Inkdeath (58 page)

Dustfinger did not shrink from it. He simply stood there as the shapeless hands reached for him, and then the life just went out of him, extinguished like a flame.

Mo felt as if his own heart stopped when the other man fell. But the Night-Mare bent over Dustfinger’s motionless body, snuffling like a disappointed dog, and Mo remembered something that Battista had once told him: Night-Mares were interested only in living flesh and avoided the dead, fearing to be taken back by them to the realm they had escaped for a short time.

"Oh, what happened?" cried Orpheus. He sounded like a disappointed child. "Why was it so quick? I wanted to watch him dying for longer!"

"Seize the Bluejay!" Mo heard the Piper calling. "Go on, do it!" But his soldiers just stared at the Night-Mare. It had turned and its dull gaze was now bent on Mo.

"Orpheus! Call it off!" The Piper’s voice almost cracked. "We still need the Bluejay!"

The Night-Mare moaned as if its mouth were trying to find words — if it had a mouth at all. For a second Mo thought he could make out a face in the blackness.

Evil seeped through his skin, covering his heart like mildew. His legs gave way, and he struggled desperately for breath. Dustfinger had been right; the creature was worse than death.

"Back, dog!" Orpheus’s voice made the Night-Mare freeze. "You don’t get him until later."

Mo fell to his knees beside Dustfinger’s motionless body. He wanted to lie down beside him, to stop breathing, too, stop feeling, but the solders hauled him up and bound his hands. He hardly felt it. He could still barely breathe.

When the Piper came up to him, Mo saw him as if through a veil. "Somewhere in this castle they say there’s a courtyard, an aviary with birdcages in it. Put him in one of those." He drove his elbow into Mo’s stomach, but all Mo felt was that he could breathe again as the Night-Mare withdrew, merging with Orpheus’s shadow.

"Stop! The Bluejay is still my prisoner!" Violante barred the soldiers’ way as they were dragging Mo along with them.

But the Piper pushed her roughly aside. "He was never your prisoner," he said. "Just how stupid do you think your father is? Take her to her room!" he ordered one of the soldiers. "And throw the Fire-Dancer into the courtyard, outside the cage where you lock up the Bluejay. After all, we shouldn’t part a shadow from its master, should we?"

Another of Violante’s soldiers was lying outside the door, his young face showing his terror as he saw death coming. They lay everywhere. The Castle in the Lake —

and the Bluejay with it — belonged to the Adderhead. So that was how the song ended.

"What a terrible ending!" Mo could almost hear Meggie saying. "I don’t want to listen to this book, Mo. Don’t you have another story?"

The lake. Resa wanted to run when she saw the water shining through the trees at the foot of the slope, but the Strong Man held her back, pointing without a word to the tents lining the bank. The black tent could belong to only one man, and Resa leaned against one of the trees growing on the steep hillside and felt all her strength failing her. They were too late. The Adderhead had reached this place before them. Now what?

She looked at the castle lying there in the middle of the lake, like a black fruit that the Silver Prince was about to pluck. Its dark walls looked menacing— and inaccessible. Was Mo really there? Even if he was, so was the Adderhead. And the bridge leading across the lake to it was guarded by a dozen soldiers. Now what, Resa?

"We can’t go over the bridge, that’s for sure," the Strong Man whispered to her. "I’ll have a look around. You wait here. Maybe there’s a boat somewhere."

But Resa hadn’t come all this way to wait. It was difficult finding a way over the steep slopes by the banks, and there were soldiers stationed everywhere among the trees, but their eyes were on the castle. The Strong Man led her away from the tents to the eastern bank of the lake, where trees grew all the way down to the water.

Perhaps they could try to swim across the lake under cover of darkness? But it would be cold, very cold, and there were grim stories about the water of this lake and the creatures living in it. Resa’s hand went to the child in her belly as she followed the Strong Man. She felt as if it had gone into hiding deep inside her.

Suddenly, the Strong Man took her arm and pointed to some rocks projecting into the lake. Two soldiers emerged among them, as suddenly as if they had come up out of the water. As they climbed to the bank, Resa saw horses waiting under the spruce trees only a few paces from the rocks.

