Murtagh’s wards protected him from the creature’s attack, but the impact caused him to stumble backward into the edge of the door. He dropped to one knee.
Despite his wards, instinct led him to keep his eyes screwed shut. He felt upward until his hands closed upon warm fur, and then he pulled the kicking, clawing, spitting creature off his neck.
Only then did he get a good look at it. Silna!
The youngling was a mosaic-coated cat with large green eyes narrowed
in anger, tufted ears pressed flat, tail puffed out, and heavy paws that scraped at the air. The werecat was close in size to a housecat, and her head had the distinctive, overly large appearance of a kitten’s.
“Shh, shh,” Murtagh tried to say in a calming manner, but the werecat kept twisting and biting in a desperate attempt to break free.
Finally, he said, “Silna! Eka fricai. Eka fricai.” I am a friend.
The werecat’s clawing ceased, and she stared at him with a flat, hostile gaze.
He hesitated and then carefully placed her on the floor and let go.
The ridge of fur along Silna’s spine remained raised. But she didn’t run. She seemed, Murtagh was relieved to see, unharmed, though she looked painfully thin.
He held out his hands, palms raised. “Can you understand me? Carabel sent me to find you.”
Silna’s lips retracted to bare her sharp white teeth.
“I’m a friend,” Murtagh insisted. He reached out with his thoughts toward the werecat’s mind. The instant he touched her consciousness, she hissed, and he felt nothing but fear on her part.
He recoiled from her mind. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Do you understand?”
The werecat’s slitted eyes darted between him and the open door, and he realized he was still blocking the way. He didn’t move. “I can help you out of here, but you have to trust me.” He held out one hand toward her, same as he would with a skittish horse.
Silna let out a small hiss, but she didn’t retreat.
It’s a start. “Can you change forms?” he asked. “Then we could talk. If you can talk…” Murtagh wondered at what age werecats gained the ability to shift their shape. Were they born with it?
He edged to one side of the doorway, opening a space for Silna to pass through. “Come on,” he said in a coaxing tone. “Come with me.”
The werecat’s eyes narrowed again, and then she darted forward and past him before he could react.
“Blast it!” Murtagh scrambled to his feet as Silna streaked toward the far end of the arcane garden.
Just before she reached the doorway to the alchemy workshop, a voice sounded ahead of them. Esvar’s voice: “—an’ I swore I heard somethin’, so I came t’ get you directly. Look!”
Silna slid to a stop and darted back the way she’d come.
Within the workshop, Murtagh saw Esvar, three other guards, and the nearly white-haired magician of Du Vrangr Gata. Esvar gaped at Silna. Whether from surprise that she had escaped or at seeing a werecat, Murtagh didn’t know.
Nor did he wait to find out.
He opened his mouth to speak the Word and break any spells protecting the men or directed at him or Silna. But before he could utter a sound, the
men spotted him, and a blade of thought stabbed into his mind—the magician attacking the very essence of his self.
Stay! Murtagh flung the word toward Silna’s consciousness, and then turtled in on himself, armoring his mind with blinkered focus: “You shall not have me. You shall not have me.” He dared not let the magician see his thoughts, and because of that, he dared not loosen his defenses enough to speak the Word and work magic of his own. Not until he gained control of his enemy’s mind.
The werecat kitten cowered behind his back foot and hissed. The three guards in the front charged: one in front, two behind.
Murtagh swept his cloak across their field of vision, causing them to flinch, and used the momentary cover to draw his arming sword.
The distraction allowed him to strike first. He jabbed the lead man in his right hip and—
—the tip of the blade skated off an invisible barrier a finger’s width from the guard’s skin.
Blast it!
The guard slashed at Murtagh with his own weapon, causing Murtagh to duck. Swordplay alone wasn’t going to win the day. He had to figure out a way around the guard’s wards.
His misadventure with Muckmaw leaped to mind.
Fine. Bracing himself, Murtagh slammed his shoulder into the guard’s chest and knocked him across the room. The guard’s wards kept him from suffering scratches or worse as he crashed into a pair of bushes, but they did nothing to keep his head from whipping to the side and striking the crystal case that contained the blue-black egg, dazing the poor man.
Cracks spiderwebbed the case.
The next soldier shouted and stabbed a spear toward Murtagh’s face. He let his own wards deflect the blow as he darted forward and, still holding the sword, clapped his hands against the sides of the guard’s helmet. The man cried out, dropped his spear, and collapsed.
As Murtagh had suspected. No wards against sound.
