Angel mage, p.40
Angel Mage, page 40
They started walking, close together, with Alizon and her trio behind, but not too close behind. Most of the Refusers were ahead with Liliath, keen to keep up with her, as if her presence offered safety from beastlings, but there were still plenty behind. Too many to risk trying to escape. There was nowhere to run to, or to stage a last-ditch defense. Just snow and ice and stone, and ahead, the frozen lake and the jagged waterfall.
They reached the shores of the lake half an hour later. The wind had died down, and the sky was now entirely clear, a beautiful blue, with the sun sitting in it warm and golden. A little of its warmth reached them, sufficient to cause Refusers to take off excess blankets and roll them to carry, rather than wearing them as coats. The warmth also seemed to ease the mood, which had been of desperation and exhaustion and constant fear.
The prisoners, who had dragged their feet as much as they could without being too blatant, found themselves closer and closer to the rear of the whole drawn-out column. It was even easier to go slow on the ice, and within a few paces, Dorotea’s feet slid in different directions and she slowly went down, rolling across Henri’s legs so he fell over too, and Simeon promptly sat down as well, almost cracking the ice. Agnez laughed, drawing Alizon’s attention as the other three Night Crew went to lift up the fallen prisoners.
Liliath had reached the other side of the lake, almost skating her way across, her feet so light upon the ice. The Refusers spread out behind her were generally not so graceful, and their progress was marked by a lot of slipping, sliding, falling, and cursing.
Just before the lakeshore, Liliath stopped. She had been like a hound returning to her kennel and dinner, her head up, sniffing the wind, eyes on the temple. Now she stood still, and then turned in a full circle, her eyes shut. Several seconds later, those fierce eyes snapped open and she stared to the west, where the lake drained in high summer.
“Beastlings!” spat Liliath. She raised her arms in fury. “Beastlings!”
“Where?” asked Bisc, looking anxiously in all directions.
“Climbing the waterfall!” said Liliath. “I had not thought they could . . .”
She stared back across the ice, taking in the long line of Refusers, saw the prisoners fallen on the far side of the lake.
Liliath’s mouth moved into a snarl.
“Hurry! Bring the four! Hurry!”
Bisc shouted, his voice carrying across the ice.
“Move! Get ’em up! Make ’em run!”
Then he saw something else and his jaw dropped. He turned to Liliath to tell her, but she had seen them too.
Agnez glanced over her shoulder, to see how many Refusers were still close. This was a chance to escape, no matter how small. There was only Alizon and her three, and some real stragglers even farther behind . . . Agnez’s eyes narrowed. They weren’t stragglers, and they weren’t beastlings. There was a large number of soldiers in scarlet cloaks trimmed with red fox fur, and some ways out front four buckskin-clad scouts, who were kneeling, leveling long-barreled, rifled fowling pieces—
“Stay down!” shouted Agnez, pulling her hands free of her bonds to fling herself onto the ice. The others, about to be helped up, threw themselves flat.
The sharp crack of fowling pieces was followed by the thud of bullets striking home and the cries of the struck. The Refuser closest to Agnez fell, clutching at his stomach. She raced on all fours to him and took his knife and pistol, immediately cocking it and turning it on Alizon T, who was gaping at the Pursuivants charging down the road. Agnez pulled the trigger but there was only a click and a soggy, spluttering whoosh as it misfired. Alizon whirled, drawing her own knife, and came at Agnez, only to be tripped by Simeon, who snaked out one huge foot.
Agnez stabbed Alizon, left the blade in and snatched the Refuser’s own knife out of her slowly opening hand. Standing up, she half slid, half ran across the ice to where Henri was grappling with a Refuser, holding his wrist with both hands as the man tried to plunge a dagger in his chest. Agnez stabbed him through the ribs and pushed him off, as Simeon picked up the remaining Refuser, who was trying to open the pan of his pistol, and hurled him across the ice.
“All down?” gasped Agnez, looking around. The closest Refusers were a good thirty or forty paces across the ice.
“Dead, or unconscious,” confirmed Simeon. He took off his hat and waved it over his head at the Pursuivants. There was little chance of him being confused for someone else.
