Hinterland

A WITCH’S THRONE

“Why does that skagging hound keep baying?” Argent griped irritably.

Kathryn straightened. She understood what irritated the warden. It sounded as if all of Tashijan were wailing some last death rattle. But inside Kathryn, the howl ignited a deeper anxiety. It took all her will not to despair. She noted Gerrod had stepped closer to her. Though his features remained hidden behind bronze, she knew he shared the same misgiving.

It was Lorr’s bullhound that howled, baying in raw grief.

That could hold only one portent.

Gerrod’s hand found hers atop the table. And though his bronze fingers were cold, she sensed the warmth inside.

“Do not put so much stock in a hound’s grief,” he mumbled through his faceplate. “The reason could be multifold.”

She nodded, little convinced.

To the right, Argent tugged Hesharian’s sleeve. “So when the ice comes, show me where we should place your alchemies.”

“I-I’m not sure.” His face was deathly pale and his breathing wheezed in and out.

Gerrod lifted his hand from hers and stabbed at the map in two places. “Here and here.”

“Thank you, Master Rothkild,” Argent said, with a tired roll of his head away from Hesharian. “How much alchemy will we need?”

“That is a concern,” Gerrod said. “We’ve used up so much bile already.”

Hesharian blurted out, his voice ragged and panicked. “ You used it all up! Helping the regent escape to safety! Leaving all of us to die!”

“That’s enough!” Argent barked. “Either be helpful or be silent!”

Hesharian slunk away from the warden’s words, quite a feat for one so large. He retreated to the wall, where Liannora still stood, back straight, silent, hands folded into her muff. Her only sign of distress was a single long lock of silver hair that straggled across her face. She had yet to fix it back in place.

“When will Ulf attack?” Argent asked. “Night has fallen-and still we stand.”

“It is early,” Gerrod said. “The coldest part of the night is just before dawn. Though he may attack at any time.”

A hurried scuff of boots on stone drew their attention to the door, accompanied by a shout from some knight by the stair. Kathryn’s hand reached for her sword’s hilt.

Then a familiar figure rushed into view, her face pale, her head wrapped in a bloody bandage. She grabbed the frame of the door to hold upright.

“Delia?” Argent said. “What happened to you?”

“The witch is coming!” she gasped out, weaving on her feet, plainly having run here. Fresh blood dribbled down her neck. “She’s hiding in the dark abandon. Somewhere in the first four levels.”

She took a step into the room and almost fell.

Argent came forward and caught her in his arms. He supported her to the table. Once there, she shook free of him, breathing hard, leaning both palms on the table.

“All those levels must be cleared,” she said. “A fiery picket formed.”

Kathryn circled around to join her. “Are you certain Mirra is loose?”

She nodded, still breathing hard. Kathryn read the hard edge to her eyes. She was not delusional from whatever blow she had taken to her head.

Kathryn turned to one of the young squires. He squatted on an upended bucket in a corner by the door. She pointed at him. “Reach the master of the guard below. Do you know him?”

He nodded vigorously.

“Have him clear the lower four levels. Rally at five.” She held up her hand with all her fingers splayed. “Do you understand?”

But the boy was already running out the door.

She returned her attention to the table.

Argent was bent next to his daughter. “Where have you come from? Weren’t you up with the other Hands?” His words were not accusatory, only concerned.

“No…” Delia said. “I went down below. Lured falsely. By a captain of the Oldenbrook guard-”

A new voice cut her off. “Sten?” Liannora staggered forward, speaking for the first time in a long while. Her voice sounded half-crazed. “Where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

Delia seemed to finally note the Oldenbrook’s Hand, dressed in her snowy best. Kathryn noted the flash of fire in Delia’s eyes.

Liannora did not. She came up to Delia, reaching out a hand.

Delia shoved off the table to face her. Kathryn knew something was amiss. Especially when the calm, levelheaded Delia balled up a fist.

“What happened to Sten?”