The third guard poked at Murtagh with a billed pike. He dodged and smashed the pommel of his sword against the crest of the man’s helm. The blow staggered the guard, and Murtagh followed up with another clap on either side of the man’s head, which sent him reeling into a bed of lilies.
The whole while, Murtagh could feel the magician trying to dig into his mind. The man’s neck was corded with strain, his lips pressed white against his bared teeth, and his hands worked feverishly within the sleeves of his robe.
Murtagh started for him, but Esvar stepped in front of the magician and raised his sword.
“Move aside,” said Murtagh between clenched teeth.
Esvar held his ground. His face was red with anger, but he also had a look of hurt innocence that Murtagh could hardly bear to see. “You swore,” said Esvar. “You swore. I was there. An’ you betrayed us!”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” said Murtagh. “Stand down.” A bumblebee flew past his face. Its body was iridescent blue.
Esvar shook his head, his expression one of fixed determination, and took a half step forward. “Never! You attacked th’ guard. I’ll die afore I let you pass. Traitor.”
Murtagh had been called worse. He spared a glance for the men lying
groaning on the floor; they wouldn’t be a problem. Silna still crouched low to the ground behind him, safe for the moment.
“Kill him,” said the magician, his voice tight with strain.
“You’re no match for me,” said Murtagh. He sounded calmer than he felt.
Esvar’s upper lip curled. “Don’t matter. It’s my duty.” And he lunged, extending his arm in a long stab aimed at Murtagh’s throat.
Murtagh parried, closed the distance between them, and smashed the pommel of his sword against Esvar’s helmet. The younger man dropped to one knee, and Murtagh was about to step past when Esvar drove his shoulders into Murtagh’s knees.
His knees locked out and lightning shocks of pain radiated from the joints. Murtagh stumbled back and watched with some amazement as Esvar
got to his feet and shook his head. A thread of blood trickled from his left ear.
“My ma always said I had a thick head,” said Esvar, grim. He lifted his sword again. “Y’ can batter me deaf, Task, but you’ll have t’ kill me afore you get by.”
Murtagh’s frustration boiled over into anger, and he launched several quick jabs at Esvar’s shoulders and hips, hoping that if one of them went through, the wound wouldn’t prove fatal or crippling. But none of them did. Esvar’s wards continued to protect him. The impact of blade against spell sent sparks flying from Murtagh’s sword, and he saw the tip was bent and broken.
He wished Zar’roc was in his hand. Even if the enchanted blade couldn’t cut through Esvar’s wards, the brightsteel wouldn’t break.
Esvar fell back before the blows. He rallied and replied with another strike, attempting to cut Murtagh across the neck and waist.
“Why. Won’t. You. Give. Up!” shouted Murtagh, his fury swelling like a storm. He rained down a series of heavy cuts onto Esvar, breaking his guard and driving the young man to his knees. There was no finesse to Murtagh’s attack, no art, no grace or intelligence as Tornac had taught him, just sheer brute strength. And yet Esvar’s wards continued to hold. Murtagh’s sword glanced off his clothes and skin as if deflected by oiled ice.
Murtagh could see that the spells were tiring Esvar, but no faster than the blows tired Murtagh.
Esvar lashed out with a blind swing toward Murtagh’s legs. Murtagh let the blow bounce off his thigh and hammered at the guard’s shoulder with every fiber of his being, as if he were trying to split the earth itself.
Ting!
His sword shattered, and half of it flew spinning across the room to embed itself in a length of dragon bone.
Murtagh stabbed with the needle-tipped shard that remained attached to the crossguard and—
—the jagged piece of metal sank into Esvar’s upper chest, between his neck and shoulder, near his collarbone.
The guard’s eyes went wide, and he fell onto his backside, stunned. He put a hand to his chest, and his mouth worked several times, but no sound came out.
In an instant, Murtagh’s rage shifted to regret, sorrow, and loathing for what he had done. The distraction was enough for the magician to delve deeper into his mind, gripping and tearing in an attempt to control Murtagh’s thoughts.
“Oh no you don’t!” he growled, finally giving the spellcaster his undivided attention. He attacked the consciousness of the robed man, holding nothing back, only seeking to overwhelm, crush, and suppress.
The spellcaster’s mental defenses crumbled before the onslaught, and Murtagh received a brief flash of imagery from the man—his name was Arven, and he was deeply frightened about, about…—and then the magician’s eyes rolled back and he keeled over.
Murtagh caught him and lowered him to the floor. He’d never had someone faint on him during a mental battle before.
“Why?” asked Esvar in a guileless voice. Tears gleamed in his eyes. “Why would you? I thought…I thought you wanted t’ be part of the watch. Why, why, why?”
