In the Earth Abides the Flame (14 page)

'Perhaps you should go home,' Phemanderac said after a long silence, noticing the sag in his companion's shoulders. 'It must be well into the morning.'

'I should,' the Archivist replied. 'But then you would have to leave also, for I have the keys.

And before you say it, no, I do not trust you. I saw the covetous gleam in your eye when you discovered these books. If I left the keys with you, I am not sure you would be able to resist the temptation.'

The philosopher laughed loudly. 'I'm sure you're right! Though truthfully I had not thought beyond remaining here as long as I could. I will not sleep even if I return home for the remaining few hours of darkness.' He laughed again. 'Given time,' he said, clasping the Archivist's round shoulder with his large, bony hand, 'I'm sure we could become friends.'

'Then you agree to leave the books until tomorrow - or later today, I probably should say.'

'Yes,' Phemanderac said reluctantly. 'I have no doubt they will be here when we return. They have hidden from us for two thousand years. A few more hours will not matter.'

Phemanderac took one last loving look at the pile of books; then, unable to resist, he spread them out across the bench so that all five covers were visible. Finally he turned and followed the Archivist through the many narrow twists and turns up and out of the old building.

Terrible noises abruptly recommenced from the central chamber of The Pinion. It seemed a third guard had gone to work somewhere in the chamber. Horrible as they were, Mahnum gave thanks, as the sounds served to mask the scraping of metal on metal as the Bhrudwan knotted his chains around the bars of the window.

'Will you be much longer?' Leith asked, unable to mask his anxiety. One or two of their fellow prisoners stirred as the agonised screams coming from the central chamber increased in volume: the torturer had apparently begun his work in earnest on the young woman who, Ma Clothier had told them, had been taken from the cell to make room for Mahnum and Leith.

The bars groaned in answer, frighteningly loud in a momentary silence. Under the relentless pressure exerted by the inhumanly strong warrior they bent inwards, further and further, until he had made just enough room for the two men to squeeze through. 'Come on,' Mahnum whispered. Unnecessarily, as Leith had already wriggled his way through the gap.

They emerged cautiously into die chamber itself, a cavernous room filled with a bewildering array of machines of various shapes and sizes, providing them with ample cover. The Bhrudwan was nowhere in sight. For a while the two northerners hid behind a large, barrel-shaped instrument, a machine with a purpose neither cared to guess at. They listened for any sound that might betray the presence of guards; but all they heard was soft whimpering from the far side of the chamber.

Suddenly there came the sound of boots on stone. Mahnum watched the purposeful stride of a guard from between the slats of the barrel. Only one, he thought. Good. Signalling for Leith to remain hidden, he flitted from hiding place to hiding place, following the guard; and as he did so he caught sight of the Bhrudwan, feigning unconsciousness, seemingly strapped to a wooden rack.

Ahead of him a chilling shriek rang out. As Mahnum emerged into the very centre of the chamber, he saw the guard heft a red-hot branding iron above the shaking nakedness of a girl who could not possibly have been any older than Stella. Desperate, he spun around, and his eye fell on a foot-long metal spike on the flagstone floor. As he picked it up the girl cried out, an ear-splitting howl, and Mahnum cursed aloud. He raised the spike and, without a second thought, buried it deep between the guard's shoulders.

The guard grunted, then half turned, seemingly unaware that he had been dealt a mortal blow.

He dropped to his knees, jerking the spike from Mahnum's hand, and tried to raise his head.

His mouth dribbled blood. His unseeing eyes looked in Mahnum's direction. Then he expired with a gurgle and slumped to the floor.

Mahnum sighed with relief, thankful that little or no sound had been made. In a flash Leith rushed to his side, and stripped the guard of his short sword. With its tip forward he approached the girl, who stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. She screamed, a throat-wrenching sound, when Leith moved to cut through her bonds; and Mahnum winced, even though his mind told him the noise was exactly what any other guard would expect to hear.

The Loulean youth turned to walk towards the Bhrudwan, and found himself staring at the face of a prisoner watching from one of the cell windows. 'Let us out,' the man called. 'Let us out!'

'Be quiet!' Leith signalled furiously to the man. 'We don't want to be discovered!'