As answer, Delia swung from the hip and slammed her fist straight into the Hand’s face. Liannora’s head snapped back with a crack of bone. Her body followed, stumbling into one of the mapwork shelves. Her legs went out from under her, and she slumped to the ground, her nose crooked and seeping blood from both sides.

All eyes turned to Delia. Had she been ilked, possessed by some madness?

Delia swiped a loose strand of her hair into place. A bit of color had returned to her cheeks from the effort. Still, she almost fell as she faced them, catching herself with a hand on the table.

“Liannora sent one of her guards to break my neck,” Delia said. “Came near to doing it, if it hadn’t been for Master Orquell.”

The name roused Hesharian. “Did you say Master Orquell?”

Delia ignored him. “But Orquell is not what he appears to be. He is rub-aki.”

“What?” Hesharian yelped. A palm pressed his sweated brow. “Oh, sweet aether, how I treated him-an acolyte of the rub-aki.” He groaned in distress, as if the slight were even more dire than the fall of Tashijan.

Kathryn turned her back on him. “Tell us what happened.”

She did in fast words, concluding with a small bit of hope. “And he burnt Mirra. I don’t know how badly. But hopefully enough to weaken her, perhaps make her act rashly.”

Argent looked upon his daughter with a glint of pride. “Let’s hope rashly serves us better than the cold calculation of that witch.” A thin grin rose to his lips. “Still, to know she was burnt, that does give us hope. What can be harmed…”

“…can be killed,” Delia finished with a sober nod.

At that moment, Kathryn recognized that the family resemblance went beyond the shape of eye and cleft of chin. Perhaps Argent saw that, too. He had stepped to his daughter’s side.

“I’ll get one of the healers to see to your head.”

“I’ll mend,” she said sourly, waving his worry away.

Gerrod stepped to her other side. “Orquell-he’s headed down into the cellars?”

Delia nodded.

“Why? Where?”

“Down to Mirra’s lair. That’s all he said.”

Though Gerrod’s expression remained hidden, Kathryn recognized the worry in the set of his shoulder. “What is it?” she asked him.

“I can guess what he will attempt,” Gerrod mumbled.

“And?” Argent asked.

Gerrod turned to the warden. “The danger to-”

His words were cut off by a blaring blast of a horn, so loud it finally quieted the bullhound above. A battle horn. But its resound echoed not from the picket line above.

“The call comes from below,” Gerrod said.

Delia nodded. “The witch is rising up.”

“Stay close.”

Orquell led the way down the narrow staircase. He held a torch that flickered with a strange crimson flame. He had dipped the end of his oiled brand into a pile of powder that he spent a long fraction of a bell mixing on the top step. The resulting fire cast no smoke but still somehow shed an odor that reminded Laurelle of freshly hewn hay and something sweet.

She followed with a lamp, as did Kytt. He kept to their rear, glancing often over a shoulder. They had traveled far below. Laurelle could feel the press of rock above her. The steps here were small, barely cut into stone. It had been some time since they’d even seen a cross-passage.

Laurelle wondered if they should have heeded the guards who had warned them against entering. In truth, they had been refused entry. Upon the warden’s orders. But Orquell had whispered something in each of their ears. Whatever was said widened their eyes. Their gazes flicked to the crimson mark on his forehead. Some portent, some secret, some threat-she never found out, but they quickly winched the gate up far enough for them to crawl under. Once past, the guards just as quickly closed it.

Plainly they weren’t convinced that the witch had already escaped.

Laurelle was similarly worried. “What if she comes back, to nurse her burns? Or what if she senses we’re down here?”

“Then we’ll most likely die,” Orquell answered without a measure of humor. It was stated simply and certainly. “So we’d best be quick.”

As he said this, his torch, held before him at arm’s length, flared brightly. Laurelle could have sworn she heard a small scream, but maybe that was her own inner self. A sudden waft of corruption passed over them, as if they trod upon a corpse bloated in the sun.

“Awful,” said Orquell. But it wasn’t the smell that upset him. “A Serpentknot Ward. If we’d blundered into that, we’d be dropping dead on our faces.”

