Changer of Days (6 page)

“Suicide,” Melsyr had said flatly. “There might be one or two guards who could be turned—especially now that Sif himself is not here. When he is…I do not know what it is in him, but men follow him unto death. If he were here…I do not know if even I would have found it in myself to go against him…even now…knowing that time is against us, and that you are her only chance.”

“But we could overpower the guards at the gate, and then we could…” Charo persisted stubbornly.

“I do not doubt your courage,” said Melsyr. “But the guards at the gate are the least of your problems. They are changed every hour; you would need a guide down into the fourth level of the maze of catacombs that are the dungeons of Miranei. All he would have to do is delay you…just a little. The next detachment of guards would come, and find the bodies you will have left at the gates. Then even if you freed the young queen you would find the gates barred and held against you on your return. They would have you precisely where they wanted you—in the dungeons. And you would all die, one way or another.”

Charo had been convinced, eventually, but such was the pitch to which he had worked himself, he had to get up and stamp out into the snow to cool his frustrations. Adamo had come to take his place, and the cooler heads arranged with Melsyr that he would be their eyes and ears in the keep, and send a message as soon as anything changed…if it did.

And now it had. Senena had sworn to it. Impossibly, incredibly, they would have a chance. Kieran stood rapt in the common room of the inn where he had waited for so long, with tears in his eyes. He was remembering a rainy day now many years in the past, shaking off the wet in Cascin’s hall with Feor while other arms bore Anghara away into some women’s fastness to be dosed against catching a chill.

She will need a friend.

“So be it,” he breathed, as he had done then, repeating the vow.
I will take you from here, or I will perish in the attempt. Without you…nothing I have done during these long empty years has any meaning.

Kieran’s men slipped into the keep in inconspicuous ones and twos, himself following with Charo at his heels. They came together unobtrusively at the back of a barrack stables, mostly empty now that its inhabitants were away bearing their owners to Sif’s war, and settled down to wait for Melsyr’s signal.

“Who’s to guarantee she’ll be able to do it?” murmured one of the men, wrapped in his cloak and sprawled over a pile of loose straw. “Fodrun is hardly likely to give his approval. And keeping this from him…I wonder if the little queen’s got it in her.”

“She’ll do it,” said Kieran. He spoke as though he had knowledge of it, as though it had never been in any doubt.

“Do you have the Sight?” mumbled a skeptic from the dark.

Melsyr’s son turned up in the morning, moving like a shadow, with a basket of victuals and a message that nothing was known yet. None of them could eat much, but Kieran insisted—this was the worst waiting yet, with the imminence of something immense hanging over them, and used as these men were to being in tight spots together, stretched nerves made for uneasy companionship. Eating would give them something to do. Besides, they had learned the hard way never to scorn offered food—they never knew what lay around the next corner.

Melsyr himself, still in uniform, came at dusk, but even in the dim cobwebs of twilight shadows hanging from the rafters his face seemed to glow. Kieran’s hackles rose. “She’s done it,” Melsyr whispered. “Tomorrow. It will only be for half an hour, up on the northern battlements—up where the mountains crowd up to the keep, it’s the most isolated place. There will be ten guards with her, four more at the foot of the stair, and Fodrun himself will be in charge.”

For a moment none of them could speak over the violent thudding of their hearts. And then Kieran did, his voice low and steady although his eyes were twin blue flames. “And you?”

“I am to be with the four guarding the rear,” said Melsyr. His teeth flashed white in the gloom, a promise of intent. Kieran recognized it for what it was, and reached to lay a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“The Gods alone know if or when we might need you again,” he said, and it was a warning. “Do not let yourself be suspected. Above all, do not help us. It would be best if you could manage not to be there.”

They could barely distinguish one another’s features in the dimness, but that which passed between them needed no light. It was gratitude, and pride; it was a fierce joy, and a love born of what could become a great friendship. It was Melsyr who broke away first, briefly covering Kieran’s hand with his own and then stepping away into a bow.