But the man would not be quiet. 'Let me out!' he continued to cry, more and more loudly, and began rattling the bars of his cell.

Leith ran forward, waving the guard's sword threateningly. 'Silence!' he shouted. The man withdrew somewhat from the window, but shouted all the more from the safety of his cell.

Now other prisoners awoke, and some joined in the shouting. A desperation haunted them, a bone-deep fear generated by the scenes constantly replayed before their eyes. There would be no keeping them silent.

'No,' said Mahnum, exasperated. 'No, no, no!' There was nothing else for it. He bent down and rifled through the pockets of the still-twitching guard, then found the keys he looked for on a belt clip. With a signal for Leith and the Bhrudwan to follow, he raced for the passage leading back to the outer corridor. He would have to let the prisoners out.

If only they would keep quiet, perhaps we can still do this, Mahnum said to himself; but they would not be quiet, each wanting release before the others. The first door opened, and eight people bolted; but Mahnum noted three or four more who cowered in the cell, obviously too afraid of the guards to move.

Perhaps the guards cannot hear the commotion, or maybe they think it is the normal sound, the Trader thought, trying to reassure himself; but even as the thought flicked through his mind, he heard the rough sound of the trapdoor to the guardhouse opening. He hurried on, resisting the temptation to look behind him. The second cell door would not open, so he abandoned it, ignoring the frightened wails of those inside, and went to the third. Behind him came a cry: obviously a guard or guards had discovered the freed prisoners. This is all going wrong.

Now Leith emerged from the passage linking the central chamber and the outer corridor, sword raised. The Bhrudwan followed him, naked, lacerated and bruised about the face but otherwise not seriously injured. The dark warrior brandished a steel bar found somewhere, and looked grim and fierce, his purpling face a death mask. Menace radiated from him like heat from a fire. Mahnum reminded himself that this redoubtable killer was but the least of the three Bhrudwans they had defeated on the slopes of Steffi.

The Pinion contained more cells than Mahnum could possibly open in the time given to him.

Having committed himself to this course, he threw open door after door, but as he did so his doubts grew. How many deaths would this cost? Prisoners poured out of the confined spaces, milling about in the corridor, but in each cell a few remained behind, simply too frightened to move.

A commotion echoed along the corridor to the right. Leith ran in that direction and, in a moment, was pitched headlong into a one-sided fight between two guards and a group of unarmed prisoners. Three lay sprawled on the floor, each injured in some way; though not fatally. The corridor was too narrow to deal strong blows. The others were being forced back to their cell, giving way before purposeful slashes and thrusts of the Instruian blades. With a strange shout on his lips Leith fell upon the guards.

Within moments the two guards lay on the floor, wounded by short, sharp strokes of Leith's sword. Leith stood panting and dizzy in the middle of the corridor. Smaller of frame, and with a shorter blade, the Loulean youth had enjoyed an insurmountable advantage in the confined corridor of The Pinion. He was allowed no time to enjoy it, however. The trapdoor opened and another guard came down the stair, took one look at the scene in the dungeons and ran swiftly back up to the guardhouse. Leith went in pursuit. As the trapdoor closed in front of him, he realised the hopelessness of their position.

He made his weary way back down to the corridor, and met the Bhrudwan there. The warrior, still naked but totally unconcerned, held the steel bar in his hand. Would he attack me? Leith wondered. Perhaps thinking of this killer as Hal's tame creature was a mistake. But then why would the Bhrudwan have saved him and his father both? There was so much fear in the air he could be sure of nothing.

Again the trapdoor scraped open, this time to admit a horde of guards who poured quickly down the stair, shouting as they came. He was trapped: the guards above, the Bhrudwan below.

Leith made his choice and, with a shout, charged at the Bhrudwan. To his relief the warrior drew aside and let him pass, then followed as he ran a little way down the corridor. Now they were pursued by the guards, each one armed with a sharp, double-edged sword. Their enterprise was about to founder.

In the middle of the night Indrett sat alone on her bed, unable to sleep, knowing beyond doubt that somewhere out in the darkness the husband she loved and the son of their flesh were in peril. The woman struggled with the weight of her sorrows, made greater by love rediscovered on the hard Western Road and the separation of both Widuz and now Instruere.