He continued down the stairs, thrusting his torch out farther.

Around they went, another two wards flared and burnt under his torch. The last flared high enough to dance flames along the stone roof. Laurelle noted that the ceiling was streaked with wide bands of rock that bore a glassy sheen.

“Flowstone,” Orquell said, noting her reaching toward one. “It forms when molten stone is exposed to raw Gloom. Such veins can be found in deep places under the ground, but rarely are they discovered by man. All this will have to be purified if we survive.”

“Purified?” Laurelle asked. “How?”

Orquell leaned his torch near a glassy vein. The fire seared the rock. It smoked, again raising a smell of corruption. When he lifted the torch away, the spot was scarred white. “It’s possible to burn the Gloom out of the rock with special alchemical fires.”

They continued past the ward and entered a chamber that seemed to be formed as a bubble in a giant vein of flowstone.

Kytt gaped. “You’ll need much fire to cleanse this,” he mumbled, turning in a slow circle.

Orquell looked ill, too. “There must have been some storm of Gloom long ago to churn up this much flowstone. What we are seeing is a splash of the naether into this world, possibly cast when the gods first fell here after the Sundering.”

Laurelle circled the room’s only structure. It rose from floor to ceiling, as if the flowstone above had melted and sagged, dripping down into this tortured and twisted column. As Orquell’s light played across it, she was sure she saw faces in the stone, screaming, melted faces. Then the torch would shift and the visages would vanish.

“Her throne,” Orquell said, stopping before a niche just large enough for someone to sit within. “To commune with those that swim the naether.”

Off to the side, Kytt began to lower to a lip of flowstone against one wall. Without turning from the throne, Orquell waved him away with his free hand.

“Not there, my young tracker,” the master said. “That’s a black altar. Can you not smell the blood?”

Kytt scrambled back, stumbling a bit in his haste. “I don’t scent anything beyond those burnt wards.”

Orquell nodded. “Maybe it’s not so much a scent in the air. It’s more like walking across a field where an ancient battle was once waged. The grass may be green, but if you stand very still, you can still sense the blood, an echo of pain.”

Kytt glanced to Laurelle. They moved closer together, away from the walls, but not too close to the throne. Laurelle fought an urge to run from the room.

Orquell made one more slow circle of the column. He ran his torch up and down its length. Finally, he stopped again before the niche, the throne of the witch. “She has begun her attack.”

“Mirra?” Laurelle squeaked out.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he lowered his head and stepped toward the column. “We don’t have any more time.”

Laurelle refused to follow him closer. “What are we supposed to do?”

Orquell motioned to the column, to the room, and beyond. “Close your eyes, strip away the natural stone, until only the unnatural flowstone is left. Do you know what you find?”

Laurelle tried to map in her mind’s eye a picture of the streaking veins through which the stair had cut, leading at last to here.

“It would look like a great swirl of black flame, frozen to glassy stone. What are called Boils. I’ve seen smaller of them, but never one so large.” He stepped back. “But though this old flame is turned to stone, it still burns with the fires of the naether. And where there is flame…?” He glanced inquiringly at Laurelle.

She remembered his earlier lesson. “There is also shadow.”

He offered her a tired smile. The coldness that had crept into his manner warmed away. “Very good,” he said. “This flame does indeed still cast shadows, but not ordinary darkness.”

“Gloom,” Laurelle mumbled.

His smile deepened. “Exactly. You might do well to pay a pilgrimage to Takaminara. I believe you’d fare well with her.” He turned back to the twisted column.

Laurelle could now almost imagine it as a frozen whirlwind of fire.

“But you are right,” Orquell said. “It casts Gloom like a pure flame casts shadow. But worse for us now, this flame also smokes with power, drifting upward, fueling the witch with dire forces. That is what we must stop if we are to help Tashijan.”

“How do we do that?”

He returned his attention to the chair. “By stanching this fire. Her power flows from the naether, along this column, and smokes high.”

“But how do you stanch a fire that is set in stone?” Kytt asked.