“As you will, lord,” he said. “I will switch duty with someone tomorrow…much as it galls me not to be there to see you take the Princess from this place, perhaps it would be more useful if I were on guard at a back door.” He grinned again. “But have no fear; if we do meet at some gate, I’ll ease your passage as much as I am able, and you have my full permission to deal with me as best you deem suitable at the time. Something tells me you will return; I will be here for you when you do. There will be,” he added, unconsciously echoing Sif’s words, “time enough.”

And then he was gone. Kieran stood very still for a moment, his hand dropping to his side; then his fingers closed into a white-knuckled grip on the haft of his dagger. When he turned to face the expectant men waiting in the darkness behind, the power of his resolve was about him like a bright cloak, and they had to choke down the impulse to raise what would, for all of Kieran’s determination and courage, be a decidedly premature cheer.

“We’ll wait for moonrise,” Kieran said tightly. “Then we go. We must be in place when they come.”

More waiting; but this time they were coiled springs, waiting only for the hour of their release. When the hour Kieran had appointed came, they filed out of the stables, ten shadows, ten intruders trespassing uninvited into the heart of Sif Kir Hama’s realm, waiting to snatch the greatest treasure in his keep. Stepping softly across the cobbles of inner courtyards, keeping to the edges where the shadows were deepest and snow still lingered in dirty gray piles against damp stone walls, Kieran stole a moment to wonder with grim amusement if Sif, tossing restlessly in the grip of his dreams somewhere in the South, knew just what would be happening in his castle the next morning.

They found their way to the northern battlements without meeting another living soul, the castle sleeping quietly around them, sunk in the innocent dreams that come in the darkness before dawn. The ten men waited wakeful, stoically enduring the bitter cold of the mountain night, which proved winter was with them still and spring only a promise of dimly remembered warmth. It wasn’t the first time they had waited in cold darkness for the dawn. They had learned to bring themselves into a state of almost suspended animation, keeping themselves alert in anticipation of what was to come, ready for action at a whispered word, yet able to stand like a statue carved of stone until that whisper came. And it came not long after dawn broke and the pale morning sun touched the mountains beyond the battlements with a rim of luminous gold.

They walked warily when they appeared, the ten guards Melsyr had promised: three in the van, naked swords at the ready, eyes hooded and watchful; two on either side, in single file, forming two sides of a square which was completed by the three bringing up the rear. Inside this living square walked…but there were two cloaked figures, hoods pulled forward to hide their features.

It took Kieran a precious second to realize who the second figure must be.
Dear Gods. It’s Senena.

But it was all set, and his arm had dropped in the pre-arranged signal before the thought had a chance to properly cross his mind. And then there was no more time to think, only to call out a swift warning to Adamo, who waited just behind him with his sword naked in his hand. “The other is Sif’s queen! Beware!”

But Charo had already taken out one of the rear guards, soundlessly, and pirouetted with a kind of deadly grace to spit another on the point of his blade even as the man turned, startled, to face him. The four on the sides had a man each to take care of them, but Charo had broken an instant too soon. The guards didn’t have the time to yell for reinforcements, but the ring of steel on steel in the silence of the mountain dawn as Sif’s men turned to defend themselves was clarion enough.

Sloppy,
thought Kieran grimly, even as he beat aside the blade of his own opponent and left his dagger in the man’s exposed throat.
We had all the advantages. It should have been over quietly, quickly.
He lifted his eyes and his blood ran cold.

Fodrun had taken the stairs two at a time, leading not only the four remaining guards Melsyr had promised but another ten. Three or four showed signs of being summoned hastily, protected with leather vests instead of light guardsman’s armor and armed with sturdy quarterstaffs rather than steel, but the rest were grimly businesslike. It was obvious they would kill where they had to but their first priority was to snatch the cowled woman in the midst of the shattered guard square and spirit her away back to the darkness of her captivity. And Kieran was too far away, even as the knowledge hit him and he recognized her by her bound hands. Anghara tossed back her hood, somehow managing to unerringly meet his eyes across the battle taking place between them. Recognizing him. Saying goodbye.

Something gave him strength. He leapt over his fallen foe, leaving Adamo to battle it out alone with the two guardsmen who had accosted him—one from the original guard square and a member of the reinforcements who had leapfrogged across to offer his support. Charo had realized what was happening and was hastening Fodrun’s way, but was stopped by one of the quarterstaff wielders. Fodrun reached Anghara a split second before Kieran, and gathered her to his side with his left arm, his sword gleaming wickedly in his other hand.

