Take the body and give me the rest (29 page)

Seth did the
same thing in the Keep itself. Inside the black building in
different rooms, kitchen, dungeon, bedrooms, laundry . . . all
told, there were many, many staff members that Renton had had no
idea about. Lady Elizebetha managed, without talking to Seth or
even looking at him, to help him pick out all who were welcome to
stay. A handful was shown the gate that day.

By sunset, Seth
was standing by the open gate with his archers and Captains,
watching the last of the people leave, all told there were
hundreds. It would have broken Elizebetha’s heart, but Seth knew
better. Just wait ’til the siege started and these people started
to starve. No food would be going to them when it could go to a man
with a sword.

‘It’s time for
a war council,’ said Seth. He could feel all of this coming to him
more and more easily.

‘
What’s the plan?’ asked Dagosh.

Seth looked at
the guardsmen Captain Griffin. He’d served this Keep more than
twenty years. ‘Griffin, I’m sure you’ve seen sieges on these very
walls. Your thoughts?’ Seth asked him.

‘Thank you,
sir. Nothing unusual: count all supplies in the Keep, gather and
count all the weapons. Start building some siege weapons like
scorpions and rock throwers. Seal that gate up tight and block it
with stone as it’s the weakest point,’ he said.

In Seth’s mind
were the battles that the General had fought, that he’d researched
and read about and everything he’d ever planned on his own, on
either side of the wall.

‘We do need to
block that gate and stop if from working at all. Once they get
here, we’ll need lots of guards on the wall to stop night-time
attacks and lots of water and strong hearts for all the fire
they’ll start throwing. We still have some time, so I’d like to dig
a few more lines of trenches and build some pickets in front of the
moat. We also need to clear all the surrounding area of stone and
tree; we don’t want anything to fill that moat,’ Seth said.

‘This sound
like it’s going to be such hell,’ said Goldie.

‘It will be,
and that’s not the worst part. The worst part isn’t our men
outnumbered five to one; the worst part is this man is part of the
Dark Guild. He’s the top of order, the General, the First Brother,’
Seth said.

The boys had
seen the creatures in that room, and they knew what the Dark Guild
was.

‘What are you
saying?’ ask Dagosh.

‘What I’m
saying is that this man can summon creatures so vicious that they
will rip through our men like a wind through dry leaves and he can
do it without ever breaching our wall,’ Seth said.

‘I know how to
stop that from happening,’ a voice from behind them said.

They all turned
and looked. Lady Elizebetha stood there. She was dressed in ducal
clothes but wearing armour and long sword and looking more full of
life than ever.

‘I
can help you stop him, Seth, and I will. But first
we need to talk. Meet me tonight in the Keep.’ With that, she
turned back towards the Keep.

Seth was filled
with an almost childlike happiness that she was talking to him
again. ‘Good, that’s good. Now last things last. I have some
addresses from our friend Rosen,’ Seth said, watching Goldie’s eyes
light up. ‘You four and some good men are going to them tonight
with some shovels. Be back tomorrow as early as you can, and we’ll
start by closing this gate for good.’

Chapter 32

For the first
time since before the room with Seraphina, Seth sat across from
Elizebetha and spoke with her. She finally looked him in the eye
and spoke directly to him, not treating him like an executioner she
couldn’t stand being around. She smiled at him sadly and spoke. ‘I
didn’t intend for it to come to this, Seth. I never realized just
how this would all turn out.’

Seth didn’t
want to hear about her regret and sadness. In a way, he felt she
was too weak for this life. What did she expect it to be like?
Living as a noble in this Keep, servants and servers, never getting
her hands dirty in labour or war? It was a violent world they lived
in; she’d just been shielded from it.

‘You said you
could help me stop him,’ Seth said in a quiet voice.

‘Yes, I can,
and to tell you I must finally tell you my story and the story of
this place as well. I asked that you come with me all this way and
never told you why. In a way, I was scared, too. I see you, Seth,
and your embracing the blood and the darkness. I see you going
towards the side of the coin that is the Dark Guild. In a way, I’m
afraid of what you’ll become,’ she said.