"What does that mean?" whispered the Strong Man as even more soldiers appeared on the rocks. "Can there be another way into the castle? I’ll go and look. But you’re not coming with me this time. Please! I promised the Bluejay. He’d punch my nose in anyway if he knew you were here."

"No, he wouldn’t," Resa whispered back, but she stayed where she was, and the Strong Man slipped away as she stood under the trees, freezing and watching him go.

The water of the lake was lapping on the bank almost to the toes of her boots, and she thought she could see faces under the mirrorlike surface, faces pressed flat like patterns on the back of a stingray. Shuddering, she retreated and heard footsteps behind her.

"Hey, you there."

She spun around. A soldier was standing among the trees, sword in hand. Run, Resa!

"Rat," said the Mole, "I simply can’t go and turn in, and go to sleep, and do nothing, even though there doesn’t seem to be anything to be done."

She was faster than he was, with his weapons and heavy shirt of mail, but he called another man up, and this one had a crossbow. Faster, Resa! From tree to tree, hiding and then running, as children do. As she would have played with Meggie if she’d been there when her daughter was still small. All those years missed. . .

An arrow drove into the tree beside her. Another buried itself in the ground just in front of her feet. "Don’t follow me, Resa. I have to know you’ll be there when I come back." Oh, Mo. It’s so much harder to wait, just to keep on waiting.

She ducked behind a tree and drew her knife. They were coming closer, weren’t they? Run on, Resa. But her legs were weak with fear. Breathing heavily, she staggered to the shelter of the next tree — and felt a large hand over her mouth.

"Call and tell them you’re surrendering!" the Strong Man whispered. "But don’t go toward them. Make them come to you.

Resa nodded and put the knife away. The two soldiers called something to each other. She felt sick with fear as she put out her arm from behind the tree and asked them not to shoot, her voice trembling. She waited until the Strong Man had crawled away — with astonishing agility for a man of his size before she emerged from the shelter of the tree with her hands in the air. The eyes under the soldiers’ helmets widened in surprise as they saw she was a woman. Their smiles boded no good, even though they lowered their weapons, but before one of them could grab her, the Strong Man was behind them, and winding an arm around the neck of each. Resa turned away as he killed them. She threw up in the damp grass, hand pressed to her belly, afraid the child had sensed her terror.

"They’re all over the place!" The Strong Man pulled her to her feet. His shoulder was bleeding so freely that it dyed his shirt red. "One of them had a knife. ‘Watch out for knives, Lazaro,’ that’s what Doria always says. That little fellow’s far cleverer than me." He was swaying so much that Resa had to support him. They staggered on together, farther into the trees.

"The Piper is here, too," the Strong Man whispered. "Those were his men we saw on the rocks. Seems there’s a tunnel under the lake there, all the way to the castle. And I’m afraid there’s more bad news."

He looked around. Voices came over from the banks of the lake. Suppose the men’s bodies were found? The Strong Man led her to a burrow in the ground that smelled of brownies.

Resa heard the sobbing as soon as she made her way into it. The Strong Man was groaning as he crawled in after her. Something furry crouched there in the darkness.

At first Resa thought it really was a brownie. Then she remembered the description Meggie had given her of Violante’s servant. What was his name? Yes, Tullio.

She reached for the furry hand. Violante’s servant stared at her eyes wide with fear.

"What’s happened? I’m the Bluejay’s wife! Please, is he still alive?"

He went on staring at her with his dark eyes, which were round like an animal’s.

"They’re all dead," he whispered. Resa’s heart began to falter as if it had forgotten how to beat. "There’s blood everywhere. They’ve locked Violante in her room, and as for the Bluejay. . . ."

What had they done to him? No, she didn’t want to hear. Resa closed her eyes as if that would take her back to Elinor’s house, the peaceful garden, where she could go over to Mo’s workshop. . . .

"The Piper has shut him up in a cage."

"Does that mean he’s still alive?"

The quick nod allowed her heart to beat more regularly again.

"They still need him!"

Of course. How could she have forgotten?

"But the Night-Mare has eaten the Fire-Dancer."

Oh no. It couldn’t be true. Resa buried her face in her hands.

"Is the Adderhead already in the castle?" the Strong Man asked.

Tullio shook his head and began sobbing again.

The Strong Man looked at Resa. "Then he’ll be riding over tonight. And the Bluejay will kill him." It sounded as if he were reciting a magic spell.