“Would you believe me if I told you I never wanted her death?” he said. “But now…it is too late.”

“It is never,” said Kieran through clenched teeth, “too late.”

“I must have been mad,” said Fodrun, more to himself than to the foe who faced him, “to have ever sanctioned this.”

Kieran had enough presence of mind to offer a grim smile at this admission; Fodrun’s eyes darkened, his own lips thinning into an almost invisible line as he shifted his grip on his sword in anticipation of Kieran’s challenge.

But then Senena screamed, and things became a blur.

Kieran was aware, as though watching things which were both ludicrously speeded up and enacted in grisly slow motion, of an expression of pure agony that washed across Anghara’s features even as she sagged into a dead faint in Fodrun’s arms. Fodrun, to whom she had become a sudden encumbrance, let her slip down at his feet and turned back to face him. At the same time, Kieran was aware of Charo’s exultant shout as he made his opponent stumble on the edge of the stairs, lose his balance, turn on his heel with the quarterstaff flailing out of control in his hand, and tumble backward head over heels down the steps. The end of the man’s quarterstaff caught Senena a glancing blow across the abdomen, making her double over in pain. She lost her footing, stumbling over the edge of the first stair, falling awkwardly while trying to protect her swollen belly to slam side on into the battlement wall, then sliding down it into a graceless sprawl. Kieran’s sword seemed to have moved of its own accord; when he looked at his weapon again, he found it streaming with blood. He blinked, looking around for the victim—and saw Fodrun lying face down at his feet, the general’s blade flung an arm’s reach away, balancing precariously on the top stair. The blood pooling beneath him was beginning to ooze out, reaching for the edges of the soft dark cloak they had given Anghara.

Who lay motionless a few steps away, her eyes closed, pain still etched into a deep line on her brow.

Kieran dropped his sword, heedless of his surroundings, and knelt beside her. Her head lolled almost lifelessly on his shoulder as he lifted and cradled her against him, smoothing away strands of bright hair that had fallen across her face. The moment had him by the throat—after all this time, all these years, here she was in his arms—had it all been for nothing?

But no—she breathed. Kieran closed his eyes briefly, sending every prayer of gratitude he ever knew to whatever Gods cared to receive them. His own dagger was lost; Fodrun’s, bound at his waist, was close enough to snatch. Kieran reached for it, too dazed by the moment to appreciate the irony of Fodrun’s dagger being the instrument of Anghara’s release as he cut away the rope that bound her hands.

“Anghara?” he said softly. Now that he was looking upon her again, he was unprepared for how strange the name still seemed when applied to his little foster sister from Cascin. But this gaunt, pale young woman was no longer the little girl he had left behind. It was Anghara Kir Hama he held this day, not the child he knew as Brynna. “Can you hear me?”

She opened her eyes even as a finger of sunlight found its way around the towers and poured itself onto the battlements where so many lay dead or dying. The pain was still there, the pain he had seen touch her not a few moments ago, but receding. She stared at him for a long moment, and then the gray eyes filled with tears. “Kieran…”

He had to swallow twice before he could speak. “Can you walk? It’s time we were away from here…before they send what’s left of the entire garrison.”

“Help me up.” Her voice was faint, cracked, faded.
Gods,
thought Kieran, shocked despite himself as his arm went around her thin waist while he helped her to her feet.
What has he done to you?

But the physical punishment had been nothing, he could tell, compared to the specter of pain that haunted her eyes. Inside, there was something broken—something that would take a great deal more healing than simply reversing the effects of solitary confinement and starvation.

Charo was beside them, his wild warrior’s eyes unexpectedly brimming with tears. Anghara saw him, held out a hand; he took it, clasped it with both of his, for once completely bereft of words. It was, uncharacteristically, left to the usually mute Adamo to break the cocoon of silence being woven around Anghara—but only because, as usual, he said everything important with his eyes, pools of remembered love and affection as he gazed at Anghara. The words he found to say were sensibly practical. “It’s time we were leaving,” he commented, and at that Kieran took charge again.