The scouts did not fire again, but nor were they rushing forward. For some reason, the Pursuivants were spreading out along the road and halting. Their muskets were going up, but not pointing toward the bulk of the Refuser force near the lake, who were well out of range anyway.
“What are they . . . ?” Dorotea started to say, but she had looked where the muskets pointed, and saw for herself.
Beastlings were appearing over the lip of the frozen waterfall. Scores of them. Again, they were of many different shapes and sizes, but all had claws or spurs or talons that made it easier for them both to climb the frozen waterfall, and to move over the ice. They spread out in a long line and moved forward, very swiftly.
“Curse it!” spat Agnez. She looked at the beastlings, at the Pursuivants, at Liliath and the Night Crew on the other shore of the lake, and instantly worked out the tactical situation. The only chance of evading the beastlings meant running toward their enemies on the other side of the lake, and the potential shelter of the temple beyond, if it could be barricaded or held.
Running back to captivity.
“Run!”
Liliath made a noise Bisc had never heard from her before, a kind of gasping cry, as if she had been stabbed or badly hurt.
“Go to the temple,” she said to Bisc. “Prepare to defend the lower levels. I do not know what state it will be in.”
“I’m not leaving you,” said Bisc.
“I will bring the four,” said Liliath.
“But . . . they . . . the beastlings will have them,” said Bisc. Their former prisoners were running across the ice as fast as they could, but the beastlings were gaining on them. A few of the monsters toward the rear had fallen from the Pursuivants’ musket fire, and Rochefort’s force was advancing by leapfrogging ranks, the front rank firing and then reloading as the rank behind ran forward to fire from the advanced position, the whole action continually repeated. But it made for slow going, and they would never catch the foremost beastlings, nor be able to shoot enough of them to make a difference.
“Go,” repeated Liliath. “I will summon an angel.”
Bisc went, calling to his Night Crew. They needed little urging, with the beastlings so many and so swift, but everyone looked back at Liliath on the ice. Bisc was reassured as he saw her lift her hand and place a finger on one of her icon rings, though he had no idea what she planned to do. Angelic magic could not be used on beastlings, or at least no one else had ever been able to force an angel to act against them . . .
The icon Liliath chose was of a Virtue whose scope was the movement of air. The plaque depicted a gold-eyed woman with wildly puffed-out cheeks, lips pursed and blowing.
“Mairaraille, Mairaraille, come to me,” whispered Liliath, the name repeated in her mind, reinforced and concentrated. She had not wanted to use magic here, for it would lure still more beastlings, but it was too late for that.
The angel heard at once but tried to twist away, to recede farther into the heavens. Liliath grimaced and ground her teeth, before speaking louder and focusing her mind on her quarry, the world around her forgotten.
Still the angel fought. Liliath felt lines crinkle around her eyes and smooth again with the effort of summoning. An incandescent rage built up inside her, a desire not just to summon the angel but destroy her. Mairaraille felt that anger and grew frightened, suddenly giving in to manifest with a jangle of discordant bells and misblown trumpets, the winds she wielded whipping around Liliath without daring to touch her.
“Go to the four who run upon the ice,” instructed Liliath steelily. “Wrap them gently and lift them aloft, ensuring they are not hurt in any way, and fly with them here. Then you will lift me up also, as gently and with equal care, and take us all to the front of the temple I point out now. You will set us down again gently and do us no harm.”
I cannot lift so many, protested the angel.
“You must!” commanded Liliath.
It is too difficult, the air is too cold, too thin—
“Go or I will end you!” screamed Liliath. “Go!”
There was a clap of thunderous wings and a blast of trumpets. Ice chips flew in tight circles, drawn up into a whirlwind that howled across the frozen lake, toward the four Musketeers.
Dorotea sensed Mairaraille before she saw the angel, out of the corner of her eye. A whirling column of light and shadow, seconds later visible with her ordinary sight as well, as the angel gathered still more ice and shredded it into smaller fragments and water vapor, to form a towering column of white. She did not know which angel it was, but she knew its kind, and guessed it had to be sent for them, since there was no point attacking the Pursuivants when the beastlings were closer, and no angel would act against the beastlings of Ystara.