"How?" Resa cut a strip of fabric from his tunic with her knife and bandaged his wound, which was still bleeding hard. "How is he going to write the words if Violante can’t help him anymore and Dustfinger is . . ." She did not utter the word dead, as if she could make it untrue by leaving it unspoken.

Footsteps could be heard outside, but they moved away again. Resa undid Mortola’s bag from her belt.

"No, Lazaro," she said softly it was the first time she had used the Strong Man’s name. "The Bluejay will not kill the Adderhead. They will kill him, once the Adderhead finds out that Mo can’t cure the White Book. And that will be very soon.

She sprinkled a few of the tiny seeds into her hand. Seeds that taught the soul what only Death could usually teach: how to take on another form.

"What are you doing?" The Strong Man tried to take the bag away from her, but Resa clutched it in both hands.

"You have to place them under your tongue," she whispered, "and take care not to swallow them. For if you do that too often the animal will grow too strong, and you forget what you were before. Capricorn had a dog that was said to have been one of his men once, until Mortola tried out these seeds on him. A day came when the dog attacked her, and they killed it. At the time I thought it was just a story to scare the maids."

She shook all but four of the seeds back into the bag. Four tiny seeds, almost round like poppy seeds, but lighter in color. "Take Tullio and go back to the cave!" she told the Strong Man. "Tell the Black Prince what we saw. Tell him about Snapper, too.

And take care of Meggie!"

He was looking at her unhappily.

"You can’t help me here, Lazaro!" she whispered. "You can’t help either me or the Bluejay. Go back and protect our daughter. And comfort Roxane. Or — no, perhaps you’d better not tell her anything yet. I’ll do it myself."

She licked the seeds up from her hand. "You never know what kind of creature you’ll turn into," she whispered. "But I hope it will have wings."

Meggie waited . . . while her ears were filled with screams. While Farid put out Sootbird’s black fire with white flames. While Darius soothed the children by telling them stories, his soft voice louder than usual to drown out the noise of fighting, and Elinor helped the other women to cut the ropes that the Milksop’s men had shot up into the tree on arrows.

Meggie waited, quietly singing the songs Battista had taught her all the songs full of hope and light, defiance and courage while down at the foot of the tree the robbers were fighting for the children’s lives and their own. Every scream reminded Meggie of the battle in the forest in which Farid had died. But this time she feared for two boys, not one.

Her eyes didn’t know who to look for first, Farid or Doria, black hair or brown.

Sometimes she couldn’t see either of them, they moved so fast in the branches, both of them following the fire that Sootbird sent up into the huge tree like burning tar.

Doria beat it out with cloths and mats, while Farid mocked Sootbird from above and sent his own flames to nest on the murderous fire like doves until their fiery plumage smothered it. He had learned a great deal from Dustfinger. Farid was no novice now, and Meggie saw jealousy distort Sootbird’s leathery face, while the Milksop sat on his horse among the trees, observing the fighting men with as little expression on his face as if he were watching his hounds bring down a stag.

The robbers were still defending the tree, even though they were hopelessly outnumbered. But how much longer could they fight?

Where was he? Where was the creature she and Fenoglio had called to their aid? It had all been so quick with Cosimo!

No one knew what Meggie had read aloud a few hours ago except Fenoglio and the two glass men, who had listened to her openmouthed. They hadn’t even had a chance to tell Elinor about it, since the Milksop’s attack had been so sudden.

"You have to give him time!" Fenoglio had told Meggie when she put down the sheet of paper bearing his words. "He has to come from far away, or it couldn’t be done."

Just so long as he didn’t arrive only after they were all dead. . .

The Black Prince was bleeding from his shoulder. Almost all the robbers were wounded by now. It would be too late. Too late. Meggie saw Doria barely avoiding an arrow, Roxane comforting the crying children, and Elinor and Minerva desperately trying to cut another rope before the Milksop’s men could climb it. Oh, when would he come? When?

And, suddenly, she felt the sensation, exactly as Fenoglio had described it: a trembling that shook the tree to its topmost branches. Everyone felt it. The men fighting stopped and looked at one another in alarm. The ground quivered beneath his foot steps. That was what Fenoglio had written.