“I wish I could,” said Murtagh. He gestured at Silna’s crouched form. “But some things are more important than oaths.”
Confusion filled Esvar’s eyes. “What does a cat have t’ do with it? I don’t understand.”
“I’m glad you don’t,” said Murtagh. He hesitated and then grasped the hilt of the sword sticking out of Esvar. The young man stiffened and held up a hand as if to stop him. “Bite your sleeve. This is going to hurt.”
After a second, Esvar obeyed.
Murtagh gathered his will and said, “Waíse heill,” as he drew the blade out of Esvar’s chest.
The youth arched his back, and cords of muscle stood out on his neck as his clawed hands scrabbled at the floor. Blood welled out around the broken blade as it slid free, and then muscle and skin knit back together, leaving behind unblemished flesh.
Esvar fell back on the floor, limp, and Murtagh sagged with sudden exhaustion. “Why?” whispered Esvar. “Y’ swore an oath, Task.”
Murtagh clenched and unclenched his hands. “I’m sorry. The watch isn’t all you think it is.”
As he turned to leave, he spotted something around Arven’s neck. On a sudden hunch, Murtagh bent, dug his finger under the magician’s collar, and pulled free…
A bird-skull amulet, identical to the one Sarros had been wearing in Ceunon.
Murtagh stared for a second and then covered the amulet with his hand and yanked it off Arven’s neck. He tucked the amulet into the pouch on his belt—next to the one from Ceunon—as he stood. Looking back at Silna, he said, “Come.”
The werecat trotted after him as he strode out of the garden and through the rooms beyond.
 |
As Murtagh stepped into the catacomb tunnel, he heard voices and clattering armor echoing down the staircase that led to the barracks.
What took them so long? he wondered.
To his left, the tunnel ran under the fortress. That way lay more enemies and uncertain escape.
To his right, the passageway would take him out under the main part of Gil’ead. It was his best chance of slipping away without another fight.
Silna attempted to run past him, but he caught her around the belly. “Ah, ah. I don’t think so,” he murmured, and scooped her off the floor.
She tried to wriggle free, but he pressed her close against his side as he turned right and sprinted into the unknown. To his relief, she didn’t bite or claw.
The sound of his pounding footsteps outpaced them in the darkness.
The tunnel curved. Once the staircase was out of sight, Murtagh whispered, “Brisingr,” and formed a small red flame above his head so he
could see his way.
Silna growled at the light, and her pupils contracted wire thin. “Quiet.”
A few hundred feet later, he arrived at an iron grate blocking the tunnel. He grabbed the bars and yanked on them. Flakes of rust showered him, but the metal held.
“Jierda!” The metal snapped like rotten wood, and Murtagh shoved the grate against one wall and hurried past.
His boots splashed in water. A thin rivulet ran down the center of the tunnel, and the walls dripped with moisture. A rat the size of a small dog squeaked when it saw him and the werecat and scurried into a hole in the stone wall.
Behind him, Murtagh heard shouts and curses and spears beating against shields. He quickened his pace as much as he could without losing his footing on the wet rocks.
Silna squirmed in his arm, and he tightened his hold.
The tunnel split in four directions. Uncertain, he took the leftmost branch. Not much farther, it split again, and then yet again, and Murtagh realized he didn’t have the slightest idea which direction he was going. He didn’t despair, though. Tornac had taught him a trick for besting the hedge maze at Lord Varis’s estate, which was to turn in only one direction—left or right, it didn’t matter, as long as you were consistent. Solving a maze in such fashion might take a while, but if there was a path to the other side, doing so would always find it.
So Murtagh turned left at every opportunity. Twice more he had to cut through iron grates, but unlike before, he took the time—a few precious seconds—to reattach the grates, both to inconvenience his pursuers and to hide his trail. He just hoped that the catacombs had more than one exit and that he wouldn’t come out to find half the city’s garrison waiting for him.
Even with the werelight, the darkness was oppressive, and the walls seemed uncomfortably close. Murtagh felt as if he were no more than an insect creeping through the bowels of the earth. He hated the dark and the damp and the memories of being imprisoned beneath Urû’baen.
He tried to avoid remembering, but thoughts of Esvar and the cell hidden behind the door of stone were no less unpleasant. Oathbreaker, that’s what I am. And he knew it was so, for oathbreaker was part of his true name.
The werecat continued to struggle and complain, so at last he said, “Fine. You want to go down? Here.” And he plopped her on the wet stones.
Silna hissed, fur still fluffed out, and she crouched and looked up and down the dark tunnel, uncertain.
