Part 31 (2/2)
Gil tilted her face upward at the urging of his lean fingers and their mouths came together, lightly at first, in a kiss so fragile it took her breath away. A sob of surrender saw them clinging more hungrily to one another, mouths, bodies, hearts binding together until the sound of an apologetic cough forced them apart.
”Forgive me,” Lucien said, ”But by the sound of it, they have broken through to the donjon. We must move quickly to reach the gate before the avenues are sealed off.”
Alaric smiled briefly. ”The matter is settled. Gil will go with Eduard.”
Gil backed away, a sudden glimmer of light reflecting off the brightness welling in her eyes.
”I guess this leaves just you and me, my friend.”
Alaric winced. ”I was never very fond of heights myself, you know. I suppose it would be too much to hope there were a few ambitious monks confined in the eyrie at one time or another?”
”Sorry, no. Only one way down. But look you to the bright side: At least we know we have three ways to get away once we have made the rescue.”
Alaric watched Eduard limping his way out of the orchard, followed by a grumbling dwarf, a half-throttled knight cradling a useless arm to his breast, three bleeding knights wearing the garb of their enemies, and a slender, long-limbed woman who had steadfastly refused to abandon her longbow despite the danger and awkwardness of carrying it.
”How” he murmured, ”can we possibly fail?”
”How could they have gotten out of here? Where could they have gone?”
The Dragon stood over D'Aeth's gored body and the rage sent his blood running cold through his veins. His gaze touched upon each of the dead guards with a detachment that only considered the loss of life in terms of loss of manpower-and inconvenience.
”Fools!” he spat. ”Not one of them with the sense to ring the alarm bell. This travesty could well have gone undiscovered until morning if not for a sound mind elsewhere.”
Nicolaa was crouched over one of the guards. ”This one is still alive. He has lost enough blood to be dead twice over, but he is still alive.”
The Dragon skirted quickly around D'Aeth's body and stepped over another to get to where Nicolaa stood. The guard was huddled at her feet, a ma.s.s of quivering agony. A long, slender ashwood arrow was still embedded in the length of his forearm, the fletching stuck out from between his fingers, the steel tip dripping blood from his shattered elbow.
”What happened here?” the Dragon demanded.
”A-attacked, sire,” the guard gasped.
Etienne Wardieu's patience snapped and he reached down to grasp a fistful of the wounded man's hair, jerking the bloodless face upward.
”I know you were attacked, you simpleton fool! What I want you to tell me is how they got in here, how many of them were there, and how in blazes did they get out again?”
”Th-the wall, sire. Th-they went through the wall.”
Etienne's fist tightened and pulled the man upward, jarring the injured arm and wresting a groan of unbelievable pain from the guard's throat. His eyes rolled back into his skull and the Dragon was forced to release him, kicking out at the unconscious man with a curse of contempt. Straightening, he looked around at the row of shadowy cells. Some of them held even shadowier occupants; half-broken creatures D'Aeth had kept alive for his amus.e.m.e.nt.
”Anyone! Anyone who can tell me what happened here is a free man!”
The silence was deafening and oppressive. Water dripped and the embers hissed in the firepit, but otherwise, the Dragon's generous offer was met with utter silence.
Furious, he crossed over to where the bodies of the three rescuers had been found behind the stone cistern. One of them was as big as a bear, stuffed into a hauberk and blazon several inches too tight. The arrow jutting from his chest had left a wide, red stain on the front of his tunic, but that was not what had killed him. A gash, delivered by his own hand, went from ear to ear, the wound so fresh the blood was still steaming where it hit the cooler air.
The other two bodies were like children by comparison, reed-thin and identical in features. So identical, even in death, the Dragon paused to take a second look, noting the spike in the one man's temple and the crossbow bolt in the other's. His gaze rested briefly on the hands of the twins. One had died holding fast to the other as if to ensure their journey through eternity together.
The Dragon drew an impatient breath and started to turn away, stopping when he noticed the pattern of blood smears on the floor. The giant and one of the twins had apparantly been responsible for putting up a last defense against the ma.s.sed guards. Admirably, they had killed or wounded more than a dozen men before their supply of arrows had run out. The twin's broken leg accounted for most of the blood leaked around the pile of empty quivers, it being dragged behind him as he loaded and armed the bows. But there was one streaky swath leading back toward the cells that gave no immediate explanation for its presence.