‘I’m still just
me. I’m doing what needs to be done, but when it’s time to put down
the sword, no one will be happier than I,’ he said. It was a lie.
He liked the thrill of battle, the command of men and the power of
the taking. Still, he was on her side and against her enemies. He
was still loyal.

‘The only
person I’ve ever taken was my father. It was as you told me the
desert people did. My whole life he was by my side, teaching me and
guiding me. He was a great believer in knowledge and travelled
widely, learning from different peoples and ways. He’d told me when
he died he would pass it all to me.

‘He had only
ever taken one person and that was his own father, so he lived a
long life but not unnaturally long. As my father was in his old age
and growing sickly, he told me of what he planned. He said he would
call forth from the dead land his father, who would take his heart
blood and, in ending his life, pass all of what he was to me. At
first, I was shocked. I loved this man so deeply, but I knew it was
what he wanted, for me to continue the line of gatherers.

‘So all alone,
without even my brother there, we performed the ritual. I saw the
rift appear, the curtain, the bridge to the dead land and through
it came my grandfather. At first, he was like a monster, starving
and wild, black eyes and teeth. But once he had drunk some blood
from father’s arm, he slowly turned into a man, white skin to
healthy flesh. I said goodbye to my father as he lay there and died
with the knife in his heart. For the first and only time, I felt
the infusion of memories, power, skills and essence of who he was,’
she told him.

Seth had sat in
silence, listening to her tale. ‘And then what did you do?’

‘I was still
young, around your age, and filled with passion for what my father
had given me. He knew so much about the world and places. He was
filled with the life of his own father and grandfather too, the
very man who founded the order of gatherers three hundred years
earlier. I journeyed to the desert and lived with those people for
many, many years. While I was there, I was told the tale you told
me of the Dark Guild member who had killed almost an entire tribe
of them. But I’d never known why he’d done it, till you found that
library.’ she said.

‘It worked. He
brought her back. They just needed to kill a few hundred people
instead of one and most likely keep on killing even now she is
returned.’

‘The more lives
you take, the longer the dead can stay in our world; that is the
terrible truth he learnt that day. But I always knew that. I missed
my father so much that I thought many times of calling him back,
yet I couldn’t sacrifice one life let alone hundreds to bring him
back for a time. I started searching more into the roots of the
gatherers. About my grandfather. Where did this power come from?
How was it possible to bring back the dead? What was this land on
the other side? And what was the origin of this?’ In her hand was a
large silver coin. She showed it to Seth. It was completely blank
except for some kind of holes on one side but the other was covered
in runes and images. It looked like waves of a river.

‘This is my
legacy from my father Seth. This is what they want from me. In his
first travels, my great-grandfather found this coin. It was with
the desert people of the south. They taught him the lore and showed
him their ways with the dead. They gave him this coin, the whole
coin, and told him what it was.’

‘What do you
mean whole coin?’ Seth asked, handing the coin back.

‘There is
another side to it, when placed together it locks into place.’

‘Ok so what is
it?’ he asked.

‘It’s part of
the price, Seth. It’s the price you pay to the god of the land of
the dead to come back across. This is the coin you pay to bring
someone back from the dead.’

‘The duke has
already done that; he just traded his wife for a river of heart
blood, no coin required,’ Seth said.

‘What kind of a
life is that? Killing every day to live? I’m sure even he gets
tired of all the blood’

‘But with this
coin he could bring her back to real life? Or your father?’ Seth
said.

‘We could,’ she
said with a sigh.

‘So where is
the other half?’ Seth asked.

‘He has it,
Seth. The Gatherers and the Guild were once just my family.
Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother were both passionate for
knowledge, the lore and their daughter. But she died well before
them. They had the coin but Great-Grandfather wouldn’t let
Great-Grandmother use it. He said their knowledge was for the good
of all not just them. He took the coin, separated it, and had the
other half given to a trusted friend and hidden.’