Laurelle remembered the master’s example on the stair. “You must purify it…with fire.”

Orquell glanced back at her, his milky eyes appraising her anew. “You continue to surprise me, Mistress Hothbrin.” He returned his attention to the black stone. “The heart of this Boil must be purified. Burnt out to kill the poison. Setting fire against fire.”

He shifted closer to the niche.

Laurelle felt a stab of fear. She didn’t like the master to be so near to that black flame. But he stopped and turned back. He slipped out a bag of powder. She recognized it as the same bag where he had stored the remaining powder that fueled his torch. Orquell opened the bag and sprinkled the powder over his head, shoulders, and across chest and back.

“What are you…?” she began.

“It will take more than just fire to purify this,” Orquell said. “Someone has to enter this pyre, direct the flame. It is the only way to stop the witch. But there is great power flowing through here. One touch and your will and mind will be burnt away, lost to whatever hides below in the naether.” He faced the niche one last time. “Perhaps that is what happened to Mirra. Perhaps she discovered this place or was maliciously directed down here. Either way, once she sat on this throne, she would’ve been lost forever. Yet if someone who was purified sat here…”

Laurelle again proved her understanding of the intent behind his words. “No.”

“I must. It is the only way.” Orquell held out his torch toward her. “Once I sit down, you have to set me on fire.”

Kathryn yelled to be heard above the bleat of a horn. “More flames! Get more torches! Where’s that barrel of oil?”

She manned the line on the sixth floor. The lower five were gone. All of Tashijan, those still living, were crammed into a mere ten levels.

Gerrod climbed up from below, his armor reflecting the firelight that shone down the stairs. He led another handful of knights. All their cloaks were charred at the edges. The witch’s attack had proven especially difficult to thwart. The same fires that shunned her black ghawls shed the speed and force of shadows from the knights, weakening them when they needed to be strongest.

Also the wraiths still harried the line at top, dividing their full force.

Gerrod and the other knights cleared the picket here. “That’s the last,” he said, joining her.

The other knights climbed past. One of the knights carried one of his brothers over a shoulder. The body smoked. She caught a glimpse of a blackened arm hanging from beneath a cloak.

“Coming through!” a shout erupted behind them.

Two men rolled a barrel of oil down the steps. Others helped slow its descent with hands as they passed, lest it roll out of control.

“If we cast much more fire below,” Gerrod warned, “we may burn Stormwatch out from under us.”

Kathryn remembered the blackened arm. “Rather a clean fire than the corruption wielded by Mirra.”

A piercing scream echoed up to them, full of pain.

It wasn’t human-nor was it daemon.

Horse.

Kathryn had emptied the stables into the lower level of Stormwatch as the wraiths attacked. The thatching of the old structure had offered no protection against Ulf’s winged legion. So she had led the entire stable inside, horse and horsemen.

“We couldn’t clear them,” Gerrod said. “There was no space up here for the horses. Climbing stairs, all the fires…Horsemaster Poll even tried blinding them with blankets. They were too panicked.”

She remembered the stablemen’s refusal to abandon their charges, hiding with their horses in the cold barns.

“What about the barnstaff?”

Gerrod shook his head. “I don’t know. They were ordered to clear, but…” He shook his head.

It had been chaos for the past half bell.

“I have to go down there,” Kathryn said.

“Are you mad?” Gerrod said, almost sputtering in his helmet.

“She is slaying the horses on purpose. Most cruelly. She knows my love for those horses. And if there are any of the barnstaff still down there-”

“They’re not worth the risk,” Gerrod said too quickly. He raised a hand to his forehead. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”

She touched his arm. “I know. But they’re all good folk who man our stables, every one of them. I will take a few knights, ripe with power, and strike a fast assault. Just to see if any of the barnstaff are down there.”

But in her heart Kathryn knew they were down there.

Gerrod stared a long time at her, unmoving, a statue in bronze. “Go,” he whispered, but she knew it took all his reserve to utter that one word.

