The Gauntlet (6 page)

“They’ve sent for a wardsmith,” he said
grimly. “Before he arrives and they rush the room and kill us both,
would you kindly explain what that means?”

“They offered you safe passage,” Gillian
reminded him.

“And I know exactly how much faith to put in
that,” he said mockingly, hopping up onto the table. “Now
tell
me
.”

She took a deep breath. “Every coven has a
leader, called the Great Mother or the Eldest. In time of peace,
she judges disputes, allocates resources and participates in the
assembly of elders at yearly meetings. In time of war, she leads
the coven in battle.”

He’d been trying to press an ear against the
ceiling, but at that he looked down. “And you agreed?” he asked
incredulously.

“She asked if I was willing to fight for my
own,” Gillian said defensively. “I thought she meant Elinor, to get
her out of this…”

“So of course you said yes!”

“I didn’t know she was putting me in
charge!”

“That is why the mages marked us,” he said,
as if something had finally made sense. “I wondered why they were
focused on you when there were dozens of prisoners closer to the
gates.”

Gillian shook her head. “They don’t want me,
they want this.” She held out the arm with the ward.

“For what purpose?”

“The triskelion gives the Great Mother the
ability, in times of danger, to…to borrow… part of the magic of
everyone under her control,” she said, struggling for words he
would understand. “It’s meant to unite the coven in a time of
crisis, allowing its leader to wield an awesome amount of power,
all directed toward a single purpose. It’s why the Circle fears
them so much, why they’ve hunted them so--”

She broke off as her voice suddenly gave out.
The vampire frowned and pulled a flask from under his doublet,
bending down to hand it to her. She eyed it warily, thinking of
Winnie and her brew, but it turned out to be ale. It was body-warm
and completely flat, and easily the best thing she’d ever
tasted.

He balanced on the edge of the table in a
perilous-looking crouch, regarding her narrowly. “If the ward is
that powerful, why did the jailers not take it off the witch once
they had her in their grasp?”

“They didn’t know who she was,” Gillian
gasped, forcing herself to slow down before she spilled any of the
precious liquid. “I didn’t even know. She was dressed in rags, her
hair was dirty, her face was haggard--she must have been in
disguise and was picked up in a raid.”

“But do not magical objects gave off a
residue your people can feel?”

“Yes, but the ward isn’t like a charm—it
holds no magic itself when not active. And non-magical items can
occasionally be missed in searches.”

“But if it’s so powerful, why didn’t the
witch use it herself?”

“She was gagged,” Gillian said, thinking of
the disgusting scrap of cloth she’d pulled from the eldest’s mouth.
“And by the time I freed her, she was too weak to fight. Goddess
knows how long she was in there.”

“So in return for your help, she saddles you
with the very thing most likely to get you killed,” he said in
disgust.

“She wanted to save her people, and she
needed someone strong enough to use the ward!”

“Then I suggest you do so. There are four
guards in the chamber below and at least five in the corridor
outside—and that is assuming no one is hiding under a silence
shield. Above us is the roof of the keep, guarded by four more men
who can be called down if needed. And then there’s the two below
the window, who are doubtless hoping we’ll poke our heads out again
and get them blown off!”

“
Fifteen men
?” Gillian repeated,
appalled. That was three times as many as she’d expected,
especially with an escape in progress. What were they all doing
here?

“Fifteen war mages.” He smiled grimly. “There
is a price to be paid for breaking into the most secure part of the
prison.”

“But…but how do we to get past so many?”

“We don’t. I can take three, possibly four
with your help. No more. We need a diversion to draw the rest away
to have any chance at all.”

Gillian licked her lips, staring at the blank
space on her arm where the third spiral of the triskelion should
have been. The ward looked oddly lopsided without it, the pattern
disjointed and incomplete. Like the connection it was meant to
make.

“I…don’t think I can,” she confessed.

“I beg your pardon?” the vampire asked
politely.

