The Briar King (65 page)

“If the saints are kind.”

Austra shrugged and turned back to the window. “Oh!” she said.

“What is it? Is he down there?” Anne said. “That would be typical of him, to follow us back here and bother us.”

“No, no,” Austra averred. “Not unless he brought friends. Look at all the torches.”

“What? Let me see.”

Anne shouldered her way into the window, and saw that Austra was right. A long glowworm of lights was approaching the coven. Anne heard the snorting of horses and the sound of hooves.

“Who could that be, at this hour?” Anne wondered.

“A Sefry caravan, perhaps,” Austra offered. “They travel in darkness.”

“Maybe,” Anne replied dubiously.

At that moment, the coven bells began to peal the signal to gather.

“I suppose we're going to find out,” Anne said.

Sister Casita met them in the courtyard at the foot of the stairs, where other sleepy girls were already beginning to converge, murmuring in irritation and confusion at being wakened so soon after bed.

“Go to the wine cellar,” Casita said, gesturing in the general direction with a willow wand. “Remain there until you are told to return to your rooms.”

“What's going on?” Anne asked. “We saw riders approaching from the tower.”

“Hush, Sister Ivexa. Keep quiet and do as you're told. Go to the wine cellar.”

“I'm going nowhere until I know what's wrong,” Anne insisted.

Before Anne could dodge, Sister Casita switched her across the mouth with her wand. Anne tried to cry out, but found her lips frozen together.

“Obey me,” Casita said, to all of the girls assembled there.

Seeing what had happened to Anne, no one else dared question her. Anne, furious and frightened, nevertheless went with the rest of the girls toward the cellar.

The sacaum Sister Casita had laid on Anne's lips wore off a few moments later, leaving only an odd tingling in her jaws. By then she and Austra had reached the head of the stairs that led below the coven, but rather than descending them with the rest of the girls, Anne pulled Austra into a side corridor.

“Come on,” she said.

“Where?”

“Up on the wall. I'm going to find out what the matter is.”

“Are you mad? Haven't you learned not to disobey yet?”

“We'll keep hidden. But I'm going to find out. Something is wrong. I think the coven is under attack.”

“Why would anyone attack a coven?”

“I don't know. That's why I'm not going into the wine cellar.”

“Anne—”

“Go with the rest if you like,” Anne said. “I know what I'm doing.”

She turned and walked off. After a moment she heard a sigh and the soft swish of Austra following her.

They wound past the kitchen and the herb garden beyond, to where the small arbor of grapevines sent tendrils out to climb the cracked stone. There, Anne remembered, was a narrow stair that led to the top of the wall that surrounded the coven. It was steep and crumbly, and she slipped twice, but soon enough they had reached the top and the walkway there. She began softly moving toward the front gate, Austra behind her. Once, they heard running feet and ducked into the shadows of a tower as a robed figure entered it. Anne listened to the muted sound of footsteps ascending its heights, then scurried past.

The large court inside the front gate was filled with dark-robed figures, the greatest part of the members of the Cerian order. Sister Secula wasn't with them; she stood on the wall above the gate, along with Sisters Savitor and Curnax, looking down at whoever was there. Anne could hear that she was talking, but couldn't make out the words. She crept ever nearer, Austra still following, and together they discovered an outjutting section of the bastion from which they could see both Sister Secula and the men who had arrived outside the gate.

“Saints!” Anne murmured.

In the torchlight she made out about thirty riders, handsomely mounted on warhorses and clad in full plate. None of them, however, bore standards—not even their leader, who wore armor gilded at the edges and sat his horse about two yards in front of the rest. He had his visor pushed up, but Anne couldn't discern his features at the distance. He was talking to Sister Secula—or, rather, she was talking to him.

“… the matter,” the mestra was saying. “We are under the protection of the church and the meddisso. If you do not heed me, the consequences will be dire. Now, go.” Her voice was taut with command, and even though her words weren't directed at Anne, they made her wince. She wouldn't want to be that knight, whoever he was.

The knight, however, seemed unimpressed. “That I may not, lady,” he shouted up. Behind him, spurs rattled and horses
stamped. The smell of burning tar from torches wafted over the wall. The whole scene was unreal, dreamlike.

“I am sworn to this,” the knight continued. “Send her out, and we can be done with this business. Make whatever complaints you wish.”

“You think because you come as cowards, bearing no standard or emblem, we will not find who you are?” Sister Secula returned. “Go. You will get nothing here save the curses of the saints.”

“The saints are with us, Sister,” the knight replied matter-of-factly. “Our cause has no blemish, and I do not fear any shinecraft you may loose on me. I warn you once more. Send me down Anne Dare, or you will force me to incivility.”

“Anne!” Austra gasped.

Anne took Austra's hand, her heart picking up a few beats. The world seemed to whirl as everything that was happening realigned itself.

This was about
her
.

“I warn
you
once more,” Secula told the knight. “Trespass is beyond bearing. No man may set foot in this coven.”

Anne couldn't see the mestra's face, but she could imagine it, and wondered if the nameless knight was actually meeting her gaze.

“I regret what I must do,” the man said. “But you have forced me to it.”

He gestured, and the ranks of his cavalry parted, and through it came ten archers and as many men bearing a wooden beam clad at one end in a head of steel. The archers trained their weapons on the sisters on the wall.

“Open the gate,” the knight said. “For the love of the saints, open it and let us in.”

For answer, Sister Secula spread her fingers, and Anne felt a sudden prickling across her skin, a sensation akin to and yet different from facing a fire. Something dark spun out from the mestra's fingertips, like a spiderweb but more gossamer and insubstantial. It drifted onto the men below. When it touched the tallest, they shrieked and threw hands up to their eyes. Anne saw blood spurting from between their fingers,
and her belly tightened in horror. She had heard rumors of the encrotacnic sacaums, though she had never quite believed in them.

