The Iscariot Sanction (52 page)

John pulled once more on the chains, and the guard breathed his last, rolling onto the flagstones, eyes bulging.

John slumped to the ground, exhausted. Blood ran from the claw-marks across his body. He gulped ragged breaths into his lungs and tried to steady his shaking hands. In the passageway outside his former cell, two human guards lay dead—one strangled, the other with a knife protruding from beneath his ribs. A vampire also lay motionless, skin blackened from the electric rays of the Tesla pistol, which John now took up in his trembling hands and cranked another charge into. It had been a gift indeed from Smythe, and John had had to fight hard for it, for the gun had landed within reach of his cellmate, the ravenous ghoul. He looked at his left arm and winced at the depth of the gash. He shuddered to think what infection those noisome claws carried; but that was of small concern now.

John tore off a strip of his ragged shirt and made a tourniquet for his arm. He tried on both the guards’ shoes, and took the pair that fitted best, before donning one of their tatty, over-large coats. Lastly, he gathered his weapons, tucked a stolen revolver into his belt, and set off along the passage.

John stole past five doors, all solid, studded with iron, with vision-slits at head-height. There was nothing but pitch darkness behind each one, though at one he heard a low sobbing. His stomach knotted as he thought of Hetty, and he almost went back to find a key to the door, when he saw a brief flash of violet eyes in the darkness. Regardless of whether the vampire was the source of the crying, or a feral guardian like the one in John’s own cell, he could not risk another fight.

He crept onwards. The end of the corridor terminated at a junction, at which a torch blazed in a rusted sconce. No other guards had been attracted by his battle, but that did not mean more were not on their way.

As John skulked in the shadows, his condition making him more cautious than was customary, he heard the distant report of heavy guns, muffled by the castle’s thick walls, and followed almost immediately by a deafening explosion. The ground shook and John crouched low—the incredible sound had prompted shouts, slamming doors and heavy footfalls that seemed to come from all directions. He had almost determined to dash through the tunnels when he was forced to check his advance; a vampire swept past the end of the corridor, oblivious to John’s presence, moving swiftly down the left passage.

Another explosion, and every cell revealed its occupants, moaning, screaming, or roaring in bestial fury. Pale hands, some tipped with long, yellow claws, forced their way through the vision slits, raking the smoky air of the passage beyond. John stepped away from them. He knew there might be innocents within some of those cells, but he could not help them. John thought of Hetty; he thought of Cottam’s wife, Maud, and of the assertion that ‘No one’s goes to Scarrowfall ever comes back.’ He hoped he would have the chance to return, though he knew in his heart it was unlikely. The bombardment had begun; the soldiers would be here soon.

John had little time. He had to find Lillian, and the prince. He marched forward and took the torch from its bracket. Steeling himself, he took the left turn, and followed in the wake of the vampire he had seen, hoping to find a way out of the accursed dungeon.

* * *

Lillian swung the scimitar in a graceful arc, slicing through the neck of a screeching vampiress that flew at her from a side passage. The blade was beginning to dull, and the woman’s head was severed from its neck only by virtue of Lillian’s sheer strength. Lillian’s arms ached—there had still been several loyal supporters of the Nameless King in the hall, and they had tried to avenge their fallen monarch.

Lillian felt a tug on her left arm, and heard a piteous cry, like a child’s. She looked down at Prince Leopold, whom she had dragged through the hall by his hair.

‘Stop your snivelling!’ she snapped, ‘Be thankful I didn’t take your head while I was about it.’

The prince was a broken man. Lillian cared not. She took the hilt of the stiletto dagger that stuck out of her thigh, and pulled it out with no more than a grunt and wince. In truth it hurt little, but the blade must have torn through muscle, for her leg buckled beneath her when she put weight upon it.

She threw the prince roughly to the floor and cut away the lower portion of her dress with the knife, to improve her mobility. Leopold averted his eyes instinctively.

‘There’s no point playing the gentleman now, Your Royal Highness,’ Lillian scoffed. ‘That ship has sailed.’

‘My mother shall hear of this,’ he squawked. And then lucidity dawned in his eyes for a moment, before he wailed again, ‘Mother! Mother!’

Lillian made to grab Leopold once more by the hair and drag him towards the great doors of the hall, but another explosion against the castle walls caused the ballroom to shake, and huge lumps of stone to fall from the high ceiling. Lillian pushed the prince out of the path of a tumbling gargoyle, and almost wrenched his arm from his socket dragging him back towards the dais as the lintel above the doors was shaken from its niche and crashed to earth, bringing half the wall with it.

Lillian wove her way through the falling debris and screaming bodies of the slaves that now plummeted from the ceiling. The prince’s tarrying almost got them both crushed several times, and with each passing second Lillian regretted not tearing out his throat earlier. Something within her still clung to the idea of redemption; she knew that it was the thought of John. If he still lived, and she prayed he did, he would never forgive her for succumbing to her rage and killing Leopold before the prince could face trial for his crimes.

Behind the heavy curtains at the rear of the stage were further rooms, now in darkness, which Lillian felt sure must lead somewhere. She heard distant gunfire—either troops were entering Scarrowfall, or the guards were firing upon would-be invaders. Like as not she would be shot as an enemy of either side, given her condition.

She was about to opt for the left-most room, when she heard the frantic scurrying of claws from the hall behind her, and the hideous, high-pitched trilling of ghouls. She turned to see them in their dozens, scurrying down the walls from the balconies, gleaming eyes fixed upon her. One of them pounced catlike to the floor and at once began to feast upon a fallen slave. The remaining creatures advanced cautiously. Lillian knew not whether they came for her or for the prince, or were simply acting on instinct, having lost their masters.