“This isn’t a complete ward,” she explained.
“The triskelion should have three arms, one for each of the three
great elements. And this has but two. The other hasn’t manifested,
and until it does, the ward won’t function.”

The vampire jumped off the table and grabbed
her arm. “You’re sure it had three, when you saw it on the old
woman’s wrist?”

“Her title was Eldest and yes! They all
do.”

“Then where is the other one?” he demanded
suspiciously.

“Well, I don’t have it hidden in my shift!”
she said, snatching her arm back. It throbbed with every beat of
her heart, a pounding, staccato rhythm that was getting faster by
the minute. But she couldn’t afford to panic. Not here, not now.
She had to figure this out, and there was an answer—she knew it.
Magic had rules and it followed them strictly. She just had to find
the ones that applied here.

The vampire must have thought the same,
because he straightened his shoulders and took a breath. “How is
the sigil usually passed from person to person?”

“There’s a ritual,” she said, trying to
concentrate. “The last time it happened in my coven, I was a child.
My mother wouldn’t allow me to attend—she thought it too
gruesome—”

“Gruesome?”

Gillian hugged her arms around herself. “The
new Mother has to run a gauntlet, to prove her fitness to lead. She
must summon each of the three elements to her aid, and each time
she calls one successfully, that element becomes active on the
sigil.”

“What is shocking about that?”

“If she fails, she dies,” Gillian said
simply, her chin lifting. Her tone challenged him to denigrate the
covens’ traditions as the Circle constantly did. Barbaric, they
called them, and backward and crude. But it was for instances like
this one that the ritual had been instituted. Only someone with a
firm belief in her abilities and an utter devotion to the coven
could pass the gauntlet, because only someone with that level of
commitment could lead in times like these.

That was the kind of woman the eldest had
been, capable and strong, in spirit if no longer in body. But
Gillian wasn’t that person. She wasn’t anything anymore.

“And then what?” the vampire demanded.

“Nothing, I…that’s all I can remember. Call
the elements and the sigil activates.”

“Well, you must have called two already,” he
said, pointing to the two arms of the triskelion. “Which ones?”

“I remember calling Fire,” Gillian told him.
“It was in battle. I looked down because my arm hurt and saw the
glyph glowing on the staff. I wondered why I was able to summon it
when I never could before.”

“And the other?”

“That has to be Wind--my own element. It
didn’t hurt, so I can’t be sure, but I think it came in when the
Circle’s men attacked us the first time.”

“When you blew their weapons back at
them.”

“Yes.”

“Then which one is missing?”

“Earth,” she whispered, her eyes going to the
window as the full implication hit.

His eyes narrowed at her tone. “Why is that a
problem?”

“Because Wind comes from air and I was
standing right by a burning hut when I called Fire!”

“And?”

“And I need to be near an element to summon
it.”

His own eyes widened as comprehension dawned.
“And we’re five stories up.”

Chapter Seven

Gillian didn’t have a reply, but she couldn’t
have made one anyway. Because the next moment, the assault on the
door resumed. Only this time, it sounded like a battering ram had
been brought up. The door shuddered under massive blows, the ward
around it sparking and spitting.

The vampire swore. “I didn’t think they would
find a wardsmith so quickly.”

“They didn’t, or they wouldn’t be trying to
batter their way in! They were probably lying before, hoping you’d
hear.”

“Then we’re safe for the moment?”

“No,” she admitted. “Wards like this are tied
to the integrity of an item. Just as a shattered charm loses its
magic, the ward will fail as soon as the door suffers enough
damage.”

“And when will that be?”

She stared at the tiny fractures already
visible in the wood and swallowed. “Not long.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said angrily. “If
you were going to use the sigil, you would have done so before now.
They must know that you can’t. Yet half the war mages in the prison
are here, instead of at the gates!”

Gillian shook her head. She’d had the same
question, and he was right, it didn’t make sense. She couldn’t
direct the fight from here, not that anyone was likely to listen to
her anyway. The witches had fled before the eldest died; they
hadn’t seen what had happened.