In response the knight lifted up his arms and shouted, and again Anne felt a surge of force, this one passing through her like a cold shock. The mestra's sacaum shredded, floated up on the night air, and vanished.

“So,” Secula said. “Now you show your face, brother. Now I know the truth.”

“
A
truth perhaps,” the knight said. “This matter is beyond your understanding, Mestra.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I may not.” He gestured, and his men surged forward; the ram crashed against the gate. At the same moment, the knight's hands flashed white, the air crackled with sudden thunder, and blue fire twisted in a helix from below the wall. Anne couldn't see the gate from the side that was struck, but she could see it from the courtyard side, and gasped as the fire crackled through its seams like the reaching tendrils of a vine.

On the second blow, the gate collapsed, and the knight rode through, his men behind him.

Anne couldn't feel her body anymore. She felt detached, outside, a presence as frail as a specter witnessing what followed.

The sisters tightened into a bunch and spoke dark words, and knights fell, tearing off their helms to reveal faces gone azure. They bit off their tongues and crushed their own teeth as their jaws spasmed, weeping green tears as they crossed the waters of death.

The leader strode unaffected through the unseen veil of slaughter. His heavy sword lifted, and in an instant one of the nuns was headless, her body sinking to its knees slowly as her neck seemed to stretch up and out, blooming like a red orchid. The bloody sword came back, and back, hewing into the sisters of Cer. At first the women held their line, and warriors continued to fall like ants marching into a fire, but suddenly the sisters broke before the murdering blade. Arrows whistled up into the battlements, where Sister Secula was raining black sleet that fell through armor as if it wasn't there. Savitor
and Curnax collapsed, staring at the arrows standing in them. Sister Secula grimly clapped her hands and seemed to slip into a shadow that wasn't there. Then the shadow wasn't there, either.

“Oh, saints,” Austra shrieked.

“This is because of me,” Anne said numbly. The words didn't make sense, but there they were.

“We have to get to the wine cellar,” Austra said. “We have to get somewhere safe. Anne, come on.”

But Anne couldn't move. Blood was everywhere, now. She had never dreamed so much blood existed in the whole world, or that headless bodies could twitch so, or the eyes of the dead seem so like glass.

“Anne!” Austra screamed in her ear.

The leader of the knights heard and looked up. His visor was still open, but the only thing Anne noticed about his face were eyes so blue they seemed almost white.

“There!” he shouted, thrusting his mailed finger at her.

“Anne!” Austra was weeping uncontrollably with fear and grief, tugging at her arm.

Anne found her legs, or they found themselves, and in a rush she was running, tripping along the battlements, all of her senses gone to feed her fear. Austra was close behind, nearly pushing her. They found the stair they had ascended and stumbled down it. Anne slipped and her knees smacked hard into the stone but she scarcely noticed, for as they entered the courtyard there came another hoarse male shout.

“The wine cellar!” Austra cried, gesturing.

“And be trapped? No!” Anne turned into the refectory, not daring to face the sound of mailed feet slapping the stone behind them. As they rounded past the entrance to the larder, however, Austra shrieked again, and Anne was forced to turn.

Their pursuer—a man in half plate with long black hair gathered in a tail—had Austra by her hair and his sword leveled at Anne.

“Stop your running,” he commanded. “Come with me.”

Austra's eyes had lost all semblance of sanity, and Anne was suddenly more furious than terrified.

The nearest thing at hand was a hammer used for nailing up kegs. She snatched it up and threw it.

It wasn't a strong throw, but it was surprisingly true. She had a glimpse of the astonishment spreading on the knight's face, just before the mallet crushed his nose. He swore and stumbled back, and Austra was free.

The two girls started running again. Behind them, Anne heard the knight howl and stamp, and then something struck her hard on the head. She went light and then heavy, and her cheek crushed against the floor. She spit blood and tried to rise, but a boot came down on her back.

“Little bitch,” the man said. “I'll teach you—
saints!
”

The last word rose into a scream so high pitched it sounded like a horse dying, and the pressure came off Anne's back. Confused, she came groggily to her hands and knees, turning to see that the knight lay dead, with vapor drifting from between his lips.

“Get up. Quickly.”

Anne looked toward the new voice. Next to her, Austra was struggling up, as well. Sister Secula stood looking down at them.

“Come along,” she said. “The sisterhood can't keep them back much longer.”

Anne nodded mutely, rubbing her head, which was still ringing from the blow. She fastened her eyes on the back of the mestra's robe, wondering again if this was all actually happening.

Too fast. All too fast. Things blurred.

The next time she noticed where they were, they were standing before the pit that led down to the fane of Mefitis.

The mestra took her by the shoulders.

“I didn't expect this,” she murmured, in a strangely soft voice. “I'm not done with you and you aren't ready, but what is, is.”

“What do those men want with me?” Anne asked.

Sister Secula's dark eyes narrowed. “To take hope from the world,” she said. “To take you from it.” She gestured to the harness. “Get in, the both of you.”

“Wait,” Anne said. She felt there was something she ought to ask.

“No time,” the older woman said. “Grasp the ropes firmly.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Anne asked, as she and Austra arranged themselves in the twining cords. “I don't understand what I'm supposed to do.”

“Stay alive,” Sister Secula advised. “The rest will unfold as well as it can, saints willing. Leave here, and quickly, or they will find you. Keep moving, and do not trust any illusion of safety.” She began letting off the winch, lowering them down, and her face receded above Anne. Something began thudding against the door above them.

“You know the way out,” the mestra said. “Go, the moment you reach the bottom.”