“Close up!” she shouted, clutching at Simeon’s shoulder. “Close up!”
Simeon saw the widening gyre of white rushing down upon them. He reached over and pulled Henri close and Agnez too saw what was coming and slid over to get an arm over Henri’s shoulder, and they all skidded to a stop and almost fell into a heap.
“Shut your eyes!” screamed Dorotea.
The whirlwind hit a second later and they were blown violently backward—but not down onto the ice. Mairaraille lofted them up and up, and they lost their hold on each other and were violently tumbled about, but the angel kept them separate, so their weapons and everything in pouches and pockets fell without causing harm, and Mairaraille did her best not to entirely tear their cloaks from their shoulders, and she only took one of Agnez’s boots and all of their hats.
The angel carried them back across the lake in just a few seconds, and blew low, the icy whirlwind bowing down to pick up Liliath, who curled herself in a ball and clenched her fists against her stomach and thus kept nearly all her icons, save two, pinned to her robe, which flew off when her smock was shredded into tatters.
A few screaming, frozen moments later they were all dumped in a deep bank of snow near the front gate of the temple. Maira-raille fled before Liliath could dismiss the angel, taking advantage of her fingers slipping from the icon as she fell. Angrily Liliath climbed out of the deep imprint her body had made, meeting Bisc who was pushing through the snow to help her. The Refusers had reached the temple only as the angel spun past overhead.
“Secure the prisoners!” snapped Liliath, and Refusers obeyed instantly, to drag the blinking, dizzied Musketeers from the snow. Like Liliath, they all had dozens of tiny stinging cuts from flying chips of ice on their hands and faces, but were otherwise unharmed.
But in Liliath’s case, those tiny cuts were already healing, and the noticeably silver tinge of her blood was fading as her skin returned to its customary, unblemished and beautiful brown smoothness.
The temple loomed above. There were no windows in the ground-floor walls of thick stone, and the windows on the floors above were all tightly shuttered. When a Refuser tried the huge central door of solid, iron-bound oak, it did not budge. There was a keyhole the size of a child’s fist on the right-hand side, but no key. It was firmly locked.
A frisson of panic ran through many of the Refusers as the door resisted the impact of several larger Refusers kicking at it, and there were many glances downhill.
The beastlings were almost across the lake, only five or six minutes behind. They weren’t even shrieking, but silent, which was almost worse. The only sound was the rolling boom of the Pursuivants’ musket volleys, coming steadily, two or three a minute. But Rochefort’s troops hadn’t quite reached the side of the lake. They were still slowly advancing by fire and movement, and though their massed fire was taking its toll on the rear ranks of the beastlings, there were still at least a hundred of the monsters who would stay out of range and reach the temple.
None had turned to attack the Pursuivants. All the beastlings’ attention was fixed on Liliath. Or as the Refusers saw it, on them.
“There is a door in the base of the tower,” snapped Liliath. “It is . . . or was, unlocked. Follow me and bring the prisoners. I need them alive! Take no chances.”
She ran along the front wall, toward the tower. Refusers grabbed Agnez, Simeon, Henri, and Dorotea, interpreting Liliath’s command to pile on. Each of the Musketeers had a Refuser on each side, holding their arms, and one behind ready with the pommel of a dagger or pistol butt.
The door in the tower was made of iron, rusted and flaking. Liliath turned the ring that would raise the bar inside. It came away in her hand, but she gripped the bolt itself with her impossibly strong fingers and turned it, the bar inside groaning as she forced it up. The door stuck too, but she pushed and it could not withstand her, sliding back with the shriek of iron on stone.
Liliath did not pause, but ran inside.
“Bring the prisoners!” she shouted. “Bar and prop the door!”
Thirty-Five
THE INTERIOR OF THE SQUARE TOWER WAS LARGER THAN it looked from a distance, the entry chamber easily fifty feet on each side. It was hard to see in the fall of light from the door, but it was some sort of guardroom, with simple wooden chairs and a table, a sword rack and some barrels. Everything was falling apart and covered in a greenish mold. Liliath was already running up the stone steps on the left side, toward a heavy wooden door, which opened easily.