Murtagh studied her. Cats weren’t as trusting as dogs, and werecats were even more of an enigma than ordinary cats, but he was beginning to wonder what more he would have to do to prove himself to her. “It’s all right,” he said in a soft voice. When that failed to evince a response, he motioned in either direction. “What’s it to be? Hmm? I don’t know about you, but I’d like to escape here with my hide intact. Come with me, and I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”
The tip of Silna’s tail twitched.
Murtagh took a step down the tunnel. He looked back. The werecat didn’t move.
He took another few steps. Still, Silna refused to budge. In the gloom, her patched coat nearly vanished, just one more shadow amid the larger darkness.
He kept walking, and as the glow from his werelight faded from Silna’s position, he heard the faint pad of paws following him.
When he turned to look, Silna immediately sat and started licking a paw, as if nothing had happened.
He snorted and resumed walking. He felt sure she would stay close, but for safety’s sake, he opened his mind and let out a tiny feeler, just enough to sense her presence.
In like fashion, they continued.
The two of them wandered for what seemed like hours. They should have long since left Gil’ead behind, but the tunnels were a tangled nest of intersecting and overlapping openings. Who dug these? Murtagh wondered. In places the tunnels almost resembled natural formations; he even bumped
his head against a stalactite in one dark corner. The warren made no sense. It reminded him of the lines dug by beetles under the bark of trees.
Still, they pressed onward, and Murtagh did his best to avoid any passage that led deeper into the earth, even if it meant bypassing another left-hand turn. If they ended up on a lower level, he doubted they would ever find the way out, barring a spell to burrow back to the surface.
At times he thought he heard voices behind him, ahead of him, to the sides, but they were always phantoms. The speakers never materialized, and he began to wonder if he were imagining things.
Throughout, he didn’t dare try to contact Thorn. If Arven or any other magician from Du Vrangr Gata—or even an elf—were looking for him, they would be sure to notice his mind reaching out.
So Murtagh confined his thoughts to himself, and he and Silna trotted along in silence.
|
Finally!
A faint silver glow brightened the tunnel ahead of them, and Murtagh heard the steady burble of running water. “Stay close,” he whispered to Silna. Then he snuffed his werelight, drew his cloak around his waist so it wouldn’t tangle his legs, and crept forward.
The passage narrowed until he was half hunched over, and the light strengthened until…
He saw an end to the tunnel. An end covered by an iron grate, which overlooked a small stream with low, muddy banks. Arching over grate and stream was a wooden bridge. Numerous footsteps echoed off the bridge.
Relieved, Murtagh sank against the curved stone wall. From the stars in the sky and the moonlight on the water, he could tell that he and Silna had been in the tunnels for most of the night. It felt far longer.
They were still in Gil’ead; buildings were visible on either side of the bridge, and men of the guard marched along the banks of the stream,
shouting directions to each other. It sounded like every soldier in the city had been roused, which was to be expected.
Silna crept up beside him. Her ears stood tall, and they swiveled to track the passing footsteps.
“Wait,” he whispered.
She flicked an ear and then, after a moment, settled onto her belly and tucked her tail around herself. It was the nearest she had come to him since he’d stopped carrying her. He could smell the musky scent of her wet fur, and the hairs along her tail tickled the back of his left hand.
Satisfied that she wasn’t about to run off on him, Murtagh risked sending an exploratory thought toward where he believed Thorn was hiding.
He found the dragon almost immediately, and he was far closer than Murtagh expected: only half a mile or so outside the city walls, amid a patch of wild roses.
A turbulent wave of joy, relief, and anger washed over him from Thorn.
There you are! growled the dragon.
Here I am.
I thought I would have to tear Gil’ead apart stone by stone to find you. It almost came to that, said Murtagh.
How went it? Did you rescue the—
Yes. But it isn’t safe to talk like this. What about you? Are you in any danger? There are soldiers searching the fields, but none of them have sighted or scented
me.
Despite his words, Murtagh felt Thorn nestle deeper into the rosebushes
and the pain as spines tore at his delicate wings.
All right. Stay where you are, and I’ll come to you once I can. A deep hum came from Thorn’s mind. Be careful.
Always.
They separated their thoughts, and then Murtagh wrapped his cloak around his arms and settled into a more comfortable position. Somehow he had to get Silna to Carabel. There were too many guards on the bridge and in the streets to risk going out, but if he waited too long, the sun would be up, and he’d lose his chance, and he didn’t want to wait for another nightfall.
Eventually, someone in the guard might think to check the grate where they were hiding.
He looked at Silna. The kitten blinked and stared back at him. “Why did they want you?” he asked. “What did they do to you?” The werecat’s fur bristled, and she looked away.