Kathryn had never loved him more. She didn’t need his approval, but his concession fueled her when she needed it most. She turned to two knights. “Bastian and Tyllus. You’re with me.”

They came quickly, without question.

They both bore the Fiery Cross, but she knew they were stout of heart and had proven themselves countless times this day. She told them what she proposed. They nodded and gathered what was necessary.

“Let’s go.” Kathryn crossed the picket and headed down. “Send word to Argent at the top line,” she called back to Gerrod.

He lifted a bronze arm in acknowledgment, then vanished from sight as she fled around a turn in the stair. Fires still blazed here, but after another two turns, all the torches were guttered. Darkness filled the lower stairs.

Kathryn pulled up hood and masklin. Despite knowing what lurked in the depths of that darkness, she still sank gratefully into the shadows, wicking their power along all the threads of her cloak. She whisked away from sight, flanked by her knights.

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?”

Kathryn shifted her eyes to Mirra. “You taught me well,” she said. “Tears are for later. After you’ve killed your enemy, only then do you mourn your fallen.”

Mirra cackled at her words. “Then I’ll give you much to cry about.” She lifted the sickle high.

“No!” the horsemaster moaned.

Kathryn merely stared into Mychall’s eyes, letting him see her love.

It was such focus that alerted Kathryn to a shudder along Mirra’s raised arm. Kathryn felt something rush through the room like a gust of wind, but the air didn’t move. Still, the passage stoked the fires momentarily brighter, knocking back the ghawls.

Kathryn responded. She kicked Stoneheart, but as usual, he somehow read her intent, knowing her heart or sensing her hips tilting forward. Either way, he burst forward under her.

He leaped the edge of flames that separated her from the witch.

Mirra looked up, a cry on her lips. The sickle fell from her fingers.

Surprised now, are you?

Kathryn whipped her sword down in a savage swipe, but Mirra leaned back at the last moment. The tip of Kathryn’s sword sliced through the witch’s mouth, splitting her cheeks ear to ear as she screamed in rage. But it was not a fatal blow.

Mirra tripped back, sporting a mouth as wide as her face, blood pouring in a river down her chin and jaw. She howled and revealed the full gape of her mouth.

She lifted both arms, ready to unleash her legion upon Kathryn.

It left her belly exposed.

Mychall rose up from the floor, forgotten by the witch. He bore her sickle in hand. Using both arms, he hacked the blade through her gut.

She screamed anew, stumbling back, spilling intestine.

Kathryn had Stoneheart turned. She leaped back to the witch, but instead of attacking, she bent down and scooped Mychall one-armed up to her. He had been about to be skewered by one of the ghawls.

Not this night.

Mirra fell to her knees. She crawled to her staff, but the fire dimmed out of it. She grabbed it like a drowning man might a floating log. But the fires in it continued to die. And as the glow ebbed, the flames in the room brightened, as if a smothering smoke had lifted.

The ghawls shifted about in confusion.

Mirra rocked back, holding her staff, almost shaking it.

One last cry, and she fell back in a pool of her own blood and entrails.

Dead.

Laurelle knelt on the stone. The torch lay nearby, forgotten, still burning. She held her hands over her face. Kytt crouched over her, an arm around her shoulders. He squeezed her tight. She leaned into him.

“Come,” he said. “We must go.”

Laurelle still could not stand. She could still picture Orquell smiling through the flames as he burnt, seated on the witch’s throne. The powder over his body had spread the flame quickly, wafting hay and sweetness. Laurelle suspected she would never again enter a barn without retching.

Though the scent had been pleasant, the sight had been horrible.

His clothes had burnt, his skin had blackened, and the flames contracted his body, as if he were trying to curl in the seat to read a book.

She didn’t close her eyes.

She thought she owed him that much for his sacrifice.

But she failed at the end. The flames and heat writhed his body, twisting and consuming it. She dropped and covered her face. At that moment, she heard whispers in those last flames. Notes of gentle consolation. But she didn’t know if they were meant for her or for the tortured master.

Then came a final fluttering rush of flames, like a hundred ravens taking flight-followed by a heavy silence.