”A torch,” Etienne barked, holding out his hand.
The smoking, pitch-soaked light was thrust at him and the Dragon lowered it to concentrate its illumination on the bloodstained floor. He followed the trail to the far wall of the donjon, then ducked down to examine the scuffs and crumbled mortar that covered the floor of the cell.
”Look,” Nicolaa gasped, stabbing a finger at where the light flickered on the back wall. Four central blocks had been hastily replaced but not pushed flush against the surrounding squares.
The Dragon threw the torch aside and began clawing at the loose blocks. They moved easily enough and within seconds he had the hole opened again and was reinacting Alaric's and Lucien's discovery of the steps carved into the side of the shaft. A sc.r.a.p of burning jute from the torch was sc.r.a.ped loose and fell down into the blackness, and, as his predecessors had done, he tracked the depth of the well shaft as the light was swallowed into the void below.
”You!” he shouted over his shoulder for the closest guard. ”Climb up this b.l.o.o.d.y thing and see where it leads.”
The guard stared into the cold blue eyes for a moment and decided it would present a greater peril to refuse. ”Aye, lord. And when I do ... find out where it leads, that is ... what then?”
”Well,” Etienne ground his teeth beligerently. ”If you get to the top and find no one else there, you might consider shouting for your comrades and letting them know you are still alive. If you find company at the top, it will hardly matter, for you will be screaming all the way down again.”
The guard swallowed hard and disappeared through the hole in the cell wall.
”Did you know this was here?” Nicolaa asked.
Glaring his response, the Dragon turned and addressed the rest of the guards. ”I want the sentries doubled on all the gates and the inner bailey completely sealed. They cannot have gone far, nor moved very fast with wounded men in their midst. I want every inch of these cellars searched in case we have been fed a false clue; overturn every barrel, move every board, scour the towers and keeps from top to bottom. I want the b.a.s.t.a.r.d found!” he screamed. ”I want his heart in my hands, and G.o.d have mercy on the man who lets him escape again!”
”Calm yourself, Etienne,” Nicolaa murmured, laying a hand on his arm. ”He may have slipped his chains and gained his freedom temporarily, but he will not go far. Not while you still have something he wants very much.”
”Wants-?” The Dragon whirled on her, the madness in eyes clouding his reason.
”The girl, Etienne. Your brother will not leave the castle until he has found the girl.”
”But he will not find her, because you and I and the guards who are standing watch over her are the only ones who know where she is hidden.”
”We have underestimated him once already. Perhaps we should not be so eager to do it again.”
”How can he know what he cannot know?”
”How? Because he is not human, he has proven that already.” Nicolaa moved an intimate step closer. ”But she she is. She is quite human-soft and fragile-the perfect bait with which to catch a wolf ... alive or dead.” is. She is quite human-soft and fragile-the perfect bait with which to catch a wolf ... alive or dead.”
The need for violence was in the Dragon's jaw, clamped shut with the effort it was taking to contain his anger. Nicolaa waited, her eyes glistening, the nerves in her belly fluttering with antic.i.p.ation as she detected the first glints of s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure in his eyes.
”Perhaps you are right,” he murmured thoughtfully. ”Perhaps the least obvious place will be the most obvious choice after all. Yes ... yes, he will know she is in the eyrie and he will attempt to go to her.”
”We can have fifty men on the cliffs waiting for him!” Nicolaa cried eagerly.
”No. No, by G.o.d, we will do nothing to interfere. If he is so desperate to rescue the fair maiden, who are we to stop him? After all, where can he go? Where can he take her except down?” Etienne indulged in a wry smile, noting Nicolaa's macabre arousal and feeling a similar response stirring in his own loins. ”That is where we shall have our fifty men, my dear. And that is where we shall snare ourselves the last black wolf in England.”
29.
The drop from the castle to the eagle's eyrie was every bit as hair-raising and suicidal as Eduard had described. The path may once have been wide enough for two to pa.s.s safely, but wind and weather constantly buffeted the sheer wall of the cliffs, eroding the rock inch by inch leaving nothing to prevent a misplaced foot from skidding over the crumbling edge. From there, a body plummeted to a violent death, smashed on the crush of rocks and frenzied seas below.
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