Murtagh didn’t know why he’d expected anything else.
He closed his eyes for a second and then thought better of it. No sleep for him until Silna was safely with her own kind and he was long gone from Gil’ead. Besides, he didn’t think he could relax enough to sleep.
In his mind, he could still hear Esvar asking, “Why, why, why?” Murtagh ground the heel of his hand against his temple, trying to press the voice from his head. He couldn’t. And he worried that he wouldn’t be able to for days to come.
To distract himself, he pulled out the compendium he’d appropriated— What an elegant word for “stole”—set the tiniest red werelight burning above the pages, and started to memorize the ancient language words. Already he’d found dozens that he could envision being useful. The realization filled him with fierce determination. The compendium alone was worth all the misadventures he’d endured over the past two days. With it, he could begin to bridge the gaps in his arcane education, a prospect that he welcomed most devoutly.
Silna sniffed the corner of the book. Her nose wrinkled.
The dull ache returned to Murtagh’s left forearm as he read, and because of it, he was slow to notice a tickle on the back of his wrist and hand. At last, it became strong enough that he looked down.
A large black spider had crawled onto him. He forced himself not to react, though it took the full strength of his will. If he could not control himself, then he was prisoner to circumstance, and he refused to accept such helplessness.
Nevertheless, his gorge rose, and revulsion made him want to fling the spider away.
With tiny steps, it crossed his hand and passed onto the pages of the book. The creature’s hooked feet made a faint scrabbling sound against the
paper.
He tipped the book against the wall and let the spider run onto the stone. It stopped a few inches away, a huddled fist of legs. Silna eyed it, seemingly without interest.
For a moment, Murtagh again felt the weight of dozens of fat-bodied spiders moving across his skin. Their bites had burned like fire and, when left unattended, festered into greenish sores that took weeks to heal. The creatures had bedeviled him every night in that cold underground, making it impossible to sleep, and he had been unable to do more than shake himself in a futile attempt to throw them off….
He reached out and put his thumb down on the spider and pressed it flat.
Yellow ichor spilled from its abdomen as it split like an overripe grape.
The werecat’s ears angled backward. She stretched out her neck and nosed the dead spider.
Murtagh returned to reading.
He listened to the city as he scanned the columns of runes. When the streets quieted for a time, and he heard no sounds but the babble of water and the flutter of nightjars chasing their morning meals, he extinguished the werelight and put away the book.
“Be ready,” he whispered to Silna, and edged forward.
The metal bars of the grating were no different from those he’d encountered before. “Kverst,” he said in a quiet voice, and drew a finger across the cold and pitted metal.
The bars parted with bell-like tings, and he lifted the grate out of its setting and placed it to one side. He listened for bystanders and passersby again—he didn’t dare use his mind to probe the area—and then pulled himself out of the tunnel and dropped several feet to the muddy bank below. He turned back and reached up for Silna.
The cat stared down at him without expression. “Come on,” he whispered, and wiggled his fingers.
At last, the werecat kitten walked to the lip of the tunnel and allowed him to pick her up and place her on the ground next to him.
“Worse than a dragon,” he muttered. He wedged the grating back into position and then said, “Thrysta,” using the spell to force the metal into place. It would take a hammer and chisel to break it free again.
Murtagh bundled the red cloak of the watch around one arm as he led Silna out from under the bridge. He glanced up and down the banks of the stream and—seeing them clear—scrambled up into the street.
He turned to make sure Silna was following.
The instant the werecat cleared the top of the bank, she took off between the buildings, sprinting faster than any human, her stiff tail tracing circles behind her.
Murtagh swore and started after her, but Silna had already vanished into the city, and he could see people staring at him from across the way. He risked opening his mind, but it was as if the werecat had ceased to exist. All he could feel were humans and dogs and the self-satisfied thoughts of a notch-eared tomcat sitting atop a plank fence.
He swore and then swore again.
There was no helping it. Silna was gone, and he had no confidence he could find her again, even if he searched for days. All he could do was hope the guards didn’t spot her and that she was able to return to her own kind.
He swore once more. He had rescued Silna. But would Carabel still give him the answers he sought if he couldn’t deliver the youngling to her? He chewed on the question for a time. It left a bad taste on his tongue.
If the werecat refused…he would insist. That much he was sure of. After everything he’d done for Carabel, he was due his answers. And if, by insisting, he ended up turning werecats as a whole against him—and Thorn
—well, that was the price they’d have to pay.
There was only one way to find out.
He pulled his hood over his head and hurried deeper into Gil’ead.