She was, she realized with sudden clarity,
about to die for a position nobody even knew she had.

“You’ve already sent most of the weapons that
were here to the battle and the Circle has men watching the window
in any case,” the vampire fretted. “They can’t be concerned about
you sending more. Why waste this many men on a single woman who
isn’t even a threat?”

Gillian started to shake her head again, but
then she stopped, staring down at her wrist. And just like that,
she understood. “They’re not,” she said blankly.

“They’re not what?”

Her hand closed over the ward, but she could
still feel it, carved into her flesh like a brand. “They’re not
aiming for one witch,” she said, looking up at him as it all came
together in a rush, like a riddle that had needed but one final
clue. “This is about destroying all of us!”

“I don’t understand.”

“There is no such thing as a one-way street
in magic. Anything that can give power can also be used to take
it!”

“You’re talking about the triskelion.”

She nodded frantically. “It links all the
witches under the eldest’s control. If the Circle gets their hands
on it, they can use it to bleed each and every one of them dry! It
doesn’t matter if they run, if they hide--” she broke off abruptly,
thinking of Winnie. Gillian had given her the staff, hoping its
power would allow her to hide herself and Elinor. But if the Circle
obtained the ward, it wouldn’t matter how well they were
hidden.

They could be killed just the same.

Gillian felt her blood run cold.

“But the ward isn’t complete,” the vampire
protested. “If you cannot use it, how can they?”

“By putting me under a compulsion, by forcing
me to call the last sigil—and then using me to drain every last
person here!”

“But surely, not everyone here was a member
of the same coven.”

“It doesn’t matter! Magical objects follow
simpler rules than humans do. And a coven, in the loosest sense, is
a group of magic workers under the leadership of an elder. And she
was the most senior witch here.”

“You’re saying that the ward thinks the whole
prison was her coven?” he asked doubtfully.

“Which she passed on to me,” Gillian said
numbly, staring at the window. The setting sun was shining through
drifting clouds of smoke, casting a reddish light into the room.
She couldn’t see the battlefield from where she stood, but it
didn’t matter. The real battle wasn’t going to be fought down
there.

It seemed hopeless. The Circle held all the
cards; they had from the start. There were too many of them and too
few coven witches, and unlike the Great Mothers, they had no sense
of community, no reverence for ancient ways, no respect for a magic
so different from their own. They had never meant to work with
anyone. From the beginning, their strategy had been subjugation or
destruction.

It was their game, and they had already
won.

But they wouldn’t win completely.

“Kill me,” Gillian said harshly, as the
pounding on the door took on a strange kind of rhythm, like the
furious drumming in her chest.

“What?” The vampire had been staring at the
window, too, as if in thought. But at that, his eyes swiveled back
to her.

“I won’t let them do it,” she told him
flatly. “I won’t let them use me to destroy everyone else. I can’t
save myself, but I’ll die on my own terms, as the old Mother did. A
free coven witch and damn them all!”

“And yet you’ll still be dead,” he said
sharply.

“Nothing can stop that now.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. If you will give me
but a moment to think—”

“We don’t have a moment,” she said, grabbing
his arms. “Do as I ask or it will be too late!”

“You don’t understand,” he told her, and for
the first time since they’d met, he looked unsure of himself. “The
thought occurred to me, as well, but it isn’t that simple.”

“Your kind does it all the time!”

“We do no such thing!” His dark eyes flashed.
“Those who join us are chosen very carefully. Not everyone is fit
for this life, and it does little good to go to the trouble of
Changing someone merely to have them—”

“Changing?” It took her a moment to realize
what he meant, and then her fingers dug into his arms. “You’re
saying that—you mean can—” she broke off, the implications
staggering her.

He was talking about making her into one of
them, about turning her into a monster. She shuddered in
instinctive revulsion, her skin going clammy at the very thought.
Walking undead, drinkers of blood, merciless killers—every horror
story about the breed she’d ever heard rang in her mind like the
clanging of a bell. She
couldn’t
--