Agnez kicked off her remaining boot as they crossed the threshold, earning a tap from a pistol butt. Like the others, she was hustled up the stairs after Liliath, Refusers crowding ahead and behind. The air of barely restrained panic was still strong.
“Last one in drops the bar!” Bisc shouted. “Grandin, Ratter, you take charge here. Break that table, prop the door. You have to hold it. We must give Liliath time to summon Palleniel and then he will destroy the beastlings! All will be well! Ystara!”
The Refusers answered with a weak chorus of “Ystara!” and sent clouds of mold flying as they started in to dismember the table, wrenching planks from it ready to set at an angle against the door when everyone was inside. Bisc watched them for a moment, then followed the rush upstairs.
The room on the next floor was a kind of antechamber, adjoining the house proper, the tower chamber opening out to join a great hall, which had shuttered windows, a long table and well-padded chairs, in much better condition than the furniture in the tower guardroom. There were dusty, discolored paintings on the walls, which all seemed to be of Liliath or were scenes of angelic powers in use.
“Everyone who’s got a pistol or musket, get to those windows!” ordered Bisc. “Open them up and start shooting! Everyone else, go and load and watch with sword or knife! Remember those beastlings can climb! You go too, Kreel and Basco, Jevens.”
Most of the remaining Night Crew poured from the tower into the hall, fifty or sixty of them, leaving only two people on each of the Musketeers. There was no shouting “Ystara” now, no joking or chatter. Just grim women and men hoping to stay alive. The shutters did not open easily, and some fell off when pulled, and no one wasted time trying to open the windows, simply smashing the glass.
The prisoners and their reduced escort, with Bisc, continued on in the wake of Liliath.
The next room up was a library, and Dorotea almost had her right arm dislocated as she was hauled back when she instinctively turned toward the closest shelf to inspect its contents. The shelves, of a dark wood with long glass doors of angelic make, ran from floor to ceiling, on three of the four walls, the fourth taken up by the stairs, but there were shelves there too, necessarily foreshortened at the start, running under the steps.
The massed shriek of many beastlings, the crack of pistols and muskets, and the gong-like boom of something striking the iron door below all sounded at the same time as they reached the next room. This had been a bedroom, the remains of a feather mattress eaten away by rodents and insects strewn around much of the room, the bed it came from a tarnished relic of bronze and timber in the corner. Two chests of drawers stood next to it, so covered in dust it was impossible to tell what timber they were made from. A tall looking glass across from them was in a similar state. A copper bathtub in one corner was green and horrid, and there were piles of what were probably once clothes rotting away near it.
They continued up the stairs, emerging into brightness. This room had floor-to-ceiling windows of pure, angel-clarified glass, which never needed cleaning, and it was warm, the sunshine pouring in. There were perspective glasses on tripods on each side, and low lounges, somewhat the worse for the wear, where those not using the telescopes could wait their turn to look out over lake, waterfall, and mountains, and into the lowlands of Ystara beyond, or to the east, Sarance.
But everyone looked to the waterfall now. The jagged spikes of frozen water were hardly white at all, there were so many beastlings swarming up this broad ladder for their invasion. Thousands and thousands of beastlings.
“Palleniel preserve us,” whispered Bisc, all his attention on the terrible sight below. The other Refusers were just as distracted, gaping at the vast horde of beastlings.
Simeon was the first to act. He pulled his arms free of the men who held him, grabbed their heads and threw them against the window. Being angel glass, it cracked but did not break. They bounced from it and fell sprawling on the floor. Simeon turned and ripped the nearest telescope from its tripod, brandishing it as a club.
Agnez arched back and sideways, head-butting her left-hand captor, while she kicked the woman on the right, placing her heel deep in her stomach. Both went down, and she snatched a dagger to engage Henri’s right-hand guard, who let go to draw her own dagger, while Henri wrestled with his left-hand Refuser, both of them trying to throw each other.