A knock came at the door. It was Hal, who with great effort had hauled himself up the stair from the basement. 'I know,' he said, before Indrett could say anything. 'I've loosed Achtal's bonds. Achtal the Bhrudwan warrior,' he explained in response to her quizzical look.

'Anything could be happening. Let's sit together. I'll know if he dies.'

The prisoners ransacked the central chamber, searching for anything sharp or stout with which to defend themselves. Chains, branding irons, pieces of timber, anything and everything that came to hand was claimed by the terrified captives. They were under no illusions as to what the guards might do to them, and many of them began to doubt the wisdom of having left their cells: not a few, their courage failing them, took the opportunity to return to their prisons, to the jeers of their fellows.

Forced back by the guards, Leith and Mahnum found themselves first at the far end of the passage encircling the cells and then in the vestibule of the inner chamber. Behind them swarmed the freed prisoners. Wordlessly, the guards formed a wedge, drew their swords and marched inexorably down the passage and into the chamber as Mahnum and Leith moved aside. Before they could react, the guards found themselves in the centre of the wrecked chamber, surrounded by angry prisoners.

For a moment all was silent. Then the leader barked a single word of command, and the guards laid about them. Though the prisoners fought with a will, they could not match the skill and weaponry of the fighters. One by one they fell, stunned, wounded and a few slain.

Then guards began to fall among the bodies. Leith looked up to see the Bhrudwan warrior had entered the fray, wielding the steel bar to irresistible effect. The cries in that confined space grated horribly on Mahnum's ears, until he could stand it no longer.

'Follow me!' he called to the prisoners and, knocking a guard out of the way, made for the passage. It was time to attempt the longhouse, to make an end of this thing, one way or another.

Immediately Leith went to his father's side, glad to be out of the open space where he had been vulnerable to the superior swordsmanship of the enemy. The prisoners followed them as they ran from the central chamber, closely pursued by most of the guards. Two soldiers stood in the corridor, but they fell before the swords of Mahnum and Leith. At the rear of their ragged group the Bhrudwan held off the remaining guards single-handedly, felling many of them with vicious blows of his steel bar.

As if in a dream, Leith began to lose touch with the reality of their peril, and found himself thinking how impersonal all this fighting seemed. These guards are nothing but faceless shapes falling before me. 1 have not looked into the eyes of anyone I've struck. There was a darting move to his left. A slashing blow ripped his sleeve and nicked his arm, dragging him out of his hypnotic thoughts. Still more guards!

'Up and out!' Mahnum cried. 'Follow me!' He made the stair, turned and saw, thankfully, that Leith was right behind him. The narrow corridor was crowded with people fighting at close quarters, where swords could not be swung. The shouts of pain, of fear and of exultation mingled into a harsh, ragged noise that drove him on up the stair.

In a moment he stood directly under the trapdoor, and looked down on the fighting below.

The yellow regalia of the Instruian Guard, he saw, was seriously outnumbered, but the guards had an overwhelming superiority of weaponry. It was only a matter of time, Mahnum realised bitterly. Even the spinning steel bar of the Bhrudwan warrior would soon be buried under the disciplined blades of the Instruian Guard. Mahnum put his shoulder to the trapdoor, opened it and climbed the last few steps into the longhouse. To his astonishment it was empty.

The Arkhos of Nemohaim disliked being disturbed at night, especially when he had company. He was particularly unhappy to be interrupted when he had left explicit instructions with his servant to prevent any such disturbance.

'It is the Bhrudwan prisoner, my lord,' his servant said respectfully, knowing that, depending on his master's mood, his life might be saved only by convincing the Arkhos of the gravity of the problem.

'What about him?' the Arkhos growled, out of breath and livid with rage. 'He is not to be interfered with until the morning, when I will have sufficient time to attend to him!'

'Yes, my lord, but it appears some sort of rescue mission has been mounted to free him from The Pinion.'

'Rescue mission? What is happening? Speak!'

Good: he now had his master's attention.

'It seems someone infiltrated The Pinion and freed the prisoners. At present the Instruian Guard is attempting to contain the riot. I thought you would want to be acquainted with the situation.' The man held his breath and waited.