“Come,” Kytt urged. “He’s gone.”

“I know…” she moaned.

“No, I mean he’s gone. See for yourself.”

His curious words finally drew her up. She still needed his help.

Kytt lifted her.

The black column had turned solid white, along with a splash across the arched roof where flames had licked. The rest of the Boil remained glassy and dark, but the heart had been purified.

She stared into the niche, expecting to see a pile of charred bone. But it was empty. The space was the pristine white of new snow. Not even a sprinkle of ash or bone.

She reached out a hand.

“Take care,” Kytt warned.

But Laurelle knew it was safe, purified by the selfless fire. Her fingers brushed the seat. As she made contact, words rang in her head, whether some echoing trace of the master or merely her own memory.

Very good, Mistress Hothbrin…

Either way, she offered a ghost of a smile.

Then the stone underfoot began to tremble.

Kytt grabbed her and drew her away.

Stumbling with him, she glanced around her. “The Boil,” she said, picturing the black flame trapped in granite. “The naether wakes to the plug Orquell planted here. They are fighting back.”

The quaking continued, rattling the roots of Tashijan.

Laurelle and Kytt fled up the stairs. Ahead, loud crashes echoed down to them as large sections of rock struck the stairs.

“It’s all coming down!” Kytt cried out.

Kathryn felt the tower shake. She sat astride Stoneheart. Mychall hugged her back. She brandished a torch toward the few ghawls that still kept to the halls. The rest had fled in every direction, no longer guided by the will of the witch.

Mirra’s body still lay bloody on the stone.

As the shaking grew more violent, the last few ghawls lost their wills and fled, emptying the hall.

A cry sounded behind her as Horsemaster Poll was finally freed from the wall. He fell to the floor, but Bastian caught him around the waist. He regained his legs, hugging his spiked hands to his chest.

“I kin stand,” he mumbled weakly.

“Da!” Mychall slid from Stoneheart’s back. He slammed into his father, wrapping his arms around his waist.

The quaking continued. It seemed to arise from deep underground.

Tyllus must have read her concern. “We’ll get these two upstairs. You’d best see to the pickets.”

She nodded to the two knights. “Keep them safe.”

She nudged Stoneheart toward the stairs. He had refused to climb before, but whether trusting this rider or merely happy to flee the blood and horror here, he burst up the stairs now. Kathryn leaned forward, balancing her weight.

The horse clopped loudly, climbing out of darkness and into the flame-lit upper levels. The picket came into line ahead. Fire and black knights filled the stairs. A small cheer rose from them as they saw her clatter into view, astride the handsome stallion, sweated and shining in the firelight.

She dismounted by the line and left the stallion with a knight she knew was familiar with horses. She forded the picket and climbed toward the level of the fieldroom.

She met Argent as he climbed down from the line above.

“What was that shaking?” the warden asked, breathless.

Kathryn shook her head, but the quakes were already fading away. Whatever had been shaken up below was quieting back down. “I don’t know, but the witch is dead.”

“What?”

“Slain. Her legion routed and in full panic.”

Argent’s eye brightened. Together they hurried toward the fieldroom. “That’s the first fair news in many a bell. Maybe we can hold out yet!”

They reached the fieldroom to find Delia and Gerrod by the shuttered window, peering out the small opening.

Gerrod turned to them. There was something grim about his stance. He lifted an arm, urging them to join him.

Kathryn stepped around one side of the map table, Argent the other. They met again at the window. Argent touched Delia’s shoulder to make room. She slid back.

Bending, Kathryn peered out into the dark stormswept night. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but it appeared that the winds had subsided.

“Lord Ulf has pulled back his wraiths,” Gerrod said. “At least those loose out there.”

“Is he retreating?” Argent asked.

Gerrod remained silent.

Kathryn saw why. The shield wall was coated with ice. As she watched, black rock grew white with hoarfrost, spreading out in a crystallizing pattern, consuming the wall.

All hope went cold.

Her voice dropped to a dry whisper.

“The ice is coming.”