“I will replace him as ruler, as soon as I am free. I will feed the poor, bolster the army and cease construction on that damned monstrosity of a palace. This, I swear. Upon my honor.”
The men stared at him in silence. Then a single man began to clap. Another, then another joined in, until the entire room had burst into applause. Arcturus even heard cheering.
Prince Harold turned to Arcturus with a grin, then walked to the men and began shaking their hands.
“Looks like we’ve got an army of our own,” Rotter said, picking up Crawley by the collar and brushing down the steward’s crumpled clothes. “Got to look presentable when we head upstairs.”
Arcturus watched as the men gathered their spears, shields and crossbows, and the wave of relief he had felt was suddenly replaced with apprehension. This had been the easy part. Now they would walk into the belly of the beast and steal the key to the future of Hominum. In full view of the rebel army.
CHAPTER
50
THEY POURED OUT OF the summoning room and formed into ranks and files. Percival bellowed orders, sorting them accordingly in the atrium proper. The sergeant ignored the dark forms in the shadows of the floors above, even when a handful of crossbowmen approached the railings and looked curiously below. It was a brazen display—but if they were going to do this, there would be no half measures.
Still, as Arcturus joined the front of the ranks and began the slow march up the stairs, he could not help but look around and see the terrified faces of the soldiers around him. Sweat beaded on foreheads, and nervous hands twisted and tapped spear hafts. He imagined the procession through the eyes of the crossbowmen. Would they notice? Or was he making too much of it?
Perhaps he was, because in those nerve-curdling moments of panicked walking, not a single rebel shouted out or spoke. Even Crawley was silent, doing little more than walking beside Ulfr and Percival. It seemed that Sergeant Caulder’s loaded and half-lifted crossbow behind him was more than enough of a deterrent.
Time crawled. Every step was agony, every jingle of metal and whispered word seeming to echo deafeningly down the corridor.
Men watched from their rooms, but Arcturus did not risk looking at them. He simply focused on putting one step in front of another. They passed the dead rebel, then the provost’s office, and finally the sticky patches of blood that seemed to stink like a charnel house in Arcturus’s enhanced nostrils.
Then they were there. Thirty-odd men in double file, arrayed in full battle gear outside the room the nobles had been kept in. He heard Elaine’s cry of joy, and the hiss to be silent from Alice.
Arcturus saw Edmund being helped into line by Prince Harold, the royal’s cloak thrown aside. The flash of Gelert being infused, and then Sacharissa pacing beside him, her blue eyes turned up at Arcturus with adoration. He was forgiven. And he was terrified.
In that moment, it was hard to infuse her again—but it would have been too suspicious to have her in view. She reluctantly stood in the pentacle, and then she was within him once more.
Rotter hurried to wrap bindings around the nobles’ hands, followed swiftly by Arcturus. Crawley was harangued to the front once more, whispered orders and threats drifting down the corridor.
Arcturus was so tired. So terribly, terribly tired. The blood loss, lack of sleep and hunger were catching up to him. He wanted to fall to his knees and sleep for a week. But Sacharissa’s gentle support in his consciousness bolstered his resolve.
They marched. It was a show now. Percival snarled insults at Prince Harold, while another soldier cursed at Zacharias with a vehemence so passionate that Arcturus almost grinned. Sometimes acting and the truth were closely intertwined.
“Move it!” Crawley shouted just as they approached Barcroft’s headquarters. “Get the prison—”
Sergeant Caulder’s bloodied hand clapped to his mouth, silencing the steward before his voice would be recognized. Crawley had been too cowardly to shout a warning, but too treacherous to remain silent. A master stroke.
Arcturus waited with bated breath as they continued on. But there was no movement. Only the sound of Sergeant Caulder’s muttered threats, and a whimper of pain and fear from Crawley as the crossbow bolt was pressed into his spine.
Again they moved through the gauntlet of watching eyes. Now the rebels were riled up, and they cursed the nobles and Arcturus as the procession passed by. Arcturus didn’t want to think of the clamoring noise reaching Barcroft’s room. Ultimately, the general was the only man he knew of who could supersede Crawley’s orders—he or perhaps some of the officers in the army. Where Crawley fitted into the hierarchy, Arcturus did not know, and he suspected Crawley didn’t either. But they could use this disorganization to their advantage.
They reached the balcony, and the hundreds of crossbow bolts waiting to be hurled into their backs. Then, down the stairs. Arcturus held his breath, waiting for a challenge. But none came. None at all. In fact, the men did not even shout a curse, or shift from their positions. They were like living statues, disciplined to the last.
The double doors loomed on the bottom floor. Arcturus’s heart leaped as they creaked open, Ulfr heaving them apart with the brute strength of his stocky arms. The men were moving quickly now, eager to escape the waiting ambush.
For once, Arcturus welcomed the biting wind that snatched at his cloak, and the grim darkness that enveloped them. They had made it.
“Stop them!”
A scream from above. Barcroft, leaning out over the balcony, a trembling finger pointing at them. The tramp of a hundred rushing feet rumbled.
“Shut it, now!” Sergeant Caulder bellowed.
The doors began to close, ever so slowly.
“Shields!” Percival called.
A dozen men responded to the order, the rear guard turning and kneeling in one smooth motion. Bolts whistled, and Arcturus heard the thunder of the impacts, turning the upraised shields into pincushions of splintered wood. Then the doors crashed closed, and they were in pitch darkness.
“Hellfire,” Prince Harold cursed.
Ulfr shoved his way through the shield men, and Arcturus heard the jingle of keys in the lock.
“It won’t hold them for long,” the dwarf called. “We need to move. Now!”
Rotter picked up Edmund, for the boy was barely able to walk, and then it was a mad, bone-juddering rush from the paving stones of the courtyard to the drawbridge. Behind, Arcturus could already hear the pounding of fists on the doors. The rebels would catch up too soon.
The wood of the bridge creaked and shook as the soldiers sprinted across it. For a moment Arcturus thought the platform would snap in two, but then he was across on solid ground once more, and there was Ulfr, leading the way into the low, grassy hills that surrounded Vocans.
Then he stopped. The drawbridge.
That was it.
Arcturus turned and used the last dribble of mana in his body to power up a wyrdlight, barely larger than a firefly. In a rush, he summoned Sacharissa, the pentacle fizzing as her dark form flared into existence. Then he was running across the bridge once more, his axe drawn.
At the base of the bridge, the light revealed two iron hinges embedded in the wood, though the mechanisms were so rusted that it looked like they had not been used in years. These kept the bridge attached to the castle, along with the two thick ropes on the end that raised and lowered the enormous rectangle of wood.
Arcturus lifted his axe and hammered it down, sending a shower of sparks flying across the dark water. The light revealed a smear of bright metal where he had damaged the hinge. Barely a scratch.
“Think,” Arcturus cursed.
Sacharissa whined behind him, and Arcturus ordered her to begin work on the nearest rope. She snarled and went at it with a vengeance, leaving him to his dilemma.