the Wolf ignored him, shoving me on. The rock floor was slippery with blood, and I slid on smooth steps, but once again he grabbed me and kicked me in the back to get me moving.

He didn't say a word. I hated that. He didn't even snap back at Rory's relentless swearing. I tripped on the slumped body of another fighter, righted myself, and caught sight of more: Kate's troops, and some of ours. And I thought:
Seth's doing.

Oh, God, Seth, finish it please finish it now

Because I knew if he didn't, he'd pay for it.

The Wolf thumped me in the back, and I staggered forward, and the passageway opened abruptly into space and light. Startled, I flinched back.

Kate's hall wasn't
great,
it was gigantic. Its roof was so high it was barely visible, and the pillars supporting it were snaked with vines, their huge white flowers heavy-scented and sweet. So inappropriate, because the whole hall was piled with bodies and body parts. There was a sound I didn't recognize and didn't like, but after a couple of seconds I twigged. All around, from countless wounds, blood leaked and dripped onto rock.

Two forces, and a soundless stand-off. The fighters stood in two opposing semicircles, nervously eyeing the high dais and the last fight, the one it turned on. No-one moved, no-one attacked, no-one did anything. No-one could. That was clear.

Kate and Seth faced one another, close as lovers. She stood tall, arms flung wide, eyes riveted on his, as if she was defenceless and pleading for mercy. The fingers of Seth's left hand were wound tightly into her hair. In his right hand his sword quivered. You could barely see the tremor but it was there, making the steel sing and the torchlight dance. The tip of the blade was maybe a thumb's width from Kate's throat.

Bewildered, I watched. Why wasn't he plunging it right in?
Seth, do it!
What was this, second thoughts? Conscience? Oh, for God's sake, for our sake,
no.

It took me a good half a second to register the silent struggle.

Kate's face wasn't quiet and accepting, but taut and trembling and savage. Seth's arm shook as he pushed his sword tip millimetre by millimetre towards the soft hollow of her throat. His teeth were gritted and there were beads of sweat on his temple. One swelled and trickled to his jawline, and he pressed harder. The sword-tip moved closer, closer. A finger's-width from her throat now.
Less.

That was when I noticed the other half of the deadly struggle: Finn, surrounded by our fighters. Her agonized face was the mirror of Kate's. Fighting back Kate's telekinesis, forcing Seth's blade forward. Slow and inexorable. My heart swelled with pride and fierce hope. I forgot where I was. I forgot what was happening.

I forgot, till the Wolf thrust me to the ground and said ‘Murlainn.'

Nothing changed on that high dais. The struggle went on. Kate smiled a little more, but her focus never wavered. Seth blinked, that was all, shook something from his eyes. His lip twisted back in a wolfish snarl.

But the fighters around them turned, one by one, and watched us.

Rory was kicked to his knees beside me. He caught my eye, desperate, but like Iolaire he had a dirk at his throat.

Straddling me, the Wolf stretched out a hand. His lieutenant handed him a length of chain, and the Wolf grabbed my arm and dragged me against the wall.

And all the while Kate and Seth fought, still and silent, in the centre of the hall.

The Wolf hauled me to my feet, and lifted my arm above my head. Snapping it into a manacle, he drew a dirk with a hiss like a snake. He pressed its needle-tip to my wrist, dug it in and slashed.

I didn't even get a scream out. It didn't even hurt, not for a second or two. I just gaped in disbelief, like an idiot, as blood pumped out of my lacerated vein and down to my armpit.

Seth's eyes slewed towards me, then back to Kate. Nobody moved except Grian, who took a step towards me, then halted abruptly when the Wolf's dirk nicked my throat.

‘Hey, Murlainn! Want Grian to reach her?'

I hung stupidly against the wall, swaying. Blood pumped. Strange. One instant it didn't hurt at all, the next it was like fire in my flesh. I was trying not to make a sound but it was hard. God, it was hard. I was trying not to cry.

‘She could even heal herself, maybe. If I let her.' The Wolf shook my slashed arm in its manacle.

Rory shouted with horror, but I turned my face to the rock wall. I didn't want him to see the terror in my eyes and I knew it must be showing. I'd felt a helpless tear roll down my cheek, and I didn't want any of them to see it. I didn't want to die but I didn't want to be the one who made us fail, the one who blew it all to hell.

The Wolf tightened his savage grip on my free arm. His fingers bit so hard they were cutting off the blood flow, and my unhurt hand felt numb already. I wondered if my blood would race to my slashed wrist instead. I wondered how long I had. I shut my eyes but I could still feel warm wetness pulse out and down.

‘Losing your focus, Murlainn?'

Terrified, I looked wildly at Finn. Her eyes were shut, her teeth sunk in her lip, and she was pressing Seth's blade harder, closer to Kate's throat. Seth's grip tightened in Kate's hair, so hard she winced. But his blade trembled even more.

‘Not like you, Murlainn. Getting angry.'

‘Told you once before,' gritted Seth. ‘Do get angry. Don't lose my temper.'

Smiling, the Wolf touched his stitched eye. He tapped his cheek with a finger. He examined my wrist.

‘Could take a while in this position, Murlainn. Won't be fast but it'll be sure. I suppose there's a chance it might clot.' He gave a low laugh. ‘I'll unclot it.'

‘Your soul, Murlainn.' Kate's lips were almost touching Seth's face.

He gritted his teeth.

‘Your soul,' she said again, and smiled. ‘I can see it gushing out of Currac-sagairt's open vein.'