She acted quickly, racing to the massive braziers that flanked the stage, pushing at them with all her might while the prince sobbed, ‘My God, we are to die!’ over and over to no one in particular. The first toppled reluctantly, spilling blazing coals across the floor, which flared brightly, sending a handful of ghouls retreating in ape-like bounds.

Lillian raced to the other side of the stage, aware that even her body would only endure so much. She had lost half a yard of pace, and now the ghouls reached her, lashing at her with jagged claws, snapping with elongated, pointed teeth. She slashed one across the throat, threw a second from the dais where it rolled into the spreading flames, and barely managed to grapple a third as it leapt upon her. She redirected its strength, tripping it as Mrs. Ito had taught her, but it clung to her ferociously, so bestial in its ungainly fury that the eastern arts were ineffective. Lillian readjusted her balance, and instead threw herself and the ghoul bodily into the brazier’s heavy iron supports. It toppled as she crashed to the ground, rolling the creature from her just in time to avoid the slashing claws of two more.

The brazier fell backwards towards the heavy curtains, contents spilling across the wooden stage. Flames licked up the drapes almost at once. The lacquered wooden platform hissed as the coals met it.

Lillian forced herself to her feet, lashing out blindly. She fumbled for the sword that she had dropped in the scuffle and hacked left and right desperately—she had come so far, been through so much. To be killed by these base creatures would be an insult.

Even as the exertion began to tell, and her sword arm started to disobey her almost wilfully, the ghouls faltered, their eyes reflecting red and orange flame, noses sniffing at the smoky air. One by one they stopped their assault, and then backed away, whimpering. Lillian risked a glance over her shoulder, and saw what they saw: the heavy stage-curtains were fully ablaze. The ancient timbers overhead had caught fire also. The stage upon which she stood was burning.

Scarrowfall was ablaze.

Lillian cursed. Her plan had been born of desperation—now she would perhaps die in a fire rather than by the hands of the ghouls. The ignominy of such a fate was just as wretched.

Turning her back on the wretched beasts, which even now retreated from the billowing smoke, she ran to where the prince crouched, head tucked under his arms. Lillian grabbed him by the collar and dragged him with her, plunging both of them through a small gap in the curtains, flames licking at her, smoke stinging her eyes.

* * *

The human guards, armed with rifles, raced past John’s hiding place towards the sound of distant gunfire.

John emerged from the scullery once the coast was clear, looking for an exit from the vast kitchen in which he had found himself. He moved stealthily, picking up a carving knife from a table as he went, testing the heft of it in his left hand while gripping the Tesla pistol in his right.

Whatever was happening in Scarrowfall, no one seemed to have any time for him. The few servants John had encountered had looked the other way; the guards had all been so preoccupied with the battle outside that they had been easily evaded so far.

John stepped from the kitchen into a dark hallway, crowded with debris and filled with smoke, which swirled as it was sucked out through open door. A cold waft of air gave John hope—he had found a way outside, though he knew not whether the best course of action was to find Smythe and join the assault proper, or to venture deeper into the castle to search for Lillian.

He paused, crouching beneath a stairway as he heard footsteps treading upon it. Two sets, moving swiftly. John chanced a look at the figures as they reached the foot of the stair. He froze.

John would have recognised the silhouette of Lucien de Montfort anywhere, even without the customary swagger. Beside him was a tall, bald-headed hunter in a flowing black coat, carrying a banded wooden chest. John could not make out what de Montfort was saying, but the vampire lord strode confidently from the castle into the night air, beckoning on his monstrous servant.

The decision was made. Though John wanted nothing more than to find Lillian and rescue Prince Leopold, the prospect of doing either in a burning building while the real villain escaped justice was not one John could accept.

He followed the shadowy pair as close as he dared. Beyond the door was a small yard surrounded by a low wall. Beyond that, what looked like an ancient graveyard stretched along the edge of a rocky cliff-top, as far as the eye could see in the first weak light of dawn. John watched de Montfort and his servant moving quickly down a narrow, winding path between jagged monuments and ancient tombs. The wind whipped more fiercely; John had not been aware that Scarrowfall was so precariously close to the edge of a high cliff, and yet he heard the sound of crashing waves so near that they almost drowned out the booming report of the naval guns.

John dashed to the wall, crouching behind it. For the first time, he looked up at the castle that had been his prison. Scarrowfall was an ancient, rambling construction of tall hexagonal towers and tumbledown ramparts. Half-timbered galleries shored up against curtain walls of thick stone; conical spires thrust towards the blood-red sky. Smoke poured from windows and arrow-slits, obscuring the tallest towers. Men—or perhaps vampires—scurried around the battlements, carrying guns, barking commands that were carried away from John’s ears on the wind. He left them to their battle, remaining in cover as much as he could so as not to be noticed. It hardly seemed likely that anyone in Scarrowfall would pay much heed to a lone prisoner now, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Once he picked up the path that de Montfort had trod, John saw the extent of the vampires’ domain, which stretched for miles towards crooked perimeter walls, and thence on to the vast moors. Across acres of fields and gardens, hundreds of shadowy forms fled the castle with preternatural swiftness. John heard fighting amongst them—pistols cracked, sabres rattled. Officers shouted sharp commands, while inhuman screeches signalled the feasting of vampires upon human soldiers. John had no true plan; he followed de Montfort with a single-mindedness worthy of his headstrong sister, guilt growing within him that he was helping neither Lillian nor his comrades by leaving Scarrowfall. And yet his sense of duty, his desire for vengeance for the ruination of his country, of Apollo Lycea and, above all, the murder of his father, burned hotly in his breast.

Onwards he went, falling behind the two vampires despite his best efforts at stealth and swiftness. The sound of guns became more distant; the cliff curved obtusely around towards the rising sun, so that John was soon able to look back on the black shape of Scarrowfall, flames now licking the great walls, dense smoke filling the air.