Part 32 (1/2)

Lorrie's hand went to her knife. Then she caught her breath and collapsed onto one knee despite the twinge in her leg, holding out her arms.

'Lorrie!' Rip squealed.

He ran to her so fast he skidded and didn't quite bowl her over. Three other children followed him out. Lorrie gasped.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' Rip said, drawing back. 'I forgot. Bram told me you hurt your leg.'

'Bram!' Lorrie said. 'Where is he?'

'He's up there.' That came from a blonde girl about Lorrie's age, in a dust-stained frock. She pointed to one corner of the room, where a stone staircase curled upwards. 'They took him away,' she said and her great blue eyes looked haunted. 'People don't come back, when they take them away.'

The other two children nodded. These two were youngera boy with a defiant yet frightened look about him, and a girl who desperately clutched a doll.

'We watched but we couldn't do anything,' the little girl said, taking her thumb out of her mouth. 'They're big.'

'They've got swords!' the boy said, trying to sound brave, yet revealing how frightened he truly was.

The younger girl pointed at Lorrie. 'She's got a sword.' The chubby finger s.h.i.+fted to Flora. 'She's got a sword too.'

'But they're just girls,' the boy answered, refusing to be rea.s.sured.

'You shut up, Kay!' said the older girl.

Lorrie forced herself back erect. 'We do have swords,' she said, patting the unused weapon at her side. Even if neither of us can use them much. But I'm a dab hand with an axe-handle! Even if neither of us can use them much. But I'm a dab hand with an axe-handle!

Flora spoke, leaning down a little. 'We have something better than swords,' she said, patting her pocket. 'Magic!'

The children's eyes grew round. 'There's magic here,' Rip said. 'Bad magic.'

'Take us to Bram, then,' Flora said decisively.

Lorrie went along; after a moment Flora gave her a shoulder, to help her hop up the stairs without putting too much strain on the wounded limb. It seemed to go on forever; she'd never been in a building this large, or imagined one until she saw Land's End. That was intimidating enough, but there was something else that made her teeth want to chatter, and it wasn't the lingering chill of her damp borrowed clothing. Things kept moving out of the corners of her eyes, things that she couldn't see but that seemed to be made out of black wire, things that t.i.ttered and gibed and made little lunges toward her.

And there was a tension in the air, like before a stormyet the very walls of the castle shook to the violence outside, so it couldn't be that. Her head felt tight, as if something were stretching it from the inside, and it would be a relief if it exploded.

'There,' Rip whispered at last. 'I...I can tell it's down there.'

He pointed down a long corridor. It was dark with a stone floor, heavy carved wooden tables along the walls and tapestries that fluttered slightly in the draught. At the end was a corner, and from beyond that a faint glow of lamplight.

'You go,' Rip saidhis head was turned to one side, as if he was listening to someone. 'We'll get ready. They're going to hurt Bram really soon now.'

Lorrie nodded, a little puzzled but trying to focus on the task ahead.

They walked down the corridor, their boots making thumping sounds on the carpeted floor. The light grew stronger as they neared the corner; closer, and she could see it was T-shaped, and she was walking down the long bar. Light to their right, darkness to their left.

'That you, Forten, Sonnart?' a voice called. 'You lazy swine, it's nearly midnight! You knew you should have been back an hour ago!'

Flora made some m.u.f.fled sound, trying to make her voice hoa.r.s.e, and Lorrie did likewise. From the sound of the voices, it wasn't much more than six feet or so from the corner to where the speaker stood.

Thinking inarticulate prayers to half a dozen deities, Lorrie dropped back slightly and ducked her head, taking a deep breath and working her fingers.

Bram. Think of Bram.

They turned the corner; lamps were burning in metal brackets on either side. Four men lounged in front of a tall closed door of polished wood. Two sat on benches; the other two stood together, leaning on halberds.

Jarvis Coe gasped as he drew rein before the wrought iron gate. It was open, but only a sliver; they had to slow almost to a halt from their pounding gallop to get through it.

Particularly since it's as dark as a yard up a sewer rats' nest, Jimmy thought. The saddle had pounded his hams back into pain, and the rapier had caught him under the ribs with a couple of good whacks as well; he hadn't wanted it out of reach if he had to dismount in a hurry. 'Something wrong?' he asked the older man, peering through the gate at the manor; distance and rain hid everything but a wavering light from a high window.

'Very,' Coe said tightly. 'We're late. We're very late. Things have already begun.'

They threaded their way through the entrance and booted the tired horses into an unwilling canter. They pulled up at the entrance to the manor, next to a dog cart with a horse patiently enduring the rain. 'That's Flora's aunt's horse!' said Jimmy. 'I've seen him in the little shed behind the house. Flora and Lorrie must have come here looking for us!'

'Or looking for the young man you encountered,' said Coe.

The main doors of the manor were slightly ajar, and Jimmy felt an unwilling grin curve his lipsFlora hadn't wasted time, or forgotten all she'd picked up as a thief before she went into the mattress trade. They swung down from their saddles, looping the reins over rings in the low wall that flanked the bridge across the moat.

Might have to get away in a hurry, he thought.

'I'll go first,' Coe said, alighting and drawing his blade.

'You go first,' Jimmy agreed, doing likewise.

A m.u.f.fled shout came through the outer door of the sacrificial chamber. Bram heard a man shout in alarm, and the clash of steel on steel, and a high shriek that could have come only from a woman's throat, and then a cry of pain that could have been made by anyone.

The man in the velvet jacket spoke a sharp command. Skinny and Rox were standing by the door; one opened an eyehole cover set into it and peered out cautiouslynot wanting to be stabbed through it, probably.

'Probably the little rats again, my lord,' Rox said. 'Otto's downnot bleeding, that I can see. Looks like the others have taken off after them.'

'Get out there, but stay close to the door,' Baron Bernarr said. 'Let no one by, on your life.' He turned back towards the magician.

'Timing is very crucial now, my lord,' the man with empty eyes said. 'We must strike at precisely the right moment; and we will have only a few seconds while your lady lies between life and death. If you would take your position?'

Baron Bernarr came closer; the magician offered him a long curved knife, and he took it with a disturbing familiarity. The blade was also inscribed with symbols and, like the ones on the floor the young man could no longer see, they were somehow obscurely repulsive and unnerving.

'Be careful,' the magician said. 'The best symbolic representation of a sharp knife is a sharp knife.'

The other man chuckled a little, in a perfunctory manner. The way a man laughed at a joke he'd heard often before.