As they passed the next levels, a few fires were noted burning off down various passages, but the stairs remained dark. She descended the last level with more care. The screaming horse had gone silent.
As she made the final turn below, she noted a glow rising from below, but it was not firelight. The cast was sickly, a sheen of emerald. She signaled her other knights with the barest reveal of her sword. She would take the inside wall of the stairs, the others would take the outside.
She went down first, one step at a time. With her eyes so attuned to shadow, she could discern enough in the darkness to tell daemon from shadow. But only when very close.
Where were they all?
She had expected a few sentries on the stairs.
She reached low enough to see below. Between her Graced eyes and the greenish light, it was easy to see the horse sprawled across the stone floor. It lay in a pool of blood, its throat cut.
Beyond its bulk stood the source of the light.
Mirra.
She leaned on a staff that glowed with the fetid luminance. She looked a monster. Her hair was burnt to her scalp. One side of her face was a blistered ruin. The handiwork of Orquell.
“Hurry, boy!” she yelled with a wave of her staff.
Movement to the right drew Kathryn’s eye. She shifted more to the stair’s center for a clearer view. She saw a small form walking a horse down from where they were corraled by the main gate.
She recognized them both.
The horse was a piebald, black on white.
Stoneheart.
The stallion’s legs shook and his flanks trembled. He smelled the blood, certainly heard the earlier scream. But he minded the boy on the lead. Someone he trusted.
The stableboy Mychall.
The boy walked on legs just as trembling as the horse’s.
“Is that her favorite horse?” Mirra asked.
“Y-yes, mum. Please don’t hurt my da.”
Mirra swung her staff to point toward the opposite wall. Kathryn had to slip two steps lower to see the remaining horror here. Pinned against the far wall, bolted through both hands into the stone, hung Horsemaster Poll, Mychall’s father. At the man’s toes, the darkness shifted with denser shadows; a clot of ghawls guarded him.
“Boy!” he called to his son. “Why did you stay when I told you to go?”
“Da…let my da down…”
Kathryn could surmise what had happened. The horsemaster had refused to abandon his charges, but he’d had enough force of will to drive the other stablemen and-women up higher. Not his son, though. Mychall must have snuck back or hidden close. Either way, they’d both been discovered and their love used against them.
“When we’re through here, I’ll let your father go,” Mirra said with feigned warmth. “Walk that pretty stallion over here.”
Mirra lifted a long sickle in her other hand.
Mychall approached, his shoulders shaking in silent sobs, face wet with tears.
Kathryn shifted and motioned to the others. She lifted her hand and dropped her shadows enough for the two knights to see. She pointed where she wanted them to strike. She didn’t need to see their acknowledgments.
She raised her hand, fingers out. She counted down. When she formed a fist, small flashes of fiery Grace ignited the wicks of two small barrels, one held by each knight. They were lobbed down into the lower floor, landing precisely where she wanted.
The first struck the dead horse, bursting up with fire, separating witch from boy. The second flew and struck the clot of ghawls by the pinned horsemaster.
The three knights followed the flight of the flaming barrels, hitting the floor about the same time the fires burst. Stoked with shadows, Bastian and Tyllus dashed toward the horsemaster. They had an oiled brand in each hand, dipping them into the fresh fire as they passed, igniting the torches.
Kathryn did the same with a single brand, but she also whistled sharply.
Stoneheart had reared when the barrels blew, yanking Mychall off his feet. But he responded to Kathryn’s whistle, desperate for the familiar. He swung toward her. She still had enough shadows, despite the fires, to leap onto his bare back. She guided him with her legs, turning toward Mirra, her sword in her other hand.
But Mirra was not one surprised into inaction.
She had shifted and grabbed Mychall by the hair, and now had the sickle at his throat.
“No!” Poll moaned.
Below his toes, the two knights fought the ghawls among the fires, armed with their two brands. But they could not hold off the daemons long enough to free the father.
Atop the horse, Kathryn watched more daemon knights boil out from the far passages. Cloaks rustled behind her. The stairs they had come down flowed with a river of darkness.
A trap.
She gaped at the sight. She had never imagined the witch’s legion numbered so many. Tashijan would be overrun.
Mirra must have sensed her despair. “You surprised me, Kathryn.” Her voice sounded so familiar. “I thought I’d have to kill more than one horse-or at least the boy-to draw you down here.”
“Why?” she finally choked out, the one word encompassing so much.
The answer, though, was quite small. Mirra nodded her chin toward Kathryn. “I want my diadem back.”
Kathryn stared into the face of madness.
“And to make you suffer-all of you suffer-for the pain you’ve caused me-that oily-tongued rub-aki.” She spat on the stone. “I was going to simply send my legion through you like a fire through chaff, but after this cruel burning, I want you all to end your lives screaming.”
She met Kathryn’s eye squarely.
“We’ll start first with this boy.”
Laurelle shook her head. “I can’t light you on fire.”
Orquell turned to Kytt, holding out the torch. The boy backed several steps, almost knocking himself flat on the altar before catching his legs. The master turned again to Laurelle.
“You must, Mistress Hothbrin.”
Laurelle kept her hands clasped together between her breasts.
Orquell lowered the torch and stepped closer. “Look at me, Laurelle.”
She reluctantly met those milky eyes.
“What god do I bow down to?” he asked, teasing her eyes more firmly to him. “Fire is my comfort. Flame is my passion. What I do, I do willingly. I’ll not say gladly. I won’t lie to you. But often life asks much of you, and you either honor life by answering with all your heart, or you cower your way into your grave.”
Laurelle took a shuddering breath.
Orquell read her reluctant hesitation. “I know what I ask of you is horrible. But I am rub-aki. We are trained to withstand a fire’s burn and still hold our minds. Only I can do what must be done here.” He glanced up. “Lives already end above because we hesitate below.”
She searched upwards with him, not so much looking for answers as asking for forgiveness. As Orquell lowered his eyes, he met her gaze. A smile formed as he read her decision.
“Very good, Mistress Hothbrin.”
Kathryn could do nothing to save the boy.
She sat atop her horse amid a sea of black ghawls. Bastian and Tyllus were trapped in a corner. She suspected the pair lived only at the whim of the witch. More fodder for her cruel games.
“Do not turn your face,” Mirra warned, “or I’ll make him suffer worse.”
Kathryn would not have looked away. Mychall was frozen in terror. All she could do was offer her vigilance, her witness. She met his frightened gaze, his weeping eyes begging her to save him.
First Penni, then the squires, now Mychall…
“What? No tears for the boy?”