‘And she
started the Dark Guild to bring back her daughter anyway?’ Seth
asked.

‘She did. She
was beyond furious. She was mad with grief and never returned to
our family. She started the Guild and tried to call her daughter
back without the coin but always searching for it.’

‘And now he has
half and you have half and we’re about to fight a war over it,’
Seth said.

She almost
started crying. ‘It’s so far from what I wanted, Seth. It’s just so
far from what this is meant to be. This is meant to be a passing of
knowledge from one to the next, keeping the flame alive; it’s not
meant to be taking it all for one person.’

‘Aren’t we
making this all too hard for ourselves?’ Seth said ‘why don’t we
just destroy your half?”’

‘I’ve searched
my whole life to find ways to destroy it, that why The Gatherers
exist but we never found a way’ she said

‘Ok then, why
don’t we just give him the coin?’ Seth asked. ‘If all he wants is
to bring back his wife, why are we stopping him?’

‘You don’t
understand.’ She passed him the rough silver circle. Reaching out,
he took it into his hand and immediately felt a rush within his
body. He looked at her and he knew things about her he never had.
He knew how far away the army was; he could hear the heartbeat of
his creature and knew that he could call it almost without words.
He could feel Minsetta walking in the cold dead land and knew he
could call her back in moments as well.

‘Can you
imagine what he could do with the coin re-joined, Seth?’ As she
took it back, he felt himself shrinking back to normal; he felt
limited. ‘He will become the keeper of the gateway of death; he’ll
be able to call back his wife to real living life and everybody
else as well; he could call back hosts, whole armies’ worth!’

She was right;
Seth could imagine the power of the re-joined coin and knew it was
much too much for any one man, especially this kind of a man. This
duke who was coming was the darkest of the Dark Guild, and Seth
knew if he had this power it would be the sunset for the whole
world. Still, he’d rather face a whole army brought back to life
than an army of the dead like the man could summon now.

‘What’s the
plan? Can we stop him from calling the dead to fight? The only
reason we got in this gate was because I called up someone from a
distance. I’m sure he can do the same,’ Seth said.

‘He can and
worse. I’m sure he has a few from the Guild with him as well. I’m
sure they can stand back out of arrow fire and drop the very hosts
of hell into our Keep,’ she said.

‘Anything we
can do about that?’ Seth asked.

‘Why did I run
back to this place, Seth? Just to be cornered like a rat? This
place was built to withstand the attacks of the Dark Guild. Did my
great-grandmother just sink quietly out of our lives? They have
been coming for us for hundreds of years. He can’t summon anything
within this place while I have the coin and will to stop them. It
will come down to a battle of flesh and blood,’ she said.

‘But I called
something in the gatehouse and again in Renton’s room,’ Seth
said.

‘Summoning can
only happen in Black Rock with the will of the heir.’ She said.

Seth could tell
it was a rich haul by the size of the smile on Goldie’s face. They
had left in the falling light of the previous night and had started
to make their way back since morning. Grimm, Flint and Stone had
all done very well. They came riding back in with pouches of coins
from Rosen’s house or that business of his. All told, it added to
just under four hundred gold coins.

Goldie,
however, came bumping up the road in a wagon that he must have
bought or stolen. The smile on his face was huge as well. Beside
him, the four archers were also grinning and laughing. The wagon
bounced along heavily, almost sinking into the mud, until its
wheels hit the open gate. For the first time, Seth saw it wasn’t
one wagon but a small wagon train of four being driven by people
he’d never seen before. Behind the wagon walked a small troop of
men, about forty all told, all in leather tunics, picks and axes
slung across their shoulders.

They made their
way through the gateway, and, as it closed behind, then Goldie
shouted to one of the men of the new troop, ‘Gresh, first order of
business: can you see what you can do about blocking this up on a
permanent basis?’

The man
answered with a brisk nod and with some of his men started to look
at the mechanism and close the gate.